The crippled wife screams for years. The crippled wife screams in pain for years in a hospital bed. That's what her husband was doing at that time ... (Video). Grachev raised his hand to the children

26.06.2020

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crippled

I dedicate this book to my mother, my grandparents, brothers and sisters, my children, without whom I would never have had the strength and courage to fight, my companion.

I want to thank everyone I met along the way and who touched me with their involvement in the fight for the physical and moral dignity of a person, fundamental rights and especially the rights of women.

I want to thank all the people who supported me, near or far, in my struggle, and all those who helped me make this book a reality.

The cold here is not for me, African. I'm going. I have always walked a lot. So many that I often got from my mother:

- Why are you walking? Stop! The whole block is talking about you!

And sometimes she even drew an imaginary line at our doorstep.

Do you see this line? From now on, you will not cross it!

I was in a hurry to play with my girlfriends, go for water, take a walk in the market or look at the soldiers in beautiful uniforms who were marching along the Concorde Wall. My mother's Soninke word for "walk" meant that I was running around, too curious about the world around me.

I actually “walked my life”, and somewhere I just didn’t get carried away: today I’m at UNICEF in Zurich, yesterday at the Forty-ninth session of the UN General Assembly dedicated to women’s rights. Hadi at the UN! A female wrestler named Hadi, in the past, the most ordinary girl from the "womb of sand", like all African children. That same little Hadi who goes to the source for water, scurries past grandmothers and aunts to bubu, proudly carries a basket of peanuts for grinding on her head; Hadi, obliged to deliver safe and sound amber-colored dough poured with butter and suddenly horrified to see him sprawled on the ground. I still hear my grandmother's angry voice:

- Did you drop it? Well, you can get me!

I see her coming down the porch, armed with a broom for a whip, while my sisters and cousins make fun of me. It hits my back, buttocks, and my little loincloth treacherously slides down. The girls rush to my aid, and my grandmother, still angry, turns to them:

Are you protecting her? Now I'll show you!

I take the moment to run to my grandfather's house, hide behind his folding bed where she can't find me. Grandpa is my salvation, my protection. He never interferes in the process of punishment, leaving it to the women. He doesn't shout, he just explains:

- Hadi, if you are sent to do something, you should concentrate on what you are doing! I'm sure you were playing with your friends and didn't see the basket turn over.

After a well-deserved spanking, I have the right to caress my grandmother and. sisters, sour milk and couscous. It's kind of like a consolation. Buttocks still hurt, but I play with the doll, sitting under the mango tree with my sisters and cousins. Little Hadi is waiting for September to go to school with her other siblings. Mom makes sure that we always have notebooks and pencils. To do this, she even has to limit herself in some way.

It's nice to live in a big house on the outskirts of Thies, a quiet town with wide green streets. It is located at the foot of the mosque, where grandfather and other men go to pray at dawn.

Dad works on the railroad, we rarely see each other. According to our tradition, Grandmother Fuley was assigned to look after me, she is responsible for my upbringing. Fuley is the grandfather's second wife, she has no children of her own. Our childless woman does not suffer from this. My grandmother's house is a hundred meters from ours, and I ply between them, looking for something tasty in one or the other.

Grandfather has three wives: the first is Marie, my mother's mother, the second is Fuley, whom I was "gifted" to raise, and Asta, the third, the ex-wife of grandfather's older brother. Grandfather married her after the death of his brother, as custom dictates. All of them are our grandmothers, women without age, who love us equally, punish us and, of course, console us.

There are three boys and five girls in our family, in the tribe there are cousins, nieces, aunts. We are all brothers and sisters to each other, aunts and nieces, to one and all at once. It's impossible to count us, some of the cousins I don't even know. My family is from the noble Soninke caste. The Soninke used to trade in cloth, gold, and precious stones. Grandfather worked on the railway in Thiesse. He also placed my father there.

Our family is made up of priests and peasants, the men are the imams of the village. A noble family in the understanding of us soninke is a caste that has nothing to do with the European nobility. The upbringing is very strict. We are instilled with honesty, decency and loyalty to the word, values and principles that follow with us through life.

I was born shortly before the country gained independence, in 1959, on one of the October days. And in October 1966, at the age of seven, I crossed the school threshold for the first time. Until that time, I lived happily, surrounded by love. I was told about the cultivation of fields, national cuisine, spices that my grandmothers traded in the market. By the age of four or five, I had my own bench. Grandmother Fuley made it for me, because here every child has their own bench. He sits on it when he eats couscous and leaves it in the room of his mother or grandmother, the one who brings him up, bathes, dresses, caresses or punishes him. A bench is the reason for quarrels between children: “You took my bench!”, “Give her a bench, she is older than you!”. It is kept for a long time until the tree withers or its owner grows and becomes the owner of a new bench, larger in size. Then you can pass your bench “by inheritance” to your younger brother or sister.

The bench was ordered and paid for by my grandmother. I proudly carried it on my head: it is a symbol of the transition from early childhood, when they still sit on the floor, to the status of a child who sits and walks like adults. I walk with her in the field, along the streets of the market, between the baobabs and mango trees in the yard, to the house with the fountain, to the grandmothers - I walk in a protected space, the warmth of which will soon be mercilessly cut off.

I walked from the age of seven, from Thies to New York, passing through Rome, Paris, Zurich, London. I never stopped walking, especially since the day when my grandmothers told me: "Today, baby, we're going to 'cleanse' you."

