The Black Coat

by Neamat Imam

  I tried to pacify myself by transforming my frustration into solid determination. I must find a comprehensive way of pursuing my interests. I decided not to see Moina Mia any time soon.

  I thought through what might happen if I did not see him. Walking, sitting, lying, I thought what I might say if I saw him when I did want to see him, and then what I would say if I saw him after he had sent Abdul Ali looking for me.

  I was not scared.

  There was no wind to disturb me; no foxes screamed in the bush. But I woke up after an hour or two. After wandering aimlessly across the room for a few minutes, I chopped onions and chillies, washed potatoes in warm water, boiled them, prepared a paste with them, quietly, and ate the meal with rice, sitting at the table. Nur Hussain’s room was dark; there was no reason to think I would see him tonight, not in my present mental state; but I stood at his door for at least five minutes before going back to my room.

  I woke up again before the night ended. I thought I heard some footsteps on the stairs, Abdul Ali’s familiar heavy, slow and clear footsteps coming like beautiful music from the horizon. Moina Mia had understood his mistake and sent him immediately to me to mend it. It was too important to avoid or to be left for the morning.

  Through the dark I opened the door and stepped outside to receive him. ‘Come on in, my friend,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Come on in; I have been waiting for you for a long time. Tea? Any time, not a problem. Just ask. Don’t we have an extraordinary bond between us, one that transcends political boundary and social stratum? You bring me important news, so you are an important person to me. You are—if I am honest and if I allow my instincts to speak—more important than any person I know, indeed more admirable than my father was to me. I know how to honour someone like you. Come on in, don’t stand there, please; don’t hesitate at all; think it your home and you are welcome here any hour of the day.’ I opened the door a little more and stood aside, making room for him to get in. ‘Have a seat, please,’ I said, ‘make yourself comfortable. Take a pillow on your lap, if that’s what you want. Now put up your feet on the small stool. You must have walked a lot today. That’s better. It’s my pleasure to press your feet. I will be careful so that I do not press them so hard as to cause tension in your muscles. No, I don’t have any ego. It is ego that makes a man, I know that; but for me it is just the wrong component. I don’t want to be characterized as inflexible, arrogant and extreme. Those that have ego are actually lazy. They do not know that man is not born with one passion only. No life would have survived more than one second if it were born with only one passion. You think I am doing well? Excellent. That is what I want to hear from a man like you. I mean it. If you do not like me, Moina Mia does not like me. If Moina Mia does not like me, Sheikh Mujib does not like me. If Sheikh Mujib does not like me, I am in torture and after that I no longer exist. Mark this please, mark with kindness, that when you will need to speak in my favour, you may say that this individual is a gentleman, this individual has a genuine desire to promote the nationalist agenda across the nation, provided the nation compensates him generously, and that this individual serves with pride, and serves until he is drenched in his own sweat. Say this with me so that you remember it clearly. Say: this individual has a genuine desire to promote the nationalist agenda. Good. Say it again. This individual—pay attention, please—say: this individual … provided the nation compensates him generously … (don’t forget this part, it is very important) say it again … this individual … drenched in his sweat. That should be enough. If not, let us begin our conversation with a discussion on the interconnection between Sheikh Mujib and the future of the Bengali nation so that you know how deeply I have entered into his soul. Let me say this emphatically: Love him or hate him, tell me who we have without him? Who else can we entrust with our country? He is our Arthur, our Lincoln. He is our hero, our Menelaus travelling to Troy. Love him or hate him, come back to him to feel safe, come back every night for supper and honey and milk. Only he is the one who’ll fight for us and sing for our children. Love him or hate him, he lives in our heart, he’s us.’

  There was only darkness and silence. And no man.

  I woke up on the floor. Nur Hussain was sitting next to me, looking into my eyes.

  The first sensation was of deep pain. I must have hurt myself during the night. There was blood on my nails. My neck was sore. My chest was hidden behind half a dozen long deep scratches.

  He sat quietly, like an image of the Buddha from Seokguram Grotto of the Unified Silla Dynasty, hands folded on his lap, in control of his urges, looking serene and unshockable.

