by Tahmima Anam
‘I know what war is, Maya.’
‘Aren’t you even a little excited? A whole nation, coming together.’
‘Excited? I’m not excited, I’m sick. I’m sick with worry. This is my child.’ Rehana left the table and moved towards the kitchen, muttering something about sweets. She could hear her daughter sighing and Sohail whispering something, trying to make peace.
It began to occur to Rehana that any doubts Sohail once had about becoming a soldier had completely disappeared. As with everything else, he had taken it on with a kind of brutal devotion. He was a guerrilla. A man for his country. He would die, if he had to. Rehana wondered if she should begin to prepare herself, imagine a life without her son, carve out a hole where he used to be, familiarize herself with the shock of his absence. And as soon as she had this thought, she realized she had no choice. She could not give him up, not to fate or to nation, and if he chose to leave her anyway, there would be no way to prepare.
It was almost dawn by the time they finished eating.
‘Get some rest, Sohail.’
He looked around, as though deciding whether to speak.
‘Ammoo, Maya, I need to ask you something.’
He waved his hand and drew them closer. He dragged a chair towards himself and faced them, moving to close the curtains before sitting down. He switched off the lights and allowed the small flame of the kerosene lamp to trace shadows across his face.
He brought his palms together. ‘Some of the guerrilla operations will take place here, in Dhaka,’ he began. ‘And we need a place in the city. To store arms. A safe place to hide out before and after the operations.’ As he looked at his mother, there was no hesitation. ‘Our mission is to disrupt the normal functioning of the city. Make sure the world knows what is going on. People will not just stand by and witness the rape of Bangladesh.’ He took a deep breath, then continued, ‘I’ve come here to find shelter and to recruit more men for the guerrilla regiment.’
Rehana imagined the journey Sohail had taken to come here, eluding the barricades around the city, the powerful searchlights that scanned the docks of the river, the green trucks with guntoting soldiers. She imagined someone in charge, a military man, taking one look at her son and knowing he would be the right one to send back to Dhaka. She wanted to be more angry and less proud, but she found herself wanting to say yes, not just so that she would have Sohail’s confidence, but because she could not blame anyone but herself for making him so fine, so ready to take charge. This was who she had hoped he would become, even if she had never imagined that her son, or the world, would come to this. And she knew what he was asking her.
‘You want to use Shona.’
‘Yes.’
Shona with her back to the sun. Shona that had given her the children. Proud, vacant Shona of the many dreams.
‘The house is yours, Sohail. Your birthright.’
It didn’t take long for Sohail to set up Shona as the Dhaka headquarters of the guerrilla operations. A few days after he arrived, Rehana watched as he and the other boys dug a ditch in the rough grass beside the rosebushes to store their weapons. They worked at night, using small torches to pierce the darkness. Once, Rehana’s curiosity overcame her, and she peered inside one of the ditches, but all she saw was a set of rough wooden boxes and something shiny underneath, winking back at the sun, which beat its dry May heat. At Shona, Sohail and his friends prepared the back rooms for the new recruits. When the boys–she thought of them as boys, they were so young–needed something, they came to the bungalow and asked politely. A hammer. A glass of water. Soap. They never stayed long.
The activity at Shona kept Maya closer to home. She spent long hours helping the boys write press releases. They found her an old typewriter, and she could be seen hunched over it hungrily, scowling at the letters, hitting the keys hard with her two fore-fingers. Sounds like a machine-gun, Sohail said. At night, when Rehana insisted Maya eat with her at home, she carried the bulky typewriter back with her, the pages fluttering like the white wings of a summer bird.
Rehana watched the huddled figures that came in and out of Shona, imagining the conversations they were having, the plans, the secrets. She attempted to keep up with the activity next door by putting the bungalow in order. She rationed the money the Senguptas had left and kept a strict schedule for washing, cleaning, shopping, cooking. And there were the medical supplies to store. She found herself busy and preoccupied all the time. There were few opportunities to dwell on Sharmeen’s disappearance, or Maya’s anger, or Mrs Chowdhury and Silvi’s silence next door.