The day before my cousins came from Dakar for school holidays: Daba's sister, seven years old, Lele, Annie and Ndaye, cousins, and other, more distant relatives, I don't remember their names, With a dozen girls from six to nine years old, sitting spread out feet, on the porch in front of the room of one of the grandmothers. We play different games - "dad and mom", selling spices in the market, cooking with small iron utensils that our parents make for us themselves, and dolls, wooden and cloth.

This evening we sleep, as usual, in the rooms of our grandmother, aunt or mother.

The next day, early in the morning, they wake me up and wash me. Mom puts a sleeveless floral dress on me; it is from African fabric, but European cut. I remember its colors well - brown, yellow and peach. I put on my little rubber sandals, my flip flops. It's too early. There is no one on the street in our block.

We cross the road that stretches along the mosque, near which the men are already ready to pray. The door to the mosque is still closed, and I can hear their voices. The sun has not risen yet, but it will be very hot soon. Now the rainy season, but for some reason they are not. In a few hours the temperature will rise to thirty-five degrees.

My mother takes me and my sister to the big house to the third wife of my grandfather, a woman of about fifty, petite, friendly and very affectionate. My cousins who came for the holidays are staying at her house, and like us, they are already washed, dressed and waiting - a small team gathered here, harmless and restless. Mom leaves. I look after her, she is thin and thin, she has a mixture of Mauritanian and Peulian blood. Mom - a wonderful woman whom I did not know well then - raised her children, girls and boys, without discrimination. School for everyone, homework for everyone, punishment and affection for everyone too. But she leaves and doesn't tell us anything.

Something special is happening as grandmothers come and go, talking cryptically among themselves, keeping away from us. Not knowing what awaits me, I feel: their conversations are disturbing. Suddenly, one of the grandmothers calls all the girls because the "lady" has come. She is dressed in a huge indigo and dark blue buba, with large earrings, and is short. I recognize her. She is a friend of my grandmothers from the blacksmith caste. In this caste, the men work with iron and circumcise the boys, while the women “cut” the little girls. There are also two other women, fat matrons with powerful hands, whom I do not know. My cousins, who are older, may imagine what awaits us, but they say nothing.

In the Soninke language, the grandmother announces that they will now make salinde for us in order to get the right to pray. In our language it means "to be cleansed in order to gain access to prayer." In French they say "carved" or "circumcised".

The shock is endless. Now I know what awaits me: mothers in the house talk about it from time to time, and as if it were about entering into a mystical office. It seems to me that I remember what I tried hard to erase from my memory. The older sisters went through this, having received guidance from the grandmothers, who are in charge of everything in the house and are responsible for raising children. When a girl is born, on the seventh day after the christening, it is they who pierce her ears with a needle and thread red and black threads so that the hole does not grow. They deal with weddings, childbirth, newborns. They make the decision about our "cleansing".

All the mothers are gone. I had a strange sense of abandonment, but now I know that no mother, even one with iron nerves, can look at what they will do with her daughter, and especially hear her screams. She knows what it's about because she's been through it herself, and when her baby is touched, the mother's heart cries again. However, she accepts this because it is the custom and because she believes that a barbaric ritual supposedly purifying in order to gain the right to pray is necessary in order to marry a virgin and be a faithful wife.

It is outrageous to involve African women in a ritual that has nothing to do with religion. In our sub-Saharan African countries, "cutting out" is practiced by animists, Christians and Muslims, as well as by Jews. The origins of the tradition in the distant past, even before the arrival of the Muslim religion. Men wanted this for several reasons: they wanted to consolidate their power, they wanted to be sure that their wives would not leave for other men, and men from enemy tribes would not rape their wives. Other explanations, even more absurd, were that the female genitals are supposedly dirty, diabolical, and the clitoris, also diabolical, is capable of contacting the head of a newborn child to doom him to God knows what misfortune and even death. Some thought that this false copy of a small penis tarnished male power.

But only the desire to dominate was the real reason. And women were subjected to execution, because there could be no question of "seeing" or "touching" this intimate part of female nature.

At seven years old I have no idea, like other girls my age, that I have a clitoris and what it serves, I never noticed it and never will see it again. The only thing I think about this morning is the forthcoming unbearable pain, about which some rumors reached me, but which, as it seemed to me then, would not affect me. I recalled how someone’s mother or grandmother threatened some little naughty boy, holding a knife or scissors in her hands, took out his little “appendix” and shouted terrible words for him: “If you don’t obey, I’ll cut it off for you! » The boy always ran away from this "threat of castration", apparently remembering the pain and torment. However, having experienced them once, he will not suffer later: in his case, it is a purely hygienic tradition.

But I saw girls walking with a strange gait, like geese, sitting down with difficulty and crying for two or three days, and sometimes for a whole week. Then I felt protected, because I was still small.

Back in 1967, I did not know what this bleeding intimate cut would represent for me in the future. He will lead me, however, along the long path of a difficult and sometimes bitter life, to the United Nations, where I will enter in the year 2005.

My heart starts beating wildly. They try to convince us that we don't need to cry when "cleansing" occurs. You have to be courageous. Grandmothers are well aware that we are still small and will definitely scream and cry, but they do not talk about pain. They explain, "It won't last long, you'll hurt just a little, but it'll all be over after that, so be strong."

