“Now those cousins are filling your dadu’s head with lies. He’ll never remember what that gold was worth. They’re saying it’s much more valuable than it really is—and that we stole it. They claim they’re defending Dadu—defending! From us!”
“You mean they’re saying we kept the jewelry for ourselves?”
Her mother nodded. “Your father told Dadu what he thinks happened that night, after they were all drunk. Bhulu and Laltu might have pretended to leave and then snuck back in and taken the jewelry from the suitcase. But they’re the ones in the village with Dadu—of course he’s going to believe them instead of us.”
“So we send Dadu the money directly,” she told her mother. “Let Bhulu and Laltu know we see through their tricks. How much are they saying it’s worth? I have cash with me now, or George can wire me whatever it is.”
“Ten thousand,” her mother said quietly.
Ten thousand taka were about a hundred and fifty dollars. She wouldn’t like to part with that much money, but if it would protect them, she could manage without it. She could tell George they had ended up staying in the hotel one night after all, omitting the jewelry, the drinking party, and Salim’s violent history. There was no need to amplify an upsetting experience by turning it into a story.
“I have that much with me,” Amina said. “Will that satisfy them? Will they tell Salim to leave us alone?”
But Parveen was approaching them from the house. “Come inside and sit,” she said. “What are you chatting so much about? Around you your mother is a schoolgirl.” She guided them into the house, handing Amina a spongy white round of pakan pitha.
“This is delicious, Aunty,” Amina said. “Wait just a minute, while I get some things.”
“Oh no,” Parveen protested. “Why did you carry extra? Your bags must’ve been so heavy!”
Her nanu smiled. “You shouldn’t waste your money.”
“Come and help me,” she whispered, and her mother followed her obediently into the room they would share, painted bright green, with an ornate Chinese-made Singer sewing machine in one corner. A large window opened onto the garden; at night you might latch the wooden shutters, but of course there was no glass. Already the garden was in shadow, her uncles’ tombs white in the dusk.
“How fast can we get it to them?”
Her mother shook her head and put her finger to her lips. Parveen and Nanu were in the main room, and of course they couldn’t close the door. Her mother’s purse was on the table, and she reached inside and pulled out a pencil, along with a crumpled timetable, the type blurred where the ink had run; no doubt she’d been worrying it in her fingers all morning while she waited at the bus stand. She cupped her hand to make a writing surface and scratched something into the margin. Then she handed the paper silently to Amina. In the small white space above the timings, her mother had sketched a tiny symbol: $.
Ten thousand dollars. Amina stared at her. “You said that jewelry was worth nothing.”
“That was before it was stolen,” her mother said, her eyes on the floor. Then she took her daughter’s arm and guided her back into the main room, where Parveen and Nanu sat her down on the bed and began to feed her the buttery, sugared sweets by hand.
6She woke in the night and thought she heard a noise. The shutters were closed, and the wooden latch clicked gently in the draft from the fan. Otherwise the air was still. Amina reached for the miniature flashlight George had given her in preparation for the power cuts and checked her watch. It was before three in the morning, and her mother was sleeping soundly beside her.
She had always been frightened as a child in the village at night. She would fall asleep easily, watching her grandmother—at that hour usually engaged in the lifelong project of organizing her possessions—and listening to the sounds of Parveen finishing in the kitchen. When she woke next, it would be midnight, and Nanu and Parveen would’ve moved her so that she was close to the wall, just under the window. She hadn’t been afraid of people then, but of spirits: a long, white arm attached to a pair of wings, something that would snatch her in its jaws and fly. She would turn from the window and burrow into her aunt’s bulk, but it was not the same as being next to her mother; Parveen didn’t have the same power. And so it was always better to turn and face the window, even if her stomach rose into her throat. At least she would be able to see the thing coming.
She would tell Micki nearly every day about how her parents were coming for her.
“They’re only waiting until they earn enough. I’ll go to a school called Maple Leaf, and my mother will come every day to fetch me herself.”
“But my mother says your mother only gets piecework to do at home, and your father doesn’t have a steady job either. They’re living in a bad place, and she thinks they might as well come back here. Maybe you’ll have to stay in the village forever.”
The idea of staying in her grandmother’s house, the only house she’d ever known, and having her parents there with her was not as unpleasant as Amina pretended. As much as she proclaimed her eagerness to leave, the idea of an English medium school in the city was frightening. There were things she’d heard her grandmother say to her aunt that made it difficult to discount Micki’s version of her parents’ life in Dhaka. And even though Micki had the tendency to repeat bad news, she knew that it was only because her cousin loved her. Micki didn’t want her to leave any more than Amina wanted to part from her.
“If my father doesn’t get a better job, then they’ll come back.”
“Nanu’s house is big enough.”
Amina shook her head. “We’ll have our own house.”
“Right next to ours.”
“A concrete house, like Nanu’s.”
