Choices

A woman’s fight for freedom and independence is tested three generations later
By Vizla Kumaresan

‘Choices’ was first published in Young Women Speak Out, a recently released collection of writings by participants of All Women’s Action Society’s (AWAM) Writers for Women’s Rights Programme.

I would like to tell you a story about myself. But my story does not begin with me.

Instead, it begins with a ten-year-old girl who came to this country many, many years ago.

“Go across the ocean, and you will return only as a crow,” she had heard many times before. Travel abroad was regarded with high suspicion in the old days.

But she went ahead. All alone, she crossed the treacherous ocean on a leaky ship.

And that was how she found herself standing on a jetty, scared and alone, surrounded by men who were speaking a language she did not understand. They were talking about her. They had to be. They kept pointing and looking at her.

One came to her and forced her to open her mouth. He inspected her teeth, tapped her on the jaw and said something while shaking his head. He walked away.

Then another one came. This time, he looked at her small budding breasts. He tapped them, and she turned around to make him stop. He laughed. She was forced to turn back around, and with a lascivious grin, the man touched them again. And again. Then he squeezed her buttocks. Tears just streamed down her face. He turned away, finally, laughing and shaking his head.

She wanted to jump into the ocean. She wished that the earth would open up and swallow her whole. She had had enough of the humiliation. But she was told that she had to endure, as it was her fate as a woman.

The ocean was beginning to call to her when she heard a soft voicespeaking to her. He spoke her language. Finally, someone who would be able to help her. She turned around to see the kindest face she had ever seen.

“You are so young,” he said.

She could only nod. She had lost her voice as she had not been allowed to drink water on the ship. The men were to drink first, and she was to have whatever remained.

“Would you like to come back to my house? I could use the extra help, and you look like you could use some food to eat.”

She had never been asked before. She had always been just taken, passed on from one home to the other. No one had asked if she was happy or if she wanted to go to another place. Her destiny was in the hands of the men whose homes she had to look after.

She had been turned away by her relatives because she was said to have been born under the wrong stars. She didn’t understand. She didn’t even know when she was born. But her parents died soon after she was born, and it was clear to everyone that she was the reason they died so young. She was a bad omen.

She had been given up to the neighbours. Every time an animal died, or a fire broke out, it was because she had cast her bad omen on the home. She was sent away—to another home, another village; until she decided to jump onto the ship that was leaving the port the next day. She didn’t even know where it was going but she decided that she was going to take her destiny into her own hands.

The ship brought her here. She was now facing this man, who was asking her what she wanted. She opened her mouth to answer, to say yes, willing her voice to come out.

She went with the-man-with-the-kind-face. He looked after her well. He gave her a nice warm bed to sleep in, and food to eat, and pretty clothes to wear. She received it all with a shy smile, promising to return his kindness by being the best hand on his estate.

She became his favourite. He would call her name as soon as he returned from work just to see her smile.

“A smile to light up the day,” he would say.

Soon after, she married the-man-with-the-kind-face. They were happy. For the first time in her life, she was experiencing happiness.

Her happiness increased when she gave birth to a son, and soon after, a daughter. Each child, she felt, made the-man-with-the-kind-face love her even more.

Then, one day they came. Two women, dressed in the most beautiful colours she had seen, and their lips and faces painted just like those of the white Ladies. They even spoke the language of the white Ladies.

She did not understand anything.

She did not understand why they were calling the-man-with-the-kind-face “husband”. One of them had children, and they kept calling the-man-with-the-kind-face “father”.

Finally, it all made sense to her. This was not happening because she was unlucky, but because she had been lied to. The-man-with-the-kind-face had married before—twice. His first wife was not able to bear him children, so he took the other one. When he came to this new land to build a life for himself and his family, he took her. He was a man, and a man has needs, she was told.

She looked at herself and her two children. “What about my needs?” she thought. “What about my children and their needs?” The three of them were being treated like servants by the colourful first two wives and their children.

She knew she had to leave. Like she had jumped on the ship, she had to leave this house. But where would she go? She could not bear the thought of standing on another jetty with her two children. She could not think of letting her daughter go thirsty while the men had their share to drink.

She did all that was left to do. She fought. In a time when divorce was unheard of, she fought for a monthly maintenance payment, and ensured that the-man-with-the-kind-face, who was now the liar, gave her and her children a roof over their heads.

The-man-with-the-kind-face would grow old, she thought. He had his other children and wives to feed and clothe. She was still living in a house that was his, and she could be asked to leave at any time. She no longer called him husband. She could not depend on him for very long.

So she built for her future. A house she could call hers, with plenty of rooms to rent to other young women who wanted a better life for themselves without having to depend on men.

Then came the cows and goats that gave the villagers milk. She ventured and soon became the lady boss. The Tiger of the Town, she was called.

