The Good Muslim Part 21

She folded and unfolded and refolded Sohail's prayer cap. *I didn't tell you. You thought I was just helping the sick ones but we had a whole clinic at the back, where the women came to get rid of the babies. You remember what Sheikh Mujib said? That he didn't want those b.a.s.t.a.r.d children in our country. But some of them a it was hard, you know, I didn't think so much about it at the time a they wanted to get rid of them, but when it came time to do it they would cry. And then they would wake up and ask us to put the babies back. One day, Piya came to the clinic. She asked to see me a Ammoo didn't know, she came straight to the ward. And she asked for a checkup. She was pregnant, Bhaiya, did you know?'

She couldn't look at him. She said to herself, look at him when you tell him. But she couldn't, she couldn't look at him. She looked at the books instead. Her eye fell on Brideshead Revisited. To Waugh, she said, *She was early, you could hardly see. It must have happened towards the end of the war.

*She wanted an abortion. Right now, she said. Do it right now. I was busy, I had ten other patients that morning, but I told her to wait, I said I would do it. Today, she said, it has to be today or I won't be able to. I'll tell him, she said. I didn't understand what she meant, but I talked to the in-charge doctor and made the appointment. But by the time I came to her, she was nervous. I'm not sure, she said. She asked for you, she said please call Sohail Bhai. But you were in the cantonment that day, remember, you'd gone to quit the army. There were formalities, you were away all day. I thought she was scared, just scared like the others. I thought about bringing her home but I remembered what she said, that it had to be that day or she would lose her nerve. I knew what to do; I did it all the time, persuading the girls they were doing the right thing, for their families, for the country. If you have the operation you can go home, I said to her, your family will take you back. You are a Birangona, I told her, a war hero-'

The words came rushing back to Maya, the words she had been taught.

*Defiled by the enemy. The child in your womb is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child, a vial of poison. You must not allow it to come into this world. You must not give it the milk of your breast. What has been done can be undone. You must not live with it for the rest of your life. You must not mother this child. Do not think of it as your child, it is the seed of your enemy, I told her. Finally, she agreed.'

Sohail was sweating, thin lines of water bisecting his face. He didn't move to wipe it away. Now he remembered the day he had found her in that prison, how he had carried her out of there, the short stubble of her hair rubbing coa.r.s.ely against his collarbone. *Take me home,' she said, *I want to go home, take me home.'

They were in a small bamboo grove, as far from the barracks as he could carry her. But the land was flat, and every time the building caught her eye she howled, so he propped her against a tree with her back to the prison. He sat in her line of vision, where the sun struck her face, casting a long, elegant shadow across her. *My village is east,' she said.

They had brought her there in a jeep. *There was another girl, but she died.'

She told him the name of her village. Dhanikhola. Will you take me? The war is over, he told her. They would walk. At every village they were greeted with tired cheers and the small sc.r.a.ps of the harvest that were leftover from the war. Village after village, Pahara, Mormora, Lalkhet. Every mother wanted him to be her son, returning tired and whole with a woman in his arms.

She was eighteen. *My sister is the same age,' he said.

*You have a sister?'

*Yes, Maya. She went to work at the refugee camps across the border.'

*All by herself?'

*She's a very spirited girl.'

Piya had wide-apart eyes and a raw, aching quality to her voice. On the third day she waded into a village pond. He watched, worried she would stray too far. The sun struck the back of her, catching her hands as they moved across the water, propelling her forward. When she was neck-deep, she dipped her head under. Her sari floated to the top, flowering. And when she came up again, she was different, as though she had gone under and told all the bones of her to put themselves back in order. That was how she emerged: neat, organised. Wide apart eyes and a bruise in her voice. He asked if she would ever come to Dhaka, if she would visit. They were close now, only a few miles away.

They came to the edge of the village, and it was exactly as she had described it: a patch of trees casting a pale green tinge on neat houses of mud and straw. Round cakes of dung scalloped on to the outside walls, palm-printed by those who had collected it. A pond. Everything hushed, the fog hanging low and swallowing the cries of the koel, the ripple of water.

