Jakob Made Me Bathe Twice a Day, but When His Mother Locked the Door, the Smile Disappeared from His Face

The doctor stopped examining my skin in the middle of a sentence and looked at me as though we were no longer alone in the room.

“Nino, tell me exactly who is telling you that you smell?”

It was six o’clock in the evening in his office. Raindrops struck the window, while the small silver mirror lying on the table trembled with every movement. The skin on my arms burned. I had used foaming antiseptic soap so often that blood was coming from the tiny cracks.

“Jakob,” I answered quietly. “He says that my body releases toxins.”

The doctor put down his pen.

“And you believe that?”

The question hurt me more than my burned skin.

“I no longer know what to believe.”

Three months earlier, I had thought Jakob was the perfect man. He entered every room as though he had belonged there from the beginning. He chose my clothes, arranged the groceries in the refrigerator, and straightened the bed pillows according to the angle. I blamed his control on his career. He said that in a high-responsibility job, order was the only way to survive.

But one evening he sat me down at the kitchen table and made a face as if he were telling me fatal news.

“A strong biological smell is coming from you,” he told me.

At first I laughed.

“What is funny?”

“I am not joking at all. If you are thinking about our future, you have to fix this.”

From that night on, I bathed twice a day. In the morning and before sleep. I washed my clothes in boiling water, hung the towels separately, and aired the room several times an hour. But Jakob still stepped back when I passed by.

“It can still be smelled,” he would say, wrinkling his nose.

I looked at myself in the mirror and no longer recognized myself. I thought, perhaps something really was wrong with me. Perhaps my body was slowly falling apart from the inside and I could not feel it.

Doctor Levan took blood tests and a skin swab. By half past six in the evening, he already had the results on his computer. He looked at the screen, then locked the door.

“You have no unusual smell,” he told me. “On the contrary, the protective layer of your skin has been damaged by the chemicals you use.”

“So I am not sick?”

“You are a victim of manipulation. If this person forces you to bathe, scolds you, and frightens you, do not remain alone with him.”

At that moment my phone rang. Jakob was calling me.

“Where are you?” he asked immediately.

“At the doctor’s.”

Silence fell.

“My mother is waiting for you. We are going to the mountains today. Do not dare resist.”

The doctor saw my face.

“Do not go,” he told me quietly.

But I still loved Jakob. Or I loved the man whom I had thought existed before. So that same evening I got into his car.

It was already dark on the mountain road. The iron gate of the house opened by itself. Not a single neighboring house could be seen in the yard. Only tall fir trees stood there, and when they rubbed against one another in the wind, they made a sound like bones.

Jakob’s mother, Marina, opened the door for us herself. She was wearing a dark green dress and holding a small copper bell.

“At last,” she told me. “Let us see how clean you are.”

My blood froze.

“Mother, not now,” Jakob said with an embarrassed smile.

Marina walked around me as if she were inspecting merchandise at a market. Then she examined my hair, bent close to my neck, and wrinkled her nose.

“You should have bathed twice in the morning.”

“I did,” I answered.

“Then you should have learned to bathe better.”

At dinner there were only four plates on the table, although signs of other people’s presence were everywhere in the house: women’s shoes in the hallway, folded blankets under the stairs, and countless keys hanging on the wall.

Marina put her glass on the table.

“In this house, women obey the rules. Your bag will stay here. We will have you hand over your phone too.”

“I have not left my bag anywhere,” I said.

Jakob gripped my wrist. His fingers were hard like wire.

“Do not make it more difficult.”

That night they took me upstairs to the guest room. The door was not locked from outside, but I heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. I went into the bathroom, turned the copper lock, and leaned against the cold marble sink.

Suddenly I heard fingernails scratching on the window glass.

I pulled back the curtain and noticed a girl standing on the other side of the balcony. She was my age, her face pale with fear, and both hands were pressed against the glass.

I opened the window.