There are no men next to us. They are in the mosque or in the field before the onset of the great heat. There is no one with whom I could hide, and most importantly, my grandfather. In that era, the traditions in the village were still strong, and our mothers and grandmothers had to do this with us. And point. They didn't ask any questions. For example, about whether it is necessary to do this while living in the city, or about what happens in other houses, with other ethnic groups. On our street there were only two families practicing "carving": the one that came from Casamance, the Manding family, and ours - the dream book. The Tikulers and Bambara who lived at a distance also observed the traditions. Our parents were going to marry us later to cousins from our own family. They needed real soninke wives, traditional ones. No one thought that one day there will be mixed marriages between different ethnic groups.

Soninke, Serer, Peul, Bambara and Tukulers are ethnic groups that migrated from the village to the city. And in each such family, parents make every effort not to forget their native village and pass on the customs to their children. There are many good traditions, but this one is horrendous.

The girls freeze in fear to the point where they can probably pee. But no one is trying to escape - this is unthinkable. Even if we keep looking for someone who can take us away from here. Such a person could be a grandfather ... If he realized the seriousness of what was happening, he could intervene. But I don't think he was aware of the events. The women accuse the men of instigation, but in many villages they are not told anything, except when the "cutting" becomes collective and the whole village knows about it. In big cities, this is done at home, and even secretly, so that the neighbors do not know. My dad was not around, no one asked either his opinion or the opinion of his maternal grandfather. These are women's affairs, and we must become the same as mothers and grandmothers.

They deployed two large mats, one in front of the door to the room, the other at the entrance to the shower room. The room resembles all the other rooms of the mothers of families: a large bed, a small sideboard and an iron chest where the goods of every woman are kept. The room has a door leading to a small shower room, it has a hole in the cement floor and a jug of water, there is also a pantry for storing food. Other clothes intended for us are laid out on the bed. I no longer remember which of us was called first, I was so scared. We wanted to see what would happen, but the grandmothers strictly forbade us:

- Get out of there! Go sit down! Sit on the floor. We have no right to watch what they do to others. There are three or four women and one little girl in the room. I had tears. There were four or five of us waiting in line. I sit on the threshold with outstretched legs, trembling and shrinking all over from the cries of others.

Finally, it's my turn. Two women lead me into a room. One holds my head from behind and with all the weight of her body presses on my shoulders so that I do not move; the other, spreading my legs, holds my knees. Sometimes, if the girl is tall and strong, more women are needed to calm her down.

The lady doing the procedure has her own blade for each of the girls, specially bought by the mother. The lady, with all her strength, pulls a small piece of flesh with her fingers and cuts it off, as if chopping zebu meat into pieces. Unfortunately, she is unable to do it in one motion. She has to cut.

My screams still ring in my ears.

I cried, I screamed:

- I will tell my father about this, I will tell grandfather Kizima! Kizima, Kizima, Kizima, come quickly, they will kill me, come after me, they will kill me, come... Ay! Come! Baba, baba, where are you, baba? When dad comes, he will kill you all, he will kill you ...

The woman cuts, shreds and taunts with a calm smile, as if to say: "Well, yes, when your dad comes, he will kill me, it's true."

I call for help my whole family, grandfather, dad and mom too, I need to do something, I need to shout about my protest against injustice. My eyes are closed, I don't want to look, I don't want to see this woman mutilate me.

Blood splatters in her face. Pain that cannot be described, like no other, like my guts are being pulled out, like a hammer is beating in my head. After a few minutes, I no longer feel the pain below, it is all over my body, which has suddenly become a haven for a hungry rat or an army of mice. The pain permeates everything - from head to toe, passing through the stomach.

I started to faint when one of the women splashed cold water on my face to wash away the blood that had splashed on it. This prevented me from losing consciousness. At that moment I thought that I was going to die, that I was already dead. And in fact, I no longer felt my body, only a terrible shudder of all the nerves inside and a heaviness in my head, which, it seemed to me, could burst.

For a full five minutes, this woman cuts, shreds, pulls, and then does it again to make sure that everything has been “cleaned up”. I hear like a distant prayer:

- Calm down, it's almost over, you are a courageous girl... Calm down... Don't move... The more you move, the more it will hurt you.

When she finished chopping, she began to wipe the dripping blood with a piece of cloth soaked in warm water. I was told later that she added her own product to it, probably something disinfectant. Then she lubricates the wound with oil karite, diluted with black soot to avoid infections, but neither before nor during the operation, no one explains anything.

When it was over, they told me:

- Now get up!

They help me up because I can hardly feel my legs. I feel pain only in my head, where the hammer is pounding furiously, and nowhere else. My body was cut in two.

I hated that woman, and she was already approaching another girl with a blade to hurt her the same way.

Grandmothers took care of me, dried me with a new cloth and put on a loincloth. Since I can't walk, they carry me on a plank and put me on a mat next to the other, already "cut out" girls, who are still crying. And I cry too, while the next one takes my place in the torture chamber in horror.

It's a pain I could never describe. I have never experienced anything more painful in my life. I gave birth, suffered from renal colic - there are no similar pains. But that day I thought that I would fall asleep and never wake up, the pain was so strong. The violence done to my childish body was incomprehensible to me. No one warned me about anything - not older sisters, not adult friends, no one. What happened was even more unfair and cruel, because there was no explanation. Why was I punished? This thing that I got cut off with a razor blade, what did it serve? Why was she removed if I was born with her? I must have carried something evil in me, something diabolical, if I had to get rid of it in order to get the right to pray to God? Unclear.

