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Authors: Guy Mankowski
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eyes, she looks green. Many times I have feared how this waiflike woman would have
reacted if she had seen what was to happen to her two precious daughters. I don’t know enough about her to know if she possessed any fight. But the fight I have found in me, when my back has
been against the wall, suggests that she would have done. She certainly would not have taken what happened next lying down. I know she would have fought with every ounce of strength in her body.
Either way, without our mother, life suddenly became very difficult.
Nine months after she died, Bruna Zlenko discovered my father. Bruna met him during the sale of some offices that she part-owned the lease on, when he was first starting a business with my Uncle
Leo. Bruna wiped the dust from my father’s eyes and promised to raise his two daughters if he kept her in return. At first it was little more than a contract, born out of my father’s
desperation. He felt utterly overwhelmed at having to raise Inessa and me alone and Bruna seemed like a solution, albeit not a particularly romantic one. But over the years Bruna gained a hold on
him, and she became almost a wife to him. He feared her, but he became convinced he needed her in a way that I could never quite fathom.
Bruna could not have been more different to my mother. She had a flat, almost feral face, and a naturally downturned mouth. Her eyes were always narrowed and she was quick tempered. From an
early age my sister and I proved that we were tenacious enough to fend for ourselves, and that my father was capable of filling any gaps, but it was this essential truth which started the troubles.
Bruna knew that her best chance of keeping my father was to convince him that his daughters needed extra attention. Without finding such a role to play, Bruna would have had little chance of
keeping a man like my father – an enterprising and handsome businessman. At first, my father was reluctant to accept that his daughters were especially troublesome, but battered by
Bruna’s persistence he eventually acquiesced and at least outwardly accepted that Inessa and I were difficult children. Any of the usual misdemeanours reported by the school took on a
sinister edge when Bruna relayed them. I have always found the tendency to colour information in that way a rather sickening trait. Bruna knew that Inessa and I had a natural intelligence that
would one day render her presence redundant. And knowing that, she loathed us from the start. She knew it would be one hell of a challenge to prove to the world that we were useless. Her way of
doing it was to constantly talk down our abilities to our father, and to seal us off from him enough so that he could hopefully not realise the truth. At first she was only able to do this by
pretending it was done out of affection for my father, who seemed permanently weary from work. Consequently he allowed Bruna to have more access to us than she should have done.
Unfortunately, the more she learnt about us, the more she found reason to despise us. Her ability to distance us from him gave her many opportunities to express her venom. I don’t want to
go into this too much, Noah, not because I won’t tell you, but because – and I hope you understand this – I have fought so hard to escape what she did. Bruna was given an almost
free rein in raising us, and over time she found very inventive ways to express her hatred of us. She created a secret culture, away from my father’s eyes, in which she constantly bullied,
taunted and abused us. With my father leaving early every morning to work, Bruna would wash and dress us, arguing that my sister in particular was unable to do this well enough on her own.
(Thinking of my sister now I realise how laughable this is, for she is a successful businesswoman, tactful and assertive, and unscarred in a way that suggests great resilience.) Bruna was so able
to convince my father that she was a problem that she was still
reacted if she had seen what was to happen to her two precious daughters. I don’t know enough about her to know if she possessed any fight. But the fight I have found in me, when my back has
been against the wall, suggests that she would have done. She certainly would not have taken what happened next lying down. I know she would have fought with every ounce of strength in her body.
Either way, without our mother, life suddenly became very difficult.
Nine months after she died, Bruna Zlenko discovered my father. Bruna met him during the sale of some offices that she part-owned the lease on, when he was first starting a business with my Uncle
Leo. Bruna wiped the dust from my father’s eyes and promised to raise his two daughters if he kept her in return. At first it was little more than a contract, born out of my father’s
desperation. He felt utterly overwhelmed at having to raise Inessa and me alone and Bruna seemed like a solution, albeit not a particularly romantic one. But over the years Bruna gained a hold on
him, and she became almost a wife to him. He feared her, but he became convinced he needed her in a way that I could never quite fathom.
Bruna could not have been more different to my mother. She had a flat, almost feral face, and a naturally downturned mouth. Her eyes were always narrowed and she was quick tempered. From an
early age my sister and I proved that we were tenacious enough to fend for ourselves, and that my father was capable of filling any gaps, but it was this essential truth which started the troubles.
Bruna knew that her best chance of keeping my father was to convince him that his daughters needed extra attention. Without finding such a role to play, Bruna would have had little chance of
keeping a man like my father – an enterprising and handsome businessman. At first, my father was reluctant to accept that his daughters were especially troublesome, but battered by
Bruna’s persistence he eventually acquiesced and at least outwardly accepted that Inessa and I were difficult children. Any of the usual misdemeanours reported by the school took on a
sinister edge when Bruna relayed them. I have always found the tendency to colour information in that way a rather sickening trait. Bruna knew that Inessa and I had a natural intelligence that
would one day render her presence redundant. And knowing that, she loathed us from the start. She knew it would be one hell of a challenge to prove to the world that we were useless. Her way of
doing it was to constantly talk down our abilities to our father, and to seal us off from him enough so that he could hopefully not realise the truth. At first she was only able to do this by
pretending it was done out of affection for my father, who seemed permanently weary from work. Consequently he allowed Bruna to have more access to us than she should have done.
Unfortunately, the more she learnt about us, the more she found reason to despise us. Her ability to distance us from him gave her many opportunities to express her venom. I don’t want to
go into this too much, Noah, not because I won’t tell you, but because – and I hope you understand this – I have fought so hard to escape what she did. Bruna was given an almost
free rein in raising us, and over time she found very inventive ways to express her hatred of us. She created a secret culture, away from my father’s eyes, in which she constantly bullied,
taunted and abused us. With my father leaving early every morning to work, Bruna would wash and dress us, arguing that my sister in particular was unable to do this well enough on her own.
(Thinking of my sister now I realise how laughable this is, for she is a successful businesswoman, tactful and assertive, and unscarred in a way that suggests great resilience.) Bruna was so able
to convince my father that she was a problem that she was still
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