by Arif Anwar
The ear-splitting noise of a police whistle shatters the evening air instead, followed by the rush of feet, shouted commands. The thugs stop and look behind them. A group of men have entered the orchard, uniformed, armed with pistols that they point at the abductors. The thin man is apprehended first by two burly constables. His accomplices drop their weapons and when ordered, lie prostrate on the ground.
Dusting off his uniform as though he took a tumble, Inspector Nandi emerges from behind the constables. “There you are, madam. You gave us quite a fright.”
“You . . . how . . . what?”
The inspector removes his cap and runs a hand through his sweaty, brush-cut hair. “The constable we left at your house noticed your and your driver’s absence and notified me immediately. We narrowed down where you might be to here, but even then, if it weren’t for a random monk telling us where you were we might not have found you in time.”
“This monk. What did he look like?”
“That’s the oddest thing. He was a firangi, a European.” Nandi looks around. “He was behind us just a moment ago.”
She sits on the ground, the events of the day finally overcoming her. “Is Rahim safe?”
“Yes. And we are certain that he is nearby. We just have to . . . squeeze these three and we’ll know exactly where.”
“Why would they do this?”
“I don’t know. But this is a conspiracy we have just begun to uncover. It likely originated somewhere beyond the men here. Your driver was the go-between. The motives are what we intend to find out.”
A voice speaks up behind them. “I’m not sure that will be possible, sir.”
They turn to find one of the constables holding up Motaleb’s hand as though taking his pulse. They shine a light on his face. The driver’s eyes are open but the pupils still and dull. A rope of drool hangs from his mouth, joining him to the dusty ground. The constable closes Motaleb’s eyes, bringing peace to his face.
“I fear this one is beyond questioning.”
Shahryar & Anna
Washington, DC
SEPTEMBER 2004
AFTER the conversation with Jeremy and Val, he goes up to his daughter’s room. Anna is asleep. But when he kisses her forehead she immediately opens her eyes.
“Hey, Baba,” she says in a sleep-saddled voice.
“Hi there.”
“Why’re you so late?”
“I was talking to your mom . . . and dad. We were discussing some important things.”
“About staying here?”
“Something like that.”
“What did they say?”
“I was doing most of the talking, actually.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know. How was school today?”
“It was alright. Hey, you wanna see something?”
“Sure.”
She removes from her bookshelf a large paper rolled up and secured with a rubber band. She spreads it out on the bed.
“I remember this! You’ve made some progress, young lady.”
On the same page from earlier in the day. Anna has indeed managed to complete inscribing her first name:
“This is really good.”
In his mind, her achievement is impressive enough to eclipse the earlier discussion with Jeremy and Val. “How did you figure out how to write the rest?”
“I remembered what you said about adding that little line after n—so that it becomes na.”
It brings him joy to see her interest in writing Bangla, to see her work on the project unprodded.
He ruffles her hair. “You’re a natural.”
She looks up, beaming. “Really? I guess I get it from my grandpa and grandma then.”
He smiles. “Something like that.”
AN hour later, he tucks her into bed and walks downstairs. When he sees neither Val nor Jeremy, he steps out to the driveway, his mind in turmoil. A piece of paper tossed into the swirling winds, buffeted by possibilities, dangers. He thrusts his hand into the pocket of his jeans, desperate for the calming poison of a cigarette. The box of Camels he pulls out is squashed and empty. He swears in Bangla.
It is cooler than in the day now, everything a deep shade of blue, spackled with the warm yellow light spilling from the houses in the neighborhood—the Violet Hour.
Footsteps behind him. Jeremy, in a T-shirt and jeans now, but somehow more dapper than earlier in the evening.
He smiles. “You want a lift to the subway?”
In his BMW, Jeremy turns the silver knob until they tune into a station playing British pop. Shar struggles with how to broach the subject of what happened earlier in the evening.
“I want to thank you for what you proposed. It’s incredibly generous of you.”
“Let’s sit down and plan this a bit more. I’m sure there’s a lot of scrutiny around these things.”
“You’re taking a pretty big risk.”
“We all are. Are you having second thoughts?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Not because I don’t want to stay, but I ask myself sometimes what my role is here. The three of you, you’re a unit. I’m on the outside, looking in. You’re the one who held Anna’s bike when she first took off the training wheels. You’ll be the one to interview boyfriends. Take her on tours of college campuses. Set up her dorm room.”
“That bothers you?”
“It shouldn’t, but it does. And it makes me feel ashamed. Petty. You were there when I couldn’t be. Anything you get from Anna, any love, you’ve earned.”
They stop at a red light. Jeremy lowers the volume of the radio. “You’ve done the same, Shar. You’ve been here for the last six years. She’ll always be your daughter. Her last name won’t change. She’ll always look like you. I’ll be more like a traditional dad, that’s true. But you’ll be something I’ll probably never be—her friend. You’ll always be the one she can’t get enough of.”
They begin to move again. He looks out the window to the dark vistas rushing past, thinking about this purgatorial decade, an existence where he is both with a family and without, a child and an orphan, a father and a bachelor.
