The Good Muslim Part 10

*No.'

She wasn't sure if he was telling the truth. *Bring down your clothes,' she said. *Sufia will wash them.'

He nodded.

*And what about ABC, do you remember any of it? A for?'

The blood rushed to his cheeks. *Apple,' he said, unrolling his sleeves and shaking out his legs. *I have to go.'

*Don't you want to say goodbye to Dadu? She's going to the hospital.'

His eyes widened. *Is she going to be dead?'

*No, she's not. But she'll be gone for a few days, so come and say goodbye.'

In the garden, Sufia was serving tea to Mrs Rahman. Surjo was darting out from behind the mango tree, balling his hands together and pointing at his grandmother. *Dishoom Dishoom!'

Mrs Rahman feigned mortal injury.

Zaid's palm grew damp in Maya's. *Who's that?'

*Mrs Rahman's grandson. Do you want to play with him?'

*No.'

*Don't worry, he's much smaller than you.'

*I don't want to.' He made to turn around, but Mrs Rahman had already spotted him. *Is that Sohail's boy?'

*Yes,' Rehana replied, quickly scanning Zaid. At least his clothes weren't torn.

*Come here,' Mrs Rahman called, and when she saw him hesitating, holding Maya's hand in front of his face, she said, *I'll give you a Mimi a come here.'

Zaid stopped for a moment, then inched closer, releasing Maya's hand.

*Come here.' Rehana had given her friend a few sketchy details about Sohail, but Mrs Rahman couldn't stop the shock from pa.s.sing briefly across her face. Zaid was holding out his hand now, and Mrs Rahman was stroking his capped head. She fumbled in her bag for the promised Mimi chocolate.

*That's mine!' The grandson crawled, commando-style, towards them.

*Hold on, darling boy, I think there's enough for both of you.' She brandished the small bar of chocolate with the photograph of an orange on its wrapper, breaking it in two and offering half to each.

*It's mine.' Surjo stood up and grabbed both halves, stuffing one aggressively into his mouth.

*Be a good boy now,' she said. *Don't you want to share? No? I'll buy you another one on the way home. I'll buy you two. Now give the chocolate to the little boy. There's a jaanoo. Yes, what a little angel you are.'

Surjo pa.s.sed the half-bar of chocolate to Zaid, smearing it against his palm. Zaid gazed at it for a moment as it softened against his hand. Then he turned around, holding the chocolate as far from his body as he could, and walked slowly, one foot in front of the other.

*Khoda Hafez,' Rehana called out. *I shall see you again very soon.' Zaid turned his head towards her and nodded once, then continued his slow tread until he reached the edge of the lawn, where he stopped, raised his hand to his mouth and lapped delicately at the treasure on his palm.

The copy of Rise Bangladesh! came through the gate and landed on the porch. Shafaat had published her article on the third page, next to a long essay about the militaryaindustrial complex, and opposite an advertis.e.m.e.nt celebrating the anniversary of the socialist revolution in Bulgaria. *Confessions of a Country Doctor', by S. M. Haque. She had thought of choosing a more glamorous penname, but nothing had sprung to mind. Already the time before Ammoo's illness seemed a long way away. She had started with n.a.z.ia's story; now she wondered where to go next. Being here in Dhaka, living in the bungalow, had breached levees she had carefully constructed of what she remembered about the past, about her brother, the war. She remembered the meeting with Jahanara Imam, the way she had stormed out. And why. And the projector in the garden shed. I once knew a girl called Piya.

Zaid had given her lice. In the hospital, Rehana parted Maya's hair into sections, seaming each one with kerosene, mining her scalp for the white lice eggs.

*Ammoo, stop now, I can get Sufia to do it later. You need to get ready for the surgery.'

Sufia was sobbing heavily in the corner. *What will I do if you die?' she wailed in Rehana's direction. *Who will look after me?'

Behind her back, Maya could feel her mother sighing. *I won't be dead for a long time. You'll be dead before me, I'm sure.' Having oiled and thoroughly picked through Maya's hair, she began to run a thin-toothed comb through it.

