The Friendly Ones
Page 38
Khadr let her in, hissing and puffing at the state of her; however she tried, she could not keep quite clean.
‘Madam, please,’ Khadr said, pointing in affected despair at the clean floor. ‘Your shoes! The mud on your skirts!’
‘Three inches deep in mud,’ Nazia said happily. ‘Like Elizabeth Bennet.’
Khadr, grandly, paid no attention to this. Nazia went into her room and changed her clothes, wiping her ankles clean with a wet cloth. Khadr had heard of Hitler, but not of Napoleon; he had heard of Feluda, but not of Elizabeth Bennet. He had been a night-watchman, just like Khoka; now he felt that anything that revealed his lack of education must be passed over, like a rude word from an old person. He would not ask for elucidation; he would give a vague smile, as if of pity, and start to talk about something else.
When she came out, clean and with her hair neatly brushed, Khadr was still in the same position she had left him in. ‘Sir is here,’ he said.
‘Who?’ Nazia said.
Khadr gave a superb gesture, a kind of circling wave of the hand, as if launching a cricket ball underarm in the direction of the salon. There, seated with his back to the door, was Mahfouz. He sat unlike anyone else in the family, his hands locked behind his head, a thoughtful way of sitting. On the sofa at the far end, the grandmothers sat with Sadia, talking quietly. At the sound of Nazia’s chappals clapping, Mahfouz got up.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ Nazia said.
‘No,’ Mahfouz said. ‘It is so disappointing when people say they will come, and then are somehow prevented. I thought we would just come.’
‘But no one is here!’ Sadia called.
‘Father thought he would pay a visit to his friend Mr Khondkar, I believe,’ Nazia said. ‘He took the girls – they get so few outings, poor things, and they leapt at the chance. Also, he has sugar-coated biscuits that little girls like. Who else? It seemed quiet, so Professor Anisul went to see how things are at his house. That seems safe, but he worries that his office at the university might have been broken into and his possessions destroyed. I say to my husband, what about your office, but he just laughs and says we will find out what has happened there in due course.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Well, he’s with Mother,’ Nazia said, steadying her voice. ‘They go to the police station each day to ask about Rafiq. She used to take clean shirts every day, and they accepted them, but then after a few days she asked if she could have the shirts back for washing, and what they gave her back were the clothes she had brought in, still in the brown paper packaging. The tiffin pail she brought in, they gave that back to her. I suppose they ate the food themselves.’
‘I am so sorry about your brother,’ Mahfouz said.
‘About brother?’ Nazia said. ‘Thank you, brother.’ It was a small formal exchange, meaning nothing. ‘When did you hear? It must be six or seven weeks since they came for Rafiq.’
‘Oh – I think … I’m not quite sure. It was …’ Mahfouz lifted his eyes to the ceiling, raised his hands to his head. Over on the sofa, Sadia had stopped talking to the grandmothers.
‘Things are so difficult,’ Nazia said. ‘He hadn’t been here for a day when they came for him. Thanks to a Friendly One.’
‘I am so sorry,’ Mahfouz said formally. ‘A Friendly One?’
‘Yes, a Friendly One,’ Nazia said. ‘Patriots, brother – those who say they love their country, people who would sell their neighbours, people who …’ Sadia had laid a hand on the hand of a grandmother to silence her; she was tense and listening. She knew that Mahfouz had made a false step.
‘Well, there are so many organizations,’ Nazia said. ‘A new one every day. We hear only rumours, and more rumours, and things people have misheard in the street, and I don’t quite know, even, how you heard about Rafiq being taken.’
‘I told my brother,’ Khadr said. He was bringing in a tray of tea and biscuits. He set it on the small table. ‘That must be how Sir heard about the facts of the case. I told small-brother when I saw him in the market. I was buying eggs and he was buying eggs.’
‘What do you mean, your brother?’ Nazia said.
‘My mother’s small-son,’ Khadr said. ‘Small-brother, a very very good boy.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Nazia said, attempting an air of studious vagueness. ‘Oh, yes, I remember.’
‘It was when we married,’ Mahfouz said bravely. ‘Khadr’s small-brother came to us to deal with the extra work. And a very good thing he is.’
‘That must be it,’ Nazia said, smiling warmly. ‘I so hate it when I can’t work out connections. It is so nice to think that Khadr and his little brother can let each other know how things stand with each of us! Thank you, Khadr. That will do.’
‘Well, that must be how it was,’ Mahfouz said. He leant forward and poured a cup of tea for himself; poured a cup of tea for Nazia. She took it, and they began to talk about Aisha – she was small to be taken out to Mr Khondkar’s, but she could behave herself, and it seemed a shame to leave her out.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I’m afraid that we must think about going. It is such a disappointment not to see the others.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Sadia said, getting up from the sofa. ‘We will perhaps give you some warning next time.’
