The Good Muslim Part 6

When Maya returned from the Rehabilitation Centre in the evening, Piya was sitting in the living room. Rehana was patting her on the back. *Piya is going to stay with us.'

Piya nodded at Maya, who nodded back. No one said anything about why she was there. They guessed that Sohail had met this woman during the war, that she was in trouble and that her family had sent her away a and there was only one kind of trouble, Maya knew, that would have led to her appearance on their doorstep.

Maya saw women like Piya every day at the Rehabilitation Centre; they had been pouring into the city for weeks. Some had been raped in their villages, in front of their husbands and fathers, others kidnapped and held in the army barracks for the duration of the war. Maya was tasked with telling these women that their lives would soon return to normal, that they would go home and their families would embrace them as heroes of the war. She said this to their faces every day knowing it was a lie, and they listened silently, staring into their laps and willing it to be true.

Some recognised the lie for what it was. The new government had allowed a few of the enemy soldiers to return home to Pakistan, as a gesture of generosity in the face of victory, and a number of the women decided to go with them. Maya was woken one morning by a phone call from the Centre. They're at the airport, they're trying to leave.

The airport was a mess, people trying to get in or out of the new country, pushing themselves to the head of any queue that formed as soon as a desk was manned. But dressed as brides, the women were unmistakable, nose pins strobing in the sunlight, bangles weighing down their wrists, making each motion heavy and musical. Some wore flowers in their hair, and one or two had even gone to the trouble of painting henna on their hands.

Nearby, the soldiers were being unshackled, one by one. They cl.u.s.tered around each other and whispered casually among themselves. Occasionally, one of them smiled.

A volunteer from the centre, dressed plainly and with her hair loose, appealed to the departing women.

*It's not right,' she said; *you haven't even told your families.'

One stepped forward. *They said they don't want us. Where are we supposed to go? What do we eat?'

*The Women's Rehabilitation Board will make provisions for you.'

*What provisions? Will you give us our families? Will you take us into your homes?'

*We will rehabilitate you. Back into society. Didn't you hear what Sheikh Mujib said? He said you were heroines, war heroines.'

Another woman spoke up. *We don't want to be heroines. We are ashamed. We want to leave our shame behind, start again.'

Maya joined in. *Please don't abandon us now.'

The soldiers filed on to the aeroplane. How tall they were, how straight they stood.

The brides picked up their tiffin carriers, their small cloth bags. They lifted their saris so they could make their way up the stairs and into the aeroplane. And then it swallowed them; the hatch was closed, the engine roused, leaving the volunteers on the black and blue tarmac.

It was time, they were told, to forgive. Forgive and forget. Absolve and misremember. Erase and move on. The country had to become a country. Just as it had needed them, once, to send their brothers into the fighting, to melt their pots and surrender their jewellery, so it now needed them to forget.

It was the least they could do.

The prisoners of war were released, put back into their uniforms and sent home to Pakistan. No sorrys were exchanged. Anointed by the hand of forgiveness, they would grow old without shame.

Maya knew exactly what had happened to Piya. No explanation was necessary.

Piya slept all day, oblivious as they worked around her, ate their meals, tied and untied the mosquito nets, swept the floor by her feet. Maya sometimes woke in the middle of the night and found her gone, but she was only in the garden, or out on the verandah, squatting and staring into the distance. She did not attempt to take Maya into her confidence, and Maya did not try to appeal to her. If she needed something, she addressed herself to Rehana a Maya saw them whispering to each other in the kitchen a few times. Piya began to help Ammoo in the kitchen, grinding spices with the rough-edged stone, rolling the rootis for breakfast. Other than that, she was a half-presence, a person both with and without them. Maya sometimes forgot she was there a she was busy too, feeling her way around the strangeness of peace, of having her brother at home again, of being encouraged, now that it was all over, to make a display of enjoying the country.

Two weeks after Piya arrived, Maya saw her in the garden with Sohail. It was early evening, the shutter of darkness about to close. She watched them from the verandah. If they had looked up they would have seen her, but both pairs of eyes were lowered, staring at the same thing in front of them. Piya rubbed her hands across her arms, and Sohail offered her his shawl, wrapping it loosely around her shoulders. Their hair was of a similar length, and from a distance they seemed like brothers, two men sharing men's secrets. The light began to fade; Piya looked up and saw Maya staring and nudged Sohail. They waved.

She walked over gingerly, knowing she had interrupted something.

*Come,' Sohail said, *sit.'

She squatted down on the jute mat next to them. They edged over to make s.p.a.ce for her but the pati was too small, and Piya ended up on the gra.s.s. *Let me get another one,' Sohail said, quick to his feet.

They were alone. Piya plucked at the gra.s.s while Maya looked uncomfortably up and down the garden, wondering if they should talk about Sohail, or the war, or why Piya was here. Finally Piya said, *You're very good, letting me stay.' She pulled out a blade of gra.s.s, twisted it between her hands.

