Anuradha Roy - An Atlas of Impossible Longing

“I’m free!” I announced to Noorie. “And you are too!”

Noorie would not leave the cage.

I did not care. I threw in some chillies and her grain. When I reached inside her cage for her water bowl she flapped her wings and pecked me, drawing blood.

“You’d better not do that,” I snarled. “It’s just you and me now!”

I am ashamed to say that I hardly thought about Chacha and Chachi rumbling their way across to Rajshahi, backs aching against the hard seats of a crowded train, weary and worried, not knowing what awaited them at their destination.

* * *

I lived in Suleiman Chacha’s house for a long period without any real change in routine. I took no liberties. I did not, for example, shift from my small room to one of the larger ones. I fed the parrot every day, as I had seen Suleiman Chacha do, but she often left her grain untouched and would refuse to come out of her cage. I had not imagined birds mourned, but this one certainly seemed to. Once or twice she pecked me hard on my wrist when I was putting in or taking out her food and water. “Bastard,” I would spit at her then. “Just come out and I’ll wring your stupid green neck!” I would lock her in her cage and leave for work at the tannery, returning late in the evening, stripping my sweaty shirt as I leapt up the stairs two at a time. I would find her crouched in the corner as I had left her, as if she hadn’t moved at all in the nine hours I had been away. If I reached out to check her water bowl, she’d peck at me again and I would yell, “Haraami! If they weren’t coming back, I’d make parrot stew out of you!”

But Chacha and Chachi had not returned a year later. They did not return to see the country cut in two in 1947 or to watch the British leave, they did not return for the speeches and the new flags. They were away during the worst of the killings and of course, since they were Muslim, I did not expect them among the refugees who staggered into Calcutta. They must have found something for themselves in East Pakistan — that was the explanation I gave myself — they must have put down roots, and perhaps they would write and send for Noorie one day. I did not want to let in the thought that they might never have reached Rajshahi at all, that they might have been slaughtered on the way.

For months after Chacha and Chachi left, I locked the doors and windows every evening, fearing the house would be invaded as a Muslim’s. Just as I began to think I was safe, a mob came one night with torches and yelled for Suleiman Khan to come out, or else. I heard their shouts and slipped out of the back, hiding behind a low water tank. But for the certainty that I would be dead within minutes, there was no place for thoughts in my mind. I heard footsteps approaching the tank, a voice calling out, “I think the mullah’s hiding here.” I saw feet crush the grass next to me. When the man shone his torch into my face, he exclaimed, “ You ? You here?” Luckily for me he was from my neighbourhood and I had often chatted with him at the local shop when I was buying eggs and cigarettes.

I crept out from behind the tank. I had lost my voice. In some sort of whisper I managed to say that Suleiman Khan had fled and left me the house. “Left you the house?” he exclaimed. “You lucky runt!” I managed to smile, and the house got a reprieve.

But I did not. The tannery at which I worked as a clerk was owned by a Muslim. He decided to close it down and leave.

I had few friends. Most of the boys at my Intermediate college had scattered and I had not kept in touch. The only man who seemed to have any sympathy for me was the head clerk at the tannery, who took me to a roadside stall for lunch the day we were to part. We sat facing each other, legs across a wooden bench, aluminium plates of steaming rice and fish curry before us. Barababu washed his hands in water from his glass and shut his eyes, muttering a prayer. Then he plunged his fingers into his rice.

“Look,” Barababu said. “Think about me. I have a wife, three daughters. It’s not half as bad for you. You just need to look out for yourself. I envy you, my friend.”

“Envy? I’m an unlucky bastard,” I said. “The moment things seem to settle down, I’m back on the street.”

“The street?” Barababu exclaimed. “You have a roof over your head, gifted from the heavens. How much more luck do you want?”

“That’s not mine,” I replied. “They’ll be back any day. And the money they left is all gone. I need to find money to pay bills and taxes.”

“My dear boy,” Barababu said, focused on picking a bone out of his fish. “Nobody who has gone is coming back. Have you seen anyone return yet? Your houseowners must have taken over a Hindu house in Pakistan by now, and you have been left with theirs. It’s enemy property, my son, enemy property! You’re the lucky bugger who was in the right place when he needed to be.”

He put a ball of rice and fish into his mouth and, looking beyond me, chewed with great absorption. His mouth empty at last, he chuckled softly and said as if to himself, “Such luck, and such naivety.” His mouth twisted and again he returned to his fish. A tiny speck of gravy clung to his moustache.

I could see Barababu did not think it possible, but despite what I had said to the mob, I truly had never considered Suleiman Chacha’s house as my own, to do with as I pleased. His words flung wide a half-open door in my mind.

“I suppose I could do something with the house,” I said. “Or else how will I pay the bills?”

“Look, son,” Barababu said — I noticed that he had taken to calling me “son” more and more — “there are scores of people who have come across the border, not scores, hundreds, thousands, millions!” He gesticulated at the crowded streets around us. “They all need places to stay! Rent out those rooms! You’ll never need to work again. And if you still want work, I’ll introduce you to a relative of mine. He’s a builder, and he’s been saying he needs a young man like you.”

Barababu insisted on coming home with me that afternoon, to better advise me, he said. He cast an appreciative look at the garden as I was opening the gate and as soon as we entered, he darted to the corner and, hitching up his dhoti, shimmied up the mango tree.

“You don’t know how much my soul longs for this,” he said in rapture, looking down at me through a fringe of leaves on a high branch. “The village, our trees, the fruits I plucked as a boy. In Calcutta’s shanties where does one find trees? I’ve decided, my boy, I’m going to return to my village and tend whatever land I have.”

“Won’t you come down?” I said. “I’m not sure the branches are strong, it’s a young tree.”

“Oh, I know all about trees,” he said, clambering down with more agility than I would have thought possible for a man his age. He followed me to the front door muttering, “Two storeys, eh, and it must be on, what, two hundred square yards of land?” As I put my key into the lock, he thrust his hand into the dirty cloth bag that hung from his shoulder and produced a small glass bottle of clouded water.

“Muslim house, ehm, you know, one can’t be too careful … ” he said. Unscrewing the bottle, he sprinkled a few drops of water on the doorstep and, as if by accident, a few drops on me, mumbling an unintelligible mantra. Then, purification rites over, he walked in and examined each room in turn, murmuring approval, saying only, “This parrot, you must get rid of this parrot. Look how it’s shitting everywhere.”

I spent the next few days ruminating over Barababu’s advice. For hours I leaned over Kalighat Bridge, watching the murky waters below. At low tide there was hardly any water and the banks revealed years of filth. But at high tide it was brimming, a quiet, liquid brown. A mud hut perched halfway down its right bank, and coconut trees peered into the water. It was a world away from the city’s clanging trams, jostling crowds, rotted odours, and streets crowded with emaciated beggars who all said they had not eaten for many days. As I leaned over the bridge I thought of the unthinkable, of betraying Suleiman Chacha’s trust. I could sell the house, or rent it out and make it a tenement. I could live like a zamindar, I could work for pleasure. I could write books, compose music, travel. I could be a real gentleman.