A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

  I feel a weight in my chest, the earth’s pull within my ribs. I try to hear further, but there are wasps in my ears.

  * * *

  *

  FOR THE SIXTH, SEVENTH, and eighth days, my lawyer presents our defense. When I try to persuade him to let me speak, he lifts a finger to his lips.

  “Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time,” he tells me during a break in the proceedings, “it does not help to have the defendant speak. It is a proven fact.”

  Is it? There is nothing I can do but trust him.

  Though I have been in touch with a terrorist recruiter over Facebook, he concedes, all we spoke about was my job, my coworkers, my feelings. Not a word about an attack. I, Jivan, thought he was a friendly boy in a foreign country—what girl wouldn’t chat with such a boy?

  Gobind points out all the errors in Purnendu Sarkar’s article. He corrects the notion that I threw real bombs at the police before. He asserts that my writings on Facebook were nothing more than a young girl expressing her feelings. He paints me as stupid and gullible. And how glad I am for it.

  Then he says: “That package that you keep hearing about? That package? Was not an explosive of any kind. It was a package of books! She was going to deliver books to a hijra in the slum! That’s right, my client was doing public service, she was teaching English to a hijra in her locality. We can hear about it from the hijra herself.”

  I hear Lovely called to the witness box. My heart lifts, the thread of a kite unspooled, fed into the sky by the hands of a hopeful child.

  Lovely has come. The microphone catches her settling into the witness box, and I hear her say, “You are only making these boxes for thin people or what?”

  For the first time during the trial, a smile springs to my mouth. Lovely has come, with her voice, her unafraid manner, and the truth of my story.

  “What is shocking me,” she says in Bengali, “is how you all are making up such lies.”

  “Please,” Gobind tells her, “stick to the facts.”

  “Fine!” she says. “Jivan was teaching me English. I was not knowing English and in fact I am still not knowing English.”

  The courtroom laughs.

  The judge asks for order.

  Lovely continues. “But it’s not Jivan’s fault. Every two–three days, she was coming to my house with some old textbooks. I was learning a b c d, then simple words like ‘cat.’ Like that. I was learning it all so that I was being able to audition better. I am”—she coughs bashfully—“an actress.”

  The courtroom laughs again.

  Lovely continues seriously, as if she has not heard. “I am an actress, so I need to be reading scripts and having fluent English, you understand? So that is how I am knowing Jivan, sweet girl. She was spending her time on teaching the poors. How many of you are doing that in your own life?” she demands. “Who are you all to judge her?”

  * * *

  *

  ON THE NINTH DAY, when my one sari is wrinkled, its luster gone, the judge speaks. He clears his throat, and speaks in English. First, he reads out the charges.

  Waging of war against the government. Murder and criminal conspiracy. Knowingly facilitating acts preparatory to a terrorist act. Voluntarily harboring terrorists.

  “We have given both sides a fair hearing,” the judge reads from his prepared notes, his spectacles at the tip of his nose. “The defendant was at the train station, carrying a package. The defendant had an ongoing relationship, on this website called Facebook, with a known terrorist recruiter. The defendant’s own former teacher has told us that she left school, discontinued her education, under suspicious circumstances. And, on the other hand, we have the word of a hijra, an individual who begs on the streets for money, saying the defendant taught her English. Be that as it may”—the judge takes a deep breath, and I feel the air in my own lungs—“it is clear that the defendant has long been disloyal to the values of this nation. The defendant has spoken clearly against the government, against the police, on the Internet, on Facebook dot-com. This lack of loyalty is not something to be taken lightly. It is its own strong piece of evidence. There is a case to be made, as well, for soothing the conscience of the city, of the country. The people demand justice.”

  He goes on.

  They have been unable to trace the terrorists, and the railway station had no CCTV. Possibly the terrorists crossed the border. They have truly disappeared into the night. Only I, fool that I am, am here.

  Then the judge pauses, and turns the page. The sound, in the silent room, is like the crack of a whip. Then the judge sentences the accused to death.

  I don’t know whom he is speaking about.

  Have we moved to a different case?

  Somewhere behind me, an animal cries in pain, as if a bolt has been driven into its brain. It is my mother. I turn around. My mother, there in the third row, sari wrapped around her shoulders, stands up, then collapses. I hear the whole courtroom catch their breath. My mother falls, and I stand. Two guards jump up from the back and shout for a stretcher. A huddle of policemen positioned at the exit nearest me watch me like hawks.

  When a canvas stretcher appears, the two guards together load her on it—

  I shout after them, “Where are you taking her?”

  My lawyer tells me to sit down.

  “Wait a moment,” I shout. “She will get better.”

  “Please be quiet,” calls the judge.

  LOVELY

  IN THE MORNING, AT the municipal tap, I am hearing the news. When I am hearing the chatter about the “murderer,” my heart is agitating inside my rib cage.