*Where were you,' Maya asked, *before?'

Piya concentrated on the long blade of gra.s.s, tying knots across its length. *In an army camp,' she said. *He found me there, in the barracks.'

*Where is your family?'

*Not far. In Trishal. You think I should go home?'

She hadn't meant it that way. *No, of course, you can stay here.' She wanted to tell Piya how glad she was that she had come, that she had brought a flash of life back to her brother. She made an awkward attempt at friendliness. *Stay as long as you like.'

Sohail returned with the pati; they stood up, rearranged themselves.

Piya didn't sit down. *I'm just coming,' she said, and darted into the kitchen.

*She's better,' Sohail said. *Doesn't she look better, already?'

*Yes, she does.' Maya wanted to ask him if he was better, but there seemed no reason to ask him this. For once he looked relaxed, his white cotton kurta gleaming in the fading light. He appeared in perfect health, in perfect cheer, rather than like a man who had yet to shake off the war, a man who had brought home a strange woman. An ordinary man. She decided to treat him as one.

*When I found her, she looked as though she might slip away, at any moment.'

Before Maya could reply, Piya stepped back into the garden, holding a kerosene lamp in one hand, and a large bowl in another. *Jhal muri,' she announced, placing the spicy puffed rice in front of them. As she scooped a handful into her mouth, Maya noticed a bracelet-shaped scar on Piya's wrist. She looked closer at Piya's arms: the other wrist was similarly marked. Piya set down the kerosene lamp, and suddenly Maya was filled with wonder that she should be here, among them, bearing the scars of her captivity, making snacks and sitting with them in the garden. What other wounds still marked her?

It was getting darker. They could barely see one another now; there was just a faint, oval-shaped pool of light cast by the kerosene lamp.

Piya and Sohail hatched a plan. Piya had never been to the cinema, and Sohail was trying to explain it to her. People on a wide, flat surface. Not real people a well, real, but not present. Acting a she knew acting, she had seen the jatra when it came to her village.

*When it reopens,' Sohail said, *we'll take you. Won't we, Maya?'

She nodded. *Did you know,' she said, *Joy brought a film projector to our house during the war?'

*From where?'

*I don't know. An abandoned theatre, I think.'

*What is a projector?'

*It's the machine that shows the film.'

*You have the machine?'

*Do you want to see it?' Joy had brought the projector for Ammoo. Now it was lying somewhere in the garden shed. *I think it's still here.'

Sohail hesitated. She could tell he was thinking about whether it would cause him pain, or happiness, to see an object brought to this house by his friend.

*Yes,' said Piya, *I do, I want to see.' She stood up and clapped her hands together.

*All right,' Sohail said, *let's see it.'

The shed was a crude little building beside the lemon tree. Maya went inside first, holding the lamp high. They stepped over a few trunks and boxes, off-cuts of wood, a half-open bag of cement that had hardened over the years.

The projector was exactly where she had left it, wedged into a corner of the room, covered in dried banana leaves. *There it is.'

She remembered now, carrying it from the big house and tenderly placing the leaves on top, as though she were burying it.

Sohail heaved the box on to his shoulder and Maya helped him manoeuvre it into the house. They decided to set the box down in the corridor and examine it without turning on the lights. Maya held the lamp as Sohail unfastened the hinges.

All the pieces were there a the two round cases, one on top of the other, the protruding lens, the smaller pieces, the clips that held the film in place, the metal fasteners that opened and closed over the reel.

Piya reached forward, pa.s.sing her hand delicately over the metal plates. Sohail pulled the projector out of the case and stood it upright on its st.u.r.dy metal legs.

*This is where the film goes in, I suppose,' he said, pointing. *It goes up here, and through this part, and the light catches it and makes it big, very big. The film itself is only the width of two fingers. It's the light that makes it bigger.'

*How big?' Piya asked.

*Bigger than a person,' Sohail said.

Piya fixed her eyes on him.

*Sometimes when they show just the face, you can see everything, you can see inside them,' he continued.

*You can see inside?'

Maya thought the girl might weep from the wonder of it.

*Shall we see if it works?' she said. *I think there are a few films in there.'

Piya lifted her hands from the machine and turned to face her. Her tiny eyes disappeared behind a pool of tears. *Yes, oh, yes.'

*No,' Sohail said, his voice suddenly distant. *We can't do that.'

*Why not?' she asked, surprised by this change of heart.

*It doesn't belong to us, we have to give it back.'

*But it's here now.' Maya couldn't understand it. One minute he was gaping at the machine, the next he was acting as though the whole thing was done without his consent.

Sohail moved to replace the projector. *Let's not do something we'll regret.'

*I won't regret it,' Maya said. *And neither will Piya. Will you, Piya?'

Piya had sensed the shift in Sohail too. She shuffled away from the projector and leaned against the verandah wall, squatting in the village way, with her elbows on her knees. *I don't know.'

