Beloved Strangers

by Maria Chaudhuri

  I watched as she turned into a limpid pool of redness, a mountain of white bones. They spread her out on banana leaves, skin, head, limbs and torso. Her eyes were glassy but her jaws were parted with slight deliberation. It was the hint of a smile, a smile that gave her the dignity to rise above her massacred body.

  The hordes of children started to arrive with their empty gunny sacks. They approached boldly and climbed up the rusted iron grille of the old gate like little monkeys. It did not shock me that they awaited their day’s meal with pleasure. What unsettled me was the look in their eyes, the way they stared at the kill, with the grim satisfaction of those who could only understand the meaning of blood in the context of spilling it. What fast could curb such appetite, tame such impulsion?

  The butcher was heading towards the squatting calf. I turned around and started to run back to the house.

  ‘Hey you,’ yelled someone. ‘Don’t be such a sissy.’

  I kept running. Behind me I heard the voices rise again as they prepared to slaughter the calf. Just as I reached the threshold of our porch, I turned back to look at my father. But he had his back to me. Had he even noticed me slip away? Or was he too disappointed to acknowledge my cowardice?

  The sight of the catfish wiggling in the shallow green pool of water in front of Shah Jalal Baba’s shrine filled me with foreboding because my father told me they were not real fish. In 1303, when Shah Jalal, the great saint from Delhi, came to Bengal to preach Islam, he defeated the ruling Hindu king, Gour Gobinda. Deeming that many of the king’s followers practised witchcraft, he turned them into catfish, condemning them as eternal examples of those who stray from the true path of God. Through centuries, these human-catfishes continued to live, their souls trapped in ugly black bodies, their bodies kept in a filthy tank for display.

  Inside the prayer hall of the mausoleum, I could not concentrate on the prayers I was supposed to recite in order to pay respect to the saint’s departed soul. I made frequent mistakes, disturbed by the vision of a family of catfish, roaming in unending agony. Around me, women prayed in various states of fervour. Some sat in rigid meditation, eyes closed, fingers nimbly moving through prayer beads. Others beat their foreheads on the hard ground, crying for mercy, pleading for the redemption of their sinful souls.

  After the prayers, Mother, Naveen, Tilat and I waited for my father and Avi to come down from the elevated section of the mausoleum where the men prayed. I would have given anything to enter the demarcated area containing the actual tomb of the saint, to kneel at his feet and beg for forgiveness on behalf of the old catfishes. But Shah Jalal Baba did not permit women to go near his tomb.

  ‘If I go near his tomb, will he turn me into a catfish too?’ I asked my mother.

  ‘Don’t be silly. And try to keep your head covered for as long as you’re here,’ she said, adjusting the long scarf wrapped around my small head.

  Visiting the crypt of Shah Jalal Baba was one of the three reasons that my parents planned a family trip to Sylhet every winter. The pir lived in Sylhet too and my father loved to visit him, showering his brood of snot-nosed children with our old clothes and toys, bringing him generous gifts of food and money. The pir never refused. Being a man of God, he preferred to live on alms. For long hours during those trips, Naveen, Tilat, Avi and I would wander aimlessly in the pir’s ramshackle backyard while my parents, along with his other disciples, laid their offerings at his feet and vied for his attention.

  Not that my father ever spoke of it, but one of the reasons for visiting Sylhet was also my father’s secret desire to introduce us to the place of his childhood, a desire that he could not voice, given his reticence. Occasionally, we grasped his attachment to the streets and bazaars of Sylhet when he pointed out to us, with great pride, the sweetmeat shop selling the freshest jilapis or the streetside restaurant serving the best pickled bitter gourd. One time, he showed us a low white building, atop a hill, which had been his high school. We asked him if we could visit the school grounds but he firmly shook his head. Other times, unable to contain his excitement at a sudden sight or smell, my father would start jabbering in the local Sylheti dialect, something he only used when talking to the locals. On realising his slip, he would quickly retreat into his characteristic silence. What he was unable to share hung between us like the winter fog that shrouded the old town in secrecy.

