A Golden Age

by Tahmima Anam

  ‘Walaikum As-Salaam,’ Rehana replied. ‘Please, come in, sit down.’ She didn’t quite know what to say next, so settled on more pleasantries. ‘I’m very glad you could come.’

  ‘Silvi, you sit here,’ Mrs Chowdhury instructed, ‘and jamaibabu, you sit beside her.’

  Silvi and the uniformed man did as they were told.

  ‘The boy came over last week,’ Mrs Chowdhury whispered, ‘with his mother and his aunt. Very handsome, don’t you think? Doesn’t talk very much, but then I was thinking, that is just perfect for my shy Silvi. They’re two of a kind–and he’s a lieutenant!’ She tittered and the ripples returned, spreading to her cheeks.

  Just as Rehana was trying to think of how she would break the news to Sohail, the Senguptas crossed the garden and knocked on the drawing-room window. Their son Mithun was in tow, dragging his feet in the grass.

  ‘Hello–it’s us.’

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Rehana said, grateful for the distraction.

  Mrs Sengupta was wearing a peacock-blue sari and a sleeveless blouse that showed off her gleaming, ebony shoulders. Taller than her husband by at least three inches, she took advantage of her height by mounting a pair of platform heels and cutting her hair short so that it revealed the ridged length of her neck, which was adorned with a heavy gold mangalsutra, the ornament that identified her as married, and Hindu, and rich. Her husband, by contrast, was a squat man with tiny, wringing hands.

  ‘Mithun, would you like some lemonade?’ Rehana asked, turning her attention to the boy.

  Mithun put a hot hand on Rehana’s wrist. ‘Tea, please. I have a headache.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re allowed tea, beta.’

  ‘No–that’s right,’ his mother said. ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘You said it was a special occasion.’

  ‘True,’ Rehana said. ‘It is a special occasion. How about an orange cola?’ She left to get the drinks while Mrs Chowdhury repeated her news to the Senguptas.

  Sohail and Maya were slicing cucumbers in the kitchen.

  Rehana’s only thought was to get Sohail out of the house. She couldn’t think beyond that; eventually he would have to return, but she just needed time to come up with a way to tell him the news first, to somehow soften the blow. ‘Sohail,’ she said, ‘I need you to pick up some sweets from Alauddin.’

  ‘Aren’t we having jilapi?’

  She cleared her throat and attempted to sound bossy. ‘I don’t think it’ll be enough–you know how people like a little something sweet after biryani.’

  ‘It’s all the way on the other side of town–I’ll be at least an hour.’

  ‘Don’t worry, people will stay all afternoon. You’ll be back in time.’ She gave him a few notes. ‘Take a rickshaw,’ she said. He turned towards the drawing room, more irritated than suspicious. ‘No, go out through the back or you’ll be held up for hours if Mrs Chowdhury gets hold of you.’ She watched him guiltily as he shrugged and ducked out of the kitchen.

  Maya could not be duped. ‘What’s going on, Ammoo?’ She sat squatting behind the curved blade of the boti, her polka-dot sari wound around her ankles.

  Rehana peered out of the kitchen window to make sure Sohail was out of earshot. ‘Silvi’s getting married.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know. It’s all of a sudden. I knew Mrs Chowdhury was looking for a boy, but they’ve hardly met.’

  ‘And Silvi agreed?’ Maya jabbed aggressively at her cucumber.

  Rehana nodded.

  ‘God. My poor brother. What should we do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just make sure he doesn’t bump into them when he comes back.’

  In the drawing room Rehana found that Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram had already arrived. The two went everywhere together, and always without their husbands or their children, wearing fugitive looks and sighing about escaping from home. Rehana was happy to see the room filling up; it made her resist the urge to stare at Silvi and her fiancé. And now there was the food to distract them all.

  ‘Lunch is ready,’ she announced, setting the heavy tray of biryani on the table. The guests made their way across the room as Rehana filled up the plates and passed them around.

  ‘A wedding in the neighbourhood,’ Mrs Akram said; ‘you must be the first–what fun we’ll have!’

  Rehana piled on the biryani. ‘Let me take your plate, Mr Sengupta. You must have some more.’ Rehana had prepared a special vegetarian dish for the Senguptas.

