Literary Digest LITERARY DIGEST MAY 2020 | Page 13

Hannah spoke with a perfectly genuine blend of
confusion and curiosity in her voice. “Well, Hannah – I
suppose you could say the Bolsheviks had waited for so
long, they had thought about it for so long, that it only
seemed right if they acted upon their dreams. They just
wanted to do what they thought was right, even if it was
wrong for everyone else. After all, love has never known
any boundaries.”
“Love, Mr Bates? What are you talking about?”
Hannah nervously laughed, squinting her eyes at Mr.
Bates in a joking way. She thought she looked like an
idiot, doing too much, while Mr. Bates thought she
looked the most adorable with her nose scrunched up
like that. Bates chuckled so she wouldn't feel
uncomfortable.
“As in love for their country, Hannah. All that
they did was to protect and be with their country. They
never meant to hurt her, their country, by anything that
they did.”
“I suppose it makes sense, kind of.” Hannah said,
looking back to her textbook to continue reading. And it
was at this point where Bates figured he could no longer
keep it to himself, and that he had to act upon it at some
point and perhaps now was the perfect time. After all,
there was never a good time to do something like this,
especially where he lived – perhaps there was somewhere
where Hannah and he could be together without
objection. Or at least that's what he thought to himself.
He got up from his seat in a sudden flash, which,
according to Hannah, was very unlike him to do. Bates
got down on both his knees and cupped Hannah's face
with both his hands. He leaned in and brought his own
lips to hers.
“NO!” Hannah's voice spoke as she tried to pull
back, every self-defence class lesson being looked through
in her mind. But there was nothing there that she could
remember or use, nothing at all. Perhaps it was the time
and place, she was trying but there was really nothing at
all she could come up with. She resorted to scream and
slap her hands against whatever came closest to them.
“No, no, no I said! Stop it, please stop it! Mr Bates,
stop!”
“No! I'm not hurting you! You cannot hate this,
you cannot. You must not. You have to listen to me
Hannah. You can't – you can't disagree. You have to
comply, not complain. Please, yes, you must comply.”
Bates urgently spoke back covering her mouth with his
hand, helpless to the demons of his mind and doing all
he willed to the poor curled ball on the floor; perhaps it
was Hannah. He didn't want to hurt her, but he had to.
Throughout the whole atrocity he muttered angrily in
her ear, “You must comply, my dear. You must.”
The blackness in Hannah's mind grew darker, if
it could. The quiet of her surroundings got louder. Her
history teacher's voice grew louder and more aggressive
by the moment, yet there was nothing she could do. She
was going to be blamed, she knew – even in the
moment, she blamed herself. She blamed herself over
and over again, it was her fault; of course it had to be,
wasn't that all she had been taught?
It had been 10 years since the obscenity she had
been subject to. The rejection still dripped from her lips
at times, the word 'No' still managed to slip out
sometimes. One would call it sad, she should've done
something, she should've complained, should've told
someone. But all she had ever known was to comply, and
not complain. After all those years, the only one she
could blame was herself. Only her. And she loved him.
“MOMMY!” a child's voice called from outside.
Playing in the wind was a little boy, Timothy, they had
named him. Hours passed while she watched him live
the childhood that she could not remember for herself.
She walked out and picked the boy up and brought him
inside, cradling him in her arms while he slept like an
angel.
To this day, she couldn't point her finger at the
mistake – how could she? It always came back to her,
regardless of how much she tried to figure it was Bates or
the little joy she held in her arms every night.
Breakfast time, the next day, came around
eventually. “I'd like two eggs, darling.” Bates spoke,
fingers till wrapped around the coffee cup, and eyes still
locked on the words in his book – just like all those years
ago. And for some reason, she still felt the blood rush up
to her face, and the heat surround her ears. Except,
instead of the words describing the Bolsheviks, it was
Timothy's sweet little voice calling for his mother.
As she slid the eggs onto Bates' plate, he asked,
“Sweetheart, can I have some more coffee please?”
No, Hannah didn't want to, not one bit. She wanted to
do nothing for him anymore. But the words, “You must
comply, not complain” echoed in her head, the voice of
the father of her child. Yes, it was all she had known, so
it was all she would do.
She must comply. She must not complain.
The problem was there, sure, but nobody knew how
much she blamed herself. For years and years, she tried
to hide the whiskey on her breath. She finally drank her
pain away, a little at a time, but she never could get
drunk enough to get him off her mind.
Until the night, she put that bottle to her head
and pulled the trigger, and finally drank away his
memory. Life is short, but this time it was bigger than
the strength she had to get up off her knees. They found
her with her face down in the pillow, clinging to his
picture for dear life. And as they buried her beneath
willow, everyone could hear whispers of the word
'comply'.
Up with the angels, Hannah still believed Bates
was innocent, but she kept an eye on that little boy of
hers - Timothy Bates.
2nd last paragraph credit: “Whiskey Lullaby”
by Brad Paisley and Alison Kraus