Mummy, Come Home: The True Story of a Mother Kidnapped and Torn from Her Children

‘No,’ a voice said. ‘First we’re going to enjoy you. You’ll be okay. You’ll like it too.’

I knew instantly what he wanted. This couldn’t be happening—not with a baby inside me. ‘No,’ I screamed as I tried to break free. ‘Sergey will kill you. He’ll be back in a minute.’

‘No, he won’t,’ the voice behind me laughed. ‘He’s very busy.’

I struggled as the arm closed even tighter around my neck. It was so strong that I couldn’t breathe. Panic twisted inside as I was pulled towards the bed and pushed onto it before the dark man climbed on top of me—grabbing my hair and pushing his mouth onto mine as I screamed. Pictures of the beach flashed into my mind and the cold terror I had felt then filled me. ‘Please, please leave me alone,’ I pleaded as I started crying. ‘I’ll do anything.’

But the men didn’t listen as they tied my hands above my head and something silenced me. There is only so much a soul can take before it freezes into nothing and that is what happened to me that night. My mind went blank as the men forced their way into the furthest corners of my body and I turned to stone.

They laughed and smoked when they’d finished, and I pulled on my clothes before stumbling out of the house into the darkness.

Sergey was sitting waiting for me.

‘I need to talk to you,’ I whispered. I had to tell him what had happened, otherwise the men might talk and he’d think I’d wanted them. Then he would kill me. Tears ran down my face as we started walking.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Your friends…’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been raped.’

Sergey stopped walking. ‘Really?’ he said slowly.

‘Yes. They made me do it. I swear. I couldn’t stop them.’

He looked at me. ‘I know what happened. Those men are my friends. Nobody raped you, so why are you lying?’

Confusion rushed up inside me. ‘But I’m not,’ I shouted. ‘They raped me while you were away.’

‘I was outside all the time, Oxana.’

‘Well, then you must have heard me screaming.’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Sergey, his voice like ice with a smile in it.

Suddenly my whole body went cold. He knew what had happened to me, had done nothing as he heard my screams.

‘Did you think I’d let you get away with having your dirty lovers do your dirty work?’ Sergey said softly. ‘Did you think I’d just forget what those Muslim fuckers did to me?’

I turned away. ‘I’m going,’ I sobbed. ‘To Mamma’s, the police, I don’t care if I have to live on the streets.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sergey called. ‘Your mother wouldn’t have you and I’ve got a lot of friends who’d want to fuck you so much that they’d find you wherever you ran. Besides, what will you tell the police? They’ll never believe you. Everyone knows you’re a whore.’

My head swam as we stood in the darkness. He was right. Who would believe me? What man would allow his own wife to be raped? Even Ira, who knew her brother’s thieving ways, would not think he could stoop this low.

I had two babies, and another on the way. There was no way I could ever escape him. All I could hope was that his thirst for revenge was slaked and now he would leave me alone.

‘Let’s go,’ Sergey said quietly.

I turned to follow him home.

I had been stupid to believe that Sergey had forgotten what Aziz’s men had done. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, so now I watched Sergey and waited for what he would do next. I did nothing to provoke him, even when he came home drunk and pushed me out of bed, or slapped me without a word—he was just waiting to hurt me again and I knew it. It was as though he could no longer bear the sight of me and I felt my resilience in the face of his hatred begin to waver. Surely I must have deserved what had happened? Sergey was right. I was worth nothing.

Meanwhile his life was disintegrating. Sergey was becoming seriously addicted to drugs and one night I saw him in the kitchen with a friend. As he sat at the table, he put a band around his arm and flexed his hand while his friend injected him with a syringe. I watched him through the open door as he lay down in the half-light, his expression one of blissful oblivion.

So that was how he escaped this miserable existence, and how he condemned his family to hunger and poverty.

Sergey beat me regularly now, no matter how quiet and good I was. He’d wake up sweating and shaking and hit me, or I’d heat up his gruel too much and he’d beat me. We fought a lot about food because he often ate everything and left nothing for the children and me.

Bit by bit something inside me was breaking and I was becoming afraid of my own shadow. I believed Sergey when he screamed at me about how ugly, stupid and useless I was. Why else had my life turned out the way it had?

‘All you can do is get pregnant and now you’re fat as a cow again with another child,’ he’d shout. ‘You’re useless.’