The only problem was the sewing. Mrs Akram and Mrs Rahman were due to come to the bungalow with a new supply of saris, but they couldn’t be told about Shona. Rehana felt guilty for keeping secrets from her friends, but Sohail said it was a matter of their safety; you must pretend we’re not here, he said. Not here? It was all she could think about. But Rehana had to come up with a plan to keep her friends away.
There was only one thing to do, she decided: make pickles. The mangoes on the tree were just about ready: grassy-green and tongue-smackingly sour. She asked the boys to pick them from the tree. When they were younger, this was the children’s job. Maya was by far the better climber: her foot would curl over the branches and hold her fast, while she stretched her arms and plucked the fruit, throwing it down to Rehana, who kept shouting, ‘Be careful! Be careful!’
She would slice the green mangoes and cook them slowly with chillies and mustard seeds. Then she would stuff them into jars and leave them on the roof to ripen. There was a rule about not touching pickles during the monthlies. She couldn’t remember who had told her that rule–her mother?–no, her mother had probably never sliced a mango in her brief, dreamy life. Must have been one of her sisters. Marzia, she was the best cook. And the enforcer of rules. But Rehana had decided long ago this was a stupid rule. It was hard enough to time the pickle-making anyway, between the readiness of the fruit and the weather, which had to be hot and dry.
As she recited the pickle recipe to herself, Rehana wondered what her sisters would make of her at this very moment. Guerrillas at Shona. Sewing kathas on the rooftop. Her daughter at rifle practice. The thought of their shocked faces made her want to laugh. She imagined the letter she would write. Dear sisters, she would say. Our countries are at war; yours and mine. We are on different sides now. I am making pickles for the war effort. You see how much I belong here and not to you.
The boys stripped the tree and brought her three groaning baskets of fruit. Rehana hunted down every glass jar she could find, and when she ran out of those she decided to use the clay vats that had held the yoghurt, back when there was fresh yoghurt at the market every day.
The pickle jars took up half of the roof. The nose-aching stench swelled to cover the rest. When Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram came the next day, they would smell the drying pickles from the gate and refuse to sew.
The next day, while Rehana was checking to make sure the pickles had settled properly, she heard a small commotion at the gate. It must be Mrs Akram, she thought, wiping her hands on her achol. She was always early. She leaned over the railing and was about to wave when she saw not her friend climbing out of a rickshaw but someone else, a woman, getting out of a car. Perhaps she was at the wrong address. Rehana inched closer; she was about to call out to the woman, ask her if she was lost, when she saw her reaching over her head and unlatching the gate.
‘Rehana?’ the woman said.
She would know that voice anywhere. She took the stairs two at a time, her heart clapping in her chest.
The woman was knocking at the door when Rehana approached from the garden. ‘Parveen.’
‘Rehana! Thank God!’ Parveen clasped Rehana’s hands and looked into her face with eager eyes. ‘We were so worried.’
‘Please,’ Rehana said, ‘come inside.’ Stay calm, she told herself. This time she is not coming for your children. Rehana watched Parveen glide through the door and settle, with a sigh
, on the sofa. Then she leaned her head against the cushion and turned her eyes to the room.
It was ten years, Rehana remembered. The decade was gone, like a breath, when she looked into that face; she was that trembling, stupid widow who gave up her children. Her mouth flooded with bitterness. ‘What brings you to Dhaka?’ she said, intending to sound cold but not angry.
‘Why, the war, what do you think?’ Parveen said. ‘Your brother, Faiz, has been given a very important responsibility. Very important. We didn’t want to come, of course, but you know Faiz, so dutiful. Always wants to serve his country.’
Rehana was confused. What responsibility, which country?
‘We only came last week. Things have not arrived, house is still a mess, but I thought, I must go to see my sister. What will she think if she hears, na?’
Rehana didn’t know what to say. ‘Well, it’s been a long time.’
‘Too long!’
