by Tahmima Anam
‘So if I till it, nothing’s going to come up. I’ll break my back and only rocks. Waste of my sweat.’
‘You won’t get a single grain of rice out of it.’
‘Not a sesame seed.’
He hands me the cucumber and it disappears into my gullet.
‘You’re looking for the daughter,’ he said. He stood up and took a few steps towards the bed. ‘She’s her only people.’
I don’t say anything. I’m holding my breath.
‘That girl killed her.’
I’m waiting for him to get his piece out.
‘Took the life out of her skin.’
I mutter something he expects me to say, ‘God’s will’ and all that. He wipes his eyes, cloudy anyway.
‘What happened to her, the daughter?’ I’m trying to ask it slowly.
‘We weren’t going to have her, not with another mouth coming. She came, but we said no. Sent her away.’
‘Back to Khulna?’
‘Tried to convince me. Said she’d work hard, take a job anywhere.’ He rubbed his hand over his jaw, as if she was still in the room, trying to get him to say yes. ‘Chittagong, she said. I gave her the bus money.’ Maybe he was feeling sorry for her now. Then he said, ‘Carrying around someone’s bastard. Couldn’t have that.’
‘Yes, you never know with women like that.’ The mud floor is freezing and I want something real to eat.
‘Take up with anyone.’
‘No morals.’
‘Whore.’
When I heard him call her that, I wanted to break his arm, but it was only the word I was using myself all this time. Calling her a slut whenever I wanted to forget her, pull her face out of my dreams. So I thought, maybe this is the word people use when they love someone they’re not supposed to, and with that I left him, said my farewells and gave him a bit of money, and he took it without saying a word, maybe because he was desperate, or because he could smell I was hiding something, and we both knew that if he took the money, if anyone asked, he would be obliged to tell them nothing, only that a relative of the dead woman had come to pay his respects.
‘Plant a jackfruit tree,’ he said, just as I was ducking my head through the sad doorway. ‘They come up hardy.’
Chittagong. It made sense. Big city, she could disappear. But where would she go. And how would I find her? I use my mobile and call Shathi.
‘I’m not coming back right now,’ I say. She doesn’t ask me where I am, or why, and for a second this irritates me, but then I just tell myself to be relieved because here is one less person I have to lie to. But she says, ‘What do I tell your mother?’ And I feel a little bad, so I say, ‘Give her the phone.’ I can see my mother holding the phone with two hands. ‘Amma,’ I announce, ‘be nice to Shathi. I’ll be back when my business is finished.’
She grunts at me and I know it won’t make a difference, she’ll still torture my wife by making her pick the grit out of the rice, and she’ll make her walk three times a day to the well, and cook her dal fresh every morning even though I bought a fridge that keeps everything cold. Why am I feeling bad? She’s a woman, that’s what they do, eat shit from morning to night, they must not mind it, they must know it from the minute they’re born. When you know what to expect, things aren’t so bad. This is what I tell myself as I wait at the station.
III I Go to the City
My bus pulls up to the station and I think, it’s not such a big city. Compared to Dubai, compared to Dhaka, it’s a village. No way I could miss Megna in this town. Only so many streets. I could walk each one, go into each house. Not the first time I fancied myself a hero, nice song to accompany me, bursting through doors and raising my face to the sun, shoulders jiggling, singing, ‘I’m gonna find my girl, whole world be damned.’
First thing I do, I find myself a hotel, somewhere I can put my feet up. I want somewhere nice, so when I bring Megna in, and the kid, I can tell them: here I’ve come, look, a room to myself, a sink in the corner, electric fan, tube light, I’m your daddy come to rescue you, everything you ever wanted. I even think about a room with AC, but even in my Bollywood dream that’s too much. I find it near the station, Hotel Al-Noor. It’s clean, a place you can bring a woman and she’ll think, man has made something of himself, man is a man, not some kid who ran out of the country like a scared goat. There’s a bathroom at the end of the corridor so I wash. Then I go downstairs I eat something at the restaurant, where I share a table with a few other men, not unlike me, I think, until one of them calls me ‘uncle’, and I think shit, I look older than am, or at least, older than I feel.
