The Good Muslim Part 4

*And you wore pant-shirt?'

He was holding something behind his back, and he produced it now, a package wrapped in brown paper. *For you,' he said.

Maya tore it open. It was a brand-new Ludo board, with coloured pieces and a pair of dice. *For me?' she asked. *Where did you get this?'

*Mare-see,' Zaid said. *That's thank you in French.'

Maya repeated the word. *Thank you.' She pa.s.sed the board back to Zaid. *Why don't you hold on to it, and when you want to play you can bring it downstairs?'

*Now we can play with Dadu,' he said, smiling, and slipped out of the doorway, the Ludo board balanced on his head, returning the light to the shed. Maya continued her reconnaissance, sifting through old newspapers, cans of paint, a bag of leftover cement, until she found what she was looking for: a stolen cinema projector, still packed in its case, the hinges crimson with rust.

On Friday, Joy came to collect Maya for the party. He knocked on the door, smiling and smelling of soap. Ammoo greeted him warmly as he bent down to touch her feet, interrupting Dallas to inquire after his mother. His car smelled of leather and aftershave. He rolled down the window and stuck his elbow out, his other hand light on the steering wheel. *So why did you move to the village anyway?' he said, as they made their way across town to Gulshan.

Maya shifted in her seat. She had decided to wear a simple cotton sari, and now, with the warm air whipping around Joy's car, her pleats already creased, she began to regret it. She should have listened to her mother and dressed up a little, maybe worn a silk or a chiffon. *Things were changing too quickly,' she said. *I couldn't stand it any more.' It sounded so harsh when she put it that way.

*And you gave up your training, everything?'

*I was a year away from finishing. I completed the internship at Rajshahi Medical. Then I just became a simple country doctor. But that's what people need out there, someone to help them deliver babies.' She felt the urge to tell him more, to explain about the abortions she had done after the war, and that she hadn't realised until later, much later, that she had racked up a debt she was still struggling to repay. How could he know a he was just a soldier, he had killed as a matter of principle, but the war babies, the children of rape, had been left to junior doctors, the volunteers in ragged tents on the outskirts of town.

They were on Road 27 now, pa.s.sing Abahani Field. Maya remembered playing cricket with Sohail on that field, running between the wickets in her salwaar-kameez.

*Seven years, you've been in Rajshahi?'

*I went to Tangail first, but it wasn't far enough.' They sped through a wide road with a fountain at one end, an abstract sculpture at the other. She wanted to change the subject. *So, what's new in Dhaka?'

*I haven't been here that long myself. Looks different, doesn't it?'

*Hmm.'

*They changed the road numbers a you must already know that.'

She did. Dhanmondi had been renumbered. No one knew whether to refer to their street by the old number or the new. Old 13, they said, new 6A. It was like a half-swallowed pill, stuck in the throat. Perhaps they were hoping the old places would not be what they had once been to people, the streets where they had marched and the streets to which they had taken to cast their votes. Road 27 was no longer the artery through which the army had driven its tanks. And Road 32 was no longer where Mujib had been killed, falling upside down on the staircase of his house, his pipe clattering to the chequered ground, the flower of blood pooling and colouring his hair. No, you could no longer say, it happened at Bottrish Nombor; you would have to say it was Road 26A, a new road on which no man had been killed, no man and his wife, sons, daughters-in-law, brother, nephew, bodyguards, drivers, gatekeepers. And 26A was not the kind of number you could a.s.sign to those deaths, attached, as it was, to an English letter. Yes, she knew they had changed the numbers.

They spent the rest of the journey in silence, Maya's eyes following the road as they pa.s.sed the old airport, the cantonment, Mohakhali with its new office buildings and factories. Finally they turned into Gulshan, where the plots of land were twice as large and the cars were thick on the streets, where even the Dictator had a light touch.

Chottu's cheeks were shiny and pink. *Yalla, I'm seeing a ghost!' He clapped an arm around Joy. *Where did you find her?'

*Shaheed Minar,' Joy said. *We were lighting candles.'

Chottu erupted into a growling, used-car laugh. *Always looking for trouble, dost. Come, Maya, come inside. Saima will crucify me if I keep you to myself.' He led them through the house, through the garden, which had been decorated with fairy lights, and into a large yellow marquee.