  For me, the best parts of those annual trips came in the early morning and late night hours. We always stayed at an old inn called Bagh Bari. Even though the inn was technically in Sylhet town, in reality, it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Our wobbly, rented microbus veered off the main road and followed a narrow vein of pathways for at least a half hour before we reached Bagh Bari, which stood amidst rolling hills extending on all sides. No other habitation seemed to be in sight so that when we peered out of the window at night, there was only pitch darkness. Legend had it that Bagh Bari, which literally meant Tiger House, was once flanked by deep forests where Bengal Tigers ambled with royal ease at all times of the day, until finally, the inhabitants of Bagh Bari abandoned their perilous home and left for ever.

  In truth, Bagh Bari still looked like an ancient, abandoned home. Dust caked the window seals, the furniture groaned and creaked and the sheets smelled musty. There was no hot water but the heavyset innkeeper, Dowla Babu, would bring us boiling water for our baths in rusty iron buckets. There never seemed to be other guests in the inn, either. But my siblings and I didn’t care. We loved that our parents always got the largest room in the inn so we could all stay together. At night, when we returned to Bagh Bari, after a day of prayers and blessings and trying to find God, we finally got a taste of the fun and freedom that all children long for. Mother let us take long baths with the iron bucketfuls of hot water and as we engaged in delightful water fights, she hummed and leaned back against the pillows, while, next to her, Father peacefully read his newspaper. Through the half open bathroom door, we could see them, their reposed forms a reminder that the confusing day had come to an end and we could relax now. After dinner, Naveen, Tilat, Avi and I rolled around on the extra mattress on the floor, which had been lugged in for us, our minds churning with images of holy men, magic fish, divine-smelling sweetshops, Bengal Tigers and our father as a young boy, until we drifted off to the lilting sound of our parents’ soft voices above us.

  In the mornings, Dowla Babu knocked on our door because breakfast was at 7 a.m. sharp. Sunlight swaddled the small dining room, where we sat at a table piled high with plates of omelettes and toast. A jar of orange marmalade and a dish of butter rested next to a big pot of tea. These were the only times Father spread butter and jam on our toast and cut the eggs into small pieces for Tilat and Avi. As an additional treat, Mother poured small amounts of overmilky tea into pink and white teacups for Naveen and me. We didn’t want breakfast to end, didn’t want to get into the dreadful microbus, didn’t want to go to the pir’s dingy house full of haunted-looking children, didn’t want to pray at any saint’s tomb. We wanted to stay right there in Bagh Bari, play with Dowla Babu’s big brown cat Bagha, run along the slopes of the rolling hills, hear stories of our father’s childhood in that very town, listen to Mother hum a happy tune.

  It isn’t until years later, long after my father is no longer alive to preach the benefits of his faith – his unshakeable faith – that it lays a hand on my shoulder to tell me with a certainty I’d once seen in my father’s eyes, that all is not lost; that there is a way out.

  The bazaar at Banani is a veritable war zone of fruitsellers and fishmongers and overzealous chicken vendors who walk up to customers to shove a bunch of squawking feathers in their unsuspecting faces. On any given day, if you walk through the bazaar, you are unlikely to avoid stepping on a sopping mess of rotten fruit, fish goop and chicken shit. What you may not notice, however, is a narrow flight of broken stairs, almost fully hidden behind the jumble of fruit and fish stalls.

  I make my way up the small flight of stairs, slick with mud
and rain, nearly stepping on a half-eaten apple molested by flies. The stairs lead up to a narrow corridor with three closed doors. The first one says: ‘Homeopathy. Skin Disease. All Types of Diseese OK.’ The second door says nothing but bears four marks from where a sign had once hung. The third door says ‘Kazi. Registrar of Marriage. Banani.’ I take a deep breath before knocking on the third door.

  ‘Come in,’ says a man’s voice.

