Monster

I grew up early. Both Mum and Dad worked, and before I was even a teenager, I was often left to look after my baby sister and cook for the whole family. My parents were always fair and supportive, letting me suffer the consequences of my own, however dumb, decisions. When I barely hit eighteen and entered my first marriage, no one objected or even found it surprising - by that age, I was more than capable of running a household and looking after myself and others. And sure enough, this teenage union happily lasted fifteen years before amicably ending when we realised we were on our way towards completely different horizons.

But now, two decades later, nothing I do is good enough. I get told off for the way I hang up the washing, the way I clean, the way I do my nails. I get lectured if I take a little longer in the shower or forget to turn off the tiny switches next to the powerpoint outlets. Who is this person, constantly on my back, ready with a touch of sarcasm, a put-down, or a snide observation? Who is dishing out the daily dose of abuse? The Love of My Life. The Monster.

I like to think of myself as educated, savvy, and independent. I've lived quite a number of years. How did I end up here?

There are people who have this rare gift. They may be charming and intelligent, but that's not what will make you fall for them. They will look at you with adoring puppy eyes across the table, oblivious to the rest of the dinner guests. They will deliver prideful this-hot-girl-is-my-lover looks when you're out together. They will make you think every crazy-in-love song ever written is about the two of you, you just used to think it was some soapy wordplay because you'd never felt like this before.

That special person will show you that you mean the world to him and demand the same from you. He will become the self-appointed Person-You-Cannot-Live-Without.

Once you've developed an unwavering faith in this prerogative of his, he will start revealing his true colours. That loving face will contort into an irritated grimace. The soft voice that was just telling you he's been waiting for you his whole life will blame you for every mishap and misfortune. You'll be upset, but you'll forgive because by now you've gotten in way over your head. You're so in love, your brain is struck blank.

Meanwhile, the apex predator ensures your lives get more and more intertwined. It's no longer the fairy-tale you've signed up for, but you keep going deeper because even though right now your loved one may seem a little evil, you know how kind and caring he really is, and surely things will go back to normal soon. You know this person. He is a part of you. No matter how bad things are, leaving is not an option. Leaving is like chopping off your own arm. Or leg. You. Can Not. Leave.

I've spent a year in la-la lands.

There was an Australian la-la land, where my Brazilian fantasy, handsomely bearded around his porcelain movie-star smile, turned up of my doorstep to stay for two days and settled for a couple of months. He cooked and helped around the house and woke me up multiple times per night to make love.

I followed him to Brazilian la-la land, where we stayed in his agricultural-magnate-grandfather's lavish apartment, and he drove me all over Central Brazil, showing off the best of his country.

We met again in Indonesian la-la land, where he gave me a taste of how sweet it can be to travel and adventure together. The trip was cut short by a motorbike accident (him at the wheel, me riding pillion), in which the only casualty was my broken foot. I flew home, and two days later, he called me to say he couldn't live without me. Let's get married. He got a new job in his hometown in the north of Brazil, so let's go there to get married and live, for a while at least. Yes! A million times, yes!

I took online Portuguese classes every day until my foot had healed enough to fly again.

This is how I ended up here, locked up in a tiny flat, on the outskirts of São Félix do Xingu, a country town in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, where all roads end and the only way further is by boat. I'm four flights and two days by bus away from home, in a room we've rented: a sweaty mosquito-infested cell with metal bars on a microscopic window. Outside is a small cemented yard and a tall fence topped with barbed wire. Everything: the room, the yard, the fence – is rain- damaged off-white.

During the day, the Monster is at work, and the only sign I'm not alone in the world is the music pumping from a creep joint around the corner. In the evenings, there's also a gospel choir from a church next door. I'm not sure what kind of church. The couple of times we walked past, I saw a wall-sized photo of a lion where an altar would normally be.

I can't go out on my own. “It's too dangerous,” says the Monster as he locks the doors and takes the keys. He's not making it up. The week before I arrived, two of the town's three bank brunches were blown up to shreds. It's not just our apartment – the whole town is behind barbed wire.

I have to keep our room sparkling bone-white, but there is bird shit on the window that's been there for years and doesn't seem to bother anyone but me. I have time on my hands, so I set aside a bird-shit-cleaning day. Brushing away mosquitoes, I go at it with a kitchen knife and soak it in soapy water, I scrub scrub scrub, and here we are. Twenty percent more sunlight in my cell.

At half-past eleven each day, the Monster comes home for lunch, and if I don't have food on the table, his smile turns wickedly elastic.

