nI’m still in disbelief over what happened to Lara Logan of CBS last week. I’m not sure we know of any other newswoman being gang raped and beaten as she was in Cairo last Friday. And knowing her, she will be back with all she can give us sooner than we think. From my play, “The Thirteenth Step”. Anya is a Bosnian refuge.
ANYA
I met Satan in Srebenica. It was wearing a uniform. Every soldier in our house that night was wearing Satan’s face. Your Sainted Mother knew my pain and helped me to realize that to waste time and energy on revenge means that these people win. I will remember, but I will not let them control my life. Riza, like me, was also held captive and tortured by a Monster, and we became like mother and daughter. Only, I was not as pure of heart. I could not...I did not save my baby from that terrible night. There is no way I could have love for that baby. I could not...I could not.
It’s good that your family has returned to Arizona. I am comfortable with the Navajo. They know what it is to have strangers tear their home apart. To take all you have.
Your mother made it her mission to help women who had been raped. I would not be able to speak with a woman who had not been...initiated into our horrible Sisterhood. So many nights, the dreams would come and I would scream and your mother, this beautiful, golden-haired Icon, would come to my room and hold me till I could sleep again. No words were needed. She knew what the soldiers had done.
My country is a nest of vipers waiting fifty years for the Russians to leave, so that they could openly claim their “superiority.” The night they came to my village, they killed my father and brother. My mother and sister were taken to other rooms. For me....
I despise you, Sebastian! You want to die! You put poison in his body and for what? Were you violated in every way by a dozen men? Beaten and burned for sport while the screams of your dying mother and sister rang in your ears? Did you have to beg the doctors to rip the child from his body that Nature so carelessly created in such a night?
Your amazing Momma...my Heart. She says to me, “You did nothing wrong. Live your life like other women. Marry and have children and enjoy the touch of a man. You did nothing wrong.” I tried to hate Jesse as the rapist’s son, but we speak of how we both feel strange in our bodies. The guilt we feel for being chose to survive. I tell him of the deaths of my family. He tells me of having to identify the bodies of his wife and son. So horribly burned that they could not open the coffins.
You were not there, Sebastian, and you were not there when Riza and Red died in the crash and Jesse had to give the Sermon at their funeral. It was hard to watch him standing up there with the tears pouring down. The coffins were open and she lay there so peaceful and beautiful. I wanted to join her and close the lid and never leave. So much did I love her.
Without her, the United States was going to send me back to that Hell...so Jesse married me. For two months after we marry, I sleep in another room. Then, one night, I have the nightmares and he comes to my bed to hold me and I permit him to stay. For another week, Jesse holds me in his arms every night...only holds me till I am ready.
And then, the night comes that he comes to the bed and I am naked and he joins me in the bed...naked. So many kisses. So many gentle touches. I started to Love him. And then, he whispers in my ear, “Soft Lily. Gentle Dove” and touches me so lightly...so gently.... The man was no longer Satan...he was Love. My Jesse. My Heart. We made our baby that night. She was created inside our Love.
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