The Black Coat

by Neamat Imam

  Abdul Karim had got his health back by that time. His eyes looked deep and alive. He called me to sit with them as he saw me at the door. ‘Come, join us,’ he said. ‘Let us honour this beautiful afternoon with a beautiful conversation. There may be another afternoon tomorrow but we may not have the same strength of mind.’

  I did not. I turned my face, and with a few swift steps, went to the kitchen, where I left the groceries on the floor and listened to them.

  ‘How could Sheikh Mujib say only twenty-seven thousand people have died in the famine,’ he said, ‘when the actual number is over a million and a half, and at least three million people died in the liberation war when the actual number was less than three hundred thousand? How could he do that? Does he, then, love Bangladeshis when others come to kill them because he cannot kill them, and hate Bangladeshis when he himself is killing them because he cannot hate himself?’

  ‘Can a person be such a beast?’ asked Nur Hussain.

  ‘That is not the question to ask. Because he can. Because he will. The question to ask is: will a person remain such a beast? And for how long?’

  Nur Hussain did not need any more confusion than he was already in. What was Abdul Karim doing, rekindling his anger? Damaging him, instead of helping him?

  Nur Hussain murmured something which I could not understand. There was a distance between us, and he made that distance longer by speaking confidentially to Abdul Karim, by whispering into his ears so that his words got lost before reaching me. But I was sure Abdul Karim understood him.

  ‘You can’t predict anything about a ruler,’ I heard Abdul Karim say. ‘You can’t predict anything about a ruler when he is aware that he is the only hero a nation has. He wants your unreserved loyalty: when he promises something to you, when he breaks those promises, and even when he becomes barren and violent. He does not understand why someone will think loyalty is not cheap, that a ruler must attain it with his actions, qualities and insightfulness. Isn’t he a hero, he thinks, isn’t he the best? I have wasted a lot of time deciding. It is hard for a spiritualist to accept that only a private militia can protect a government which has lost its sanity. It is hard for a faithful citizen to believe that his government does not care about him. I ran from place to place to avoid confronting myself, asking myself a few harsh questions about Sheikh Mujib. I am ashamed of that. I now know if there is any eternal God for the universe, there is no eternal leader for a country. No more doubt; no more procrastination; I know what I am going to do, but you, Nur Hussain, my pious friend, do you know what you are going to do? Do you know how to ditch a tyrant who hangs upon his citizens’ fate like an unending curse, extinguishing their hopes, destroying their aspirations, forcing them to blame themselves for his inability to rule?’

  I could not restrain myself. It was just too much for me. I felt I was dealing with my nemesis, a nemesis that was blind and inconsiderate and had vowed to make me dumb, and to eliminate me at any cost. I kicked the grocery bag with all my might. A small cinnamon packet, garlic cloves, beef steaks wrapped in newspaper and green lemons fell on the aluminium saucepans with a huge noise. Then I rushed to the corner and kicked the saucepans around a few times. Abdul Karim and Nur Hussain ran to the kitchen door to watch me, Abdul Karim more surprised than Nur Hussain, Nur Hussain more frightened than Abdul Karim.

  ‘Khaleque Biswas,’ Abdul Karim said quietly, ‘is everything all right with you?’ When I did not reply, or look at him, he took a step inside saying, ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  That was enough to multiply my anger. ‘Out,’ I yelled at him as I rushed towards him. ‘I don’t need a friend who stabs me in the back.’ He did not seem to understand why I was shouting. ‘Out, right now,’ I yelled again, and pushed him back, back to the sofa, handed him his guitar, pushed him repeatedly, until he was out of the door. ‘Don’t you ever come back,’ I shouted; ‘don’t you ever think of returning to this neighbourhood!’

  I slammed the door in his face. Nur Hussain watched me as I went to my room. I screamed several times in extreme anger and spoke whatever came to my mind. ‘This is why I brought you in, you slimy pig?’ I said. ‘This is why I respected you? You cannot pollute what I have purified. You cannot take away what is mine. You know neither God nor men. You know nothing about politics. No government will ever surrender to the wishes of its people. No society will ever be free from the control of its government. Go rot in the camp, you old eel. Dig yourself a grave in the heart of the refugee camp. Take your songs with you. Don’t leave them behind to misguide people.’ Those screams became weaker and feebler as my fury subsided little by little. Finally, after a few destructive minutes, they were gone.

