Spiral Road

by Adib Khan

  The Armani jacket and designer jeans have given way to a long cotton kameez and matching white shalwar. A pair of Bata sandals has replaced Sergio Rossi shoes. He wears a skullcap and sports a short and well-groomed beard. I consider greeting him as Mullah Zia, but that may be inappropriate, considering what I remember about his professed allergy to the preaching of clerics.

  My older brother has aged considerably in the twelve years since I last saw him. He’s overweight, although the loose kameez manages to create a toned-down impression of his girth. There are brown splotches, like splattered mud, on his face and neck. His skin resembles crinkled paper.

  He frowns when he sees me and then smiles. ‘You’re beginning to look your age! What happened to that head of hair?’

  We shake hands and embrace.

  ‘That’s a change!’ I point to his skullcap. ‘Not exactly an executive’s ideal.’

  ‘A matter of asserting my identity,’ Zia says forcefully.

  ‘Wish I could be as certain as you about mine,’ I mumble.

  ‘In a foreign country?’ he asks incredulously.

  ‘I live there!’ I say sharply, looking around me. ‘But then, no matter where I am, it’s a foreign land.’

  ‘Your British Council library card number in your final year at school?’ he demands suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My A-level candidature number for the final exam? Our joint account number at Habib Bank? Or has age weakened that exceptional memory?’ he teases.

  ‘I could make them up!’

  ‘Then I’ll know you’re wrong. I came across one of our old school magazines the other day. I’d written down all kinds of things on the inside cover.’

  ‘I don’t forget numbers.’ He stops grinning when I reel off the numbers. Accurately.

  It was nearly fifteen years ago that Zia ended his career as a specialist in parasitic diseases to accept a lucrative job as the regional boss of a multinational drugs company. His position and financial status have enabled him to maintain his imperial bearing, although the wider family’s fortune is somewhat depleted.

  Zia has always acted as though it’s his inherited right to be recognised and treated with respect as a wealthy and influential person. He was always more accomplished than I was at most things, I hate to admit. His academic ability was a source of constant friction between us. And he could flatter the girls with the charm of a polished liar. My brother was witty and made them laugh with stories he spun about his rivalry with me. We competed fiercely for places in the college’s cricket team. Zia was a more talented athlete than I was and went on to lead the side with considerable success. He was a clever debater, too, and a champion chess player. Then, when the A-level results were announced, he was declared the dux of his year.

  Zia has accepted his achievements without humility or surprise. In Zia’s mind, his talent and versatility are compatible with the blessing of being born in a privileged ménage.

  WE BELONG TO the zamindari tradition, Zia would remind me dutifully, with the authority of the older brother. ‘We have a responsibility to maintain the image of respectability in order to justify our prerogatives. Our public behaviour must characterise us as an exemplary family.’ There was serious display of piety during Friday prayers at the local mosque, sanctimonious words and exaggerated humility, as we went out of our way to talk to the more humble citizens in the community. Our charity during Ramadan was legendary. Beggars flocked to the front gate of the house for Iftar and never left without food. We donated generously to orphanages. Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha were celebrated with pomp and carefree wastefulness.

  Although the Alams eventually moved to Dhaka, our ancestral ties with Manikpur were not weakened. We continued to be the rural lawmakers, the dispensers of justice and the upholders of the five primary tenets of Islam. How we acted behind the façade of decorum and righteousness was entirely our concern. If excesses and scandals were not exactly condoned, they were tolerated, even today, with stoical silence. Good breeding demanded understanding and acceptance of straying family members, and it was common for the proverbial black sheep (and there have been quite a few over the years in various shades of darkness) to be penned in a distant city until a safe and unobtrusive return was judged to be desirable.

  We Alams were landowners with a rich cultural background and a way of life that distinguished us from the graceless nouveaux riches, whose only claim to recognition was the tasteless vulgarity their money could buy. The elders in our family were constipated in their acknowledgement of the political and social realities of the subcontinent after partition. I remember, it was as though we were determined to live in a world crowded with yesterdays, fortified by the belief that divinity had granted us immunity against change.

