by Tahmima Anam
Rehana sat in the car and watched her daughter, waiting for the training, or whatever it was, to end. Once it was over she opened the car door and waved in Maya’s direction. Maya was talking to a boy and didn’t notice, but the boy, who was blowing smoke rings into the air, saw Rehana wave and whispered something to Maya. He pointed. Maya stalked over, her face coming together in a frown.
‘Are you spying on me?’ she said. The exercise had made her aggressive. Her braid was coming undone, and the stray hairs clung wetly to her forehead.
‘No, I just–you’ve been away so much. It’s dangerous, I just wanted to see where you were.’
‘Well, now you know.’ She brushed the hair from her face. ‘I’m trying to contribute.’
‘By doing this? Running around with wooden guns?’
As was her habit, Maya mounted an attack. ‘Why did you bring us back here?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘From Lahore? Why did you bother to bring us back? You have no feeling for this place.’
What did she mean? ‘This is my home. Your father’s home.’
‘Then why won’t you let me do something?’
‘I just want to protect you. Everything I’ve done I’ve done for you and your brother. Now please, get in the car, the curfew’s about to ring.’
‘I’m not coming.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not coming. You go home, I’ll stay here.’
‘You come with me right now. You get in the car.’ Rehana felt the futility of it, but she insisted, grabbing Maya’s elbow and pulling her towards the car. She was surprised at her own strength. Maya tried to wrench her arm away, and Rehana gripped harder. ‘Don’t make a scene,’ she said coldly.
They said nothing to one another in the car. When they got home, Maya turned on her mother and began with a shout: ‘You are not so good at this either. You couldn’t keep my brother back, and you can’t keep me!’
Keep me. The words were poisoned arrows.
‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘You’ve been crazy–ever since–ever since Abboo died, you have this thing about keeping us at home. You’re mad! You want to lock us up!’
Rehana tried to change the subject. ‘I’m so sorry about Sharmeen, I know you’re upset.’
‘Don’t speak about her. You could never understand.’
‘Of course I understand.’
‘I mean you could never understand what it’s like for me and Sohail.’
‘Leave your brother out of it.’
‘Sohail,’ she said, ‘where is he now? Probably dead, killed by one of your Pak soldiers!’
It happened so quickly. She hadn’t meant to hit so hard, and it was only when she saw the red flowering on Maya’s cheek that she realized what she’d done.
Maya put her hand to her face, looking surprised, and then almost relieved. Then she said, ‘You should have left us in Pakistan.’
Rehana wanted to say sorry for the slap. She wanted to shake her until Maya took it back. But she stayed quiet, only glaring at her daughter and hoping Maya would not see the weak tremble in her jaw.
Maya stopped speaking. There were no more pleasantries, no more ‘good mornings’ and ‘I’m not hungrys’. With Sohail and the Senguptas gone, and Mrs Chowdhury and Silvi locked up in their house, Rehana felt a kinship with the deserted city. Maya took her plate and ate silently in Sohail’s room. The light would stay on deep into the night, and Rehana began to know her daughter only through the line of pale yellow that crept in below the door, and through the small sounds she made: the click of the ceiling-fan switch, the swish of the bedcover as she peeled it back, the faint whistle of a turning page. It went on this way for two weeks, as April, with its dense, stifling heat, spooled out before them.
Then one day Maya suddenly announced: ‘The soldiers need blankets. We’re collecting old saris.’
‘You’re sewing kathas?’
‘Yes. We need material. Things you’d throw away.’
Before she even realized it, Rehana had an idea that led her to an old steel almirah she hadn’t opened in years. She found the heavy key tucked behind the lowest shelf in the kitchen where she kept the emergency supplies of rice and dal. A life of variable fortunes had taught her never to finish anything. She always kept behind a tiny bit–a finger of ginger, a stick of cinnamon, a handful of rice–in case the next time she went to buy these things they somehow eluded her, through poverty or the unreliability of the country’s fortunes.
