SUSANNA

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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-'