A Golden Age

by Tahmima Anam

  He was looking into a small mirror, examining his scar. ‘You did the right thing,’ he said, tucking the mirror under his pillow.

  ‘But her son is dead.’

  He struggled to lift himself up onto his elbows, dragging his broken leg, until he was sitting up and facing her. ‘You have to do these things sometimes–difficult things.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m a nationalist,’ she said. She was thinking of the well-loved volumes of Urdu poetry on her shelf, right next to the Koran.

  ‘Well, why are you still here, in Dhaka?’

  ‘To take care of you, of course.’ She shouldn’t have said that. She paused for a beat, checked herself. ‘I love it here,’ she said. ‘It’s my home, and the home of my children. I would not give it up for anything. Believe me, I’ve been tested.’

  ‘Then you are a true nationalist.’

  ‘That’s kind of you to say. And you?’

  ‘This is the greatest thing I have ever done. If I ever leave this bed!’

  Her heart sank a little at the thought of his leaving.

  ‘My life was a waste before this.’

  ‘You were in the army?’

  ‘I joined years ago, because I had to get away, from the village, from everything. There were too many memories.’

  He looked at her, as though to ask if she knew what he meant, and she said, ‘But that is precisely why I stayed.’

  Three things happened at the end of June: Joy returned from Agartala, Dr Rajesh arrived with bad news, and Rehana gave the Major her gramophone. It was her idea; he’d looked so despondent when the doctor had checked his leg and said he needed at least three more weeks’ rest. Rehana dusted the gramophone and dragged it across the garden to Shona. She hunted through Sohail’s room and found a few records. One of them said Help! Another had a black-and-white photograph of Elvis Presley with his lips caressing a microphone. The gramophone needle was spiked with dust; Rehana had to spit on her finger and pluck it out. To polish the wood she dipped a rag into a little of the olive oil she sometimes used to shine her elbows.

  It was as if she’d given him a month of chicken curry. He smiled so widely his scar stretched across till it touched the tuft of hair beside his ear. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, closing his eyes and tilting his head to the ceiling, ‘how did you know?’

  In the first week he played and played again the two records she’d given him. And then one day she heard some new music. Joy must have brought the new records; or maybe it was someone else; a woman, even. After all, she didn’t know what happened at Shona after dark. No, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t bring a woman into her house.

  At first the records were familiar: some Tagore, a few Bengali folk songs, their lyrics changed to nationalist slogans. And then one day she heard the strangest music coming from his room. She had brought his breakfast: one scrambled egg, four triangles of toast, a glass of milk. She stood at the door, listened for what seemed like a moment but must have been much longer, because by the time she noticed the eggs they had stiffened and turned orange. What music could this be? She had never heard anything like it. She ran back to the bungalow and made new eggs, chastising herself for the waste, and retraced her steps back to Shona. But again she was rooted at the doorway.

  It was a woman. In every syllable Rehana could hear the delicate intake of her breath, the tongue caressing the palette and the slow, tender piano in the background, and, as the song built, she could hear melancholy, and a low, guttural moan and stretched-out vowels. Her voice was a thousand years of sorrow. Rehana tried to make out the English words. I loves you, Porgee.

  Who was this Porgee? The song was like the weather, a thing that was everywhere and nowhere all at once, the words falling into each other like overlapping raindrops, a dry day and then a wet one, the scale rising like a gust of wind. Sometimes it was as though the woman was holding her breath and then releasing it; she was young, almost girlish and then her voice would go deep, with the confidence of a secret masculinity. The weather filled the room; it travelled across the corridor until it rose up in Rehana.

  By the time she had gathered the courage to enter the Major’s room, she found herself a little out of breath. She told herself it must be the fast walking, carrying the heavy tray, trying not to spill the milk. She tried to stir up some irritation at the Major. She put the tray down in front of him harder than she meant to.

  ‘Her name is Nina Simone,’ the Major said.

  Nina. Sounded like a Bengali name.

  Rehana had a melting feeling in her mouth, as though she had bitten down on a pink, overripe guava.

