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

As we stood in the queue for pastries, a handsome boy waited behind. He looked about eighteen and was wearing shorts, no shirt and good sunglasses.

‘Excuse me, could you tell us what time it is, please?’ Natasha asked as she turned towards him.

He looked at his watch. ‘Nearly six o’clock,’ he replied.

I was worried. It was much later than I’d thought. ‘We have to go,’ I said urgently. ‘We’ll miss the train and we’ll never be home in time. I have to get back before Mama comes home from work.’

‘Don’t worry, Oxana,’ said Natasha breezily. ‘There’s plenty of time.’

She didn’t seem at all worried as she started chatting and laughing with the older boy. I didn’t like it—she seemed so open and free with him, and it wasn’t how I’d been taught to behave.

‘Why don’t you come and meet my friends?’ he asked, when we’d bought our pastries.

‘Sure,’ replied Natasha, and she began walking off with our new friend.

‘But we’ve got to get home,’ I cut in, looking at Alina.

‘Not yet,’ she said as she turned to follow Natasha and the boy. ‘We can always catch the next train. Don’t be a scaredy cat, Oxana.’

I stood for a moment. What should I do? I could go on my own to the station or for once try to fit in with my friends. I didn’t want to be left alone. I turned to follow as the boy led us behind the shops to the edge of a small wood.

‘My friends are in there,’ he said, gesturing at the trees.

Twigs cracked under our feet as we walked into the sudden darkness. I saw a group of about seven boys a little way ahead. They looked between sixteen and eighteen, and were sitting on blankets with food and bottles of homemade wine surrounding them, smoking. We went over and sat down with them. Natasha accepted a bottle immediately but I felt more and more nervous. We were going to be so late.

Then I heard two boys muttering behind me.

‘What are we going to do?’ one asked in a low voice.

I strained to hear and made out a few other words.

‘…and you can take her,’ the other said as he looked at me.

Fear filled me. Something was wrong.

‘Come on, let’s leave,’ I whispered to Alina. I turned to the boy next to me and said with a smile, ‘We need to go to the toilet.’

‘Over there.’ He gestured at some bushes. Alina and I got up and started to walk casually away.

‘We need to get away from here,’ I told her in a low voice.

‘What do you mean?’ she replied.

‘Trust me. There’s something wrong. I’ll count to five, then we’ll run.’

‘Okay,’ Alina said and my heart beat as I waited to count down.

‘Five, four, three, two, ONE,’ I shouted and started running through the shadowy wood. I couldn’t hear Alina behind me, she must have gone in a different direction, but I couldn’t stop. I just had to run. That was all that mattered.

Suddenly I felt hands on my back and was pushed to the ground before being pulled roughly around. Looking down at me was a boy of about seventeen with blond curly hair, blue eyes and big lips.

‘Listen,’ he snapped. ‘I can make you a deal. Either all these guys are going to fuck you or you accept just me.’

‘No way,’ I screamed. ‘Never.’

‘All right then,’ the boy said as he started getting up. ‘I’ll just call the others.’

I could sense he was nervous, unsure of what he was doing. ‘No, please don’t,’ I begged. ‘Don’t call them. I’ll go with you.’

‘Good,’ he said as he pulled me to my feet. ‘Now follow me.’

I was very afraid as the boy took my arm and we started walking through the woods. What was he going to do? Why wouldn’t he let me go?

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ I sobbed. ‘My parents are expecting me home.’

‘If you’re good I won’t give you to anyone else but if you’re not then I have a lot of friends.’

My heart beat fast. I hardly understood what happened between men and women but I knew that I didn’t want this boy to touch me and there was no way to get away from him. Even as my eyes scanned the floor for something to use as a weapon—a plank, a stone—he held tightly on to me.

‘Please don’t hurt me today,’ I pleaded as we reached a deserted house and he pushed me into an old shed at the back. ‘Can’t you just leave me tonight?’

The longer he didn’t touch me the better. I’d been told again and again that I had to be a virgin to be a good wife and I knew that meant not letting boys touch me. I couldn’t let this boy do anything to me or the word ‘whore’ would follow me forever.

‘Don’t worry,’ he replied. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. You just need to drink some wine and then it won’t be so painful.’

He lay a blanket on the ground and offered me a bottle before lifting his eyes to me once again. The silence was thick between us as we stared at each other. I saw in his eyes that he was determined to do it.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ I whispered as the boy pushed me back onto the hard ground.

I was so scared I couldn’t move. I’d hit boys at school if they’d ever tried to touch me but this was so different. My body froze. Maybe he would let me go when he realised how afraid I was.

‘I won’t tell anyone about this,’ I sobbed. ‘Please let me go. I won’t tell the police or my parents.’

But the boy did not listen and started pulling at my clothes as I folded my arms around my body.

‘No,’ I pleaded as he ripped the thin straps of my pink top. ‘I’m a virgin.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he snapped in a low voice. ‘You must have had a boyfriend.’

Tears ran down my face as the boy pulled at my shorts and I stiffened my legs to hold them tightly together. He pushed himself onto me and I could hardly breathe. He was too heavy and strong to resist as he forced my legs open. I tried screaming but a hand clamped down on my mouth.

A hot jab of pain flooded in between my legs. I didn’t want him to do this to me and neither did my body. It hurt so much. The boy pushed again and again until he went inside me. I screamed.

‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘Relax and you’ll be fine.’

But pain filled me as millimetre by millimetre the boy robbed me of myself. I could feel his sweat dripping on me, his tongue licking me and smell the stink of his armpits. Sickness rose up in my throat.

I don’t know how long it was before he stopped moving and rolled away onto his back.

‘You see, it was nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m tired now. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the train station and you can go home.’

He dozed off straight away while I lay awake trembling, too terrified to move, until I finally fell asleep, grateful for the oblivion.

Early the next morning we woke up. I saw dried blood on my thighs as I pulled on my shorts. It hurt to move as I shifted from one leg to the other. I felt freezing, so cold I was almost shaking, and I wondered what he was going to do now. Home felt so far away.

He led me out of the shed and we started walking along a deserted road with trees on either side until we reached an empty beach.

‘Clean yourself up,’ the boy said as he gestured at the sea. ‘And then I’ll take you to the station.’

I looked at a toilet block on the edge of the beach—the kind of low building with no roof, low walls and holes in the ground that were found by the seaside.

‘Can I go?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but don’t lock the door.’

The boy waited outside as I walked into the latrine and looked at the back wall. I could climb it and run. If I could just get away, perhaps I could forget this had ever happened. No one need ever know.

I stayed still for a moment as I listened for the boy. I couldn’t hear him moving, just the sound of the sea as it rolled onto the beach. Holding my breath, I pulled myself up onto the wall. As my head appeared over the top, I looked down to see two men waiting on the other side.