by Monica Ali
All the while, when Nazneen turned to her prayers and tried to empty her mind and accept each new thing with grace or indifference, Chanu worked his own method. He was looking for the same essential thing. But he thought he could grab it from outside and hold it against his chest like a shield. The degrees, the promotion, the Dhaka house, the library, the chair-restoring business, the import-export plans, the interminable reading. They were his self-fashioned tools. With them he tried to chisel out a special place, where he could have peace of mind.
Where Nazneen turned in, he turned out; where she strove to accept, he was determined to struggle; where she attempted to dull her mind and numb her thoughts, he argued aloud; while she wanted to look neither to the past nor to the future, he lived exclusively in both. They took different paths but they had journeyed, so she realized, together.
'He's going to be all right now,' said Chanu.
'I know.'
'We'll take him home soon.'
'As soon as he's ready.'
'I thought it was all finished.'
'I know,' she said, and knew that she would never have allowed that.
Though she spent hours sitting at the cotside she was not just sitting. Her hands lay folded in the pleated lap of her sari, hard brown knuckles against the soft pink. She was as still as a mongoose entranced by a snake. Stiller than a storm-cleared sky. But more animated than ever before. She willed him to live and he did. In the quiet she realized many things, most of all that she was immensely, inexplicably, happy.
Nazma and Sorupa came and rested ten fingers each on the sides of the cot.
'It has pleased God to make all my children strong and healthy,' said Nazma. 'The fourth one also, I feel his legs. So strong!' She rubbed her round belly.
Nazneen looked at her. Another child was coming, but with Nazma it was not easy to tell. The pregnancies came and went but the roundness always stayed.
Sorupa said, 'Also it pleases Him to make my children in fittest and healthiest of disposition.'
Nazma touched her fingers to Raqib's forehead. She glared at Sorupa. 'What is wrong with you? Have you come to gloat and boast at the sickbed?'
Sorupa nibbled her lip and looked away.
Jorina came on her way to work and could stay only a few moments. She said, 'I can sit with him at night, let you rest. These days I don't sleep so well. It would be no bother.'
In the family room, Razia clasped Nazneen against her hard chest. 'You are in an agony, I know. My sister's third child, peace upon his soul, died after a long illness. The illness was the worst part. When they are gone they are gone, but when they are ill you suffer with them.'
'I am sorry for your sister. But I am OK.'
Razia looked sideways at the old couple who faced each other and held hands. 'This woman is the bravest one you will ever see. In her youth, she wrestled crocodiles.' She looked at Nazneen. 'Shall I tell them in English now?'
'I'm glad you came.'
'Listen, I've got something for him. For when he's a bit older.' She jiggled a man-doll from a plastic bag. 'He can pull the head off this one all by himself.'
'I won't let him. I'll keep it until he knows better. Give my respects to your husband.'
Razia pulled down her headscarf. She rubbed at her strong jaw. Now that she wore trousers she sat like a man, right ankle resting across left knee and the big black shoe nodding up and down. 'I can't. We are not speaking. We are arguing. We are having, in fact, an unspoken argument.'
'Then how will you know who has won?'
'That son-of-a-bitch!'
'Razia—'
'He works all day and night. He keeps me locked up inside.'
'You go out. You came here, to the hospital.'
'If I get a job, he will kill me. He will kill me kindly, just one slit across here. That's the sort of man he is. For hours, for days, he says nothing at all, and when he speaks that's the kind of talk I get.' She held on to her foot, restraining it from further bouncing.
'But you go out. You go to the college.'
'The children are at school. What am I supposed to do all day? Gossip and more gossip. The children ask for things. Everything they see, they want. And I don't have money. Jorina can get me a sewing job, but my husband will come to the factory and slaughter me like a lamb.'
'Talk to him.' Nazneen watched the door open. She hoped it would be Chanu with more food from home. A nurse came in and touched the old couple lightly on their shoulders. They looked up at her with guilty faces. Enclosed in their sorrows, they had forgotten why they were here.
Razia pointed to the doll. 'I might as well talk to him. My husband is so miserly he will not waste even words on me. Now he has the night job, driving around with animal carcasses. If he has anything to say, he says it to them.' Razia blew hard out of her long nose, exhaling her anger. She uncrossed her legs and laced her fingers together. 'Anyway, you don't want to hear my troubles. You have enough of your own.'