‘Uncle’ he says, ‘what’s your business in Chittagong?’
I made up a story on the bus ride. ‘I’m looking for my sister,’ I say.
I have their attention. Five or six men – boys – with their fingers in rice and dal. ‘Something happened to her.’ It’s the same story, the real story, except I tell it like I’m not the villain. ‘Guy from my village, we all knew him, lived just on the other side of a few fields – said he was going to marry her. But kids these days, all scoundrels.’
‘So what happened, they went secret to the Kazi?’
‘No. Said he would. But then he ran off. Got a ticket to foreign and left her cold. I heard she came here, so I’m looking.’
‘Why’d she come here? You have people here?’
I finish eating. Lick my fingers and the dal is drying on my fingernails. There’s one guy at the table who’s a bit older than the others, reminds me of Hameed. Actually the whole thing, men at a meal after a day of work, and for the first time I am having a missing twinge for my boys, Dubai, the sandpit, Bride and Groom.
‘There was a child. So she came here.’
Now they know the whole story. I can see them thinking she was a slut because she opened her legs.
I don’t know why I give a damn what they think, but I do. ‘I think he forced himself,’ I say.
‘Son of a pig,’ one of them says.
‘You have a photo?’
‘No.’ I could hardly even remember her face. I saw it every day but I’m thinking now how much I wish I did have a picture, something I could show around the streets here.
The older guy points to one of his friends, a shiny little guy with a scar from his nose to his lip. ‘Shumon here fancies himself an artist. Why don’t you draw a picture of his sister.’
The others nodded. ‘He’ll do it. He’s good.’
They were all rickshaw boys. Lived in a row of shacks behind the hotel. Tonight they were celebrating because the ban on rickshaws had just been lifted on the main road and they had made a bit more. Shumon had a wife, three kids, his parents, two younger brothers living with him. The other guy, Salam, was getting married but he still had to send money to his people back in the village. And the older guy was Awal, arms like twists of rope, grey on his beard, five daughters and another kid on the way.
To make a little money on the side, Shumon painted the backs of rickshaws. Women melting in the arms of their lovers, pink faces and tits like mountains.
‘He’ll make your sister look like a film star.’
Not sure if I want a picture of Megna looking like that. Maybe, I say.
Next day I go to the train station. Girl comes into town, she’ll be at the bus station, the train station, or the ferry ghat.
All this time I haven’t tried to think about what Megna’s been doing for these ten years. In my dreamworld she was somewhere nice like in garments or a beauty salon. All the other things she could be doing, like begging on the street, I didn’t think about. Still I go to the train station because if she’s a beggar she would definitely be there. Before I go I call Shathi on the mobile. She answers on the first ring, like she’s been holding the phone in her hand. ‘I’m in Chittagong,’ I tell her.
I can hear her breathing on the other side of the phone. ‘Good,’ she says.
‘Are you crying?’
‘No.’
‘What ha
ppened, my mother did something?’
‘No. She hasn’t been well, she’s mostly been lying down.’
‘What is it?’
‘I had a dream you were never coming back.’
All day while I’m at the train station I think about what Shathi said. I tell my story to all the beggars at the station. People hold out their hands and beg to me, and I think it wasn’t long ago I was begging myself, to a foreman to lend me some money for my brother’s leg. Now brother is doing fine, he even had a son, boy walks around the village like a little white prince. No one knows Megna. An old woman says, yes, I saw her, give me a few paisa and I’ll tell you where. Her eyes are clouded, she’s got the cataracts and I know she’s lying. I throw her a few coins I don’t bother to hear what she’s telling me. I think Shathi’s right, if I find Megna I’ll never go back, I’ll just stay at the Al-Noor forever, looking up at the ceiling fan all day with my head in her lap.
I find Shumon’s place behind the hotel. There’s a whole world back there, tin and paper shacks all stuck together. ‘Come,’ I tell him, ‘get the others, we’ll have dinner. I’ll pay.’