“Please, quietly,” she whispered. “If you stay here, they will never let you go again.”

“Who are you?”

“Emily. They brought me here the same way. The way to the fire escape is this way. You have to leave quickly.”

Jakob’s voice came from the hallway.

“Nino? Open the door.”

Emily held out her hand. I put one foot on the windowsill, but at that exact moment the sound of a heavy lock came from the hallway and the door handle moved. Emily was pointing down, toward the stairs, while I took one last look at the room, where my bag lay on the table and beside it Marina’s hand was slowly moving toward some folder…

Marina’s hand touched the folder, but Emily grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me outside through the window.

The metal stairs were wet from the rain. My foot slipped twice, but Emily did not look back. A strong smell of earth rose from below, while Jakob’s shouting came from above.

“Nino! Stop! You have no idea what you are doing!”

“He is lying to you!” Emily shouted.

We descended the last step and ran toward the forest. My shoes sank into the mud, the hem of my dress caught on thorny bushes, and I heard my heartbeat as if it were trying to escape from my chest.

“How long have you been here?” I asked with difficulty.

“Four months.”

“Why do you not have a phone?”

Emily looked at me for a moment.

“They take everything away from those brought here. Their phone, their money, even their name. Then they tell you that you survived thanks to them.”

Jakob’s flashlight appeared among the trees. We crouched on the ground. I smelled wet leaves, and a small sharp stone pierced my palm.

“If he sees us, we will not escape again,” Emily said quietly.

“Then we have to find another way.”

She pointed at my hand.

“You went to a doctor, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?”

“I saw your wrists. Here they force every girl to wash herself with horrible soap. This is their first test. If your skin burns, they tell you that there is something bad inside you.”

My knees began to tremble.

“Did Jakob know all this?”

Emily did not answer me. The answer was in her silence.

At last we came out of the forest onto a dirty road. Headlights appeared in the distance. Emily raised both hands. The car braked. An elderly woman was sitting at the wheel, and a young man was beside her.

“Get in,” the woman said. “We will take you to the police station.”

“We cannot go straight to the police,” Emily said.

“Why?”

“Marina has her own people in the village. First we have to find a place where they cannot reach us.”

The woman watched us for several seconds, then opened the door.

“I am Tamar. We will take you to my sister.”

In the car she covered us with a wet blanket. My bag had remained in the house, and so had my phone, but for the first time in several hours I breathed freely.

At two o’clock at night, in Tamar’s sister’s small apartment, Emily began telling everything. For years Marina’s family had been taking women in for what they called a “cleansing course.” They convinced them that ordinary life left poison in their bodies. First they forced them to bathe, then cut them off from their relatives, and finally made them sign a statement as though they were staying of their own free will.

“But why?” I asked.

Emily put a teacup on the table. Its edge was broken.

“Money. Families pay large sums so that the women obey their control. Marina calls it treatment. In reality, she blackmails everyone.”

“Does Jakob take part in this?”

“He brings in new victims.”

These words fell into the room like a heavy object.

At seven o’clock in the morning, Doctor Levan called me. I was holding Tamar’s old phone.

“Nino, you must go to the police,” he told me. “I have a copy of your test results and one more thing.”

“What?”

“The soap you were using contains a strong irritant. It would not get into someone’s hands by accident.”

“Can you prove that Jakob gave it to me?”

“Not yet. But yesterday he called the clinic and demanded that your medical records be deleted.”

The phone fell from my hand.

“Doctor, why would he do that?”

“Because he is afraid someone else will see your records.”

That same morning, a police investigator named Sophio came. She recorded Emily’s statement, photographed my burned skin, and wrote down Marina’s house address.

“We cannot enter there immediately,” she said. “Specific grounds are needed.”

“The girls are there,” I told her.

“I know. But we need a court warrant.”

Emily took a folded paper from her bag. Names and dates were written on it by hand.