  ‘Enough! Your tenants will be eating you out of house and home,’ he protested, putting his hand over his plate.

  ‘It’s been ten years,’ Rehana said. ‘Time you stopped calling yourselves tenants.’ She made for the kitchen to replenish the biryani.

  Rehana found Silvi lingering in the corridor. ‘It’s really good this year, khala-moni.’ She always addressed Rehana as khala-moni, as though Mrs Chowdhury and Rehana were real sisters. Silvi still had a pale, ashen complexion, though the pallor suited her; without it, her light eyes might have been eclipsed, but, as it was, they reflected the sun and shone like bright, chalky pinpoints.

  ‘Thank you–I made it in such a hurry.’ Rehana’s eyes lingered on Silvi, searching for an answer to the question she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  ‘I wouldn’t have guessed–it’s delicious. You make the best biryani in Dhaka.’

  Rehana nodded, accepting the compliment. Silvi glanced down at herself and straightened her necklace.

  There was a long silence. ‘So. You’re getting married,’ Rehana said finally. She tried to sound cheerful.

  ‘Yes, I…’ Silvi stammered, ‘well, my mother was worried. I don’t like her to worry. She has high blood pressure, you know.’

  ‘Well, she looks very pleased,’ Rehana said. She cupped Silvi’s cheek, felt it yielding under her fingers. ‘You’ve made her very happy.’

  Sohail arrived with the sweets after the guests had collapsed under the shade of the tent. Rehana tried to intercept him at the gate, but she was carrying a handful of plates and Mrs Chowdhury got to him first.

  ‘Sohail!’ Mrs Chowdhury grabbed Sohail’s arm. ‘Where have you been? I have news. Silvi’s getting married!’

  Rehana saw Sohail brushing the hair back from his forehead with raking fingers. His other hand, holding the sweets box, rocked back and forth.

  ‘Come, come, you must meet him. Sabeer, this is Mrs Haque’s son, Sohail. A very old friend of Silvi–they were inseparable as children–Sohail, baba, this is Lieutenant Sabeer Mustafa.’

  ‘Welcome to the family,’ Sohail said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sabeer replied, standing up and straightening his uniform.

  ‘Sohail, jaan, will you help me with these plates?’ Rehana attempted to hand him the stack.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ignoring her, ‘I’ve just got tickets to tomorrow’s cricket match. Pakistan vs England MCC.’ He fanned out the tickets and waved them in the air. ‘Who wants to come? Lieutenant, will you join us?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I’m on duty tomorrow,’ Sabeer said.

  ‘Silvi? Will you?’ Sohail pointed the tickets at her.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, jumping in. ‘We have a lot of preparations to make.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Mrs Sengupta said cheerfully. ‘Your mother will come too, won’t you, Rehana?’

  ‘I’ll come as well. I’m afraid there’s no room for you after all, Silvi,’ Maya said pointedly. ‘Another time perhaps.’

  There was a long silence as Maya and Rehana finished clearing the rest of the plates. Rehana was hoping someone would begin a conversation, something to change the subject, but no one was saying anything. Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram passed around the box of sweets. Finally Mr Sengupta brought up everyone’s favorite topic: the election.

  ‘How are things on the student front, Sohail?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s uncertain, Uncle,’ Sohail replied, his eyes darting around the garden. ‘It’s been two months since
Mujib won the election. They should have convened the national assembly by now and made him Prime Minister, but they keep delaying. Some of the students are urging Mujib to take more drastic action.’ He suddenly looked weary; his shirtsleeves were crumpled, as though someone had grabbed his arms and pulled him into a tight embrace.

  ‘Drastic action?’

  ‘He should declare independence.’

  ‘But he’s won the election–surely now his demands will be met?’ Mr Sengupta said.

  ‘Yes,’ Sohail said. ‘But they’ve postponed the assembly too many times.’

  Sohail looked as if he were about to start speechifying again. Rehana felt her face growing hot.

  ‘Mujib is a canny politician,’ Mrs Rahman interjected. ‘He must know something we don’t.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s still a chance for diplomacy,’ Mr Sengupta said.

  ‘Diplomacy? Forgive me, Chacha. You think Bhutto and Yahya want diplomacy?’

  Sohail seemed on the point of turning away from the conversation when Sabeer raised his hand. ‘You think we can make it as our own country?’ he asked. Rehana wondered if Sohail would take the bait.

