Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

Mrs Akram and Mrs Rahman came to visit. ‘Mrs Chowdhury said you’ve been upset,’ Mrs Rahman began.

Sohail had instructed her not to say anything about his departure. ‘It’s been very difficult. Everyone’s gone — the Senguptas — and you remember that girl, Sharmeen, Maya’s friend? We can’t find her anywhere.’

‘We should all go,’ Mrs Akram said. ‘It’s not safe for our children.’

‘Why should we go?’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘We don’t have to run away like criminals. This is our city. Let them march around and pretend they’ve taken over — I’m not leaving. I passed by those soldiers on my way here — they’re just little boys, younger than my own children. They expect me to be afraid!’

There was something comical about Mrs Rahman’s bravado, but Rehana didn’t feel like smiling.

‘Will you go, Rehana?’ Mrs Akram asked. ‘Don’t you have sisters in Pakistan?’

‘Pakistan?’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘Why on earth should she go to Pakistan? You know what they would do to us over there?’

‘No,’ Rehana said slowly, as though she had given the matter some thought, ‘I don’t think so. The children would never hear of it.’

‘I tell you, we should all stay here and take a stand.’

‘What sort of a stand, exactly?’ Mrs Akram asked.

‘We should do something. I’m not giving up so easily.’

‘Don’t be foolish. You’re just a housewife. What on earth could you possibly do?’

‘You wait and see. I’m not just good for gin-rummy, I’ll have you know.’

A few days later Rehana decided she’d had enough of Maya’s secrecy, so she decided to confront her. She wanted to know what the girl was doing all day at the university. Rehana borrowed Mrs Chowdhury’s car and ordered the driver to take her to the university campus. She didn’t know where to look — in the bombed-out hostels, or the canteen, or the Teacher — Student Centre — but she was sure she would find her, and she couldn’t stop thinking Maya must be doing something wrong. She was upset. She could be in trouble. Rehana would find out and put an end to it, whatever it was. Yes, she was worrying. Maybe for no reason. But better to make sure.

Rehana had only really been inside the university once, when Sohail had invited her to try the famous phuchkas at the canteen. He had bet her the university phuchkas were better than the ones at Horolika Snacks in Dhanmondi. Rehana said that wasn’t possible. She and Iqbal had tried all the phuchkas in Dhaka and no one could beat Horolika Snacks. Sohail said that was over a decade ago and things had changed. Rehana didn’t like to be reminded that things had changed and her husband was dead, but she was carried along by her son’s enthusiasm and agreed to see for herself. They bought a dozen phuchkas at Horolika Snacks and balanced the boxes on their knees as they took a rickshaw to the university campus.

At the canteen Sohail ordered a dozen more. He put the tiny cups of fried dough in a row in front of Rehana. Then he poured a little tamarind water into each one, licking his lips and clapping his hands together and saying, ‘Horolika versus Dhaka University! Which will it be?’ Some of the students stopped talking and looked over. The owner of the canteen stood up over his counter and cheered for himself. Then Sohail told Rehana that, in the interest of fairness, she should close her eyes and taste first one, then the other.

In the end she chose the canteen phuchkas. Things really had changed. And now the canteen, along with most of the other low buildings on the university campus, had been burned down on the night of the massacre.

Rehana didn’t have to search for her daughter. She saw her as soon as the car entered the university gates. There was a line of girls, and Maya was in the front row, raising her knees higher than all the others and shouting louder than all the others. So this was what she’d been doing. She didn’t look timid, or embarrassed that the gun she was holding was just a wooden stick. ‘Hut-two-three-four! Hut! Hut! Hut!’ she shouted.

Rehana told the driver to stop the car. She watched as the girls marched past. Some of them paused and peered through the window at Rehana. One smiled shyly; another waved. Maya, who kept her eyes straight ahead, didn’t notice her mother. The girls stopped a few feet away from the car and moved their hands over the wooden sticks, pretending to load, aim, fire, reload. They wore starched white saris with thin blue borders. They looked like washerwomen. They looked serious. None was as serious as Maya.

Rehana sat in the car and watched her daughter, waiting for the training, or whatever it was, to end. Once it was over she opened the car door and waved in Maya’s direction. Maya was talking to a boy and didn’t notice, but the boy, who was blowing smoke rings into the air, saw Rehana wave and whispered something to Maya. He pointed. Maya stalked over, her face coming together in a frown.

‘Are you spying on me?’ she said. The exercise had made her aggressive. Her braid was coming undone, and the stray hairs clung wetly to her forehead.

‘No, I just — you’ve been away so much. It’s dangerous, I just wanted to see where you were.’

‘Well, now you know.’ She brushed the hair from her face. ‘I’m trying to contribute.’

‘By doing this? Running around with wooden guns?’

As was her habit, Maya mounted an attack. ‘Why did you bring us back here?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘From Lahore? Why did you bother to bring us back? You have no feeling for this place.’

What did she mean? ‘This is my home. Your father’s home.’

‘Then why won’t you let me do something?’

‘I just want to protect you. Everything I’ve done I’ve done for you and your brother. Now please, get in the car, the curfew’s about to ring.’

‘I’m not coming.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not coming. You go home, I’ll stay here.’

‘You come with me right now. You get in the car.’ Rehana felt the futility of it, but she insisted, grabbing Maya’s elbow and pulling her towards the car. She was surprised at her own strength. Maya tried to wrench her arm away, and Rehana gripped harder. ‘Don’t make a scene,’ she said coldly.

They said nothing to one another in the car. When they got home, Maya turned on her mother and began with a shout: ‘You are not so good at this either. You couldn’t keep my brother back, and you can’t keep me!’

Keep me. The words were poisoned arrows.

‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘You’ve been crazy — ever since — ever since Abboo died, you have this thing about keeping us at home. You’re mad! You want to lock us up!’

Rehana tried to change the subject. ‘I’m so sorry about Sharmeen, I know you’re upset.’

‘Don’t speak about her. You could never understand.’

‘Of course I understand.’

‘I mean you could never understand what it’s like for me and Sohail.’

‘Leave your brother out of it.’

‘Sohail,’ she said, ‘where is he now? Probably dead, killed by one of your Pak soldiers!’

It happened so quickly. She hadn’t meant to hit so hard, and it was only when she saw the red flowering on Maya’s cheek that she realized what she’d done.

Maya put her hand to her face, looking surprised, and then almost relieved. Then she said, ‘You should have left us in Pakistan.’

Rehana wanted to say sorry for the slap. She wanted to shake her until Maya took it back. But she stayed quiet, only glaring at her daughter and hoping Maya would not see the weak tremble in her jaw.

Maya stopped speaking. There were no more pleasantries, no more ‘good mornings’ and ‘I’m not hungrys’. With Sohail and the Senguptas gone, and Mrs Chowdhury and Silvi locked up in their house, Rehana felt a kinship with the deserted city. Maya took her plate and ate silently in Sohail’s room. The light would stay on deep into the night, and Rehana began to know her daughter only through the line of pale yellow that crept in below the door, and through the small sounds she made: the click of the ceiling-fan switch, the swish of the bedcover as she peeled it back, the faint whistle of a turning page. It went on this way for two weeks, as April, with its dense, stifling heat, spooled out before them.