Dia Yonzon’s Unwritten Letters won third place in Writing Nepal: A Short Story Contest 2023. About the story, Samrat Upadhyay, author of Arresting God in Kathmandu and judge of Writing Nepal, said, “In Unwritten Letters a transgender person debates whether they ought to reveal their true identity to their lover and thereby risk rejection. While the actual letter doesn’t get written, the reader is treated to an intimate portrait of a love that we hope will defy all odds. A beautiful and beautifully written story. Let me also add that there was a brevity to this—how it managed to accomplish so much in mere six pages—that I thought spoke very well about the focused quality of the story.”
‘A scale that shows you the weight of the secrets a person is carrying!’ As the spilled lights from the day curtain bounce off our naked skins, we play our favorite game of imagining absurd inventions. With this idea of yours, I admit defeat. You smile, beamingly. I turn over to my thoughts, how everything would be so much simpler if we could devise papers that would, upon a person’s touch, write themselves into revealing the author’s tangled thoughts. You trace your fingers along my stomach and I shut my eyes. You linger around my scars and a gasp leaves my mouth. Later, underneath the shower head, as splashes of water ricochet off our bodies, I draw an imaginary line across my belly to imitate your fingers, and pause when I feel the miniature of a rugged mountain range of scars. The first time you slipped off my dress, after our third date, I told you it was from an operation when I was younger.
You drop me off at the cafe nestled between tall buildings in Thamel. I order a slice of blueberry cheesecake, and lemon tea with crushed ginger, and take out a loose sheet of lokta paper you had bought for me. The ink blotches across the irregular surface as I try to string words together – scribbles and strikethroughs etched onto the paper. I stand up, hours later, with ink stains on my fingers, a blueberry cheesecake half-eaten, the aftertaste of ginger on my lips, and the unfinished letter folded inside my journal. Inside the bathroom, my eyes fall on my reflection in the full-length mirror, and underneath a solitary pendant fluorescent bulb I am ethereal in my terracotta-colored dress that drapes below my knees. It is the only hint of warmth against the cool blue of the light. It is true that over the years my face has grown softer and rounder, but the cold, clinical light is unforgiving. It contours my face in a way that highlights my sharp jawline and casts a soft shadow in the middle of my neck. I take my scarf out from the tote bag and wrap it around my neck before stepping out.
The streets of Thamel, this Friday evening, are a kaleidoscope of neon colors and conversations bustling in preparation for the night. For the first time, I think of someone else other than you. I wonder where Tara might be. As I walk the pavement outside the Garden of Dreams, I picture her there on the sidewalk. We were driving back to my apartment when we saw her standing by herself in her cherry red cocktail dress layered with a black puffer jacket, black knee-length boots with matching fishnet stockings. Her lips were red, complementing her dress, and her eye makeup, smokey. But that wasn’t the first time we saw her, was it? The first time we both saw her was when you dropped me off for my conference in Dhulikhel. The organizers had called me that morning, asking if I could also pick up Tara from Suryabinayak, on the way to the conference. All the participants had arrived a day earlier, except Tara. From the passenger seat, I could see her behind you in her blush pink Anarkali kurta set embellished with gold-laced details at the neck. Her eyelids, cheeks, and lips brushed with a matching hue of pink – she must have woken up very early. The morning light filtering through the glass left such a soft glow on her face that even her prominent Adam’s apple couldn’t diminish a single thread of the femininity she exuded. After the conference, when I told you that she was a transgender woman, you said, ‘Lau, I hadn’t noticed.’
I remember asking you, ‘Do you feel deceived?’
‘Nai. Why would I feel that way? I am not dating her, I am dating you.’
I take a left at Kaiser Mahal thinking about your answer. The path ahead is dimly lit by the setting sun and headlights of vehicles on the road. Strands of my shoulder-length hair spill out of the scarf and I tuck them behind my ears. Once again, my thoughts are consumed by you. When I think about the letter, I know that I am tiptoeing around my thoughts, but it’s only been five months since we began dating. I can tell you that you have a habit of scrunching your forehead, forming deep furrows when you concentrate, but I cannot tell with certainty how you would react after reading what I have to say.
You are the first person that I have been with, ever since I came back from Sweden, almost two years ago. That time when we were hiking and I told you about my school bullies, you clenched your jaws and mouthed, ‘Mamphaka, what kind of sick people went to your school, yaar?’ You held my hand in yours and opened my palms to the sky. Moving your fingertips over the scars on my wrist, you had said, ‘Was it that bad, Kriti?’ What I didn’t share with you that day was how the bullying had affected me to the point where I slit open my own wrist and how Ama found me in the bathroom, covered in a pool of my own blood; I hadn’t told you that it was also Ama who had begged Aba to send me to her sister. Thuli Ma didn’t have her own children, so when I reached her home in Malmö, she and her husband took care of me like their own.
