No words
Shannon Kenny
“Agh shame, my darling. So sore your face looks. Come close so Auntie can see,” beckoned the kindly old lady at the spice shop, squinting as she perched her glasses on her nose for a better view.
She was referring to the bruise I sported around my right eye, courtesy of an apartment-moving accident that involved a flight of stairs and my face connecting with a desk drawer.
“It’s nothing, Auntie, I giggled and proceeded to give her what I thought was a rather funny account of the event. “I was helping Judy, here, to move house and we were carrying her desk up the stairs. She was at the top, I was at the bottom and the drawer was facing me. And it wasn’t taped down and the next thing I knew, it came flying out at me and… “
Auntie interrupted, “Shhh, it’s okay my darling. You already put ice? You can tell me what-what. Auntie knows.”
Judy rolled her eyes and darted off to the back of the store to stock up on supplies for her new kitchen, abandoning me to my inquisitor.
Before I could ask Auntie what she meant, she continued, “That fella of yours, he’s so nice. Same like my husband. But you know, men. Sometimes we must take it a long time. Sometimes, only a little bit. Me, I’m lucky. He don’t drink, and so only once or twice he let go his frustrations. But I’m strong and he love me. But we all go through it, darling.”
She paused and then shouted something in Tamil to her husband over the store intercom.
I was aghast when it dawned on me what she was inferring; that she would so easily assume my injury had been violently inflicted; that to her mind, I was meant to endure and accept that violence from the very person I professed to love and who professed to love me. And that it was as normal and commonplace as grocery shopping for all women, from even the nicest of men.
“No, really, Auntie. It was a drawer that hit my face, Judy will tell you. My boyfriend’s been in Joburg for three days. So, he couldn’t have done it, anyway.”
She looked at me quizzically, deciding whether to believe my story. Her eyes started to shimmer. From under the sleeve of the beige cardigan that didn’t quite match or successfully dull her fuschia and green sari, she retrieved a tissue and dabbed the tears from her kohl-lined eyes, careful not to smudge her make-up. “Your mummy never told you?” she asked as she tucked the tissue back under her sleeve.
I felt incredibly awkward; the kind of awkward you feel when you can’t unsee something. The kind of awkward you feel when you’ve been let in on a secret you hadn’t even asked to be let in on, but you get let in on it anyway and it changes how you view people and respond to them, forever. Except, this wasn’t a secret. To Auntie, she was assuming some maternal duty - the impartation of vital knowledge - that my own mother had clearly reneged on. She had that look in her eyes that seemed to say: “Has your mother taught you nothing? Do you even know how babies are made and that you should be careful to wash bloodstained underwear in cold water?”
I’d only come to the shop to fetch my weekly order of Auntie’s chevda, moorkhoo, and puri patha, and here she was messing with how I saw her, how I saw Uncle, how I saw the world.
It was not that I didn’t know that domestic violence existed, or that some people endured it often unbeknownst to others, sometimes for their whole lives. What unsettled me most was Auntie’s acceptance of it as her - and all of womanhood’s - lot in life. And it flew in the face of all that I’d been taught and what I believed to be straightforward and true: This violation of someone else’s body - their person - was wrong, always, regardless of how sober or drunk the perpetrator; regardless of how seldom or often it happened; and that under no circumstances should it be accepted or acceptable. And that over and above all, victims and perps needed help and that it was up to society – you and I - to be part of that help through education and support.
And there I, society, stood with the spotlight fixed on me for all the wrong reasons and no words to console or encourage or educate because Auntie wasn’t asking for any of those things. I was the one being pitied. Me, when she was the one who’d been dealt the injustice goodness knows how many times! When she was the one who’d accepted that being brutalised was something you endured and accepted readily! And how many more like her were there? How many old women who’d accepted their lot; how many older women by their words and actions were teaching younger women the same? But I was trapped in the ramblings of my own mind, of the armchair debates about ‘the patriarchy’ from the vantage point afforded me by my privileged, insular life, comfortable home, progressive parents and social circle.
My 20-odd years on earth and a liberal education had not prepared me for this, the powerlessness to even say the right thing.
Auntie’s husband appeared suddenly at the counter, smiling, holding a package with my name on it. “Auntie told me to make up special package for you today. Here is your chevda, moorkhoo and puri patha. Oh, and some burfee. No charge. Auntie wanted to keep it a surprise for you but then I said what if poor child thinks it’s a mistake, Mummy.”
“Thanks, Uncle,” I muttered as I took the package and stared at him while he looked at me quizzically. Then he turned to leave. My eyes fell to my hand holding the parcel with my fingers like it was a dirty rag. I blinked as my eyes tingled.
Judy finally made an appearance and paid for her shopping.
Uncle suddenly stopped, looked back at me, nodded, then shuffled on to the back of the store in his usual taciturn way.
Auntie smiled. “See you next week, darling. I know you don’t normally wear make-up, but you an actress, you must put concealer, right? So well they cater for dark complexion like ours these days, not like when I was your age.”
*
Shannon is a writer and actor from Durban, South Africa. She is incurably hopeful and believes in the power of Love and good chocolate. Her cnf, flash and poetry appear in Rejection Letters, 100 Words of Solitude, Lockdown BabyBabble, Janus Literary, The Manifest-Station and Red Fern Review. She and her family cannot wait to return to Istanbul, to be reunited with the people and places they last saw in person six years ago.