Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

‘You can’t blame me for the badminton. He was so tall, it wasn’t fair.’

‘True. But poor Silvi — she persevered.’

‘That’s because he always let her win.’

They grew silent, collecting their memories together.

‘OK,’ Maya said, slapping the armrest, ‘I’ll get the cards.’

But Rehana had changed her mind. ‘Do you mind if we skip the cards? I want to read a little.’

Maya nodded. ‘OK.’

‘What do you want?’ Rehana asked, but Maya was already in Sohail’s room, fingering his bookshelf.

‘Let’s have some tea.’ Maya pulled out a slim volume. ‘I’ll make it,’ she said, tucking the book under her arm.

A few minutes later she emerged from the kitchen with a tray.

‘I think I’ll read Iqbal,’ Rehana said, ‘it’s been a while.’

‘Which one?’

‘ Baal-e-Jibreel .’

Maya pulled out her own choice with a flourish. ‘ Gitanjali !’ she said mischievously. Tagore had been banned, and, though the poetry was all about love and God and the monsoon, there was still an incendiary thrill in reading it. His white beard triangled down the cover, matching the shock of white hair that framed a long, serious face.

They climbed into bed with their tea and their books. Rehana forced herself to read hers from the beginning. Perhaps once she reached her favourite, ‘Chamak Teri Ayaan’, the house would be in darkness. By an unspoken consent they kept the overhead tube-light buzzing and the fan rotating at full speed. The circulating air kept their pages rustling.

‘Chamak Teri Ayaan’ came and went. Maya was flipping her own pages slowly, reading out the title of each poem before she began it. She made her way through ‘Alo Amar Alo’ and lingered at ‘Amar E Gaan’, which Rehana knew was her favourite.

Rehana was at ‘Kya Kahun Apne Chaman’, with three poems to go, when they heard something in the distance, like passing thunder. ‘Was that it?’ Maya leaped to the window and peered out into the street. ‘All the lights are still on. Maybe they couldn’t do it — maybe they tried, and they just couldn’t.’

Rehana ignored her, and eventually Maya crawled back under her katha. She sighed heavily and picked up her book again. Rehana could tell she was beginning to regret not having chosen a longer volume.

Iqbal was finished and the lights were still blazing. Rehana checked her watch. 12.20. Her eyes were beginning to sting. Maya had slipped Gitanjali under her pillow and was unbraiding her hair. ‘I’ll brush my teeth,’ she said in a joyless voice.

She was stepping over the threshold with the empty teacups, sighing heavily, when it happened: a scratching thud, unmistakable, a flicker of the light, an electric blink, and they were sunk into darkness.

‘Maya?’ Rehana felt under the bed. ‘Come back and take the hurricane.’

‘THEY DID IT THEY DID IT THEY DID IT!’

They fell asleep in their clothes, Maya laughing into her pillow.

‘Rehana.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘Shhh.’ A finger on her lip. A lip on her lip. Hands tunnelling under her, lifting her up, swinging her out of the room. Three long strides to the garden gate, kicking it open, navigating the steps. Ashes in her nostrils, measured breath in her ear; her body was a feather, a wisp of cotton, a gust of wind in his arms. Swivelling past the gate, through Shona’s front door, her bare feet brushing the frame.

She didn’t think to worry until she was sure it was him. There wasn’t enough light to see; she reached out, felt the scar on his cheek. Then she said, ‘What happened? Is everything all right? What are you doing here? Where’s Sohail?’

‘They did it.’

He put her down on the bed in Mithun’s room and stepped away, sitting on the rattan chair, his hands just beyond her reach.

‘You were supposed to go,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he replied, his eyes piercing the black.

‘Why?’ she asked, knowing the answer and wanting to hear it anyway.

‘I had to see you. Suddenly you were gone—’

‘So were you — and no letters.’

She heard him rustling through his bag and shaking something. Then there was a small scratching sound, and he held up a match. She saw his eyes, and the tightly curled hair on his head. He held the match steady, until it burned down to the nub. He let it drop. He struck another. She felt its passing heat, the dusty sulphur as it flickered away; he shook his wrist and put it out.

‘So pale,’ he said.

‘I was — I had jaundice.’

‘I know.’ He was whispering, his breath on her eyes.

A sob, hard as salt, welled up in her throat. She caught it, and the tears fell freely, but before they could drop from her chin his hands were there to catch them, spread them thinly on her cheek, like butter.

She heard his tongue moving around inside his mouth. Tonguing the teeth. Caressing the roof. She heard it so clearly it seemed like her own tongue, teeth, roof.

He kissed her. His lips were softer than she had imagined. She felt his tongue; reaching, knowing. Like a conjuring trick, he unfastened her blouse. He dipped his head. He ran his tongue across the width of her. Up one breast, down. Across the bone, up again. Like an aqueduct.

The lick-track burned.

He placed his thumb on her face. A heartbeat pulsed inside the thumb. She turned her face and met his lip, which she had the urge to bite, but did not.

Moments, an eternity, passed. A tiktiki cackled from the ceiling. The poor slice of moon offered only the dimmest light, through which she could just make out his square face and the dense, wiry hair.

She wanted to tell him how foolish he was to have come, but she was afraid if she said the words he would know for sure that she had willed it with all her strength.

‘I have to go. Before sunrise, for Sehri.’

He moved a thread of hair from her cheek.

‘Don’t tell me when you’re coming back.’

Now his thumb scraped her collarbone.

‘Otherwise I’ll be holding my breath.’

He nodded, a slight dip of the head.

‘Take care of my boy.’

Rehana crossed the garden, swinging her arms, past the mango tree and the lemon tree and the rosebush, which was emptied of its secret, and the hydrangeas, which flowered blue and white like a china sky. At the bungalow, Maya was sprawled across the bed like a shipwreck. Rehana made for the kitchen, but then stopped, decided to lie down instead. It was still an hour till sunrise. She closed her eyes and remembered. Just once. Above her, the ceiling fan moved slightly, pushed by the swirl of November air floating through the veranda. Her skin was awash with scents, his watermelon breath, his burned-rubber sweat.

She heard the trucks before they turned on to the road; she felt them slowing in front of the bungalow, lining up along the neighbourhood gates. She had time to wake Maya and drag her to the drawing room. The army is here . She thought to straighten her hair. She passed a hand across her lips. And then they were perched on the sofa, straight-backed, as though waiting for a guest, except that they were still swimming in the ink-wash of night.

Young men in green uniforms spilled out of their trucks, dozens of them at once, each with identical savage eyes and boots that moved like hammers. They didn’t notice the women. Their eyes were for Shona, what Shona would give up. The prayers spilled from Rehana’s lips. God, let him be safe.

The boots stomped heavily through the bungalow; they tore books out of shelves, smashed dinner plates, knocked over the brass lamp, ravaged the cupboards. They ripped the posters from Sohail’s bedroom, Mao against a red background, Che with a cap and a jaunty smile. A pillow was bayoneted. Yellow cotton scattered like dandelion.