We stepped over a disintegrating log and walked down a steep incline to a rock pool with green ferns dribbling over its edges, ice extending each frond. Trickling water hit like crystal over the rocks.
She sat on a smooth, black rock and started removing her shoes.
“Here?” I asked.
She grunted in response, sort of like she was saying, “Duh.”
There was no shyness as she quickly stripped her clothes off and shrank into the water. Her dark, careworn skin looked like it needed the moisture. But she was strong, every old muscle defined and wiry. She dropped below the surface of the water and my thoughts turned to run… run.
I stood to leave, my feet just scraping the edge of the gently lapping pool. Turning, I started to creep.
A hand snapped out of the water and grabbed my ankle, jerking me backwards and pulling my balance away before I could catch it. My arms flailed out in front of me, and my chin knocked on the boulder I’d been sitting on.
I slid down and into the water fully clothed. A hand on my head held me down for longer than I had breath. I fought and scratched until it released me. The woman’s eyes were fierce as they glared, dark and penetrating like light glancing off a shiny, black rock.
“Wash,” she said cuttingly, her thin, dark lips pulled back into a growl. Her grainy teeth sharpened in the corners into fangs.
I gasped, coughing, as she pulled my clothes from me like she was stripping the fur from an animal until I was naked and exposed in front of her. She eyed me critically and clicked her tongue in what looked like disappointment. I brought my arms up to cover my bare chest as she turned and left the pool. She threw a cloth at me and began to dress.
“Wash!” she snapped more aggressively, sitting down on a rock to watch me.
A tear slid gently from one corner of my eye. I felt exposed, inadequate, and vulnerable as the woman sneered at me hatefully. I understood now. There was no kindness. This was just what was expected of her and me. My fear grew large like a pulsing wound in my throat. I might have to live this way. Would they hold me down and sharpen my teeth with a file while I screamed and thrashed?
I washed carefully, shivering uncontrollably from the cold, tiny droplets beading and driving down my face, mixing with tears.
I dunked my hair in and gave it the best rinse I could, squeezing out the ends while my limbs pulsed and jerked from the chill.
I crept out of the mirror-like pool, shaking from embarrassment as much as the cold, and put the heavy layers of fabric on my body. A scratchy shirt, a long, dark skirt, and a bodice the woman pulled tight around my middle that was decorated with colorful beads and embroidery. At least she let me keep my underwear.
When I was done, she slammed me down on a rock next to her by pushing my shaking shoulders. She turned my back to her, and I didn’t fight. I shook and whimpered, scared of the choice I’d made. She gently pulled her hands through my hair, teasing out the tangles. The knot in my chest wound tighter. This moment was tarnishing memories of Clara, and I hated the woman for it.
She faced me and rubbed pink powder on my cheeks and over my eyelids. She ran a crusty, old lipstick over my lips that tasted like wax and old lady. I grimaced and she grabbed my face roughly, squeezing my lips together into a pout.
When we were done, she clamped both my hands together and tied them with a bright, nylon cord produced from her bag.
She shoved me in the back. “Walk.”
I glared at her.
I should have hit her with a rock when I’d had the chance.
How do you win? Is it strength? Is it strategy? Or is it your hardness, your willingness to break someone into pieces without caring? Please let it not be that.
I’d been moved to the other side of the camp and tied to a post with two horses behind me. Joseph’s eyes were just pricks of green from this distance, but I knew he was thinking about me, thinking about how we could get out of this.
Two women marked out the fight space, the same routine of sweeping and shifting the stones until they marked out a perfect circle.
The woman who’d made me bathe was busy giving water and food to the others. I watched Joseph wave her away, only accepting a drink. I wouldn’t be able to eat either.
My admirer, who I heard someone calling Sukh, made his way to me, walking with a bounce in his step. He smiled widely and made eye contact with Joseph across the camp. He strained against the ropes that tied him down like a wild horse. Sukh didn’t look at me; he kept his eyes on Joseph as he ran the back of his fingers up and down my arm. I tensed, though I could barely feel him through the layers of thick fabric. “Soon you be mine,” he said, voice thick and confident. I shook my shoulder, trying to push him off. He just laughed in a high-pitched squeal that reminded me of one of Salim’s monkeys.
He stood and went to the edge of the circle.
A woman’s voice tickled my ear. “You know what Sukh means in my tongue?” My eyes bore into Joseph’s, my mouth tightly shut. “Axe,” she laughed, walking away from me, swinging her arms like she was felling a tree.
I slammed my back into the pole I was tied to in frustration.
But if Sukh was an axe, Joseph was a wrecking ball.
A need for blood to spill wrapped itself around me like a thorny vine.
*****
When Joseph removed his shirt, some of the women called out in what I assume was admiration, whooping and cackling like a flock of birds. When one of them had the honor of placing hand marks on his chest, she looked back at the other women and smiled, lingering too long on his sharply defined muscles so the handprint looked more like a bear claw as she dragged her hand down his torso, one on either side of his stitched heart scar.
I felt my skin heating up.
Joseph stood almost an entire head over Sukh, who in comparison was just as muscular, but covered in scars and bruises. His sharp fingernails seemed to glint in the afternoon slant of sun that planed its way across this barbaric boxing ring. Joseph gave me one last look. His eyes wide with adrenaline, his face brushed with pink. He ran his hands through his hair and breathed in deeply, which I knew meant he was really nervous, and he stepped into the ring.
Muscles locked and knees bent. They circled each other slowly. The voices of men chanted on either side, indistinguishable from one another. It was just testosterone-filled noise, like clouds clashing in a storm.
Sukh moved lightly, swiftly, on the balls of his feet, as he looked for an opening to begin the brawl. Joseph moved more slowly, and it scared me. He was lumbering, weak from lack of food and water, stiff from being tied to a tree for two days. A crack opened inside my throat as I realized he could lose. That it was likely he would lose. And I felt like I was choking.
The first blow seemed small, a snap-like lightning as Sukh kicked Joseph in the side of his thigh but, by the way he buckled, it must have caused some damage. Joseph doubled over, rubbing his hand over his injured leg. He stared down at the red welt on his thigh, and the small, dark man took the opportunity to knee Joseph in the stomach twice before springing back and putting distance between them, dancing from foot to foot.
I felt it in my own stomach, the way the pain spread from the impact point and radiated out, covering my whole middle. Joseph fight, I urged, silently. Hurt him.
Sukh’s sharp knee in his abdomen woke Joseph up and he moved with purpose. Fists up guarding his face, he swung through the air, but the punch barely grazed the side of his opponent’s face. I tensed, waiting for the recoil, but Sukh smiled and danced within Joseph’s reach. Joseph grabbed Sukh’s arm and wrenched him forward. Hope pressed in on me, as Joseph kneed the ball of muscle and scars in the stomach once, holding him on either side of his chest like he was a doll. He managed a punch to the ribs as well, and Sukh fell in the dirt, face first.