'Raqib is getting stronger. I can feel it.' It was possible now to leave him alone for a while. She had tamed the machines that stood guard by talking to them softly, like a mahout calms an angry elephant. This is my son. This is my son. Take good care of him. The machines no longer frightened her. In the night they purred like civets and their bellies lit up like fireflies. By day they droned with efficiency and the flat screens made lines and curves in modest shades of green.
'The next time I come I will be allowed to pick him up,' said Razia. She smiled but she could not recover her temper. 'I found out where the money goes. Shall I tell you? It goes to the imam. He is going to build a new mosque in the village.'
'God will bless you.'
'If he was God-conscious, I would not mind. But my husband is not God-conscious. Listen, is this how a God-conscious man acts?' Her husband was mean. It was getting worse. After much brooding in the kitchen, sorting through the shelves and cupboards, he denounced his wife as a wanton housekeeper. Too many jars, too many packets, too many tins. All shouting abundance, luxury, waste. There would be no more money until every last thing on the shelves was eaten. Now they were down to Sun Maid raisins and Sainsbury's Wheat Bisks. For three days the children had eaten only Wheat Bisks in water and handfuls of raisins. This will teach you, said the husband. Will teach you to buy Sun Maid, fancy packets, penny-waste here, penny-waste there. Tariq came home from school. Ma, Shefali going to the toilet nine times every day. She is getting ashamed to put her hand up.
Razia tackled him. Building mosques and killing your own children. Holy man.
He did not flinch. What you want me to do? Kill my own self, working and working, for you to spend it all on penny-thing here, penny-thing there and nothing to show at the end? I am working for bricks. When I am gone to dust, they will be standing.
Ha, she said, and whenever they crossed paths, the brick man!
Ask your father, she had told Shefali, ask him how many bricks he earn today. Shefali, twisting her hair, said, Abba, how many bricks you earn today? And landed on her back, and cried quietly into her mother's lap.
'Make it up with him,' said Nazneen. 'For the children's sake.'
Razia paced the width of the room. A little bit of shin showed above her sock where her tracksuit leg had ridden up. Chanu would have no chance in a fight with Razia. But Razia's husband was big: broad with short, thick butcher's arms and his temples indented with fury. Nazneen had seen him only a few times. He was as silent as Razia said, but it was a silence charged with thunder that made the children creep away and muffled even Razia.
Razia did not answer. She swivelled and paced the long side of the wall, knocking down some leaflets from a shelf.
'Would you really work with Jorina? She has had problems. Everyone talked. Her children got into difficulties.' Hasina was working, but Hasina had no choice. If she had a husband, or a father . . .
'We gossiped, of course,' said Razia. She stood still, and for a moment the old glint reappeared in her narrow eyes. 'We love to gossip. Thi
s is the Bangla sport.' She came and sat next to Nazneen. 'Listen, Jorina's children are no better or worse than the rest. Whatever trouble they're in, they're not the only ones. When I walked across the estate today, I saw a gang of boys – fifteen, sixteen years old – fighting. I called to them but they shouted abuse at me. Only a few years ago they would never speak like that to their elders. It's the way things are going.'
'And they play their music so loud.'
Razia began to smile. 'You know, my husband has sent radios to all of his nephews and nieces. When he goes back home, he might get stones instead of praise.'
'So he's not always a miser, then?' said Nazneen, anxious to draw some good out of the man.
'We only get what others don't want. There's a man at the doll factory – every few months he comes around with more junk and I faint with joy. When he comes, really, I'm just falling on my knees.'
'You're saving him a trip to the dump,' said Nazneen. 'It's your good deed.'
'Maybe I start charging him for each load, see how he likes that.'
'Think what you're saving him on petrol.'
'Another stepladder, tins of paint, two planks of wood. I should start a house–painting business.'
'Keep you busy.' Nazneen fought with a spasm of laughter. This was not the place for belly laughs.
'Keep my husband stubbing his toe when he gets up in the dark.' She held her knees and inhaled loudly. 'Honestly, sister, for myself I don't need anything. Have you heard me complain before? But the children suffer.'