“What about you and Val?” he asks Jeremy. “Don’t you want to get married someday?”
Jeremy laughs. “It’s been more than six years, so any day now. My parents have given up badgering us about it. I’ve brought it up more times than I can count, but Val’s in no hurry. She says people get married because they don’t feel safe, when they’re afraid of the future. She says she feels too safe with me to feel the need.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’d love to marry Val. She and Anna are the best things that’ve ever happened to me.”
He looks at Shar. “Don’t tell her, but I bought a ring a month ago. I was planning to propose on her birthday, in October.”
“Jesus. Jeremy . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. The ring’s not going anywhere. Neither’s Val. Sooner or later, she and I will get married. I know it.”
They arrive at the subway station, the BMW gliding to a smooth stop at the kiss-and-ride. Shar steps out, overwhelmed by gratitude, guilt at all the envy he has silently emitted at this man over the years. How well would he handle matters were their places reversed? How hard was it to raise another man’s child? One who carried his name, looked so little like you? One whose father was still very much in the picture?
“Jeremy. I . . . just, thank you. Thank you for everything,” he says. Jeremy flashes a thumbs-up sign before driving away.
He sits thinking the entire journey across the Blue Line, as the train flies over the Potomac and dives below the city, only to emerge again near Eastern Market. And by the time he walks into his apartment he has made a decision. He sits at his kitchen table and dials the first of the two calls he must make this night.
Faisal Ahmed is curt when he answers. “Mr. Choudhury. How can I help you?”
“I’m calling to apologize for earlier today,
” Shar says. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and I think I let it get to me.”
When Ahmed does not respond, Shar says, “I’m hoping that the offer is still on the table.”
“It is,” Ahmed says eventually, and Shar releases the breath he has been holding. “But Shar, you’ll have to promise me that there will be no further outbursts. You must put your faith in me going forward, or this won’t work.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ahmed. I will be at work tomorrow. If you can give me a couple of days, I should be able to collect what you need.”
“Good.”
He calls Jeremy next.
“Hello?” Jeremy’s tone indicates that Shar’s number is not saved on his cell phone.
“It’s Shar. Sorry to call so late. I just came home and checked my email. One of the job interviews that I was pinning all my hopes on came through. For now, I can use that to get an extension on my OPT visa, but down the road they should be able to sponsor me for a green card.”
“Really? That’s awesome. I’ll have to tell Val the good news. What kind of a job is it?”
“Oh, just a policy analyst. It’s a little far, but I don’t mind the commute given the long-term benefits. Best of all, we don’t have to go through with what we discussed.”
Jeremy laughs. “I was thinking about this on the drive back. It was a pretty crazy idea, huh? I was actually starting to get cold feet, if it’s possible to get cold feet for someone else’s marriage. So, maybe this is for the best.”
Shar smiles. “Yes, I really think it is.”
Rahim
Chittagong, Bangladesh (East Bengal)
SEPTEMBER 1946
Lying tied up on the filthy floor of a lean-to near the ashram, Rahim hears voices approach the door. Thinking his abductors have come to finish the job, he braces himself for the worst, hoping that if death must come, it arrives swiftly. But the first face he sees across the door is his wife’s. He bursts into tears of relief, as does she at the sight of his bruised and battered face, his torn clothes.
But upon hearing of the capture of the abductors, the betrayal and demise of his driver, he has no appetite for interrogations from the police. They wisely let him alone.
He has little time to convalesce, for on the day following his rescue, the city descends into chaos. The protestors dispatched by the Muslim League clash with their Hindu counterparts. Riots rage around the city.
They spend the day locked in their bedroom, feeling as though they have escaped the proverbial frying pan and are barely avoiding the fire, an audience of two to the symphony of violence conducted outside—the screams, shouts and sirens. On occasion, they peek through the shuttered windows to discern the sources of the monstrous sounds. Among the many horrors they witness that day, the image of a man with a bloody face, running from an armed mob, stands out. He runs up to the main gate, which Zahira had asked the guards to chain the previous night. The bloodied man shakes it so hard they hear the locks clanging from their room. Even in his debilitated state Rahim is about to run out to help, the key to the gate in hand, when his wife stops him.
“It’s too late.” She indicates the mob already set upon the man, who disappears in a maelstrom of whirling fists and sticks that became redder by the second.
It is during the second straight day of captivity that Rahim decides to leave for East Bengal, a decision refracted through a kaleidoscope of disappointments—in his city, his country, in harmony between Hindus and Muslims, forever promised but always elusive. In himself—the brittleness of his loyalty to the country of his birth.
In all, four thousand perish in riots across the city over the course of seven nightmare days. At the end of the Week of the Long Knives, carts piled deep with corpses leave Calcutta for the charnel grounds, mass graves. In the aftermath, newspapers report on tales of violence and horror so depraved that Rahim and Zahira cannot bring themselves to read them.
He sends a telegram to the zamindar in Chittagong, who is relieved to hear that Rahim has reconsidered and agrees immediately to expedite the house exchange. Rahim and Zahira apply for the right paperwork, as he submits his resignation to a disappointed but supportive Theodore Drake. They gather up their life in Calcutta. As the day of departure approaches, they write to Zahira’s father to inform him of their decision. They receive a terse cable in response—Will await at train station on expected date.