We remained sprawled on the mat until the latter collapsed on him, crying. When the lady finished her job and “cut out” everyone, the women, before leaving the torture room, washed her from the blood of the “cleansed”. Then mothers and grandmothers came to console us:

- Stop crying, you are strong, don't cry like that. Even if it hurts, you need to be courageous, because it's all over, everything is over ... Stop crying.

But we can't stop. Crying is necessary - this is our only defense.

And the boys from the neighboring houses look at us in silence, stunned by traces of blood and tears from their girlfriends in the game.

I knew the woman who cut me out. She is alive today. Grandmother Nionth of the blacksmith caste was the same age as my grandmothers, she went to the market at the same hour as they did, and regularly met with them as a caste woman devoted to our family. The blacksmith's wife, she was responsible for the "cutting" of girls, and her husband for the circumcision of boys. So at that time this tradition passed from the village to the city and reached the second largest city in the country - Thiès.

Grandma Nyontu returned that same evening to take care of us, then came back the next day. And so every subsequent morning. On the first day, the pain was unbearable. I lie, unable to turn either to the left or to the right, only on my buttocks, helping myself with my hands to raise myself a little and try to ease the pain. But nothing helps. The need to urinate when you can't do so is another torment. No consolation helps. Our traditional breakfast varnish, decoction of millet and sour milk - made in our honor. But none of us can swallow a crumb. We are not even encouraged by the dance of one of the grandmothers, who claps her hands with jokes to sing of our courage. What courage? I didn't have it and couldn't have it. And at this time, mothers, aunts and grandmothers give our “cutter” either fabric, rice, oats or bouba, or a small banknote. At lunchtime I realized that, in order to mark the occasion, one or two sheep had been slaughtered. So the men knew about the execution. And right after we were brought the dish we were unable to eat, I saw a family celebrating.

I haven't eaten anything for almost two days. It was not until the evening of the second day that we were given some soup, which was supposed to ease the pain. I also had to drink water because of the heat. Fresh water relieved the condition for two or three seconds.

Care procedures are very painful. The blood is baked and the lady scrapes it off with a blade. Washing relieves our suffering, but first we need her to pull, scrape with this damned razor. And I can’t fall asleep, I lie with my legs apart - instinctively I’m afraid to connect them so as not to cause pain. Everyone around is trying to calm us down, but nothing comes of it. Only water saves, I want to plunge into it, but this is impossible, since the scar has not yet healed.

Get up and try walking.

It's impossible, I refuse. I do not stop the poster, I plunge into a slumber from fatigue and despair, because no one came to save me. In the evening I am forced to get up to sleep in a room with others - a dozen cripples stretched out on a mat with their legs apart. No one talks, it seems that the lead fetters fettered our joyful childhood. Each has her own pain, similar, of course, to the one that the other is experiencing, but it is not known whether she suffered it the same way. Maybe I'm not as masculine as the rest.

Everything in my mind is in a fog. I don't know who to blame for what happened. The lady I hated? My parents? Aunts? Grandparents? I feel like I blame everyone. I am offended by the whole world. When I realized what awaited me, I was very scared, but I did not think that it would be so scary. I did not know that they would cut so deep and that the pain would be so intense and last for several days until it began to subside. Grandmothers brought herbal tincture to moisten our foreheads and hot broth.

Days go by, and the pain gradually disappears, but psychologically it is still difficult. Four days later, I feel physically better, but my head still hurts. It's cracking from the inside, as if it's about to burst. Maybe because I couldn't turn from one side to the other, stretched out on the mattress, or because I couldn't urinate for two days. It was the hardest. Grandmothers explained to us that the more we endure and do not go to the toilet, the more painful it will be for us. They are right, but you have to be able to do it. And I'm scared, because the first one who tried to urinate was screaming like she was being cut again. After that, others endured. Some were more courageous and "liberated" the same evening. I was able to make up my mind only two days later, I was in a lot of pain. I screamed and cried again...

Week of care - regular treatment of the wound, morning and evening with oil karite and crushed herbs with the same mysterious names as the words of a woman muttering something under her breath while applying this black, like ashes, potion. Her lamentations, interspersed with prayer, are intended to keep bad fate away from us and are designed to help us recover. And we believe in it, even if we do not understand anything. The woman brainwashes me by muttering words known only to her. As soon as the blood stops flowing, I will be safe from the evil eye.

Gradually, grandfather and other men appear. I believe they heard the screaming and crying stop. I remember my grandfather putting his hand on my head and reciting a prayer for several minutes. No other consolation.

But I don't tell him anything. I no longer call him for help, it's over, the grief has passed. However, his gaze was not the same as on cloudless days. When I think about it again, I tell myself that maybe he was sad that day ... Grandfather could not do anything: it was impossible to forbid women the ritual that they themselves went through.

There's nothing you can do, you have to trust women.

- Soon you will forget everything, you will be able to walk and run as before.

One day, when the pain is gone, everything will be forgotten. And that's exactly what happened a week later. Something finally changed in me, but I did not realize it. It took me a while to dare to look at the scar. Probably, I was just afraid, besides, this is not in the traditions that women teach us. They teach to wash the body, which we know only that it must be kept clean. You should never forget about it because of the threat of an unpleasant odor. Mothers often repeat this.