‘You could send a message to Khadr through his brother,’ Nazia said lightly. She knew now how Rafiq had been sold. It was not the fact of his imprisonment that Khadr had shared with his brother, as he remembered. It was the day that Rafiq had returned from training camp, and the brother had gone home and shared the news with someone; someone very close to the Friendly Ones. The Friendly Ones had reached out. Within the hour, Captain Qayyum had been at the door. The Friendly Ones, Mahfouz had said. What are they? She looked at him, his smiling face, his performance.
‘It won’t be long now,’ she said, showing them out. ‘I don’t believe this war is going to last much longer. Then we’ll have our independence, and be safe from all this.’
Sadia gave her a sharp glance.
‘And then you will be able to come and visit whenever you like,’ Nazia said.
‘I’m sure it will end, one way or another,’ Mahfouz said. There was nothing else he could decently say. He did not hope for Bangla Desh. He sat among people who believed that his brother-in-law should be shot alongside the Friend of Bengal.
She said goodbye to them, and closed the door, but in a few seconds there was a knock again. It was Sadia.
‘Did you forget something?’ Nazia said.
‘Just a word,’ Sadia said. ‘You have a moment, sister?’
She walked ahead, turning right and opening Father’s study door. Sadia had never been in there unless at Father’s express invitation, if he was in there himself. It was strange to walk into the dustless seriousness of the dark, book-lined space with her sister-in-law. There were two armchairs to the side of the desk, where Father liked to sit with his juniors. Sadia sat down in one of these chairs, motioning Nazia into the other.
‘You think we did it,’ Sadia said immediately. ‘Gave them Rafiq’s name.’
There was no point in dissembling. ‘Yes,’ Nazia said. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘You don’t understand how important this is. For you –’
‘Sister,’ Nazia said. She was astonished.
‘Listen,’ Sadia said. ‘You should stop talking as if Mahfouz is a traitor.’
‘Did he not do what we think he did?’
‘Traitor is a word anyone can use,’ Sadia said. ‘What are people who go into the countryside, train to kill the government’s soldiers, plan to overthrow the government, plan to destroy the country? What are they?’
‘You’re talking about our brother,’ Nazia said.
‘What is more important?’ Sadia said. ‘My brother or my country? Mahfouz is not a traitor. And Mother – she must stop going every day to shout at the officers.’
‘You might as well ask her to stop breathing. She has to ask where he
r son is. Is he dead? Have they killed him?’
She meant it as the questions that Mother bore at the front of her brain, but Sadia said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how you could find out.’
Nazia was seized with rage. ‘You must be able to find out. Ask your Friendly Ones.’
‘Don’t talk about it. I’m asking you as your sister now. If you want to stay as you are, stop going to the police station. Soon the war will be over and people will have to pay the costs for what they have done.’
Nazia gripped the arms of her chair. She pulled herself forward. She could have pushed her face into her sister-in-law’s. ‘Don’t you understand? No Bengali is ever going to give up fighting now. Your government would have to shoot every one of us. The war is going to be over, soon, but it is going to be over when your people are beaten. And they will be beaten. What will you do then? You will have to pack your bags and leave. Your Mahfouz will be put on trial for what he has done. He will be hanged if he has done what we think he has done.’
‘Some things are more important,’ Sadia said. She stood up, brushing herself down. ‘If you want everyone in this house to live, you will accept what God has delivered to you. You have no idea what love means, what love will do.’
Sadia left.
Nazia sat in the chair and collected herself. She would say nothing of this to the others. She would observe that Sadia and Mahfouz had visited; that they had sat with the grandmothers; that they would visit again soon, when things were calmer. Once or twice, Sharif had observed mildly that Sadia had never been the same as the rest of them. Her play and her fantasies were never the same as theirs, in childhood. She was the only one of them not to chase, not to play wild games of capture, but to sit in a corner of her room with small possessions to play at shopkeeper. What was the joy in that? little-brother Rafiq used to ask, with his incredulous bored expression – he could be dragooned in to be a customer or a warehouseman for two minutes before he was off with his wooden pistol to pretend-shoot Mother, the cook, the boy next door with yelps and screams. When Sadia grew up she would own a shop for materials and cloth, for silks and cottons, her assistants unrolling them and saying, ‘Two taka the yard, madam, makes twelve taka,’ and taking the real money in exchange. Her eyes would grow bright. She had seen that the sort of people who sold things were not the same people who wrote things, who argued things, who were doctors and engineers. In the end she had watched her husband selling her brother. The things history will do at the bidding of love, standing on one leg and waiting for the witless command to come.
8.
They had been waiting for days for this, clustered round the radio in the sitting room. In the end the news came, announced by Radio Calcutta. The Indian troops had crossed the border. They were participants in the war of independence. The Pakistanis were surrendering as they met the greater force. The Indians, joining with the Mukti Bahini, the brave Bengalis fighting in the country, were meeting with no resistance. In a matter of days they would reach Dacca.
