Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

The car took a turn and suddenly she didn’t recognize the street. It was a wide road, like a highway, and it stretched into a foggy, unfamiliar distance. Her thoughts turned to the torture centre Sohail had described. She craned her neck, to see if any of the low-lying buildings looked like places that held dirty secrets.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Not to worry, madam.’ Quasem found Rehana in his rear-view mirror and gave her a small wave. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

A few minutes later, after crossing a set of railroad tracks, they turned and stopped beside a small booth. A man in an army uniform peered through the blackened window.

‘Window down!’ he barked, spraying spit on to the glass.

Rehana was struggling with the handle when Quasem interrupted.

‘Don’t you see the fucking plate!’ he called out from his side.

The soldier stepped in front of the car and examined the number plates. Then he returned to Rehana’s window and continued to peer in. ‘Who is the passenger?’

‘Sister of Barrister Haque.’

‘Who? I have to check the register,’ he said.

‘Don’t you know our own people, sister-fucker! We pass this checkpoint every day. Suddenly you don’t know the car? You want me to get out and teach you a lesson?’

The soldier paused for a moment; then he shrugged, as though it hadn’t mattered to him in the first place. ‘OK, go. But we have to report.’ And he rapped on the black windscreen with the wooden handle of his gun.

‘Don’t worry, madam,’ Quasem said as they sped away, ‘there’s no problem.’

Faiz and Parveen lived in Gulshan. It was at the opposite end of town, edging across the northern periphery of the city, past the airport and the army cantonment. Gulshan was newer and even less settled than Dhanmondi; the plots were bigger, the fields between them vast and waterlogged. There was a lake. Faiz’s house was off the main road on a street lined with old trees. The house itself was invisible behind a high gate and solid brick fencing. A darwaan opened the gate, and then they were in the half-circle of the driveway, which led them to the front door, a wide, dark purple teak against a black-and-white chequered patio.

Rehana rang the doorbell. A tinny, fake-bird sound echoed through the house. Then the clatter of shoes on an expensive floor. A few seconds later the door swung open, and Parveen appeared, presenting Rehana with a warm, open-mouthed smile.

‘As-Salaam Alaikum,’ she crooned. She wore a gauzy, canary-yellow chiffon. Around her neck was a string of fat, rolling pearls. Her lips were shiny and parted with lipstick. With a start Rehana realized that she had pulled up the achol of her sari so that it covered her head. The chiffon headdress made her look like Grace Kelly. Has there been some sort of decree, Rehana wondered, no more bare-headed ladies in Dhaka?

‘Walaikum As-Salaam,’ she replied.

‘Please,’ Parveen said with excessive tenderness, ‘come in. I’m just so happy to see you.’ They began to walk through a brilliant white corridor. ‘It’s been — so busy — I’ve been meaning to call, and when you did I was just thinking of you and wondering why you sent the children to Karachi — they’re perfectly safe, with Faiz’s influence, no one would ever harm them — and anyway, this will blow over in no time — tea? Abdul! Abdul!’

Abdul, the old servant, wore a pair of smudged gloves and a hand-me-down suit. The trousers were rolled up to reveal the twin twigs of his bare feet.

‘My bhabi is here,’ Parveen announced when Abdul appeared. He nodded with his eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Bring some tea — the English tea — and the biscuits in the round tin — not the crackers, the biscuits —he always confuses them.’ She led Rehana into a sunny sitting room and sat her on a large, sinking armchair. At the back of the room a wall of windows overlooked the garden, a tangle of trees and bushes that stretched back into the distance, blocking out the city.

‘I knew you’d like the view,’ Parveen said, pleased with her own forethought.

‘It’s a beautiful garden,’ Rehana replied.

‘I can’t take any credit. The trees must have been here since the British. I didn’t think I’d like living so far from town, but it’s very peaceful here. And lots of new houses going up. This one was just finished.’

Rehana registered the astringent smell and the bluish tinge of the walls. Aside from the armchair she sat in and its matching sofa, on which Parveen was birdily perched, there was just a round brass-topped table.

‘We’re still moving in,’ Parveen said, noting the swivel of Rehana’s gaze, ‘it’s still in such a state.’

‘It’s lovely. Very spacious.’

The empty walls reverberated with Abdul’s scattered footsteps.

‘Have you had any news of Sohail?’

‘Yes, he’s well mahshallah.’

‘Is he staying with one of your sisters?’

‘No.’ Rehana had rehearsed this. ‘No, he’s with a schoolfriend. You know how children are — always preferring their friends. A friend from Shaheen School. They haven’t seen each other in years but always exchanged letters.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Parveen said. ‘That Sohail. Such a popular young man. Always surrounded by people. Who would have thought, na, he was such a quiet little boy.’

It was always a dangerous thing, their shared past, but Rehana wanted to sweeten Parveen. ‘Yes, you’re right. He was very quiet. He’s changed — once he discovered books, suddenly he couldn’t stop talking.’

‘I’ve heard he gave some pukkah speeches at the university!’

Rehana was wary of being baited. Sohail’s speeches had titles like ‘Peking or Moscow? Third World Socialisms’ and ‘Jinnah: Statesman or Imperialist Demagogue?’

‘And his poetry!’ Parveen gushed.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he does have a knack for recitation.’

‘What was that Ghalib he did for us? Na tha kutch tho Khuda tha …’ she began in broken Urdu. She proceeded with a blundered rendition of the poem.

‘Excellent. What a wonderful voice you have.’

Parveen’s gaze descended from the distance and landed on Rehana. ‘Thank you. People often say that — it was all those years of acting study.’ Rehana was always amazed by people who managed to multiply, rather than deny, compliments to themselves.

‘And what about Maya?’ she asked, and again Rehana conjured the speech she had practised.

‘Maya is in Calcutta,’ she began.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘I still have some relatives there — my father’s people. And they were eager to see her.’

‘I thought you’d sent her to Karachi.’

‘No — well, it was closer,’ Rehana grimaced a little to indicate it also had something to do with money, which Parveen pounced upon.

‘But you should have told us—’

‘I couldn’t impose.’

‘We’re always here to help.’

‘Actually, there was something—’

‘Abdul — the tea, what’s keeping you?’

Abdul entered the room sleekly and set the tray down on the brass table-top without a rattle, for which he was rewarded with a nod from Parveen.

‘Pour,’ she said, handing the biscuits to Rehana. Rehana chose one from the proffered tin and admired, through crumby lips, the buttery crunch.

‘Now that your brother is…in a position , we are allowed these small indulgences. And well deserved, wouldn’t you say? In times like these?’

Rehana realized that in this house, the war would be referred to with phrases such as ‘times like these’ and ‘troubled times’, as though God had sent these times to them without warning and through no fault of their own.

‘Yes, difficult times, I know.’