  ‘You like the music?’ he asked, when she returned for the tray.

  ‘It reminds me of my father,’ Rehana said.

  ‘He liked jazz?’

  ‘There was a band once. A party in the ballroom, and dancing. And champagne. Probably one of his last.’ Rehana spoke as though the memory was new to her. ‘Yes. Champagne in delicate, bowl-shaped glasses, and ladies with short hair. There were lots of instruments. And it was loud, cheerful music. Not like this.’

  ‘Nina Simone doesn’t sound like anybody else,’ the Major said. Rehana looked at the scattered record sleeves beside the Major’s bed. A dark man with his lips pressed against a trumpet gazed out earnestly.

  Then she asked, ‘Where did you get this music?’

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘No, I don’t like it,’ she lied.

  ‘OK.’

  Why didn’t he protest? What kind of a person wouldn’t like this music?

  ‘What do you like?’ he asked.

  ‘What sort of a question is that?’

  ‘Simple. If you don’t like this, what do you like?’

  ‘You mean, what music do I like?’

  ‘No, I mean, what do you like?’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Anything.’

  How could she reply? No one had ever asked her that question. Why had no one ever asked her that question? It stunned her that a person could go through life without anybody ever asking them that question. She thought for a moment.

  ‘I like the flowers in my garden,’ she said slowly. ‘The yellow roses are my favourite. And I like to make dimer halwa. It’s very difficult, you know. One slip and it turns into egg scramble.’ She felt the weather rising up in her again, a squall, rippling and swirling. ‘And the cinema. I like the cinema.’ It was another lie. She loved the cinema.

  It was Joy who brought the projector. It was the last day of June, and the rain had started to appear every evening just as the sun plunged crimson-shy under the horizon.

  Rehana didn’t know what it was at first. When she saw the hard black box she thought it might be some other thing to bury in the garden, a weapon, but then Joy opened the two buckles on the side and she saw the reel and the lens; even then she thought it must be some sort of camera, because she’d never seen one up close. It was Joy’s grin that gave it away: a smile full of mischief and pride, the new face he’d acquired to mask his grief.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Naz Cinema. The owner is a Hindu. They killed him in March.’

  So this was what he was doing. Looting and stealing. ‘So you just took the projector?’ The Major hadn’t said anything, and Rehana didn’t know whose idea the projector was. She thought it was probably Joy’s, because lately he was doing those slightly criminal things to prove there could still be pleasure, and roguishness, in the world. Or maybe he did it to forget the dead face of his brother.

  ‘It was lying there, gathering dust.’

  ‘You can’t just take things.’

  ‘It probably doesn’t work,’ Joy said, and as soon as he said it she knew they were going to keep it.

  ‘Of course it works. Why wouldn’t it work? I’ve seen at least a dozen films there.’ She went through the films in her head: Roman Holiday, High Society, Charade, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Casablanca. She was suddenly giddy. ‘Shall we try it out?’ She looke
d inside the box. Mughal-e-Azam. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I just pulled this one out.’

  It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Sohail must have told him. ‘Thank you, thank you. It’s really too much.’

  ‘Consider it a gift from the guerrillas.’ Joy smiled, his face broad.

  The tears welled up even before the credits began. Joy adjusted the focus and walked backwards to the door.

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘Not for me,’ Joy said. ‘I’ll go soft!’

  Rehana was already ignoring him. Akbar came on screen, praying to God for an heir. Let me not die without a trace, he was saying.

  ‘You won’t understand,’ Rehana whispered; ‘it’s in Urdu.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ the Major whispered back.

  ‘Don’t you want to know the story?’

  ‘Tell me quickly,’ he said, ‘before it starts.’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ She had her eye on the screen, where Akbar was making his way across the desert to Nadir Shah. ‘It’s a love story–the Prince, Salim–Akbar’s son–he falls in love with a servant girl, Anarkali. And then—’

  He reached over and laid a finger on her arm. ‘I understand,’ he said.

