The Truth is a Dangerous Landscape by Susmita Bhattacharya
Image by Karsten Wurth for Unsplash
TW: Sexual violence, suicide
The gap year isn’t something my family believes in.
‘It isn’t wise to waste the most important year of one’s youth travelling around the world. Besides, there’s no money set aside for that. Med school fees only.’
‘No need to travel to India to find yourself – you’re already from India. There’s nothing to find there you don’t already know.’
But here we are, the lot of us – in India. A sabbatical, our father convinces the relatives, this is what everyone in the UK does. So here we are. To get to know the desi family better. To get to know our roots.
My sister has failed her first year at med school. There are other secrets that we don’t divulge to the relatives. The scars on her wrists are fresh, but everyone ignores them. They will fade by the time we return home. I’ve always wanted a gap year, but this isn’t how I imagined it to be.
Summer evenings are drawn out here, usually scented with the bright pink and yellow shondhamoni flowers covering every inch of the garden verge. We lie back on the charpoy in our grandmother’s courtyard and count the vultures lining up on the dead Sal tree across the road.
‘There’s something dying somewhere,’ I say. My body is alert with the excitement of what is to come. I want to witness the vultures feed. There is a thrill to witnessing something so raw and visceral. Our middle-class street in Cardiff doesn’t even boast of seagulls or crows. Only blue tits and chaffinches in people’s landscaped gardens. ‘It’s got to be nearby. Look at how restless they are.’
‘Hmmm.’ She isn’t interested. Her eyes are closed and I observe her nostrils flare and ease. Her eyelashes are caked with mascara, black smudges daubing her high cheekbones. This weather is not kind on make-up, but she refuses to accept that. I spit on my finger and attempt to wipe the marks off her skin, but she jerks back with such ferocity that I stare at her until she succumbs.
‘What would you do if you got into something you can’t get out of?’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask her. The vultures are now sweeping down from the tree and circling over the field across from our grandmother’s house. The courtyard is filling up with the aroma of goat curry that’s been cooking in the mud oven all day. It has become so overpowering that it’s impossible for us to stop salivating. But it still has a couple more hours to reach that sublime state: of meat melting away from the bone, the potatoes almost falling apart, the caramelised gravy thickening in the iron pot.
She sits up and I see for the first time how tired she looks. I mean, not tired because of jet lag. Or tired because of the killing schedule at university. But a different kind of tired. Not the I’ve-failed-med-school tired. I’m anxious just looking at her. And very concerned. She’s the sensible one, not one to get into trouble. Ever.
And she tells me. In such plain language, there is no argument, no twist to the story.
‘This is sexual assault,’ I say to her. ‘He has taken advantage of you. Plain and simple.’
She shakes her head. ‘But how can it be? I’ve let it happen.’
‘Did he – did he go all the way?’ I ask. But she shakes her head and closes her eyes. ‘Thank god for that.’
‘What would you do, Mira?’ she asks me. And this is the question that plays on and on in my head.
What would you do, Mira? What would you do?
*
Here’s what I would do:
I would not let anyone take advantage of me.
I would not allow any man to brainwash me with his sob stories.
I would not let him go scot free.
I would not let my family know what I had just gone through.
I would not want anyone to tell my family.
I would have to keep it quiet.
I would have no choice but to let him continue.
I would have to bear it silently until…
I would have to kill myself.
*
She had been trying to understand the methodologies that underpinned the epidemiological investigations of malaria and to describe the disease patterns in human populations, when he leaned forward and touched her hand. She didn’t quite understand his action. Perhaps he was trying to stop her from speaking, to explain the methodology to her. Perhaps she was not making sense and so he reached out to make her shut up. She stopped speaking and he moved forward and kissed her firmly on the lips. When she bent back so far that her chair fell to the floor, and she hit her head hard on the threadbare carpet, he was just as shocked as she was. He apologised fervently, his hands flapping about, his hair flopping over his eyes. Like a schoolboy who did not realise what he had done. He was sorry. He really was. She had rushed out of his office, leaving her laptop and bag inside. She had walked three miles to get back to her shared accommodation because she didn’t have her wallet on her. And then she had sent a friend to his office – to collect her stuff.
