Lately I’ve been consumed by researching the family estate in Bangladesh. It’s a tale of tragedy and violence. Here’s what I’ve uncovered so far:
It started with a mudslide. Shrieks and howls rang out over the cacophony of shifting earth. Mothers grasped babies as they cried in terror. Whole families were swallowed by the red clay. As they fought and trampled over each other for purchase on shifting ground, their blood mixed with the mud. The frenzy left no survivors. All that remained when the earth settled were bits of fur, teeth, claws, and viscera from the animals forever trapped in the mud, at least before the maggots set in. But that’s ancient history.
It was on this hallowed ground that my family chose to build their estate. My great grandfather, Yunus, returned from the war a broken but very rich man. For surviving the wholescale slaughter of his childhood friends, he was awarded a small fortune and a tract of land. He did his country proud, but he was never able to shake the ghosts of his fallen comrades. On nights when it was too hot to sleep, he would talk to them. He told them how sorry he was through quiet sobs. When they stared back, refusing to speak, refusing to forgive, he got angry.
It was on one of these fateful nights that the first tragedy struck. The estate was a little more than a cabin back then, and Yunus spent his days planning and building. While my great grandmother, Mela, looked after their three kids - already a handful - Yunus worked on the house. He toiled away under the baking sun, laying brick after brick by hand. In the evenings, he found solace among the company of women. If Mela wasn’t willing, there were plenty of women in the surrounding village who traded company for coin.
As these things go, one of those women became pregnant with his child. And Mela was not pleased. The war had changed Yunus. The boy that left to fight would have used his power and influence to make the problem disappear. The man that came back had a softer heart. So it was decided that the woman, Zuneyba, would come to live with them and work on the property, helping Mela look after their gaggle of chickens, working the garden, cleaning and looking after the children. Zuneyba essentially became a live-in maid for the family.
On a particularly hot night, Zuneyba went into labor. Amid the buzzing sounds of the nocturnal creatures of the sunderbands, her labor pains pierced the sizzling air. As Mela and the village midwife helped her along inside the house, Yunus was having one of his conversations over the fire used to boil Zuneyba’s rags.
“I… I know it’s not fair, Tipu. Before you left, your first one was stillborn. I know you wanted to try for more. You always, always told me you wanted a big family, a buncha little ones all running around your family’s farm, just like Dinesh…”
“Hamza, what do you want me to do man? I tried…Allah, I tried. I’m so sorry you never got the opportunity to try - for all this. I’m doing my best to live for you, to give them what you never got the chance-“
“FUCK YOU. NO, I WON’T DO IT, I WON’T DO IT!”
My grandmother came over to check on him.
“Papa, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing child. Go back to your mother and brothers. There’s something I have to do. To atone.”
-———————
As a thunderous rainstorm descended and washed away the hazy heat of the night, a quiet calm came over the estate as well. As the rain pattered against the tin roof, my grandmother had cuddled up with her brothers on their bed with a warm blanket. As she began to drift, the thunder lit a stark figure at the entrance to the house. It was Yunus, bleary-eyed, but bearing a stern look on his face, gripping something long and black in his fist.
In a calm voice, he looked up and said: “Hamza, Tipu, Dinesh… Is this what you want? Is this what you want from me?” He gradually walked towards the bed where Zeynab had just finished giving birth and was feeding the fussy baby. As his shoes squelched and soaked clothes dripped across the floor, my grandmother noticed two things. First, there were fresh tears in his eyes. Second, what he gripped so tightly, long black and sharp against his white knuckled hand, was a boti.
He carefully took the baby from Zeynab, who was too tired to say anything. As he held the newborn gingerly in his arm, Mela began asking what the boti was for. Without a word, he simply walked outside. The wails of the baby began immediately as the rain pelted the sensitive newborn’s skin. While my grandmother and her siblings remained in bed, the two women went outside to investigate. The baby’s howls continued for some time, but eventually, they came to an abrupt end.
