by Tahmima Anam
She didn’t think to worry until she was sure it was him. There wasn’t enough light to see; she reached out, felt the scar on his cheek. Then she said, ‘What happened? Is everything all right? What are you doing here? Where’s Sohail?’
‘They did it.’
He put her down on the bed in Mithun’s room and stepped away, sitting on the rattan chair, his hands just beyond her reach.
‘You were supposed to go,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he replied, his eyes piercing the black.
‘Why?’ she asked, knowing the answer and wanting to hear it anyway.
‘I had to see you. Suddenly you were gone—’
‘So were you–and no letters.’
She heard him rustling through his bag and shaking something. Then there was a small scratching sound, and he held up a match. She saw his eyes, and the tightly curled hair on his head. He held the match steady, until it burned down to the nub. He let it drop. He struck another. She felt its passing heat, the dusty sulphur as it flickered away; he shook his wrist and put it out.
‘So pale,’ he said.
‘I was—I had jaundice.’
‘I know.’ He was whispering, his breath on her eyes.
A sob, hard as salt, welled up in her throat. She caught it, and the tears fell freely, but before they could drop from her chin his hands were there to catch them, spread them thinly on her cheek, like butter.
She heard his tongue moving around inside his mouth. Tonguing the teeth. Caressing the roof. She heard it so clearly it seemed like her own tongue, teeth, roof.
He kissed her. His lips were softer than she had imagined. She felt his tongue; reaching, knowing. Like a conjuring trick, he unfastened her blouse. He dipped his head. He ran his tongue across the width of her. Up one breast, down. Across the bone, up again. Like an aqueduct.
The lick-track burned.
He placed his thumb on her face. A heartbeat pulsed inside the thumb. She turned her face and met his lip, which she had the urge to bite, but did not.
Moments, an eternity, passed. A tiktiki cackled from the ceiling. The poor slice of moon offered only the dimmest light, through which she could just make out his square face and the dense, wiry hair.
She wanted to tell him how foolish he was to have come, but she was afraid if she said the words he would know for sure that she had willed it with all her strength.
‘I have to go. Before sunrise, for Sehri.’
He moved a thread of hair from her cheek.
‘Don’t tell me when you’re coming back.’
Now his thumb scraped her collarbone.
‘Otherwise I’ll be holding my breath.’
He nodded, a slight dip of the head.
‘Take care of my boy.’
Rehana crossed the garden, swinging her arms, past the mango tree and the lemon tree and the rosebush, which was emptied of its secret, and the hydrangeas, which flowered blue and white like a china sky. At the bungalow, Maya was sprawled across the bed like a shipwreck. Rehana made for the kitchen, but then stopped, decided to lie down instead. It was still an hour till sunrise. She closed her eyes and remembered. Just once. Above her, the ceiling fan moved slightly, pushed by the swirl of November air floating through the veranda. Her skin was awash with scents, his watermelon breath, his burned-rubber sweat.
She heard the trucks before they turned on to the road; she felt them slowing in front of the bungalow, lining up along the neighbourhood gates. She had time to wake Maya and drag her to the drawing room. The army is here. She thought to straighten her hair. She passed a hand across her lips. And then they were perched on the sofa, straight-backed, as though waiting for a guest, except that they were still swimming in the ink-wash of night.
Young men in green uniforms spilled out of their trucks, dozens of them at once, each with identical savage eyes and boots that moved like hammers. They didn’t notice the women. Their eyes were for Shona, what Shona would give up. The prayers spilled from Rehana’s lips. God, let him be safe.
The boots stomped heavily through the bungalow; they tore books out of shelves, smashed dinner plates, knocked over the brass lamp, ravaged the cupboards. They ripped the posters from Sohail’s bedroom, Mao against a red background, Che with a cap and a jaunty smile. A pillow was bayoneted. Yellow cotton scattered like dandelion.
Nobody was arresting them. Through the autumn haze, the sun was making a slow and careful ascent.
A shout went up. ‘All clear!’ and then the soldiers lined up and stood at attention as a man came through the door, his hand on his hip where a gun was resting.