Three or four weeks later, when my cousins left for Dakar and each of them returned to their former lives, one day, while washing, I decided to see what they had cut out for me. The scar has become hard. I lightly touched it with my hand, because it still hurt, and assumed that it was there that something was cut off. But what?

For about a month and a half, I felt pain, as if I had a bud inside and it could not bloom in any way. Then I stopped thinking about it at all and didn’t even ask questions. I didn't ask them myself. Grandmothers were right, it is forgotten. No one warns us that our future life as a woman will not be the same as that of others.

One day a lady from our neighborhood, who belonged to the Wolof caste, came to our house. She traveled around Mali and knew local customs well. On that day, two of my little cousins were “cut out”. And I heard the lady say loudly: “You, soninke, continue to observe barbarian customs?” You have gone wild!

She said it laughing like she was joking. This is in the tradition of Africa. So they say when they do not want to offend the interlocutor. I did not attach any importance to her words then. And so it went on for many more years, until I began to understand that my fate as a soninke woman originated from there, from this intimate “cutting out”, which forever deprived me of a normal sexual life. It was as if an unknown flower grew in me, but it was not destined to bloom.

And among us Africans there are many who think that this is the order of the day. The transformation of us into women is subject only to the whims of men, who can only pick up a young, cut flower and watch it fade before its time.

In one corner of my memory, I still sit under the mango tree at my grandmother's house, where I was happy and physically unharmed. Ready to be a teenager, then a woman. Ready to love, what I so dreamed of ... I was not allowed to.

I dedicate this book to my mother, my grandparents, brothers and sisters, my children, without whom I would never have had the strength and courage to fight, my companion.

I want to thank everyone I met along the way and who touched me with their involvement in the fight for the physical and moral dignity of a person, fundamental rights and especially the rights of women.

I want to thank all the people who supported me, near or far, in my struggle, and all those who helped me make this book a reality.

The cold here is not for me, African. I'm going. I have always walked a lot. So many that I often got from my mother:

What are you walking? Stop! The whole block is talking about you!

And sometimes she even drew an imaginary line at our doorstep.

Do you see this line? From now on, you will not cross it!

Did you drop it? Well, you can get me!

Are you protecting her? Now I'll show you!

Hadi, if you are sent to do something, you should concentrate on what you are doing! I'm sure you were playing with your friends and didn't see the basket turn over.

It's nice to live in a big house on the outskirts of Thies, a quiet town with wide green streets. It is located at the foot of the mosque, where grandfather and other men go to pray at dawn.

Dad works on the railroad, we rarely see each other. According to our tradition, Grandmother Fuley was assigned to look after me, she is responsible for my upbringing. Fulei is the grandfather's second wife, she has no children of her own. Our childless woman does not suffer from this. My grandmother's house is a hundred meters from ours, and I ply between them, looking for something tasty in one or the other.

There are three boys and five girls in our family, cousins, nieces, aunts in the tribe. We are all brothers and sisters to each other, aunts and nieces, to one and all at once. It's impossible to count us, some of the cousins I don't even know. My family is from the noble Soninke caste. The Soninke used to trade in cloth, gold, and precious stones. Grandfather worked on the railway in Thiesse. He also placed my father there.

I was born shortly before the country gained independence, in 1959, on one of the October days. And in October 1966, at the age of seven, I crossed the school threshold for the first time. Until that time, I lived happily, surrounded by love. I was told about the cultivation of fields, national cuisine, spices that my grandmothers traded in the market. By the age of four or five, I had my own bench. Grandmother Fuley made it for me, because here every child has their own bench. He sits on it when he eats couscous and leaves it in the room of his mother or grandmother, the one who brings him up, bathes, dresses, caresses or punishes him. The bench is the cause of quarrels between children: “You took my bench!”, “Give her a bench, she is older than you!”. It is kept for a long time until the tree withers or its owner grows and becomes the owner of a new bench, larger in size. Then you can pass your bench “by inheritance” to your younger brother or sister.

The day before my cousins came from Dakar for school holidays: Daba's sister, seven years old, Lele, Annie and Ndaye, cousins, and other, more distant relatives, I don't remember their names, With a dozen girls from six to nine years old, sitting spread out feet, on the porch in front of the room of one of the grandmothers. We play different games - "dad and mum", selling spices in the market, cooking with small iron utensils that our parents make for us, and dolls, wooden and cloth.

This evening we sleep, as usual, in the rooms of our grandmother, aunt or mother.

Rita Gracheva is still in the Moscow Clinical Hospital No. 71. On December 11, in Serpukhov, near Moscow, the husband, with whom the 25-year-old woman decided to divorce, took her to the forest and chopped off her wrist. The capital's surgeons were able to save the left hand - they literally assembled it in parts (fractures in eight places) and sewed it on. Now all we have to do is wait to see if it works. With the right hand, everything is difficult. Saving the life of the patient, the doctors had to form a stump, "closing" the vessels. Now all hope is that the family will be able to purchase a prosthesis.

The couple has two children. Boys three and five years old. They are still hiding from them what really happened to their dad and mom.

There are still many blank spots in this story. Why did a girl from an intelligent family choose a boy from a dysfunctional one, who was even expelled from school for his behavior? Did Rita really write a statement to the police a month before the tragedy - after he took her out into the forest for the first time and threatened with a knife? And could she, in six years of living together, never once suspect that she was living with a real sadist?

