He choked me, first with his hands and then with the collar of my shirt and finally with the electrical cord of a hair dryer. I was kicking my legs, trying to buck him off me, but I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I stopped and lay perfectly still. I felt myself leave my body. I left the room altogether and traveled back to Geneva. Suddenly I was floating down the Rh?ne, where I’d learned to swim. The Rh?ne is cold, muscular, and has this very rich, very specific mineral smell. I was on the verge of surrendering to it, of letting it carry me out to the lake, and that’s when he stopped choking me. I think he sensed that I was about to lose consciousness, and he seemed to want me awake. So, he went back to beating my face. He hit me with his fists mostly, but he also beat the sides of my head with a boot and whatever else he could find, and I realized that what I was smelling was not the river but my own blood. He reminded me again that he was going to kill me. He wasn’t a rapist, he kept saying, disgusted. I began screaming at the top of my lungs, but no one came to the door—not even the dog. The dog didn’t even bark.
At some point, I stopped screaming and began babbling. I was trying to convince him that it wasn’t too late—he could let me walk out of there and I wouldn’t tell anyone, I promised. When I saw the confused look on his face, I could suddenly hear myself. I was speaking Swiss French. It was as if he’d damaged the language center in my brain. English words weren’t coming to me at all. He must have thought I was possessed. For the first time, he looked frightened, and he seemed to give in. It had been going on for close to an hour by then, and he was tired and out of breath. He said I could leave if I took off my shirt, because it was ripped and covered in blood. So, I did that, I took off my shirt. I remember looking around the room for my purse. When I saw how much blood there was on the bed and floor, I knew I must have been in bad shape. I grabbed my jacket and stepped into the hallway in just my skirt, which was also covered in blood, and that’s when he changed his mind. He pulled me back into the room by my hair and locked the door again.
I’m not sure why he finally let me go. I think he just ran out of steam. I stumbled out of the house and tried to run. I was convinced he was coming after me in his truck, that he was just getting dressed and collecting himself. I didn’t have my phone or wallet, so I couldn’t call anyone or get a cab. Whenever a car approached, I hid behind a tree or some garbage cans. I did this for a while, many blocks. At this point, I knew my jaw was broken because my teeth had shifted. None of my teeth were in the right place.
Then a FedEx van stopped in the middle of the street. Its windows were rolled down, and the driver saw me. Do you need help? I said I needed to go to the hospital and asked him to bring me back to my neighborhood on the other side of the park. Neither of us spoke the whole way there, and he never turned down the radio. To this day, whenever I hear the song “Just the Way You Are,” I feel nauseated. Unfortunately, I hear it about once a week—
OM:?The Billy Joel song?
Greta paused the audio and scrolled up. It was, without question, the longest Om had ever gone without speaking, probably in his entire career.
FEW:?Bruno Mars.
OM:?Oh god, sorry. You must have been in so much pain. Honestly, I can’t even imagine how horrible—
FEW:?The pain was intense, yes. The driver dropped me off at the ER, and I went directly to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The whites of my eyes were bloodred. My ears looked like they were bleeding, and my neck was already beginning to bruise. My nose was clearly broken, and my left cheekbone. There was blood in my hair. Mostly, there was a lot of swelling. My face was gigantic. I looked like the villain from The Spy Who Loved Me. Oddly enough, it was one of the few films I’d seen as a kid.
OM:?Is that with Sean Connery or Roger Moore?
“Jesus Christ,” Greta sighed.
FEW:?I’m not sure. The villain’s name is Jaws, though, and when the doctors examined me, they said my jaw was broken in two places. They wired it shut and scheduled me for surgery. I ended up with steel plates on both sides of my jaw, and steel rods in my chin.
Greta hit pause again and stared at the blinking cursor on her screen. Perhaps Big Swiss was not the blond supermodel she’d been imagining, but rather permanently disfigured, and that was why Om behaved so strangely around her. She probably turned heads in the supermarket because her face looked like an Easter ham.
OM:?Did they call the police?
FEW:?I told them I’d been mugged.
OM:?Why?
FEW:?He had my purse, so he knew where I lived. I still believed he was going to kill me, or have someone else kill me. Also, I was embarrassed.
OM:?Embarrassed?
FEW:?For going to his house.
OM:?But you were nearly beaten to death. For absolutely no reason.
FEW:?I thought I was better than him. Superior.
OM:?Honey, you were! You are!
FEW:?I ridiculed him in my mind and to his face. I’m not saying I deserved any of it, but I accept some responsibility. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if he’d snatched me off the street, but he didn’t. I wasn’t kidnapped. I wasn’t drugged or tied up. I went to his house of my own volition. I climbed the stairs, I stepped into his room. I ignored all my instincts. I thought I had the upper hand, and I didn’t.
OM:?How was he caught?
FEW:?I quit my job. I didn’t leave my apartment for over a week, except to go to the hospital. When I realized he wasn’t coming after me, I went to the police. Luckily, a nurse at the hospital had taken pictures of my face.
OM:?Where were your parents?
FEW:?Switzerland.
OM:?Did you get counseling?
FEW:?Yeah, plenty. I had to testify in front of a grand jury, so I had lots of therapy leading up to it.
OM:?Have you ever practiced kundalini?
“No,” Greta said.
FEW:?[PAUSE] I haven’t, but I know what it is.
OM:?I wonder if you’d be interested in doing some chanting with me.
“Dear god in heaven,” Greta said.
FEW:?What sort of chanting?
OM:?I was thinking we could chant the word “Har,” which is another word for God.
FEW:?You’re joking, right?
“You wish,” Greta said.
OM:?“Har” is an ancient mantra for prosperity and good health.
FEW:?We’ll be repeating the word “Har”？ As in, “har, har, har”？
OM:?You’ll be surprised how you feel afterward.
“You’ll feel homicidal,” Greta said.
OM:?I can start us off, and you can join in if the spirit moves you.
FEW:?Okay.
OM:?I’ll put on some music.
[CHANTING MUSIC]
OM:?Raise your arms above your head at about sixty degrees, palms facing out. Good. Curl your fingers toward your palms, but leave your thumbs free. That’s right, like that.
[HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR]
The chanting went on for three excruciating minutes, during which Greta strained to hear Big Swiss, but of course Om drowned her out, as he was practically shouting.
OM:?How do you feel?
FEW:?How am I supposed to feel?
OM:?Well, I feel totally cleansed of mental chatter. What about you?
FEW:?Vaguely angry.
“Told you,” Greta said.
OM:?Anger can be cleansing, too, just in a different way. Perhaps this is a topic for next time, but I’m wondering if you’ve ignored your instincts in any significant way since your assault.