  Anarkali came on, posing as a statue. She flashed her tilted smile. She spoke; the throaty sugar of her voice echoed through the room. Rehana’s ribs began to throb. Anarkali danced her rolling-hips dance. Prince Salim fell in love. Akbar, infuriated, jailed them both. ‘Keep your precious India,’ Prince Salim said. ‘I will have my Anarkali.’

  ‘She has to pretend she’s betrayed him,’ Rehana whispered.

  ‘Hush.’ The Major raised a finger to his lips. The film shadows moved over his face.

  ‘You see,’ Rehana said, ‘it’s the finest love story.’

  ‘Right. You were right.’

  ‘Joy really shouldn’t have stolen the projector.’

  ‘You would have taken it yourself if you’d had half the chance.’

  Rehana took a deep breath. There wouldn’t be a better time. The room was dark, and the projector fan was still running, a static buzz that seemed to brighten the window of white that hovered in front of the Major’s bed.

  Rehana turned to the Major. He made no move to turn off the projector, as though he knew she was about to tell him something. Maybe he’d planned all of this, getting Joy to steal the projector, watching Mughal-e-Azam, which he wouldn’t understand. If so, she was willing to fall into the trap; she wanted to tell him as badly as he wanted to know.

  ‘After the children were taken away, I thought I would die. I didn’t know what to do, and the worst thing was, I actually started to think they were better off with that woman. I didn’t have anything to give them, not even the money to pay off the judge. And I was such a coward, believing it was all for the best and letting Faiz take the children away from me. I will never forgive myself for that.’

  Rehana looked at the Major and waited for him to say something, something like What could you do? or You poor woman. These were the things that she had grown so used to hearing, the words that followed her everywhere. But he was just waiting for her to go on.

  ‘I closed the doors and refused to see anyone. I dismissed the servants–there was no money to keep them anyway. Mrs Chowdhury’s daughter came over sometimes, and sometimes I liked that, but then she reminded me of the children, and I sent her away. I was cruel, I think, but she’s a very sweet girl, she’s forgotten all about it.’

  Rehana paused, wondering if she should tell the Major about Sohail and Silvi.

  ‘Mrs Chowdhury came over one day. I was asleep, in the middle of the afternoon, wearing Iqbal’s coat, and she came in through the garden–I never used to shut that gate–and she said she had an idea. That I should borrow money from the bank and build a house on the property. It was just the bungalow then, and a huge tract of land, wild grass, where I was always telling the children not to play. Iqbal and I had dreamed of building a big house some day, but it never occurred to me after he died. Mortgage the land, Mrs Chowdhury said, take a loan, build the house.’

  It used to look like a field of paddy, Rehana thought, with only the tall furry grasses, and the mango tree in the middle, like a finger pointing to the sky. ‘But I was just a woman. Without a male guarantor, all the banks turned me down. And then Mrs Chowdury said there was a man she knew, a Mr Qureishi, an old friend of her brother, and he had agreed to meet me. I went to the bank–Habib Bank, you know the one? The big branch, in Motijheel.

  ‘That Qureishi man was a fraud. It wasn’t Mrs Chowdhury’s fault–I should have taken her with me, but I went alone, and I must have looked terrible, lost, and the man tried to take advantage.’

  There he was, pressing the gristle of his cheek against her mouth, and his hand was on the sleeve of her blouse, and she could smell the curry breakfast he’d eaten that morning, and the stale old soap, and the sick, brutal need.

  Still the Major didn’t say anything. She saw him biting the inside of his lip, the right side, the one that wasn’t torn.

  ‘So there was no loan. Then Mrs Chowdhury decided I should find a husband. You must think I listen to everything she says, and it’s true, back then it was like I was sleepwalking. And I desperately wanted someone to tell me what to do. My whole life the only decision I ever made was to marry Iqbal. And that was only because…well, I already told you.’

  The difficult part remained ahead. Poor T. Ali, the gentle blind man with the phantom wife.

  ‘Mrs Chowdhury suggested T. Ali. He had just moved to the neighbourhood. He was much older than me–already an old man, really–and his wife had died. And he was blind–did I say that before? Yes, he was blind. But he was rich; his father was into tea; he had inherited a fortune.’ The words tumbled out of her mouth.