A pause stretched between them. Rehana did not want to bring up the children; let her ask, if she wants to know. When they had first come back, Rehana had refused to talk about those years apart. She hadn’t wanted to know. She had only asked if they’d been fed properly, if they’d been beaten, if anything terrible had happened to them. She had checked them for bruises. Part of her, she knew, had wanted some physical symptom, some obvious mistreatment, that would tell her the children too bore marks of their long separation. She wanted to hear nothing about the little affections, the life that had passed between them in her absence. She especially didn’t want to know if Parveen had been any good at being their mother.
‘So,’ Parveen said, slapping her hands on her knees. ‘The children. They’re well, by God’s grace?’
‘Yes, mahshallah, they are well.’
Rehana was about to tell Parveen that they weren’t home, how sorry they would be to have missed her, but Parveen cut her short. ‘And you still live here? That’s your rented house, in the back?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have tenants?’
‘Yes, the Senguptas.’
‘Hindus?’ Parveen grimaced. ‘You gave your house to Hindus?’
‘They’ve been my tenants for years,’ Rehana said; ‘they’re like family.’
‘Well, you do as you wish, Rehana, but I would not trust my house to those people…’ She screwed up her face, as though she’d just taken a sip of bad milk.
Rehana ignored this last statement; she was busy trying to unmask the purpose of the visit, of Parveen’s cavalier manner, all traces of the dirty history between them forgotten. But she really shouldn’t have been surprised. This was often the way with families; they would try to destroy one another, and then they would pretend nothing had happened; carry on with their old habits, their casual humiliations, as Parveen was doing now, pointing her eyes to the shabby state of Rehana’s furniture.
‘…just as well we’re getting rid of them.’
Rehana was drawn back to the conversation. ‘Rid of who?’
‘Haven’t you been listening, Rehana? I’m talking about the dirty elements of our great nation. The Hindus, the Communists, the separatists! That is why your brother and I are here–it’s a great duty, a privilege.’
This was the mission? Rehana’s eyes flew to the window, to Shona. Parveen was a few short feet away from the guerrilla hideout. When she assured herself there wasn’t any obvious movement in the next house, she relaxed, suddenly pleased at this deceit, to watch Parveen perched so comfortably, while next door the boys planted guns in the garden. She was about to offer her a snack, when there was a knock at the gate and the sound of it swinging open.
‘Yoo-hoo! Sorry we’re late.’ It was Mrs Akram and Mrs Rahman. She heard them crossing the driveway. ‘What on earth is that smell–Rehana, you opened a pickle factory on the roof or what?’
Rehana rushed to the door and ushered them in. ‘Come in, come in. Meet my bhabi Parveen,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘Bhabi, these are my friends, Mrs Akram and Mrs Rahman.’
Mrs Rahman gave Parveen a frank, appraising look. ‘Salaam-Alaikum,’ she said in a headmistress voice.
‘Salaam-Alaikum,’ Mrs Akram echoed.
‘We’ve all heard such a lot about you,’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘What brings you back to Dhaka? I thought you lived in Lahore.’
‘We’re here to fix things up!’ Parveen said with a laugh.
‘They’ve come to work for the army,’ Rehana said, praying Mrs Rahman would keep her thoughts to herself.
‘Ah, all right, I see,’ Mrs Akram said. They stood awkwardly around the door, not knowing whether to sit down.
‘What about those pickles?’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘The stench!’
‘Oh, is that what it is?’ Parveen said.
‘Sorry, friends, we’ll have to find somewhere else,’ Rehana said.
‘What possessed you?’ Mrs Rahman asked. ‘You must have been up all night.’
‘Well, I thought I should just make as many as I could–who knows what will happen to my tree?’
This brought a nod of assent from Mrs Akram. ‘So true,’ she said, ‘future is so uncertain.’
‘But who will eat so many pickles?’ Mrs Rahman asked. ‘I’m getting a bellyache just thinking about it.’
‘Maybe you can sell them,’ Mrs Akram said.
‘Arre, good idea, we can buy more thread.’
‘We’ll see,’ Rehana said, eager to get rid of them both. Luckily Parveen was ignoring them; she had stood up and was making her way to the dining table, where Rehana had kept the leftover parathas from breakfast; Maya hadn’t touched hers. ‘So shall we postpone for a day or two, until we find somewhere more suitable?’