*
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I say. I want to escape the confines of the courtyard where our grandmother is preparing the evening meal. She holds the black pot up with coconut husks as a substitute for oven gloves. The aunts are chopping up onions and chillies for the salad and cooking the chapatis.
We step out onto the road. Her hand is trembling when I take hold of it. Everything begins to make sense now. Her sudden withdrawal, her absence from family gatherings. Her falling ill constantly. Her failing biostatistics and epidemiology. It isn’t easy when your father is a respected GP. And your mother is an obstetrician, bringing big, fat, healthy babies into the world. It will certainly not do to have a daughter fail medical school. And be a rape victim as well. It simply will not do.
‘This has been going on for a while, hasn’t it?’
She nods, her fingernails digging into my palm.
The vultures are circling above a ditch in the far end of the field. They swoop down, one by one, their wings stretching out darkly against the magenta sky, looking like pairs of hands stretched out to cup the sun. The bats streak through the sky, criss-crossing each other with frenzied precision. We can’t go too far from home. It’s not safe. Not for young women. Certainly not for young women with a foreign accent – we stand out in this small town in West Bengal and are ripe for picking. But I can’t miss the dance of the vultures. What will they be feasting on while we feast on the goat curry? Probably the same thing. But I still want to see. My sister keeps walking. Once she’s started talking, she will not stop.
‘After failing his subjects, I went to see him again,’ she is saying, striding purposefully across the field, dodging the goat pellets and cow dung. ‘I wanted to know why he had failed me. And he explained to me, very patiently. Very kindly. And once again, he apologised for what had happened earlier.’
‘The bastard,’ I muttered. ‘Trying to soften you up.’
‘Well, he arranged for another tutorial. Told me that he could help me work on the assignment and resubmit. He told me to forget everything and start afresh. And I believed him. Actually, I was desperate to pass.’
‘Why didn’t you complain in the first place?’ I was so angry I wanted to shake her. For being such an idiot. For being such an easy target.
She sighed and shook her head. ‘You don’t understand. I had nothing to complain about – at the beginning. He had said it had been a mistake. He was so close to tears, I felt sorry for him. And he did it again, and this time I didn’t stop him.’
‘That’s how they operate – these men who know exactly how to throw the bait and bring in an unsuspecting, weak woman into their trap.’
‘How do you know?’ she says.
‘Well, you know.’ I leave it at that.
I can’t believe she is still sticking up for him. But those scars on her wrist tell me another story.
*
It was about six in the morning, and I was awakened by the thud-thud-thud of Dad racing downstairs, yelling indistinctly into his phone. A shallower thump-thump of Mum’s footsteps trying to keep up with him. It was cold – the heating hadn’t kicked in yet – and I struggled between wanting to burrow deeper into my duvet or rush out to see what had happened. Dad’s panic-stricken voice left me with no choice. I ran downstairs and was confronted with a scene I never wish to see again in my life. Mum, in her nightdress, sobbing into a tea towel. She swayed from side to side while Dad barked into the phone.
‘What’s happened?’ I rushed to her side and held her up. But she crumpled into my arms and whispered my sister’s name again and again. Dad held his hand up.
‘Let me listen to what they’re saying,’ he shouted at us. We bit our lips to keep from crying out. He scribbled something down. An address. A hospital. And then we were racing down the M4. I did not notice when the signs stopped being bilingual. I was hypnotised by the swishing of the wipers, the sulphur beams that lit up the bridge we were hurtling across.
*
We walked along the path that cut the field into two equal halves. One side was used by the local children – a cricket pitch and two football goalposts existed in perfect harmony. Often the boys playing the games got confused what they were playing and joined the other sport in their state of heightened excitement. The other side was a wasteland where cowherds often brought their cattle to graze in. It wasn’t surprising to spot a jackal there, usually in a blur of movement. When it got dark, one heard them howling hukka-hua hukka-hua into the long, star-studded night.