  ‘What?’ I said and rose slowly. I was about to begin coughing, perhaps from the cold of the floor, but controlled it by pressing my mouth. ‘Don’t you have anything better to do? Get lost. Go to your room. Go anywhere but stay out of here.’

  No, I could not frighten him. He had known I would yell. He was prepared. Frustratingly enough, he had learnt one or two things about me by this time.

  As I slowly walked I did not know where my clothes had gone.

  In the washroom, I found a towel to cover myself. Throwing a few handfuls of water on my face, I stared at myself in the mirror for several minutes, trying to remember what had happened, while rubbing my chest with my palm. I had gone to the window, I remembered, and screamed at the dark neighbourhood: ‘You all that are well fed or unfed tonight, note this carefully: Sheikh Mujib is my father; he was the father of my father, grandfather and my great-grandfather who died a hundred years ago; and he will definitely be the father of all the future sons and daughters of this land, irrespective of their ethnicity and religious identity. It may be a matter of dispute who among our predecessors first believed in the creation of a nation based on the Bengali heritage, but let there be no dispute that Sheikh Mujib has risen more than everyone else and has fought more than everyone else to found that nation.’

  I looked through the window and saw my lungi on the pumpkin bush below, flying like a windsock. A beggar woman was trying to pull it down with a stick.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ I yelled at her and shook the windowpanes to draw her attention. ‘That’s mine; leave it alone.’

  She watched me as I ran down the stairs holding the towel to my waist, and began to hit the bush more rapidly than before to free the lungi. I snatched the stick away from her. ‘Shall I call them to shave your head for stealing my stuff?’ I said. ‘Shall I burn your face with boiling water?’

  ‘I saw it first,’ she argued and came after me. Her stomach might be empty but her mouth was full of words. ‘I saw it there since the morning. All doors in this building were closed. I even asked one or two people on the road if it belonged to them. Where were you when it lay in the fog? A bush is not a place where someone would hang his clothes to dry. Night is not the time when someone would spread his clothes in the bush. This is mine.’ I was sure she thought I was not the rightful owner of that piece of cloth, that I was merely depriving her of an opportunity to make some quick money by selling it.

  ‘It does not become yours because you have seen it first,’ I said. ‘You see that window? Look closely. Raise your head. You know who lives there? Your father. Sheikh Mujib. Not one. Two. If you don’t leave this place this moment, you may never leave.’

  She grabbed my arms aggressively to reach the stick, tried to bite my arms a few times, but I pushed her back with a shove of my elbow. Defeated, she punched my back and cursed me. ‘Animal,’ she said, loudly, to draw people’s attention to her plight. None of the three or four pedestrians who stopped outside the gate responded to her call. ‘I thought I was bad which was why there was no food for me in God’s world,’ she then said. ‘But now I see you’re worse than me. You’re worse than everyone else down the street. Was your mother bitten by a mad dog when she was pregnant with you? Was your father a dog?’

  I collected the lungi in my arms and rushed to beat her for abusing me but I retreated when, as a defence mechanism, she lifted the front
of her sari to show me her genitals. It was something I never expected. As I climbed up the stairs she came behind me and continued calling me a ‘dog’ in an increasingly loud voice. ‘Dog, dog, dog,’ she chanted, ‘dog, dog …’ I could feel her shrill voice on my skin.

  ‘Are you blind?’ I said to Nur Hussain as he appeared at the door. ‘Don’t you ever look out of the window? Don’t you feel any responsibility to protect what we have in this flat?’

  I doubt he heard me. He walked to the window and looked out. He was not looking at the view and the woman did not interest him.

  A miserable calmness played on his face.

  6

  The Gloom in the Face

  As expected, Moina Mia sent for me within three days.

  Abdul Ali entered slowly and sat idly on the sofa. He had grown old, ugly and lifeless, in the space of a mere seventy-two hours. His forehead folded more frighteningly, and a dark cloud encircled his eyes. He had not had a shave recently.

  Was it because he was thinking too much about the well-being of his fellow worker, gatekeeper Ruhul Amin?

