The Bones of Grace (25 page)

I pick up their broken bricks, haul the basket on my head, make my way across the site to the mixer, unload and go back for more. My chest is still bandaged but it's scabbed up and I can see where the scar will be thickest, right up near my neck. If I ever wear a shirt again, proper one with buttons and a stand-up collar, it's going to show, like if I was one of those people who had an operation on my heart.

I don't make friends. I make a small place to sleep by
hanging up my lungi, keep to myself, eat my rice away from the rest of them.

I work on Naveed, finally he lets me ask his wife if we can find out about Megna at the hospital. I tell him everything, about Megna, the baby, how I'm trying to make it right after all these years. I've got nothing left to lose, no need to spin a story. He's got some hard lines around his eyes from looking into people's faces and pulling the blade over their necks, but when I tell him that, whole sad story, lift up my shirt and show him the lines from fatty cop's buckle, his faces goes soft and I think, maybe he'll help me, maybe not, but at least I told the truth.

V I Find Megna

When I first got to the city I was getting my footprints all over the place and wearing out my sandals with the picture of Megna in my hand. Down the roads with my head swivelling all around, staring into the faces of all the women, catching the long of one's hair here, the small hands of another. They would look back, sometimes like they were angry, other times almost grateful, like, no one looks at me like that, a look without any kind of want or danger, just a frank glance, and I thought, women deserve to be given eyes into their eyes, and I wonder when was the last time, if ever, I gave Shathi that sort of a human thing. Probably never. But by the time I got to Naveed's I'd given up, you know, stopped staring at every living thing like if I stared hard enough they might turn into my girl.

But then, I see her. The whole real-as-flesh girl of her, standing right in front of me like a wrapped-up gift from the heavens. It's evening and I've finished my shift and I'm
on my way to Naveed's. She's with another woman, a foreigner, but I don't notice that at first, I just stand there like I'm hit by a stone. She's right in front of me, not more than an arm's length away. It's her. Hair like a pile of electric wires, eyes tilted up, and so beautiful I can't breathe, and then she's gone past me, and I call out to her. ‘Megna. Megna.' She keeps walking like she doesn't know her own name, and I try again, louder, even the back of her head is known to me, because I held her there, I held her everywhere, and when she keeps walking I say, ‘It's me, don't you know?' Other people turn around. I run after her. She sees me and she stops. I don't recognise the look on her face. I'm waiting for a string of curses to come out of her mouth, but instead, she says, ‘Who are you?' Like she never saw me in her whole life. ‘It's me,' I say again, and I think it must be the dark street, so I put my hands on her shoulders and she's wriggling out of my hands and that's when I get it. She's pretending. Ha ha, very funny, I think, don't be that way. She's twisting around and I have to let go. Even then I just stand there while she turns away from me, disgusted, and then, finally, I see the foreigner beside her who is saying something in English. They both start screaming. Megna's turning away and Naveed comes out of his shop. I'm running behind her and he grabs my arms and holds them behind my back. He's stronger than he looks, and I can't get out of his grip. ‘Sorry, madam,' he's calling out to Megna, and she turns and I notice her clothes, nothing like what my Megna would wear, not in this life, and the smell of her that's rubbed off on my hands is a smell from somewhere else. Not her. I'm going crazy, seeing my Megna in the face of another woman, and when I look again, she's nothing like my girl, nothing at all, and I squat right there, right there on the pavement and cry into my hands, because even
God is playing tricks, teasing me with the sight of her, which is only in my head, which is where she only ever is.

Naveed feels sorry for me and convinces his wife to take us to the hospital. We pick a Friday and I buy some clothes, a clean pair of trousers and a T-shirt so I don't look like a total bastard. I've got some things at the hotel, but no way I'm going back for it. If I see those rickshaw boys my cuts are all going to split apart open and start bleeding again.

Naveed's wife is tall and pretty, skin pale as new milk, and she does him like he knows she should've married better. He's nervous around her, telling her how nice she looks, all assy-kissy, and she puts it all away like notes down her blouse. I'm polite and thank you-ing as much as I can stomach, and secretly I'm glad she looks so fancy, because no village wife is gonna get us anywhere at the hospital.