A woman in a blue chiffon sari handed Chottu a drink. *People, this is Maya, my old muktijuddo friend.' He gestured to the crowd with his gla.s.s. A few people turned around and waved. *What will you have, Maya? c.o.ke? A little veeno?' He lowered his voice. *Whisky? Paul will get you anything you like.' A man appeared beside Chottu. He wore a suit and a pair of white gloves.

*Juice?' Maya said.

Chottu shook his head, disappointed, and motioned to Joy. Joy looked at Maya, cleared his throat. *Juice for me too, thanks.'

*b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' Chottu said. *Making me look bad.'

*Pineapple, Mango, Tomato, Tang,' the waiter said. Maya heard a screech and turned around to find Saima careening towards her, a fat toddler in her arms.

*I'll kill you, I'll kill you right now, you're back in town, you didn't call me? Ei, Joy, you didn't tell me you were bringing her, thought you'd make it a surprise, you bad boy, OHMYG.o.d, I don't believe it.' She pa.s.sed the child to the waiter and cupped Maya's face in her hands. *Let me see you properly. Alhamdulillah, you haven't aged a day, you cruel, cruel woman. Look at me, I'm a shrivelled old hag next to you.'

Maya shook her head and returned the compliment, taking in the shiny sari Saima was wearing, and the carefully orchestrated strands of hair that fringed her face. People were staring now. Saima took Maya's hand and began to introduce her to the other guests. The Blue Chiffon woman was called Lovely. Her husband, Pintu, was a tiny, sweating man in a white T-shirt. *This is Khaled and Minny, they live opposite, and Khaled's brother, Sobhan, and his wife, Dora. Dora bakes the most delicious cakes, chocolate, vanilla, lemon a the lemon is divine.' Dora threaded her arm through her husband's and gave Maya a watery smile. Maya wondered what had happened to their old friends, the slightly shabbier-looking ones with whom they had gone to school and run away to war. Pot calling the kettle, she told herself; you haven't kept up the old ties either. Saima's hand was soft and damp as she led Maya from guest to guest. She smiled and smiled, smearing a bit of lipstick on her front tooth. *I want to hear everything,' she said, *and I mean ev-ree-thing. Let me check on the food first, I'll be back. They'll make a mess of it if I don't supervise.'

Maya perched on the edge of a tightly upholstered chair. Saima's Alhamdulillah was bothering her; once upon a time they would have laughed at people referring to G.o.d between every other sentence. But now everyone had caught it; just this morning she had been to the vegetable man, and after she had paid him and taken her leave, he had said Allah Hafez. *What's wrong with the old greeting?' she had replied sharply. *Khoda Hafez not religious enough for you?' And the man had sc.r.a.ped the feeling out of his face and returned her money. *Please buy your vegetables somewhere else,' he said quietly.

The memory of it brought a flash of heat to Maya's cheeks. Now she would have to walk all the way to Mirpur Road if she wanted something. She looked around the room. Lovely caught her eye and waved. Maya waved back. Where was Joy? Her sari was now more than a little crinkled, and it puffed unattractively around her hips. Maybe she could find the bathroom and smooth herself out a little. She stepped back into the house and into a wide hallway lined with paintings. Little lights built into the ceiling shone on each one. She found herself in front of an oil painting of a rural landscape: bright yellow stalks of rice, and farmers, their ankles deep in the earth, their muscles bulging and round, working the fields. The painting looked nothing like the people she had lived among these past years; out there, the men who walked the paddy were more lean than round, the flesh carved out of them by work and hunger.

She spotted a woman in a pair of jeans and a brightly coloured kurta staring at another of Chottu's paintings. *h.e.l.lo,' she said, attempting to sound friendly.

The woman looked her up and down, taking in Maya's plain sari, her hands knitting nervously together. *I take it you're not enjoying the jollity.'

*Jolly doesn't really suit me.'

*Nor me. My husband insisted we come.'

*I'm an old friend of Saima. Maya Haque.'

*I'm Aditi. Oh, yes, they told me about you. The crusading doctor.'

Maya smiled, enjoying that. *Is this how it is, everyone jolly?'

*Mostly. You've been away?'

*Something like that.'

*You can't blame them, really. There's fun to be had. Who wants to remember the old days?'

They drifted back to the party together.

The music had come on, and a few people began to dance, tilting their hips this way and that, drinks rocking in their hands. They jostled one another, fingertips lightly touching. Maya found Joy and Chottu in a corner of the garden, talking about a business venture. *So, what do you think, dosto, you want to come in with us?'