  The kazi sits behind a wooden desk stacked high with paper files. He is wearing an ankle-length tunic of light grey cotton and a white skullcap which resembles a yarmulke. I notice the rosary beads wrapped around his wrist as he strokes his long henna-stained beard. I know kazis are empowered by the Islamic law of the state to conduct and dissolve marriages. But sitting behind that mountain of lives built and broken on paper, meeting those eyes that steadily held my faltering ones, I feel that the man before me is larger than the jurisdiction of the law. I notice two other men sitting on wooden chairs at the other end of the room who look like younger versions of the kazi.

  ‘How can I help you?’ the kazi asks in a booming voice.

  ‘I need to file for a divorce.’

  The two men sit up straighter. The kazi looks undeterred. ‘Where is your guardian?’

  ‘I don’t have one. I am an adult.’

  ‘Where is your father?’ he asks, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘My father has passed away.’

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘I think we need to talk about my divorce.’

  The younger men sniggered, all the while busily scanning my entire form.

  ‘What are your grounds?’ The kazi asks, his tone now decidedly stern.

  ‘My husband and I don’t get along. He is emotionally abusive.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, he gets very angry and paranoid.’

  ‘Does he beat you?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Then what are your grounds?’

  ‘I told you. He abuses me mentally.’

  ‘Does he use swear words?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Does he have relations with other women?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then I am failing to see your grounds.’

  ‘He yells and shouts for no reason. He gets depressed and doesn’t talk to me for days and he lies to me about every single thing.’

  ‘What kind of lies?’

  ‘He lied about his birth, his age. He even lied about his nationality.’

  Despite myself I cannot help but imagine my spouse’s fate at the hands of the angels of death.

  The kazi fondles his beard, ‘Why does he lie? Is he angry with you for some reason?’

  ‘He’s angry at the whole world, not just me.’

  The kazi shakes his head slowly as he speaks. ‘Lying is not right but that is not a good enough reason to divorce him. It is a wife’s duty to understand the motives of her husband. Why don’t you come back with him and maybe things will be clearer to me.’

  Since Hujur’s description of a liar’s punishment, no one had bothered to tell me that lying can be acceptable under certain situations. ‘How am I to understand him? He doesn’t even talk to me!’ I cry.

  Through the open window of the small office, the rank smell of fish and fowl drifts in. The men fidget in their chairs. They are beginning to lose interest in me. I need them to look at me, acknowledge me, listen to me. Yet, I cannot beg and plead – my dignity bars that path. I cannot possibly lean across the table and say with any desirable impact, ‘You really have no idea what you’re talking about.’ In fact, I cannot find a suitable way to talk to these men, though I share race and nation with them. We face each other across completely unknown ground, their indifference matching my discomfort. We search for common ground. We need to agree on something, anything.

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘I can give you a very good reason for filing this divorce.’

  ‘Then give it to me,’ comes the impatient reply.

  ‘He’s an alcoholic. My husband is an incurable alcoholic. He is always drunk and I cannot imagine that he will sober up long enough to agree to this divorce, let alone turn up for it.’

  And there it is, the secret of my marriage that riles the men of faith. All three of them look at me as if for the first time and nod sympathetically, disapproval dawning on their faces. The kazi reaches for a stack of forms on his desk.

  ‘Fill this out,’ he says softly. ‘Religion does not stipulate you to live with an alcoholic. Remember, your faith comes before your marriage.’

  As I make my way out of Banani Bazaar, child vendors selling brooms and kitchen rags following closely at my heels, I think about what Father would have done in my situation. Had he regarded marriage as an institution of God, the love in it born and bred as per God’s rules? Or might he have agreed with me that the only God in a marriage between two people was created by their love?