The key, despite years of disuse, slid smoothly into the lock. As she turned it and twisted the handle to release the bolt, Rehana recognized the old sound of scraping metal, and she steadied herself for the smell of mothballs and silk. The doors rasped in protest as she swung them open and surveyed the contents of the almirah. Here were the saris Iqbal had given her in the eight years of their marriage. After his death, she had washed, ironed and hung them up in the order in which they had been presented to her.
She remembered each occasion, the sari arriving in the red-and-white cardboard box of the sari shop, still smelling of the attar of the market and the ash of young cigarette-smoking boys who were enlisted to bring down the starched saris from high shelves and drape them delicately around their youthful hips. They would sway in imitation of women, dangling the achol from outstretched arms to show off the elaborate embroidery, the swimming colours.
It had not been difficult to arrange the saris; as the years had gone by, Iqbal’s prosperity, and his gratitude for his wife, had meant more and more daring purchases. Simple cottons became diaphanous chiffons, prints were given up in favour of embroidery, the threads of each sari always heavier than the last, the patterns more refined, the silk more serious, until, just a few weeks before his death, Iqbal had presented Rehana with the jewel of the collection, a blue Benarsi silk.
Rehana regarded the saris and tried to recall the feeling they had given her, of being at once enveloped and set free, the tight revolutions of material around her hips and legs limiting movement, the empty space between blouse and petticoat permitting unexpected sensations–the thrill of a breeze that has strayed low, through an open window, the knowledge of heat in strange places, the back, the exposed belly. It was the bringing together of night and day, the sari: as it concealed the skin, it also released it, so that one body, one woman, would know something of the complications of her sex.
The saris stared at Rehana like pictures in a photo album, evocative, a little accusing. She hadn’t worn a single one in years. She was not sorry to lose them, just sorry she would never again have occasion to wear them. She piled the saris loosely into her arms, rushed into the drawing room and presented them to her daughter.
‘Here. Blankets for your freedom fighters. I’ll help you sew.’
Maya stared at her mother. ‘I asked you for cottons,’ she said quietly. ‘What’s the point of all this expensive material? The blankets will itch.’
‘Put them inside. It will be winter before you know it, and the silk will keep everyone warm.’
The sight of the saris stirred something in Maya.
‘Please don’t give them away,’ she said softly.
‘Why not? You never wear anything but white.’ Rehana was aware of a punishing note in her voice. Why, despite her best intentions, did the words to her daughter always sound so sharp?
Maya’s face closed up. ‘It’s foolish to give these away. They’re of no use; you should put them back.’
Rehana called Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram to the bungalow. ‘Follow me,’ she said, leading them up the stairs to the roof. She had laid out a jute pati and a few cushions. The saris were stacked up in a basket. Beside the basket was Rehana’s sewing box. The box contained a row of needles and a bundle of black spools. There were small pattern cutouts and a collection of thimbles. A tomato-shaped pin-cushion.
‘What’s all this?’ Mrs Rahman said, sliding off her chappals and flopping on to the pati. ‘You want to op
en a tailoring shop?’
‘Don’t you know? We’re at war, and my daughter says I have to do something. To prove I belong here. So I’m doing something.’ Rehana felt a tear crawling out of her eye; she tilted her head, sent it back. ‘I’m doing something. Making blankets for the refugees.’ She felt her lip curling back on to her teeth.
‘What’s going on–where’s Sohail?’ Mrs Akram asked.
She was desperate to tell them. ‘He isn’t here–I sent him to Karachi.’
‘Really? I thought—’
‘Don’t you know what they’re doing to all the university boys? They’re making them disappear. What would you have me do, just sit back and let them take him?’
‘Rehana,’ Mrs Rahman said, pointing to the silks, ‘you don’t have to use these. We can find some old cottons.’
