Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

Rehana began to make a habit of spending her afternoons at Mrs Sengupta’s bedside. She poured coconut oil into her hair and picked out the dirt. Then she washed it with a small square of soap she had bought from the old man on Theatre Road. She cut Mrs Sengupta’s nails and creamed her elbows. Her friend followed her with her eyes, but still she said nothing. Aside from a small bamboo pipe she kept under her pillow, she appeared to have no possessions.

It was not unlike sitting at Iqbal’s grave. There was never any answer, but she imagined somehow Mrs Sengupta could hear her.

‘After you left a lot of other people left also. The club shut down and the markets were mostly deserted. And a lot of boys ran off to join the army. Sohail wanted to go but I said no.’

Sometimes, as with Iqbal, she was tempted to lie, or exaggerate.

‘But he went anyway. You would not believe the change in him. And Silvi. She looks nothing like the girl we knew. We should never have let her marry that boy. I met him again, you know, but under very different circumstances.’

She kept certain things from Mrs Sengupta. The details of Sabeer’s capture, for instance. She didn’t want to upset her. And she didn’t talk about the Major. She didn’t know how she could put it. I fell in love with a stranger. Having to explain would mean giving some reason. Which it did not have. It was an unreasonable thing. She hardly even knew him. Sometimes it occurred to her how very little she did know. For instance, if he had any brothers or sisters. Or what he planned to do once the war was over. She had never even asked him when, or if, she would see him again.

In the afternoons, when Mrs Sengupta slept, Rehana walked around the hospital with Dr Rao. She befriended a few other women, stopping beside their cots and holding their hands while they told her how they had come to be there. They started to recognize her. They called her apa. Every day they told her new stories about the war. She waited for a letter from Sohail. She waited for a letter from the Major. Neither came.

Rehana got used to the rides in the truck with Mukul, and by October the rooftop was almost pleasant. She kept the doors of the shed open and sat on the threshold, watching the evening descend and the city slide easily into dusk. The fat woman was there every few days, flapping and pinning her yellow sari.

Every day it was the same. Mrs Sengupta had still not uttered a word. ‘Won’t you say anything, Supriya? Tell me what happened? Maybe I can help.’

One night on the roof Rehana was patching up the torn hem of her white petticoat. She hadn’t brought enough clothes for such a long stay, and the ones she had brought were starting to wear out. She was threading a needle when the thought suddenly occurred to her that, even though Mrs Sengupta didn’t want to speak, perhaps she would agree to write. She remembered the day Mrs Sengupta had asked her about Sultana’s Dream . She put down her petticoat and went downstairs to ask Maya for a notebook or a few scraps of paper. The next day at the camp Rehana presented these to Mrs Sengupta, along with a sharpened pencil.

Mrs Sengupta lifted her head. She shook it.

Rehana pointed to the notebook. ‘That’s for you.’

A few days before this, Rehana had said, ‘Did you know the story of how I lost the children?’ She told Mrs Sengupta about the courthouse and the judge, and how she had allowed her grief to betray her. ‘But I got them back. You can find Mithun too. And Mr Sengupta.’

Rehana was convinced it was just a matter of being lost. Maybe they were rushing to get somewhere and Mrs Sengupta got separated from the others. Mr Sengupta must be looking for her right now; that’s why Rehana kept checking the register to see who had arrived at the camp. Rehana had visions of Mr Sengupta hunting through every refugee camp, every train station, every hospital, for news of his wife. Surely if they were patient, they would find each other again.

The next morning, when Rehana went back, Mrs Sengupta held up the notebook. She had written a few lines. I went into the reeds , it said. In the pond . She pulled the bamboo pipe from under her pillow and put it to her mouth. I left him , she wrote.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Mrs Sengupta,’ Rehana said. An image came, unbidden, of Mrs Sengupta sinking into a grey-brown silt.

Mrs Sengupta’s hand moved slowly over the page. She finished a sentence, crossed it out, then wrote again. After what felt like a long time, she handed the notebook back to Rehana. I left him and ran into the pond.

It couldn’t be right. It couldn’t have happened that way.

‘You got separated?’

Again she began her slow scrawl, her fingers knotting together. I didn’t think about him, I just ran.

‘Mr Sengupta?’ Rehana asked. She had already written something down and was pointing to it now. They shot him .

She couldn’t bear to see any more. ‘Supriya, get some rest now, I’ll be back with some lunch.’

Mrs Sengupta gripped her notebook.

True , she wrote, true true true . She closed her eyes.

Rehana left her that way, black-lipped and shaking her head back and forth.

Rehana didn’t know what to say. She was afraid some accusation might slip from her lips, even if she said it was all right, that she understood. No matter how she tried to picture it, she still could not help feeling disgusted by the thought of Mrs Sengupta aban-doning her son. There must have been some other way. There was always another way. She could have taken him with her. Or stood between him and those soldiers. And how could she bear to be alive, not knowing, imagining he might be somewhere, lost, with strangers, or worse?

The next day Rehana avoided Mrs Sengupta. She did not visit her the day after that. A week passed, and she tried to put it out of her mind. Then she found the telegram. It was early in the morning, and she was looking for a safety pin among Maya’s things when she found it, dated 16 October 1971. Two days ago.

SABEER DEAD STOP TRIED OUR BEST STOP

COULDN’T SAVE STOP GOD BLESS MRS C

Rehana folded the telegram, neatly, making sure the edges lined up. She felt weak and shaky and her fingers trembled, but she continued to fold, until it was a tiny sliver of paper that she could tuck into her blouse, like loose change. All the way to Salt Lake she felt her heart beating against it. She remembered that terrible night, lashing herself to Sabeer as they travelled through the dark, his chipped hands hugged to his breast. Then her thoughts lingered on Silvi, and Mrs Chowdhury, and Romeo turning to dust under a coconut tree, and her whole body burned with the need to go home, back to the neighbourhood, to the bungalow, and to Shona.

Home made her think of Mrs Sengupta. Where would Supriya go, when this was all over? Rehana decided to approach her, to tell her the truth. That she didn’t understand how a mother could abandon her son to save her own life, but that it was not, in the end, her place to understand. That was between her and her maker. She was only her friend.

At the ward Rehana waited for her daily appointment with Dr Rao. The trembling in her fingers spread to her arms, a cold travelling shiver.

The doctor approached, making his hurried, long-legged strides. He was right on time, as usual.

‘Did you check the list today?’ Rehana asked.

‘Yes, Chachi, I checked the list.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing, I’m sorry.’ He sighed. They went through this every day. ‘Chachi, I know she’s your friend, but there’s really not much more we can do.’

‘But her son is lost — now we know exactly where he was last seen. We have to keep looking. Promise me you’ll keep looking.’ She stood up to go. The floor tilted towards her. She lunged forward, leaning heavily on the doctor’s arm.