Anwar and Rezwan’s training—swimming through leech-infested muddy swamps—was unnecessary for tonight: They rode to the farmland on their new black Royal Enfield motorcycle, which they’d claimed during their first guerrilla attack. They parked the motorcycle in a field of spinach and watermelon crop. The plants thrived despite their owner’s absence.
After surveying the farmhouse for the enemy—no one was there—they stopped at a trickling khal, a tributary of the Piyain that irrigated the land. In the night water, the full moon’s reflection appeared. Anwar turned up to see the real moon, but it had disappeared. He looked back down at the river, which now seemed invisible. The entire sky had gone pitch-black. He felt a shudder in his heart, and glanced at Rezwan, who was busy with ablutions for his night prayer. Something as silly as the moon in a puddle did not interest him.
“What is it, man?” asked Rezwan.
“The moon.”
“What about the moon?”
“I saw its reflection in the water. But now I cannot see it. It’s disappeared.”
“It’s the passing of clouds, the rotation of the earth, which veils your precious moon. She’ll be back,” said Rezwan, chuckling. “It’s the nature of Maya.”
“You sound like my father.”
Anwar wondered if he had offended his friend by comparing him to a conservative archaeologist. He clutched his bayonet, trying to relax. His father often spoke of Maya, man’s illusion, which kept him separated from the truth. The moon existed in the puddle, but not when he had looked up to behold it. And still, he knew the truth—the moon existed, even if he didn’t see it with his own eyes.
“Look, Anwar, there is your moon.”
They sat at the foot of the tree for a while, without speaking, staring at the moon as it rose higher in the sky.
“Do you fear anything?” asked Anwar.
“I fear God,” Rezwan replied without hesitation.
“I cannot believe that.”
“Not in the way you think.”
“Eternal punishment?”
“Of how possibly meaningless this all is. How he laughs at our stupidity. I was also thinking, if I’d had a brother like yours, I’d cut his balls off.”
“I can’t do that to my brother. Besides, I don’t want to touch his balls.”
“Point is—men like that are preprogrammed. They’re perfect for war, but too indifferent to others to fight.”
Anwar wondered what would happen if he and Rezwan came upon these brothers. Killed them. What made their killing right and the brothers’ killing wrong? Anwar knew the answer he hoped was true: Mukti Bahini did not rape, raid, or kill innocents. But there were disturbing rumors: Mukti Bahini had raped Bihari girls as revenge. Anwar did not want to believe this, but the way he’d seen a couple of his comrades stroking their rifles, lusty and mad-eyed, sometimes a grave doubt about independence flared in him—Anwar admitted this once—that the wisest move would be to remain with India. “Remain with India?” Rezwan thundered. “And resign ourselves to being India’s armpit? Fuck your mother, man!” As soon as he said this favorite catchphrase, Rezwan grew remorseful and apologetic.
“I’ve got no mother to fuck,” Anwar replied. On the hardest nights, he found himself whispering for his mother, whom he had never known.
* * *
Before sunrise, they decided to head back to the Black Forest, which lay on the border between Tamabil and Dawki, dividing East Pakistan and India. Once they reached the river, a boatman took them across to Dawki, to the India side. They wheeled their motorcycle through a clearing, just west of the BSF jawan’s post—it was a long “shortcut” to avoid dealing with a checkpoint. They came up to a bridge composed entirely of gnarled rubber tree roots, which ran over a stream. The road from the bridge tapered into a barren moor. A single stone obelisk stood on a hill, erected by ancient Khasis. As they entered the sacred land, the trees at the helm of the grove were sparse, flute-thin supari and betel leaf. Deeper into the forest, everything multiplied, and the air was thick with dew and the scent of burning teakwood. Rezwan brought a finger to his lips. For a well-built man, he was graceful. Anwar followed him toward a woman’s cry, and a baby’s wail. The harder they tried to be quiet, the more sounds he imagined: a smattering of laughter, exploded mortars. Anwar shook his head. Out here, in the Black Forest, they were safe from the war.
They followed the ominous timbre to a circular house in the center of the woods. Once they arrived, Rezwan relaxed. He knelt beside the woman, nursing her child on the porch. He kissed her forehead.
“Hello, my love.”
