Tahmima Anam - The Bones of Grace

Komola and Joshim greeted us gaily at the door. The rest of the family would arrive soon. ‘Go upstairs,’ Komola said, ‘dress up for your mother-in-law.’

I went upstairs and saw that Komola had laid out my clothes. A green silk sari, the matching blouse and petticoat were all ironed and on the bed. Rashid was still steaming over our argument. ‘I’m going to play golf,’ he said, changing into shorts and a polo shirt. ‘I’ll be back in time for dinner.’

I showered, trying to put aside the sight of the injured workers, but there was too much there, Mo and Gabriela and you, always you hovering at the edge of my thoughts. I lay back on the bed, my hair blotting the bedcover.

When it was time to get dressed I realised I needed help putting on my sari. Komola wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. I made my way to the back of the house to the servants’ quarters. A narrow cement staircase led to the rooms above the garage. The washing — a checked lungi and a red petticoat — hung between two metal pegs at the top of the stairs and created a barrier over the open door. I called out and waited, heard nothing in return, and was about to turn back, already feeling like an intruder, when I heard shuffling from inside. Komola came out, fiddling with the soft cotton folds of her sari.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m disturbing you.’

‘I was praying,’ Komola said.

‘How long have you lived here?’ I asked, catching a glimpse of her cluttered room, the trunks stacked up against the wall, clothes folded in an open shelf, a small round mirror nailed to the wall.

‘Since I was a girl,’ Komola said, pinning her hair with a quick motion of her wrist. ‘Before you were born.’

I was about to ask her more, about where she had come from, where her people were, but Komola was uncomfortable, closing the makeshift curtain behind her.

‘Can you help me with my sari?’

She followed me back inside and up the stairs. I changed into my blouse and petticoat and started on the sari, but Komola took it from me, searching for the correct side, controlling the long, liquid fabric. I thought about how she always looked at me slightly indirectly, her head tilted down or to the side, but she was bold now, folding and tucking. ‘Apa, there’s something,’ she said. ‘I heard you crying in your room. Why?’

Had I been crying? I couldn’t remember. ‘It’s nothing; don’t trouble yourself.’

She made pleats, holding the end of my sari between her teeth. ‘I knew you when you were a baby, you know.’ The words came out narrow.

I took a moment for this to sink in. It wasn’t unlikely — my parents had brought me here as a child to visit Dolly and Bulbul. Perhaps she had seen me then, peeling leaves off the banana plants. I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘You’ve been here a long time,’ I said.

She passed the anchal behind me and over my shoulder. Then she crouched down and took hold of the pleats. I looked down at her and I could see the wide parting of her hair and the grey streaks that fanned out on either side. This was the head of a woman who had been parting her hair the same way her whole life, committing the same rituals, washing, oiling, braiding. Perhaps, as an occasional indulgence, she had once or twice bought herself a clip.

When she was finished with the hem, she took a safety pin from her own blouse and started attaching my anchal. Her touch was light, her fingers papery, their lines deep and serrated. ‘Tell me,’ I whispered, ‘did I seem all right?’ What I meant to ask was, did I seem different , as in, different from the rest of them, born fully into privilege, but I couldn’t quite get the words out.

‘You were a sweet child. Maybe a little lonely.’

She was finished. I sat down on the bed. My hands started to shake and Komola took them between hers.

‘I feel lonely now.’

‘God has blessed you.’

The breaths came so sharply out of me that I could hardly speak. ‘My mother — was she — did she love me?’

Komola put her arms around me, her body as soft as a whisper. ‘She followed you like a hawk.’ She kissed the top of my head and retreated. I had embarked on what I must have thought was a heroic journey, but all I had done was wound the people I loved, starting with my mother, that wild bird who had been tamed and chastened by her desire for me.

An hour passed. I waited in the bedroom, draped in the green silk, until I heard Dolly and Bulbul at the door, and then I descended the stairs to the living room.

Komola and Joshim had gone to great trouble with the house. The furniture was primped; the glass cabinets that housed the family’s baubles — the porcelain shepherdess that Dolly had collected on a trip to the Wedgwood factory, the blown Venetian glass, the gold painted Thai woodwork — were dusted and polished so that their contents gleamed from within.

The formal living room was opened and I was able to see it for the first time. It was such a large room that Dolly had made four separate seating arrangements within, each with its own colour scheme and design. There was the leather suite on the eastern side, where the coconut trees cast their narrow shadows; the blue sofa and loveseat looked west; along the north — south axis of the room, a grey corner unit and a French-looking suite with carved wooden armrests faced each other. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did, in the peculiar way of excess. When I entered the room, I asked myself how Dolly chose between one sofa and another. Did she enter the room and think to herself, I’m going to enjoy the sun on the leather settee today, or today I want to pretend to be Marie Antoinette so I’ll make myself at home on the gold-tipped chair? Now Dolly was sitting upright on the blue loveseat, and when I entered the room, not for the first time I was a little afraid of her. She was heavily made up, a pair of thick gold bangles wrapped around her wrists, reading the newspaper with her Pomeranian, Clooney, draped across her feet.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘How was your flight?’

‘Fine. But your father-in-law is exhausted, he went to take a nap.’ She folded her hands on her lap. ‘Tea, darling?’

‘All right.’

Dolly pressed a button on a small rectangular object — her calling bell — and Komola appeared. ‘Bring bou-ma her green tea. And snacks.’

‘Aren’t we having dinner?’

‘It’s early,’ she said, looking at the slim gold watch on her wrist. ‘Baby Babu isn’t even home yet.’

Dolly watched me lift a roast-beef sandwich from the trolley. ‘You skipped lunch, didn’t you, sweetheart? I told you, you have to eat.’

I nodded, taking a large bite.

‘And I’ve heard all about your … friend.’

The white, crustless bread swelled in my mouth. I remembered reading a story about how several people die every year in Japan while attempting to eat mochi rice cakes. I had tried mochi once, and found it quite disgusting. I wished now that it had killed me.

‘I thought you looked a little unsettled. So I made a few phone calls. Everyone knows everything, my dear. You should have been more careful.’

I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’ How many times had I said that?

‘Does Rashid know?’

I took a sip of tea. The lump of sandwich travelled slowly, painfully, down my throat. ‘Yes.’

Clooney shifted, raised himself up, and reapplied his torso over Dolly’s feet. Dolly lowered a bangled hand and scratched behind his ear. ‘Poor Baby Babu.’

‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Of course you didn’t. But you did.’ She sucked in her lips, redistributing her lipstick. ‘People warned us, you know. But I told them there was no way you would disrespect Rashid, or us.’