The mother of the victim, Inna Sheikina, gave an exclusive interview on Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda (97.2 FM in Moscow). About everything in order.

GIRLS CHOOSE BAD BOYS

Rita and Dima studied together with us in Serpukhov in the same college - to cook, - says the woman. - We met there. He began to care. Immediately, it was clear that he was on his own mind. Although he knew how to please, he dressed neatly. In college, for example, his teachers loved him. Didn't drink, didn't smoke. At the same time, by nature, he is rather cocky. Rita now says to me: Mom, now I understand that for some reason many girls really try to choose bad boys.

Grachev's mother raised her alone. As they say, Dmitry's father - also Dmitry Grachev - sat down in the late 90s for 15 years as a participant in a bloody showdown with shooting, where interests were sorted out by two groups of men. After this "arrow" from the outskirts of Serpukhov, nine corpses were taken to the morgue. Article - "Murder of two or more people."

- Did you know what his family is like?

Rita and I found out that dad was in prison only after the wedding. Dima's mother divorced him when the boy was small. This was before landing. I once asked her why they got divorced. She admitted that her husband raised his hand against her. However, I can not say that they have a dysfunctional family. Mom's sister is a lawyer, lives in Moscow. Their grandfather is a musician. My paternal grandmother works in a kindergarten. About the fact that Dima was expelled from school, and he completed his studies in the evening, I also found out only later.

Rita's mother Inna Sheikina. A photo: TV channel "Russia"

- How did they live?

There are mothers, mothers-in-law who try to fit into the family, teach the young to live. It seemed to me that this was wrong. Later I asked Rita - maybe I didn’t know something, didn’t notice? She says that in the first five years he never raised his hand to her. The crisis began when Rita said she wanted to leave him.

Why did she decide to leave?

She is tired of him. Dima has a complex character, he never wanted to compromise. Rita adjusted to him. Recently, Dima stopped helping at all. Even the issue of changing tires on the car had to be solved by myself, I asked my brother to help. Rita says that thoughts of divorce have slipped before. But while she was on maternity leave, she doubted that she would pull two children alone. And when I went to work - I became a marketer in our Serpukhov newspaper - I realized that, at the very least, I could provide for children.

DID THE POLICE BE SURE TO COLLECT THE STATEMENT?

At first there were scandals, because Grachev began to raise his hand against his wife, tore her passport so that she could not apply (the passport was restored, the divorce date was set for January 9 at the registry office), took her to a lie detector - he tried to find out if Rita had another man . On November 11, a month before that very day, for the first time he took me to the forest and threatened with a knife. Rita wrote a statement to the police, took it to the district police officer.

As far as I know, Dima received the first call from the police only 19 days later, - continues Inna Sheikina.

- How did you know that?

From daughter. When we applied, we waited for his response. He broke down for any reason. And after 19 days, he began to make a fuss: why did you tell the police? Said he got a call. They called, you know! Didn't even have a personal conversation? After submitting the application, we ourselves were waiting to be called, when they would be interviewed. We removed the beatings that had been inflicted before. And in response, silence. I called the police, reminded me, they told me: wait, they will call you back! As a result, only after a couple of weeks we were called. We left certificates of beatings to the district police officer. And we were tactfully asked to withdraw the application: “Think about it, do you need it? Here your boys will grow up. Suddenly they want to go to work in the authorities. If a criminal case is opened against their dad, many paths will be closed.”

Dima suspected Rita of treason... They say there was a meeting with a colleague. Is Rita in a relationship?

This happened after Rita announced a divorce and she and Dima parted ways. Rita says that after such stress, she needed someone's support. At work there is a man who himself recently divorced and left his daughter. They had two meetings. Just meetings, in public places. Once he had a daughter with him, the second time he also had one of Rita's sons, they went to the cinema with the children. Perhaps, if you wish, you can call it light flirting. But no kissing, no intimacy. Yes, she did not consider this man as her man in the future. I met Dima several times during their discord. Yes, he was sick. He did not like that the usual way of life was collapsing. And he found the culprit: since Rita leaves, then she is bad, a traitor. Dima started to get paranoid. He decided that Rita has a lover. During these months there were many different threats. He said: “If you don’t live with me, I’ll take you to the forest and bury you,” “I’ll throw acid,” “I found out from dad where you can get weapons.” "I'll put you in the car, I'll accelerate and we'll crash together."

"FOR AN ATTEMPT TO RUN BEAT WITH AN AX"

I think that last week he clearly knew what he would do with Rita, the woman continues. - He planned everything. For several days he behaved very correctly in order to lull her vigilance. On that day, he brought the children to the kindergarten, then took Rita to me - we were going to go with the children to Kostroma to the residence of the Snow Maiden for the birthday of our grandson. Rita took a bag from me, in which she was supposed to pack things for this trip. She is telling me now: she wanted to put the bag in the trunk, but Dima got nervous: no, no, put it in the back seat. Now it is already clear that an ax and harnesses were in the trunk, and he did not want Rita to see them ahead of time.

When Rita did not come to work, her colleagues called her mother. Grachev several times staged scenes of jealousy in front of everyone, so they worried about Rita. Inna Vladimirovna called her daughter, Dima, but both did not pick up the phone.

