Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

‘Mrs Haque?’ A young man with a friendly gap between his teeth called out to Rehana. He shuffled towards her on squat legs. ‘You’re Mrs Haque?’

Rehana wasn’t sure whether to answer. She managed a hesitant ‘Yes?’

‘Remarkable resemblance! Even in this crowd I recognized you.’ He grinned, incongruous in this mess of lost bodies.

‘You are…?’

‘Mukul, Auntie, I’m here to collect you. Maya-di couldn’t come; she’s very sorry, she sent me. I’ll take you straight to the office — she’s waiting.’

Rehana was too tired to question the boy further; and here he was, wrestling the bag out of her hands, pushing cheerfully through the crowd, leading her outside, where the heat pulsed through the open mouth of the station entrance.

Mukul’s car was a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Someone had thought of painting the bumper to match. Through the opening of doors and lifting of bags, he began a monologue that lasted until he’d pulled down the brake and jerked the car into motion. ‘Please, sit comfortably at the back — front seat is full of rubbish — well, not rubbish exactly, pamphlets — I was supposed to deliver them before I came to collect you but the roads were chock-a-block and I didn’t want to be late!’

‘Thank you for coming,’ Rehana said.

‘It’s an honour, Auntie. I’ve heard all about you from Maya,’ he said, catching Rehana’s eye in the rear-view.

‘Oh, really?’ Rehana muttered, trying to shield her eyes from the afternoon glare.

‘Yes, of course,’ he answered. ‘Why not? You are an example to all of us. A hero!’ The car sped past a flooded pavement and splashed a huddle of schoolboys.

‘Your first time in Calcutta?’ Mukul asked, swivelling around to face her.

‘Um, no actually, I used to live here.’

‘Really?’ Mukul asked. ‘Where? Which neighbourhood?’

Rehana was too taken aback to give him a fake address. ‘Wellington Square.’

‘Wellington Square? My goodness, your people must be rich.’

The Volkswagen hiccuped down the narrow city roads. Rehana kept the window rolled up, but even through the glass she could make out the mud-and-rotten-vegetable smell of Calcutta. She heard the clatter of the tongas, the shuffle of roasting peanuts. She fixed her eyes on her lap and resisted the temptation to look at her old home.

I have not returned to Calcutta, she told herself, I have not returned to Calcutta.

By the time her marriage to Iqbal had been arranged, she was desperate to leave. One by one her sisters had been married and shipped to Karachi. The house in Wellington Square was long gone, and they had rented a flat above a dusty bookshop on College Street. Every morning her father would go down into the bookstore and announce the names of the titles he used to own. ‘ Great Expectations !’ he would shout. ‘ Akbar-nama. Tales of the Alhambra .’

Mukul’s car shuddered to a halt in front of a two-storey house. A rectangular patch of garden was laid out in front like a welcome mat. The sign above the gate read number 8, theatre road.

‘Auntie,’ Mukul said, ‘please go ahead. I’ll park the car and bring your jeeneesh-potro.’

‘It’s all right — just a small bag — I’ll bring it in myself.’ Rehana climbed gratefully out of the car.

The office door was open, and she could hear the clatter of typewriters inside, and the screech of a radio being tuned. She stepped over the threshold and entered a high-ceilinged room that smelled of cobwebs and newsprint. A bright strip of tube-lights gave the room its official, fluorescent-wash feeling.

‘Ma!’ Maya ploughed into Rehana’s chest, knocking the breath out of her. Then she grabbed her by the shoulders, pushed her away and scanned her face with a giant smile. ‘Ammoo!’ Then she was pulling her close again, and Rehana thought she heard a sniffle as Maya buried her face in Rehana’s sari. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to the station — the Soviets signed the treaty, can you believe it? How are you, Ma, I’ve missed you’—she waved her arms around—‘everyone, amar Ma!’ A few people looked up from their desks and salaamed and nomoshkared Rehana. ‘You’ll meet everyone later. Was it all right, the train?’

‘Yes, yes, it was.’ Rehana took a moment to note the change in her daughter. She had exchanged her white sari for a brilliant red cotton. Her lips were chapped and bitten, and her hair was a mess, overgrown and forced into a braid that ended in a thin, weak tangle, but there was a rough health about her. On one of her fingers she wore a ring made of a cheap brown metal. Everything about her was different. Her eyes were bright, and Rehana could feel their warmth as they summed each other up. ‘I was worried,’ Maya was saying.

‘No, it was nothing, just a little tiring.’

‘Well, I’ve arranged the place — you want to go, sleep a little?’ Maya pulled the bag from Rehana’s arm.

Rehana felt her way around the new mood between them. ‘I’m a little hungry — and maybe a bath — if that’s all right — you’re not busy?’

‘No, Ma, today I’m all yours.’ She flung her arm around Rehana’s shoulders and laughed easily. ‘Where d’you want to go? Victoria Park? Wellington Square? Oooh, College Street?’

‘First let’s—’

‘Yes, sorry — home — yes, first home. Just a few minutes, Ammoo. Here, you sit behind the desk, I’ll just finish this paragraph.’

Rehana was so tired her arms were starting to grow cold.

‘Let me bring you some tea first.’ Maya ran off.

Rehana took the opportunity to examine the office more closely. There wasn’t much to see. Stacks of paper columned up the desks and covered every inch of spare floorspace. Young men in spectacles frowned over typewriters. A few posters were strung on the wall. Above a doorway leading to a back room was a framed photograph of Mujib in his black coat. Already the picture looked out of date.

Rehana pressed her head against the worn leather seat, hypnotized by the clack-clack-clack of the typewriters.

In the back room the radio squealed into focus.

‘Ammoo,’ Maya said, bearing a cup of tea and a pair of biscuits, ‘the BBC broadcast, then we’ll go.’

Rehana heard snatches of the radio programme, interrupted by comments from the people at the office. This is the BBC World Service…a historic Indo-Soviet treaty…if Indira Gandhi intervenes, the war will surely be won for the people of Bangladesh…

A loud cheer went up in the room. Three telephones rang at once.

‘Joy Bangla! Joy Bangobandhu!’

The cheer was repeated several times, followed by scattered backslapping.

Rehana devoured the salty, cumin-studded biscuits and felt her knees turning to stone.

‘Beta,’ she said to Maya, ‘why don’t you just take me to — the flat?’

‘Ma, I’m so sorry — we’ll go now.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s not a flat, really.’

‘No matter. I just want to put my feet up.’ Rehana gathered her things and began to walk towards the front door.

‘No, Ammoo, this way.’ Maya led her to the back of the building, where there were yet more serious-looking workers hunched over their desks. They squeezed through a small cluster of people who were still huddled over the radio. A young woman dressed like a man in a pair of grey trousers waved to them as they brushed past.

‘Your mother?’

‘Yes — Ammoo, this is Sultana.’

The girl — boy beamed at Rehana. She had shiny, black eyes. ‘We’ve heard all about you, Auntie. You need anything, you ask me.’

They passed through a narrow doorway and into a dim stairwell. ‘It’s just upstairs,’ Maya said, climbing the stairs two at a time. Rehana followed Maya along the betel-stained corridor, stepping to avoid the crumpled bits of newspaper, the spit-globs, the smeared streaks of mud on the walls.