I do not stop walking until I reach the bright lights of Lazimpat. There, across the street, I see Tara. She sees me too and waves wildly with both her hands. She is wearing a pair of blue jeans and a printed crop top. Her hair, voluminous and much longer than mine, cascades down her shoulders and covers her chest. As I walk towards her, I see a man beside her. Her hands are draped around his left arm. He is nearly as tall as you, but thinner. He has a handsome face, stubble, and freshly trimmed hair that would perhaps grow into curls like yours. I focus my gaze back on Tara, and I try to smile, but then, for a brief second, my vision blurs. Tara’s silhouette does something funny, it becomes murkier. I blink several times to try to find my focus, and I see her again. Before this, I had never noticed how much she resembled me. Both of us, Tamang women who carried the exquisite lineage of the mountains etched upon our faces – high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, delicately bridged and slightly upturned nose, and lips fuller than usual. With stark clarity, I see her as my reflection. And I think to myself, did you ever see that too?
Tara gives me a big bear hug. Her breasts, fuller and firmer, brush against mine, which in comparison are much smaller and tear-dropped. She introduces the man as her boyfriend. They are heading for dinner and later clubbing. I become conscious of my own image when I see people staring at her. We bid farewell with a promise to catch up soon.
I try calling you but you don’t pick up the phone. I have the keys to my apartment in my hands when you call me back.
‘Are you home, yet?’
‘Just opening the doors.’
‘Hus. I finished my work here as well. I’ll see you in 30, hai ta!’
Once inside, I turn on all the lights. It’s a two-bedroom apartment with an open kitchen with a large dining and living area. Ama was sceptical when I moved across the town to an apartment in Lazimpat, leaving my family home in Patan. But Aba had convinced her. And when Aba was worried that I started dating you, it was Ama who reassured him. In this short time, she had grown very fond of you. I also think that Ama liking you has also to do with the fact that the first time we went to my family home for dinner you asked for two extra helpings of her palak paneer. You see, she is easy to win over. She wears her heart on her sleeve and pours it into the food that she cooks. Ama is one of those women who always carries cookies in her purse when she leaves homes, just in case she finds our neighbourhood kids playing cricket in front of the house. Aba on the other hand, probably likes you because you open the car door for me. For him, I am sure, that seeing his only child, his daughter, being cared for, is the most important thing. I don’t necessarily approve of the ways that they have found liking in you, however, I am glad that they do. I can see their eyes light up every time you accompany me to our home. You don’t know this, but it has been so long since I have seen them be so happy because of me. Growing up, I only saw them worry for me.
There would be days when I’d be sent back home from school for wearing nail paint, days when I’d come home teary-eyed after being bullied for the way I talked. I can remember vividly the time when I threw a big tantrum about not being able to wear a skirt to school like all the other girls. I remember my parents the very next day at the principal’s office, behind closed doors. Ama and Aba promised me that they would talk to her about letting me wear a skirt and grow my hair out. When the principal hadn’t agreed, they bought me all the frilly princess gowns, in all different shades of rainbow, to wear inside our house. When I was undergoing surgery, they flew all the way to Sweden to be with me despite their fear of flying. In the hospital, Aba recalled stories to all the nurses, how I used to Tipp-Ex the name Kritagya on all my school certificates and write Kritika on top.
I am sure your parents are as lovely as you describe them to be, your mother is as sweet as the kheer she sent me last week. You see, that’s precisely why my stomach churns every time you mention having dinner at yours. Your parents love you just as much as my parents love me. And they want your wellbeing just as much as my parents want mine.
My phone vibrates on the coffee table.
‘A little late. Sorry. About to leave aba.’ Your message displays on the screen.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I place my tote bag on the coffee table. I take out the letter from the journal. The ink has spilled further. I crumple up the paper in the palms of my hand and drop it. I feel more determined than ever. I open my journal. I run my fingers along the white pages. The texture is smooth and I feel that it will hold the ink much better in comparison. I tear out a page and put it on top of the journal. I grab the fountain pen, and I can feel the cold of the pen on my fingertips. I write. The bead of the ink doesn’t break. I smile to myself. But then, my hand stops moving. I do not know where to begin.
I get up for a glass of water. I pace the room back and forth with the glass of water held against my chest. I think of your face, from this afternoon, in bed with me. Your eyes, hazel, glinting in the light. Almost always, I feel like my body is broader than it is supposed to be but in juxtaposition to yours, skin to skin, I can feel that feeling fleeting away. You ran your fingers through my hair and pulled me in for a kiss. This thought brings a sense of calmness to my car-alarmed heart. I can feel my breath slowing down.
I hear a knock on the door. At this moment, I think I know what I should do. I slide back the unwritten page inside the journal again, closing it shut. I put the cap on the pen. I think to myself, sometimes there are things better said than written down.
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