Maya pursued her and crouched down beside her. *Haven't you ever done anything you might regret later?'

*Maya, please, don't be childish.' Sohail was packing up the projector, tucking it back into its felt grooves. *Look, here's the stamp. Modhumita Cinema. How many times have you and I gone to that cinema? And who knows how Joy got the thing here anyway.'

*What are you saying, that your friend is a thief?'

*I'm saying a lot of things happened during the war, but now it's not wartime any more, and we have to behave like citizens, rather than rebels.'

*I don't think Piya cares about that,' she said. *I think we should let her see a film. Isn't that why we fought this war anyway, so we could be free?'

*That's a completely bogus argument, you know that. Freedom comes with responsibilities, with limits.' He snapped the lid shut, as though there could be no further debate.

*I have done something,' Piya whispered from the darkness. The lamp was burning low, and didn't reach her any more. Sohail lifted the projector box into his arms and was about to stand up. He paused.

*What?' he asked.

*Something very bad.'

Sohail squatted down in front of Piya. He came very close to her, but he was careful not to touch her. She was shrinking from him anyway, pressing her back into the wall. *It doesn't matter,' he said. *Forget it. You should try to forget it.'

She grew silent, but they could hear her breathing, as though the words were struggling to get out of her and she was struggling to keep them in. Maya didn't want Piya to forget what had happened to her, she wanted her to remember. She wanted her to remember and she wanted to know. But she did not press Piya. Everyone else was determined to forget, to move on and leave behind whatever dirty things had happened in the past; it would be cruel to deny Piya this, a chance to begin again.

*It doesn't matter,' Sohail said. *Whatever it was, it wasn't your fault.'

*He's right,' Maya said. *Don't blame yourself.'

Certainly they had only meant to comfort her. But Piya was different after that night. Something had rippled within her, demanded to get out, and they had silenced it.

A few weeks later, she was gone.

1984.

April.

The queue snaked out of the tent, wrapped around the corner and doubled back on itself. In some places people had taken to crouching on the ground, holding their hands up against the fierce heat, quieting their babies. They shared stories and bits of food while they waited. Maya heard the call of the muezzin, and saw great swathes of pilgrims making their way to the prayer ground. But the people in the queue did not budge: they were here for the free medicine.

They had all the usual ailments a dysentery, dehydration, broken legs that hadn't healed properly, wounds that should have been st.i.tched up but never made it to hospital. Jaundice, malaria, typhoid. It had taken her the better part of that morning to organise the clinic. The other doctors a young interns and trainees who had probably never left their city hospitals a were relieved to be told what to do. She barked out orders, telling them to run down the line and divide the patients into groups. Put the young children first. Check for infectious diseases. Separate queues for men and women. By noon she was seeing a patient every seven minutes, and a pregnant girl with gest ational diabetes had hugged her and cried. She felt the murmur of a thrill. She was right to have come.

Her brother was here, somewhere among the worshippers. Zaid had given her the idea. *Abboo will be at the Ijtema,' he said. The upstairs had emptied out, no more footsteps on the ceiling or groups of jamaatis pooling in front of the gate.

*Maybe you can meet him,' Zaid said. Someone had shaved his head that morning, there were two neat crimson scars at the nape of his neck. She considered the idea. Perhaps it was time to face Sohail.

The Ijtema provided free medical clinics to all pilgrims. It was easy to offer her services, set up a curtained area for women. And here she was. Millions of people. Somehow it was easier to meet him in this context, his foreignness multiplied, but made plainer, by the replication of people like him, cl.u.s.ters of men in beards and white robes. Since her return he had been away, travelling from one jamaat to another, and she had been relieved to accustom herself to the house, the city, without the prospect of seeing him. But now she was ready.

Though he was a relative newcomer to the Tabligui movement, Sohail was already known for his bayaan, his sermons. Maya could bet none of the people who listened to him now had any idea where he learned to speak like that. If they had asked her, she could have told them about the time when at sixteen he beat the debating champion in college, the very handsome Iftekar Khan. Speak for or against: does the arms race decrease the possibility of another world war?

Sohail had studied Iftekar Khan and decided he was, in fact, a very fragile man. Twice the All-Pakistan Debating Champion, he had risen too high; he was full of the fear of disappointing his fans. So Sohail paused, longer than was necessary, before beginning his two-minute opening. And he spoke very slowly. By then Iftekar was already jamming his finger between his neck and his shirt collar, trying to create a bit of s.p.a.ce for his swelling throat, his itch to fill the silence. And Sohail continued to draw out his words, so that, after he had won, the college newspaper dubbed him the Tortoise that Beat the Khan. It was on that day that he learned his trick of manipulating the moment, of deciding the beat and tempo of a conversation, and it was that day that led him to become president of his university hall, and the object of much speculation among the girls, and eventually a protester on the streets, shouting through a megaphone against the army. It was the day that led him, finally, to the war.