Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

She was relieved she didn’t have to know. She wouldn’t have to know if Iqbal would have had the strength to stay in Dhaka, or if the children would have inherited his small, anxious world. Her head began to spin with the thought of all the things that might have been different. Now she was remembering the cloud of his fears, the orbit of worry, the nervous, scared man who had tried his best not to upset fate, to live without danger, without risk. Had she ever wondered what life would have been like without him, and had she rejoiced, even a little, when he had died? Despite the bone-breaking grief, had there also been release?

She wanted to pretend it wasn’t true, but it was.

‘Now see what you’ve done,’ Faiz was saying.

What could it be that moved Faiz to believe the opposite of what she believed? How could he be on the other side of her black-and-white? She could imagine herself believing nothing else; it was as plain to her as God.

He was not a bad man.

It was time to tell the truth.

‘I sent her there. To Calcutta, to join the muktis.’

The spittle points grew. ‘You sent her there?’ He let out an angry breath. ‘You tell me everything. Right now.’

Quasem’s shoulders were hunched up against his ears, as though he was trying not to hear.

Rehana saw Faiz’s chin quiver in anger. Time to tell the truth.

‘I’m sorry I lied. I shouldn’t have lied—’

‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘But I’m not ashamed.’ Rehana swallowed a few times to steady herself. ‘She had a friend who was captured by the army in March. The girl’s name was Sharmeen.’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘You listen to me. Her name was Sharmeen. They took her and they kept her at the cantonment — not a mile from your house. And the girl was tortured until she died. They did things — unspeakable things — to her. She was the same age as Maya. How do you explain that?’

‘I don’t have to explain these things to you.’

‘How? You think I could look my daughter in the eye and tell her it was all right?’

‘So you sent her to the muktis?’

‘I should not be ashamed; you should be ashamed.’

‘You don’t know anything.’ He turned his face away from her. She saw the square chin, the one that marked him as the older, more confident brother. ‘It’s nonsense.’ And then: ‘The girl was a casualty of war. When you believe in something, certain things have to be sacrificed.’

‘Children?’

‘There are always casualties.’

‘I thought there was a chance you didn’t know what the army was doing. But now I’m telling you. You can wash your hands of it. Surely you don’t want this on your conscience?’

With his index finger Faiz loosened the knot at his neck. Rehana thought she saw a flicker of doubt.

The car slowed to a halt. ‘Sir,’ Quasem said, ‘Mirpur Thana.’

Faiz seemed to consider something. He paused while Rehana gathered her handbag. Then he said, ‘Go.’

‘Where?’

‘The police station is over there.’ He pointed to a low building across a field.

‘You’re not coming with me?’

‘I’m not a cruel man, bhabi. You remember that. Now you go and rescue the man yourself. I can’t risk having anything to do with you — if I hadn’t already sent the release order, I would send you home right now.’ He dipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. ‘Show them this.’

‘But I — you want me to go there alone?’

‘I’m not making this my business any more.’ And he swivelled his face so that she was left looking at the thinning blackness of his hair.

She turned to leave. Suddenly all the possible consequences of his knowing collapsed upon her. ‘Are you going to tell anyone? About Maya?’

‘You should have thought of that when you let her print this garbage,’ he said roughly, still looking away.

He hadn’t answered the question. He could do anything, now that he knew. It would be easy to find out Sohail wasn’t really in Karachi. And all he had to do was arrive at Shona in the middle of the day to discover the Major. ‘Don’t forget she’s your niece. Your blood,’ Rehana said. She wanted him to turn around, so she could read something in his face. But he had dismissed her.

Rehana stumbled out of the car. The door slammed shut behind her. Quasem gave her a brief, apologetic smile, and then the car careened away, leaving her in its choking, dusty wake.

Rehana clutched the envelope in one hand and straightened her sari. She considered hailing a rickshaw and going home. Mrs Chowdhury would understand. She looked down the road, towards Dhanmondi, but she couldn’t get Sohail’s pleading face out of her head. So she made her way across the washed field, stopping occasionally to readjust her ankle strap.

High above, the sky thickened and the air swirled in a leisurely trance. It was an hour, maybe two, before the noon shower. As she approached the entrance to the thana, Rehana realized she had forgotten to rehearse what she would say. She paused outside the door, which had a rusted metal handle dulled by the press of palm prints. The field had soaked her shoes. As she opened her handbag to check for the bundle Mrs Chowdhury had given her, she shifted on her feet and tried to shake away the crawling damp. The sight of the bundle, rolled up comfortably in its rubber band, reassured her. She took a deep breath and prepared to enter. She was about to reach for the handle when the door swung open. A tall, bearded man in a military uniform stood there. He gave her a look of mild bemusement and brushed past her with a brief ‘Excuse me’ in Urdu. And he stepped aside to let her pass.

Rehana crossed a dark corridor and arrived at a large, windowless room. At one end of the room was a bald man behind an enormous glass-topped table. Metal chairs were arranged in rows in front of the desk. Anxious, silent people sat in the chairs. She felt their eyes on her as she made her way to the glass-topped desk. The whirr of the ceiling fan above the desk was accompanied occasionally by the creak of the bald man’s chair as he shifted his weight this way and that. As she approached him, he looked up from under a pair of heavy eyebrows.

‘I need to speak with someone,’ Rehana said. Her voice came out louder than she had intended.

‘Take your form and wait over there,’ the man said absently, pointing with his chin.

‘Form?’

‘Prisoner Visit Form — here.’ He handed her a soggy sheet of paper.

‘I’m — I’m not here to visit.’

His head snapped up. ‘Then what?’ Betel juice had stained his lips a sunrise orange.

‘I’m here — to release a prisoner.’

‘ You’re here’—he laughed an orange saliva laugh—‘to release a prisoner?’ Tiny orange dots of spittle fell on to the Prisoner Visit Form. ‘Who are you, Police Commissioner? You don’t release prisoners, we release prisoners — understand?’

He wore a police-blue uniform, tight at the armpits and the collar. Over the back of his chair, where his head would usually rest, was a pink-and-white striped towel. The man turned to the towel and wiped the betel spittle from his mouth.

Rehana held out the envelope Faiz had given her. ‘I have a release order,’ she said.

‘Let me see that.’ He pulled it roughly from her hand. ‘Sabbeer Mus-tafa,’ he said. He turned to an enormous notebook and began to shuffle through the curling pages. Rehana leaned as closely as she dared. The book gave off a sweaty smell. He ran his finger down a list of printed names.

‘He isn’t here.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

The man turned the register around impatiently. ‘Do you see his name?’ he said, before snapping it shut with a clap.