-——–
The next morning, my grandmother asked to see her new baby brother. Mela quietly told her that the baby died in childbirth. Zeynab just cried and never gave a straight answer. But Yunus - Yunus said this: “I’m only gonna say this once, so never ask again. Never. Got that? He’s with them now. With my brothers in heaven. With Hamza, Tipu, and Dinesh.”
-——–
Over the years, there would be more births and deaths on the property. Mela’s next three pregnancies all ended in tragedy. She thought she was cursed, and she was pretty sure she knew who had hexed her. But Yunus never let Mela retaliate, at least openly, against Zeynab. She would work for the family for many years to come, always morose, but never complaining.
The clan continued to grow as many more children were added to the family, and eventually, grandchildren. By this era, both the house and the people loomed large over the red clay land. The sounds of construction and hard labor were drowned out by the squealing giggles of children chasing each other throughout the estate. Joy had found purchase here again.
But all that was soon to change. On a particularly searing summer night, all the younger grandchildren were tucked into bed in the nursery, worn out from playing in the sweltering heat of the day. Zeynab, now an old woman, had become like a grandmother to them, and they trusted her completely. This trust extended across all the members of the house; everyone except for Mela, who continued to remain suspicious.
Mela felt something off about this particular night and left the idle conversation in the gallery to check on the grandchildren. When she arrived at the nursery, she saw Zeynab gazing at each of the children in turn, an intense expression on her face. Her gaze seemed to bore into the souls of the children as they slept. It was as if she was absorbing the essence of each child, marking them in some profound way.
“Zeynab, is everything okay?” asked Mela, worry overtaking her usual sharp tone when addressing Zeynab.
Jolted, Zeynab snapped to attention, peering at Mela with that same twisted, hungry gaze for a horrifying moment, before assuming her regular dour demenour and responding, “Yes missus, it will be.” She then left the room humming to herself as she often did, leaving a perplexed Mela. Eventually, the adults and older kids all settled down and went to their respective beds.
-———
In the middle of the night, the house was jolted awake by a collective scream. The children had disappeared. Panic swept through the house, a relentless fear that clawed at the hearts of every family member. They rushed out into the inky moonless night, calling out the children’s names, their voices echoing through the dark woods that surrounded the estate.
Lantern fires danced across the red clay, turning the land into a hellish mire of despair, reminiscent of the terrible mudslide of the past. Hours turned into a relentless search, but there was no sign of the children. It was as if the earth itself had swallowed them whole.
The night stretched on, and the family’s desperation grew. As exhaustion set into their aching bones from navigating the forest terrain, they returned to the house, their hopes shattered. They called for Zeynab to bring tea and water while they rested and planned their next steps, but she was nowhere to be found. Her room was empty, her bed untouched.
With the dawn came the realization that their worst fears had come to pass. They found Zeynab in the courtyard, drenched in sweat, her eyes vacant, her gaze fixed on the ground. The serene smile on her face was haunting, a mask of madness.
“Where are the children?” cried their parents, voices trembling with terror.
Zeynab’s laughter, a maddening cackle, filled the air. “They’re with them now, just like my little angel. Up in heaven with Papa’s brothers. They’re where they belong.”
The family’s horror deepened as she gestured toward the red clay land. With a chilling calm, she explained, “I buried them alive under the red clay dirt. They followed me, without a single cry or complaint. And they lay down in the graves I had dug for them, anything for Zeynab. And I told them we would play a little game, and it would be like dreaming, forever. And they would get to stay here and play like they do, forever. And you will never ever get them back.”
The family rushed to the spot, their frantic digging unearthing a nightmarish truth. The children, their tiny lifeless bodies caked in the same red clay where they took their first steps, were indeed there.
Zeynab’s laughter grew louder and more unhinged, a symphony of madness. In her hand, she held a boti, the same one Yunus had used all those years ago. With one swift, horrifying motion, she slit her own throat, the blood spraying across the ground where the children were buried. She fell to the ground, her life extinguished in a final act of malevolence.
The curse imbued in the red clay land had claimed more lives. An entire generation was lost to the wicked machinations of human tragedy. This event had triggered an exodus for the family, each seeking solace in a different part of the country to escape the horrors of the red clay graves.