We meet the hotel owner, friendly guy. He asks me how long I’m staying, I say a week, ten days, that’s it. He nods over at a table at the back, where a pair of cops are ordering tea. Word’s gotten out about my sister. Everyone knows the cops won’t help. They’ll put those RAB guys on you and next thing you know, you’re the one in jail. Guy owes me a favour, hotel owner says, pointing to the one on the left. Bald circle on the top of his head. ‘If you tell him I sent you, he’ll do what’s right, won’t jerk you around.’
I nod but I don’t believe it. But I tell Shumon to do his drawing. Just the face, I say. ‘I’ll pay you.’
‘No payment,’ he says, looking around at the others, who nod. ‘Brother to brother.’
The next day he comes with his paints and a piece of paper. I tell him what Megna looks like, the small, dark eyes and the crazy hair. I can’t really remember her nose so he just draws whatever nose he wants. I come up with a few other things I didn’t even know I remembered, like a small dip in the middle of her chin, and also that her face was more long than round. When he’s finished, he shows it to me and I’m surprised because it’s not exactly her but it’s not too far either, and there she is, a little pink but it’s her, staring out at me. I can’t believe it.
‘I’m going to start looking for her right now,’ I say. ‘Thank you, brother.’ I give him some money, just for the paint and the paper, and he takes it.
Rickshaw boys say, let’s photocopy the drawing, right, put it up around town with my mobile number. I like this idea. I spend fifty paying for everyone’s khichuri, another twenty on the copies. Before they can start asking where my money’s come from, I say, ‘Our parents, as in me and my sister’s, are worried, so they sold a bit of land so I could come here and look for her. All this time they were angry because she ran away, but now they’re old they’re saying let past be gone, and anyway it wasn’t her fault, bastard forced himself on her, everyone knows he was the bad egg, went off to foreign and never came back. Parents are soft now, just want to know where she is, what happened to the kid. So they sold a tiny patch of land and sent me.’ I’m telling the story and it feels so good I start to believe it, even manage to get a few tears onto my cheeks. Boys are patting me on the back and promising to put the drawings up all over town. ‘You’ll find her, brother,’ they say. ‘It won’t be long now.’
Shumon and the rickshaw boys put Megna’s picture everywhere. Two calls I get on my mobile, saying they know where she is. ‘She’s working at a shop in Tiger Pass,’ the first one says. ‘Meet me there.’ But when I go it’s just a guy asking for money. ‘Please,’ he says, ‘I need it for my father’s operation.’ I give him ten I tell him to get lost. Second time it’s a woman, and my wish is so strong I think it sounds like her. When she says ‘Hello?’ I say, ‘Megna?’ And she says, ‘The girl you’re looking for, I saw her sitting in front of a barber-shop. She looked just like the picture.’
I ask for more but she just gives me the address. Naveed Napith, on the way towards Patenga. ‘What was Megna doing?’ ‘Nothing, just sitting there.’ I don’t believe her, the barber-shop wasn’t even in town, it was near the beach, and why would she go there? I hang up.
The very next day my luck changes. Shumon comes back from work and we’re sitting with a cup of tea. ‘No charge,’ the hotel owner says. ‘You’re my regular customer now. Tea is free.’ I’ve already paid for the week up front, so he knows I’m good for it. In the morning I’m gonna pay for another week.
Shumon bounds up to the table. ‘You won’t believe it,’ he says. ‘We found her.’
‘What?’
‘Me and Rajib, we’ve been asking around, you know.’ The boy who sits at the front of the hotel with a giant vat of oil has just fired up the gas on his burner. ‘We went to Dewanhat.’
‘I told you she’s not there.’ It was a slum, the biggest one in the city. All week Shumon’s been telling me to check it out and I’ve been saying ‘Na, not Megna’s sort of place. She would never have ended up somewhere like that.’
‘She’s not there, brother. We just know the big boss at Dewanhat.’
‘What kind of boss?’ The oil is sputtering now, and the boy is popping his little samosas in there and watching them dance.
‘A guy who knows things. A guy who can find out. That kind of guy.’
I can see who he’s describing: cigarette, shirt open to his crotch, everything oily. ‘Don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like that.’
But Shumon’s grinning so big the scar on his lip disappears. ‘We showed him the picture and he says he knows where she is!’