*This one', Sufia said, pointing at Maya, *doesn't even like me. She'd have me on the street in half a second.'

*She only looks mean,' Rehana said, combing Maya's hair into a towel. *Inside she's as soft as rice pudding. Maya, you have an infestation. Look.'

Maya turned around and saw a smattering of little black insects nestled on the towel. Ammoo began squeezing each one between her thumbnails.

*Disgusting,' Maya said. *I can't believe they grew so fast.'

*It's because you didn't take care of it straight away.'

*That kid. I'm going to thrash him.'

Rehana reached over, pulled Maya's face into her hands. *Don't ever say that,' she said, *don't say it. Ever.'

*I'm sorry, Ma, I just a sometimes I just don't know what to do with him.' That morning she had made him promise to practise his lessons, but he had insisted she take him to the graveyard, so he could ask his mother again about the bicycle. And he had irritated her on the way back, demanding to go to school, a proper school. But don't you like Maya-school? she teased, and he shook his head. It's no good, he said. No good.

*She hasn't said a word to me since she arrived,' Sufia said, blowing her nose.

Rehana had finished combing and braiding Maya's hair. *It's a routine operation,' Maya said, standing up and straightening her kameez. *She'll be fine.'

*Maya, I don't think she knows what a routine operation is.'

*Oh, for G.o.d's sake,' Maya said. She stepped out of the room and paced the corridor until she found what she was looking for: a medical student. *Excuse me,' she said, *may I borrow that?' And she pulled the stethoscope from around his neck before he could protest. *I'll give it back,' she said, returning to Ammoo's bedside. *Sufia, come over here.'

Sufia approached tentatively. Maya put the chestpiece of the stethoscope on Ammoo and let Sufia listen. *You hear this? It's her heart.'

Sufia's eyes widened. *Strong.'

*Strong as an ox,' Rehana said; *they can't kill me.'

*The surgery will take two, three hours at the most,' Maya said, repeating the sentences she'd been telling herself over and over again. *Dr Sattar is one of the best surgeons in the country.'

Rehana put her hand, IV-threaded, on her hand. *Say Aytul Kursi with me.'

Maya turned away from her, facing the doorway of the cubicle; the thin curtains parted to reveal the scene in the corridor, the nurses walking purposefully, holding metal kidney dishes, bags of blood and saline. She was suddenly afraid for her mother, and the feeling she'd had under the jackfruit tree in Rajshahi came flooding back to her a all the things that could go wrong, and the nagging sense that it was all her fault, that the tumour had somehow grown out of her mother's loneliness. She wanted to ask Ammoo to cancel the surgery, postpone it to another day, perhaps till winter, when it was cooler and the electricity was less likely to go out; or perhaps until there was a better doctor, a younger man who had just returned from foreign with new techniques, advanced anaesthesiology. And Sufia was right: if her mother died, she could never be the one to replace her a the bougainvillea would die and the fruit would fall from the guava tree, unpicked. And Ammoo was the only person left in the world who still loved her.

All Ammoo wanted was a prayer. Surely she could give her that. She tried to unlock the words, but they were buried deep, and knotted among all the other things. The disappointments, the heartache, the state of the country and the Dictator who said Allah between every other word a all latched on to those words, that Book. Don't worry, she wanted to tell her mother, we don't need Aytul Kursi. We have science. But she couldn't help but remember that every death she had ever witnessed a on the battlefield, at the field hospital, in the wards a had been accompanied by the sound of prayer, the same words embroidering every parting of flesh and spirit.

Dr Sattar pulled the curtain aside and stepped in. A clutch of medical students followed, crowding into the s.p.a.ce. *Is my patient ready?' He picked up the chart at the foot of the bed.

Rehana waved at him, as if from a great distance. *Dakhtar, you needn't have come yourself.'

Dr Sattar surprised Maya by smiling. *Nonsense. We take good care of our own, don't we, Dr Haque?'

*Yes, sir,' she replied.

He ordered the students to check Rehana's blood pressure and adjust her IV. They shuffled nervously around him. *Your brother is waiting outside,' one of them said.

