Page 34 (1/2)

Slowly, I nod

"I’ at the table, "but yes, I did for a time There were days I couldn’t be without him, not because of Izel, but because…I ached inside Javier was a cruel and brutal man, but he did love ht at Nora "This may be hard to believe, but Javier never once hit er He did punish ht think is violent, but I didn’t At least not after a while"

"You liked it," Nora says evenly

"I did"

Feeling uncomfortable and too exposed, I snap back to the previous topic, not wanting to go deeper into this aspect than I already have

"But yes, there was a time that I loved Javier It’s sick, I know I don’t need you tellingat me like I’m some kind of freak You can’t understand unless you’ve lived it, and your words and opinions and accusations mean jack-shit to me Call it Stockholm syndrome too if you want--whatever--but yes, I loved him for a time" I taper dohen I realize how overly defensive I had becoe you in that way," she says "I knohat it’s like to be grounded in a life not of your choosing"

She doesn’t offer any more than that

"But you keep saying ‘for a ti hi back inaway all of h"

Then she tries adjusting herself on the chair, finally displaying a look of disco

"You shouldn’t feel threatened by me," she says and has my undivided attention "I didn’t co off; I wasit all my life, Izabel, fros of a e--you grow up fluent and it can never be forgotten or erased, and you speak and write and hear it with a perfection that those who don’t speak your language can only envy They can try to learn it later in life, but very feill adapt to it so well that they lose their accent entirely I waselse And you, no et, will never lose your accent"

"But that doesn’tto make myself believe it, too "I don’t want to just be Victor’s woman, his lover And I know that everyone else, when they look atyou’ll never be able to change," she says "When I got involved withhappened to me that I never expected--I started to care I sa this man lived, how he loved his wife, his sons; I envied his monotonous office job andlike that before I never knehat it was like--a normal civilian life, because the very first breath I took was filled with training I mean that in the literal sense--as a newborn, I was in training"

I know I hast, but I can’t oes on, "when I saw him and his ith their newborn, I was fourteen-years-old They hired me on as a babysitter But the way they loved that baby, the way the mother held it in her arms, stroked his little bald head, kissed his tiny nose; I was intrigued by it because the babies where I came from were not treated with such kindness and love, and it was so foreign to me Where I come from, from the moment babies are born there’s no one to cradle the to them, or pick them up every time they cry They are fed and they are seen by a doctor to make sure they stay healthy, but no one loves the the therow up disciplined, hardened soldiers, and they know nothing else But that edit, it infected the soldier in me and er and animosity at rest in her eyes

"Did you kill him?"

She looks back at me

"I killed him and his wife," she says, "and made their sons orphans I fulfilled my mission I did what I was told"