  ‘The man was quiet, and the first time we met–Mrs Chowdhury invited us to dinner–he didn’t speak a word to me. He ate, said a polite goodbye to Mrs Chowdhury and left. I’m sure he likes you, she said.

  ‘I almost did it. T. Ali indicated he was willing to consider remarrying, but that I must allow him to keep the portrait of his wife in the drawing room. He invited me to his house to see the portrait. I wasn’t sure I should go, but I was curious, and I thought, maybe he’s just a sweet old man–a little odd, perhaps–but if we married, I was just going to ask him straight out if he could give me the money to bribe the judge, the tickets to Lahore.’

  T. Ali’s house had been built in the traditional style, one storey with a large central courtyard and a wide veranda with rooms leading out of it. From the road it looked like a fortress, and Rehana had walked in and seen the man crouching over a chair in a dimly lit drawing room. He was wearing a chocolate-brown suit and a deep red bow tie. His hand was pressed against his chest, and at first Rehana thought he might be having a heart-attack, and she was about to curse her luck. But then he raised his hand, and in it was a small oval frame. He was holding the frame in the palm of one hand and stroking it with the other. My Rose, my sweet Rose, he kept saying. The room–the muscular wood furniture, the old carpets, the honey-toned walls, the portrait that dominated everything–smelt of crumbling plaster and damp, the colours bleeding into one another. Rose was a young woman, so pale her face foretold her death, with delicate hands folded across her lap. She wore a dress and looked like an English woman, the ones who had had worn wide, sloping hats and gloves, even in the warmest weather. Her dress, which reached down to her ankles, was a light pea-green with lace around the high collar and a tight row of buttons from chin to waist.

  Rehana thought about what it would be like to have this ethereal presence staring down at her. She stepped gingerly across the threshold.

  ‘Ali-saab,’ she said softly.

  ‘You have such a kind voice, my dear,’ he said, patting the seat. ‘Come, sit. Would you like some tea? Juice?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Rehana said. And then, ‘Your wife is lovely.’

  ‘Yes, she was very b
eautiful. We only had a few years together.’

  ‘I’m very sorry.’

  A man in a black suit and chappals entered the room with a tray. When he reached the edge of the moss carpet, he removed the chappals and proceeded in bare feet. He set down a tray in front of Rehana. On it were two tall glasses of pink liquid each topped with a spray of froth.

  ‘Rosewater shorbot,’ T. Ali said, a hint of pride creeping into his voice. ‘I have rosebushes.’

  The shorbot was over-sweet and made her jaws tingle. ‘Delicious,’ she said, warmed by the thought of his rosebushes. She allowed herself to imagine his garden, leaning over his plants, the sun at her neck. Maybe she could marry him. The house was certainly big enough. So what about the portrait? The woman was dead, after all.

  ‘What do you think of her?’ he said lifting his cane in the direction of the portrait.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ Rehana replied.

  He cleared his throat. ‘You see, I had tuberculosis. I was very ill–the doctor told me I didn’t have much time left. And she said, “No, I won’t let him die.” She sat at my bedside and held my hands–I don’t remember it; they told me afterwards. She said, “We never had children.” I remember her saying that. She begged God not to take me from her before we could have children. She prayed all the time, every day.’

  Water came to T. Ali’s eyes. He turned his face away from Rehana. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wriggled out of his glasses.

  ‘By the grace of God, I recovered. It was 1943. And then she died that very year. Tuberculosis. I couldn’t save her.’

  His voice grew faint and watery. ‘She was a remarkable woman.’ He nodded and worked his mouth, as though he was chewing on the memory. It made him look old. Rehana tried not to guess his age. ‘Here, let me show you.’

  He stood up and walked through the memorized room with his cane. His step was light and confident. Rehana felt herself relax a little as she followed him. He held the door open and invited her to pass through. As she brushed past him, she noticed the smell of mothballs, dusty and sweet. A comforting, not-sobad smell.