I'm thinking about Shathi, my own village wife. Hard to sleep at night knowing there's two women out there who hate you. I'm so out of sorrys I don't even try to call her, but she's in my dreams now, right next to Megna. I'm remembering her on the beach, the smell of her hair on the bus. She deserved better, little bird.

We take a bus across town. On the way I tell them everything I know about Megna, whatever will help to find her. Her name, age. Naveed's wife helps me count the months and we figure when she might have been there. The bus stops and we walk the rest of the way. It's the medical college, no fancy people here. Already at the entrance you can see it's the poor man's place, there's sick people lying in the corridor, or curled up by the stairs, they reach out and grab your ankles, starting a long story and begging for a few paisa. Shit. Naveed's wife knows her way
around, end of the building, up some stairs that smell like piss, down another corridor full of people squatting on the floor and pointing to their rotting limbs, aching stomachs, waiting to see someone, crying for a doctor or a nurse, anyone in a white coat.

Naveed's wife spots a nurse and she goes up all haughty and clapping on her heels, and they talk for a minute. Then she comes back and holds out her hand to me. ‘Give me some money,' she says. I've heard this line before, it sends the crazy to my blood, but I knew it would be this way, so I hand over all I've got, minus a little for food. She twirls around and disappears down the ward.

Naveed wanders off to buy cigarettes. I look around. There's a man with a little girl. Kid's in her father's arms, all limp and tired-looking, then she coughs, goes stiff, then quiet again, leaning her head against his chest. I look over at him and he nods at me. ‘TB,' he says. I've heard of that, took some people in my village a few years ago. I got the letter in Dubai, sent some money.

‘She got medicine?'

‘We fed her the pills for six months. But she's getting worse.'

I look at the girl. She opens her eyes, sleepy-like, and gives me a slow smile. ‘Hello,' I say.

‘You got kids?' the father asks me.

‘Yah,' I say. ‘Nine years old. Lives with her mother.'

He nods. The girl starts coughing again, and he hugs her close, putting his hands on her forehead. Then I see his lips move. He's praying.

Naveed comes back. He opens the packet, offers me a smoke, and we light up together. I ask him about his wife. ‘I can't believe it myself,' he says, ‘why her people said yes. I guess I was a handsome kid.'

‘Not any more,' I say, and he nudges me in the ribs. I wince, it's still a bit sore there.

Time passes, we sit down in the corridor like everyone else. Naveed offers me another smoke and I take it just to pass the time. We're thinking of going out for a cup of tea, leaving a message with the kid's father, but Naveed's wife comes back, folding her hands across her chest when she sees us sitting on the floor.

‘It's filthy here, let's go.'

‘Did you?'

She stops, looks down at us. ‘No.'

‘What happened?' I say.

‘I'll tell you when we get outside. This place is full of sickness, get me out.' And Naveed's on his feet in a flash, clearing the way so she can pass through without touching anyone.

As soon as we get downstairs I stop and make her tell me everything. Outside, it's hot and my eyes are swimming in the sun. Naveed's wife makes fists and puts them on her hips. ‘You look like a crazy bastard,' she says, ‘but inside you're just a worm like everyone else.'

She's not telling me anything I don't know. ‘Did you find the doctor? What did he say?'

‘You think they have all their papers in a neat little pile and whenever someone comes off the street and asks them, they just tell you what you want to know?'

I'm looking at Naveed, then at his wife. My tongue's gone dry and heavy. ‘You didn't find him.'

‘Of course I didn't find him. No one would even talk to me.' She runs her hands down her kameez like she can't believe anyone would turn down a woman who looked that good.

My head goes so low I think it might fall off and roll
around on the ground. Naveed puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘We tried,' he says.

We shuffle over to where the rickshaws are waiting. Naveed helps his wife get in and I wave them away. ‘I'll walk,' I say, my feet as heavy as ships.

VI The Shipyard

All the time I dream of my kid, dark hair like her mother's. She has my nose and Megna's little eyes. And maybe my lips. Nice lips I've got, at least that's what Megna used to tell me. Who knows what's left, I haven't looked in the mirror in a long time.

The building on Chowrasta is finished. Carpenters coming in to do the doors, kitchen marble going in. Foreman pays me my last week's wages and I'm out again in the street.

