Tahmima Anam - The Bones of Grace

Naveed feels sorry for me and convinces his wife to take us to the hospital. We pick a Friday and I buy some clothes, a clean pair of trousers and a T-shirt so I don’t look like a total bastard. I’ve got some things at the hotel, but no way I’m going back for it. If I see those rickshaw boys my cuts are all going to split apart open and start bleeding again.

Naveed’s wife is tall and pretty, skin pale as new milk, and she does him like he knows she should’ve married better. He’s nervous around her, telling her how nice she looks, all assy-kissy, and she puts it all away like notes down her blouse. I’m polite and thank you-ing as much as I can stomach, and secretly I’m glad she looks so fancy, because no village wife is gonna get us anywhere at the hospital.

I’m thinking about Shathi, my own village wife. Hard to sleep at night knowing there’s two women out there who hate you. I’m so out of sorrys I don’t even try to call her, but she’s in my dreams now, right next to Megna. I’m remembering her on the beach, the smell of her hair on the bus. She deserved better, little bird.

We take a bus across town. On the way I tell them everything I know about Megna, whatever will help to find her. Her name, age. Naveed’s wife helps me count the months and we figure when she might have been there. The bus stops and we walk the rest of the way. It’s the medical college, no fancy people here. Already at the entrance you can see it’s the poor man’s place, there’s sick people lying in the corridor, or curled up by the stairs, they reach out and grab your ankles, starting a long story and begging for a few paisa. Shit. Naveed’s wife knows her way around, end of the building, up some stairs that smell like piss, down another corridor full of people squatting on the floor and pointing to their rotting limbs, aching stomachs, waiting to see someone, crying for a doctor or a nurse, anyone in a white coat.

Naveed’s wife spots a nurse and she goes up all haughty and clapping on her heels, and they talk for a minute. Then she comes back and holds out her hand to me. ‘Give me some money,’ she says. I’ve heard this line before, it sends the crazy to my blood, but I knew it would be this way, so I hand over all I’ve got, minus a little for food. She twirls around and disappears down the ward.

Naveed wanders off to buy cigarettes. I look around. There’s a man with a little girl. Kid’s in her father’s arms, all limp and tired-looking, then she coughs, goes stiff, then quiet again, leaning her head against his chest. I look over at him and he nods at me. ‘TB,’ he says. I’ve heard of that, took some people in my village a few years ago. I got the letter in Dubai, sent some money.

‘She got medicine?’

‘We fed her the pills for six months. But she’s getting worse.’

I look at the girl. She opens her eyes, sleepy-like, and gives me a slow smile. ‘Hello,’ I say.

‘You got kids?’ the father asks me.

‘Yah,’ I say. ‘Nine years old. Lives with her mother.’

He nods. The girl starts coughing again, and he hugs her close, putting his hands on her forehead. Then I see his lips move. He’s praying.

Naveed comes back. He opens the packet, offers me a smoke, and we light up together. I ask him about his wife. ‘I can’t believe it myself,’ he says, ‘why her people said yes. I guess I was a handsome kid.’

‘Not any more,’ I say, and he nudges me in the ribs. I wince, it’s still a bit sore there.

Time passes, we sit down in the corridor like everyone else. Naveed offers me another smoke and I take it just to pass the time. We’re thinking of going out for a cup of tea, leaving a message with the kid’s father, but Naveed’s wife comes back, folding her hands across her chest when she sees us sitting on the floor.

‘It’s filthy here, let’s go.’

‘Did you?’

She stops, looks down at us. ‘No.’

‘What happened?’ I say.

‘I’ll tell you when we get outside. This place is full of sickness, get me out.’ And Naveed’s on his feet in a flash, clearing the way so she can pass through without touching anyone.

As soon as we get downstairs I stop and make her tell me everything. Outside, it’s hot and my eyes are swimming in the sun. Naveed’s wife makes fists and puts them on her hips. ‘You look like a crazy bastard,’ she says, ‘but inside you’re just a worm like everyone else.’

She’s not telling me anything I don’t know. ‘Did you find the doctor? What did he say?’

‘You think they have all their papers in a neat little pile and whenever someone comes off the street and asks them, they just tell you what you want to know?’

I’m looking at Naveed, then at his wife. My tongue’s gone dry and heavy. ‘You didn’t find him.’

‘Of course I didn’t find him. No one would even talk to me.’ She runs her hands down her kameez like she can’t believe anyone would turn down a woman who looked that good.

My head goes so low I think it might fall off and roll around on the ground. Naveed puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘We tried,’ he says.

We shuffle over to where the rickshaws are waiting. Naveed helps his wife get in and I wave them away. ‘I’ll walk,’ I say, my feet as heavy as ships.

VI The Shipyard

All the time I dream of my kid, dark hair like her mother’s. She has my nose and Megna’s little eyes. And maybe my lips. Nice lips I’ve got, at least that’s what Megna used to tell me. Who knows what’s left, I haven’t looked in the mirror in a long time.

The building on Chowrasta is finished. Carpenters coming in to do the doors, kitchen marble going in. Foreman pays me my last week’s wages and I’m out again in the street.

I wander from one building to another but there are no jobs. Or maybe there are, but when they look at my face and see the life stamped out of me, they say no. My money runs out quick. Naveed says I can sleep in the shop, so I make my bed there for a few days. I want to ask Naveed’s wife if she’ll teach me a few letters, but I haven’t seen her since that day at the hospital. Can’t believe I went this long without learning a single damn thing. She called me a worm, and she was right — a stringy little insect that crawls through the dirt and eats everyone’s shit.

I’m hungry but when Naveed offers me his rice, I say no. My stomach goes soft and achy when I’m alone in the shop at night with the smell of soap and the little hairs Naveed can’t catch with his broom.

In the day, when I’m not looking for work, I look into the shops along the highway, and I see strange things. In one, giant metal lanterns, long lengths of chain. Clocks and brass instruments. Shopkeeper tells me it’s all from the ships that get broken further down the beach. They sell all the bits and pieces here, the cheap stuff. Everything else goes to Dhaka. He’s is a nice guy, old, he has a lot of time on his hands. Tells me there used to be nothing here, then a storm and ship that got washed up and stuck in the sand. There was a foreigner, a Captain, he started the whole thing. I don’t believe him, just let the old man talk — what’s left when you’re old except the ears of the young? I can’t call myself young any more but I do, I do because I messed up so bad I still have so much I haven’t finished, like bringing a kid into this world and raising him right, teaching him to respect his elders and listening to their stories, no matter how long or made up.

‘You looking for work?’ he asks me.

‘You know anyone?’

‘Always something in shipbreaking. I could put in a word. Guy’s coming to sell, I’ll ask him. Come back tomorrow.’

I tell him I’m grateful.

‘It’s hard work,’ he says, ‘dangerous too.’