  He did. ‘If you knew anything about the country you would know that West Pakistan is bleeding us out. We earn most of the foreign exchange. We grow the rice, we make the jute, and yet we get nothing–no schools, no hospitals, no army. We can’t even speak our own bloody language!’

  Rehana waited for Sabeer to say something, something aggressive and blunt; his military training would have taught him that, but he turned away instead, fingering the buttons on his uniform.

  ‘Cyclone, young fellow,’ Mr Sengupta interrupted, attempting to make peace. ‘Nature. We live in a low-lying delta. And we have bad luck.’

  ‘Starvation is not caused by God. It is caused by irresponsible governments.’ Sohail rolled and unrolled the sleeve of his kurta. Rehana wondered if he was going to go on talking about the country’s fortunes, the jute money, the cyclone. But he looked as though he’d run out of air. ‘What we have here is an emergency,’ he said in a tired voice. ‘There is no possibility of reconciliation now. Mujib should have declared independence.’

  Rehana had ordered two crates of orange cola, which she hurriedly passed around. She had to get the party back on course. The guests gratefully accepted the drinks and began to sip. They clinked the small glass bottles and smiled hesitantly into their straws. Their saris and kurtas flapped in the sugary March breeze, and the evening regained its still feeling, like the heavy pause before a mighty thunderclap.

  The gin-rummy ladies offered to help Rehana put away the biryani. She wasn’t sure she wanted the company, but they insisted, and she was too tired to protest.

  ‘You didn’t do a very good job of finishing the food,’ Rehana complained, examining the trays of rice. ‘I’ll have to send all of this to the mosque.’

  ‘You might make up a packet for me,’ Mrs Chowdhury said. ‘You know how much I love it the next day.’

  ‘I’ve already put some aside for you,’ Rehana said, presenting her with a cardboard box. She saw Mrs Chowdhury eyeing it for size, calculating the number of meals she might make of it.

  ‘There’s still a lot left over.’ Perhaps she hadn’t done such a good job with the biryani this year after all.

  ‘Just invite a few of Sohail’s friends to dinner,’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘I’m sure they’ll have no trouble finishing up the lot.’

  ‘You know, I had no idea he was so involved in student politics,’ Mrs Akram said, sorting through the glasses and the empty bottles of soda.

  ‘He isn’t,’ Rehana replied, heaving a pile of plates into the washbasin. ‘He’s been trying to stay out of it.’ She picked up the top plate and began to circulate a sponge around its rim.

  ‘Sounded quite heated to me,’ Mrs Rahman said.

  ‘Well, you know, he’s young and full of ideas.’ Rehana felt a bit defensive. It was always difficult for the rest of them to understand: Mrs Akram’s children were still in school, Mrs Rahman’s three children had all married sensibly, and Silvi hardly strayed out of her mother’s grasp. Her own children seemed a little out of control by comparison. ‘It’s just in the air–all this talk about delaying the assembly–the students are getting nervous, they’re worried the elections won’t be honoured.’

  ‘He sounds quite involved to me,’ Mrs Rahman insisted. ‘And your Maya is in the Chattra League, no?’

  Mrs Chowdhury decided to come to Rehana’s rescue. ‘What she’s saying is–why doesn’t the boy waste his time chasing girls instead!’

  The kitchen suddenly grew quiet.

  Rehana turned around and caught Mrs Chowdhury’s eye. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What?’

  No one replied. Rehana realized they were making a space for her to say something. She opened her mouth and tried, but she couldn’t think of the right sequence of words.

  Mrs Rahman broke the silence. ‘Are you the last to know?’ she said.

  ‘Know what?’

  Rehana thought she might still be able to stop the conversation there, but something kept her swirling the plates with her back to the room. Let them have it out.

  ‘Sohail is in love with your daughter,’ she heard Mrs Rahman say.

  ‘Ohhhh,’ Mrs Chowdhury laughed, ‘that. Don’t be silly–that was just a childish thing.’

  Rehana kept moving the sponge in circles. No one said anything; Rehana thought she could hear them all holding their breath, waiting for her to speak, but she was mesmerized by her plate and her sponge and the little orange flecks of rice that floated like petals in the dishwater.