  Nur Hussain passed the night without noise. He did not eat supper. He went to the kitchen quietly, as if he were afraid to fill his glass. Then whether he slept or stayed awake the whole night, I did not know. I did not hear him snore. And he did not practise the speech.

  I had frightened him to the bones. He must have guessed why I was rude to Abdul Karim. Well, he should have guessed that much before, before I lost my temper.

  He was leaving. Nur Hussain was leaving my flat. He was leaving behind things he had learnt, things we had promised to Moina Mia and Sheikh Mujib. He was leaving the way he came, without tension.

  It would be a lonely flat again. There would be nobody to share food with, nobody to be angry with, and nobody to compromise with. There would be no sound in the other room; it would turn into a storeroom again; lifeless and dirty, a flat full of spiders, a grave, a frozen piece of memory. There would be nothing to think, plan, prepare and accomplish; no good, no bad. There would be no escape from my own futile, monotonous, agonizing presence. It would be only I, growing old, watching my legs grow thinner, my head grow bald, and my nails break every few months, winter or summer.

  ‘Are you going to Gangasagar now?’ I asked, when he came to say goodbye.

  ‘Where else,’ he said, quietly. ‘That is my home. There I belong.’

  ‘Any idea what you will be doing there?’

  That was not a meaningful question to ask, and I did not have the moral right to ask him that question any more. Otherwise this moment of parting would not have come.

  He remained silent. No idea—I understood.

  ‘Would you like some company? Perhaps someone to talk to on the way?’

  He stared at me.

  I told him I too wanted to go there; he only had to give me an hour or two. I had something to take care of. Once that was done, we would be on our way.

  What that something was, I did not know. I could not think of anything and said that just to buy time.

  He believed me. He took a moment but he nodded, and then went back to his room. I told him to eat his meal and pack some food in a bag so that we had something to eat on the way. ‘Take some beaten rice, if you like,’ I said. That was the only food that was left. ‘And two pieces of gur.’

  Then I went out.

  22

  A Punishment for Me

  I was thinking too much, Moina Mia said, when I explained the situation to him. I should not think so much. It did not help.

  As an example, he referred to the war of liberation. If we had thought too much in 1971, he said, we would not have gone to war in the first place. Our weakness for the territorial integrity of Pakistan would have discouraged us. Our separation from West Pakistan would only benefit India, we would have argued, because neither West Pakistan nor Bangladesh would have the ability to stand against it in a time of regional crisis. Then he spoke about the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. ‘Did she fall in love with Sheikh Mujib only because he was a fiery orator, a tall and handsome man, as many people had alleged?’ he asked. ‘No. It was business as usual. A shrewd game of politics. Indeed, she did not fall in love with him at all; she helped him win the war by sending forces to fight against West Pakistan because by doing so she was breaking up Pakistan. That brought her more pleasure than making love with him would.
Women of that stature do not know what love is. They live their lives in the constant fear of being disempowered.’ If we had decided that we would not play Indira’s game, he went on, the war would not have taken place. But history would not have stopped there, he argued. Even if she had offered us Indian military forces, adequately decorated with ammunitions and war strategies, we could think for a hundred years about freedom and would not yet be free if we had stopped to consider that we would be a failed state after the liberation. So, no, thinking was not the solution. That was why, though there were many thinkers in the country, there was only one Sheikh Mujib who inspired us. He took that very necessary decision at the most crucial moment. In the same way, Moina Mia said, I had to make a decision about Nur Hussain without thinking too much.

  I had already made my decision, I said at once. He did not need to terrify me. I was under pressure because something had gone wrong. But I still had enough intelligence left in me to decide the best thing for myself and the kid. I was taking him to Gangasagar, I said. Everything that had happened in the city would remain in the city. It would be lost and forgotten once he had left. Sooner or later the refugees would be gone; the Shaheed Minar area would be clean and fresh. The school building would be renovated; its field would get new grass. People would die and die and then one day they would not die any more. They would become immune to sorrows and hunger and diseases. The makeshift camps would disappear. Besides, I argued, Nur Hussain had not said anything about Sheikh Mujib for a few days now. He was willing to go back to Gangasagar, and if I did not take him now he might start speaking out again.

