Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

He was still wearing the red-and-blue check; the collar pointed to his shoes. She saw him arguing with himself, calculating the most noble thing to do. The thing that would require the most sacrifice. Weighing his guilt against his desire to go. He must be picturing her alone in the house, with only Maya as her silent companion. And then himself in an army uniform. Which would be worse? He would choose that.

Rehana realized that she too would have made the same calculation. She would have moved through the world in that same way, trying find the thing that denied her most. She suddenly saw how much like her he was in this. The knowledge was an open window.

Sohail was still battling. His hand was hovering over the pocket of his shirt. Iqbal’s gravestone gleamed like the side of a ship.

‘It’s all right, baba,’ was all she could think to say. ‘Say goodbye to your father.’

Sohail cupped his hands and raised them to his face.

I cannot stop him. Perhaps if you were here, you would have done it. But I cannot. It is too great a thing.

In the afternoon Rehana watched as he packed his bags. Her fingers itched to help him so she tried to focus on something else. The books on his shelf. The posters hanging on the wall. Mao Tse-Tung. Che Guevara. Karl Marx. He wouldn’t tell her when he was leaving, or how he was planning to get out of the city.

‘It’s better if you don’t know,’ he said.

She unearthed an irritated, argumentative version of herself. ‘Why? Why is it better if I don’t know?’

‘Because that way if anyone asks, you can say you don’t know.’

She was tired. She wanted to be stubborn. It reassured her to dictate the terms of his leaving. ‘No. I have to be here when you go. Tell Aref and Joy to pick you up. There’s no need for secrecy,’ she said; ‘just tell them to come here. I want to know the moment you step out of that door, the moment you cross that gate. I want to say Aytul Kursi and Surah Yahseen.’

‘All right,’ he sighed. He was folding his shirts.

All this time Maya was standing under the doorframe, her feet on the raised threshold.

‘I have something for you,’ she said. It was a package wrapped in delicate red paper. It looked soft.

‘What is it?’ Rehana asked.

‘Open it later,’ Maya said.

Rehana wanted a brother. Someone to give going-away presents to. Someone to love without worry.

Rehana went to see Mrs Chowdhury. She thought she might tell her the news: about Sohail, and the boys leaving their stolen supplies in her corridors, and Sharmeen disappearing. She imagined Mrs Chowdhury holding her hands and telling her it would all be put right, like she used to.

Mrs Chowdhury was sitting on her veranda, facing the coconut trees in her garden. When Rehana leaned over to kiss her cheek, she found henna paste smeared into Mrs Chowdhury’s hair.

‘Any news of the Senguptas?’ Her breath was eggy.

‘Nothing. I thought they might write. Where is Silvi?’ She hadn’t seen Silvi since that night.

‘In her room. Praying, probably. All she does these days.’ Mrs Chowdhury waved away the plate of sliced papaya the cook had brought her. ‘What’s this? Bring me the samosas!’

‘No fried things, khalamma. Silvi apa’s orders.’

‘I don’t care. I’ll eat samosas if I want to. Go!’ And she snapped her fingers, which were heavy with generations of gold rings.

Rehana smiled indulgently at Mrs Chowdhury and realized that, in some quarters of the city, life was going on as before. Women were arguing for samosas. People were taking briefcases to work and frowning over their typewriters.

Mrs Chowdhury misunderstood Rehana’s silence. ‘Don’t worry, darling. The Senguptas will soon return.’

‘Times are bad, Mrs Chowdhury.’

‘Nonsense. Things will soon return to normal. It will all be done in no time.’

The words, when they came, did not comfort Rehana. She wondered if Mrs Chowdhury had been out of the house since the massacre, if she’d seen the death-coated city. Her dog had died, that appeared to be the extent of it. Rehana felt waves of hot and cold pummel her; she gripped the seat and swayed.

‘Oh, my dear, you’re about to faint!’ Mrs Chowdhury clapped again. ‘Ei, get over here, you goodfornothings, bring some ice water. Hurry!’

Rehana closed her eyes and waited; the ice water was put to her lips; she drank, pressed her back against the sofa. I’ll just lie here for a few minutes, she told herself. Just a few minutes.

‘Tomorrow,’ Sohail whispered. ‘We’re leaving tomorrow.’

Even though she had left him alone to pack his bag, she could not help unzipping it to see what he’d taken. She counted a few shirts. A lungi. She felt the plastic of his toothbrush. It was like combing her hands through his hair. Satisfied, she left for the kitchen.

She had prepared a feast. It had kept her calm throughout the day. So much to do.

There was shrimp malai curry.

Polao.

Chitol fish, which she’d had to debone and shape into balls. Chicken roast. Shami kabab. Dal, extra thick.

This is my duty, she said to herself. Sending my son to war with a full stomach.

They ate.

Maya, whose clothes suddenly hung over her frame in limp, deflated folds, nudged her rice with a spoon. Rehana realized how much she had neglected her daughter. The food turned grainy and sour in her mouth. Sohail was the only one eating, smacking his fingers together and smiling into his plate.

They said nothing of what was about to happen.

After the sweets and the halwa, Sohail rubbed his hands together and prepared to go.

‘They’re going to meet me in Sadarghat.’

‘Should I get you a rickshaw?’

‘Na.’

Just let me go, she heard him say. He turned to Maya, who had set her mouth into a thin line. He gripped her shoulders. She looked brittle between his hands. When he pulled her towards himself, she crumpled.

‘Get the bastards,’ she whispered. Then she turned and left them.

The light flickered.

‘I hate to let you go,’ Rehana said. She saw him looking at the creases on her forehead, the ones she had named 1959 and 1960. And she saw the scar under his chin, the one he had named Silvi .

‘Go,’ she said finally. ‘God goes with you.’

And then he was gone, his room tidied, the sheets tucked neatly into the mattress, his books lined up straight on the shelf, a small gap where Ghazals of Mirza Ghalib and Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas had sat beside each other, their frayed, loved, monsoon-waved pages pressed into line. She smiled at the choice. He had already memorized the poems and worn out the spines, but he would surely recite the verses to his soldier friends, who, despite being fierce and gun-wielding, would listen in rapt attention.

After Sohail left, Rehana resolved to confront her daughter. But Maya was evanescent; somehow even when she was sitting right in front of her it was as if she wasn’t there. She behaved as though no one had told her that once the war began there would be nothing for her to do but wait. No one had told her that she would only be allowed to imagine it from a distance. No one had told her how lonely, how hot, how tiresome, the days would be. And no one had told her that her friend would be the first to go.

She began spending all her time at the university, leaving as soon as the morning curfew was lifted, ignoring the breakfast Rehana offered, bolting through the door with only a few rushed words, and every evening returning just before the siren, looking exhausted and tense. When Rehana asked her what she did all day she said she had work to do .

In truth, it was a relief when she left the house every morning. Even the trees seemed to relax. Rehana tried not to let her imagination run loose around the empty house. She spent the days in stunned efficiency, counting and recounting the supplies, listening to the radio and discovering the violence that had been wrought upon the country. The deaths. The arrests. The children with no parents. The mothers with empty laps. The ones who simply vanished, leaving behind a comb or a pair of shoes.