He wrote his address on a sc.r.a.p of paper, knowing she couldn't read, knowing every part of her would be examined, explored. She would toss it into the fire. She would never come.

He put his hand to his forehead and said goodbye. Formal. It was Piya who stepped close, who put her palm, scented with water, on his cheek. She who raised her face, kissed him lightly on the mouth, her lip rough and small, like the husk on a grain of rice.

She had learned a few words of English. See you again, she said, expanding the distance between them with her choppy, awkward syllables.

And she did come. She came and they spent their hours in the garden, talking about everything and nothing. The memory of war began to fade. Until that night a now he knows it was after Piya had gone to see Maya in the hospital, but at the time it was just another day. He had gone to the cantonment to surrender his gun. In the last few weeks of the fighting they had given him a uniform, with a green-and-red badge sewn on the sleeve. At the cantonment he saw the other boys in his regiment, Farouq and Shameek and Kona, all of them signing up to remain in the army. They told him it was no surprise that he was quitting; they had never taken him for a company man. Without a cause to fight for, he didn't belong. He had listened to the official speech and been discharged, without dishonour, from the Bangladesh Army. And he had returned still dressed in his uniform. He could give it back later, they said.

It was late and the house was quiet, everyone asleep, or so he had thought until he caught a glimpse of Piya in the garden. He could barely see in the dark, but it was unmistakably her, the straightness of her back just as it was when she had emerged from the village pond.

*Marry me,' he said, whispering into the dark.

She turned around, her gaze drifting to the other side of the wall. *Who lives there?' she asked, pointing to the two-storey house.

*No one. We have to find new tenants.'

*It belongs to you?'

*Ammoo built it. We lived off the rent after my father died.'

*It's very big.'

*Two storeys.'

*Have you been inside?'

*Yes. Do you want to go?' He unlatched the small gate built into the wall.

She was sure-footed, even in the weak light of the half-moon, slipping through the gate and on to the lawn on the other side. She climbed the three short steps and waited for him in front of the large dark double-doors.

*It's locked,' she said.

*Yes, of course. I forgot. I'm sorry I don't have the key.'

She cupped her hands against a window, peered inside.

*Piya,' he said, *there's something I have to tell you.'

*Me too.'

*I want to get married.' He tried to see her, but the light was too weak. *I want us to get married a what do you think?'

*If that is what you wish,' she replied, sitting on the top step.

*Is that what you want?'

*What will everyone say?'

*Who cares?'

*They'll say I did it to get your things, this house.'

*It doesn't matter. You love me, don't you?'

She didn't say anything, only sat perfectly still, caught in the yellow tinge of moonlight. *If you want, I will be your wife. But I am not a good woman.'

*What happened to you a it's not your fault.'

*I'm very tired,' she said.

He sat down beside her. Laced his fingers through hers. *It's all right, I'm tired too. I don't care about anything, what anyone says. Do you understand? I'm tired too, I'm so tired. I want to lie with my head in your lap a forgive me a I want to kiss you again. I want to forget everything that happened before. I want our children to live in the country, free children in a free country. But you decide. Don't choose me because you're here, because you can't go home. Choose me if you love me a do you understand? That's what I believe. You have to love me.'

Her grip tightened, and then, abruptly, she let go and sprang up, light on the gra.s.s, like a girl who had grown up without shoes. She disappeared across the lawn.

Buoyant, he imagined it was a skip of joy, that flight across the lawn, but it was the lightning speed of departure, a farewell without ceremony.

By the morning she was gone. Her small bundle of clothes, her plastic comb, the stick of neem she used to clean her teeth. Her extra sari, drying that morning on the washing line.