  ‘What makes you so sure he would not speak about Sheikh Mujib in Gangasagar?’ Moina Mia asked. ‘Is there any guarantee?’

  No guarantee, I said. I could relocate him to a new flat, introduce him to people he had never met, take him to the zoo to study the behaviour of animals, but I could not change the pattern of his mind. He had to change it himself. For whatever reasons, he now believed in something. He would believe in it until he believed in something else, until his memory was obliterated or lost or damaged. We would be in the city, and he in his tiny, obscure village. ‘He can do whatever he likes in his village.’

  He can do whatever he likes in his village, Moina Mia repeated. By saying that, he said, I had committed two mistakes. First of all, he counted on his finger, Nur Hussain could not do whatever he liked anywhere in this country, not even in the village. Villagers must do what Sheikh Mujib wanted them to do. They must follow the systems of Mujibism. Everyone in this country must follow the systems of Mujibism, if they wanted to see the country prosper.

  Then, the second mistake. His finger moved again. Before explaining what that mistake was, he asked me if I thought there were any Sheikh Mujib supporters in Gangasagar.

  Yes, I said; there were, many, as in every village in Bangladesh. But unlike every other village, Gangasagar showed great resistance to the Pakistan forces. If they did not love Sheikh Mujib there, there would not have been any resistance there.

  That meant every word Nur Hussain would speak against Sheikh Mujib in Gangasagar would be properly recorded, reported and analysed, he said. Then either he would be dealt with locally, if the allegations were minor, or he would be referred to the centre, to be dealt with directly by the militia. Nur Hussain was a case not to be taken lightly, given what he had said at the Shaheed Minar—his monster speech. The matter would quickly be investigated and the findings would lead straight to me. Moina Mia said he was making the matter easier for me to understand. In Nur Hussain’s case, he said, which was now my case, there was nothing to investigate or establish; by becoming Sheikh Mujib’s guests together we had already established our relationship. ‘Remember?’ he said. The only thing that remained would be to make a decision about how serious the punishment should be and when it would be executed.

  ‘What’s my role in this? Are you being funny?’ I asked, as I felt a serious surge in my blood. He was not, I understood immediately. He looked at me frostily, his eyes like brass. If Nur Hussain were in Gangasagar and if he spoke there like he had spoken at the Shaheed Minar, nobody would know what had happened to us; we would just disappear.

  But I had not advised Nur Hussain to condemn Sheikh Mujib, I said. What was Moina Mia talking about? Didn’t he see how hard I worked so that Nur Hussain was ready for delivering the speech for Sheikh Mujib?

  He flicked a particle of dust from his shoulder with the back of his fingers. I did not know what I was doing, he said. I did not have any idea about anything. He took a breath and then turned his face towards the window. ‘Do you believe in Sheikh Mujib, Khaleque Biswas?’ he asked me abruptly.

  What did he mean? What was the connection between Nur Hussain’s disapproval of Sheikh Mujib and my loyalty to him?

  It would not have been possible for Nur Hussain to criticize Sheikh Mujib, he said, if somebody else had not criticized him first. ‘Inspiration comes naturally, while condemnation needs systematic effort. Condemnation needs to be grown, tended and nurtured over time, with a purpose.’ Nur Hussain had somebody with him, a collaborator, a radical and persuasive associate, a foolish mentor, a terrorist. Somebody ruthless and menacing must have entered his head and told him repeatedly what to think. Somebody gave him principles to argue with, strength to contradict and ability to withdraw, thus making him crippled. I was the obvious person. I must have done something to him recently that had pushed him to his present impaired mental state. I had annihilated him and then reconstructed him to suit my dismal political experience.

