Amitav Ghosh - The Shadow Lines

How are you, Rehman-shaheb? Ila said as she handed him her coat.

I’m very well, he said, smiling broadly. He was a short, middle-aged man, with round cheeks and greying hair, dressed in a black jacket and a white bow tie. He spoke Bengali with a nasal Sylhet accent, and we had to listen to him carefully to follow, even though he was obviously making an effort to match his speech to ours.

Where have you been all these days? he was saying to Ila. We haven’t seen you in here for so long we thought you’d moved away from Stockwell.

Ila laughed. Oh no, Rehman-shaheb, she said. I wouldn’t move away without telling you first.

Rehman-shaheb ushered us to a table, pulled back the chairs and handed us each a menu. Robi opened his, looked at it for a moment, and gave me a sidelong glance.

Chicken Singapore? he said under his breath.

Prawn Bombay? I responded.

Robi sighed and snapped his menu shut. Why don’t you order, Ila? he said. You obviously know the place.

Ila ordered quickly, without bothering to look at the menu. When Rehman-shaheb had taken our orders and gone into the kitchen, she leant towards us and whispered: Treat it like something exotic — like Eskimo food — and you’ll enjoy it. You’re not going to get your mothers’ chochchori and bhat; you mustn’t expect anything familiar.

She was proved right when the food came: everything fell just beyond the border of familiarity — the usual taste of spices transformed by stock and cream and Worcestershire Sauce. But the food was delicious in its own way, and we ate heartily while Robi told us stories about his colleagues in the Indian Administrative Service — funny stories about lonely young men who lived in huge colonial mansions in remote districts and spent their time writing symbolist poetry and masturbating.

After the plates had been cleared away and Ila had paid for the dinner with her credit card, Rehman-shaheb came back with three cups of coffee on a tray.

This is from us, he said. I mean, ‘Compliments of the House’, ar ki ; you know? It’s a custom over here.

Oh, Rehman-shaheb! exclaimed Ila. Why did you do all this? You shouldn’t have. But now you have to sit with us for a while.

Yes, do sit with us for a bit, I added. For me the experience of hearing Bengali dialects which I had never heard in Calcutta being spoken in the streets of London was still replete with unexplored ironies.

All right, Rehman-shaheb said, and pulled a chair up to our table. There was an awkward moment of silence, and then Ila said: Rehman-shaheb, do you know, my uncle Robi over there lived in your part of the world when he was a boy, in Dhaka.

Oh, is that so? said Rehman-shaheb. I lived there too for a bit. When were you there?

It was a long time ago, said Robi. From 1962 to 1964.

I see, said Rehman-shaheb, I left before that — joined a ship, you know. Have you been back after that? After Bangladesh became independent?

Robi shook his head.

You must go, said Rehman-shaheb. It’s completely changed now — so modern. You won’t believe it. But tell me, which part of the city did you live in?

In Dhanmundi, said Robi.

Ah there, said Rehman-shaheb. That was for rich folks and foreigners. Did you ever go into the old city? Now that’s where you should have gone: the sweets you’ll get there! Like nowhere else in the world, not even Calcutta. And the people! They’re so hospitable, they’ll take you straight into their houses.

Robi smiled thinly.

Ila gave me a worried glance and pushed her chair back.

But I don’t suppose you’ve ever been into that part of the town, have you? said Rehman-shaheb, smiling at Robi.

Yes, said Robi. As a matter of fact, I have. You see my mother was born there.

Really? cried Rehman-shaheb. Where? Do you remember where?

Robi’s smile was like a grimace now. Yes, he said. I do remember. You had to go past Shador-bajar, and then turn off the road and go down a long road crowded with shops, and then you had to turn off at a corner where there was a kind of field where the boys used to play football, and then there’s a hardware shop, and that’s the corner of the lane where my mother was born — Jindabahar Lane, Dhaka.

Allah! said Rehman-shaheb. You remember it very well I can see. But you must have been very young then. How is it that you remember?

I pushed my chair back and stood up. We ought to go now, I said.

But Robi didn’t hear me. He was leaning towards Rehman-shaheb, gripping the table, his knuckles white.

I remember it because my brother was killed there, he said. In a riot — not far from where my mother was born. Now do you see why I remember?

Rehman-shaheb leapt to his feet, his face red with embarrassment.

Robi stood up, pushed his way past us and went out.

Oh, I’m so … Rehman-shaheb said to Ila. I didn’t mean … I really didn’t.

Don’t worry, Ila said quickly. It’s not your fault. I know you didn’t mean it. It’s mine — I shouldn’t have brought up the subject. Ila snatched up her coat, gave Rehmanshaheb’s arm one last pat and whispered: It’s all right, don’t worry. Then she followed me out of the restaurant.

He was gone by the time we were out. It was a while before we saw him, in the distance, as he passed a lamp-post. He was striding fast down the Clapham Road, towards Stockwell. We began to run.

When we caught up with him we tried to fall in step, but his strides were so long we virtually had to run to keep up. We walked past the fast-food shops on the Clapham Road, beneath the railway bridge and the underground station at Clapham North. At length Robi came to a halt. He shook his arms free and said: I need to sit somewhere. Just for a minute.

There was an overgrown garden to our left, and within it a derelict white church, with a short flight of steps in front. Robi led us through the gate and up to the steps. Clearing a space for himself among the leaves on the stairs, he sat down and lit a cigarette.

It’s a dream, you know, he said, blowing a plume of smoke at his feet. I only get it about twice a year now, but it used to be once a week, when I was younger — in college, for instance. But I learnt to control it — I often know when it’s coming, and on nights like that I try not to sleep. It always begins with our car going around a corner. There’s a muddy kind of field on one side, a very small one, but it’s got a crooked goalpost stuck in the mud. We turn the corner and there they are, ahead of us, strung out across the road. Sometimes it’s a crowd, sometimes just a couple of men. I know their faces well now, better than I know my friends’. There’s one with a very thin face and a wispy moustache and a crooked mouth. He’s always in it. The odd thing is, that no matter how many men there are — a couple, or dozens — the street always seems empty. It was full of people when we went through it — a bazaar, all the shops open, people going in and out, rickshaws, thela-garis, vendors, donkeys. And there were people in the houses above the shops too, looking down at us, from the windows and balconies. But all the shops are shut now, barricaded, and so are the windows in the houses. There’s no one on the balconies. The street’s deserted, but for those men. I can see little details sometimes: a green coconut, for instance, lying in the middle of the road, wobbling when the breeze catches it; a slipper on the pavement — not a pair, just a single rubber slipper, lying there abandoned.

There’s a grinding kind of noise somewhere inside the car, and it lurches, throwing everyone forward, so that I almost bang my head against the dashboard. Someone in the back seat, I think it’s my mother, but I’ve never been sure, cries: Don’t stop, go on.

And the car does go on, in fact the driver had merely changed gears without declutching properly. It’s moving forward again now — not steadily, but in short jerks, because the driver’s so scared he’s lost control of his right foot. His cap’s fallen off, and he’s sitting hunched over the wheel, with sweat dripping down his face. The security guard, sitting beside me, in the front seat, is looking ahead, fingering his shirt.