Having established what would happen in the real world, they would escape to an imaginary one. Their playhouse was in the most remote corner of the village, beyond Shoma Aunty’s mustard field. The house had once belonged to a Hindu laborer and his family; they had fled to India during the war, but people in the village still called it by his name. Gopal’s house had been so poor that no one but Amina and Micki had claimed it; the roof was gone, but there were some bricks from a long-ago courtyard and a stand of bamboo growing where one of the walls had been. They had built a little table with the broken bricks, and her grandmother had given them a jute mat too worn for any other purpose. The house became the one they would share once Micki had become a famous singer; Amina’s profession changed daily—film star, air hostess, newscaster—but the two of them were always successful beyond their parents’ wildest dreams. The game was rarely acted out but rather told:
This is our house in Dhaka. It has fourteen rooms and three indoor toilets, and the windows are made of glass.
Here is where your parents sleep—next to mine—and here’s the room for Nanu. Here’s the refrigerator where we keep the ice cream, and here’s where we put on our makeup to go out.
They had been playing this way for at least a year when Amina arrived at the house one day to find Micki there with a little boy. Ghoton was only four, a year younger than Amina, but Micki was on her knees in front of him, pretending to bathe his feet. Ghoton was telling her about the new Honda motorbike he was going to buy when he harvested the rice this year.
“You’re the baby,” Micki said to Amina, barely glancing at her. “Abba just came home, so you go and lie down. I’ll feed you in a minute.”
After Micki began including Ghoton in their games, Amina found herself less eager to seek out her cousin as a playmate. She had stuck closer to her grandmother and her aunt and had tried to focus her mind on the things that would please them. She made bargains with God, sitting still in school, and proving herself dutiful, even showy, about saying her prayers. She found she could do almost anything, if she imagined her fate was resting on it. In that way another year passed, and when her parents had finally come for her, just as they’d said they would, Amina had been more than ready to go.
In the morning they call
ed her father. He was sitting at his old desk in her uncle’s office, waiting for a package that might or might not arrive from abroad.
“No one is here,” her father said. “So I can stretch my legs—I walk around and around. First I’ll talk to you, then I’ll walk for fifteen minutes. Then it will be time to pray.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t call me,” Amina said. “I was worried when there wasn’t any answer.”
“I knew you’d be angry if you found out I’d come to Dhaka. But you didn’t know why—now your mother has told you.”
“Moni Aunty made me promise we’d come there when we arrived. She said she was buying a bed.”
“Nasir has also offered to host the three of us,” her father said carefully. “I think it’s safer. Salim knows exactly where Omar lives.”
Amina thought the real peril was much more likely to lie at the consulate, where any erratic behavior on her mother’s part could cost them the visas. Bhulu and Laltu had heard that Amina had a rich American husband, and so they’d sent their errant brother Salim to Dhaka to make threats and gather information. Perhaps they thought Amina and her parents would pay a bribe simply to be rid of them—something Amina would have been willing to do, had their demands been more reasonable. But ten thousand dollars? Because they’d been so arrogant, she was determined to give them nothing.
“Are you sure Nasir has room for us?”
“Yes, yes,” her father said excitedly. Of course he would prefer staying with Nasir, who treated him like a father, to imposing once again on Moni and Omar, to whom they owed so much already. “He has three big rooms. He would be hurt if we went elsewhere. It won’t be long anyway—less than two weeks. And then we’ll be eight thousand miles away. No one will ever find us!”
There was a part of her, of course, that was eager to see Nasir and to have him see her. She was curious to know what his life was like—how did it feel to leave Bangladesh and then return here to live? She remembered their last meeting, almost four years ago now, and the way he’d lectured her about her marriage. Would he be different now that she’d returned, to all appearances a success?
“Did you tell my father about George’s job?” she asked, when she hung up the phone.
Her mother nodded. “I know you told me not to say anything, but—”
Amina was suddenly ashamed. Her parents had kept the secret about her father’s cousins to save her more worry. By contrast she’d concealed things out of pride. In spite of the bad news about George’s job, her father had been cheerful on the phone; she knew he’d never for a moment lost his faith in her or the son-in-law he hardly knew. She thought of him performing his laps around the office, keeping himself in shape for an America he couldn’t imagine—for her—and the strength of her emotion surprised her. If she were truly an American she would have wanted to hug them; as it was, she took her mother’s arm in hers, drawing it close as if both her parents were somehow contained in that narrow, aging limb.
7She didn’t see Micki until that afternoon. Her cousin was still beautiful, but she’d gained weight and she was wearing a great deal of makeup. Amina complimented her on her clothing, a royal-blue shalwar kameez with gold embroidery, the neckline of which dipped slightly in back according to the new fashion. She was startled to realize that Micki had put it on for her.
“This village has become so modern,” Amina said, but Micki only shook her head.
“You don’t have to say that when it’s only me. I know what a hole it is. I’d like to leave—maybe for Khulna, so we could all be together while the boys went to school. But Badal—my husband—he has the new auto shop in Satkhira.” She hesitated for a moment, shyly. “Did you pass it?”
“Oh, yes,” Amina lied. “So busy.” She could tell Micki was pleased by the way her neck colored, just as it used to do when they were little girls.
“You look just the same,” she said. “Your figure is so good! Did you bring pictures of your house?”
