Prohibited Domain

Nadja Mayer

As far back as I can remember, I dreamed of freedom. I grew up under my mother's watchful eyes, her sole duty being to keep the girl with big blue eyes and hair as black as night pure and untouched, so that I could be married off advantageously for my father's illicit dealings.

In the mafia, marriages are sworn in blood. And they only end when one spouse dies, almost always with the wife meeting a mysterious fate.

When I was old enough to understand the destiny awaiting me, I often fantasized about escape. A faraway place where I could choose my own path. But deep down, I knew: if I ever ran, my father would hunt me down and drag me crawling back home.

In business, he was a puppet in the hands of his superiors, but at home, he was feared by everyone. Beatings and food restrictions ensured absolute obedience.

So when they married me off to Otávio Garcia, I accepted it the way one accepts that death is inevitable. I had no choice. I chose instead to dream of a respectable life within the confines of our secret and perverse society.

Otávio was young and handsome. He even sent me flowers. There were moments when I caught myself smiling at the thought of him. I quickly became friends with my future sister-in-law, Ella. It was a shame that the girl spent most of her time confined in a convent.

But the illusion of happiness didn't last long. More precisely, it lasted until the wedding night.

Otávio's courtship gave way to punches and extreme violence. The charming suitor revealed himself to be a sadist. For a sixteen-year-old girl who had never even kissed a man, that night turned me into a shadow of who I had been.

Not even my father's beatings had managed to break me in that way. What Otávio did had the power to make me fear any other man.

I remember the smell of the room, the expensive liquor, and the heavy cologne he wore. I remember the sound of his belt being pulled through the loops of his pants. I remember the silence that followed, when my throat was so raw from screaming that no sound would come out anymore.

"You are mine," he whispered, his hot, damp breath against my ear. "My property. And I do whatever I want with what's mine."

After the honeymoon, I clung to the illusion that he would leave me alone. My virginity had already been taken. But Otávio pursued me at any hour of the day. Even though we lived in my father's house, he found ways to drag me into the bedroom. Over time, I learned not to scream when it happened.

I lived with bruised lips and blackened eyes. My body was a map of bruises in different stages of healing: some yellowish, others deep purple, others still red and swollen. There was always an excuse: the bed not made properly, a guard's gaze that lingered on me, or, on the rare occasions I tried to stop him from touching me, my "insubordination."

"You think you have a choice?" he would laugh, his fingers clenched around my wrist hard enough to leave marks. "Your family sold you to me like a piece of meat. And meat doesn't talk, Nadja. Meat only obeys."

Every night in that bed made me wish for death. I prayed in silence, not to God, who seemed to have abandoned me, but to any entity that might listen: "Please, let him die. Please, let this end."

I lived in that hell for three years, though it felt like three decades.

Until one day, an ordinary Tuesday, relief finally came.

I was in the inner garden, trying to read a book Ella had lent me, a forbidden romance by the author "Miranda Holt. Nicolo Moretti - The Unexpected Marriage of the Don," pages filled with passions I could no longer understand. Then I heard hurried footsteps in the hallway. I glanced over and saw two of my father's men, their whispered voices urgent.

I froze. Over time, I had learned to stay perfectly still. I had become an expert at making myself small and invisible.

But then I saw my mother appear at the garden door. Her face, usually a mask of resignation, was pale. Her eyes were red. She looked at me and, for an endless moment, said nothing. She simply took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive into deep waters.

"Nadja," her voice came out hoarse. "I need to talk to you."

I stood, my body moving before my mind could catch up. The book slipped from my lap, hitting the stone floor with a dull thud.

"What happened?"

She approached, her thin, cold hands enveloping mine. I noticed how they trembled. My mother never trembled.

"It was Otávio," she said, and the world stopped. The air vanished from my lungs. "An accident. On the road to Pančevo. His car went off the road, and he didn't survive."

I stared at her. I searched her face for any sign of a lie, of some cruel joke. But there was only truth there. A heavy, tragic truth.

"Dead?" The word escaped me like a breath.

She nodded slowly.

And then it happened. A wave started deep in my stomach, rose through my chest and throat, and burst into tears. But they weren't tears of sadness. They were tears of relief. Relief so profound, so absolute, that it brought me to my knees right there among the rosebushes I had planted myself.

"Nadja!" My mother tried to hold me, but I was already on the ground, my body curled in on itself, wracked by sobs that felt like they were tearing my soul apart.

I cried for hours. I cried until there were no tears left. I cried for the three years of terror I had endured. For the sixteen-year-old girl who died that first night. For the woman I would never become. I cried out of gratitude that he was dead. I cried out of shame for feeling grateful.

Kneeling there in the garden, I wished he had died sooner. That he had died on the first day. In the first minute.

When I finally calmed down, night had already fallen. My mother was still there, sitting on the stone bench, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.

"Are you all right?" she asked, her voice soft in the twilight.

I took a deep breath. The air filled my lungs in a different way, lighter and far cleaner.

"I'm free," I whispered, testing the words on my tongue. "I'm free, Mother."

She nodded, but her eyes were distant.

"Your father promised me he won't marry you off again."

I looked at her, studying her face in the faint evening light.

"And you believe him?"

She hesitated. For a long moment, she simply stared at her hands in her lap, hands that bore the marks of her own invisible scars.

"He's a scoundrel," she said at last, her voice barely audible. "But he keeps his promises. In that, at least, you can trust him."

I stood, my shaky legs still holding me up. I walked to the edge of the garden, where the light from the living room spilled golden squares onto the stone floor. Inside, my father would be negotiating. Already calculating how Otávio's death would affect his business. Who would take his place? Which alliances would need to be rebuilt?

None of that mattered to me.

For the first time in three years, none of it mattered.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor. My footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. I passed the door to the bedroom I had shared with Otávio. I stopped in front of it. I placed my hand on the cold doorknob and turned it.

The room was exactly as he had left it. A jacket tossed over the chair. Papers scattered on the desk. His scent still lingered in the air, that heavy cologne that made me nauseous.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

Then I shut the door. Locked it and turned to the room next door, the one Ella used when she visited. It had been empty for months since she returned to the convent.

The door was never locked. I remembered the look in her young eyes, full of a compassion I hadn't known how to accept.

"For when you need a refuge," she had said, squeezing my hand. "Hide in my room."

Ella's room was simple. A small single bed. A desk. A bookshelf with a few volumes. A window overlooking the inner garden. Everything tidy, everything clean, everything silent.

I closed the door behind me. Leaned my back against the solid wood. Took a deep breath. The air here was different; it smelled of dust and dried flowers, not of violence and the pain I always felt in the room next door.

I walked to the bed. Sat on the edge. The bedspread was plain, light blue cotton. I reached out, touched the fabric; it was soft and clean.

I lay down and stared at the ceiling. The silence was absolute. No heavy footsteps in the hallway. No drunken voice calling my name. No one to drag me into the darkness.

And then I started to laugh. A low laugh that rose from deep in my stomach and bubbled up my throat. A laugh of pure, unbelievable relief.

I'm free.

The phrase echoed in my mind like a mantra or a prayer.

I'm free.

For the first time in three years, I would sleep without fear. For the first time since my wedding night, my body would be mine alone.