A Golden Age (37 page)

‘Maya?’

‘One chini. No dood.’

‘Hai Allah!’ Mrs Chowdhury groaned, heaving herself back- wards and piling her feet on an ottoman. ‘We tried our best. In the beginning the boy just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. He hardly spoke. And his fingers!’ She bit her tongue. ‘His fingers turned blue, and then his whole hand. Doctor said it was gan- grene – they had to go. Both hands. Imagine, a young boy like that.’ She held up her own thick fingers.

Silvi was passing the tea around steadily.

‘And then one day – one night, he came out of the bed and sat here, in the drawing room, and he smiled – so beautifully, na, Silvi? As though he was looking into God’s own eyes.’ She pointed to the sofa where Maya was sitting. ‘And he was gone.’

Rehana felt her stomach lurch, as Maya, shifting with a teacup in her hand, said, ‘Did you ever find out what happened? How he was captured?’ She directed her question at Silvi.

Silvi was unscrewing the Horlicks jar and arranging the nimki on a plate. She pursed her lips together and appeared not to hear the question.

‘Silvi, do you know what happened?’ Maya repeated, a little louder. Without a word, Silvi passed the plate of nimki to her mother. ‘Did you even bother to ask?’ Maya said.

‘These are unspeakable things,’ Mrs Chowdhury began. ‘Things which need to be known.’ Maya slammed her cup

down with a porcelain clatter. ‘Silvi, your husband was a hero.’ ‘That was his business,’ Silvi said finally, ‘nothing to do with

me.’

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‘But it’s your country!’

‘Not everyone believes what you believe,’ Silvi said simply. ‘You don’t believe in Bangladesh?’ The name of the country,

still a new word, fell out of Maya’s mouth like a jewel.

Silvi was still crouching next to the tray. Now she lifted it and slid smoothly out of the room.

‘I don’t know what’s become of her,’ Mrs Chowdhury sighed. ‘You have to do something,’ Maya said; ‘she sounds so

strange.’

Rehana found herself agreeing with her daughter for once, and feeling a stab of envy at how easily Maya could speak her mind.

‘Your problem,’ Silvi said, returning with a plate for the shon- desh, ‘is that you can’t tolerate a difference of opinion. I happen to think this war – all this fighting – is a pointless waste of human life.’

‘When the army came and massacred us and drove us out of the country, we should have rolled over?’

‘They were restoring order,’ Silvi said, tugging at the knot under her chin. ‘Making things safe.’

‘Have you been anywhere beyond your drawing room lately? People are being massacred . . .’ Maya’s hands were in the air, the breath whistling out of her mouth.

‘Pakistan should stay together,’ Silvi said, as though reciting from a textbook. ‘That’s why it was conceived. To keep the Ummah united. To separate the wings is a sin against your reli- gion.’

‘The sin is being committed against us – look outside your window!’

‘I’m not ignorant, Maya. Sometimes you have to make sacri- fices. And I’m not the only person—’

‘You and the army, thinking alike. What a relief!’ Maya’s voice was beginning to crack.

Her hysteria appeared to have a calming effect on Silvi. Mrs Chowdhury had given up and was leaning her head against her chair, looking at the ceiling like a martyr.

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‘I want to believe in something greater than myself,’ Silvi said serenely.

‘So do I,’ Maya spat. ‘Ammoo, please let’s go.’ She tugged at Rehana’s elbow.

‘Silvi,’ Rehana said as she turned to the door, ‘the important thing is for you to look after your mother and for all of us to survive the war.’

‘Ji, khala-moni, thank you.’ She relaxed her forehead and her eyebrows separated, revealing her old, reverent face.

Sohail was waiting for them at the bungalow.

‘I can’t believe – I’ve known her my whole life!’ Maya was shouting at the walls, ignoring her brother.

‘She’s shocked – her husband dying like that.’

‘What’s going on?’ Sohail asked, moving his eyes from mother to sister.

‘But how?’ Maya’s cheeks were wet, and she was swallowing large gulps of air. ‘How could this happen?’

‘You want so badly for everyone to believe.’

‘Of course I do.’ Maya rubbed her nose violently against the sleeve of her blouse. She looked angrily at Sohail and bolted out of the room.

‘She’s upset,’ Rehana said slowly, ‘because Silvi wouldn’t—’

‘Wouldn’t what?’

‘She wouldn’t acknowledge the war in any way, beta.’ ‘What do you mean?’

‘She doesn’t think we’re doing the right thing.’ ‘That can’t be true. You must have misunderstood.’

‘She said she thought it was a sin, the country splitting.’ Rehana put a hand against Sohail’s back, where his shoulder blades were stretched apart.

‘Someone must have done this to her. A bad influence.’ ‘Doesn’t matter how. She’s turned against it, for whatever

reason.’

‘Religion?’

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‘Maybe,’ Rehana said, trying not to put the blame on God, ‘but she’s so young, who can know why?’

Maya came back into the room. She had tried to compose herself, and failed. Her face was wet and her lips a dark, angry bruise.

‘So you heard what happened?’ she said to Sohail. He nodded silently, his eyes avoiding hers.

‘It’s a disgrace,’ she continued, brushing away the tears with the back of her hand.

Sohail pressed his palms against his face. ‘Are you still in love with her?’

‘Maya—’ Rehana warned.

‘You’re still in love with her. You’re bloody still in love with her!’