*I haven't decided yet.'

*Don't worry.' Chottu leaned close, tapped Joy on the chest. *All kinds of nonsense people making money in this country, no reason we can't join the bonanza. Eh, Maya, you don't agree?'

*Yes, why not.' She caught a glimpse of Joy, who was looking over at her. She remembered now that his father had owned the jute mills in Khulna. *Make money all you want. But you won't fix anything.'

*We leave that to the doctors. And the politicians.'

*Leave it to others and let the country go to h.e.l.l?'

*Ah, Maya,' Chottu said, shaking his head, *you're always taking things too seriously. We're all getting old, na, let's enjoy ourselves before we die, that's what I say.' He raised his gla.s.s, empty except for a few ice cubes. Maya shot Joy a look of horror, waiting for him to roll his eyes back at her, collude, but he just stared impa.s.sively ahead. One of Saima's friends a Molly or Dolly or something a nudged Maya's arm. *h.e.l.lo!' she said.

The woman, packed tightly into a sleeveless blouse, resembled a stack of bicycle tyres. *h.e.l.lo,' Maya said, trying not to stare at the dough of her neck.

*So you're a friend of Saima?'

*Yes, school friend.'

The woman stared intently into Maya's face. Maya stared back.

*You're not married?'

*No.'

*You don't want to get married?'

*I don't think so. I mean, I don't know, I hadn't thought about it.'

The woman's eyes bored into Maya. *Come with me,' she said, taking Maya's arm. *Meet my brother. Saadiq. He's a chartered accountant.'

Maya pulled away. *Oh, no, thank you.'

The woman held fast. *He's very, very eligible. All the girls like him. But I want someone plain and simple, not too a you know what I mean? The girls these days. Come, come, what can it hurt?'

Saima approached and put her arm around Maya's shoulders. *So you've met my friend. She's one of a kind, you know. Not only is she a doctor, but she sings a sweeter than a nightingale, she does. In fact, Maya, won't you sing something for us, just a little something?'

The fat woman beamed. Maya shook her head. *I'm out of practice,' she said.

Saima caught her eye. *Please don't mind, I'm going to steal my friend away.' She laughed and led Maya towards the food. *Don't worry about her, she's harmless.' A long table had been laid out across the back wall of the garden. Men in white jackets were serving freshly rolled rootis and kebabs. At the other end of the table, biryani, mutton curry, fish cutlets and salad completed the meal.

There had been a day, not long after the war, when Maya was in a rickshaw pa.s.sing through one of the new roads in Dhanmondi. The lake was calm, the day cloudless, the sun biting hard. In '72 the houses in the neighbourhood were spa.r.s.e; big lawns and open s.p.a.ces separated each plot of land. The rickshaw was about to turn into Road 13, when Maya saw a woman crouching on a front lawn. She watched as the woman grabbed a fistful of gra.s.s and stuffed it quickly into her mouth, her eyes darting here and there. Although by then Maya had witnessed all manner of misery, all through the war and the summer after, when the rice died in the fields and people flooded the city with salt crusted around their mouths, it was that woman, caught under the glare of high summer, her sari falling about her like the sheltering wings of a long-extinct creature, who had always remained with her, and she had never been able to shake the feeling that they were all never more than a few steps from crouching on their lawns to be suckled by the very earth itself.

*You should come and visit Rajshahi,' she said to Saima; *you can see more of the country.'

She sighed. *Oh, I would love to. What a life you must have over there. My life is hectic, too hectic. There's so much to do here. The house isn't finished yet a upstairs still needs to be painted. And the toilets are a mess. The mistris, you have to watch them so closely.'

Maya nodded, distracted by how Saima pushed the food around her plate but didn't seem to eat anything. *I can't even find good help any more, the children can't stand the bua, but at least she isn't a thief, like the last one. But enough about me. Tell me, what is it like, coming home after all this time?'

*It pa.s.sed so quickly,' Maya said. *Sohail's wife died, you know.'

*No, I didn't know. Innalillah. We haven't seen him in a long time. You both seemed to disappear together.'

Maya didn't like the comparison. *He's living upstairs, he has a son.'

*What happened to him?'

