Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

Nobody was arresting them. Through the autumn haze, the sun was making a slow and careful ascent.

A shout went up. ‘All clear!’ and then the soldiers lined up and stood at attention as a man came through the door, his hand on his hip where a gun was resting.

‘Mrs Rehana Haque,’ he said in strained, rehearsed English. He had a moustache but no beard. She couldn’t determine his age. Youth and age clashed in his face like competing scores. ‘My name is Colonel Jabeen. I have an order to search your premises and arrest your son, Sohail Haque.

Now the boots were on the bungalow roof, thudding like elephant feet. Rehana gripped Maya’s hand. It was hot and slippery. Next to Jabeen there was another man. He leaned over the window and spat into the hydrangeas. His eyes were on Maya as he swivelled around and cleared his throat. There was spittle still on his lips. He licked them. He looked at Maya — up, down — and licked them again. Maya stared back. Her palms were wet, but she stared back anyway.

Colonel Jabeen did not speak Bangla. He spoke Urdu. He shouted into the spitting man’s ear and the spitting man translated for him.

‘Tell them they have no choice. Give up the son.’

‘Mrs Haque,’ the spitting man said, ‘Apnar aar kono upai nai.’

‘Colonel,’ Rehana said in Bangla, addressing Jabeen but looking at the spitting man, ‘there must be some sort of misunderstanding. My son is in Karachi, with my sister Marzia. They live in Clifton — you can send someone and see for yourself.’

‘Says her bastard’s in Karachi.’

Colonel Jabeen didn’t reply at first. Then he looked directly at Rehana and said, ‘There’s no misunderstanding. Your son is a traitor to Pakistan.’

The spitting man said, ‘Apnar gaddar cheleke amra charbo na.’

The soldiers returned from the roof, from the garden, from Shona. They brought in the boxes of clothes, saris that would be turned into kathas, the penicillin. No Major. One of them righted an upturned chair, and Jabeen sat down heavily. He looked bored. They laid the boxes at Rehana’s feet. A graveyard of evidence.

Rehana said, ‘We’ve been collecting donations for the refugees.’ She renewed her grip on Maya’s hand, and thankfully, for once, the girl did not have the urge to speak her mind.

‘Tell her we know about the cache.’

A rush of cold gripped Rehana’s arms. She swallowed. ‘We know about the guns you buried under your rosebushes,’ the spitting man said.

Rehana opened her mouth to speak.

‘No need to explain. We already know everything.’

Rehana waited to see if Jabeen would tell the spitting man what they knew. ‘My son is in Karachi,’ she repeated, pulling Maya closer to her. Again Jabeen whispered something Rehana could not hear into the spitting man’s ear. The spitting man replied. Jabeen smiled. Had she seen him before?

Jabeen and the spitting man looked at each other, serious as new lovers, for a few more minutes before the spitting man said, ‘You have more than one child.’

Rehana’s legs were slowly, painlessly, turning to jelly. To keep them from buckling under she thought of her bones. She had bones. They stood her up.

‘Take the girl into the other room.’

The spitting man turned, a smile settling across his face.

‘Ma,’ Maya whispered, ‘I don’t want to go.’

Rehana locked arms with her daughter. The spitting man was at her elbow now, a pair of handcuffs clattering against his palms. Wait, Rehana told herself, just wait one more minute. I’ll think of something. She looked at Jabeen. She saw something, a hunger, in his eyes. She saw that he wanted something more, something more savage, than the triumph over two women. She broke free of her daughter and played her only card.

‘Colonel Jabeen,’ she said in her perfect, native Urdu, ‘this cannot be the way you want to wage war.’

Jabeen cocked his head. Had he heard right? He cleared his throat. He mopped his forehead with the back of his arm. There was no electricity and hence no fan, and so everyone was sweating, especially Jabeen, who liked to wear his full army uniform on special occasions such as the routing of traitors.

‘You speak Urdu,’ he said. It was not a question. The spitting man was still tugging at Maya’s elbow, and she was grunting, twisting away from him. The corners of his mouth were wet.

‘Stop,’ Jabeen said to the spitting man. He obeyed, smiled, taking pleasure in the delay.

‘Sergeant, go and search the garden again,’ Jabeen said, ‘and the neighbourhood. Arrest anyone suspicious.’

The spitting man hesitated.

‘Go!’ Jabeen said. ‘Take the boys with you.’

The spitting man saluted and ushered the rest of the soldiers out of the bungalow, leaving Rehana and Maya alone with Jabeen in the strangled afternoon heat.

Jabeen turned to Rehana. ‘You see the problem,’ he said. ‘I’ve already promised my man.’

‘Then tell him you’ve changed your mind.’

He stroked his moustache with the back of his thumb. ‘Please, let’s be reasonable, Mrs Haque, shall we?’ He sat down, gestured hospitably to a chair and tented his fingers. ‘I see you are an educated woman. There were three boys on the mission last night. One was your son’s friend Joy. The Hindu boy, Partho. And Sohail was the third. We know they would have tried to cross the border. We believe we’ve picked up their tracks. But something tells me they may also have tried to come home. Especially your son.’ He crossed his legs and rocked his foot. ‘I have a feeling he may have been prone to…prone to sentiment.’ He sighed and wove his fingers together behind his head.

Yes, that was true. He was prone to sentiment. For instance, at this moment, his hands scratching with gunpowder, he was not just a man running for his country or for his life. He was also trying to fall out of love. To Jabeen she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And then he smiled again and she remembered where she had seen him before. ‘I’ve seen you. At the thana.’

‘Yes, that’s right. I spend a lot of time there.’

‘You asked for Chinese tea.’

He nodded, impressed. ‘I’m not an unreasonable man, Mrs Haque. I would rather not have the sullying of a woman on my hands. Those boys in the field,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘have allowed the excesses of war to go to their heads. A pity.’

He exhaled deeply, as though blowing smoke.

‘However, I have a job. I have to bring those Bengalis back. I have to arrest them. And then I have to shoot them.’

‘Then there is no reason why I should tell you where he is.’ Rehana swallowed.

‘Surely you’re more intelligent than that, Mrs Haque.’

The weather was a gale in her stomach.

‘Because I could hold him in a nice little cell and not shoot him right away. But perhaps that’s not suitable either? You saw what happened to his friend. Poor fellow.’

Jabeen’s cheeks were shining. Then he asked, as though the question had just occurred to him, ‘Where is your husband, Mrs Haque?’

I once had a husband. His face was round, and his fingers were breadsoft. One day his heart stopped beating. He sank to his knees in front of our house. ‘Rehana,’ he said, ‘Maf kar do.’ Forgive me .

‘Dead,’ she said, trying to sound as hard as the sewer-pipe woman who had given her the same reply.

‘Ah, what a blow for your children.’

My children have not always been my children. My children once belonged to someone else.

There was a sharp rap at the door. A shuffle of feet, a small thud. It was the Sergeant. ‘Sir, we’ve got him.’ He kicked a man into the room. His face was streaked with blood. A sickle scar on his cheek. A frame of curly hair. ‘Caught him running to Satmasjid Road. Stupid bastard. Right in front of our eyes.’