They prospered. Her children grew up. A war began and ended. Her children married and moved away. She always had a roof over her head, one that was her own; and from which she could not be turned away. And she saw her spirit pass on to her daughter and to her daughter and to her daughter.

One hundred years later, her spirit wavers. I, her great grand daughter, wonder: does he love me? Will he finally leave her and come to me? Can he not see that it is me, and not the fat and ugly other one that he wants? Maybe if I lost that extra five kilograms from the Christmas season he will see that I am worth it.

Now he is buying her a house? What about me? Can’t he see that I would do anything for him? Is that not worth something?

He promised to come over for dinner tonight. I must do everything I can to please him. I will wear that dress that I know he likes—the red one, and the perfume that made him want to be really close to me so he could smell it.

Oh, is that a wrinkle? Hmm, time for a visit to the good-doctor. He did wonders for my double chin the last time.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone swimming the other day! My skin is now two shades darker. Stupid me! I know how much he loves fair skin. I should have just gone to the gym. Make that instructor worth all that money I am paying.

I am so hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since spewing out this morning’s breakfast of pancakes and sausages.

This is too much to handle. Why won’t he call me? The tears start rolling down my face. After all that effort, the mascara, the foundation, the powder… it all rolls into ugly gunks that fall onto my dress.

I look at the woman staring back at me from the mirror. So many times I have been told that I have the face of my great grandmother who had fought so hard for me to have a good life. I had her face, I think. Many visits to the good-doctor softened the strong jaw and nose she gave me.

What is happening to me? I start to wipe off the streaks of mascara. I furiously scrub my face with the tissue making my skin raw and red and painful. I scrub and scrub hoping to wipe away all the anguish I am feeling.

This dress, I must take it off. I cannot stand to be in it anymore. Not because of the ugly stains, but for all that it has come to mean. All the objectification and subordination—I remembered the various things—humiliating things—I had done for him while wearing this dress.

I can’t breathe anymore. The smell of the perfume is suffocating. I stand there and scrub my skin until there is no trace of the perfume.

I stand there, naked and raw, staring at the reflection of my body in the mirror. But it is no longer my body. The good-doctor was too good, taking away every scar, mole, wrinkle, wart and roll of fat. I cannot recognise the form in the mirror. I think of the various procedures I worked so hard to pay for. Augmentations, restructurings, chemical peels, dermabrasions—what do these words really mean?

The door bell rings. It is him.

Answer the door!

My feet are planted on the floor, refusing to move.

The phone starts to ring. First the one in the living room, then the cellular phone resting on my vanity.

It rings and rings, and continues unanswered.

Outside, I can hear his voice. He is angry that he is being made to wait. There will be hell to pay, I hear him say.

I don’t care anymore.

He starts his car and sounds his horn. Then I hear him drive off.

The punishment will be swift, I know. Everything in this apartment is his, and he will take it all away. I will have nothing.

For a brief moment, a voice in my head screams for him to come back. It screams at me for letting him get away.

I am not letting him get away, another voice shouts. He is not mine to begin with, but we are all his. Merely possessions of his, we are but objects that he collects to prove a point to his rich friends.

Again and again, I hear the words “I don’t care anymore” in my head over all the other voices.

The empty feeling I have felt for years disappears. I look again in the mirror, and the young woman looking back at me looks scared. She looks like a girl standing on a jetty after deciding to take her destiny into her own hands.

I think back to the memory of my great grandmother. I think about all that she went through. I remember the struggles of my grandmother and my mother. My mother always said that my great grandmother’s spirit would forever be with us. She fought too hard for too long to leave us.

The voices in my head have stopped. I hear something else now. There is a loud, roaring sound. I think that it is the sound of a tiger reminding me of the spirit that flows in my body; willing me to fight and telling me that I will survive. I was just built that way.

Then, I think, it could just be the blood rushing to my head, or the sound of my senses returning to me. The full impact of what I have done hits me like a ton of bricks.

I run to the phone and call him.

He does not pick up. I call him again and again. My fingernails crack from punching in the numbers on the dial.

Finally, he picks up.

I am sorry, I plead over and over again. I don’t know what happened, I cannot explain it. But I am so sorry. I love you!

He calms me down. It’s alright, he says. I think you have been spending too much time with your mother. You must stop talking to her. And your friends are no good either. They put too many ideas into your head.

Yes, I say. They are just jealous of you and me. When will you come to see me?

I don’t know. I will come when I have the time. You just have to wait.

I will wait.

I go back to the mirror and put on my make up again. I put on another dress—a black one that has a long slit on the side, and I put on my perfume.

I remember to call the good-doctor tomorrow to make an appointment. There must be something he can do to make me feel better.

I sit at the dining table that he bought for me and I wait.