Tahmima Anam - The Bones of Grace

It had stopped raining, but the air was packed and humid and I could see sweat gathering in droplets through his thinning hair. ‘You don’t remember me?’

He gazed up and stared into my face, as if to be absolutely sure. ‘Forgive me.’

I stepped back so I could read the sign above his shop. NAVEED NAPITH, that was it. I was so sure. If Gabriela had come with me, she could have confirmed it, but I still hadn’t been able to get hold of her. I paced back and forth to the shops on the left and right. There was a cigarette stall a few feet away, an electrical shop selling batteries and bits of wire, and a tailor’s. No one remembered me. I crossed the road, silently mocking myself for making the trip, ready to give up, when someone called out for me to wait. When I turned around I found a woman in red heels and a kameez dotted with sequins. She had short hair, a pointed chin and bright, clever eyes, a face that seemed out of place on this street.

‘I know who you want,’ she said. ‘My husband won’t tell you because he thinks you’ll call the cops.’

I grabbed her wrist. ‘You know him? What’s his name?’

She snapped her head back. ‘Why d’you want to know?’

‘I need to speak to him. It’s important.’

She tossed her chin towards the barber-shop. ‘Anwar. Keeps looking for some girl called Megna. All day long he’s saying Megna this, Megna that. And also a kid.’

My heart dropped several inches into my stomach. ‘He has a child?’

‘He’s not a reliable type. He comes and goes. One day he’s working in construction, the next day he’s a shipbreaker. Lost a lot of money too, I heard.’

‘What’s he doing now?’

She crossed her arms in front of her. ‘He disappeared a few weeks ago. We haven’t heard anything. You related to him?’

The back of my shirt was plastered with sweat. ‘Something like that. Where was the last place he worked?’

‘You don’t look related.’

‘Not exactly related. Did you say shipbreaking?’

She took my arm and pulled me back towards the barber-shop. ‘Let’s ask Naveed,’ she said.

Naveed was brushing the last of the peanut shells from his lungi. ‘I remember now,’ he said, looking his wife up and down and chewing the inside of his mouth. ‘It was Chittagong Shipbreaking.’

Naveed’s wife wove her arm through his. ‘There’s no such place as Chittagong Shipbreaking. Now tell this poor lady the truth, can’t you see she’s not going to snitch?’

‘I won’t,’ I said, ‘I won’t tell anyone, I won’t get him into trouble. Please.’ There was a rough breeze coming from the shore, and I was almost shivering now as my skin dried and cooled.

Naveed was still chewing his lip when he said, ‘It’s DhakaSylhet Shipbreaking partners,’ he said.

Chittagong. Dhaka. Sylhet. He was just naming cities. ‘Are you sure?’

‘He’s sure,’ the wife nodded. ‘He wouldn’t lie in front of me.’ And she grabbed his cheek between her index and middle knuckle and pinched hard.

‘Okay. Thank you.’

‘Give us a name,’ she said as I turned to go. She pointed to her stomach, which I could see now was protruding. She must have been six or seven months pregnant.

‘Mohona,’ I said, already speeding down the lane, pulling my phone out of my pocket to see if I could find a number for Dhaka-Sylhet Shipbreaking.

*

‘Where have you been all day?’ Gabriela said when she saw me.

It took me a moment to realise what she was talking about. Oh, yes, the injured men — we were supposed to meet them again today. ‘Sorry. Something came up.’

‘Were you with Mo?’ she said. ‘He said he’d be there, but he didn’t show up either.’

‘No, I was — I was trying to find someone.’

‘They’re saying there might be a cyclone tonight.’

‘Do you remember that guy, the one who came up to me near the beach?’

‘You mean the guy who thought you were someone else?’

‘I was looking for him.’

She tugged on her shirt, impatient. ‘We need to finish the interviews before we get those men into trouble.’

I wasn’t in the mood to hear a lecture, so I let my thoughts drift, trying to remember Anwar’s face, trying to remember exactly what he’d said to me. ‘He called me Megna, right?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so. You understand what I’m saying?’

I nodded vaguely. Then suddenly she was very agitated about Mo, and said we had to go and find him immediately. ‘If Ali finds out he’s been helping us, it’s going to be a fucking disaster.’

It had started to rain. I tried to convince Gabriela to wait a while, until the weather improved, but she wanted to leave right away. It was getting dark, and usually you could see the light of the cutters’ blowtorches from the bedroom window. I looked now but it was impossible to make anything out, thick sheets of rain covering everything, and no moon.

‘You can’t even see anything.’

‘I have this bad feeling.’

I was tired. I leaned over the dining table and rested my face in the crook of my elbow. ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Gabi. He’s been here longer than any of us, and they have storms here all the time.’

‘Please,’ Gabriela said.

I closed my eyes and leaned back on the sofa. I was hungry. In the fridge, there was a bowl of chicken curry covered with a plate. I fished out the chicken with my fingers, eating it cold. Mo would have cooked it. I thought of his arms, those delicate elbows, leaning over the stone pestle.

‘Let’s go to the beach,’ I sighed. ‘We’ll find Ali and he might have some idea.’

I found an umbrella in one of the closets, and we set off on foot. It was only a few yards between the apartment and the Prosperity gates, but in the dark and the rain our progress was slow. Gabriela was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear her. We locked arms. The gates were closed, but there was always a gap between the gate and the wall, and we had squeezed through before. Gabriela had wrapped a scarf around her head and face, but I could feel the rain pounding my exposed shoulder and splashing onto my neck. Passing through the gate, we saw a light on in the Prosperity office, but when we stepped inside, it was empty, the chairs pushed under the desks and Ali’s computer switched off. The wind picked up, tossing a scattering of sand against the office windows.

I told Gabriela we should wait. ‘Maybe Ali’s gone to check on everyone. It’s unlocked, he might come back.’

Gabriela unwrapped her sodden scarf and draped it against the back of a chair. ‘Mo was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t understand the Bangla,’ she said. ‘Something about a girl.’

‘What girl?’

‘That girl he tried to tell us about before, you remember?’

I wandered over to Ali’s desk. I knew he kept food in his drawer, and I rifled through his desk, fishing out a packet of Marie biscuits and offering them to Gabriela. ‘He never said anything after that day.’ Mo hadn’t confided in me — of course he hadn’t. I couldn’t be trusted. I bit down on the dry biscuit, the flavour of butter and nigella seeds flooding my mouth.

‘He came home the other day with a cut on his face.’ Gabriela tapped her eyebrow. ‘Just here. So I asked him what happened and he said “Ma”. That means mother, right? His mother?’

We waited to see if Ali would show up. I tried him a few times on his mobile, but the lines were down.

‘Isn’t there someone we can call, the police maybe?’ Gabriela asked.

‘There are so many stray children,’ I said, repeating something I had heard my mother say many times.

‘I want to check the dormitory,’ Gabriela said. ‘Come with me or I won’t be able to talk to anyone.’