  How would I prove that I had not done anything to make Nur Hussain turn against Sheikh Mujib? I thought I could offer to bring him to speak for himself, to admit that what he had said was completely his own invention and that I had no part in it. But I did not. That would not be enough. Moina Mia would say I had influenced him again, this time to contradict himself, and I had done that only to evade the Mujibist system of justice. By criticizing Sheikh Mujib so brutally Nur Hussain had proved that he could be influenced to commit any terrorist act, and by persuading Nur Hussain to take the responsibility upon himself I had defied the Mujibist system again. That would only double my punishment.

  I was not just in an unpleasant situation now; I could feel the rage of the militia in my ears. I could already see the two militia members guarding the door giving complete attention to our conversation. They would act and act clinically when their moment came. I could see them look at me when Moina Mia said: ‘Answer me this: Where is your Mujib coat, Khaleque Biswas? Why are you not wearing your coat?’

  I had left it at home, I said. Nur Hussain and I were preparing for our journey to Gangasagar right this hour. The Mujib coat was not ideal travel attire. Wearing that coat on a bus crowded with sweaty bodies was also not giving it its due respect. I was aware of the respect it deserved and that was why I had come to see Moina Mia before we left. I had come out of my own sense of responsibility to request that he find a replacement for Nur Hussain so that Sheikh Mujib did not find himself in an embarrassing situation. ‘I am not a cheat; even though I am not wearing my coat, I have the Awami League and its social prestige right in my heart.’

  He knew all about me. He knew I had bought my first Mujib coat only after I was invited to see Sheikh Mujib at his residence; I had not worn a Mujib coat before the war, during the war, or after the war was won. I had not worn one even after I had bought one for Nur Hussain and had taken him from meeting to meeting to deliver Sheikh Mujib’s speech.

  But fighting was not his purpose, he said. There would be enough evidence against me to punish me in the most severe manner. I must come up with a more practical solution to the matter, and if I needed help, he could send a few militia members immediately. I would not need to do anything. I would not need to know anything.

  ‘He has me,’ I thought.’ The Awami League has me. I am dead.

  I would think about it, I said, although I remembered that he considered thinking unsuitable to progress. The
n I moved towards the door.

  ‘Sheikh Mujib has it all written out,’ he said loudly, so as to make the two militia members look at me again. ‘I am showing you a huge favour by being lenient towards you. If you follow me, you needn’t despair.’

  23

  Imprisonment Begins Here

  What would I do? There must be something I could do in this situation. There must be something. But what was it that I could do?

  ‘Shut up!’ I said, when I came back home and Nur Hussain told me he was ready, the beaten rice was already in the bag, and we could start any time now. ‘Shut up!’ I said again. I needed time to think and plan. If only he understood what I was going through! If only he knew how I was suffering because of him!

  He stood for some time with his arms folded, and then, his face suddenly growing dark, went to his room without further comment. He must have been hurt and terribly disappointed. I had shared many difficult moments with him. At no time had my words been so uncontrolled and callous. Now I lost myself. I completely lost myself.

  He came back, of course, with his bag on his shoulder; what did I expect? He stopped before me for a moment, wanted to say something, perhaps a courtesy goodbye, but hesitated and did not. Couldn’t he give me one minute, just one small, quiet, simple minute? He must have understood I was troubled. Within a short while I would be able to collect myself and say a proper goodbye to him, buy him a farewell gift, shake his hand, however difficult it might be, and however inconsequential it might appear to him. It was not that he had bought a non-refundable ticket and the bus would leave if he did not show up on time. There were buses departing every hour. There were newly introduced luxurious non-stop night coaches which would take him to Gangasagar early next day. Now that he would not be Sheikh Mujib any more, we might sit at a restaurant and order a traditional three-course meal: rice, fish, dal. We could go to any restaurant, sit up front, without the fear of being watched by people. He could talk about Gangasagar as much as he liked, I would not care. Then we would part, asking each other to stay in touch. That would be gentlemanly—a recognition of our respect for each other, and a fitting tribute to our acquaintance, Raihan Talukder. But no, he behaved as if he had become strong suddenly, the last rebel on earth, and he could neglect me in a way demeaning by any standards. Hadn’t he learnt anything about politeness after staying with me all these months?