Now the kid’s making jilapis, holding a bag of dough and drawing circles with his arms.
‘Did you hear what I said? We’re going to find your sister.’
I’m afraid to be happy. ‘What exactly did he say?’
‘Said he knows where she is, she’s right here in Chittagong.’
‘Been here the whole time?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘He gave you an address or what?’ It’s starting to hit me now, like something climbing up my legs. I’m going to get the girl back, I’m actually going to find her. It will be like the last ten years never happened. Shit. God is Great. God is Great. The words come out of my mouth before I even know what I’m saying, and then I realise that, for some people, God doesn’t just come in the bad moments, like when you’re hanging hundreds of feet from the sky, but in a moment of bliss, when you get everything you want and you can’t believe your luck, and you think, there must be something else behind this, some force that gave me my wish – it couldn’t just be that I wanted something for ten years and then I finally got it, that would be too good, too kind of the world and we all know it’s not that sort of world, at least, those of us who really know it – and I want someone to thank, or at least I want to feel like someone did this for me, to put peace in my heart. ‘Thanks be to God,’ I say.
‘So where is she?’ I can smell the jilapis now and they are floating in their sugar bath. I order us a plate and eat one straight away, burning my tongue. ‘Give me the address.’
‘Thing is,’ Shumon says, putting his hands on the table, ‘this guy, he doesn’t do anything for free.’
I push the plate of jilapis towards Shumon, but he doesn’t take one. I’m ready to say no, but already I’m wondering how much money I can scrape together. ‘How much?’
‘How much do you have?’
‘I have.’
He takes a breath. ‘Two.’
It’s more than I’ve got. ‘I’ve only got one-seventy.’
Shumon looks around the room like he’s going to find the other thirty in a corner somewhere, then he says, ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’ And he gets up, pops a samosa into his mouth and leaves me with the sugary taste of Megna on my lips.
That night I stay up in bed
and think about what to do. I stare up at the ceiling fan, which is off because it’s chilly at night now, and I can see a dark streak of dust on the blades. I’ve been putting off a particular question this whole time, which is, what I’m gonna do with Megna when I find her. My wish being says I’m gonna take her somewhere nice and we’ll run away together, holding hands and dancing between the trees, that sort of thing. But I know what it’s like to be away from home, what it’s like to be without people, and I won’t do that again. After so many years, Megna’s not going to want that life any more either.
So there was only one thing to do. Bring her home with me, not just to the village, but to my house. As my bride this time. Bring her home and tell everyone the whole truth. The child I would claim, and they would both have my home, my name, and Megna would finally get some respect. People in the village would have to swallow all the shit they said about her and kiss up to her just like they did to me. She would get mine. That was it, that was the only way. I owed her.
Now there was just the matter of Shathi. For a long time I thought, when Megna came back I would send her back to her father. Talak, talak, talak, that sort of thing. But, when it came down to it, when it came time for her to take sides, she chose me against her own. Looked after my father till he died. Right now she was keeping my rice, the key of the trunk around her neck, taking care of my mother. She should get something for that.
I could give her some money and send her on her way, but where would she go?
And then I went to the thought I had avoided. I was the big man in the village now, I could have two wives. Two wives, two beds. I had never touched Shathi, and I never would. She could keep living in my house, though, she could tend her vegetables and fatten her cows.
I know this can’t work because Megna wouldn’t have it, not if she was the same girl I knew ten years ago. But it’s the best I can think of. I’m uneasy but decided. I’ll call Shathi in the morning and tell her everything.
I’m awake. Can’t sleep thinking what I’ll say to Megna when I see her. She’ll be angry, that I know. I tell myself, be ready for that. Maybe she won’t see my face and I’ll have to go back three, four times. But she’ll melt soon enough, and who knows, maybe the years made her a little softer, maybe she can see that I was young and drunk on the thought of foreign – nothing anyone can do about that when it hits them. I got a chance and I took it. And, see, I made good, got some money in my pocket now, something to show for the last ten years, a home, fridge. What’s she got? Well, she’s got my kid, for one thing. Raised that kid right, I bet. School and all that.