I dialed his mom's number. She said: “I drink valerian. He just sent me a text message…” He sent a message to all his relatives. The meaning is something like this: "I'm sorry, I can not live in deception." I think my mother knew about his plans. Because on THAT day she cried into the phone: “I told him, I told him a hundred times that there was no need to do anything ...”

Sheikina started calling the police, rushed to the police department. On the way, she was caught by a call: “Your daughter is in the hospital. Alive, but ... Come.

What does Rita remember about that terrible day?

As he drove further into the forest, he stopped. He took an ax out of the trunk and threatened to kill him. He tied Rita's hands with bundles - in front of him. Made them drop on a stump. She says that for the first forty minutes he simply threatened - he asked to confess to treason, told what he would do with Rita. She remembered one phrase: “I will cut off your hands now. You loved petting the kids with them! But now you won't have hands."

- Did she try to run away?

Yes. For this, he beat her with an ax on her legs - there are three chopped wounds on one of her legs. The worst thing is that all this time Rita was conscious. She says that when he began to chop with an ax on his hands, she looked at them - there is a continuous bloody mess. I looked once and didn't look again. To not go crazy. I don't know what kind of strong psyche you need to have to survive this.

"I WILL GO BACK AND FILL WHAT I HAVE NOT DONE"

Apparently, Dmitry Grachev did not intend to kill his wife. Chopping off her hands, he put Rita in the car and drove back to the city, to the hospital.

On the way, he asked: “Are you dead there yet?” And he promised: “I will go to jail, but if you don’t wait for me from prison, I will return and finish what I didn’t finish. I will cut off the hands of your mother and all relatives. He took her to the hospital and immediately went to surrender to the police. He made a confession. He cooperates with the investigation - he even helped to look for a severed hand in the forest. He says he's remorseful. Legally, this will all be considered extenuating circumstances. All this will be taken into account at the trial and will reduce its final term. Lawyers say that he will be given only 6-7 years. There is a conditional release under this article. Theoretically, he can return to Serpukhov in three years. I seriously fear that he will come back to take revenge on us. Don't know what to do? Who will protect us? Some acquaintances advise to leave Serpukhov, to get lost. But how to do that? We have a big family: me, Rita, children, I also have a younger son. It is now impossible to hide so as not to be found - there are links to some documents. And after what happened, I have no doubt that if he has such a goal, he will be able to find us, wherever we go!

AND AT THIS TIME

Has the hand taken root - too early to say

- We already wrote that Rita began to move the thumb of the sewn hand. Does this mean that the hand has taken root?

Doctors explain that so far it is impossible to say. After such operations, several crises must pass. The first - in 5-7 days. He's already behind. Rejection, thank God, did not happen.

- Will all the normal functions of the hand be able to return after this?

Until the doctors talk about it. They don't want to be hopeful. The operation was very difficult.

- Did you manage to choose a prosthesis?

We already had a prosthetist. There is a company in the Moscow region that is ready to provide a prosthesis with a maximum discount. And we were told that there is a sponsor, a businessman who will pay for it. We were shown three models. They explained that there are several nuances. The prosthesis is designed for two to three years of work. Plus, every year it will need to be removed and sent for maintenance to Germany. Together with the shipment, it takes at least two months. One is probably not enough. A suitable prosthesis costs 1.8 million rubles. But it allows you to move only two fingers - thumb and forefinger. There is a more functional option, but this is such a large male palm, quite noisy. Everything needs to be weighed and thought through. We received an impressive amount. But I don't know yet how they will have to be distributed.

- Who is with the children now?

With a friend of Rita's. I told the children that my mother had an accident, and now her hands are being treated. Of course, the guys miss Rita very much. We want to bring them on Saturday. The hospital said that children of this age should not be brought into the ward. We want to try to take Rita out into the street somehow so that they can talk a little.

BY THE WAY

Why did Grachev study psychology?

It's not that he wanted to be a psychologist, - says Inna Sheikina. - You just needed to get a higher education. He entered the correspondence department at the Serpukhov branch of the National Institute of Catherine the Great (a small Moscow university, - Auth.). Studied for four and a half years. Of course, Rita helped him, even wrote some works for him. Three-quarters of his diploma is her merit.

QUESTION - RIB

Why didn't the police officer react?

Obvious question. Perhaps if Rita's statement had been given a go, this bloody execution would not have happened?

When this topic was discussed on Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, a listener, a former security officer himself, called on the air. He asked not to rush to draw unambiguous conclusions on the actions of the district police officer.

Unfortunately, in this particular story, everything rests not only on the actions of a police officer, - Alexander said. - The statement was written on the fact of being taken to the forest and threatened with a knife. But at the same time, the district police officer could not attach anything to this statement, no “proof” - there are no witnesses, there are no video recordings, there are no injuries. I assure you: even if he had opened a criminal case, the prosecutor's office would have canceled the decision to initiate it. Because there is no reason. Only words. I understand that this sounds crazy after this, but it's a fact.

How should potential victims act in this case? Wait until the knife enters the stomach and only then go to the police?

It is a fact that reports of domestic violence in the police are most often accepted with difficulty. Nobody wants to do extra work. Because, as they say, 95% of such applications are taken by women the very next day. Either out of pity, or estimating that if her husband is imprisoned, there will be no one to feed her and the children.