The gin-rummy ladies left, patting Rehana on the back, whispering, Tell us all about it tomorrow. A few minutes later Parveen took her leave too, inviting Rehana to bring the children to her new house. Everything happened so quickly that Rehana could almost convince herself it was a dream. And had Parveen’s perfume trails not clung to the walls, or had her words not insinuated themselves into her ears, or had the sight of her shiny beaked hair, her gauzy sari, vanished, even faded, it might have been possible. But of course it was not, and Rehana was left to face the afternoon, replaying the scene, and wondering why, after all, Parveen had decided to come.
Another week passed in much the same manner as the last; Sohail and his friends went in and out of Shona; Rehana watched the pickles ripening on the rooftop; the May sun crashed through the windows every morning and threatened to suffocate them. Then Sohail appeared at the bungalow and said, ‘We’re ready, Ammoo.’
‘Ready for what?’
‘For the operation. I’ve recruited a team, and we’ve received our orders.’
Rehana hadn’t given much thought to what they would actually do once they’d dug up the garden and readied the house. It already looked like work. But they had only been preparing. For this.
‘What will you do?’
‘We’re planting an explosive at the InterCon Hotel. We’re making a statement.’ He put his hand to his cheek and rubbed his jaw.
‘Statement? What sort of a statement? Will people get killed?’
‘No. We’re hoping there won’t be any casualties.’
Now he was referring to dead people as casualties.
‘Is it dangerous?’
‘You want me to lie, don’t you?’
Yes, please. ‘Of course not.’
‘It’s not dangerous. I’m just the lookout.’ He held her wrists. ‘Thank you, Ammoo. I keep meaning to say that.’
‘I’m just happy to have you near me.’ She wanted to ask him to promise nothing would happen. That he would be safe. That he wouldn’t get himself killed, or maimed, or something selfish like that. ‘When will it happen?’
‘Tomorrow, early morning–before sunrise.’
‘I’ll be praying,’ was all she could think to say.
His hand was on his jaw again, and he seemed to consider something. ‘Why don’t you come
before we set off? You can meet everyone.’
‘Your friends wouldn’t mind?’
‘They’ll be happy to get your blessings. Some of them haven’t seen their own mothers in a long time.’
Rehana understood. She felt a flush of pride at being asked.
Sohail put his hand to his cheek again.
‘Do you have a toothache?’
He grinned, then winced a little. ‘Just a small one. Nothing to worry.’
A toothache is the sort of thing I used to worry about. Now I worry about your legs, your heart, your life.
Before dawn the next day Rehana crossed the garden and walked through the narrow iron gate she had built to divide the properties. She had made puris, half with potatoes, half with dal, and halwa. It felt foolish nowadays to take pride in cooking, but she couldn’t resist taking pleasure in the domed rise of the puris, the perfect, vague sweetness of the halwa. It was her first time at Shona since the guerrillas had taken over. From the outside, nothing seemed different; she knew some of the plants had been dug up, but they’d settled back, even though they looked a little ragged and unkempt. I must remember to water everything tomorrow, she thought.
The first thing she noticed when she stepped inside was the thick darkness. The curtains were drawn, so that even the weak moonlight and the even weaker streetlights did not penetrate; it was like closing her eyes to sleep. As she adjusted to the darkness Rehana could make out shapes crouched on the floor. Then there were moving pinpoints of light: cigarettes, she gathered, from the smell.
‘Hello?’ she said into the darkness.
‘Partho, turn on the light,’ someone said. She heard a scratching sound, then saw the flame of a match. The hurricane lamp was lit.
The lamp was passed along. Each face glowed orange, one at a time, as though they were a cast of actors introducing themselves. They smiled or nodded at her; one raised his hand to his forehead and salaamed. She couldn’t help thinking they all looked so happy. Not scared. Not as though they might be facing death, or worse. But as though they were about to play cricket and found themselves gifted with a cool afternoon. Casual. Carefree.