‘Mrs Rehana Haque,’ he said in strained, rehearsed English. He had a moustache but no beard. She couldn’t determine his age. Youth and age clashed in his face like competing scores. ‘My name is Colonel Jabeen. I have an order to search your premises and arrest your son, Sohail Haque.
Now the boots were on the bungalow roof, thudding like elephant feet. Rehana gripped Maya’s hand. It was hot and slippery. Next to Jabeen there was another man. He leaned over the window and spat into the hydrangeas. His eyes were on Maya as he swivelled around and cleared his throat. There was spittle still on his lips. He licked them. He looked at Maya–up, down–and licked them again. Maya stared back. Her palms were wet, but she stared back anyway.
Colonel Jabeen did not speak Bangla. He spoke Urdu. He shouted into the spitting man’s ear and the spitting man translated for him.
‘Tell them they have no choice. Give up the son.’
‘Mrs Haque,’ the spitting man said, ‘Apnar aar kono upai nai.’
‘Colonel,’ Rehana said in Bangla, addressing Jabeen but looking at the spitting man, ‘there must be some sort of misunderstanding. My son is in Karachi, with my sister Marzia. They live in Clifton–you can send someone and see for yourself.’
‘Says her bastard’s in Karachi.’
Colonel Jabeen didn’t reply at first. Then he looked directly at Rehana and said, ‘There’s no misunderstanding. Your son is a traitor to Pakistan.’
The spitting man said, ‘Apnar gaddar cheleke amra charbo na.’
The soldiers returned from the roof, from the garden, from Shona. They brought in the boxes of clothes, saris that would be turned into kathas, the penicillin. No Major. One of them righted an upturned chair, and Jabeen sat down heavily. He looked bored. They laid the boxes at Rehana’s feet. A graveyard of evidence.
Rehana said, ‘We’ve been collecting donations for the refugees.’ She renewed her grip on Maya’s hand, and thankfully, for once, the girl did not have the urge to speak her mind.
‘Tell her we know about the cache.’
A rush of cold gripped Rehana’s arms. She swallowed. ‘We know about the guns you buried under your rosebushes,’ the spitting man said.
Rehana opened her mouth to speak.
‘No need to explain. We already know everything.’
Rehana waited to see if Jabeen would tell the spitting man what they knew. ‘My son is in Karachi,’ she repeated, pulling Maya closer to her. Again Jabeen whispered something Rehana could not hear into the spitting man’s ear. The spitting man replied. Jabeen smiled. Had she seen him before?
Jabeen and the spitting man looked at each other, serious as new lovers, for a few more minutes before the spitting man said, ‘You have more than one child.’
Rehana’s legs were slowly, painlessly, turning to jelly. To keep them from buckling under she thought of her bones. She had bones. They stood her up.
‘Take the girl into the other room.’
The spitting man turned, a smile settling across his face.
‘Ma,’ Maya whispered, ‘I don’t want to go.’
Rehana locked arms with her daughter. The spitting man was at her elbow now, a pair of handcuffs clattering against his palms. Wait, Rehana told herself, just wait one more minute. I’ll think of something. She looked at Jabeen. She saw something, a hunger, in his eyes. She saw that he wanted something more, something more savage, than
the triumph over two women. She broke free of her daughter and played her only card.
‘Colonel Jabeen,’ she said in her perfect, native Urdu, ‘this cannot be the way you want to wage war.’
Jabeen cocked his head. Had he heard right? He cleared his throat. He mopped his forehead with the back of his arm. There was no electricity and hence no fan, and so everyone was sweating, especially Jabeen, who liked to wear his full army uniform on special occasions such as the routing of traitors.
‘You speak Urdu,’ he said. It was not a question. The spitting man was still tugging at Maya’s elbow, and she was grunting, twisting away from him. The corners of his mouth were wet.
‘Stop,’ Jabeen said to the spitting man. He obeyed, smiled, taking pleasure in the delay.
