The Unknown Confidante

By Andrea Virk

The true story of a woman who lost the most precious thing in her life because of another woman. Apparently, we can forgive as much as we are able to love, but I have found this is not always true.
Today, even after so much time has passed, and although I have accepted what happened to me, I still don't understand what it was supposed to teach me. I won't get the answers that would enlighten this darkness in the time I have left on this earth. I waited a decade for one of these answers, and I will wait even my entire lifetime for the other ones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398412958

Andrea Virk

Andrea Virk is a Slovakian author based in Austria. This is her fourth book, all of them based on a true story, as she says the best stories are about life itself! She was born in a small town in the east of Slovak Republic and shifted to Austria when she was 28. She is married and has three daughters. Her biggest dreams have come true; writing the books and running a nursery school. Andrea’s hobbies include music, travelling, reading and learning languages. She is fluent in Russian, German, Punjabi and English.

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About the Author

Andrea Virk is a Slovakian author based in Austria. This is her fourth book, all of them based on a true story, as she says the best stories are about life itself!

She was born in a small town in the east of Slovak Republic and shifted to Austria when she was 28. She is married and has three daughters. Her biggest dreams have come true; writing the books and running a nursery school.

Andrea’s hobbies include music, travelling, reading and learning languages. She is fluent in Russian, German, Punjabi and English.

Dedication

Cem, thank you for believing in me!

Today, even after so many years have passed, after accepting what had happened, and knowing who and what was behind it all, I still cannot understand what lesson it was supposed to teach me. I am not a supporter of the theories where the love between God and the human soul is shown by God placing more burden on to your shoulders to make you closer to him. The burden in a shape of a cross that he gave me almost knocked me down to the floor. I will not get an answer that would shed some light into that darkness, here, in this beloved time that I have left in this world.

Copyright Information ©

Andrea Virk 2022

The right of Andrea Virk to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398412941 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398412958 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Stanislava Zahoranska for the translation.

Foreword

You are all familiar with it.

Those little godly wishes.

We wish that kids would be all grown up.

A job where one can earn a decent money without working so hard.

A daily moaning about being too tired, almost exhausted, because the family and work are having its demands, and balancing those together at the same time is sometimes literally on the verge.

Those that have a partner are soundless, but sometimes just as vocally, expressing their dissatisfaction of having one. Those that do not have a partner are drowning the sorrows whilst swearing that they would give anything for someone to live with them.

To have a very own flat, perhaps a house. Obviously with a big garden including some fruit trees and a swimming pool of course. A good car in the garage, that would not be leased out, and some money in the savings…

To be slimmer, better-looking, attractive, more perfect. Having fuller lips, breasts, thicker hair, eyelashes, perhaps a finer body.

Dissatisfaction with stereotype, a wish for some thrill, something completely new. But there are some amongst us that really wish for a harmony and nothing else from the bottom of their hearts.

To dream about the wind when there is a calm and windless.

To dream about the windless when the wind is rotating dust clouds and running through our hair.

To wish for rain when the earth is dry and cracked, with the yellow grass caused by heat sticking around for some time and dying wish for never-ending rainy days.

In essence, humans are hardly ever happy.

Envious.

A good health, beauty, vitality, wealth.

We are envious of everything, literally, all that is possible to envy and even that, that I cannot think about at this moment.

We envy a nose between the eyes of others.

The grass is always greener on the other side, isn’t it?

Some of us are spending this precious time given to us gathering materialistic possessions that we cannot take once our beloved time is over, the day when all those things will be worthless to us. Completely worthless. We cannot take anything from this world, the same way we came, apart from ourselves, with nothing.

Others are spending it by constantly, tirelessly claiming somewhere higher. Desiring some form of fame, recognition, whether within own capabilities or with the help of the backsides of others.

We rush, we live too fast.

We live in instant relationships.

We eat instant food.

And from the relationships we managed to build somehow, we back off when a bigger problem emerges.

As it is like with the appliances.

It is ineffective to fix it; instead we swap an old for a new.

I have never been one of those that would chase after temporal and tangible things.

Unworldly, non-complicated, with a heart so soft that some might think I am slightly stupid in a way.

And still, I was the one that got exposed to one of the hardest moments that one can imagine.

And today, even after so many years passed, after accepting what had happened, and knowing who and what was behind it all, I still cannot understand what lesson it was supposed to teach me.

I am not a supporter of the theories where the love between God and the human soul is shown by God placing more burden on to your shoulders to make you closer to him.

That burden in a shape of a cross he gave me almost knocked me down to the floor.

I will not get an answer that would share some light into that darkness, here, in this beloved time that I have left in this world.

But one day, if I am lucky, when I will meet him face to face, I will ask Him straight.

I was waiting decades for one of the answers.

And for the other one, I can calmly wait indefinitely.

June 2007

Look, Mummy, a snail… – my four-year-old daughter is shouting with joy.

It’s early in the morning, sometime after half past six, and I am racing to work.

In fact, both of us are.

Me and my daughter, Anne.

Same as every morning, we start walking from the exit of our tower block along the paved path towards our gateway. Through there we walk onto a busy street, towards the tram stop.

She knows whenever it rains, they will be there.

With the horns pointing up, carrying their shell with them at all times.

She is screaming with joy trying to unstick two best-looking ones from the pavement, rushing towards me with a snail in each hand.

– Look, Mummy, do you see? These are for sure a mummy and daddy! – she is saying, quite pleased with herself, with both snails sliding along her hand.

Her joyful face, almost black almond-shaped eyes that she is now squinting to even a more narrowly looking form, and her wide smile showing her perfect white little teeth.

Curious, upward facing button nose, snow white cheeks.