  He denied it.

  ‘He is doing well,’ he said. ‘He has proved himself smart by accepting your prudent suggestions. I am glad it crossed my mind that he might respect your words. Fortunately, you were there at the right moment. If he were not convinced that day, he would have had more time to focus on what he had done and then find more reasons to run away.’

  My prudent suggestions. I remembered the way I abused him and my angry exit from his small room. It seemed Ruhul Amin had not shared any of that with Abdul Ali. I had doubted if he would, but now I was sure.

  I pressed on. ‘You may confide in me,’ I said. ‘Let me be honest about myself. I am not the kind of person to report one’s minor sickness to his employer. I do not meddle in other people’s business, and I am definitely not a spy.’

  He said he felt heavy in the legs, in the waist, in the back and in his head. He felt like creeping to a dark and silent corner, sitting there endlessly, without food, without sleep, with no thought about the surrounding world.

  What about his duties at Moina Mia’s mansion, I asked. Did they tire him? Was there too much to do every day?

  There was not—apart from a few more things over and above the regular routine due to the construction work and the new campaign. He would not say they were unacceptable or overwhelming. He had worked harder during the election, or even before it, when Moina Mia was restructuring the Awami League after the liberation.

  Then why was his face filled with an air of gloom, what made him so quiet?

  If only he knew, he said.

  ‘You may ask Moina Mia to grant you a few days’ leave,’ I said. ‘That will give you the opportunity to have some fresh air. Some people go to the countryside when exhausted; some prefer a new city. Some just stay home to enjoy the domestic blessings, the beautiful companionship of family members.’

  He became absent-minded, let out a little sigh, and sat with his head down, as if the very name Moina Mia had poisoned his world. Was he feeling guilty for something?

  As I put on my Mujib coat, I saw him quiver with some hidden pain, some unexpressed anguish. All at once a supreme quietness hung over him. He forgot my presence and in no time fell asleep on the sofa only to wake up almost an hour later.

  ‘Shall we?’ I said.

  He yawned and followed me without a word.

  Nur Hussain was in his room. There was something weird about him. He did not come out to meet Abdul Ali today. But when I looked back from the road, I saw him watching us from the window. He stood unmoving, an iron man behind the iron grille.

  I looked back again a few minutes later.

  He was on the road, fifty yards behind us, walking slowly, eyes on the ground. I stopped to see if he had anything to say.

  ‘I might meet the MP today,’ I said when he came closer. I did not know why I said I might when I had been summoned to see him and I was already on my way in the company of his messenger. ‘Do you have any questions or concerns?’

  It was obvious I was trying to hide my embarrassment. I had not asked him that question before I had left the house.

  I was surprised to see that though Nur Hussain did not greet him, or even look at him, Abdul Ali extended his hand towards him graciously and the two shook hands. Abdul Ali’s sleepiness was gone. ‘It’s a real pleasure to see you again,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’ Then he took his face close to Nur Hussain’s and whispered something to him. Nur Hussain looked at him seriously. His look became more intense after Abdul Ali had whispered into his ear again. I nodded when he looked at me, as if I knew what the whisper was about. Then I moved away, to give them some time together.

  ‘I understand perfectly,’ I heard Nur Hussain say. ‘It is irritating. It is terrible. I can’t stop myself from going to the window. I always feel something has happened or is going to happen. Small people may not always think small. You get it, don’t you? We need only one person. One person is enough. One person with faith. Who is not frightened. Who will not stop in spite of the suffering. Then it is going to be very, very noisy around here.’

  ‘Of course,’ Abdul Ali replied. ‘I get it clearly. Thanks for helping.’

  ‘Every man has a vision,’ Nur Hussain said. ‘Whether he understands it or not. I will not be surprised if I see a lot of people on the road one day. Once in a while a person has to look at himself the way others look at him. If he doesn’t and then something bad happens, it is nobody’s fault.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Abdul Ali. He whispered again, to which Nur Hussain replied loudly. ‘Never lose your sanity,’ he said. ‘Because you cannot be born again.’