* * *
And now, on a bench in Brooklyn, Anwar chewed overcooked halal beef kebab of questionable origin, like a cannibalistic cow smacking her lips. He spat the meat into a napkin. The sun had drained his energy to eat, to move, to think anymore. He was glad he had made this time for Ella, whose remarkable likeness to Rezwan saddened him. Not because it was a bad thing to be like one’s father, but that he had spent the past sixteen years playing at it. She was nearly twenty-one, an adult in her own right, but still, Anwar wondered if he’d made any impression. He felt he had failed to teach Ella who her parents had been, where she came from. He hadn’t wanted to haunt her childhood, he supposed, just as he found himself haunted. Rezwan’s head trailed his highs like a broken memory. I have to type up the mess on that paper, Anwar told himself, remembering the brown parchment he’d titled “Black Forest.” He closed his eyes and fell asleep for some time. When he awoke, Atlantic Mall was still as crowded as when he’d sat down. He touched his face, which felt painfully raw.
All this dreaming of the moon and I’ve been burned by the sun.
Anwar walked back to the shop, ready to close.
* * *
Anwar walked up to his storefront and blinked his eyes several times to be sure of what he was seeing. The window of the apothecary was shattered in a cracked spiderweb of glass, with shards scattered inside the shop. His tower of Magic Jojoba shampoo had toppled over. He leaned into the gaping hole of his storefront window. Bricks. Anwar counted four, and on one of them, someone had written “Pig” with a white paint marker pen. Anwar paused to catch his breath and leaned against the wall between the apothecary and A Holy Bookstore. His bones hurt; never had he felt so run-down. He remembered a book from Charu’s childhood, and thought: Anwar and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Kids are smart, he thought, especially those three boys with Sallah S. No older than eighteen, alive and trigger-happy, comfortable in packs. But they are unlike wolves and more like feral dogs. Each boy held allegiance to himself, first and foremost, united when it was time to play. For a moment, Anwar considered that maybe this was a message from Sallah S., a blatant warning about his daughter’s chosen company. Unlikely, he decided. This was a wanton act. Summer’s usual mayhem.
* * *
By eight o’clock in the evening, the world basked in the setting sun’s amber glow. Ella had biked around the park, and through their neighborhood for hours, working off her elation at seeing Maya. She turned onto the quaint ride up Willoughby Avenue. On Willoughby, things were quieter, dotted with a car or two, a dog walker, a lady sitting on her stoop. She felt she was riding in a foreign land, saturated with color and secrets. I’ve never left the country since I got here, she realized. She wanted to whisk Maya out of those fluorescent lights, into all that was out here. They could ride their bicycles cross-country, maybe even into Mexico. She pictured them trekking through a desert, into the night, counting constellations, building a fire.
When Ella arrived back at 111 Cambridge Place, she heard nothing but the drumming of Charu’s sewing machine. There was no smell of dinner. No sign of Anwar, or Hashi. Maybe they were on one of their evening walks, though she couldn’t remember the last time they’d done that.
Ella wondered if she should tell Charu, or even Anwar, that she loved Maya.
No, Ella thought. This is mine.
* * *
Later that night, Maya invited Ella and Charu to a warehouse party along the border of Bed-Stuy and Bushwick. This time, Ella agreed to go.
The party was at an old garment factory, a behemoth concrete structure that had survived mass arsons in the seventies, workers’ strikes, and squatting artists. Young people strutted at all corners of the spot, leaning against walls, waiting in line for the bathroom, vogue-dancing in the center of the room. Ella realized she’d never been to one of these legend-in-the-making, underground-type parties before. She let Maya take her hand and lead her into the barrage of action: chain-smoking, rum-punch sipping from flasks masked with paper bags. Two girls in different shades of lipstick, lip-locked. They parted and smiled at Maya.
“Maya! You made it!” said the pink-lipped girl.
“I did. It’s a fabulous party.”
“Get a drink—who’re your fly-as-hell friends?”
“Heyyy, daddy,” said the other girl, grinning a red-smeared smile at Ella.
“She’s not your daddy, sweetheart.”
“She yours!” the girl howled. “Have a beautiful night, ladies, as-salaam-alaikum!” sounding more like a salami lake ’em!
“I should’ve worn my heels,” complained Charu.