Rehana dug in her heels. ‘Why not? Everyone has to make sacrifices, why not me? It’s my country too.’
‘Of course it’s your country—’ Mrs Akram began.
‘My daughter doesn’t think so.’
‘She said that? She couldn’t have meant it; you know how children are.’
‘I slapped her.’
‘Oh, Rehana.’ Mrs Akram put a hand on Rehana’s arm.
‘I couldn’t help it, I just did it. She’s out of control.’
‘Rehana, you must have patience,’ Mrs Rahman said.
‘Patience? I have nothing but patience for the children. Running around all over town, revolution this, democracy that–nothing but patience!’
‘For Sohail, yes, but—’
‘What are you saying?’
The two women exchanged cautious looks. ‘We know she hasn’t exactly been easy,’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘But you’ve always been–a little more unforgiving of Maya.’
‘Unforgiving? Me? I’m only one person–I have to do everything–is it possible, humanly possible?’ But she knew they were right. The knowledge burned inside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. You’re right. I’ve been unfair. ‘You want to help me,’ she said instead. ‘Sew.’
On the last day of April, it rained. Rehana watched the cotton clouds shout to a hungry, cracked earth. She imagined it raining on the human exodus on the Jessore Road and the Mymensingh Road and on the widows and the swollen bellies, trying to wash away the tears, falling in skyfuls over the slowly departing. And falling on her Sohail and his friends as they picked through the spring prairie grasses, through the low paddy, the bleached stacks of wheat, as they searched for the war with only their wettoothed smiles, their poems, their death-defying youth.
May
Tikka Khan, the Butcher of Bengal!
Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram took to the sewing with the same enthusiasm they’d displayed for cards. They gathered at the bungalow every week, ready with their sewing kits. Mrs Rahman managed to get a steady supply of old saris from her various acquaintances and relations. She enlisted everyone she knew–her distant cousins, in-laws, her tailor–to make a contribution to the war effort. Of course, she was quick to point out, no one had been foolish enough to give away their best clothes.
Mrs Akram, whom they had always considered a little spoiled, surprised them by turning out the fastest stitches. And it was her idea to put sackcloths between the saris to make them more sturdy.
‘Let’s call ourselves the sewing sisters,’ Mrs Akram said. ‘Or, I know, Project Rooftop!’
‘Arre, now you want to give it a name–aren’t you the one who said we weren’t good for anything but cards?’
‘I never said that,’ Mrs Akram protested, a needle between her lips. ‘That is not the kind of faltu thing I would say.’
It was true, Rehana thought. It was not the sort of thing she would say any more. Already two months ago felt like the distant past. It was May. They had been at war since March. What was strange had become unstrange. They were used to seeing the green uniforms wherever they went; they were used to returning obediently to their homes at the peal of the curfew siren; and they were used to the dusty, empty streets, the closed shops, the hospitals with locked gates, the half-full baskets of the fruit vendors. The landscape of war was becoming familiar, and they had all found their ways to live with it.
Maya was still angry at Rehana. The silence banged around between them. They batted it back and forth. Sometimes, while she waited for Maya to return from the university, Rehana would resolve to say something, to make up; she could feel the tender words bubbling in her mouth. I’m sorry I hit you. But she couldn’t utter them; as soon as the girl came home, as soon as Rehana saw her scowling face, the way she slammed the bolt through the door, the irritation flooded back. Why couldn’t she smile, give a hint she might relent? But she didn’t, and Rehana too was frozen, the words stuck somewhere between her heart and her mouth.
The more time went by, the harder it became. Rehana organized the house; she packaged the supplies the boys had left at the bungalow; she sewed her kathas. It was a lonely, stretched-out time. The only thing she and Maya did together now was listen to the radio. In the morning they would listen to BBC Bangla, and in the afternoon Voice of America. But the programme they waited for with most anticipation was the Free Bangla Radio transmission, every day at 4.30, broadcast from a secret, undisclosed location in the liberated zone.
