Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

‘Yes, I do.’

‘She’s married to him. Not to you.’

‘She’ll know how far I’m willing to go.’

‘What have you been doing all these months? Fighting a war or throwing sand at Silvi’s window?’

‘Ammi, I was there when Aref died. He looked at me and he said, “If I had a hundred lives I would lose them all.” How can it be the greatest and the very worst thing we have ever done? Everything, everything is upside down. Wrong is right. My mind is full of the filthiest, most brutal things — and I just need her. I can’t explain it. When I see her, at the window, I just need her.’ Sohail’s eyes were swimming. ‘Please, Ma, for me, just once, I’ll never ask you for anything, just please, go and get Sabeer, get him out of there. Ammi, amar jaan, please.’

‘Enough. Stop begging.’

Sohail was sobbing now, his face collapsed, his palms pressed against his eyes. ‘It has always been Silvi, ever since I can remember.’

‘All right.’

‘You’ll do it?’

‘I’m as much a slave to you as you are to her.’

He looked up, and she knew he was thinking he would someday make it up to her, pass the debt back. Neither said anything for a few minutes. Sohail was still kneeling in front of her. She passed him a rag from the pile of clothes, and he wiped his nose. And then he smiled and said, ‘How do you like my palace?’

‘It’s disgusting. They couldn’t find you somewhere decent?’

‘I’ve been teasing Joy. He has your cooking, and I have to stay here.’

‘Why don’t you let me bring you something?’ It seemed such a pathetic question. What could she possibly bring him?

‘You can’t come back here,’ he said.

‘I can send someone with food, clothes.’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

Something snapped inside Rehana. ‘Dangerous! There are enough explosives buried under the rosebushes to flatten all of Dhanmondi. You’re worried about putting me in danger?’

Sohail wrapped his long arms around her and whispered, ‘Thank you, thank you, Ammi, you are saving my life.’

My life is your life , she thought. ‘Will you be here long?’

‘No. As soon as Sabeer is released I’ll go back across the border.’

‘There’s no guarantee Faiz will release him. Or even if he can.’

‘He can. I know he can. You just have to convince him.’

The first thing Rehana did when she got home was take a bath to get the fish stench out of her skin. She changed her sari and put the rice on the stove for dinner. Dusk was settling in the sky, its purple light gently grazing Shona and the bungalow.

Then she went to the Major’s room.

The record player was silent, and his hands were folded together on his lap. He appeared to have shaved, his chin and cheeks gleaming. He was sitting up and doing nothing, just staring at the opposite wall, which was bare except for a framed, garlanded photograph of Mrs Sengupta’s parents.

‘Was it far away?’ he asked without saying hello. ‘Did you get lost?’

‘No.’

‘You just got back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why is your hair wet?’

‘I bathed.’

‘I thought you said you just got back.’

‘Are you worried or just nosy?’

He didn’t say anything after that. It was obvious he wanted to know what had happened, but for some reason she was irritated at him, and the events of the afternoon refused to assemble themselves into any sensible order. Now that she had finally seen Sohail, she could no longer imagine they were using him for some exclusive, important task. He was just a beast like the rest of them, useful only for his body, his strength, like any other body, any other strength. If it was the same to them, why did they have to have him?

‘He thinks I can get Sabeer out,’ Rehana finally said.

‘You? Get a soldier out of jail? How?’

‘My husband’s brother. He has some connection with the army.’

The Major’s face closed up.

‘The thing is — Sohail is in love with Sabeer’s wife.’ It came out accidentally. Why did the words just fall out of her mouth in this man’s presence? Again he said nothing, and again she was grateful — probably because he appeared never to be shocked. To make herself feel better she told him to get up so she could change the sheet.

‘You told him you’d do it?’ he asked, not moving.

‘Of course I did.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

The suggestion irritated her further. ‘How can you?’ she said cruelly. ‘You can’t even walk to the gate.’

‘You could get caught.’

‘He’s my brother-in-law, he wouldn’t turn me in,’ she said, knowing it wasn’t true. ‘I can just be concerned for a neighbour. There doesn’t have to be anything suspicious about it.’

‘And when he asks you where you stand, with the war, if you believe in Bangladesh or Pakistan, what will you say?’

‘Whatever I have to.’

‘You shouldn’t do it.’

‘You don’t have children.’ She felt her neck burning, and she smelled the wheel soap she had scrubbed into her face, and the remnants of the jobakusum oil in her hair, and the astringent sharpness of the talcum powder under her arms.

The Major’s ceiling fan was switched off. In the afternoon, though it was always hot, his fever rose and he would shiver under his blanket until the sun travelled low and dipped beneath the horizon.

Rehana, wiping the dampness above her lip, said, ‘Why don’t you play a record?’

‘This is a bad, a terrible idea.’

‘I’ve already sent a message to Parveen. They’re expecting me for lunch on Friday.’

I won’t tell Iqbal, she said to herself that night, watching a mosquito trying to break into the net. If I tell him I’ll end up talking myself out of it. I know it’s dangerous, and it probably won’t work. And imagine the smug look on Parveen’s face. Those stupid, bulging eyes. No, it probably won’t work. Who is Sabeer to me anyway? Would he save my Sohail if he had the chance? Nothing doing. Phat-afat he would run the other way. Mrs Chowdhury? We both know the answer to that. And that girl, Silvi, she’s the cause of all this hangama.

By the end, she would have talked herself out of it. No, she would not visit Iqbal.

A black Mercedes-Benz came to collect Rehana. The driver was a man in a white shirt and a skinny black tie. He sat rigidly in his seat, blowing cigarette smoke out of the window. When he saw Rehana close the gate and turn to fasten the padlock, he shot out of the car and stood stiffly against it. He was dark and very thin. He crushed the cigarette with the heel of his shoe and waited for her to approach.

When she was within a few feet of the car, the man’s arm scissored into a clean salute.

‘Mrs Rehana Haque?’ he asked.

Rehana’s tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth. ‘Ji,’ she managed.

‘Quasem driver. Accompanying you to the Haque residence.’

‘Thank you,’ Rehana replied.

The door slammed shut behind her. The inside of the car was enormous and smelled of kerosene. Quasem jammed his foot on the accelerator, and they sped away. Rehana felt herself slide uncomfortably on the leather seat, her sari getting crumpled as she was dragged from side to side. She had dressed carefully for her meeting with Parveen. She wore the most unflattering sari she owned — a starched, grey organza that would puff out at the pleats and make her look thick-waisted. She didn’t try to iron out the creases; she didn’t even smooth them down with her hand. She didn’t wear any make-up; she tied her hair into a flat, severe bun and fastened it with plain black bun-clips. Parveen always needed to be the more beautiful one.

They went through Mirpur Road and turned on to Kolabagan. They sped past the open fields of Second Capital and approached the airport. Rehana sank further into the inky space and tried not to panic.