He set out to look for her. He didn't mean to, but he found himself travelling all the way back to her village, taking a bus to Mymensingh, a rickshaw the rest of the way. We never saw her again, an old woman said, spitting betel from the side of her mouth. The village was no longer beautiful, the houses ragged and dusty in the rising heat. He returned to the city and walked aimlessly from street to street, asking strangers if they had seen a young brown-eyed girl, walking alone. All the walking-alone girls had brown eyes. What was her father's name? A girl had drowned herself in Dhanmondi Lake. It could have been her. He arrived too late at the morgue; someone had already claimed the body. She was on a bus bound for the border. Or she had boarded one of the planes taking the Pakistan Army back to Islamabad. There were women on that plane? Our women? Yes, there were women. They had been promised marriage. She could have gone with them.

*Bhaiya,' Maya said softly, *it was your child?'

He sprang up, knocking over an open crate. *You can ask me this, after everything?'

*It's all right.'

*I didn't touch her, you understand? I wouldn't touch her. Not after what happened to her.' He was shaking now, his arms hanging limp at his sides. *You gave her the operation, without asking any of us, me or Ammoo?'

*But I didn't do it, Bhaiya. I didn't do it a she changed her mind.'

He started to cry. She could see his eyes welling up and he turned his face away from her.

*You thought I was enjoying the days after liberation. But they were blood-soaked, Bhaiya, for everyone.'

He shook his hands at her, as if they were wet. *But I killed, Maya. I killed.'

Of course she misunderstood. *It's all right, Bhaiya, it was the right thing to do. It was a just war, a right war. For us, for our freedom.'

He shook his head. *I didn't mean to. I was so angry.'

*If they had let me fight, I would have shot them in the knees and let them die slowly.'

*He was innocent.'

None of them were innocent. She told him that.

*You want to talk about saving a Silvi saved me. You were too busy killing those children.'

So he had chosen. His wife, a future without books. The thought unleashed a fury in Maya, a tight, searing fury. *You put those books in crates, I'm going to take them out and lay them open for you. Every book you put away I will unpack and leave at your doorstep. I'll read them aloud. Remember when Ammoo used to read the Qur'an to you? I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to keep bringing the books back until you can't ignore them any more.'

His hand was dipped inside a crate. Slowly, he straightened. *I'll have to find something else to do with them,' he said softly.

He'll give them away, she thought. He'll give them all away. d.a.m.n it. She slipped out of the room then, without a word, stalked through the garden, loosening her braid and running her fingers roughly through the tangle of her hair. Do something, she told herself. Do something. Your brother is turning, turning. Soon you won't recognise him. He had been her oldest friend, all the things a brother should be: protective, bullying, pushing her to be better. He knew all her frailties, knew she tended towards the hysterical, the dogmatic. That she was angry most of the time. He pushed her against herself. She needed him. It was selfish, but she needed him. No, it was not selfish. They all needed him. He was the lighthouse. The country needed him. Sheikh Mujib had said so himself. Oh, G.o.d, Mujib was dead. Sohail could not be gone too, it would be too much. The world would collapse. What could she do? Silvi was in command now, Silvi, whose thin lips and foreign eyes had turned a wounded man into a prophet.

She thought of all the things he liked to do. Before the war, before Piya and Silvi. Cricket on the shortwave. Mangoes and ice cream. Dante and Ibsen. Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. Her voice on the harmonium. Her voice. When was the last time he had heard her sing? She could sing to him. She could play the harmonium and open her voice. She had sometimes watched people's eyes widen when she sounded her first note, and afterwards, even if they knew her, she would see that a new formality had opened up between them, because her voice would have altered her in their eyes. Such tenderness out of such a hard girl. Small woman, big voice.

Silvi could go to h.e.l.l. She would sing. She pulled her harmonium out of its case. It had been a long time since she'd pushed open the bellows at the back of the instrument, since the war, probably.