‘Sergeant, go and search the garden again,’ Jabeen said, ‘and the neighbourhood. Arrest anyone suspicious.’
The spitting man hesitated.
‘Go!’ Jabeen said. ‘Take the boys with you.’
The spitting man saluted and ushered the rest of the soldiers out of the bungalow, leaving Rehana and Maya alone with Jabeen in the strangled afternoon heat.
Jabeen turned to Rehana. ‘You see the problem,’ he said. ‘I’ve already promised my man.’
‘Then tell him you’ve changed your mind.’
He stroked his moustache with the back of his thumb. ‘Please, let’s be reasonable, Mrs Haque, shall we?’ He sat down, gestured hospitably to a chair and tented his fingers. ‘I see you are an educated woman. There were three boys on the mission last night. One was your son’s friend Joy. The Hindu boy, Partho. And Sohail was the third. We know they would have tried to cross the border. We believe we’ve picked up their tracks. But something tells me they may also have tried to come home. Especially your son.’ He crossed his legs and rocked his foot. ‘I have a feeling he may have been prone to…prone to sentiment.’ He sighed and wove his fingers together behind his head.
Yes, that was true. He was prone to sentiment. For instance, at this moment, his hands scratching with gunpowder, he was not just a man running for his country or for his life. He was also trying to fall out of love. To Jabeen she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And then he smiled again and she remembered where she had seen him before. ‘I’ve seen you. At the thana.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I spend a lot of time there.’
‘You asked for Chinese tea.’
He nodded, impressed. ‘I’m not an unreasonable man, Mrs Haque. I would rather not have the sullying of a woman on my hands. Those boys in the field,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘have allowed the excesses of war to go to their heads. A pity.’
He exhaled deeply, as though blowing smoke.
‘However, I have a job. I have to bring those Bengalis back. I have to arrest them. And then I have to shoot them.’
‘Then there is no reason why I should tell you where he is.’ Rehana swallowed.
‘Surely you’re more intelligent than that, Mrs Haque.’
The weather was a gale in her stomach.
‘Because I could hold him in a nice little cell and not shoot him right away. But perhaps that’s not suitable either? You saw what happened to his friend. Poor fellow.’
Jabeen’s cheeks were shining. Then he asked, as though the question had just occurred to him, ‘Where is your husband, Mrs Haque?’
I once had a husband. His face was round, and his fingers were breadsoft. One day his heart stopped beating. He sank to his knees in front of our house. ‘Rehana,’ he said, ‘Maf kar do.’ Forgive me.
‘Dead,’ she said, trying to sound as hard as the sewer-pipe woman who had given her the same reply.
‘Ah, what a blow for your children.’
My children have not always been my children. My children once belonged to someone else.
There was a sharp rap at the door. A shuffle of feet, a small thud. It was the Sergeant. ‘Sir, we’ve got him.’ He kicked a man into the room. His face was streaked with blood. A sickle scar on his cheek. A frame of curly hair. ‘Caught him running to Satmasjid Road. Stupid bastard. Right in front of our eyes.’
Jabeen unbuckled his gun and pointed it. Then he changed his mind, turned the gun around and hit him with the muzzle. It collided with the man’s chin; Jabeen’s arm came down again, and with his other hand he threw a fist into the man’s stomach. The man did not try to fight. He collapsed on to the floor, a small triangle of blood on his cheek. He tried to smile. Then he was doubled over, and Jabeen was kicking his back, his arms. ‘I should kill you right now, you Bengali sonofabitch. Thought you would take out the lights?’
‘Wait! This is not my son.’
Jabeen paused, his boot in the air. ‘What?’
‘He’s not my son.’
The boot landed, heel first, on a hand. A muffled grunt, bitten back.
‘Look at him–he’s too old to be my son.’
‘You want to trick me, woman?’ Jabeen was panting, exhilarated with the effort. ‘Who is he?’ His breath was hot on her face.
‘I don’t know. He could be anyone–you just picked him off the street.’