The number of refugees flowing into West Bengal has reached one million. The International Red Cross has stated that the refugee camps along the border between India and Bangladesh are overcrowded and suffer from a lack of clean water, sanitation and proper medical facilities. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has pledged her support for the people of Bangladesh, stating that the freedom-loving Bengalis would soon triumph over the fascistic regime of the Pakistani dictators.
So by the time Sohail returned to Dhaka, the city had settled back into a sort of routine. He came in the middle of the night and stood at the foot of Rehana’s bed. Later she would say she had known all along that he was there, that she’d deliberately kept her eyes closed, savouring the relief of having him back, and alive, but really she’d slept through the whole thing–his entrance through the gate, his stealthy sidestepping of the furniture and the medicine boxes, the deep breath he took before uttering her very favourite word.
‘Ma.’
She pressed her cheek against his cheek. He smelled of petrol and cigarettes. At the touch of his shirt against her hand she felt a deep, piercing loneliness.
‘Have you eaten?’ she said, then laughed at herself. Still, she got up and darted into the kitchen while he went to wake Maya. She’d had only a moment to scrutinize him. He wore a grey shirt and a pair of blue trousers; they were both dirty and looked too big. His eyes were ringed dark brown, and he was growing a beard. There was something unmistakably foreign about him now, as though some other hands had begun to shape him, hands not as loving or as tender as hers. She couldn’t help thinking back to the years he had been with Parveen. My children have not always been my children. The old wound pulsed inside her.
As she deliberated over what to cook, she heard him wake his sister. ‘Bhaiya!’ Maya cried out. It was the most cheerful thing she’d said in months. ‘Tell me everything,’ Rehana heard her say. ‘Have you been to the battlefront?’
The food–egg curry, a few strips of fried eggplant, leftover dal–was soon on the table. Sohail rolled up his sleeves eagerly and between mouthfuls began to tell them about the freedom-fighter army.
‘Joy drove us to the river and then we took the ferry. It was full of refugees. We heard the most terrible stories about that night. Lot of Hindus especially.’
‘The Senguptas haven’t come back,’ Maya said.
Sohail nodded, paused for a moment as he took another bite and smiled gratefully at his mother. Then he glanced at the door, and she knew what he was thinking.
‘She’s fine. But we hardly see her.’
Sohail nodded and continued the story. ‘We didn’t know where to go, we just heard the Bengali regiments had crossed the border a
nd were setting up camp. Raju’s uncle is in the military. We thought we’d look for him. Three days later we found the camp. All the Bengali regiments in the east had mutinied. They were regrouping when we found them. It was just a temporary settlement at first, then we moved to Agartala, about fifteen miles further from the border. Now it’s become like a small town–there’s even a hospital, and barracks for the officers. And there are others, in Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi. Seven sectors in all.’
‘We’ve been listening on the radio,’ Maya said.
‘Where do you sleep?’ Rehana asked. She could tell he wanted to talk about more important things, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Tents, Ammoo. Not very comfortable. When I go back, you will have to give me some blankets, and a plate. I’ve been eating from banana leaves!’
So he was going back. Rehana tried not to show her disappointment. Here was her son, living such a strange life. He used to love Elvis Presley, she suddenly remembered. She leaned over the table and piled more rice on to his plate.
‘Everyone has joined. Everyone.’ And his eyes shone. ‘All the young men, fighting side by side. No one cares who anyone is. They’ve all joined, the peasant and the soldier, together, just as we’ve been dreaming.’ And then his face changed. ‘But things are bad, you know.’
‘And what will you do?’ Maya asked.
He took a deep breath. ‘I’m being trained. As a guerrilla.’
‘Guerrilla?’ She had a vague image of an outlaw. ‘Is it dangerous?’
‘Of course it’s dangerous, Ammoo!’ Maya exclaimed. ‘War! What do you think?’