Revised writing prompt from 12/2008. Setting is loosely based on Stalinist era USSR.
Wordcount: 1073
Prompt: 'photograph negatives'
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He held the envelope out to her silently. Elena stared at it. His hand remained outstretched, ramrod straight, and slowly, finally, she reached for it. Inside were photograph negatives. The woman flipped through them quickly, first with curiosity, and then with shock, fear, and creeping up her throat like bile, rage.
“What is this, Rudolf?” she asked, her pale blue eyes rising to meet the man’s darker ones.
“You know I like the both of you. Osip was my friend as much as he was your husband. I was as surprised as you were when I….found these. I wish I could throw them out. You know I do. But I can’t, Elena, I just can’t. Do you know what they would do to me if they found out that I did?” Elena knew exactly what they would do. Failure to denounce was, after all, a well known and serious infraction of the criminal code.
“Why are you showing me these?” she asked after a long moment of silence. Tears rose to her eyes, but the woman fought them back, schooled her expression into as neutral a mask as she could manage. It was what everyone did instinctively, it this modern age.
“I like you, Elena, I do. I wanted to give you a chance to…report this…before I have to.” Rudolf said. She understood immediately. Failure to denounce was viewed as a serious crime indeed by the authorities. For her husband to be arrested for such…activities…they would, of course, assume that as his wife she had to know something. That she knew and didn’t say. They would probably arrest her too, if not right away then soon after they came for Osip. She could of course protest her innocence, insist on her ignorance, but… On the other hand, if it was she that brought them the photos, she who denounced her husband’s illegal activities, then well, that was a different story altogether. She looked up again at Rudolf wordlessly.
“You have two days, Elena. Those are the negatives. I have the originals. If you don’t…in two days, I’ll have to. I wish I didn’t, but….two days.”
“Thank you.”
“I have to go now. You have my number, if you need to ring me for anything. Otherwise…well, try to enjoy your afternoon. The weather really is wonderful.”
“Yes, it’s very warm. Have a nice afternoon too.” She said, and shut the door carefully behind him. Afterwards, alone, Elena leaned back against that now dead-bolted door and slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She wanted to cry but now that she had the privacy the tears would not come to her eyes. Her entire soul wanted to retch.
How could he how could he how could he? How could he be so stubborn and stupid? How could he not know better? And now what was she supposed to do?
She could of course destroy the photos, but Rudolf had the originals and would tell and then she really would be screwed. Ten years at the very least. What was she supposed to do, murder the man? She laughed as she imagined herself sneaking into his bedroom in the middle of the night with a steak knife, a clothesline-turned-garrote. No, Elena had been called a ruthless bitch on more than one occasion but murderess she was not.
She could tell Osip about the photos, tell him to run. But then, of course, when Rudolf told, they’d come and ask where he was. Missing, what the hell do you mean, missing? Men just don’t go missing! How the hell did he know? Who did you tell? Just the bitch? Traitorous cunt warned him, did she? Well, what are you looking at me like that for? Arrest the goddamn bitch! We’ll make her talk! No, if she warned him to run she would have to go with him. And then what? Exist in the wilderness for twenty years? Live off scraps and stealing and melted snow? Elena couldn’t live like that. She wouldn’t. And why should she, for him, when he didn’t even have the decency to tell her, warn her, ask her about the danger he was putting the both of them in?
If she told they would praise her. She would keep all the property. A divorce would be easy to obtain if she wanted….and necessary if she didn’t wanted to be branded as an outcast, a prisoner’s wife. She would be safe and comfortable and he, and he…
Elena ran to the bathroom and retched bile until her teeth tingled and gums burned. Then, hands shaking, spent, she went to prepare dinner. By the time Osip came home her expression was again schooled into an expressionless mask of calm and neutrality. She felt like a doll or a machine as she kissed him on the cheek.
“What’s the occasion?” her husband asked, and it was only then that Elena realized she’d made him his favorite meal. She couldn’t remember cooking at all.
“Oh, nothing,” she said with a small grin. “I got a good deal at the market today, is all.” It was hard to believe, in that moment, that she was only twenty four. She felt ancient. She felt eternal. She watched him eat. The food in her own mouth tasted like lead. It grew stuck in her throat. It was hard to breath. She stared at him, stared, but he didn’t notice, too busy eating and reading the paper.
It’s a good thing we don’t have kids, at least, she remembered thinking.
That night they made love passionately. She kissed him and kissed him and insisted on more, what’s gotten into you, he said, not complaining, and she wanted to tell him that she needed to make herself feel something for him, that she wanted to feel something that would stop her, that would stay her hand and stay her lips but instead she felt everything but nothing and nothing at all.
The next morning, after he left for work, she made a bouquet of wild roses in a vase on the kitchen table. He’d given her such a rose on their first date. One of the thorns cut her hand. She sucked on the blood as she carried a white envelope to the police station. Later, when she tried to remember that day, it was always the taste of iron on the lips was mostly all she could recall.
