Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

‘I’ll bring some food over this evening,’ was all Rehana could manage. How had Sabeer been captured? How did they know? And what was it about Silvi’s look, her calm self-assurance, pressing her mother’s feet instead of wailing and beating her chest like any other wife? Rehana felt slightly queasy, as though she hadn’t eaten all day.

After lunch, Silvi appeared at the front door carrying a small cloth shopping bag. She was panting and worked up, as though she had leaped across the street, and she gave off that summer body smell: sweat masked by a heap of perfumed talc. She was wearing a loose, long-sleeved salwaar-kameez, her face framed tightly in the dupatta.

‘Ammoo’s asleep,’ she explained, unwrapping her head.

Rehana watched her hair coming loose. ‘Here,’ she said, pouring a glass of water. ‘Drink.’

Silvi drank the water in one gulp. She set the glass down with an emphatic ‘Sobhan Allah!’ Then she said, as though they were already in the middle of a conversation, ‘It would be arrogant to say that God had found me, or that I had found God. Who are we to find Him, that holiest, most exalted of beings? For He is everywhere, in every breath, every heart. One has only to look.’ Her eyes shone healthily. ‘All this is but an illusion — do you not see that, khala-moni? This bodily life, this suffering.’ Her hands were restless, playing with the dupatta, smoothing the sleeves of the kameez. ‘You were the one who taught me the prayers, remember? Ammoo didn’t have the patience. It was you. You will be blessed for ever for that deed.’

Rehana gave Silvi a surprised nod of thanks, remembering the thin bones of the girl’s hands as she raised them, once, twice, three times, to her forehead.

‘God forgives everything, but only if we atone. Every day I beg for forgiveness.’

‘What could you possibly have to atone for?’

Silvi’s face was vigorously scrubbed, and she looked transparent, undifferentiated, all the colours blurred into a pale pink heat, except her cheeks, which pulsed, red and alive. She took a breath, hesitating, and Rehana could see the girl’s entire past in one instant: the stifling but strangely indifferent love of her mother; the vast, crowded house; the burden of losing her father, knowing that if she had been a boy, he might have stayed. Rehana had always imagined she could see into Silvi; the guilt she carried around with her had reminded her of her own guilt, her own burden. But now, in her simplicity, Silvi was predatory, fierce.

Silvi was clutching her bag and trying to say something. When she finally opened her mouth, her speech was formal, more like a recitation. ‘I wanted to give these to you. I would have burned them but I wanted you to bear witness to me, giving these to you, giving them up. So that you would know. I wanted someone — you, I wanted you. To know.’ Now the words were rushing out of her mouth. ‘God sees everything, so it should have been enough that He was witnessing it, but I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t.’ Silvi put her hand to her forehead and smoothed the middle part in her hair.

‘I’m sorry about Sabeer, beti,’ Rehana finally said. ‘Are you sure it isn’t just a rumour?’

‘It’s not a rumour.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Sohail,’ Silvi said, as though it was his fault, or even Rehana’s, but that she forgave them both.

Rehana felt her heart stop. ‘You’ve seen him?’ she asked, trying not to raise her voice, ‘Where is he?’

‘No. I haven’t seen him. I’m in pordah. I don’t appear before strangers.’

Strangers? What had happened to Silvi? What religion had possessed her? Certainly not the familiar kind. Rehana was not irreligious herself. She prayed every day, at least once, at Magreb, the most important prayer-time of the day. When Iqbal died, she had used the prayer to give her something to do, something that didn’t immediately remind her of the cruel hand she’d just been dealt, and she was unashamed about the solace it had given her. Life had punished her enough; the God she prayed to was not a punishing, not a vengeful, brutal God; He was a God of comfort, a God of consolation. She accepted the relief with entitlement, with confidence, and in turn she demanded very little from Him — no absolution, no change of destiny. She knew, from experience, that this could not be achieved.

Now Silvi riffled through her bag and took out a square packet. It was tied together with a length of deep red silk. As Silvi untied the knot, a few flattened flower petals tumbled out, their edges brown and brittle. She unwrapped the package, and inside was a stack of folded pieces of paper. They were of different shapes and sizes, some of them lined, like school notebooks, others plain, with a small but confident hand. Rehana glimpsed English, Bengali, a snatch of Urdu — and then she knew.

‘From Sohail,’ Silvi said. When Rehana didn’t answer, she continued, ‘I wanted to burn them. And then I thought, perhaps you would want to have them. In case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘In case something happens to him.’ She said the words with deep sigh. ‘I can’t keep them any more.’

Rehana wondered if she should feel wounded, for Sohail’s sake. ‘But they’re yours.’

‘At first I was worried Sabeer would find them. But now I just don’t want to have them. It’s not right.’

‘You’re sure?’

Though her face betrayed no signs of a struggle, Silvi was still holding tightly to the stack of letters.

‘Yes, yes, of course I’m sure. You can read them. There’s nothing — just poetry, a lot of poetry. I thought you might want it.’

‘All right. Give them to me. I’ll keep them.’

Still she clutched the letters, ‘Or burn them. I was going to burn them.’

A few seconds passed. Then Silvi carefully picked up the petals and retied the bundle, her fingers smoothing the fabric, stretching it tightly, mask-like, over the letters.

When she finally held out the package, Rehana was struck with a presentiment, as though her son had already died and the letters were like a gift, an exchange — a life for a stack of letters. She promised herself she wouldn’t open them.

‘I’m sorry about Sabeer,’ Rehana repeated, in an effort to change the subject. Thank God, Rehana was thinking, thank God my son is alive. ‘So, Sohail told you about Sabeer?’ And again she thought that her son was alive. It sang in her chest. Just being able to ask was a relief. ‘You spoke to him?’

‘He came to the house. “I’m in pordah,” I said, but he insisted. So I opened the window, but I stayed behind the curtain. And he said, “Sabeer’s been captured. They’re holding him somewhere. I’m going to find out.” And he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring him back to you.”’

Foolish, foolish boy.

How much did the girl know? Rehana clutched the letters. Her poor, foolish boy.

She went straight to the Major. ‘I want to see Sohail,’ she said, keeping her eyes on his broken leg. ‘Did you know he was in Dhaka?’ She knew the answer. ‘You knew he was here but you didn’t tell me?’

As usual, he offered no explanation. ‘It’s too risky.’

‘I don’t care. Just do it. I haven’t asked you for anything. I’ve taken care of you. Now you have to do this for me.’

He seemed to hesitate, his skin glowing a dark, sickly amber. His fingers fluttered and landed on the buttons of his grey-green uniform. Rehana ignored the small stab of guilt she felt at reminding him of his debt to her.

Three days later she got her instructions.

She was to leave in the morning as usual, with Mrs Chowdhury’s driver. She would instruct him to take her to New Market. On the way there she would complain about all the shopping she had to do, that the tailor had mismatched her green petticoat, that she needed mutton bones to make haleem for Mrs Chowdhury, and where would she find mutton bones at a time like this. When she arrived in New Market, she would get out of the car and ask the driver to collect her in two hours. She would walk straight to the fabric section of the market and stop at the petticoat shop called Miss Pretty. She would ask for a green petticoat — the colour of a tia-pakhi feather, she should say. And the petticoat man would give her a package. It would contain the green petticoat and a kilo of mutton bones. The petticoat man would walk out of the store and lead her to Sohail’s hideout.