  I was going, just a few days ago, to the court. Even though Arjuni Ma was telling me not to get involved in this court business, I was going. Everybody was thinking that I was being hauled in for something, so proudly I was telling everyone around me, from a Xerox shop lady to a lawyer who was chewing his lips and looking at his phone, that I was there to give evidence. That is how Gobind was explaining it to me. The whole time I was wishing for one moment to see Jivan, to be giving her one kind look, but they were putting up white cloths so we were not being able to see each other. One strange detail which they are never showing in movies.

  Truly I am not believing this verdict. Surely Gobind will be filing something, appealing something, saving Jivan somehow. Isn’t that his job?

  I am going to a small crossing by myself and halfheartedly begging for coins. I am knocking at this car and that car. I am seeing a cinema of faces in the windows. In a back seat, a child is squirming. Two men are sitting and drinking Mango Frooti. Even a dog which is looking like a wolf is enjoying the ride in AC comfort. All of them are ignoring me.

  The public is wanting blood.

  The media is wanting death.

  All around me, that is what people are saying. The public is killing her.

  When an office worker is walking by, in his clean leather shoes and ironed pants, I am feeling like shouting at him, “People like you killed her! You put your own two hands on her neck!”

  Instead I am finding my voice and saying, “Brother, give.”

  Out of nowhere two child beggars are arriving. They are giving me dirty looks because I am in their territory. They are shouting, “Who made this your crossing?”

  I am sticking my tongue out at them and walking away. Behind me I am hearing the two children laughing, shrieking, feeling cursed themselves or maybe just making fun of me.

  * * *

  *

  MY FEET ARE TAKING ME to Jivan’s house. There are fifty or a hundred reporters there. Their cars and trucks, with satellite dishes on top, are blocking all the lanes. Their cameras and lights and wires are everywhere.

  Father of Jivan is leaning on his walking stick, and coming out blinking in the daylight. I am watching from the back of the crowd.

 
“Look,” he is saying, “look at me, I am a lame man, a limp man, and I am not being able to save my daughter.”

  He is putting his neck forward, like a rooster. “What else are you wanting to know about me?

  “Ask,” he is saying. “Ask!”

  He is looking mad. His arms are trembling. Kalu the neighbor is standing at his side, holding two fingers at the top of his nose, like his eyes are hurting.

  “Why you are not asking me anything?” father of Jivan is saying.

  The reporters are standing there quietly, for one minute.

  Then they are shouting questions. “How do you feel about the ruling?”

  “Does your daughter plan to appeal?”

  “How is Jivan’s mother’s health?”

  To get his attention they are saying, “Sir! Sir!”

  “This way!” they are shouting for a picture.

  * * *

  *

  THEN THE REPORTERS are going, leaving behind a trail of crushed cigarettes. At night, I am going out with a broom and sweeping the butts into a corner. The dust is rising at my feet like a little storm.

  INTERLUDE

  BIMALA PAL’S ASSISTANT HAS A SIDE HUSTLE

  WHO DOES NOT HAVE a side job? Bimala Pal is good to me, but even so, I am just an assistant. I have a family. Wife, school-going children. Have you seen how much school fees are these days? Besides, when they come home, tired, they don’t want rice and egg every day. They don’t want a tiny TV. We all want something nice. So I am a middleman, you can say.

  Imagine you are a Muslim. One day what happens? Your neighbors, good people, suddenly form a mob over some rumor and break your door, threaten your wife, frighten your crippled mother. They set fire to your house. Thankfully, they do it while you are all out. That is their kindness. You run. You leave your damaged house, your property, and you run. Life becomes so precious, so precious! For a few months, okay, there is refugee camp, some donated rice, some tin house.

  But one day the government announces, no more this ugly refugee camp! You all get five lakh rupees, now go somewhere else and live. Shoo.

  Immediately, who comes? Vultures.

  You have your broker, your landlord, your town council, your water man, your electricity man, even your school man—what will your small children do, sit at home and grow up illiterate like you? So they all come and say, sir, there is a good plot here, you buy and build your own home. Most important you have your own piece of land in your name. There will be a water connection, and electricity cables are already laid, you come and see just. So you look at the plot. The land looks fine. You give most of your compensation money to buy this plot.

  Then one day everyone disappears—your broker who called you five times a day? Vanished. The electricity man, the water supply man? Vanished.

  Then you go to the address given on your deed and feel confused when you arrive somewhere different from where you went the first time. You have never seen this plot! All the neighborhood boys nod and chew their twigs and nod and then they laugh. When they laugh, you realize—you have bought a patch of this swamp.

  So this is the riot economy. In this economy, I am a broker, nothing more.

  LOVELY

  IN THE MORNING, MY heart restless, I am calling the casting director, Mr. Jhunjhunwala. The phone is still charging, so I am bending my head close to the plug.

  “Hello?” he is saying.

  “Hello, me Lovely,” I am saying, “good morning to you!”

  Mr. Jhunjhunwala is quiet, only breathing, and I am feeling his irritation on the line. Now I am realizing, maybe he is always getting such calls from aspiring actors. Maybe they are not missing any opportunity to wish him good morning, happy Holi, good night, blessed Diwali.

