Tahmima Anam - The Bones of Grace

You liked to run in the early mornings, and that was how you met a few of the workers. You became known as ‘Bharmon’, after one of them asked you to tell him what was written on your T-shirt, and not able to pronounce the ‘V’ of ‘Vermont’, he spread the word that this was your name, Bharmon. ‘Bharmon is from America.’ ‘Bharmon can play the instrument in the belly of the ship.’ ‘Bharmon runs all the way across the beach to Patenga.’ Now, when I walked down to the shipyard with you, they gathered around, unafraid of Ali. I don’t know what you talked about, or even how you communicated, but in your mutual hand gestures there was laughter and camaraderie.

They told you stories about the ship that I hadn’t known, for instance, that there had been an ice-skating rink, that three thousand people sat down to dinner every evening and hence there were freezers as big as trucks and pots as big as bathtubs, and that it had all been sold and the only thing remaining was the piano. Nobody wanted it.

Ali telephoned one day to say that one of the buyers was coming to inspect the ship, and they were going to rig a special lift for him, a system of pulleys that would be handled by men from on top and below. We could see the piano, then join Ali and the buyer for lunch. When we arrived at the beach, Ali introduced his guest. ‘Please meet Mr Sakhawat Sakhawat,’ he said with a small bow.

Sakhawat Sakhawat flashed the gold rings on his fingers and shook hands with you. We crowded onto the flat platform and were lifted up along Grace ’s hull, the curve of the beach retreating from view, the brackish blue of the Indian Ocean deepening the higher we rose. I noticed little of the scene, however, because your hand was on my elbow and I was aroused by the graze of your knuckle against my rib.

When we reached the top, I held you back and allowed Ali to lead Sakhawat to the staterooms on the top floor. Mo was waiting for us on the promenade deck. He had three kerosene lamps lined up against the railing. I let him lead the way, knowing he would get a thrill from revealing the piano to you. It had been his discovery, after all.

As we made our way across the ship, I noticed a few things missing. All along the deck, the doors had small round gaps in them where the doorknobs used to be. Ali had told me that Harrison Master had asked for a few things from the ship for himself, for a guest-house he needed to furnish on short notice. Perhaps the doorknobs were on that list, or perhaps they were in a hotel in Dhaka somewhere. Grace was already being scattered across the country.

We reached the auditorium and Mo disappeared inside. You held the door open for me and we entered together. There was the navy darkness, and the particular scent of wood and velvet. We held up our lamps. ‘It’s behind the curtain,’ I whispered, but you and Mo were already making your way to the stage. I decided to remain in the audience, choosing a seat in the front row and setting my lamp on the floor. Then I closed my eyes and waited, nervous now in the compressed hush of that big and silent room, and it came, the scrape of the piano stool as you sat down, and the first note, like a question mark.

I realised I had never heard you play, not seriously, and I was glad to be listening without seeing you. When the music began, I knew I had heard the song before, but I could not remember now what it was called. You played softly, the sound muffled by the curtain, and occasionally I heard you stop to press down on one of the notes a few times, testing the sound. I thought I heard you humming along with the song, but I couldn’t be sure.

You played a scale, and then another song. I might have fallen asleep, not because I was tired, but because it was hypnotic and slightly surreal, sitting in the auditorium of a beached ocean liner listening to the sound of a resurrected piano played by the hands of a man who appeared as if from another world. Then you began to sing. Your voice was soft, cloaked in the dark and muffled by the curtain.

All of me

Why not take all of me

Can’t you see

I’m no good without you

It was so quiet I could almost hear the breath that accompanied each word of the song. I matched my breath with your breath, my head light and without a thought.

You took the best

So why not take the rest

Eventually the sound of the notes faded away. I heard the whine of the lid’s hinge, heard the scrape of the stool as you pushed away, heard the curtain part, heard your muffled footsteps coming towards me. You weren’t with Mo and you weren’t holding your lamp. When you sat down beside me, I thought you might say something about the piano, but instead you whispered a story to me about your childhood, something about those two years on the farm, about a rosemary bush your mother had planted outside the kitchen window when you had first moved to that remote part of the country. Sometimes when it rained you leaned out of the window and caught a whiff of that rosemary bush. The house was at the edge of a steep hill, the land falling away from it on three sides, the view of trees and the mountains beyond clear for miles. Then you said, ‘When I started playing that piano, it was like the rosemary bush outside our kitchen window. As far as I can tell, everything about home, everything I can remember, comes from that smell, everything human and amazing and old. I’m so glad I came, Zubaida. Thank you for bringing me. Thank you for showing me this.’

I swallowed away the lump rising in my throat and closed my hand around your hand. I was reminded again of your strangeness, and also of the way you were both more sure of yourself than anyone I had ever known and yet also unmoored, as if you had never managed to find something to attach yourself to. You moved your hand and you were touching my elbow, and then my back. I shifted closer to you, wanting to tell you that, however glad you might be that you had come, you couldn’t possibly be as glad as I was, because, holding your hand now, I was obliterated by feeling.

I wanted to stay in that room forever, the weight and warmth of your hand on my arm. But a moment later I was suddenly claustrophobic, realising we were trapped in a tight, airless bubble, and so I stood up abruptly and led you out and up the stairs, not quite sure where I was heading, following the air and the light until we were back on the promenade deck.

By the time we emerged, the afternoon was in full force, the sun descending brutally, the workers below huddled in the shadow of the ship, seeking a patch of grey among the bright, bright white. You unbuttoned your shirt and your skin shone between the open panels of fabric. I gestured to the men that they should work the pulleys and we floated down as if from a stage, the real world below us in all its ugliness and sorrow.

Something had happened, something I couldn’t name. We walked back up the beach without saying a word. I remembered we were invited to have lunch with Mr Ali. I said maybe I should try and get us out of it.

‘We should probably oblige him,’ you said. But I saw the pulse leaping at your throat.

Ali had laid out a table on the second floor of the Shipsafe office. There were a number of meat and fish dishes, each one topped with a slick puddle of oil. Sakhawat was already seated with a full serving in front of him. Ali piled rice onto our plates and we helped ourselves to the curry. There were no utensils and I saw you making tiny pyramids of rice and placing them carefully into your mouth.

‘Mr Ali, what will happen to the piano?’ you asked.

‘It wasn’t possible to sell it.’ Ali said. ‘No one wanted such a big thing.’

‘What will you do?’ I wondered aloud.

Sakhawat licked the grease from his knuckle. ‘We could give it to one of the shops, see if they can sell it. But it would be very costly to get it out of the ship. There is a chance of damage.’