‘No,’ Sohail said, shaking his head weakly, ‘of course not.’ ‘Look,’ Maya said in a thick, fierce voice, ‘this is the moment

when you decide what is more important to you. Understand? This moment, right now. That girl is over there with her stupid, twisted politics and she’s not even thinking about you, and you’ve risked everything – everything – to get her. Now you let her go, bhaiya, please, I’m begging you, for all of us, let her go.’

‘Don’t question my loyalty,’ Sohail whispered.

‘I’m not questioning your loyalty, I’m questioning your judge- ment.’

He moved his hands away from his face, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to get into a fight with her, shout things about devotion and love and the country, but instead he strode over to her and put his arms around her. ‘You’re right,’ he said, his shoulders shaking, ‘you’re right.’

It was getting late. Sohail was waiting for Joy at Shona; they were going to dig up the guns. ‘We have to make Sehri,’ Rehana said to Maya. ‘What do you want to eat?’

‘I don’t know.’ The tears were still falling heavily on to Maya’s cheeks. ‘Do we have to fast?’

‘Of course we do. Tomorrow of all days.’

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For once Maya didn’t argue. She took the glass of water Rehana offered. ‘I want dalpuri,’ she said with a sniff.

‘Good idea. I’ll put the dal on.’

Maya brought the glass to her lips. As she began to drink, a fresh wave of tears overcame her.

‘Maya,’ Rehana said, chiding her, ‘we have more important things to worry about today.’

‘I know, I’m sorry – I just can’t help it.’ She blew her nose thun- derously. ‘It’s just that it wounds me’ – she prodded herself with a finger – ‘here.’

‘The boys will be here in a few hours.’

Rehana parted the curtains and watched from the drawing-room window.

Joy and Sohail filed in through the back gate and circled the rosebush. It was hard to see through the moonless black. She rec- ognized Joy’s bulk, and beside him was Sohail, slighter, carrying a shovel and a hurricane lamp. She allowed herself only a brief moment of disappointment. There was no reason to expect the Major.

Joy lit the lamp, and Sohail began to dig. After a few minutes they exchanged places, Sohail holding the weak light while Joy squatted down and pulled at the earth, the silt piling up beside them. Finally they paused, and Joy leaned over the hole they had dug. He shifted, laying flat on his stomach, and started to tug at something. Rehana could barely make out his face, twisting with the effort.

Just as Joy had pulled the object – a rectangular wooden box, discoloured by its long burial – they heard a scattered, staccato drumroll. Gunfire. The sound grew suddenly, filling the air. The boys crouched on the ground, dipping their heads. It was Joy who raised the box above his shoulders and stood upright and scurried out of the garden. He slipped behind the mango tree and waited for Sohail, who was shimmying towards him on his elbows. They became shadows, rustling through the branches of the tree. And then they were gone.

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Rehana became aware of her heart pounding against her chest, and her breath making circles that grew and retreated on the closed window.

The drumming grew louder and Rehana froze, fixed in her place facing the empty garden, the hole they had left like a shout under the rosebush.

‘Ammoo?’ Maya came into the room, her hands white with flour. ‘What’s going on?’

They moved to the other side of the room, where the windows faced the road. Rehana parted the curtain in time to see a convoy of trucks hurtling down their street. A pillar of soldiers in green stood on the back of a truck, waving their guns in the air. Passing through the street they shouted, ‘Pakistan Zindabad! Pakistan Zindabad!’ As the last truck ambled away, one of the soldiers, a young boy with a thick mop of raven hair, pointed his gun at the bungalow. I could kill you right now, his face said.

Rehana snapped her head back and yanked the curtain closed. ‘Did you see that?’

Maya circled an arm around Rehana’s shoulder. ‘It’s just a show of force, Ma. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘But why here? It’s just a small road. That shipahi was point- ing right at us.’

‘They’re getting hints India’s going to come down on our side.

And then it’ll be over.’

They had started saying things like ‘when the war is over’. Rehana thought it was too soon, but people, especially the young ones, were confident the freedom fighters would save them. A rescue by the world. It had to end soon.
I can taste the end
, Sohail had said, and Rehana had thought of it as the kind of thing a child says to his mother when the lines between them become blurry and he no longer wants to be the child, and she no longer the mother. She had relaxed into the phrase, and his cool hand on her forehead. But she hadn’t believed him.

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Without the diversion of meals, Friday spooled out slowly ahead of them. There were still things to be done. Pretend it’s any other day. Do the washing. The preparations for Sehri, for Iftar. Air out the house. Collect water from the taps. Boil it for drinking. Drag down the cobwebs.

All day she ignored the cold fear at her back. Sohail left in the afternoon, his face unmoved as she kissed his forehead and said Aytul Kursi and blew the blessing on his eyes. The fear breathed on her neck and sent the hair upright, electric. It caught her in the double-beat of her heart, the pulse she could feel at her temple, the tremor of her hand as she fried the Iftar food. Beguni, the crunchy strips of eggplant. Chickpeas and tomatoes. The dalpuri Maya had rolled out and stuffed. Orange juice. Tamarind juice. Lassi. It was not elaborate enough for a special occasion, not simple enough to indicate want. A meal for an ordinary day. A meal for a day without war.

Rehana brought the food to the table. They ate in silence, their fingers working the pooris with small wet slaps.