Incompliant dark hair in a bun, just the way ballerina’s wear theirs. Anything else is hopeless, as she will have a clump of her soft hair in her eyes within few minutes.

It’s pointless to try to explain to her that perhaps a different hair style would suit her as good as, rather than pestering that fuzz. And I am convinced it should be something involving short hair.

She wouldn’t have it.

Janka in the nursery has a hair running down to her waist, tied in a beautiful thick braid.

And Anne has in her feminine, child-like belief, set her mind that one day her poor-looking mouse tail, she has for hair, will look the same.

Well, what can I say, she is in for a massive disillusion?

My little stubborn mischief.

A little Chinese princess.

Anne genuinely looks like one of those figures people painted on the Chinese porcelain thousands of years ago.

Don’t look at me, I know I look like a Julia Timosenko, the famous Ukrainian politician, the prototype of all Slavs.

My hair in braids all around the head and we are look-alikes.

I mean me and Timosenko of course.

Anne looks nothing like me. Not even a slight, poppy seed bit.

No, I do not have any Asian ancestors and yes, Anne is my daughter. Only the guy’s, someone I don’t even want to call Anne’s father, genes thumped those of mine.

It hurts.

Those Anne’s desires, she indirectly addresses to me.

Snails have a family.

Friends in the nursery have families.

Mum, dad, sister or brother…

Only we are by ourselves.

Anne never says it directly.

However, she has always addressed it somehow.

Dolls, snails, plastic ponies, that she loves to play with…

The concept is always the same.

Dad, mum and children.

– Snail, snail, come out of your hole…– Anne is now loudly and a quite flatly singing all excited.

She is poking snail horns with her little finger, watching amazed how sensitively they are reacting to it.

– If you keep poking them horns, they won’t come out, – I laugh seeing mummy and daddy snail don’t want to come out and there’s only a snail’s foot sticking out.

– Or else I’ll beat you as black as a coal… – Anne is singing now quietly whilst placing the snail’s parents on top of the gateway we must go through to get out on the street.

– And the little one is here too; come I will put you next to your mummy and daddy.

It’s not much a little four-year-old needs to be happy.

A beautiful summer morning, a fresh air as it always is after it rained. Three snails’ shells on the gateway wall close together.

Anne is bending over the gateway wall, watching this scene with such a commitment.

She must be pleased as in a few minutes, she opens the gate and runs out onto the street.

She knows where we go next.

Our morning ritual.

***

There is a small bakery on the corner where we go regularly, and everyone knows us.

Despite having more food that we can eat at work; we stop here daily during the working days.

It smells of vanilla, cinnamon, warm bread rolls and cumin.

It is a poppy seed one at times and a nutty one on the other occasions that Anne desires. I will let her have an incredibly sweet doughnuts time to time. With a cold milk they taste yummy in your tummy.

– Are we going to be first, Mummy? – she is asking, now satisfied, holding a bag of warm pastries filled with curd cheese we bought earlier.

We have barely left the shop and Anne managed to eat quite a piece already.

– Yes, we are going to be first, we open the nursery and feed the fish together, – I am explaining patiently. Mention the fish and Anne has a happy smile on her face.

You know, a pet is a pet.

Fish, birds, cats, hamsters, ladybirds, butterflies… all counts.

Anne is fascinated with anything that moves.

The butterfly she cleverly caught the other day, haven’t made it out alive but still.

When she’ll get older, I will certainly buy her a pet, so she can have some responsibilities looking after something alive.

Only when she gets older though.

I had to drag her full-on tears from a pet shop the other day as she wouldn’t leave the baby dwarf bunny.

But for now, the work and household keep me too busy.

But certainly, one day.

She is shrilling into my ears about it constantly.

Oh dear.

The journey is going quickly as every morning.

Anne is counting down the stops. It is exactly seven of them. She is counting them down on her little fingers, excited she can sit next to the window.

Her dark lively eyes, that I love so much, are yet again shaping to a narrow line whilst waddling her bare feet up and down pleased.

I did try to convince her that wearing those pink sandals for a nursery school is not a good idea, but she gave me that look that always soften me up, giving in at the end anyways.

I will always soften up so much that all my values and educational principles are out the window.

Simply put, Anne is one of those that come back through the window when thrown out the door, and if the window is not possible, she’ll try through the chimney.

If impossible down the chimney, she will cut through the wall.

At least we compromised.

When the kids go out to the playground, she will change her sandals for the spare pumps she is carrying in her backpack.

Apart from spare shoes she packed in her favourite ponies with rainbow mane, despite my ban.

Pinky Pie, Rainbow Dash, Apple Jack, she can name them all.

We have pony T-shirts, PJs, slippers, panties, socks, bed covers, and she even made me buy a PJs with that nonsense the other day.

And yes, a big poster with them is hanging on the wall above Anne’s bed too of course.

On the wall as pink as a pink cupcake can be.

***

The journey is swift. We are passing notoriously recognised stops and Anne knows what to do when we are close to our one.

She gets up off her seat, walking stiffly towards the exit door, pressing the button on them that immediately turns green with doors opening widely.

She is still squeezing a bag of pastries we bought earlier in one hand.

Daringly she is getting off the tram fast paced.

I walk after her fast, keeping my eyes on her.

She waits for me by overfilled rubbish bin.

She is pointing out nosily to the poster that someone pasted overnight all over the tram stop.

Two naked women lying on the sand all on a black background.

An advertisement for a big swing club based just around the corner.

– Look Mummy, their bums are naked… Yuck, they should be embarrassed, – Anne is rolling her eyes, turning around after that poster for some time.

Democracy is fine, I also regard myself as liberal and tolerant, but I think Austrians have that level of liberalism and tolerance a bit higher than us Eastern Europeans.