I wander from one building to another but there are no jobs. Or maybe there are, but when they look at my face and see the life stamped out of me, they say no. My money runs out quick. Naveed says I can sleep in the shop, so I make my bed there for a few days. I want to ask Naveed's wife if she'll teach me a few letters, but I haven't seen her since that day at the hospital. Can't believe I went this long without learning a single damn thing. She called me a worm, and she was right – a stringy little insect that crawls through the dirt and eats everyone's shit.

I'm hungry but when Naveed offers me his rice, I say no. My stomach goes soft and achy when I'm alone in the shop at night with the smell of soap and the little hairs Naveed can't catch with his broom.

In the day, when I'm not looking for work, I look into the shops along the highway, and I see strange things. In one, giant metal lanterns, long lengths of chain. Clocks and
brass instruments. Shopkeeper tells me it's all from the ships that get broken further down the beach. They sell all the bits and pieces here, the cheap stuff. Everything else goes to Dhaka. He's is a nice guy, old, he has a lot of time on his hands. Tells me there used to be nothing here, then a storm and ship that got washed up and stuck in the sand. There was a foreigner, a Captain, he started the whole thing. I don't believe him, just let the old man talk – what's left when you're old except the ears of the young? I can't call myself young any more but I do, I do because I messed up so bad I still have so much I haven't finished, like bringing a kid into this world and raising him right, teaching him to respect his elders and listening to their stories, no matter how long or made up.

‘You looking for work?' he asks me.

‘You know anyone?'

‘Always something in shipbreaking. I could put in a word. Guy's coming to sell, I'll ask him. Come back tomorrow.'

I tell him I'm grateful.

‘It's hard work,' he says, ‘dangerous too.'

‘I don't mind,' I say.

Next day I scrub up as best I can and wear the trousers I bought for the hospital. When I show up at the shop, shopkeeper tells me to wait at the back. There's a guy with a van on the street, piled high with junk. All I can see are metal legs, cables, things that used to work but now they're just broken parts.

At the back of the shop there's a bunk bed with metal bars, reminds me of our dormitory in Dubai. Wonder where those boys are now, who's building and who's gone home.

I sit down on the bed and wait a long time, then I hear steps coming in my direction and I sit up, straighten out my shirt.

Shopkeeper comes in. ‘Here's the one I was telling you about.'

The guy is squat and has a nose like a dog, all squashed up against his face. He's breathing hard and sweating like fat people do. He looks at me like I'm a chicken he's thinking of buying. ‘You done construction work?'

‘He's used to working hard,' the shopkeeper tells him.

‘I worked in foreign, in Dubai,' I say, hoping that will sway him. People are always impressed with talk of foreign.

‘You got any schooling?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Pity. I could use an assistant. But never mind. You come tomorrow, I'll put you on the ship. We got some tankers that need finishing up. Give this to the man at the gate, he'll let you pass.'

He gives me his card. Before I can ask him about the pay, he's out the door, his doggy breaths getting faster as he walks away.

When I was a kid my father made me dig out the latrine. It was supposed to run to the river, but two, three times a year it got stuck, all the shit clogged and flowing up to the ground. He sent me in with a shovel, said nothing, just pointed to the river. The stink was so strong I gagged for weeks after just thinking about it. I hated my father for making me to do it, but I see now that I should've waited, because I'm hanging off the side of a ship with a flimsy rope around my waist, and I realise, this is hell, not the latrine, not the desert, not even up there against the glass with Pahari. But this is what I deserve after all the bad I've done. This work at the end of the world.

I do what they say. Tell me to climb to the top of a broken ship and hang there like a tree-snake, I do it. Tell
me to tie a rope around my waist and cut the flesh of a metal beast, that's me. No word, no talkback. Pahari, if he was here, he'd be ashamed of me. What he wouldn't say about the pathetic road I chose, all coward and no brave. What could I do, Pahari? After you died and scared the shit out of me for ever the only thing I could think was, I just want to hide in Megna's sari, and my kid, just want to protect my kid. All coward and no brave. In my head Pahari says, I died for nothing, and I tell him, people like us always die for nothing. And he's shaking his head, loose, like he used to, as if he didn't get his bones ground to dust, as if every wish he ever had hadn't disappeared into the desert like a drop of water on a leaf.