Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

Mrs Chowdhury peeked into the box. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ she said, lifting the lid and examining the shondesh. ‘Now tell me, what’s happened to my poor friend? I hardly recognize you!’

‘Oh, nothing to worry about. Just a touch of jaundice.’

‘Jaundice! Ya’allah! How did you get that?’

‘We were at the refugee camps,’ Rehana began.

‘What, you went to the camps?’

‘Mrs Sengupta is there,’ Maya interjected.

‘Ki bolo! What are you saying? Mrs Sengupta? Our Supriya?’

‘Yes, the very one.’

‘And?’ Mrs Chowdhury’s hips were at the edge of her armchair.

Rehana shook her head. ‘Poor girl. She didn’t even recognize me at first, and even after weeks together she said nothing.’ She wouldn’t tell Mrs Chowdhury about the note, the bamboo pipe.

‘What happened to her mia?’

‘We don’t know. Something terrible.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I tried to bring her back with me, but she refused. And anyway I wasn’t sure how things would be for her here.’

‘Aharey,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, sighing deeply, ‘we have all lost so much already.’

Silvi came in carrying a tray with tea and salty nimki in an empty Horlicks jar. A scarf was pulled around her head and knotted tightly around her chin. Stray strands of hair had been disciplined and tucked away. She worked neatly, setting down the tray, arranging the cups on their saucers, stirring the teapot.

‘Sabeer — we got your telegram — I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s God’s will,’ Silvi whispered, kneeling in front of the tray. ‘Sugar?’ she asked Rehana.

Silvi had been making tea for Rehana since she was old enough to boil water. ‘Yes, two. And a little milk,’ Rehana said, unsteady in the face of this new formality.

‘Maya?’

‘One chini. No dood.’

‘Hai Allah!’ Mrs Chowdhury groaned, heaving herself backwards and piling her feet on an ottoman. ‘We tried our best. In the beginning the boy just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. He hardly spoke. And his fingers!’ She bit her tongue. ‘His fingers turned blue, and then his whole hand. Doctor said it was gangrene — they had to go. Both hands. Imagine, a young boy like that.’ She held up her own thick fingers.

Silvi was passing the tea around steadily.

‘And then one day — one night, he came out of the bed and sat here, in the drawing room, and he smiled — so beautifully, na, Silvi? As though he was looking into God’s own eyes.’ She pointed to the sofa where Maya was sitting. ‘And he was gone.’

Rehana felt her stomach lurch, as Maya, shifting with a teacup in her hand, said, ‘Did you ever find out what happened? How he was captured?’ She directed her question at Silvi.

Silvi was unscrewing the Horlicks jar and arranging the nimki on a plate. She pursed her lips together and appeared not to hear the question.

‘Silvi, do you know what happened?’ Maya repeated, a little louder. Without a word, Silvi passed the plate of nimki to her mother. ‘Did you even bother to ask?’ Maya said.

‘These are unspeakable things,’ Mrs Chowdhury began.

‘Things which need to be known.’ Maya slammed her cup down with a porcelain clatter. ‘Silvi, your husband was a hero.’

‘That was his business,’ Silvi said finally, ‘nothing to do with me.’

‘But it’s your country!’

‘Not everyone believes what you believe,’ Silvi said simply.

‘You don’t believe in Bangladesh?’ The name of the country, still a new word, fell out of Maya’s mouth like a jewel.

Silvi was still crouching next to the tray. Now she lifted it and slid smoothly out of the room.

‘I don’t know what’s become of her,’ Mrs Chowdhury sighed.

‘You have to do something,’ Maya said; ‘she sounds so strange.’

Rehana found herself agreeing with her daughter for once, and feeling a stab of envy at how easily Maya could speak her mind.

‘Your problem,’ Silvi said, returning with a plate for the shondesh, ‘is that you can’t tolerate a difference of opinion. I happen to think this war — all this fighting — is a pointless waste of human life.’

‘When the army came and massacred us and drove us out of the country, we should have rolled over?’

‘They were restoring order,’ Silvi said, tugging at the knot under her chin. ‘Making things safe.’

‘Have you been anywhere beyond your drawing room lately? People are being massacred…’ Maya’s hands were in the air, the breath whistling out of her mouth.

‘Pakistan should stay together,’ Silvi said, as though reciting from a textbook. ‘That’s why it was conceived. To keep the Ummah united. To separate the wings is a sin against your religion.’

‘The sin is being committed against us — look outside your window!’

‘I’m not ignorant, Maya. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. And I’m not the only person—’

‘You and the army, thinking alike. What a relief!’ Maya’s voice was beginning to crack.

Her hysteria appeared to have a calming effect on Silvi. Mrs Chowdhury had given up and was leaning her head against her chair, looking at the ceiling like a martyr.

‘I want to believe in something greater than myself,’ Silvi said serenely.

‘So do I,’ Maya spat. ‘Ammoo, please let’s go.’ She tugged at Rehana’s elbow.

‘Silvi,’ Rehana said as she turned to the door, ‘the important thing is for you to look after your mother and for all of us to survive the war.’

‘Ji, khala-moni, thank you.’ She relaxed her forehead and her eyebrows separated, revealing her old, reverent face.

Sohail was waiting for them at the bungalow.

‘I can’t believe — I’ve known her my whole life!’ Maya was shouting at the walls, ignoring her brother.

‘She’s shocked — her husband dying like that.’

‘What’s going on?’ Sohail asked, moving his eyes from mother to sister.

‘But how?’ Maya’s cheeks were wet, and she was swallowing large gulps of air. ‘How could this happen?’

‘You want so badly for everyone to believe.’

‘Of course I do.’ Maya rubbed her nose violently against the sleeve of her blouse. She looked angrily at Sohail and bolted out of the room.

‘She’s upset,’ Rehana said slowly, ‘because Silvi wouldn’t—’

‘Wouldn’t what?’

‘She wouldn’t acknowledge the war in any way, beta.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She doesn’t think we’re doing the right thing.’

‘That can’t be true. You must have misunderstood.’

‘She said she thought it was a sin, the country splitting.’ Rehana put a hand against Sohail’s back, where his shoulder blades were stretched apart.

‘Someone must have done this to her. A bad influence.’

‘Doesn’t matter how. She’s turned against it, for whatever reason.’

‘Religion?’

‘Maybe,’ Rehana said, trying not to put the blame on God, ‘but she’s so young, who can know why?’

Maya came back into the room. She had tried to compose herself, and failed. Her face was wet and her lips a dark, angry bruise.

‘So you heard what happened?’ she said to Sohail.

He nodded silently, his eyes avoiding hers.

‘It’s a disgrace,’ she continued, brushing away the tears with the back of her hand.

Sohail pressed his palms against his face.

‘Are you still in love with her?’

‘Maya—’ Rehana warned.

‘You’re still in love with her. You’re bloody still in love with her!’

‘No,’ Sohail said, shaking his head weakly, ‘of course not.’

‘Look,’ Maya said in a thick, fierce voice, ‘this is the moment when you decide what is more important to you. Understand? This moment, right now. That girl is over there with her stupid, twisted politics and she’s not even thinking about you, and you’ve risked everything — everything — to get her. Now you let her go, bhaiya, please, I’m begging you, for all of us, let her go.’