  We moved to the side of the street to make room for the rickshaws. One rickshaw-wallah, whom I had not seen before—he might be one of the migrants working for the local rickshaw depot—stopped beside us. He was not carrying any passenger. He asked Nur Hussain where he was going, if he needed a ride. ‘Nowhere,’ said Nur. ‘That is perfect for me,’ said the rickshaw-wallah as he wiped the seat with his gamchha. ‘Get on, please; I am also going nowhere. I will take you there.’

  ‘How much do you charge for a one way trip to the market?’

  The rickshaw-wallah smiled. ‘Since you ask and the market is the nowhere where you are going, I have to calculate how far the distance is and think approximately how much time it might take me to arrive there including the time spent in the traffic jam, any journey breaks, prayer times,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry; it is free for you.’

  That is a trick, I thought. Why would someone offer a free ride when starvation was acute? These rickshaw-wallahs would blackmail any distracted passenger by fooling them with generous words like: ‘I believe you, pay as much as you can,’ or ‘You are an honourable person, how can I charge you at all.’ But when they reached the destination, they would not hesitate to shame the passenger if he did not pay more than the fare they deserved.

  But Nur Hussain shook Abdul Ali’s hand and confidently got on to the rickshaw. As the rickshaw moved, he looked at me briefly, and said: ‘No, no question, and no concern. Everything is all right.’ Then he began a conversation with the rickshaw-wallah. ‘Tell me something about your life,’ he said.

  ‘My life?’ the rickshaw-wallah asked. ‘I do not have one.’

  7

  At the Crossroads

  On the way Abdul Ali and I stopped at a crowd near the crossroads. A woman had jumped from the roof of a two-storeyed house and killed herself. The owner of the house, who was also a woman, and who ran from end to end of the yard yelling at the crowd, said she did not know who the woman was. She was angry that the woman had chosen her house to commit such an unspeakable act. ‘Couldn’t she jump under the train,’ she said, ‘like all those others? Couldn’t she have chosen the government-owned City Tower to execute her horrible final desire? Now people will say mine is the House of Suicide. Now I’ll have to pay someone to clean all the stains from my
yard, to burn incense to remove the smell of blood, and invite a moulana to bless the house so that incidents like this never happen again. Is it easy to waste money on such things during these times?’

  She pleaded with everyone she found to remove the body as quickly as possible—including small children who could hardly hold themselves upright because they were so skinny—but only one person, a shaky, barefoot, ailing elderly woman, followed her. The woman believed the act of suicide was not the main objective of the woman who now lay dead. ‘Look at her,’ she said, drawing the owner to a side; ‘look at her fingers, her palms, her wrists and elbows; what do you see? Are they shrunk like my hands are?’ She raised both of her hands to the light falling through the guava branches. ‘Now look here, look from this side. See the toenails? No crack, no fungal infection; all clean and well trimmed. If she were starving, she would have been weak; if she were weak, she would not have had the energy to climb all those twenty-two steps to go to the roof and jump. No, I don’t think so. A starving person does not move upward.’ Her voice fell because of physical weakness, but her enthusiasm became stronger. ‘She wanted to achieve something other than death,’ she said. ‘You have to find out what it is. Maybe death was what was to happen—she knew—death is not the most surprising thing one may encounter these days; but she wanted something out of that death that was more important to her, and that may be more bitter and devastating to you as the owner of the house.’ Then she lowered her voice. ‘If you promise to offer me some rice, you know, any kind, white, brown, boiled, sweet, clean or husked, I can walk around the neighbourhood trying to find it out for you. If you do not have rice, give me whatever you have—wheat, beans, potatoes, red pumpkin, dry mangoes, anything.’

  The woman’s body had been lying there for at least two hours now, said a rickshaw-wallah. He had been there from the start. In fact, he had seen her when she was in the air, when she glided through the guava branches, when her body became still after a small cry and a few incomplete gasps on the dust. He had pushed the gate open, had shouted in his loudest voice to bring the neighbourhood to the yard. Now he was sitting at a corner on the road, his rickshaw parked in the sun, narrating the story of his misfortune to anyone who would care to listen, but mostly to himself.