It was dark. So dark that when Susanna lifted her hand, it was invisible. Seated on a mat, back against the wall, she closed her eyes. After a while she opened them.
There were women. Silhouettes arranged dormitory style along the walls. They were big, small, young, old. Seated upright, lying on their backs, their sides, heads cushioned on their arms. Many were curled up into a foetal position.
A woman in her twenties paced up and down. She scratched the walls with her nails; tugged at her hair; spoke to invisible people; whispering one moment and breaking into laughter the next. Susanna tore her eyes away from the ghost cladded in rags that barely covered her private parts.
It was humid. Susanna held her breath, covered her nose and exhaled into the material of her dress. The smell of human excrement assaulted her senses and she gagged. Decay, hunger, disease and death clung to the air. Her stomach churned. Susanna channelled her tears with her tongue. They moistened her cracked lips and ignited her thirst for water. She turned to the woman next to her. 'I want to go home...Why can't I go home?'
A long silence followed before the woman responded. 'This is home. For now, child.' The voice was croaky. Soft. The accent familiar. Like home. Like Bengal.
Child. Susanna formed the word in her mouth. Child. My child. Silly child. Dearest child. She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath and coughed as the stench entered her lungs. The word echoed in her head. 'My mother... she called me child when...' Her lips trembled and she swallowed the rest of her sentence.
'I'm sorry,' said the voice. 'I did not mean to...' The latter part of her sentence trailed off as if they scratched her throat and got stuck on the way out. Yet they lingered above them, suspended somewhere in the putrid air, an almost forgotten emotion that transcended the smell, sighs and the dampness on Susanna's skin.
'I only wanted to go home. Now I am here, and they say I'm a thief and I-'
'I know, child. I know.' There was a rustling sound as her body shifted position. Susanna could not see her face, but the voice reminded her of her mother back home. 'Believe me, I do,' she said once more, as if she was talking to herself.
Susanna moved closer. 'I must get home.' She lowered her voice and spoke in hushed tones. 'To wash.' Her sentences picked up pace. 'To put shoes on my feet. I must swim and drink water and-'
'The truth will not take you home. Or put shoes on your feet, dearest child.'
She could see the woman's face. It was puffy. Swollen. A turban was wrapped around her head which partly covered one eye.
'What will?' Another long silence. Too long for Susanna. 'Please. Tell me. Help me get home.'
She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and turned to Susanna. 'Tell them what they want to hear. Confess. Or die in this hole.'
Silence descended over them as they stared into the darkness and withdrew into the intimacy of their thoughts. Susanna ventured into the discomfort of the lull. 'Confess? About what?'
'Whatever they accused you of,' replied the woman.
'I was taken... I wanted to go home...to my mother and-'
'Child, you have no home. Not anymore. Forget about home. Forget about your mother. You are a slave. Your home will be with your next owner. And the one after that-'
'No. My home is in Bengal. I am Kismia.'
The elderly woman spoke with a heaviness in her breathing. Her sentences were slow with lots of pauses in between, as if she just woke up from a deep slumber. 'From now on you are who they say you are. Till the day you die.'
'I will remain Kismia from Bengal. Till I die.' Susanna followed the gaze of the silhouette directly opposite her. It was fixed on the single window positioned high above the wall on the furthest end of the room, close to the thick, wooden door.
'Do you think this was once a castle?' Asked Susanna.
'Does it matter?'
'It does. To me.'
'It is a prison now. Yours. Mine. Theirs,' she said and cast a lingering glance across the silent figures staring at nothing or no one in particular. Transported. Subdued. Staring. Waiting. Shifting from one position to another on the hard earth.
'But if it was a castle... it looked better. It smelled clean. Maybe-'
'Child... do not torment yourself. I told you-'
Susanna moved closer and reached for her hand. The old woman flinched and pulled her hand away. Holding it close to her breast, breathing in and out.
Susanna stiffened; face contorted. 'I am sorry... I did not mean to hurt you...'
'Not your fault. They thumped these fingers so many times...'
'I am afraid,' Susanna whispered.
'Fear will be your friend some days. Other days an unwelcome companion.'
'How can fear be my friend?'
'If you are a prisoner... It is both friend and enemy.'
I am afraid all the time.'
'It goes away.'
'Are you not frightened?'
'Not anymore.'
'Will you teach me?'
She exhaled a long-drawn breath. Then she spoke. Each word was pronounced with measured emotion. 'When fear comes, I talk to her.'
Susanna waited for her to say more, when she did not, she probed. 'What do you say?'
'Lady fear, I say. Leave. I am not afraid of you.'
'How do you know she is a woman?'
'Because she knows all my fears. As a woman. And she whispers them all in my ears. Day and night.'
'Why does she not leave us in peace?' Asked Susanna.
'At times she flees...Fear, child, is the tormentor of our minds.'
'You are old...What are you doing here?'
'I decided it was to go home... To be with my family..' She paused.
'What did you do?'
'I killed my owner... And my daughters.'
'I'm sorry. About your daughters.'
'Me too, child. Me too.'
'I wish I can go with you...'
'But you can't... Where I go, child, I must go alone. And I'm no longer afraid because there is a friend waiting to accompany me. He will take me home... and I will see my children.'
'Who is your friend?' Her question was met with a sigh. 'I wish I had a friend. Will he allow me to come with you?'
'One day you will make your own friends. Your heart will teach you which ones to follow. If you listen you will hear it. And follow it.'
There was a loud banging on the thick wooden door. It flung open. A guard stood in the opening, a cloth over his mouth and nose.
'Susanna van Bengal,' he shouted. He raised the lantern above his head, and stepped inside. 'Susanna van Bengal!' He shouted once again.
Susanna clung to the woman. Her bosom was soft. She burrowed her head into it whimpering into the soft tissue of the firm bosom. 'I am afraid.'
'I know, child. I know,' she said as she stroked Susanna's head. 'But you are strong. Stronger than your fear.'
'I want to die. This life is not-'
'Do not die wish for death in this hole. You are young. Face Lady Fear. Stand up. Take your life into your hands. Confess to their lies. Give life a chance. Youth has value...'
'Not to me. My youth was stolen a long time ago...In Bengal.'