Inheritance

CHAPTER THREE:

*TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual assault*

I sat up with an inhuman speed.
I had fallen asleep, I realized.
I dreamt of him, his cruel face that day as he looked at me for the first time, understanding what he was about to do even when I didn't.
For three years after that I did what he asked, and in return me and my family stayed safe inside that camp.
That didn't stop the soldiers from withholding food from us though, same as he did with all the others that dwelled in the white tents, their faces caked with dust and hurt.
He would visit once a week, sometimes more. The only reason I went along willingly was because he always kept a small revolver in his back pocket.
He took so much that even in the dreams he so often haunts now, I could never get any of it back.
Laying back down, I hugged the small pillow closer.
I hated him for what he did, but also for what he made me into.

***

The back room seemed to grow smaller as he advanced on me that day.
At first he was slow, calculating. But the closer he came to me, the more vicious he became.
He grabbed my chin in his hand roughly, and shoved his face closer to mine.
For a small, minuscule moment he seemed to hesitate then.
He looked at me and as I looked back, I realized how my fear must've reflected back into his own eyes. I must've looked so small in that moment.
I still hate myself for that.
But before I could contemplate anything else, Captain Jonathan Rochester of the British Army forced his lips down on mine.
He coerced me to kiss him back with his aggressiveness, shoving his tongue inbetween my teeth.
This was my first kiss, I realized then.
No man had ever seen the need before, and neither, frankly, did I.
But now a man did see the need, but it was all wrong, I knew.
It was crooked, and just as I realized that, his hand came up to roughly coddle my breast through my dress.
For the first time in this exchange he pulled away, but only for a small moment before he shoved me to the floor stomach down, and pulled down my drawers.
For years afterward I would remember this moment as my weakest moment, because as Captain Jonathan Rochester of the British Army ruthlessly shoved his manliness into me over and over and over, I cried silently and prayed that it would go away and that God would just kill me.

***

That night my own anger, and my own sorrow drove me to get up and search for Pa's gun.
He wouldn't get away with it again.
I saddled up our horse, Rudolf, after I found the gun tucked behind the door.
"Come on, Rudolf, we're going on an adventure."

***

The long ride to the camp seemed to last forever. My whole body was in pain. Parts of me I never even know could hurt was enflamed.
I hadn't been able to stop wincing every time the motor vehicle hit a bump.
And I couldn't stop the tears. They seemed to flow constantly since I left the back room.
His eyes still flashed in my mind, I could still feel his hands on my body and there was a strange, sore feeling inbetween my legs. Like something had torn my insides apart. I didn't miss the slight blood on my dress or my drawers when he forced me up and to dress myself.
I had refused to show any emotion in that room. I would not be weak.
I am a La Ponte. We do not falter.
I looked over at Marta. She was still unconscious, but seemed to be rousing.
I needed to get myself together. She couldn't know. She will never know.

***
The familiar gate lurked in front of my eyes.
I had heard rumours that he had set up house near town, but I didn't think it could've been true.
Does he know I'm here? In this village?
"What do you think you're doin'?"
The heavy lilt of a Northern-Irish accent behind me stopped me in my tracks. Frozen in the position I was currently in, I did my best imitation of innocently turning toward the deep voice that called me out of my furious stupor into what would've been Captain Jonathan Rochester's private home.
"You're not supposed to be here." The voice said, reminding me of the quite shifty way I chose to announce my presence to the man who destroyed my life.
I couldn't see his face then in the dark but the red of his uniform stuck out almost like a sore thumb.
"I don't tend to take well to khaki's telling me how to go about my business."
A scoff followed my statement.
"By that broken version of English I'm going to guess you're Afrikaans."
In defiance almost at the nature of his stature in life I lifted my chin a fraction and tried to challenge him to say more about my people.
But when he didn't say more, the snide remark on my own lips died down.
"Why should it matter?"
"Maybe because you are trespassing on an English War Hero's property."
The snort that decided just then to exit me, made him stop short in his tracks.
"What was that supposed to mean?" He asked, his voice rising.
"You want to call him a hero?" I let out a little laugh. "He's not even worth one letter in that word."
"I'm going to take a gander and guess you're one of the women who was captured for the camps."
I lifted my chin higher. Making sure he knew that I would not let him break me.
"Thanks to your people."
It was then that I heard a sigh.
"I can't imagine what you want with the Captain. You're free. You should go. Live a full life."
His voice almost made me believe he actually wanted that, instead of just trying to get rid of me.
"I can't do that yet."
His face flashed across my vision again.
His hand grasping my waist, his fingers tugging my hair with each shove.
My hands formed themselves into balls.
"I know you won't understand. But I must go into that house immediately." I said, my voice sounding resigned.
"I understand more than you think."
And for some reason I couldn't explain, I believed him.
"This war has broken off a piece of all of our souls."
I froze in midair. I couldn't say anything just then.
There was a tension in the air that I knew, if I spoke, it would shatter into a million pieces.
Then the man stepped forward, his face being caught by the moonlight.
And my breath left me at the beautiful face I saw before me.
His green eyes reminded me of the grape vines when Spring came.
There was something in them that told me a different story than the one I had known for so many months about the British empire. One that said "I know the depths of your soul, because I too have felt that agony".
His rather large form, which I had noticed in the shadows, towered over me and I had wondered how many women have felt like me in this moment? As if that figure could swallow you whole and you wouldn't mind at all.
His dark brown hair looked russled, short as is the British fashion in these days. It was almost as if he had run his hands through it repeatedly, as if he had a long day.
"What's your name?" I asked before I knew what I was doing.
A beat of silence followed my question.
"Sergeant Keith Smith, at your service, ma'am."
I nodded, my mind still reeling from the events of the evening so far.
I held out my hand to him.
"Elisabet La Ponte."
For a moment a slight hesitation followed my words, but irregardless he took my hand and shook it like a gentleman would have done.
His hand was warm, and the proximity of it, sent a shiver up my spine.
"You will not be going any farther then?" He asked, his voice tentative.
"I'm sorry?"
He gestured with his head to the house behind me.
I had almost forgotten about that.
"No. No I don't think I will. Goodnight Sergeant Smith."
"Good night Miss La Ponte."
And with that, I turned around and started the long trek back to the small cottage I now called home.