Moreover, this happens not only after beatings and slight bodily harm, - says a former investigator, and now a well-known lawyer Vadim Bagaturia. - A familiar investigator conducted the case: the husband attacked his wife with a knife. The woman was seriously injured and spent several weeks in the hospital. She left, and... She ran to the investigator. She begged to let her husband go and close the case. Loved. And it was not a marginal family at all.

In the head office of the Moscow Region police "KP" confirmed that the statement of Margarita Gracheva was indeed accepted by the district police officer. But they are not ready to discuss the actions of their employee there yet. An internal audit is being carried out. Now they are investigating whether the policeman acted strictly according to the letter of the law or how. The test results are expected to be announced within the next week.

Domestic Violence - Poll. Apester is a platform that offers an assortment of free online storytelling tools that enable publishers to engage with their audience.

Cola brugnon, the character of the famous French writer Romain Rolland, called his wife, who was always yelling at him, his "wealth", and her cries - "songs". Truly stoic worldview! But for most men, women's screams cause only an obsessive desire to run away to hell. And since screaming is not at all a burden for most women, the life of such a husband very quickly turns into a nightmare.

First of all, it is necessary to understand the reasons for this domestic tyranny. What makes a woman mutate into a siren so often? Well, there can be many reasons, but all of them, in the end, can be called one general concept - dissatisfaction with one's own life. And there can be many different kinds of dissatisfaction.

Let's start with the one that comes to mind first. sexual dissatisfaction. So many modern women live year after year without getting sexual satisfaction and the necessary regular discharge. Is it any wonder that they are so angry and nervous, and want to yell at someone? But sometimes they themselves do not want to have sex with their husband, because they have long ceased to see him as a real man.

Why can't they see it? object sexual arousal? Often the reason for this is banal disrespect. How many men do we have lying on the couch today, while the woman herself provides? How many alcoholics, lazybones and parasites do nothing but drink their property while the wife, almost howling, drags the children? Of course, there is nothing you can do to help them, and it remains only to sympathize with these unfortunate people.

Dissatisfaction can also be the result of hard, nervous work. Smiling at clients all day, a woman often leaves the office very worried, anxious, she begins to break down. So that they do not repeat too often, the psyche includes protective mechanisms, one of which involves the release of negative emotions through the manifestation of aggression. And the lack of attention on the part of her husband to this problem of hers makes him an ideal target for retribution for all the hardships of her life.

It happens that, to no lesser extent, a woman " seize"and everyday issues. Mountains of unwashed dishes that are always on it, keeping the house, constant cleaning, washing, ironing, and even children around the neck. Here, any eye twitches in a nervous tic and uninterrupted work of the psyche cannot be guaranteed.

It is also impossible to ignore the features education. A girl who grew up in a house where it is customary to solve all problems with shouting and swearing will transfer this stereotype of behavior to her new home. Here she, too, will begin to practice the same behavior, breaking down on everyone in a row for the slightest reason.

So what do in such a situation? How to deal with the "fist-woman"? After all, coexistence with such a person is sometimes really painful. The whole life turns into a continuous hell, and the man runs away from home to appear there less and less often, or not appear at all, joyfully falling into the arms of some less noisy mistress.

Useless try to outdo your wife, this will not give anything in the long run (however, most likely, it will not give anything in the short one either), but will only aggravate the situation and make the scandal more destructive. Once you understand the reason, you need to act.

Let's take, for example, sex life. For most of our compatriots, it is boring, gray and miserable. We need to add some fresh colors to it. Bold experiments, role-playing, why not? A visit to a sex shop will help you come up with some interesting idea that will satisfy both of you, both literally and figuratively.

But what if female lost interest in you as a man? Well, you need to change, change your attitude towards her. Start small - give her a small bouquet of flowers. Just like that, not for an anniversary, not for the eighth of March, not for Mother's Day. And just on a random day, give her flowers. Because you have it. For being so good. And already on the same day there will be a little less screaming. Then take another rule: kiss her every morning. Before breakfast, for example. A couple of tender words and just a kiss on the cheek of a loving husband is a completely different start to the day, incompatible with screams and tantrums.

Likewise, ask her work. Let her complain to you well, perhaps even cry. And it will already be easier for her, if only because you care, that you understand her, that she is not alone in this world and there is a kindred spirit to whom you can come with your problems. Or maybe you can convince her to quit this nervous activity and save her nerves. There is a lot of work today, you don’t need to cling to one that spoils your health and takes away vitality.

In case this cultural feature- to solve everything with a cry, then we must take up re-education. First of all, let her know that you will not tolerate screaming and are not going to communicate with her when she is yelling alone. Just ignore her every cry, calmly repeating that you are ready to communicate with her only when she herself calms down and stops hysteria.

find time talk to your wife about this problem, not when she is angry, but on the contrary, when she is in a calm mood. Then you will come to a peace agreement and understanding much faster. Agree on certain rules that from now on will be in force on the territory of your home. That raising one's voice is now an illegal act, that it is impossible to solve a case by shouting.

Get ready and go for some concessions to his wife. Promise that you will pay more attention to her than you do now. That you will listen more often to what she says to you and be more responsible for her words. And don't expect everything to get better right away - it takes some time. At first, out of habit, she will still often break down, but do not get angry and do not escalate the situation. Calmly encourage her to follow the established rules. If both of you show enough patience, then in time screaming and yelling will become a thing of the past. And your life will become much easier.