Life became so painful that I turned into a robot and switched off my thoughts and feelings. Wake, eat, wash, clean, cook, feed, bathe…My life was about physical details, and I didn’t want to feel or see anything as I told myself again and again that what had happened was all just a movie.

‘There will be a happy ending,’ I’d whisper inside as I drew water up from the well with which to wash Sasha’s clothes. ‘This isn’t real, just make-believe, and Papa is watching over you.’

After one bad argument Sergey took a washing line and tied my hands and feet behind me before leaving me for several hours lying on the floor. Punching, strangling or slapping, he didn’t care what he did and it was almost as if I didn’t either. This was my punishment.

‘You’re like a dog,’ I’d tell myself. ‘When he wants to eat and no one feeds him he gets skinny and helpless. You’re just like him and Sergey is your master.’

I had two choices: either finish my life and leave my children, or wait for this one to end and a new one to begin. I just had to believe that the pain would end and love my children while I waited. They were the one good thing in my life—the only thing that could cut through my frozen heart—and, as Sasha lay sleeping beside me at night, my hands would stroke my round stomach. Whispering silently to the child inside me, I told it that one day we would be happy together.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_e0b02aad-b6bd-5194-b4ec-c26a6c762282)

Pasha looked like a new baby when he came home again in December 1994. I’d finally gone to see him just before his time at the orphanage had ended and was filled with shame when I saw how changed he was—where once he had been thin and sickly, he was now fat and healthy. He’d started eating as soon as he’d had his hernia operation and I was happy that he could sit, hold his head, laugh and grip my fingers like any normal eleven-month-old baby. Now he wasn’t ill anymore I was released from my feelings of guilt and hoped I could love him the way I wanted to, like a real mother.

Sergey just ignored him when he came home and I did not mind. But it was as if the light in Pasha switched off from the moment he came through our door and he started crying once again for hours on end. Day after day his screams went on and it felt as if they would never stop. I was in despair—why couldn’t I be a proper mother to my son and make him happy? Should I have left him in the orphanage, where he had grown and become healthy?

Pasha’s unhappiness seemed to fill the room where we lived. I was six months pregnant with another baby and didn’t know how I could cope. Ira and Alex were sympathetic, but they also found it hard living with Pasha’s constant wailing. At least they could go into their room and close the door.

The noise drove Sergey mad.

‘Shut the fucking baby up!’ he would shout, then he’d punch me and I knew that if I didn’t quieten Pasha it would just get worse. But no matter what I did, I could not seem to calm my son. He was so different to how Sasha had been as a baby. Where my eldest child had giggled as I spoke to him and laughed as we played games, Pasha seemed to be in a different world from me and I could not understand how to reach him. He cried and cried and, even when I managed to keep him quiet, Sergey would still come for me with beatings, slappings and whippings.

Early one morning, Pasha was screaming particularly loudly. Sergey was in bed, the pillow over his head, trying to sleep while I did my best to soothe the baby. Sasha was fast asleep, the only one of us who could shut out the noise.

‘Make him shut up!’ Sergey shouted as I ran to prepare some food which I hoped would quiet Pasha. ‘Christ knows how the others manage to stand this noise! He’s going to wake the whole house.’

The bedroom door was open and as I stood at the stove I saw Sergey get out of bed and walk towards the baby. He raised his hand, slapped him and I saw Pasha’s head knock against the wall.

‘No, no!’ I cried, rushing back to the baby. He was momentarily silenced by the shock of the pain and his little face was dead white. I felt sick as I picked him up and cuddled him. ‘Leave him alone!’ I shouted. ‘He’s only a baby.’

Sergey grunted and shrugged, then turned away, while I hushed Pasha and took him back to the kitchen. I wept silently as I fed him. No child should be treated in such a way but how could I protect my son when I couldn’t even protect myself?

As soon as Sergey had left for the evening, I bundled up the children along with some of our belongings and took them to the waiting room of Simferopol train station. It was the only place I could think of to keep warm and I told myself we’d spend the night there while I decided what to do. All I knew was that it was too dangerous for us to remain with Sergey any longer. He had hurt Pasha and I could not allow it to happen again. But we stayed the next night and the one after that—leaving during the day to walk around the park for a few hours before returning to the warmth of the waiting room—because I did not know what else to do. There were no shelters for women in Ukraine, no free housing for people in trouble, and so I almost stopped thinking about it as the days passed. We just had to survive.