A Golden Age (30 page)

In the third hour of her vigil, Rehana began to worry about food. She had no idea what time it was. She was hungry; it must be after lunch. She berated herself for not packing a biscuit in her bag. She couldn’t be seen fainting. The rain made it difficult to determine the hour; the sun was blotted out by the grey mass of clouds that sat low on the horizon. Through a narrow, barred window pitched close to the ceiling, Rehana could see it was still pouring steadily. By the time her sari was dry, her eyes were stinging, and there was a dull throbbing in her joints. She folded her knees under her and thought of closing her eyes, just for a moment, just until they stopped burning.

When the guard finally brought Sabeer out, Rehana thought she might be dreaming. She jerked herself upright, ignoring the ache in her arms from where her head had rested. The thana was a dim memory. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep. It had stopped raining. The tube light buzzed steadily; it smelled of evening.

There was something black covering his head. A mask – no, a hood. It was pulled tight over his face. She could see his nose, his square chin. He shook his head back and forth, breathing noisily through the gaps in the weave.

He wore no shoes. His soles made sliding tracks in the dirt.

197

Rehana turned to the man who had brought Sabeer. She saw a sleek black beard. Her gaze travelled upwards. He was very tall. Had she seen this man before? She checked again.
Don’t look
. The man smiled briefly. Stop panicking. She held hands with herself to stop from trembling.

‘You can take him,’ the man said. ‘Sign here.’ He handed her a form and a pen.

Rehana didn’t read the form. ‘Can you remove – the hood, please?’ she said, scribbling on the sheet. ‘And untie him.’

‘Of course,’ the man said politely.

He undid the knots at Sabeer’s wrists. The sleeve of Sabeer’s shirt flapped over his hands. The man lifted the hood with a flourish.

Rehana kept looking at Sabeer’s face to see if it was him. It was. She recognized the bulge of his Adam’s apple, the thickness of his neck. His lips were blistered; a white crust had formed around them, like a ring of coral.

‘This woman has brought a release order,’ the guard said. ‘You can go.’

Sabeer stared blankly at Rehana. ‘I’m Rehana – Mrs Haque.’

The rain had left the leaves shiny and the air smelling of rust. Rehana and Sabeer said nothing to one another, and she could hear only the movement of his breath, the clouds invisible above, the stars beginning to flicker, the delta beneath them churning and swimming.

‘Bokul!’ Rehana called out. ‘Bokul!’ The road was empty and slick. No sign of the rickshaw-boy. She couldn’t remember where the main road was. There were no shops here, just an empty stretch of road flanked by dipping telephone wires.

‘Sabeer, beta, can you walk a little?’

Sabeer was squatting on the edge of the road like a stray dog, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.

‘We have to walk,’ she said a little louder. His head was between his knees. ‘Sabeer?’

198

Rehana heard a sound like a siren coming from his bent head. ‘Sabeer?’ she repeated. No answer. She pulled at his shoulder. The wailing grew louder; it was high-pitched and alien; a cry with no mouth.

She wasn’t sure what to do. He looked so small and insignifi- cant, folded up as though the earth might swallow him; and no one would care that he was gone because he was just a wailing, rocking speck. She crouched awkwardly beside him, wondering whether he could hear her, if he even knew who she was. She felt a sudden, hysterical urge to leave him there and run away.

In the distance she heard the keening of the evening curfew. ‘We have to go, Sabeer, please try,’ she said. He didn’t move.

She saw the dirt around his collar, and his neck, grey and tired. Perhaps he was asleep.

‘OK. You wait here,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll find something.’ She continued to speak to him as if he would answer. It made her feel less alone. ‘Stay here. Don’t move. You hear me? Don’t move. I’ll be back.’ He didn’t shift when she stood up and began to trudge up the broken path.

Rehana walked away from the gymnasium, clutching her handbag, feeling for Mrs Chowdhury’s bundle of money. I’ll throw this at the next person I see and beg them to take me home. Or anywhere, anywhere away from here.

She turned a wide corner and continued to walk until the gymnasium was out of sight. It was getting darker; without streetlights or a moon it would soon be impossible to see the road in front of her. I should turn around, she thought. Stay with Sabeer, at least I’ll have him with me. She was about to go back when she slammed into something.

‘Who’s there?’ she shouted into the gloom. She reached her fingers out in front of her and found the ridge of a rickshaw frame, fanning out like a ribcage.

‘Apa, it’s me,’ someone whispered. It was Bokul.

‘Bokul!’ Thank God. Rehana wanted to let out a cheer, but instead she said angrily, ‘Where in God’s name have you been? I told you to wait! I’ve been walking for miles.’

199

‘They wouldn’t let me stay. A man came out of the building with a stick.’ She could make out his face now. ‘I’ve been here, waiting.’

Rehana climbed into the seat. ‘We have to go back.’

Sabeer was not where she had left him.

‘Half an hour till the curfew, apa,’ Bokul said.