The preparations take another month. They hire a tonga on the day of their departure. Rahim frowns when he sees the horse—ribs clearly visible beneath a dull brown coat—consigned to pull the carriage. But with an affirmative slap on its rump, the kochwan assures him that the animal is up to the task.
“I fed her just this morning, sahib. She’ll have you at the station before you can take two breaths.”
It is unclear if the horse—who gives a desultory flick of her tail in response—shares the owner’s confidence.
Zahira is surprised by the attachment she feels to Choudhury Manzil, mostly unexpected and only manifesting itself now that her departure is inevitable. As the carriage is being loaded, she takes a final tour of the house, which, with its shutters firmly tied with rope and emptied of furniture, is gloomier than ever.
She visits the fretworked balcony, where Calcutta unfurls before her in all its familiarity—yellow with dust, green with coconut trees, craggy from the spires of British buildings that crowd the sky. But she feels alienated from the humanity that surges in its streets now that she knows of what it is capable.
Her footsteps echo on the stairway during her descent. At one point her hand ventures too close to the limestone walls and they mark her knuckles with white. She stares at them, and when she resumes, pushes them harder and harder against the wall, until they burn and bleed. She studies them again and sees that the white is now stained with red, like vermillion.
House, now we have marked each other, but we will not begin a life together, but end one.
She steps out to bright sunshine, shielding her eyes from the sun and hiding her damaged hand from an impatient Rahim, who wears an unadorned white punjabi that makes him fairly shine in the light.
“How handsome you look,” she whispers in his ear, not daring to place a hand on his chest.
Everyone—from the carriage driver to the servants—watches. Their bearer, Mintu, is the sole member of their staff to accompany them to East Bengal. For those remaining, Rahim has arranged for employment among his circle of friends and acquaintances in the city, or has provided compensation worth several years of their salaries.
“If only he had asked,” Zahira says again, so many times since that night of Rahim’s abduction that they have lost count.
He knows who she means. But Motaleb was dead, and the only path forward was paved with forgiveness, they had concluded. So they had paid for the driver’s funeral, even arranged for a stipend for his youngest son—still studying for his matriculation.
“Have you said all your good-byes?” Rahim asks her as they mount the carriage.
“Yes,” she says, after a final look at Choudhury Manzil. “I have.”
ON the hour-long ride to Howrah Rail Station, they breathe in deeply the final dregs of the city. The streets are no longer littered with bodies, the smoke seeping out of the burnt-out tenements extinguished by rain, the blood-smeared boundary walls hastily covered over with quicklime, the tops no longer lined with vultures come to feast on the corpses. Calcutta is back to a semblance of its old self. But now, it seems like a trusted comrade who has slipped off his mask to show the demon’s face beneath.
“Who could have thought that so many people were killed here just a few weeks ago,” Rahim muses.
She takes his hand. Having learned early in their marriage that his was the gentler soul, she pooled within herself a reservoir of strength and grit that would suffice for two. The world’s ugliness and injustice always shocked him. Once a girl and now a woman, she has come to expect it.
They arrive at Howrah to find chao
s—families, hawkers and station guards clog the platforms. Conductors—resplendent in white uniforms—shout themselves hoarse trying to maintain order but soon throw up their hands in futility as the trains fill to capacity through every cavity. The Week of the Long Knives has hastened the pace of departures of Muslims from West Bengal, as well as the arrivals of Hindus from the East.
“Like ants attacking a dead cockroach,” Zahira whispers to Rahim in dismay. But in the madness he identifies pockets of cooperation: a group of men hauling to a window the massive trunks of a woman traveling alone, faceless in a dark burqa; a pair of constables reuniting with her family a child lost in the bedlam; coolies forgoing their baksheesh to assist the old and destitute. He is momentarily lifted by hope for the prospects of East Bengal.
Zahira carries her own luggage; Rahim shares the load of a heavy trunk with Mintu. The three trace a path through the crowds to the first-class cabins located at the front. They wait patiently to board, but arrive at their cabin to find it occupied. A heavyset man is ladling out the contents of a tiffin carrier to two young girls. A woman sits on the bench with her feet tucked underneath.
Rahim and Zahira look to each other in distress, too polite to accost the squatters. Mintu engages the man on their behalf. “This is sir and madam’s cabin.”
The usurper acknowledges them with a quick nod before returning to supper distribution. “Arey bhai, there’s room enough for all of us. Come. I’ll make space for you in a moment.”
Mintu takes his employers’ silence as consent to escalate. “Let me see your tickets.”
“Why? Are you the conductor?”
Mintu extracts the tickets from his pocket and displays them to the man. “I don’t know if you can read, but this says ‘First Class Cabin F.’”
A bluff, as Mintu himself is illiterate.
The man’s family collectively cringes, but he laughs. “You’re Muslims like us, no? Leaving to settle in East Bengal? When we leave the country of our birth with tails between our legs, brother, we’re all traveling third class.”