  ‘Anyone who has to work every day to make a living is an insult to zamindars,’ Uncle Musa had scornfully declared when Zia and I entered university. ‘We learn from life and from each other. Not from books!’ He had never forgiven Abba for abandoning a life of indolent luxury for the sake of practising medicine.

  Even after we were relegated to the ranks of commoners by the political upheavals in the subcontinent, we retained a supercilious pride about the generosity of our family. We’d rather go broke, pretending to be rich and charitable, than demonstrate any signs of niggardliness. As far back as I can recall, we were regularly selling off assets to pay our debts. Banks were our greatest enemies, and no creditor could claim to have had a legitimate birth. The Alams developed the ploy of pretence to the extent of painless self-deception. There were, of course, the traitorous oddities like my father and his younger son, who regularly let down the defences of feudalistic hierarchy: both of us were the subjects of much derision for expressing alarming egalitarian views that were entirely against the family’s interests.

  The Alams were eventually dragged into the postpartition world of nationalistic fervour, transitional chaos and lost privileges. We would have much preferred to continue dealing with the Raj, rather than with the native upstarts who then whittled away our benefits and selfindulgent way of living with a vengeful haste. The British had tacitly approved of our ruling-class mentality, respected our musty elegance, ignored our excesses and treated us courteously. In return, we had obliged by inadvertently grafting ourselves to the services of the imperial bureaucracy. The Alams had been among the de facto administrators of rural India, highly effective in establishing a dictatorial order in the countryside without being a financial imposition on the white sahibs.

  August 1947 was an ill-fated month for us.

  THE GULF OF a lengthy separation is too expansive to cross immediately. Beyond the facetious, now Zia and I flounder for words. We resort to trivia—the crowd, the noise and the oppressive weather. Nothing that’s unusual in this part of the world. I’m nervous about the presence of the large number of security guards.

  A bomb was recently detonated inside one of the side gates of the airport, Zia informs me casually. ‘The guards arrive in truckloads every day after dawn, and by sunset most of them have disappeared, as if safety’s been ensured until the next morning.’

  ‘What happens at night?’

  ‘So far nothing’s happened. But it’s potentially the prime time for mischief.’

  I inquire about Abba’s health.

  ‘He’s deteriorating rapidly,’ Zia says ruefully. ‘Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease.’

  Outside, it’s muggy. The monsoon rains can only be a few weeks away.

  Zia helps me with the luggage and we battle our way past a gang of ragged-looking boys, who tug at our clothes and offer discount rates for carrying my suitcase. We’re peppered with hard-luck stories. If it wasn’t for Zia’s firmness, I might weaken and succumb to the guilt that beggar children can adroitly evoke. I wonder how long it will take me this time to adjust to the broken people I see around me.

  Waving a bamboo stick, a policeman lumbers towards a white woman. She stands petrified among a group of clamouring beggars w
ith their arms extended towards her. She cringes and clutches her handbag to her chest, a bewildered smile plastered on her face. Behind us, a youngster swears and spits at our feet. His companions roar with approval, and move on towards the hapless tourist with predatory zeal.

  Zia leads the way to his car—a new Honda Civic with tinted windows, alloy wheels, CD player, AC and leather seats. A man, squatting on the ground, jumps to his feet. Hastily he puts his right hand behind his back and drops the butt of a cigarette on the ground. He bows obsequiously as Zia pays him.

  ‘You’ve to be careful,’ Zia explains as if I’m new to the subcontinent. ‘Just for the hell of it, someone’s likely to damage the car.’ He brushes away a spot of dirt from the shiny bonnet.

  As we drive out of the airport precinct, he curses and honks repeatedly. ‘It’s the driver’s day off today,’ he mutters. ‘It’s impossible to get anyone to work for the entire week, regardless of how much you offer to pay them.’

  ‘The limitations of money,’ I chuckle.