It was forbidden to go out into the field after sundown. Not just for the scorpions and snakes that may lie in wait. More often, it was a human that caused more of a threat. Children abducted into the night. Women stripped of their jewellery and much more. An old man was once tied to the bark of a tree, his gold tooth pulled out and was left to die. Such atrocities narrated as exciting stories over dinner – so far from our orderly lives. And yet, they don’t seem that far.
‘Dad has decided,’ she said to me, taking hold of my hand. ‘I cannot carry on studying – not at home anyway.’
‘Then where?’ I ask her, but I already know. He is on a mission here. To get her into a medical college in India. To have a safe and uneventful life far away from the wagging tongues and curious eyes.
‘Here,’ she says and turns away from the path. Perhaps she is tempting a scorpion to dig its sting into her. Or a snake to finish off her unfinished business. ‘He wants me to leave my life as I know it and change the future for me. Just like that, everything will be okay.’
‘Hey.’ I pull her towards me. I am aware that we cannot continue down this path anymore. The boys are returning home from their games and soon it will be deserted. The sun has gone down, leaving a blush of gold above. The vultures look like paper cut-outs against the sunset as they careen down behind the trees. They are going in for their feast. I pull her towards the woods. Maybe we could get just a glimpse before turning away.
*
The ITU is not the place you want to see your sister. A mass of wires and pipes sprouting out from her. Her face obscured by the oxygen mask, breaths coming out loud and raspy. And her wrists – those delicate wrists – bandaged to look like boxing gloves. I stroked her arm with my little finger. The hair on her skin was standing on end. It was cold in there, and I wanted to hug her to keep her warm. But I didn’t want to touch her either. An eyelash clung to her cheek and I bent down towards her face. I closed my eyes and made a wish. Then I blew on her cheek, ever so gently. The eyelash did not budge. I blew harder and she opened her eyes. She looked directly at me, her expression sliding from recognition to joy to fear. I looked away and noticed the eyelash had disappeared. I smiled. Because I knew my wish would now come true.
*
‘You have to tell them the truth,’ I say. I’m torn between watching the vultures feast and allowing her to witness it. She’s in such a fragile state now, it’s better she doesn’t see them rip open the carcass. I can hear them screeching, and I see her flinch. I grab her arm and we turn back towards the house.
‘He must be punished. He’s ruined your life.’
I find myself shouting over the squawking birds, roosting in the trees around us. I see the night watchman waving frantically at us.
‘Chalo, chalo,’ he yells. He needs to lock the gates before he can settle in for the night with his bottle of country liquor. The housemaid always complains about him and his drunken leering when she must pass through the field at dawn to start work at the house. We go past his shed. It reeks like the urinal on the other side of the path, good lord, how did he manage to sit inside the entire night, enveloped in that stench?
‘Go home quickly, he says, giving us a salaam. ‘It’s not the jackals you need to fear. It’s the witches that lurk among the trees. Look, one bit my ear off.’
He sticks his ear out at us, and sure enough, the lobe has been ripped off, leaving a jagged edge. We grab each other’s hands, not sure if we fear the ‘witch’ or this red-eyed man in front of us. He smells of turpentine and bidi, and when he laughs, we see that his mouth is stained blood-red.
‘The petni bit my ear off,’ he whispers, looking around him with exaggerated care. ‘When I refused to give her what she was after. I could do with a few rupees to protect myself from those witches.’
His eyes linger on my breasts for a second, before he bends his head in supplication.
‘Pervert,’ I mutter, pulling my dupatta higher up my body.
‘Sorry,’ my sister says. ‘We don’t have any cash on us.’
We sprint towards the gate, and can hear him snigger, quickly changing into a fit of coughing.
‘Won’t be long before he joins the petnis in the woods,’ I say.
My sister laughs for the first time, and I feel pleased that I made her do so.
*
Mum dressed us up as petnis once for Halloween. I wanted to go as the Wicked Witch of the West. My sister a zombie. But Mum wouldn’t have any of it.