She searched for the right words, but she couldn't find them. She never knew how to tell the story of Sohail's conversion, how he had morphed from an ordinary man into a Holy one. She wished she could be more honest with this woman who had been her friend. Long ago she could have told Saima that all this disgusted her a the painting of peasants, the weight of the food on her table, the way Blue Chiffon rested her hand on Chottu's arm. But not any more.

Joy approached them, wiping his hands on a cloth napkin. *Delicious dinner, Saima. You're as talented as you are beautiful.'

*Flirting with my wife?' Chottu said, slapping Joy hard on his back. *Someone should, I don't have time for flirting-shirting a too busy making enough money to keep the woman in saris and earrings.'

Saima smiled, her face broad and tight.

*Better be careful,' Joy said. *Your wife is beautiful and your stomach is getting bigger by the day.'

*Wife will come and go, my friend, but my tongue serves no woman.'

Over dessert a fruit trifle, made of tinned pineapples and peaches a the woman called Aditi approached Maya again. *Eaten?'

*Yes, it was delicious.'

*Saima always cooks enough to feed an army.' Aditi lowered her voice. *To be honest I prefer dal-bhaat to this biryani stuff any day.'

*Me too,' Maya said.

*Perhaps you'd like to meet other dal-bhaat people.'

*Other dinosaurs, stuck in the past?'

*Journalists.'

Maya was sceptical. *You mean the people telling us the Dictator is a great leader?'

*We're not all the same.' She wrote an address on a piece of paper. *Come in for a visit.'

She folded the note into her palm a something to set against Saima's biryani, her Alhamdulillah.

*Call me,' Saima said, hugging her tightly. *What am I saying, you're playing hard to get. I'll call you. I'll call you tomorrow. We'll have lunch. Oh, and tell your mother I send my love. Tomorrow, okay? Don't forget.'

Maya hoped Joy wouldn't speak on the ride home. Her sari had collapsed, and she had given up on it, putting her foot on the seat and allowing the pleats to unfold on her lap. The night was making her queasy. She thought about how excited Saima had been to see her a and how eager those villagers in Rajshahi had been to get rid of her. She was hovering in limbo. She felt too old and too young. Ugly. Ugly spinster in an ugly sari. Even so, it would be easy to slip back in. They would all forget about this awkward encounter and there would be afternoons with Chottu and Saima, swinging her legs over an armchair. She might persuade them to talk about the past, but mostly they would talk about each other and the people they knew, gossiping and complaining about the heat. A part of her wanted to do it, but she knew she wouldn't. Was Joy thinking this, driving her home in silence? She didn't care. He hadn't exactly jumped to her defence. It was a mistake, this party a a mistake to think she could come home and everything would be as it was before.

Maya tried to forget about the party. She occupied herself with observing the comings and goings of the upstairs. The plump woman was called Khadija and she was the daughter of a wealthy farmer in Sylhet. She took over Silvi's sermons; twice a day the crowds of women arrived and packed themselves into the upstairs rooms. There were rumours of groups from as far away as Italy and Cuba.

The bungalow telephone rang at four every afternoon, and a young woman from upstairs sat waiting for it. She came a few minutes early and hovered in the doorway, removing her shoes and nervously curling her socked toes.

By the time the phone rang she was ready to spring, but she would wait for someone to come out of the kitchen and answer, and when Maya or Rehana extended the receiver, she grabbed it with both hands. Then she squatted on the floor and whispered. The conversation lasted only a few minutes before she hung up and scampered back upstairs.

Maya collected these t.i.tbits. A girl who whispered into the telephone, a boy who carried water in a bucket.

They prepared the empty patch at the western edge of the garden. It was the perfect location, catching the south-facing wind, sheltered from the sun by the coconut tree that towered over it. Ammoo leaned over the hole Maya had dug and unwrapped the jute sackcloth, running her fingers along the delicate roots of the young tree. She whispered a prayer and, softly, blew the air out of her mouth and over the tree. Long may you bear fruit, she said. Maya helped her close the earth over its wound, and together they poured a few cupfuls of water on the mound.

*Ma,' Maya said, *I think Sufia is stealing from me.'

Ammoo's head swivelled around. *Where did you get that idea?'

*Some notes missing from my bag.'

Ammoo put a finger over her mouth. *Quiet,' she said. *She could come out of the kitchen and hear you.'

*If she's a thief I shouldn't have to whisper about it.'