  A stream of vehicles flows past. Zia waits irritably with the right indicator of the car blinking. I brace myself for a collision as he loses patience and cuts across the path of a bus, bulging on the sides with passengers, speeding towards us. A horn blares. Zia responds belatedly. The bus horn is much more robust. In this exchange of sounds lies the tension of inequality and simmering anger of most of the population.

  ‘You should get your horn adjusted to be more vigorous,’ I remark, jokingly.

  To my surprise, he nods. ‘They don’t make car horns especially for developing countries. They sound timid and don’t quite fit with the loud rhythm of life here.’

  I begin to ask after the family, but I’m careful to avoid any mention of Zeenat. My sister-in-law died of breast cancer six years ago. I’ve always regretted not attending her funeral. It was unavoidable. At the time, I was in hospital with pneumonia.

  Zia has had to cope with the demands of the extended family by himself. Soon after he became a widower, our parents moved in with him. Poor planning, rash investments, extravagant living, old age and illness made the change imperative. Besides, Ma held the view that it was the duty of sons to invite their parents to live with them.

  In our teens Zia and I had been obliged to listen to the story of her three brothers fighting over the privilege of who would accommodate their parents. Ma ensured that Abba was not present when we were subjected to this narration of filial devotion. She had once made the mistake of recounting the tale in front of him. Abba had smiled and said mildly, ‘I remember it differently. Are you sure that’s what happened?’

  It wasn’t long after Abba and Ma went to live with Zia that our sister, Nasreen, and her two children were also forced to move in with him. I’m curious to know from Zia in person how he has adapted to all this.

  ‘It can be tense and mad at times,’ he responds calmly. ‘Ma manages to complain about most things. As she’s aged it’s become a chronic problem. I’m too tight-fisted, she says, and don’t give her enough money for the household. The servants don’t listen to her. I should employ a better cook. The grandchildren don’t respect their elders. You’ve abandoned her. She’s unable to find a doctor who can be a sympathetic listener. No one’s qualified enough to cure her illnesses. I don’t spend enough time with her. What a hellish life she has…And on it goes.’

  ‘I suppose Abba isn’t aware of what’s happening around him?’

  ‘That’s a blessing in some ways. He’s fragile and lonely. His friends are too old to visit. Until about six months ago, I tried to talk to him each evening before dinner. But even then he was on a different level of reality. It was all about the past. He rambled on about the efficiency of the British civil service, partition and its calamities, how well the family hierarchy worked when he was young. If I spoke about practical matters, like selling the land we owned in Manikpur, he stared blankly at me and then tapped the floor with his walking stick to indicate he’d had enough.’ Zia recalls Abba’s behaviour good-naturedly. ‘If you wanted to end a chat quickly, all you had to do was mention land sales. But now…his language has almost gone.’

  ‘Must be difficult for you.’ I wince at how hollow my concern sounds. ‘How do you cope with so many people living in the same house?’ Immediately I regret asking. We grew up in a house with aunts, uncles and cousins. But now I shudder at the prospect of living without a sense of space and, more importantly, silence.

  ‘We manage,’ Zia says. ‘What’s the choice? The company’s given me a big house. I have to bear the family’s responsibilities.’ He pauses. ‘No one else will.’

  ‘You’re being very generous.’ I’m not exaggerating. Zia’s never been mean-spirited with those who’re close to him. Despite his addiction to power and the luxuries that money can afford, I’ve never known Zia’s self-indulgence to be deliberately at the expense of a relative’s well-being.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any intention of coming back home permanently.’ He makes no effort to conceal his displeasure at this foregone conclusion.

  ‘Home? It’s not a physical location any more. More like several places in the mind. I like the flexibility of such an arrangement.’ I manage to nettle Zia. He doesn’t like abstractions, especially when he wants to argue a case.

  As for myself, I’m not entirely convinced by what I’ve just said, now that I’m back in the city where I was born fifty-three years ago. I look out of the car window with mixed emotions. Regret, nostalgia, dread and curiosity create a mesh in which I feel myself trapped and my sense of selfhood already splintering.