‘We have enough ghosts and ghouls in our own traditions to choose from, why don’t you go as one of those?’ she said.
We screamed at the horror of the idea. We didn’t want to dress up as some Indian ghosts and get laughed at. But Mum wrapped white saris round us and plonked silver wigs from Poundland on our heads. Our faces were whitened with talcum powder and a floury paste, eyes darkened with kohl and Dracula teeth covering red tongues dyed with food colour. We were allowed to wear lipstick, so that was a win. It wasn’t so bad in the end. We looked terrifying – two petnis let loose in Cardiff.
We were quite a hit in the neighbourhood as well. Everyone complimented us on our ghostly get-up. Later we demanded a McDonald’s meal and Mum gave in. She stuffed us into the back of the car and we drove to the nearest restaurant.
‘Petnis don’t eat burgers,’ Mum laughed. ‘They eat men. Chew them up and spit out their bones. You’re such great petnis, you should win an Oscar or something.’ She threw a French fry at us and burst out laughing.
We giggled as I transformed into a ghostly figure. An old hag with claws for fingers and a ketchup-stained grin.
‘Whooooo, I’m coming to get you,’ I cackled. ‘Just wait and watch.’ I chased Mum and my sister to the car and when we sat inside, she took a deep breath and leaned back into her seat.
‘The two of you will haunt me for the rest of my life,’ she said under her breath. I don’t think I was supposed to hear that, so I didn’t reply. She drove away and I packed that tiny moment of togetherness into my memory. It had been worth it in the end.
*
‘Why don’t you tell the truth to Dad and Mum?’
She looks at me with such wide eyes, I fear they will pop out.
‘Why lie that you tried to kill yourself because you failed your exams?’
‘I would have also tried to kill myself if I’d just failed my exams.’
Again, her answer stupefies me. Surely this isn’t the way forward? I observe the family settling down to eat. They are all our flesh and blood, but how distant they look. Strangers pretending to be united in the face of a disaster. The disaster itself a lie. They are talking excitedly of wedding proposals coming through the door each day for our cousin brother. They’re discussing how to arrange for my sister’s admission into medical college. They’re discussing a future summer holiday to visit us in Cardiff.
We are welcomed to the table and my grandmother is serving the goat curry. To my father first – he is the esteemed son-in-law. Then to our uncles and cousin brother. My mother next, as she is the UK-returned daughter. The aunts wait with practised patience. They are busy passing the salad around, popping hot chapatis on plates and teasing our cousin to eat less, not to put on weight now when the prospective brides will come to look at him. I want to puke into the plate. All this seems so natural. Like nothing wrong has happened, it’s all been white-washed until we are all shiny, happy people.
My sister picks a piece of mutton and tears off a piece with her teeth. I think of the vultures feasting nearby. I think of the watchman drinking himself to oblivion. I think of the tutor, probably tucking into his Sunday roast on the other side of the world. Nobody gives a shit about what has happened to her. Nobody gave a shit about what had happened to me. I feel the bile rush up from the pit of my stomach and I rush towards the bathroom. Everything zooms in to that day. And I find it difficult to breathe.
*
Diwali parties at our house were like ‘the event of the year’ for my parents’ friends. Mum always got our clothes and jewellery from India – which meant that we made that trip to my grandmother’s in the summer holidays so that she could stock up on the party clothes. We were subjected to being measured by a creepy tailor, whose measuring tapes and fingers often brushed against certain parts of our bodies – all perfectly normal to everyone involved, it seemed. We’d have to parade in front of the family in our itchy and tight chaniya cholis – despite all the ‘careful measuring’, the tailor never seemed to get the fitting right.
After the three weeks spent in the horrid heat with nothing to do but read the Readers’ Digest condensed novels again and again, we’d return home with suitcases crammed with silk saris and zardozi skirts and costume jewellery that could clothe probably half the Asian population in the city.