  ‘Well,’ Mrs Chowdhury said finally, noisily heaving herself upright. ‘I didn’t know. The girl never told me.’

  ‘You had no idea?’ Mrs Rahman said.

  ‘Of course I had no idea!’

  Just then they heard heavy, running footsteps approaching the kitchen.

  ‘Ammoo!’

  It was Maya.

  ‘Ammoo,’ she said, panting and red-faced from the effort, ‘Bhaiya’s just sitting in the garden with his head in his hands.’

  Lemonade, he needs lemonade. Rehana handed her daughter a clean glass. ‘Here. Get some shorbot from the fridge.’

  Maya must have sensed there was something going on in the kitchen because for once she just set off obediently, her chappals clacking behind her as she ran.

  ‘Rehana,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, ‘you must believe me. I really didn’t know.’

  Rehana turned back to the washbasin and picked up another plate.

  ‘She didn’t say anything,’ Mrs Chowdhury repeated, ‘and he’s so young–just a student–surely it’s foolish to think—’

  ‘So you did know,’ Mrs Akram said.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Rehana felt Mrs Chowdhury approach her. ‘Rehana agrees with me, don’t you, my dear–that it would be a bad idea? I’m sure she discouraged her son as well.’

  Rehana swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Yes, of course you’re right.’ What could she do now? Just save her son from any further humiliation.

  ‘See–she agrees,’ Mrs Chowdhury announced.

  Mrs Rahman shook her head. She began spooning the leftover biryani out of the giant metal pot it had been cooked in. The kitchen swelled with its perfume, and quickly the room shrank and the air was tight, filled with the remains of the afternoon heat, the buzzing of the bulb, Mrs Chowdhury’s loud sighing.

  ‘I don’t know what the fuss is about. There’s no way–no way–they couldn’t be serious.’

  Rehana finished rinsing her plate and began working on another. She thought that it must be the cleanest plate in the world. Mrs Akram picked it up and wiped it with the end of her sari.

  ‘He’s too busy with his politics–he’ll never make a good husband. Anyway, he’s younger than her.’

  Rehana couldn’t bear the conversation any longer. ‘Please, Mrs Chowdhury–don’t worry. It was just a misunderstanding.’

  ‘That’s righ
t,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, satisfied. ‘Nobody forced Silvi.’ Then she turned abruptly on her heel. ‘I’m tired. Goodnight, everyone. Khoda Hafez.’ She bustled away, knocking a row of empty pickle jars as she rounded the corner.

  Mrs Rahman was elbow-deep in the biryani pot. ‘Rehana,’ she began, ‘I’m so sorry—’

  ‘Let’s not speak of it.’

  Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram looked at each other as though this was exactly what they’d expected her to say.

  ‘You don’t speak of it. But I can say it’s a shame.’

  ‘Please.’ Rehana chewed the inside of her lip. She gripped her plate; the soap slipped between her fingers. ‘I’ll take care of the rest–the children will help–it’s getting late, I shouldn’t keep you.’ She brushed her cheek with the back of her wrist, where it itched.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Mrs Akram said. ‘Come on.’ She peeled Mrs Rahman’s arm out of the biryani dish.

  ‘Goodnight, Rehana,’ they said softly.

  ‘Goodnight, friends,’ she whispered back. She wasn’t sure if they’d heard her.

  Later, after the children had fallen asleep, Rehana climbed under her mosquito net and pulled the katha up to her chin.

  She lingered over the Silvi episode, wondering if there was something she could have done. Sohail had avoided her all evening and gone to bed without his tea. She thought she saw a small accusation in the set of his mouth as he said goodnight.

  He’ll never make a good husband, she heard Mrs Chowdhury say. Too much politics.

  The comment had stung because it was probably true. Lately the children had little time for anything but the struggle. It had started when Sohail entered the university. Ever since ’48, the Pakistani authorities had ruled the eastern wing of the country like a colony. First they tried to force everyone to speak Urdu instead of Bengali. They took the jute money from Bengal and spent it on factories in Karachi and Islamabad. One general after another made promises they had no intention of keeping. The Dhaka University students had been involved in the protests from the very beginning, so it was no surprise Sohail had got caught up, and Maya too. Even Rehana could see the logic: what sense did it make to have a country in two halves, poised on either side of India like a pair of horns?