My Darling Dreadful Thing

by Johanna van Veen

She was Asian, God knows from which country; they all look the same, don’t they, whether they’re from China or the Dutch Indies?” “It’s called Indonesia now, Mama. Remember? It’s no longer a Dutch colony.” She made a quick impatient movement with her hand, as if batting at a fly. “Remember? Of course I do. What I don’t understand is why you care so much what it’s called. Ungrateful bunch, the lot of them. Before we came, they were no better than a bunch of godless children, playing with sticks in the mud. I say, if they don’t want our help, let them rot in their jungles.

The only people she knew who had lived in Indonesia were white Dutch people who had moved back to the Netherlands after surviving the Japanese prison camps during the war, only to lose their homes and wealth when Indonesia had become independent. They were usually bitter, scarred, and homesick. All her other information she had gleaned from a nationalistic newspaper she favored, and two nineteenth-century library books, one written by a phrenologist who was convinced of the white race’s superiority, the other by a missionary. In Mama’s mind, anyone who was a published writer was an authority, never to be questioned or doubted.

I’ve read a theory once that prehistoric man sacrificed the most precious things they owned to the bogs to appease its gods and spirits. That’s why we find swords and jewelry and other lovely things there. Ruth was drowned in a bog. That means she was someone’s precious thing once, so precious they cut and choked and stabbed her till she finally died. It’s not so strange then, is it, that Ruth sometimes shows her love for me through violence?

“You must be careful with that, Roos. It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept. Some parts of us must remain inviolate if we are to survive as a person.”

The tall windows flashed yellow in the light of the rising sun, which gave the impression the house was harnessing fire. Ivy had encroached upon the walls and clambered all the way to the roof, its tendrils nesting in the gutter, the waxy leaves obstructing the rainwater until the gutter had rusted and now sagged. Mustard-colored lichen with shades of blue and green grew on the walls, patterning them like lopsided flowers. It looked like mold was blooming at the windowsills. The lawn did not fare much better. Come spring, it would be filled with wildflowers growing thick as an army: rapeseed and dandelions and daisies; cow parsley and clover.

Might be worth watching her for more signs of homosexuality; after all, it’s a known disorder of the mind.

“It’s monstrous, isn’t it? Like Hieronymus Bosch, but with none of the charm. Very vivid, too. It looks as if those women over there are being punished for the sin of lust by… Well, you can see for yourself what those demons are doing to them,” Agnes whispered.

“Happy. Such a funny little word, don’t you think? Perhaps not so hard a state to achieve, but nearly impossible to maintain, and different for everyone. I’m sure there are people out there who would be perfectly happy to never have to clean, but not me. Doing little has never agreed with me. It gives me too much time to dwell on things.”

“Knowing is cold, I suppose,” she said. “Cold and distant. You know things with your mind. Understanding is different. It’s warm. You understand things with your mind, yes, but also with your heart.” “Why shan’t I ever understand?” “Some things must be experienced to be understood.”

folie à trois?”

“It is a psychiatric syndrome in which three people come to share the same delusion.

“How else does one show the strength and sincerity of one’s love if not through suffering and sacrifice?”

My glorious, imperfect Ruth, who had been stabbed and hit and strangled and drowned. How could I have expected her to understand love in any other terms?

I have decided to include them, a choice I did not make lightly (the inclusion of such views may be painful and triggering), because I firmly believe it is important that we acknowledge the wrongs of the past, no matter how uncomfortable they may make us. Only through acknowledgment can we offer dignity and justice to the victims and learn to do better in the future. Such acknowledgment, of course, is not always appropriate; had this been a romance novel, I probably would not have included these comments, because the mentally ill and people of color also deserve to read fun and sexy stuff without being confronted with the very stigma they face every day. However, My Darling Dreadful Thing is a sapphic Gothic horror novel, and what better place to explore racism and prejudice than within a genre that aims to show just how horrifying those things are?