The Diwali party, when I was nine, was no different. Mum had cooked for an entire week. She actually took a week off work to stay home and prepare dishes that made the whole house smell of roasted spices and nostalgia. I would make sure my bedroom door was firmly shut, because I couldn’t tolerate the strong aroma of the curries, especially on my school cardigans. My sister didn’t have a choice because she’d have to help mum with the cooking. She was a young lady now – and needed to learn to be useful in the kitchen.
They played cards in the lounge. The men drank whiskey and laughed loudly, placing bets which grew to staggering amounts as the night wore on. The women sat in the dining room, or in the kitchen, helping with the cooking and serving, gossiping about someone’s illicit affair or the lack of one. The children were usually sent up to my sister’s bedroom to play. My sister locked herself in her room with the other teens. They didn’t want the younger kids hanging around while they discussed – god only knew what. Nobody checked on us, so the boys knew they could use words like ‘fuck’ and ‘chutiya’ and get away with it. I hated being trapped in the bedroom with those kids, so I’d hide under the dining table and eavesdrop on even more colourful language and gossip that my mother and her friends exchanged in between sips of orange juice spiked with gin or vodka. I knew because they’d hide the bottles under the table, and I’d have to pull my knees tightly to my chest as the space underneath got lesser and lesser.
But that party – when I was nine – I decided not to sit under the table. The laughter was distracting me, and I really wanted to play on my new Nintendo 64. I sneaked into my father’s study, where he kept the games console so he could keep an eye on the hours and minutes we spent playing games instead of studying.
I was so engrossed in my game that I didn’t see him enter the room and shut the door. I didn’t notice him until I felt his breath on the back of my neck. I turned to look up at him, and he pressed a finger to his lips.
‘Carry on playing,’ he said. ‘I’ll watch.’
I nodded and resumed my game of Super Mario. Aware of him breathing. Aware of him watching me. I couldn’t focus on the game and I died.
‘Oh, try again,’ he said.
‘Don’t want to,’ I replied. ‘I’m going to find my mum.’
‘Oh, she’s in the kitchen with the other aunties. She doesn’t want you to spoil her fun.’
I looked at him. He looked back at me, a tiny smile flickering at the corner of his mouth.
‘Look how much you’ve grown,’ he said, and reached out to touch my chin. I stood there, frozen. ‘Such a big girl you are.’
He moved closer to me and I smelled the whiskey on his breath even stronger now. His eyes were cloudy, like he was not focusing on me at all. I’d never seen him like that before. My mum’s cousin. Khemu Mama, we called him. I didn’t know his proper name.
‘Let me see how much you’ve grown,’ he said again and brushed his fingers against my hair. He spread his palms out like the wingspan of a bird. I thought he was going to show me some shadow puppets, so I looked expectantly at the wall opposite. Instead, he touched the front of my choli.
‘Remember these are private parts.’ Mum’s words echoed inside my head. She was telling my sister, while the two of them were sitting in the dining room, drinking tea. ‘No one can touch these, except your husband.’
‘Eeuw,’ my sister spat out her tea. ‘Don’t be gross, Mum.’
‘Touch what?’ I’d said, rushing into the room, not wanting to be left out. And my sister had laughed.
‘You don’t have anything to worry about yet,’ she’d said. ‘You don’t have any boobies yet.’
‘Oh, you two,’ Mum had said, rolling her eyes. ‘But yes, no one touches your boobies, okay? Especially yours.’ She’d looked pointedly at my sister and I had felt very separated from the two of them. Like I didn’t belong to their little group and their little secrets.
And now he was touching where my boobies would grow. It was wrong, I knew it was wrong. And so, I screamed.
*
I’m retching in the toilet. But nothing comes out. My chest is heaving and I’m crying. For the first time I am crying. I catch the reflection of my breasts in the mirror. They’re small. They don’t show under the kurta and the dupatta I have on. But I can still feel his hands on my chest. The pressure of his fingers rubbing against the silk blouse. And I vomit. I feel the relief when the pain comes gushing out, filling the toilet bowl with those nightmares.
