Tahmima Anam - A Golden Age

‘There’s still a lot left over.’ Perhaps she hadn’t done such a good job with the biryani this year after all.

‘Just invite a few of Sohail’s friends to dinner,’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘I’m sure they’ll have no trouble finishing up the lot.’

‘You know, I had no idea he was so involved in student politics,’ Mrs Akram said, sorting through the glasses and the empty bottles of soda.

‘He isn’t,’ Rehana replied, heaving a pile of plates into the washbasin. ‘He’s been trying to stay out of it.’ She picked up the top plate and began to circulate a sponge around its rim.

‘Sounded quite heated to me,’ Mrs Rahman said.

‘Well, you know, he’s young and full of ideas.’ Rehana felt a bit defensive. It was always difficult for the rest of them to understand: Mrs Akram’s children were still in school, Mrs Rahman’s three children had all married sensibly, and Silvi hardly strayed out of her mother’s grasp. Her own children seemed a little out of control by comparison. ‘It’s just in the air — all this talk about delaying the assembly — the students are getting nervous, they’re worried the elections won’t be honoured.’

‘He sounds quite involved to me,’ Mrs Rahman insisted. ‘And your Maya is in the Chattra League, no?’

Mrs Chowdhury decided to come to Rehana’s rescue. ‘What she’s saying is — why doesn’t the boy waste his time chasing girls instead!’

The kitchen suddenly grew quiet.

Rehana turned around and caught Mrs Chowdhury’s eye. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What?’

No one replied. Rehana realized they were making a space for her to say something. She opened her mouth and tried, but she couldn’t think of the right sequence of words.

Mrs Rahman broke the silence. ‘Are you the last to know?’ she said.

‘Know what?’

Rehana thought she might still be able to stop the conversation there, but something kept her swirling the plates with her back to the room. Let them have it out.

‘Sohail is in love with your daughter,’ she heard Mrs Rahman say.

‘Ohhhh,’ Mrs Chowdhury laughed, ‘that. Don’t be silly — that was just a childish thing.’

Rehana kept moving the sponge in circles. No one said anything; Rehana thought she could hear them all holding their breath, waiting for her to speak, but she was mesmerized by her plate and her sponge and the little orange flecks of rice that floated like petals in the dishwater.

‘Well,’ Mrs Chowdhury said finally, noisily heaving herself upright. ‘I didn’t know. The girl never told me.’

‘You had no idea?’ Mrs Rahman said.

‘Of course I had no idea!’

Just then they heard heavy, running footsteps approaching the kitchen.

‘Ammoo!’

It was Maya.

‘Ammoo,’ she said, panting and red-faced from the effort, ‘Bhaiya’s just sitting in the garden with his head in his hands.’

Lemonade, he needs lemonade. Rehana handed her daughter a clean glass. ‘Here. Get some shorbot from the fridge.’

Maya must have sensed there was something going on in the kitchen because for once she just set off obediently, her chappals clacking behind her as she ran.

‘Rehana,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, ‘you must believe me. I really didn’t know.’

Rehana turned back to the washbasin and picked up another plate.

‘She didn’t say anything,’ Mrs Chowdhury repeated, ‘and he’s so young — just a student — surely it’s foolish to think—’

‘So you did know,’ Mrs Akram said.

‘No, I didn’t.’ Rehana felt Mrs Chowdhury approach her. ‘Rehana agrees with me, don’t you, my dear — that it would be a bad idea? I’m sure she discouraged her son as well.’

Rehana swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Yes, of course you’re right.’ What could she do now? Just save her son from any further humiliation.

‘See — she agrees,’ Mrs Chowdhury announced.

Mrs Rahman shook her head. She began spooning the leftover biryani out of the giant metal pot it had been cooked in. The kitchen swelled with its perfume, and quickly the room shrank and the air was tight, filled with the remains of the afternoon heat, the buzzing of the bulb, Mrs Chowdhury’s loud sighing.

‘I don’t know what the fuss is about. There’s no way — no way — they couldn’t be serious.’

Rehana finished rinsing her plate and began working on another. She thought that it must be the cleanest plate in the world. Mrs Akram picked it up and wiped it with the end of her sari.

‘He’s too busy with his politics — he’ll never make a good husband. Anyway, he’s younger than her.’

Rehana couldn’t bear the conversation any longer. ‘Please, Mrs Chowdhury — don’t worry. It was just a misunderstanding.’

‘That’s right,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, satisfied. ‘Nobody forced Silvi.’ Then she turned abruptly on her heel. ‘I’m tired. Goodnight, everyone. Khoda Hafez.’ She bustled away, knocking a row of empty pickle jars as she rounded the corner.

Mrs Rahman was elbow-deep in the biryani pot. ‘Rehana,’ she began, ‘I’m so sorry—’

‘Let’s not speak of it.’

Mrs Rahman and Mrs Akram looked at each other as though this was exactly what they’d expected her to say.

‘You don’t speak of it. But I can say it’s a shame.’

‘Please.’ Rehana chewed the inside of her lip. She gripped her plate; the soap slipped between her fingers. ‘I’ll take care of the rest — the children will help — it’s getting late, I shouldn’t keep you.’ She brushed her cheek with the back of her wrist, where it itched.

‘Let’s go,’ Mrs Akram said. ‘Come on.’ She peeled Mrs Rahman’s arm out of the biryani dish.

‘Goodnight, Rehana,’ they said softly.

‘Goodnight, friends,’ she whispered back. She wasn’t sure if they’d heard her.

Later, after the children had fallen asleep, Rehana climbed under her mosquito net and pulled the katha up to her chin.

She lingered over the Silvi episode, wondering if there was something she could have done. Sohail had avoided her all evening and gone to bed without his tea. She thought she saw a small accusation in the set of his mouth as he said goodnight.

He’ll never make a good husband, she heard Mrs Chowdhury say. Too much politics.

The comment had stung because it was probably true. Lately the children had little time for anything but the struggle. It had started when Sohail entered the university. Ever since ’48, the Pakistani authorities had ruled the eastern wing of the country like a colony. First they tried to force everyone to speak Urdu instead of Bengali. They took the jute money from Bengal and spent it on factories in Karachi and Islamabad. One general after another made promises they had no intention of keeping. The Dhaka University students had been involved in the protests from the very beginning, so it was no surprise Sohail had got caught up, and Maya too. Even Rehana could see the logic: what sense did it make to have a country in two halves, poised on either side of India like a pair of horns?

But in 1970, when the cyclone hit, it was as though everything came into focus. Rehana remembered the day Sohail and Maya had returned from the rescue operation: the red in their eyes as they told her how they had waited for the food trucks to come and watched as the water rose and the bodies washed up on the shore; how they had realized, with mounting panic, that the food wouldn’t come because it had never been sent.

The next day Maya had joined the student Communist Party. She donated all of her clothes to the cyclone victims and began wearing only white saris. Rehana hated to see the white saris on her daughter, but Maya didn’t notice. She swallowed, like sugar, every idea passed to her by the party elders. Uprising. Revolution. She bandied the words about as though she had discovered a lost, ancient language.