Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

At thirty-eight, Rehana’s body had finally caught up with its history. People who did not know used to assume she was a student, or that she was unmarried, because she didn’t wear a wedding ring or a single piece of gold jewellery, but no longer. She had gained a little weight, and she enjoyed the occasional heaviness of her limbs, the stubborn, outward curve of her belly, the slight effort of movement, an awareness of breath and bone. Her new, comfortable shape came with new imperfections: the bowed line between nose and chin, the slight shadow above her lip, the thickening of her waist and ankles. All fortunate developments for Rehana, as they signified the battle-weary body of a woman who had passed years in the effort to raise her children.

Maya leaned over and held her mother’s hand — not, as she sometimes did, for a reassuring squeeze but in solidarity, and suddenly Rehana felt sure it would all resolve itself: Sheikh Mujib would be Prime Minister, and the country would go on being her home, and the children would go on being her children. In no time at all the world would right itself, and they would go on living ordinary, unexceptional lives.

They blamed it on a sudden, collective deafness. How else could they explain the military planes that had landed at the airport, the soldiers told they were saving the world? How else could they explain not knowing, not hearing? And later they would say they should have heard the birds leaping out of trees and flying eastwards, and the crickets fleeing, and the bats folding up, and the grass-green tiktikis hiding in crevices, under house slippers.

But they didn’t, and this is how it happened:

On the 25th Mrs Chowdhury invited them all to dinner in honour of Lieutenant Sabeer. All day there had been strange rumours floating around the city. Mujib was in talks about the election, and no one was saying whether the talking was coming to anything; at the end of Satmasjid Road, at the East Pakistan Rifles Compound, the place they have always called Peelkhana, there was speculation about a military attack; some university students had come out with bricks and broken chairs from the dormitories, trying to construct a makeshift barricade.

It was a bad night for a party, but Mrs Chowdhury insisted. The couple hadn’t been formally engaged, she said, not with all the troubles; nothing elaborate, just a small ceremony, maybe a ring for Silvi. She roasted an entire lamb, which sat on the table with a tomato stuffed between its jaws. Rehana did not feel she could say no; Sohail agreed to come as well — probably to test himself, Rehana thought. He avoided looking at Silvi and Sabeer and kept his eyes fixed on the lamb. Maya’s mood was especially black; she had been forced to leave Sharmeen at Rokeya Hall, where confetti was being thrown out of windows and a group of Bauls were singing at the bottom of the stairwell. She complained of the quiet in the neighbourhood, as though no one in Dhanmondi knew or cared they were on the verge of a revolution. She wanted to be on the streets, distributing leaflets and singing ‘We Shall Overcome’.

The neighbours assembled around the table. Silvi was dressed in a heavy turquoise salwaar-kameez. Lieutenant Sabeer wore his uniform, as usual. Mr and Mrs Sengupta put Mithun to bed in Silvi’s bedroom and turned their attention to the aromas floating in from the kitchen.

The party was quietly expectant. But no one heard anything, not even the sound of guava trees dropping their fruit, as they always do in March.

‘Well, then, let’s raise our glasses to Silvi and Sabeer, my beloved daughter, and my soon-to-be son-in-law. May God bless you both.’

They raised their glasses of milk shorbot. Rehana sat beside Sohail and tried to catch his wrist to give it a squeeze. But his hands were on the table, and he said, ‘Here’s to our country. May it emerge from this trial and stand strong.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Mr Sengupta, leaning back and stroking his belly.

‘And to the proletariat! And to the revolution!’ Maya said, standing up and draining her glass in a hurry.

‘OK, OK,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, ‘now let’s eat.’

While Mrs Chowdhury plunged her knife into the lamb’s glossy, rippled back, a slow procession of jeeps and tanks crawled through the city; it snaked out of the cantonment, crossed the railroad tracks into Bonani, where it split up, one line straying through Elephant Road, through Jinnah Avenue, and into the university compound. The other line made its way towards Peelkhana, green jeeps with green men waving the green Pakistan flag, a flapping sickle with its lavish, bent smile.

Oblivious, they devoured the roast lamb, smacking their lips and sucking on the bones. Later they would remark upon the crudeness of their hunger. After dinner Mrs Chowdhury instructed Silvi and Sabeer to sit beside each other on the double sofa. She gave Silvi a garland of jasmine and told her to place it around Sabeer’s neck. Sabeer dipped his head, and Silvi slipped the garland over it. Everyone clapped, except Maya, who was looking up at the ceiling and singing quietly to herself. Amar Shonar Bangla… My golden Bengal, how I adore you .

At ten o’clock the tanks began to fire.

It was the sound of a thousand New Year firecrackers, of metal pipes being dragged across a stone road, of chillies popping in a smoking pan.

‘Ya’allah!’ Mrs Chowdhury cried. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Everybody stay where you are,’ Sabeer said.

‘I want to go home,’ Mrs Sengupta said. ‘Let’s take Mithun and go.’ She gathered the child in her arms and made for the door.

‘Ammoo,’ Maya said, ‘it’s coming from Road 2.’

There was loud, thunderous bang. ‘Hai Allah! Hai Allah!’ Mrs Chowdhury said. ‘This is it, we are all finished.’

Then they couldn’t hear each other over the sound of the bullets. Mithun woke up and began to cry softly. His mother cradled him against her breast, whispering with her lips to his forehead. Outside, Romeo and Juliet were barking hoarsely at the shelling.

‘Everybody stay calm,’ Sabeer said, ‘stay calm and stay where you are. Sohail and I are going to the roof to see what’s happening.’

‘I want to go home,’ Mrs Sengupta said.

Rehana saw Sabeer’s chair clatter to the ground as he rushed to the stairwell; his boots pounded, and Sohail’s chappals clapped, as they made their way to the roof. ‘Don’t go up there!’ Mrs Chowdhury said, but they were already gone.

Flashes of light came through the window and illuminated the room. Mrs Chowdhury’s lamb roast was a half-eaten corpse with naked ribs and a picked-over leg. The tomato was gone but the mouth was still open. Mrs Chowdhury looked as though she might lunge under the dining table, but instead she sank deeper into her chair, her hand clasped to her breast. ‘Allah! Allah! Allah!’ she said.

‘What’s happening, what’s happening,’ they kept repeating.

The shelling at Peelkhana was close enough to make Rehana’s chest rattle. She heard shouts. A siren sounded in a looping, circular wail. Fiery sparks illuminated the horizon; a deep sound like faraway thunder reverberated through the air; then came smoke, and a small hush, as though it was over. But it wasn’t. Seconds later it started all over again. Rehana wanted to hold her children. She wanted to put her hands over their ears. But Maya was glued to the window, and Sohail was on the roof with Sabeer. She could hear the two sets of footsteps echoing dully from above.

Maya picked up the telephone. ‘Phone’s dead,’ she declared. Then she turned to the transistor, but there was only a low, humming static.

From Mrs Chowdhury’s roof, Sohail and Lieutenant Sabeer watched the fires of the lit-up city. Suddenly they heard everything: the killing of small children, the slow movement of clouds, the death of women, the sigh of fleeing birds, the rush of blood on the pavements.