*
My mother came running through the door and Khemu Mama sprang away from me. He smiled at me like nothing had happened. Then he winked, like this was a secret between us.
‘What happened?’ Mum said, looking from me to him. ‘Why did you scream, Mira?’
I couldn’t say anything. He was towering over me.
‘Oh, she just got scared. I was trying to show her some shadow puppets-’
He spread his hands out again and this time, an eagle soared across the wall, swooping down to sit on the shadow of my head.
‘But he touched me here,’ I told my mum, pointing to my chest. ‘You said nobody could touch me there, except my husband. He’s not my husband.’
They stared at each other, and then Mum glared at him. Khemu Mama shrugged and started to leave the room.
‘She’s lying. I was only trying to entertain her. Stupid girl.’
He walked away and Mum didn’t do anything.
She kneeled in front of me and I turned away from the stink of whatever she’d been drinking.
‘He didn’t do anything,’ she said finally, dusting off the front of my choli, as if that action erased whatever had just happened. ‘Don’t worry about it. He won’t come back.’
I wanted her to cuddle me, tell me she would keep me safe. But she locked me up in the office, telling me I could play on the Nintendo for as long as I wanted. And that I was never to tell anybody about what had happened. It was all a mistake. And when everybody crowded on the driveway, hugging goodbyes, I saw Khemu Mama give Mum a hug. And she hugged him back, they were laughing, like nothing have happened at all. I lay down on the futon in my Dad’s study and never played Super Mario ever again.
*
‘You alright?’
My sister is knocking on the bathroom door. I summon up all my strength to rise from the floor and stagger towards the door.
‘No, I’m not okay. You’re not okay. We’re both not okay.’
‘Mira? What’s wrong?’
‘No, nothing’s wrong now. Everything was wrong from the very beginning. And nobody made it okay for us.’
She hugs me and I feel her body tremble.
‘Girls, what’s going on? We’re waiting to start eating.’ Dad’s voice booms from the dining room.
We look at each other but don’t move.
‘We’re going to tell them the truth, yes?’
She shakes her head in terror, but I grip her hand so tight that she cries out.
‘You’re not going to leave home to settle down here just because our parents cannot deal with ‘the shame’ of you not living up to their expectations. They have to face the truth.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘But will they? They have a reputation to protect. And I can’t be the reason that they-’
‘But you’re not the reason. They have done this to themselves. They have done this to us. To you. To me.’
‘You?’ She cannot comprehend what I’ve just said. And then, ‘you too?’
I nod, and her face crumples. ‘Not you too.’
We hold each other close. The truth is far too painful for either of us at this moment.
‘Come,’ I finally say to her. ‘This is the perfect time. They are all sitting there, eating together.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nod and reach out for her hand. ‘Will you come with me? Will you speak in your defence?’
*
‘Here’s what we will do,’ I say to her.
‘You will tell them point blank what has happened.
You will tell them that you refuse to compromise on your future.
You will tell them that your sexual assault is not your burden alone.
You will tell them to own it and deal with it with you.
You will tell them that you will live your life the way you want.
And I will tell them what I’ve been made to hide for ten years.
I will tell mum that I cannot keep it a secret anymore.
I will tell her to deal with the truth.
I will tell them that they will have to support us, no matter what.’
*
I wait for her to react, and slowly she says yes. She holds my hand and we walk towards the dining room. Everyone is looking at us expectantly. I nod to her and the two of us swoop in. Dinner will have to wait.
The Truth is a Dangerous Landscape was shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition, 2021 and published in the print anthology, Take A Bite, ed by Elaine Canning, published by Parthian.
Susmita Bhattacharya’s (she/her) debut novel, The Normal State of Mind (Parthian, 2015) was long-listed at the Mumbai Film Festival. Table Manners (Dahlia Publishing, 2018) won the Saboteur Award for Best Short Story Collection and was serialised on BBC Radio 4 Extra. She is the co-founder of the Write Beyond Borders Mentoring Project.
Find more of Susmita’s work here