She was at war now. War with Silvi. She had the books on her side, and the harmonium, and Tagore, and she would fight. Already she felt flush with victory, her hand in a fist, pacing the garden and punching the air. She couldn't rely on her friends any more, not after Sohail had converted Kona on the spot. Weak souls! She would have to do it herself. Sohail was still in his bedroom, probably wondering what to do with his books. This would be the perfect time to strike. She dusted off the top of the harmonium. Laid out a jute pati in the garden. She would do it right there. Ammoo would come home to find her singing in the garden and she would agree that they had to use all the weapons in their a.r.s.enal to battle Silvi. They would fight fervour with fervour. The sun was beginning to go down for the night, the evening sounds taking over the daytime ones. Crickets, mosquitoes. She already had a few bites on her arm. She didn't care. She lit a mosquito coil. All right, here we are. She started with one of Sohail's favourites, *Ekla Chalo Re'. *Jodi tor daak shune keu na, tobe chalo re.'

She faltered with the harmonium a bit at first, her fingers getting tangled in the keys, but she soon caught up with herself, pumping the bellows with her left hand, pushing the keys down with her other. Tagore, just the man for the job.

The song ended. She heard the swish of a takoo lizard, its low staccato call. Should she have brought a lamp? Keep singing. A revolutionary song, *Amar protibader bhasha, amar protirodher agun.' This one was getting her blood pumping. Her fingers moved and twisted and battered the keys. Sohail had loved this song. It would bring it all back for him. She kept an eye on his door, but it never stirred, not for the whole length of the song. A poem, then. She recited as much as she knew of Nazrul's *Bidrohi', keeping the tempo with three fingers on the harmonium. When she faltered on the second stanza, she imagined he would burst out of his room and finish the line for her. Still nothing. She switched to the tenderest Tagore song she knew, *Anondo Dhara'. Stream of Joy. She heard something. The creak of his door. A column of light, his shadow encased within it.

He was coming out. Her voice soared in antic.i.p.ation. Something in his arms, it was too dark to make out. Just close your eyes and keep singing. *Anondo dhara bohichey bhuboney.' Out he came, walking through the hallway and into the driveway. The shuffle of things. His books. Oh, he was moving them out. Don't falter, just keep on going. He is only doing what he said he would do. Someone must be coming to collect the books. Whoever it was, she would stop them, convince them to leave the books in front of the house. Ha! What would he do then? Perhaps he just needs to hide them from Silvi a yes, that may be it. He's protecting them. Never mind about the books. Keep singing. Bohichey bhuboney. In and out of his room, in and out; she could hear him occasionally grunting with the weight of the crates as he moved them to the driveway.

She was singing without thinking now, whatever song came to her. She started one without finishing another. Her body swayed with it, fingers and breath and tongue obeying. Eyes squeezed shut, believing that when she opened them, she would have sung them back to another time. A time when her brother wasn't packing his books into crates. The singing was heating up the garden. This is how Tagore must have meant his songs to be done. Warming the spirit and the body. Words coming out with the roar and spit of a fire.

She opened her eyes.

The garden was orange black and Sohail stood in the middle of it, tossing books into a pile. Arm up, fling, watch the fire grow, fling. Was she still singing? She had stopped. Nothing but the sound of burning now, a low growl, and she wanted to move but she could not. The bucket was under the garden tap. She could attempt to fill it up, douse the fire. But its colour was speaking, its colour was saying, I am greater than you. My fire has silenced your fire.

It must be a dream. A great calm flowed through her. She took up the song again. While Ammoo dragged her into the house, while Ammoo filled the bucket and doused the flames, her voice remained tied to the verse. It was only when she heard Ammoo shout that she was roused, because Ammoo was saying it was all her fault, as she picked the floating sc.r.a.ps of paper out of her hair, as she rubbed her cheek, black with print that had turned back to ink. Only then did she realise what had happened.

Sohail had burned all the books.

*You pushed him,' Ammoo was shouting. *You pushed and you pushed.' And Maya heard herself protest: *What could I do? I was only singing.' But her mother, eyes as big as eggs now, said, *Did you listen to anything he said, up on that rooftop? Did you listen? No. You mocked him. You turned deaf and you mocked him.'