  I think of a little boy running past sweet shops with a handful of coins, and then stopping to watch a snake charmer piping a tune and mesmerising a cobra. There’s the old fortune teller who scares the lad with talk about ghosts and strange lands. A performance by monkeys and a dance of eunuchs. But interspersed among these memories are more recent images of winter days and the roar of footy fans at the MCG. The aroma of hot chips and the greasy crust of a pie. I’m walking along Bridge Road, window shopping, stopping for a short black. Losing my grip on time as I browse in a bookshop in Carlton. I don’t fully appreciate the pace of my lifestyle until I go overseas.

  The indigenous man of the subcontinent and the migrant will never reconcile their differences and live as an entity. With each passing year, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide where I’d rather be. There will always be an awareness of the pieces that are missing. Now I’m unable to silence the voice of lament that whispers about denial and loss. But regret has given way to resigned acceptance.

  We pass by ramshackle shops and open-air bazaars. On either side of the road, there’s a kind of distorted order in the haphazard enactments of life’s dramas. I connect sporadically with the spontaneous rhythm of living. In this city of my childhood there’s nothing to be grasped with any sense of permanence. Tomorrow is encased in an entirely different dimension of time, unconnected with the present, unworthy of worry. Life is to be lived according to the dictates of here and now. Suddenly the swirl of colours, the noise, the people and their movements grip me with an intensity that is both exhilarating and intimidating.

  The truck in front of us groans to a stop. Zia slows down. ‘Shit! Not another demonstration!’

  Hordes of people approach. Hoarse, outraged voices. There’s a display of posters and placards. A faded photograph of a deposed Middle East dictator. A garlanded image of a turbaned man who looks distant and forbidding. His raw-boned face and Rasputin-like eyes seem to radiate a coded message. It feels as though he’s a living presence in the crowd—as if he’s burrowed into the minds and hearts of the demonstrators, fuelling their rage against a lopsided world. He has a far greater impact on me here than if I saw his face in Melbourne.

  I’m almost afraid.

  The man leading the demonstration pumps his right fist in the air and shouts a defiant slogan against the West. There’s a deafening roar of approval before his words are repeated by the
crowd. A policeman walks casually away from the centre of the road, to become another bystander among the onlookers.

  Zia taps the steering wheel with an index finger.

  ‘A long delay?’ I ask.

  ‘Could be. Lunch and afternoon tea combined. All we need is a bomb blast and you could be holidaying inside the house for a week.’

  Zia presses the horn repeatedly. We’re not going anywhere in the next few minutes.

  ‘I suppose without chaos, this would be a dull country,’ he says. ‘The opposition wants to topple the government and have fresh elections. In the north, there’s a fellow trying to establish an Islamic State. Then there’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Ahle Hadith Andolan Bangladesh, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, Islami Oikya Jote, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jagrata Muslim Janata…A new political party crops up every week. And no matter what, a revolution is always on the agenda.’

  The procession appears to be endless. The thoroughfare is clogged with thousands of agitated protestors. A predictable ceremony is enacted. Effigies of two prominent foreign politicians are set alight and flags torn and burned.

  ‘Where’s our Prime Minister? Don’t they know who he is?’ I feign indignation.

  ‘Who is your Prime Minister?’ Zia asks.

  I laugh.

  ‘No, seriously. Who is the current Prime Minister there?’

  I’m chastised. How could I have made such an assumption about Australia’s significance in this part of the world!

  ‘I’m not used to this kind of spectacle any more,’ I say after a while, unnerved by the mass of people streaming past us.

  ‘It gets tiresome.’ Zia switches off the ignition. ‘Demonstrations nearly every day. Sometimes the mullahs lead them, stirring up religious sentiments. It’s the students’ turn today.’ Zia watches for a moment. ‘Are they serious enough to believe that anyone will pay them the least bit of attention? Bangladesh doesn’t figure in the international scheme of things…My new boss from the States visited me last month. Friendly man. Honest enough to confess he had to look up where Dhaka was.’