  So he is sighing and saying, “Yes, Lovely.”

  “Are you seeing,” I am saying, “my demo CD yet? What are you thinking? Are you having a role for me?”

  “Lovely,” he is saying, “please do not call me like this. I am in a meeting, so, I will call you later, okay?”

  “Okay, Mr. Jhunjhunwala, but it has been some weeks, and you keep saying—”

  “I am in a meeting, Lovely,” Mr. Jhunjhunwala is saying, and cutting the line.

  * * *

  *

  AFTER CLASS ONE SUNDAY, I am asking Mr. Debnath, with some nervousness in my throat, “Are you still keeping me for that role? I was making a demo video, like you were saying—”

  He is sitting in his usual chair. He is sighing. I am seeing his belly rise and fall. He is putting his saucer of tea on a side table, and crossing his fingers over his chest. The whole time I am standing before him with my hands crossed behind my back. Mother and father of Mr. Debnath are looking at me from their portraits on the wall. This time their portraits are having some red rose flowers in the garland, as if they are starring in a romance.

  “Lovely,” he is starting, “do you know how long it can take to make an epic movie like I am making? It can take one and a half years just to cast a film like that. You know in one fight scene I need seventy-two extras? Just one scene. Seventy-two extras. Imagine. Do you think this happens quickly?”

  I am hanging my head low like a scolded child.

  “On top of that,” Mr. Debnath is mumbling, “you have gone and said all these things in court.”

  “Mr. Debnath,” I am saying straightaway, “are you upset with my testimony for Jivan?”

  He is staying quiet.

  “Don’t be silly,” he is saying after a while. “Politics is not entering my mind. I am just feeling that, maybe, after the court case, you are already feeling like a big star. Two minutes on TV and, boom, you are thinking you are a legend. You are having so little patience.” His thick brows are coming together like worms in the soil. “And the things you said, well, in the papers they are saying you are an unpatriotic…I don’t want to repeat those things.”

  “What things?” I am demanding.

  I am always thinking that Mr. Debnath is believing in me, but this time, with my eyes on his hairy toes, I am feeling that he is a man I am not truly knowing, and I am a person he is not truly knowing. How long can I keep trusting his words and waiting for his film? My chance to be a young star is reducing. Nobody is wanting to see a star with gray hair and saggy arms.

  On the road outside, a blade sharpener is walking by with his tools. He is calling, “Sharpen your knife! Sharpen your knife!”

  * * *

  *

  JUST WHEN WE ARE THINKING that the electricity supply is really improved, no load shedding in our locality anymore, it is happening. Suddenly one night the tubelight is going dark. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Sometimes Happiness Sometimes Sorrow, on the TV is shutting off, leaving some colors playing on the TV screen. It is feeling like something is going wrong with your eyes. But no. It is only load shedding. A few mosquitoes are immediately finding my arms and ears to nibble. Without the noise of fridges and TVs, voices are traveling far in the air.

  For once, I am leaving my phone alone, because the battery is finished.

  In the dark, with not even a candle in my house, I am sitting in the doorway and looking outside. One hour is passing, then two.

  A few people are walking by. I am calling one neighbor lady by name, but it is not her. She is looking at me, a dark face like a silhouette.

  Now the sky is holding more light than the ground. There is a half-moon, with gray spots on it that I was never noticing before. Like the moon is having pimples also. Clouds like cotton pulled from a roll are moving under the moon, sometimes hiding it, sometimes revealing it. I am feeling that the world is so big, so full of our dreams and our love stories, and our grief too.

  I am blowing my nose and getting up to go inside.

  Alone inside, my tears are coming like a fountain. Poor Jivan. My testimony was proving as useful as a s
hoe is to a snake.

  And Azad has not come to see me even once. I am wiping my tears on my dupatta. I was forced to, my heart, is he not knowing that? It was not me who was throwing him out. It was this society. This same society which is now screaming for the blood of innocent Jivan, only because she is a poor Muslim woman.

  Like a heartbeat, the light is turning on and the fan is starting to whir and I am hearing a cheer spreading throughout the neighborhood. Electric current is back.

  I am wiping my tears. I am flinging my snot outside the window.

  When I am thinking about it, I am truly feeling that Jivan and I are both no more than insects. We are no more than grasshoppers whose wings are being plucked. We are no more than lizards whose tails are being pulled. Is anybody believing that she was innocent? Is anybody believing that I can be having some talent?

  If I am wanting to be a film star, no casting man or acting coach will be making it happen for me. So I, myself, Lovely with my belly and no-English and dramatic success only in Mr. Debnath’s living room—I am having to do it myself. Even if I am only a smashed insect under your shoes, I am struggling to live. I am still living.

  When my phone is a little bit charged, I am taking some of my practice videos from acting class, including my super-hit session with Brijesh, and sending them to my sisters on WhatsApp. Please, I am writing, please to be sharing my videos with your friends and their friends. I am looking for acting roles. Tell me if you are hearing about opportunities!

  * * *