If I talk too much or not talk enough, if he's had a bad dream, or if he finds something in my phone that might suggest he's not the only human in my world, there is punishment. Sometimes, he ignores me, as if I have evaporated. Other times, he screams, and I wish I'd keep my trap shut and not answer because then it gets so much worse. When I answer, he grabs my passport and holds it against a lighter: “Do X right now or I'm setting this piece of shit on fire!” He kicks my foot, not quite healed yet from our Indonesian accident. An X-ray shows it freshly re-broken.

The Monster stands in his jocks in the yard. Rain is bucketing down, as it always does in this part of the world, diluting his tears. “I've become the person I hate the most.” Then, stop! But he can't. He glories in my humiliation and confusion. This way, he gets to own me.

This strange reality will soon become permanent. My unconditional love is like an incurable sickness, completely beyond my control. I'm carried by some inner current that renders all rational thoughts irrelevant, all solid advice unacceptable. I make some phone calls in my broken Portuguese, to arrange a hairstylist and a photographer for our big day. Two weeks left before the wedding.

I've read somewhere that all human vice and virtue boils down to two basic instincts: self-preservation and procreation. All our emotions, aspirations, ambition serve just these two, if you really pull things apart.

One night when I'm huddled quietly in a corner after another screamfest, the Monster grabs me by the neck, breathing hot damp words in my face: “You're my wife... you have to be close to me.”

“I'm not. I'm not your wife just yet!” I'm wriggling my best but he is strong.

If I don't leave, soon I may not exist. My aptitude for self-preservation is finally kicking in.

I wait for things to calm down a little and ask the Monster to leave me the keys when he does to work: I need to get some stuff at the market. Really keen to surprise him with a new dish. Once he's out the door, I limp out into the battlefield. It is my first independent outing in a month. My hobbling legs deliver me to the bus station, my tongue asks when is the next bus to as far away as possible. There is one to Brasília, the capital, tomorrow morning.

I stop by for a coffee at a petrol station, the town's only cafeteria, slurping in relief. I can even hear the birds chirp or something, something other than the cathouse tunes. I make copies of the keys so that I can leave without the Monster knowing until I'm hundreds of miles away. A week left before the wedding. There will always be a week left.

The morning I trudge to the bus station is pure mud after a day and a night of rain. I've never
disliked any place as intensely as the one I'm leaving. It's a thirty-six-hour ride to freedom, long
sleepless hours listening to voices in my head, trying to keep my leg lifted so that it wouldn't swell
as much.

When I reach Brazil's odd capital city, I'm in need of a drink. Something with high alcohol content.

The cheerful hostel receptionist recommends a nearby Ressaca de Carnaval (Carnival Hangover) party. The carnival has just finished, spent performing forgettable feats of domestic compliance behind the bars of the Monster's apartment.

I thought I'd seen a lot of parties, but this one is an eye-opener. The clothing which could properly cover twenty people at most is patched over two hundred bodies gyrating in a basement reminiscent of cold-war catacombs beneath Moscow city. I'm the only one who's dressed and straight, but I'm used to being an oddball. One drink and I'll go back to the hostel.

I wake up at five in the morning on a barrel in a corner of the dungeon, a few pairs of hands going through my pockets. This is not my first time in Brazil, and I've learnt what happens in this country if you're out and about with anything of value, especially after dark. The rule: no phone, no documents, no cards. A little bit of cash stashed in the bra. How disappointing for the enterprising lot who played the Boa Noite Cinderela (Good Night Cinderella) trick on me, spiking my drink.

At the time my flight stops boarding, I'm still getting anti-vomit injections at the airport medical centre. Maybe I'm not ready to go home just yet. I'll hang out in Uruguay until I feel a bit more human again.

It will take some time to grow back all my body parts, but I will.

I am free.

There will be other years, other countries, other people, so much of everything I love yet to be lived.

One day, I'll be able to thank the Universe for this beautiful challenge. One day, I'll be able to say it has raised my vibration. One day, sooner than I dare to believe.

-Janie Borisov

Australian-based travel writer Janie Borisov has spent the last two decades visiting all of the 193 UN Member Countries, most autonomous territories, several unrecognized states, and all sorts of hidden corners. A self-diagnosed Traveloid (a human genetically designed to drift and wander), she is often found treading some little-known path, taking all the wrong turns, and constantly scribbling in her notebook. When not circling the globe, Janie is busy writing travel stories and working on her first book Tripping All Over.