*Brother?' Maya and Rehana spoke in unison. For a moment Maya thought it might be a distant cousin of her mother's, here from Karachi after receiving the telegram she had sent their relatives about the surgery. Then she knew it must be Sohail.

*Ma,' she said, *I'll just be back. The nurse will be here if you need anything.'

Sohail was leaning against the balcony railing, his eyes on the mosaic tiling below. The sky was darkening overhead, purple and grey, the air quiet, everything hovering in that moment before the afternoon rain.

*How is Ammoo?' he asked.

*She's fine. You should go in and see her.' Our mother might die and we might be orphans and I might be your last remaining kin. Was he thinking the same thing?

*The surgeon-'

*He's very experienced, don't worry. She'll be all right.' Or she won't. Was he persuaded by the tone she tried to bring to her voice, the doctor's certainty?

He nodded. *Inshallah.'

*And you, are you well?' She looked him up and down, her eye lingering on the bruise that blossomed on his forehead, pearly and blue-black, from his daily submission to the prayer mat.

*I am well, by the Grace of Allah.' It started to rain, that slanted, sideways rain that reminded Maya of childhood, the smell of wet cement, the two of them rushing to close the windows before the mattresses were soaked. Sohail did not retreat from the edge of the railing, Maya too remained beside him, and now they were both being pelted with rain. His beard took on the sheen of water. He straightened, fixed his gaze on her. Was it tenderness she saw? She struggled to keep her eyes open against the torrent. It would be too much, she wanted him to say, too much to lose our mother now. But instead he said, *Zaid tells me you're teaching him the English letters.'

*Yes. Soon he'll be reading Middlemarch.'

He laughed. She laughed. The rain stopped as suddenly as it began. She wanted to hug him, and she did, and he returned her embrace, squeezing his arms around her. Rain mixed with tears, salty and warm.

*Nothing bad will happen, Bhaiya,' she said.

*Sister Khadija told me you taught Zaid to play cards.'

*Yes,' she said, *he's a shark.'

*Sister Khadija is dismayed. Gambling is not allowed.'

Maya stepped back, the shock of his words dipping slowly, painfully into her. *But it's just a game. Ammoo plays too.'

*You know the difference between Halal and Haram. If you don't, then perhaps Sister Khadija should take over Zaid's education.'

That's not what she had meant. She felt desperation spreading through her. *Please, no.'

He put his hand on her shoulder, as though she would have trouble understanding otherwise. *The boy misses his mother, I know that. I should give him more time, but . . .'

She tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. *Your duties?'

He looked wounded, his gaze pointing beyond her, to the small patches of sunshine now visible through the clouds. *A boy needs to find his way in the world.'

She wasn't sure what he meant, but she wanted to agree with him, to tell him it was all right, that he was doing his best. It couldn't be easy, raising a son. He was laying down the law, she could see that, but he made it appear as if he had no choice, as though there were something natural about the rule he was imposing. She struggled with herself, knowing that if she pushed too hard he might abandon her entirely, that perhaps he was giving her this chance simply because his wife was not here to admonish him, dead before she could pour that last drop of venom into his ear and make him deaf to her for ever. Maya tried to be grateful for this.

*Go in and see Ammoo a she's expecting you.' And she turned around and made her way down the stairs and towards the operating theatre, drying her hair with the end of her sari, the rain still heavy on her cheek.

1972.

May.

Sohail finds, in the spring after he has returned from the war, that his hands will not stop shaking. He holds his hands to his chest. He wraps them around the teapot. He stands on the threshold of his mother's room. Ma, he wants to say, my hands will not stop shaking. Will you say a prayer and blow on them? Will you twine your fingers through mine and bind them to yours? But he stops. He isn't a child any more; he's a man, a soldier back from the war. He asks himself if he can be right again, if he can be good. After Piya, after the killing.

This is how the war made its way into their house. Sohail, spilling water from his gla.s.s, flicking dal over the side of his plate. A vanishing woman. A shake of the hand. A silence between siblings.