'What will you do?'
Razia looked serious. She spread her hands and examined them as if they might spontaneously volunteer what they intended to do. 'I tell you—'
Chanu came in carrying bags and the complicated smell of a high feast. He paused when he saw Razia then offered a salaam that appeared to include her only by accident.
'Next time,' said Razia, gathering her things.
'Eat with me,' said Nazneen. She took the bags from Chanu and willed him to go away.
He cleared his throat and with great formality enquired about Mrs Islam, her health in general, her hip in particular, and the continuing good fortune of her sons. Razia made brief, polite replies but sprawled over her chair in a manner unbecoming to a Bengali wife. His enquiries exhausted, Chanu stood ill at ease as if waiting on an invitation to be seated.
'Raqib,' said Nazneen.
Chanu startled. He seemed about to run. 'What?'
'Go and check on him,' said Nazneen gently.
'Why don't I check on him?' He spoke with relief, and hurried away. One heel flapped loose where it had become unstuck. His trousers were so deeply creased at the knee-backs that the concertina effect was almost a style. She followed him to the door and whispered in his ear.
The rice was perfect. Fluffy white grains, each one separate from its neighbour. In the rainy season, back home, when the land had given way to water and the buffaloes grew webbed feet, when the hens took to the roofs, when marooned goats teetered on minuscule islands, when the women splashed across on the raised walkway to the cooking hut and found they could no longer kindle a dung-and-husk fire and looked to their reserves, when the rain rang louder than cow bells, rice was the means, the giver of life. Precooked, it congealed and made itself glue. Or fashioned itself into hard lumps that only worked loose inside the stomach, the better to bloat the innards and make even the children lie down and groan with satisfaction. Even then it was good. This rice was superb. Just the rice would be enough for her. But fresh coriander made her swoon for the chicken. The deeply oily aubergine beckoned lasciviously. She wanted to stick her tongue in the velvety dal. Chanu could cook. It had not occurred to her that, in all those years before he married, he must have cooked. And since, he had only leaned on the cupboards and rested his belly on the kitchen surfaces while she chopped and fried and wiped around him. It did not irritate her that he had not helped. She felt, instead, a touch of guilt for finding him useless, for not crediting him with this surprising ability.
'It's good,' said Razia. 'Save some for your husband.' Nazneen was eating like a zealot. Razia put down her plate and spoon. 'Something I didn't mention to your husband about Mrs Islam.'
'She hasn't called. I offended her. Chanu doesn't know.'
'Something else he does not know.'
'You didn't want to gossip about her.'
'No.' Razia lowered her heavy eyelids. She leaned in. The lashes curled up like insect legs and the lids squared off the tops of the irises, which were, Nazneen noticed now, spattered with gold lights deep down in the black. 'It's not gossip. It is the truth.' She paused a while, the better to hook her audience. 'The woman is a usurer.'
'Tcha!'
'I check my facts. It is the truth. In the eyes of God, I say it again. The woman practises usury and she will be the companion of fire.'
'How can you say it?' Nazneen was forced to put down her plate.
'Listen to me. I had my suspicions. I said something to her about money difficulties and she offered a loan. Nothing specific. Then I was not sure. I thought – maybe she offers loans from the goodness of her heart. Maybe she carries bundles of five-pound notes in that big black bag, just for handing out to poor people.'
'Stop.'
'I'm not joking. You know me, always willing to see the good side.' She smiled like a jackal. 'If you don't believe me, ask Amina. Ask her what interest she is paying. Thirty-three per cent.'
'Razia!'
'You look a little scandalized. I don't make scandal. I just report what I see. It's not me who is going to hell on the day we are judged.'
'If she repents, God will forgive her.'
'Repent? Mrs Islam?' Razia dived in her bag and came up with a handkerchief. She pinched it between thumb and forefinger and waved it with her little finger cocked in the air. 'When I was a girl, no one dared to offer such insults! The best family in all of Tangail, do you not know that everyone bows before us?'
Nazneen could not speak. She stared at her friend.
