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The grownups at the table were in
deep conversation about things that *Toral didn’t understand. They had been
sitting in the garden restaurant for hours and Toral was bored. She watched
enviously as the other children chased each other and played in the grass. If
only she wasn’t so shy, she would have been having as much fun as they seemed
to be.
After what felt like an eternity,
Toral’s mother turned to her and said they were leaving. Relieved and eager to
get home and finish the Enid Blyton book she had been reading, Toral followed
her parents to the car. As they pulled out onto the street, she looked out the
window and began to daydream as her parents chatted away.
Toral’s attention snapped back to
the conversation in the car as she realized her father had raised his voice and
her mother had grown quiet. He was saying to her mother that she wasn’t
supportive and that he was just doing what he needed to do for his family. Toral’s
heart pounded as she watched the side of her mother’s face from the backseat,
praying that she wouldn’t start to cry. Her father so often would speak to her
mother so harshly that she would end up in tears, making Toral feel awful for
her. She turned to look out of the window as Toral’s father continued to rant. Toral
felt a lump in her throat and the tears welled up in her own eyes.
A few minutes later, Toral’s
father steered the car into the parking lot of an unfamiliar compound and
parked the car in front of an old building. They were evidently not going home
just yet. Her mother turned around to look at her and said, ‘Daddy needs to see
someone here. Then we’ll go home’. Toral reluctantly got out of the car and
followed her parents into the stuffy building. As they walked up two flights of
dimly lit stairs, she tugged on her mother’s skirt and asked, ‘Why are we here?
I want to go home’. Toral’s mother looked down at her and sighed, but said
nothing. Her father led them down a hallway and into a room that looked like a
scantily furnished office. The paint on the walls was peeling and the room
smelt musty. A greasy haired, dark skinned Indian man sat behind a desk at the
far end of the room. He had a round red spot on his forehead. As he stood up to
greet Toral’s father, she noticed that he was wearing what looked like an
oversized dull brown shirt over a white sarong and sandals on his feet. He
spoke rapidly to her father in an Indian dialect that Toral did not understand.
He turned to Toral’s mother and said something to her to which she responded by
nodding politely, although she did not smile. Then he turned to Toral and smiled,
displaying a set of very yellow teeth with dark stains on them. Toral cowered
behind her mother. She did not like the way this man looked at her with his
dark, beady eyes. Toral’s father put his arm reassuringly around her shoulders
and said, ‘He is going to pray for our family.’ Toral didn’t understand why they
needed this strange man to pray for them when they were surely capable of
praying for themselves, but she did not dare question her father.
The man pulled up two chairs
beside his desk for Toral’s parents to sit down, facing each other. She stood
beside her mother as the man and her father spoke to each other. She watched as
the man walked over to where her father sat, closed his eyes and began to chant
in this language that Toral didn’t comprehend. He then placed his hand on her
father’s head as he continued to chant, and then on each of her father’s
shoulders. The man had his eyes shut the entire time, almost seeming as though
he was in a trance. Toral’s father kept his head respectfully lowered as this
ritual continued. A few minutes later, the man opened his eyes, turned and
walked over to Toral’s mother. Before he began his chanting he looked piercingly
at Toral and she immediately moved away from her mother’s chair to the middle
of the room. The man proceeded with the same ritual, placing his hand on Toral’s
mother’s head and then on each shoulder, all the while chanting with his eyes
shut and his head tilted back slightly.
Toral knew she was next and she
was dreading it, but she didn’t see that she had any choice. Sure enough, a few
minutes later, the man turned around and walked towards her. He stood in front
of her, quite a bit taller than her – as most adults were. She could smell the
nauseating mixture of betel leaf, tobacco and sweat as he breathed heavily. From
the corner of her eye, she could see her mother sitting in front of her, to her
left. She couldn’t see her father as the man was obstructing her view, but it
felt somewhat comforting that she could see her mother.
The man began to chant. Toral
kept her head lowered as the last thing she wanted was for her eyes to meet his
again. Before long, she felt his hand on her head. A couple of minutes later,
his hand had moved to her right shoulder. ‘Only a few more minutes,’ she said to
herself, trying not to cringe as his hand brushed past her hair and settled on her
left shoulder. But his hand seemed to be slipping. In complete horror, Toral felt
the man’s hand slide down her shoulder, towards the middle of her chest. Before
she knew what was happening, he had slipped his hand into the neck of her dress.
Toral’s feet were glued to the ground.
She felt paralyzed. She wanted to push the man away, to punch him with her
little fists, but she had been raised to respect all adults – especially those
whom her parents, especially her scary father, expected her to respect. Gripped
with intense panic, she looked at her mother, her eyes imploring for help. She
was certain that her mother hadn’t been watching as she would have already
jumped to Toral’s rescue. But she was wrong. Toral’s mother’s eyes were already
on her - a look that couldn’t be explained. The second Toral’s gaze met hers,
her mother hastily looked down at the floor in front of her.
Complete
disbelief. Shock. Helplessness. Fear. Betrayal. All kinds of emotions ran
through Toral as this terrible man continued to molest her within a few feet
from the two people who brought her into this world, whose job it was to
protect her as a child when she was unable to protect herself. The tears
streamed down the twelve year old girl’s face as she looked at her mother,
silently begging her to look at her again. Toral needed her mother to see that she
needed her to help her child. But she just sat there. And did nothing. Nothing.
*Name has been changed to protect identity