  My grandmother taught me a special prayer for protection when the fear of ghosts and spirits kept me awake at night. This prayer, when summoned in true faith, possessed the ability to cleanse, purify and protect everything that came into close contact with its very sound and tremor. Nanu instructed me to recite the prayer, blow into my cupped hands with my instantly-purified breath and clap three times as loudly as possible. As far as the sound of the clapping reached, all evil energies would be immediately banished. No matter who recited it or what situation called for it, this prayer effectively invoked the Supreme and banished the existence of all that contradicted it.

  ‘Whatever you do,’ Nanu advised, ‘don’t ever forget this verse and God will always protect you.’

  It must have been extra hot that summer, to make us sleep with the windows open while the ceiling fan spun in full blast. I shared a room with Tilat and our two-year-old brother Avi. There was one double bed, which Tilat and Avi slept on, and one single bed, which was mine. I am not sure how long the sound had been going on but by the time it penetrated my brain deeply enough to wake me up, it had become pretty loud. It was an odd rattling noise intermittently interrupted by the sound of hammering. My eyes immediately flew to the other bed and locked in with Tilat’s wide open, terror-filled ones. How long had she been awake?

  Something told me not to speak out loud or turn my head towards the window where the noise was coming from. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut and uttered the prayer that Nanu had taught me. After reciting the prayer a few times and fortifying the room with its powers, I bolted upright in bed and hissed at Tilat to grab Avi and run to our parents’ room. Tilat must have been holding her breath for an instruction from me. In one scoop, she picked up our sleeping brother and fled towards the door. Even though I still did not dare to look at whatever was at the window, I could hear the strange commotion come to an abrupt halt. I tensed my body for whatever was to come and shouted at Tilat to run as fast as she could.

  Just as Tilat opened the door to our room, an astonishing thing happened. A flood of light streamed in from the corridor outside where my father stood, looking rather astounded. Tilat screeched, and I, finding the courage now, quickly turned to look at the window, only to catch a fleeting shadow moving away.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’ my father asked, stepping into our room and switching on the light.

  He followed my gaze and in the bright light all our eyes widened to see the cracked and broken section of the window grille that the burglar had been trying to hack away, presumably with a hammer. He must have used a ladder to get up on the ledge right under the window from where he stood and tried to undertake his very unfurtive operation. Not that we felt any less shaken by the whole episode, but the thief was clearly a person of little intelligence. In fact, the more we discussed it the next day, the more we were intrigued and entertained by the sheer folly of his ingenuous plan. Even if he had somehow managed not to wake us with his pandemonium, how on earth was he planning to squeeze through a small grille-less portion of the wind
ow? In the days to come, our favourite game was playing ‘burglar burglar’ by reenacting that night’s series of events. Even little Avi cackled every time Tilat banged on the window with a pretend hammer made out of a pencil box.

  But one thing remained unsolved despite the comicality of the night’s affairs. How had my father turned up at the exact moment we sought him?

  ‘Did you hear a noise? Is that why you came to our room?’ I asked him.

  ‘I didn’t hear any noise,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I had a strange dream. And when I woke up I felt I needed to check on you kids.’

  I found it impossible to believe that my father had been woken by a dream at the same moment when I was instructing Tilat to fetch my parents.

  ‘What did you dream?’ I asked, hesitantly.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘I asked Tilat to run to your room when I heard the noise but before she reached you, you magically appeared!’ I confessed, overwhelmed with awe and gratitude. I wanted nothing more than to bury my head in my father’s chest and have him tell me that he would always be there when I needed him.

  ‘There is no magic, dear,’ Father said calmly. ‘Only God.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Did you say your prayers before bed?’

  ‘Yes and also when I heard the noise.’

  ‘See? It was God who protected you. I was merely an excuse. And if I hadn’t been there, you would have found another way out of it.’

  I lowered my head, not wanting to hear any more. Not because I didn’t want God’s protection. But because I was losing, for the millionth time in my childhood, the chance to see my father as my protector, my hero. In my father’s denial of his personhood, of his role as my guiding star, there was the gallant notion that he had placed me in the care of a Supreme Custodian, whose guardianship was matched by none.