He had killed an innocent man. The man was not an enemy, not a soldier. Just someone who had let the wrong word come out of his mouth. There is only one way to be good now. The Book has told him he is good, that it is in his nature to be good. The words have been reclaimed and he swells up with love for the Book. Weeks after Piya has disappeared a leaving only the faint trace of her scent, which he tries to pick up in the kitchen where she had squatted, or the rectangle on the floor where she had spread her sleeping mat a he finds himself climbing the ladder up to the roof and sitting cross-legged under the open sun. It is May, a windless, rainless month, heat tearing through the sky. He sits and reads the words. His mother has given him the Book and he reads the words, refusing to see his friends or celebrate the victory. Dimly, he hears them: time to go back to the university; stop worrying your mother, na, and be happy, yaar, war is over. Time to sell-e-brate.

Most of all he is afraid to talk. Maya is always regarding him hungrily, eager for small sc.r.a.ps of detail. Yesterday he told her about the food at the guerrilla camp, how it had danced on his tongue though it was only a few spoonfuls of rice and dal. Freedom food. She devoured the story, begged him for more. How greedy she is. He wants her to be quiet so she can hear the roar in his head, thinking that if she could hear that roar, the roar of uncertainty and the roar of death, she might understand. But she refuses to be quiet for long enough. She searches his face and then she launches into her latest story, telling him who has returned from the war, who has lost a son, a brother. Worse things have happened to other people.

I have committed murder. If he were to tell his sister about the war, this is what he would have to tell her. She wants stories of heroism. She wants him to tell her that he planted bombs under country bridges and that he got away just before the flame hit the powder, and that the felled bridge cut off the army, and the people of north Tangail or Kushtia or Bogra were saved.

But he has no story of this kind. She grows angrier and angrier at his silence, and even after his mother has given in to the mornings on the roof, Maya continues to follow him with her eyes, reproach him with a stony silence. Silence for silence. When he asks her about her work at the Women's Rehabilitation Centre, she snaps, what, you don't think women are victims of the war too?

He thinks of all the people who have died a the enemy combatants, and the people he didn't save, and his friend Aref, and all the boys who went to war and were killed. Every day he thinks of them. How very selfish of her to want a piece of that.

Ammoo is not greedy, but she has been worried about him, climbs halfway up the ladder and calls out, it's very hot, Sohail, won't you come down and have something to drink?

On the roof he has a.s.sembled a number of things. There is a comb that used to belong to Piya, a shirt that belonged to his friend Aref, killed last summer by the army. And a photograph of his father, taken in front of the Vauxhall. Not handsome a his father had not been handsome a but looking confidently ahead, living the life that was intended for him. And Ammoo's Book.

There has come to you from G.o.d a light and a Book most lucid.

With it, G.o.d guides him who conforms to his good pleasure to the paths of tranquillity; He shall lead them from the fields of darkness to the light, by his leave, And he shall guide them to a straight path.

The book believes he is good. He begins to read.

He comes to Maya one day and tries to tell her. He says it is the greatest thing that has ever happened to him. He has found something, something that explains everything. Does she want to know what it is? Isn't she curious? He is pale and the skin is stretched tight over his face, and she sees that death hovers inside him, the death to which he had come so close in the war, he and death in a tight corridor. Now it is like a bruise that won't heal, and he is pressing his face close to hers, and she sees that whatever it is that he is telling her about is what stops the bruise from spreading from his cheek to his bones and from his bones to his blood. It is a dam, like the one they are building in Rangamati that will hold its water like a giant cupped hand and power the fields; it holds him together, it lights him up.

At that moment Maya makes a decision, one that she will come to regret many times in the years that follow. She sees in his bright, water-lined eyes that he is telling the truth. She sees that he fell into the abyss and that this Book is what brought him to the surface and allowed him to breathe. She sees too, in herself, the need for such a rescue, such a buoy, such a truth. But because it has suddenly become clear to her that religion, its open fragrance and cloudless stretches of infinity, may in fact be what he is claiming it is, an essential human need, hers as much as his, and because she feels the twinge of his yearning, turning like a leaf in her heart, she decides, at that moment, that it cannot be. She will not become one of those people who buckle under the force of a great event and allow it to change the metre of who they are.