‘The war is over,’ Father said, looking up. ‘And now …’
‘They will be gone,’ Mother said. ‘And my son –’
‘The war is over,’ Sharif said.
The day before, Khadr had told them that he wanted to leave, to go to his family. Nobody had put up any objection. Khoka could become the new houseboy, with a little training.
9.
It was the next day that Professor Anisul woke and decided to leave the house. The war, after all, was over. These good people had been very kind, but it was hard never to be able to leave the house alone, for a walk, without anyone telling him that it was too dangerous. He had always liked his walks in the city. It was how he had often had his best ideas. In the previous months, he had been obliged to sit inside for the most part, drawing fanciful projects like the glass bridge, the cantilevered tower, the floating road on pontoon sections. He would have done better if he had been able to go outside and walk for two hours, making his mind up. His hostess had looked up at him repeatedly the one time he had tried to walk up and down the salon to think something out. Professor Anisul was not always very good at working out what people meant by the expressions on their faces. In this case he had stopped walking up and down. He had worried, to be frank, that in fact his hosts found his presence something of a bore. But he could not have gone anywhere, once he had moved in. They had really been very kind. He would think of a suitable present to give them now that the war was quite over.
He opened the gate and walked into the road. Nobody was there. This was unexpected – he had rather thought there might be celebrations everywhere. The trees, painted white up to knee-height, were in some places torn and shattered. Some of them were ripped up entirely – one lay across the road. Some of its branches had been sawn off. Perhaps for fuel, gathered by poor people. Professor Anisul, however, could not see how traffic was expected to drive down this road if the trunk of a great tree was lying across it. Unexpectedly, a house no more than five from his host’s had been destroyed. The gates hung open, and the house was gutted by fire. The windows were empty, and around them, the walls were blackened with soot. Inside, Professor Anisul could see shapes, as if organic; they were burnt furniture and possessions.
It was a very pleasant day; the sun was not too hot, and the skies were clear. Everywhere there was a smell of burning and of spilt petrol. By this point, there were always rag-and-bone men, pavement barbers, street jelapi-fryers, stationers with a barrow, boys selling a dozen ancient books; the servants of families going about their business, and perhaps two or three people like him, enjoying a morning walk in the agreeable air. But there was no one. There was not even a rickshaw idling, touting for custom. He expected that was because of the tree blocking the road. He could not see why everyone was not out celebrating. Perhaps they were. It would not be the first time he had failed to find out about a general festivity.
Now that the war was over, he supposed Bangla Desh was a reality. East Pakistan – something would have to be done about that. The East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology could hardly limp on under that name. Professor Anisul had never been very enthusiastic about the creation of an institution called EPUET, and time had done very little to modify his views. It should not limp on under the name of the Bangla Desh University of Engineering and Technology. BADUET. It sounded perfectly ridiculous. (By now Professor Anisul had reached the edge of Dhanmondi. Now there seemed to be some men standing about, at the edges of street corners. Of course there would be some people around – he did not know why he had doubted it.)
This morning, he could walk to the university. He had a lot of exercise to undertake, after so many months cooped up. And he would think on the way of how things had once been. He had taken his own degree at Dacca University – an excellent institution, a historic institution, as good in its own way as Calcutta University, or any university you might name. And he had started teaching there – the Engineering Faculty of Dacca University. A splendid body of people! Of course they had gone on being a splendid body of people, even after the government had decided in its wisdom that they should acquire institutional independence, run their own budgets, and be part of something entitled the East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology. Professor Anisul had been introduced to a lawyer friend of his neighbour once, four whole years after the change. They had been on an evening walk round Dhanmondi lake. His neighbour had said that Professor Anisul was a professor of engineering at EPUET – a blank look – at the East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology; the neighbour’s friend didn’t believe he had come across it himself. If this revolution achieved anything, it would restore things to their proper place in the world, under their proper names. Professor Anisul wondered whether that entire run of shops, now burnt out, with a small group of men standing in front of them bearing guns, would in the end be worth restoring and rebuilding. Perhaps they would simply knock them down and build something new in their place.
‘Professor Anisul,’ the man said.
Professor Anisul looked at him carefully. He had never been particularly good at faces, but in a moment he realized that he was being greeted by his host’s son-in-law. He had shown a lot of interest once, when road building had been under discussion. He had had his own ideas about how to increase capacity, and the young man had contributed intelligently. He fished for his name – but it would not come.
‘My dear young man,’ he said. ‘A pleasure to see you. What are you doing out of doors? There seem to be very few people about.’
‘We were merely ensuring the safety of those few people,’ the young man said. His name was Mahfouz – it came to Professor Anisul now. He turned to his companions and called, ‘It’s Professor Anisul Ahmed.’ He appeared to stress the word ‘Professor’ – a mark of respect, no doubt, which was good to hear.
‘Professor Anisul,’ one called back.
‘From the university?’ another called. ‘A professor from the university?’
‘I very much hope so, soon,’ Professor Anisul confided in his friend’s son-in-law.