Razia's gaze slid around the room. Then she became brisk. 'Amina could not make the last payment. If she doesn't come up with it next time, plus extra interest as punishment, the sons will break her arm. What kind of penance will God accept for this?'
'Who knows about it?'
Razia shrugged her large shoulders. 'Some people. Perhaps many people. They are all hypocrites. That is the thing about our community. All sinking, sinking, drinking water.'
At the English words, the teenager – as flaccid in his chair as a virgin balloon – raised himself up a little and wasted a half-glance on Razia.
'You hear all sorts of things about the sons,' Razia said. 'But for all I know, those things are just rumour.'
The boy rolled his head on the pimpled stalk of his neck and settled back. His mother looked at him as though this were the final straw and began to cry into the back of her hand.
'Time for me to go,' said Razia. 'Some things to do before I collect the children.'
'Kiss them for me. Give my salaam to the estate.'
'OK. I do it'
'Your English is getting good. Say hello to the tattoo lady from me.'
'Thank you. But the tattoo lady is gone.'
This was barely credible, even following the hard-to-swallow news of Mrs Islam, which should have made anything seem possible.
'Gone to an institution,' said Razia. She tapped at her temple. 'At the end she was sitting in her own . . . you know.'
'Oh,' said Nazneen.
'Someone should have got to her sooner. Always sitting there in the window, like a painted statue. Did no one see?'
Chanu had brought her tasbee. She held the beads and passed them. Subhanallah, she said under her breath. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. When she passed the thirty-third, her fingers loitered on the big dividing bead. She breathed deeply and ploughed on. Alhamdu lillah. Thanks be to God. Yes, she thought. But would He not wish me to return to my son now? Her fingers raced through to t
he ninety-ninth.
There had been no chance to make her prayers in the usual way. She had offered up her personal, private pleas. Now she was giving thanks. It was God alone who saved the baby. It was His work, His power, not her own. Her own will, though it swelled like the Jamuna and flowed like a burst dam, was nothing as to His. She began the cycle again, pressing the mild wooden balls fiercely. Subhanallah. Glory to God. Alhamdu lillah. Thanks be to God. Allahu Akbar. God is great. She dropped the beads and they rolled beneath a radiator, out of reach.
With a long-handled dish cleaner, borrowed from the kitchen area, she poked the tasbee out and dusted it off. Perhaps it would be better if Chanu took it home, where it would be safe. Anyway, all the repetition made her feel drugged when she needed to be alert. It would be better if he took the beads home again.
From now on when she prayed it would be in a different, better way. She realized with some amazement that, while she had knelt, while she had prostrated herself and recited the words, she had never fully engaged in them. In prayer she sought to stupefy herself like a drunk with a bottle, like a fly against a lantern. This was not the correct way to pray. It was not the correct way to read the suras. It was not the correct way to live.
She had wanted to make a barren space inside. To stop the discontents, the bellyaches, the intemperate demands from breeding. To stop them setting up home. It was like curing a case of tapeworm by starvation. Entirely possible, and unavoidably lethal.
On the eighth day, out in the corridor, she made her silent classifications. Patient. Parent. Distant relative. Friend. Doctor. Nurse. Orderly. The adult patients were easy. They were the ones in slippers and slip-on, ill-fitting smiles. They smiled to show there was nothing to worry about, that they themselves were not worried, and that they were enjoying this healthful, restorative circuit-walk of the sick lanes. Passing down the corridors of the children's wards they smiled especially hard to signal their knowledge of just how lucky they were. The parents were easy too. Every dark imagining had come upon them, and their eyes and lips were pinched by shock. The worst of it – how shallow their imaginations had run. The other relatives and the friends were sometimes difficult to tell apart, except that the relatives trod more lightly while the friends took the burden of clowning, of bringing cheer and huge teddies, small chattering toys. Doctors wore their authority on their white coats and in their urgent, forbidding strides. Stop me now, and you put a life at risk. The nurses doled out nods and brief, encouraging smiles that ignited in the parents a look of expectancy, as if they had remembered something to say; on the tip of their tongue and gone again. Orderlies were a variegated bunch. They scowled and slouched along, they bustled like the doctors, they sang a fantastic kind of anti-music, howling out fragments and lapsing abruptly into silence.