Amina had been looking forward to this moment for so long, but something had happened since she’d arrived. Her pride had evaporated, and what she wanted most was to confess to Micki the realities of her situation. Instead she went and got the pocket album from her room, which had pictures of her and George standing in the garden with the house and car in the background. She heard herself complaining to Micki in the same way she’d once deplored, when her students’ wealthy parents did it.
“Actually I’d like to move to a smaller place. Now that my parents are coming, George says we’ll be glad to have three bedrooms. But a big house is so much work—no wonder we haven’t had time for children yet. My mother wishes she had a daughter like you.”
“Not really.” Micki dark eyes hadn’t changed, still round and liquid. “She just wants you to have children. But she’s so proud of you for going to America. And I heard that you’re working in a bookstore. Badal has a friend who went to Texas, but he works in a restaurant.”
“I work in Starbucks now,” Amina said. “It’s basically a restaurant. Serving only coffee and snacks.” But Micki was gasping at her wedding pictures.
“Like a model in a magazine.” She guided Amina away from their grandmother’s house, toward the path that led deeper into the village. “I was looking forward to a chat with you all these months. As soon as Nanu said you were coming. And I couldn’t wait to see George—he’s an engineer, right?”
Micki was looking at a picture of the two of them in the yard, Amina in the white dress and George looking proud, his arm draped casually over her shoulder. Her own smile looked naïve and silly to her now. If she’d truly wanted to give an impression of her life in Rochester, there would have had to be a picture of Kim, too—wearing one of her bright-colored kurtas, her long hair framing her beautiful face. Was she still in Rochester? Would she show up at the house now that Amina was gone, to say good-bye to George? It was infuriating to be jealous of someone who didn’t actually want her husband—wanted only to gain his sympathy before she left forever.
Micki was shaking her head in admiration. “And I bet he listens to you—not like Bengali husbands.” She hadn’t relinquished the flip book; with her other hand, she held Amina’s tightly.
“Sometimes he listens. But sometimes he can’t understand.”
“Men can’t,” Micki said, and laughed, showing the dimples Amina remembered from so long ago.
She hadn’t been paying attention to the path, but all of a sudden it opened up onto a large field of dal. The farmer was using a hoe on the far side, in front of a row of banana trees, and suddenly Amina realized where they were. Gopal’s house was long gone, crumbled into the mud and grown over with bamboo, but a part of the brick paving from the courtyard was still there.
“Listen,” she said. “There’s a lot I haven’t told people. Have you heard that the American economy is terrible right now? George lost his job almost six months ago. If he doesn’t find another one, we’ll have to sell the house.”
Micki stared at her. “But how much is an American three-bedroom house? If you sold it, you would have lakhs and lakhs of taka. You could come back to Dhaka and live like a princess. Maids, a cook and driver—you could have your babies here, and never have to do a thing!”
Here we are again, Amina thought, playing make-believe. Only she still believes that fantasy really exists.
Amina bent down to pick a stem of dal, and had the bizarre urge to put it in her mouth. The farmer stood up suddenly and shouted something Amina couldn’t understand; she dropped the plant, startled.
“What did he say?”
“Insecticide,” Micki translated. “He doesn’t want you to get it on your hands.”
“But they didn’t used to use that, did they?”
Her cousin shrugged. “I don’t pay attention.”
“Do you remember that little boy you tried to make me play with?” Amina asked. “In the house—Ghoton?”
“I don’t think we played together,” Micki said. “But of cou
rse I know Ghoton. He went to Chittigong, to work for some shipping company. I heard he’s done well.”
“We did,” Amina said. “He was the father, and I was supposed to be the baby.”
Micki shook her head. “Remember how much time we had then? Just fooling around?” She put her arm around Amina. “I’m so glad I got to see you, even if I didn’t get to meet your husband.”
“Next time,” Amina said.
“You won’t come back, Munni.” Micki laughed again. “Why would you?”
Amina began to speak, and then stopped. There was no breeze; the heat was trapped under the large, gray clouds. The farmer had bent over again, so you only saw the white curve of his undershirt in the middle of the field. For a moment the birds were quiet and the sky seemed to wheel above them.
Micki was talking again about Khulna: the new blocks of flats they were building on the outskirts, offered at cheap introductory prices. She had known so many people who’d left, and her cousin Munni was already in that category. There was nothing strange about it. It occurred to Amina that she was looking at this field the way George would, as if she had a camera, and that was what made it (an ordinary field of dal, dull green under midafternoon clouds) so beautiful. Micki’s right: you’ll never see this again, she told herself sternly. Say good-bye, before it’s too late. The field waved listlessly, but the tears wouldn’t come.
That night Parveen made a feast—duck and the tiny eggplants Amina loved from her grandmother’s garden. The bread was hot throughout the meal, and the pulao was fragrant with anise and cardamom. The okra and the dal were so spicy that she thought Parveen might be testing her to see whether she’d gotten soft in America. There was a crowd of people, men in the courtyard outside the kitchen and her grandmother’s female relatives in the house, but Amina ate first, along with Micki, who kept protesting to her mother that she wasn’t a guest.
“We thought we’d have her husband,” Parveen said. “Someone has to sit across the table from her.”
The Newlyweds Page 27