***

I had felt calm that night but by the next morning, I was furious.
What had come over me the previous evening? To actually listen to a khaki?
And the more I tried to convince myself that there was nothing special about this man, the more I began to believe it.
So the next evening after ma and pa were asleep, I took the revolver that I stashed beneath my bed and silently stepped out of the house, mounting the horse standing outside the cottage again that my father had sat there earlier the morning.
"Stay quiet, Rudolf. We mustn't wake mother and father." I whispered when the horse made a small noise of discontentment at being woken up.
The night air was cold, and when I arrived at Captain Rochester's house again, I was determined to go in and finish the job.
Tying the horse's lead around a tree, I took a breath in and out, and started toward the house again.
But at seeing the gate, I heard a voice, singing in a strange language. I didn't know where it came from, but it was so hauntingly beautiful, it stopped me dead in my tracks.
And then the song turned over to English.

"So I buttered me brogues and shook hands with me spade
Then I went to the fair like a dashing young blade
When up comes a sergeant, he asks me to list
'Arra, sergeant a gra, stick the bob in me fist'"

I almost laughed when I saw who it was singing.
He was alone again, standing in front of the gate, silently singing the night through.

"And the first thing they gave me it was a red coat
With a white strap of leather to tie round me throat
They gave me a queer thing; I asked what was that
And they told me it was a cockade for me hat."

He started singing in the strange language again after each verse, I noticed.
And almost quietly patted his hand against his thigh to the beat of the song.
And when the song ended, I realised I missed it.
"What song was that?" My voice burst out from the dark, surprising Sergeant Smith and myself both.
His face swivelled to the tree I had been hiding behind.
"Well look what we have here. If it isn't the beautiful Miss La Ponte." He said, a small smile on his lips.
It was infectious, I found.
So infectious I had almost forgotten that I wasn't supposed to be friendly with this man.
I was determined, after all.
A frown came across my brow.
"I see you're still determined ta' exact revenge."
"You won't be stopping me with your soft words this time. I'm not a weakling." I said, raising my chin.
"Indeed." He said, his face showing no signs of how he felt about my statement. "Well, there's no point in stoppin' ye then. Go ahead."
I stopped dead in my tracks.
"What?"
"You heard me. Go ahead. I won't stop ye." He said, stepping aside from the gate. "Just as long as you know that upon doing this, you won't just kill him. Ye'll kill yerself."
"I'm aware of the risks." I said, staring sideways at him.
He was silent for a moment, his face showing an understanding I had never noticed before on anyone else.
"You're her, aren't ye?" His voice sounded into the darkness.
I looked up to him again.
"Who?"
"I heard rumours about a girl in the camps that he would go visit regularly. There are whispers of...of what he did to her."
There was a slight hesitation in his voice as he said this.
I couldn't meet his eyes.
"You don't know anything about what he did to me." I said, confirming his words without me even giving my impulsive mouth the permission. My voice was small even to my ears.
"I'm sorry." He said with a sincerity I didn't know I needed until I heard it.
I nodded.
"You have to know that if you go in there again, nothin' is stoppin' him from doing it again. You are a small, young woman. And he is a Captain of the British Army. I can't help you if you go in there, Miss La Ponte."
"I never asked for your help." My voice came out softly.
"A gentleman offers it, regardless." He said, his voice matter of factly.
"Perhaps if you were a gentleman, I would have believed you. But that red uniform isn't helping you any."
He smiled again.
"How about this? If you don't go in, I'll tell ye about the song."
My head swivelled toward him, my lips turned upwards in a frown.
"That's no consolation for a good night's sleep again."
"Isn't it?"
I looked up at him again.
And then, because he was looking at me in that way again, I nodded my head, and relaxed my arms at my sides.
"It's an old IRA song called The Kerry Recruit."
"The IRA?" I asked, my voice coming out unsteady.
"Yes. The Irish Republican Army..."