Tahmima Anam - The Bones of Grace

‘Under lock and key, are you?’

‘The errant wife.’ And, with that, I asked Abul Hussain to take me to the villa, where Komola was waiting at the door, her hands soft against my face.

In the morning, when the car stopped inside the gates of Prosperity, I watched for a long time as a cutter made his final pass and a large piece of Grace came crashing down onto the sand. I was wearing sunglasses, a pair I had found in the bedside drawer of my room and had probably belonged to Dolly, and through the sepia-tinged frames I saw the people I had so carefully come to know appearing as vague shapes against the broken silhouette of Grace . A tanker had arrived while I was away. Now it was wedged between Grace and a half-demolished container ship in the neighbouring lot. Grace had been pared down. Her foredeck and bridge had been sliced off, large panels of steel cut away from her hull. She was all gloom now, empty of the footprints of happy people.

Ali was waiting for me in the Prosperity office. ‘Welcome back, Miss Zubaida.’ He pulled at his beard, which appeared fuller and longer.

‘Thank you, Mr Ali. It looks as if you’ve made a lot of progress,’ I said, gesturing towards the beach.

‘By the grace of Allah, we are ahead of schedule with the cruiser.’

He didn’t ask me to sit down, but I took a seat opposite him anyway. ‘I heard also that you have sold the piano.’

‘To your friend, the American. He was very persistent.’

‘Yes. He’s a difficult man to refuse.’

‘And you have come back. Will you stay long?’

‘I would like to continue with the interviews,’ I said.

‘We are always pleased to act as your hosts,’ he said. ‘And you are entitled to employ who you wish, of course.’

It took me a moment to realise he was referring to Mo. He tapped the desk with the end of a pencil. ‘As long as the boy completes his duties, he is free to live where he finds a place, but you will understand that it may cause some disturbance among the other men. As you have taken such an interest in the boy. I hear you are teaching him to read.’

‘He didn’t get a chance to attend school.’

‘Neither have any of the others.’

‘Have they complained?’ I wasn’t sure where he was going. He obviously didn’t care if my favouring of Mo had caused problems with the workers.

‘Not exactly. But I’ve known them a long time, and they don’t take to change very well.’

‘We won’t be here long.’

‘That’s precisely the issue, madam.’ He continued to tap on the desk with the end of his pencil. It was mid-morning and work was going at full tilt on the beach. ‘After you go, things will have to return to normal. That is the way here. We have been operating for many years.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

He smiled again, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Nothing to worry about, madam. All is up to the Almighty. Now I must go, I have some business to attend to.’

Ali appeared to dismiss me. I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but I guessed the conversation had sounded different to Ali’s ears than to mine. As I turned to go, he said, ‘Please give my regards to your father.’

‘You know my father?’

‘Sir is a respected man, a son of Chittagong. Of course we all know him.’

He was talking about Bulbul. ‘Yes, of course.’ And I turned to go, still confused by the exchange. Outside, a large sheet of metal was being pulled up the beach. The cutters would come soon with their tools, trimming the sheet down again so that it could be dragged to the equipment at the northern edge of the beach, where it would be rolled and flattened and eventually transported. I looked for Mo, but couldn’t find him, so I made my way to the office. As I passed the dormitory, I saw Gabriela coming out of one of the side doors. I wondered what she was doing there, but she swept past me before I could call out to her.

I allowed myself to consider for a moment what would have happened if I’d gone away with you. Hopped on a plane. Goodbye, everyone. Sending Rashid and Ammoo an email, perhaps the same one. I’m on my way to America , it would have said, with Elijah Strong . They would have considered it a joke. Called me, and then each other. Would they have been any angrier with me than they were now? I laughed to myself, because I knew now that losing you was scarier than any of it, and since I had done that and was still here, it meant I could probably do anything. I wish I had discovered that about myself before it was too late.

When I returned to the dormitory for an interview session that evening, I found Gabriela already there, passing around tea and bowls of puffed rice to the men. Mo hung back, dodging me as I entered, and none of the others stopped to say hello. I guessed I had offended them with my abrupt departure. Only Russel seemed happy to see me, asking after you. You were in America, I said. I told him about the piano, but word had already spread. ‘Can we smoke?’ Russel asked, and there was a small commotion as the biris and the matches were passed around, and after everyone had lit up, small conversations bloomed around the edges of the group. No one seemed in any particular hurry to start talking.

‘So,’ I began, ‘we are almost at the end of our interviews, but there are a few of you who have yet to tell me your story. I am sorry for the break—’

‘Will it be on TV?’ Russel interrupted.

‘Yes, in my country,’ Gabriela said.

‘In foreign,’ I translated.

‘What about Bangladesh?’ someone asked from the back.

‘We will try,’ Gabriela said.

‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘But you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.’

Someone raised his hand from the back of the room. ‘Apa, what about the other place? Can you take the camera there?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Gabriela said. ‘We won’t leave anyone out.’

‘We are only getting interviews from the pulling crew,’ I said. ‘The film will focus on your group.’

‘I mean the other pullers.’

‘She’s not supposed to meet the other pullers,’ Mo interjected.

‘What other pullers?’ I glanced at Mo, at Gabriela. I looked around. ‘Where’s Belal?’ Belal, who had lost his wife and his daughter.

A man stood up. I didn’t recognise him — a heavy, powerful face, square shoulders. ‘As-salaam alaikum Apa,’ he said. ‘My name is Selim.’

‘Selim has just arrived from the north,’ Gabriela said.

‘I was here last year,’ he explained. ‘My father died, so I went home for the winter.’

I was struggling to keep up. Something about the equation between us, and the workers, and Ali, had fundamentally altered in my absence. The group appeared charged up, lacking in the tired resignation that had dominated our previous conversations. I remembered what Bilal had said about not trusting Gabriela, her inability to get the workers to speak with her. And now, the warm, almost intimate way she was sitting among them, passing them mugs of tea, using Selim’s cigarette to light one of her own.

I took Gabriela aside. ‘What’s this about the others?’

‘I was going to tell you,’ she said. ‘There was an accident here last week.’

‘On Grace ?’ No one had said anything to me. ‘Does Rubana know?’

‘They hushed it up. Ali’s hiding the wounded workers.’

‘That doesn’t sound right. Where would he hide them?’

‘There’s a place down the road. He paid them off, doesn’t want them in hospital.’

The sound of conversation rose around us. ‘Don’t you want to see them?’ Selim asked.

I looked around the room, lit by Gabriela’s camera and the solitary bulb that hung from the ceiling, and replayed the conversation I’d had with Ali that morning. I knew they were waiting for me to say something. I dialled Rubana’s number but there was no reply. I remembered Dera Bugti now, and being inches away from Ambulocetus , and having to put all that earth, all its history, back in its place, its secrets packed away for someone else to discover. I gestured to Mo and asked him, first of all, why he hadn’t said anything to me. Mo stared down at his feet, and I had to put my fingers under his chin and force him to look at me. ‘I didn’t want you to be hurt,’ he said, and I took this to mean that he was afraid I would get into trouble with Ali. It’s you who will be hurt, I wanted to say. And I won’t be able to protect you. Again I will betray you.