*Because I knew where it was going.'

*It didn't have to. It did not. You led him here, calling him a mullah. Why? You couldn't stand for him to be different.'

Et tu, mother.

Maya made the arrangements that very night, telephoning Sultana and packing her bags, her lungs full of the fire. In the morning, she disappeared. Two months later, the sermons on the roof were stopped. The little tin shack went up, and Sohail and Silvi built their world on top of the bungalow. Mrs Chowdhury died, silently and without a tear from her daughter. Zaid was born, brought into the world by a midwife whose face was covered by a piece of black netting. He opened his eyes to that, an empty s.p.a.ce where the welcoming laugh should have been.

Maya took the bus to Tangail. Without unpacking her bag or greeting her friend, she began a shift at the clinic. The duty doctor was ha.s.sled, a spray of blood clinging to the collar of his shirt, as if he had bled there himself. *What are you doing here alone?' he asked, rolling up his sleeves and bending over a sink, cracked, grey-rimmed.

*I'm a friend of Sultana,' she said. *From the medical college.'

He appeared too tired to ask any more questions. *There's a cholera epidemic.' The hallways were crowded; people threw down their gamchas and waited in the corridors. *You know what to do a ORT.' He handed her a white jacket. She was dismissed.

She raced through one shift, then another, filled with a restless energy, and with the fear that if she sat down, if she thought about what she had done, she might be forced to run back to the bungalow. By the second night, she had found a stray stethoscope and wrapped it around her neck, and when she looked in the mirror she was glad to find a drawn face staring back at her, all signs of her heartache obscured by physical exhaustion.

When Sultana caught up with her the next morning, she was weaving through the ward, skirting between the patients on the floor, between the beds.

*Time to stop,' she said.

She blinked, taking a moment to recognise her. *I still have a few from last night.'

*It's been thirty-eight hours. Let's go home.'

She blinked again, salt stinging her eyes. *Thank you,' she said, turning her face away so her friend wouldn't see her tears. *My things are in the other ward.'

She stayed until the cholera had done its worst. When it was time to go, Sultana's husband said, *My friend Ranen has a clinic in Rangamati. They're always shorthanded.'

After a fortnight in Khulna, and a week in Khagrachari, she found herself on the train to Rangamati. On the ferry she heard the sound of other languages, syllables with hard edges, and further still along her journey she saw women in long skirts and tunics, their faces small and squarish, babies tied to their backs with lengths of homespun, dark blue and yellow and red. They were called tribals, the Chakma and the Marma and the Santal, there before anyone else, before maps and Pakistan and the war. She saw a young girl and her mother eating with their fingers out of a leaf-wrapped parcel. They laughed with their jaws open and slapped one another on the cheek, gently, in admonishment, affection.

She finished her stint in Rangamati and took the train south again. When she stopped moving she found herself at the edge of the country, past the Chittagong port, and wandered on to an abandoned, tawny-sanded thread of a beach. c.o.x's Bazaar. The water was cloudy but pleasantly warm, and as she dipped her ankles she found she could no longer taste the cinders, the tarry blackness that had got under her tongue and between her fingers. Now her tongue was clear, and as she squatted in the water, allowing her kameez to soak, she scrubbed between her toes, and the backs of her knees. At the guest-house, she continued to scrub at herself, this time with soap, splashing buckets of water over her head, attacking the dirt beneath her fingernails. She emerged red-faced, her hair wound into the thin striped towel that had come with the room.

She thought, for the first time since her departure, about her mother, and decided to send a telegram. After grappling with the words, she finally settled on I am fine. Please do not worry. It is better this way.

And that is how it happened. A few weeks here, a few weeks there. Rangamati, Bandorbon, Kushtia. She finally travelled back up, avoiding the city, weaving up the Jamuna, the Brahmaputra, and into Rajshahi, where she settled, where she had her dreams of orphanhood, and where she found herself eating purple berries under a jackfruit tree, waiting for the postman.