Rehana scanned the area for Sabeer. It was too dark to see anything. ‘Sabeer!’ she called out, ‘Sabeer!’ Then she heard a clanging sound coming from the gymnasium. Hands slapping against the door.

Rehana ran towards the gymnasium. She could barely make out his shape; she tried to reach around to his hands. ‘Sabeer, quiet! I have a rickshaw. We’re going home.’

She grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him towards the rick- shaw. Suddenly he let out a scream. ‘No, please!’ he cried.

Rehana held on, trying to soothe him, stroking the softness of his fingers. ‘Beta, cholo, let’s go, I’ll take you home.’ But Sabeer kept screaming and twisting away from her. The sleeve of his shirt peeled away, and she saw that the hand she was holding was dark at the tips. Someone had painted his fingers. Sabeer grunted his animal grunt and said, ‘No, please, I didn’t do it!’ His voice was thick and gummy. Finally Rehana released him, and he sank to his knees and began to sob. ‘No, no, no,’ he whispered, holding his hands against his chest, ‘please.’ Rehana bent down and looked closer. The nails were soft and pulpy. Closer. Not nails, just red-tipped fingers. There were no nails. No nails; only red-tipped fingers.

‘Oh, God,’ Rehana whispered. She was afraid to touch him now, afraid to know what else lay hidden beneath his clothes.

‘Apa, I can carry him to the rickshaw.’ Bokul had come up behind her. He squatted in front of Sabeer and cradled his head. He dragged his other arm under Sabeer’s knees and rose with a grunt. He was stronger than he looked. Sabeer’s head flopped back. Bokul trundled to the rickshaw. ‘Can you hold him up?’

200

Rehana climbed in from the other side and pulled on Sabeer’s collar. ‘Sit up, please, son, try to sit up.’ She felt the tears falling from her eyes. Sabeer’s body stiffened a little, and, with both arms around his shoulders, she managed to keep him upright. ‘Go, hurry,’ she said to Bokul.

‘Where do you live?’ ‘Dhanmondi. Road 5.’

All she could think was, I have to see him, just once, just look a little at him. The black hood will disappear, Sabeer will not die, Sabeer is a red-fingered bird, oh, God, just one more time, even if he doesn’t say a word, not a word, I won’t have to tell him, he’ll already know, he’ll know before I step through the gate, he’ll know before I open my mouth to tell him. I won’t tell him about the hood, I won’t say it, I won’t hope he’s still there. I’ll imagine he’s already left; I’ll go home and unroll my prayer mat. I’ll ask God to do it. God will do it. I won’t ask for anything after that. Just take the man away. Take the man away.

Sabeer is a bird, a red-tipped bird.

He wasn’t there. Shona was empty. When her sister Marzia had malaria, Rehana’s mother had sat beside the sickbed and said, please, God, take the sickness from her and give it to me. Not my daughter. Give it to me. Now Rehana wanted someone to look after her in the same way. Take it from me. Take his blis- tered lips. Take his milky, dead eyes. Take his tired breath. Please, oh, God, take his bleeding hands. Take his red-tipped wings. I don’t want them. Not me. Take my relief. Take my relief it wasn’t Sohail. Take my want, take my want. Take the missed beat when he wasn’t there.

She lay down on the pillow, dipped into his scent.

God, she said, the tears flowing freely from her eyes, take my want.

The room spun around. Mrs Sengupta’s parents stared down at her from the wall. She closed her eyes and dreamed of a man kneading her shoulder with a rough, callused hand. His hand travelled to her neck, pressing the tendons, pressing until she

201

almost choked; and then the hand was on her shoulder again, and then travelling down the length of her arm, slipping through the hollow between her elbow and her waist.

‘Rehana.’ She was startled by the sound of her name. Her name was a stranger. ‘You were dreaming.’

‘No – it was all there – Sabeer—’ ‘I know.’
I knew you would know!

The Major’s breath was in her hair. She felt the warmth of his belly against her back. She saw his hand, its tense vein, snaking across her waist and holding her down, as if she might float away without its weight.

The burned-rubber scent flooded her nose.

She pressed wet eyes against the pillow. She opened her mouth and swallowed the sob. She felt him knowing everything. This was his gift. Speaking little and knowing more.

His hand tightened, and she tilted backwards, feeling the hard weight of his chest. Brick and breath. The breath burned into her ear.

Her fist closed around the pillowcase. ‘Sleep,’ he said, ‘you can sleep.’

Miraculously, her eyes closed, and she felt her limbs relaxing, and, though her breath was still quick, she drifted into a hard, dreamless sleep.

202

August, September, October
‌

Salt Lake

T

he sky over Bengal is empty. No mountains interrupt it; no valleys, no hills, no dimples in the landscape. It is flat, like a swamp, or a river that has nowhere to go. The eye longs for some blister on the horizon, some marker of distance, but finds none. Occasionally there are clouds; often there is rain, but these are only colours: the laundry-white of the cumulus, the black mantle