“This is only part of it,” she said. “The main list is in Marina’s office. In a red folder. Nino saw it yesterday.”

At that moment my phone, which I thought I had left at home, lit up on Tamar’s table. Jakob was calling. Sophio raised her hand so I would not answer.

But a strange message followed his call on the screen: “If you want to know why I chose you, come alone at eight in the evening. Otherwise Emily will disappear.”

Sophio looked at the message and her face changed.

“This is already a threat,” she said.

Emily ran to the window. A black car stood across the street, its engine running quietly.

“They are already here,” she whispered. “And this is not even the worst yet…”

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After Emily’s words, we drew all the curtains in the apartment. It was ten in the morning, but the room became dark like evening. The black car did not move from the street.

Sophio moved away from the window.

“The main thing now is that they do not know where the second copy is.”

“Which copy?” I asked.

Doctor Levan opened the clinic bag and placed a small recorder on the table.

“This was recorded during your visit. Not by accident. After Jakob demanded that your records be deleted, the clinic administrator saved his call.”

Jakob’s voice came from the recorder.

“You must not tell her that the tests are normal. If she finds out that she has no smell, everything will be ruined.”

In the recording, the administrator asked:

“You are not a doctor. Why are you interfering?”

“Because she is my fiancée and I know what she needs.”

Then Marina’s voice sounded, clear and cold:

“The first stage always begins with the body. When a woman is afraid of her own skin, she will believe anything.”

The recording ended.

Silence settled over the room. I felt my fingers growing cold.

“They knew there was nothing wrong with me,” I said.

“They knew from the very beginning,” Levan answered.

Sophio placed a photograph of the red folder on the table. It was a picture Emily had secretly taken. In Marina’s office, behind the bookshelf, the edge of the folder could be seen.

“These are not only women’s names,” Emily said.

“How did you take it?”

“When Marina was convincing me that I should be grateful for a ‘clean life,’ she left me alone in the office. A small mirror was on the windowsill. Everything could be seen in the mirror.”

Sophio called the police officers. At four o’clock in the afternoon they obtained a court warrant. At six in the evening we too were sitting in the car, although Sophio strictly instructed us not to come close to the house.

When the gate opened, Marina was standing on the stairs. Jakob stood beside her and was holding the same old copper bell.

“Nino,” he said calmly. “You came back for your own safety.”

“What was wrong with my skin?”

His eyes darted away for a moment.

“You do not understand. Ordinary doctors cannot see this.”

“But you could?”

“I loved you.”

Emily tried to get out of the car, but Sophio stopped her with her hand.

“Do not hurry. Their conversation must first be recorded.”

Marina looked at Jakob.

“Enough. Go to the office and move the folders.”

That one sentence revealed everything. Jakob turned around, but two police officers were already standing at the door.

“Step back,” one of them told him.

Jakob let go of the bell. It fell onto the stone step and made a sharp sound.

When the police officers entered the office, they found the red folder. Inside were the names of twenty-one women, the amounts paid by their families, letters, and signatures. Beside my name there was still an empty line.

Emily looked at the folder and pressed her lips together.

“I did not come here of my own free will.”

“I know,” Sophio said. “Now everyone will know this.”

Jakob came toward me.

“Nino, please, do not do this. I was only obeying my mother.”

“Every day you made me look in the mirror and told me that I was disgusting.”

“Because I was trying to protect you.”

“No. You were protecting your own power.”

Marina lost her composure for the first time.

“This is a family matter! The police have nothing to do here.”

Sophio picked up the red folder.

“When you take money, lock people up, and force them into false treatment, it is no longer a family matter.”

Jakob was arrested immediately, while Marina stood on the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands. But before they put me in the car, a call came to my phone from an unknown number.

There was a woman’s voice on the other end.

“If you think you saw everything in the red folder, you are mistaken. It says only who they deceived. And the most dangerous list has not yet been seen by anyone…”

The call ended.