‘You think I don’t know a mukti when I see one? I know every single one of those bastards–I hunt them for a living. I know them better than you. I am their executioner. You are only their mother.’ Jabeen laughed. The back of his mouth was grey. He wanted something more savage. This was it.
‘This is not my son. I tell you, this is not my son. I swear on God, on the Holy Koran, on my mother’s grave, this is not my son. What good will it do you to catch the wrong man? Where’s the glory in that?’
And Jabeen stopped, patting his pockets, shaking off a trickle of sweat at the tip of his nose. ‘Dammit!’ he said, with a final kick to the man. ‘Sergeant!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get on the radio. See if there’s any development.’
‘Should I tell them about him?’
‘What did I tell you? Go!’
Rehana’s head was in her hands. If only she didn’t look at him. Maybe it wasn’t even him; maybe it was as she said, he was a stranger, caught crossing the road at the wrong time.
The Sergeant came back. ‘Colonel, sir, it’s on the radio. They’ve been found.’
Rehana’s heart fell to her feet.
‘All three?’
‘No, sir. Not Sohail Haque. The other two. Tracked them in Comilla.’
Thank you, God. Thank you thank you thank you. But where was Sohail? They were supposed to take the road to Daudkhandi, into the thick autumn rice, threading through villages, swimming across eddies, their trousers rolled up, their guns held over their heads.
Jabeen crouched, wove his fingers through the man’s hair and raised his head. This time he turned to Maya. ‘Let’s try this again. Is this man your brother?’
She said nothing, pushing urgently against Rehana’s arm. ‘Is this man your brother?’ Jabeen repeated.
‘Tell them,’ the Major said, the breath whistling out of his mouth.
She had once told him her secret. Which was not about T. Ali, or about her father’s lost wealth, or the stolen jewellery, or her secret love of the cinema, but about the children. How far she would go. Anywhere. Any distance. That was the secret. The shameless, hungry secret.
And with his knowledge, he held her children in his hands, breathing them to life.
It was her choice, not his. She had asked him herself. Take my affliction. The rest could only follow as it did. One love that swallowed another. Stacked up like clouds in a hot sky.
She wanted the knowledge back. I should never have told you.
I’m so grateful, he said, so grateful you told me.
All my life I’ve been waiting for this day.
This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done. All my life I’ve been waiting for this day. Now say it, and let’s be done.
She said it.
‘God be with you, my son.’
‘And you. My mother.’
Take my affliction. She had asked him, and he had answered.
The Sergeant wrenched him away, a hand on his collar, and he was gone, in the dragging, loping walk of a handcuffed man. Maya was pulling Rehana from the window, but she was like a stone. She owed him the looking. She fixed her look. She held him tightly in her gaze, through the black hood they slipped over his head, knowing he could see through it, and through the heart-shaped grille, and into the bungalow, and into her eyes, so that he would know all that she thought, all that she was, at that very moment, belonging to him as he disappeared from sight.
16 December 1971
Dear Husband,
The war will end today.
It was winter and the garden was living.
The flowers she had planted at the start of the war now studded the green. Champa, bokul, rojonigondha. The yellow roses. The hibiscus bush straddling the boundary wall.
Dawn was just breaking over the horizon. She knew she had only these few hours before the telephone started to ring and the neighbours began to pour in. People who would come to congratulate her and share their own stories of how they had managed to survive. They would fall on each other, as after a very long crossing.
But it was still early, and still quiet. Only the crows ringing the house.
Rehana hugged the shawl around her shoulders, and carefully, slowly, crossed the garden. She had not done it since that day. After the army took the Major away, she had hardly left the bungalow. Shona outside her window she had barely been able to look at.
Her footsteps echoed on the bare cement floor. She opened cupboards, pulled out drawers. Everything empty. Maya had done a thorough job. Cleaned up the broken pots and pillaged bookshelves. Sold the Sunguptas’ furniture and sent the money to Salt Lake. The rose-petal carpet was rolled up and pitched against a corner of the drawing room. Rehana crossed the pink-hued dining room, empty except for the portrait of Mrs Sengupta’s parents, resting in a corner.