“Not smart if you want to dance,” said Maya. “Come this way.”
Ella was conscious of people looking at her. Did they find her attractive? Queers everywhere, every which way she looked. Girls, women, boys, men, and some she couldn’t be sure. She contemplated removing her glasses to let all these kids take bizarre shapes and hues, but she didn’t want them to catch her looking.
“Let’s walk to the fire escape. I told Halim I’d meet him there.” Maya pointed toward the massive wrought iron staircase zigzagging three stories.
“I can’t do that,” mumbled Charu.
“Why not?” asked Maya.
“She’s afraid of heights,” said Ella.
“With that tree outside your window? What a shame, girl!” Maya laughed.
“Yeah. I don’t really do rooftop parties, fire escapes, or roller coasters,” said Charu. “I try to stay grounded.”
“I like that,” said a girl, who appeared out of nowhere by Charu’s side. “Wanna dance, ma?” She had a freshly shaved head and sported cologne straight from a magazine insert.
“Sure, why not?” said Charu. “See y’all in a few.”
On the fire escape, a few couples smoked and chatted, away from the clamor of the dance floor. Ella sat on the landing between the second and third floor, and Maya moved with a tightrope walker’s poise forward and backward to her own rhythm. A breeze crept into her hijab and the multicolored fabric flew around her head.
“You look like a hot air balloon,” said Ella. She grabbed Maya’s ankles, so that she fell neatly on her bottom next to her.
Maya yelped, “My poor ass!” She pulled off Ella’s glasses and took out a small silver flask from her purse. “Take a sip.”
Ella took a hearty swig and then another. She checked her watch—it was midnight. Black, yellow, and brown kids rocked wondrous hairstyles. Braided, dyed, feathered, twisted, cornrowed, flat-topped, matched with mesmerizing fashions—stirrup pants, Adidas tracksuits, tattoos, piercings, spray-painted sneakers. She envied their freedom.
There was a shot of rum left. The alcohol made it hard to focus her eyes. She saw Maya engulfed in scarlet waves, then cloaked in white foam. She shook her head but the image remained.
“You take a sip,” said Ella, handing Maya back the flask. She swiped her glasses, which were perched on Maya’s head.
“No, not for me. I can’t right now.”
“Why’s that?”
“I can’t right now.”
“Guess I might as well,” said Ella, swishing the last drop in her mouth like it was Listerine.
A loud couple ran onto the fire escape with the same abandon she feared would cause someone to fall.
“Stop, Halim! Give it back!” yelled his boyfriend, the formerly mouse-quiet Marque, whom Ella remembered from Maya’s birthday picnic in July.
Halim held Marque’s backpack a foot above his head. “Not until you kiss me,” said Halim, holding the bag higher.
“Hell no—not till you give it back!”
“Now, now, Halim,” said Maya, laughing. “That’s a very bad idea.”
Halim dropped the backpack into Marque’s hands. “Sweethearts!”
“You’ve got me worried. What if you’d fallen?” Maya shook her head. “When are you leaving for Rutgers?”
“Not until Labor Day. And you? What’s your plan? Come with me. You can crash at my dorm when I start school.”
“I’ve got offers all over the tristate area,” joked Maya. “That’s the pipe dream of a stupid girl.”
“Why are you giving up now?” asked Halim, sitting down next to her, the same worried expression on his face as on her birthday.
“You won’t understand.”
“I won’t? I know your mother’s worried as hell that you haven’t called.”
“Why hasn’t she called the police, if she’s so fucking worried?”
“Well . . . she got a lung infection; I just heard about it today.”
“Poor Mema.” Maya sighed.
“I know, baby, you don’t want to see him. But your mema, think about your mema,” said Halim. “As you can tell, Ella, my mom loves gossip.”
“I saw your father today, too,” said Ella.
“What? Why didn’t you tell me? Is that why you came by work? To tell me? Did you love him like everyone else does?”
“He thought I was a boy.”
Maya half-smiled. “He brokers deals on behalf of our community. He’s a respected guy. Everyone loves him.”
“I understand,” said Halim, shaking Maya’s shoulders. “You were gonna rot in that house the way he’s got you locked up. You had to leave when he started getting on you—”
“Shut the fuck up!” screamed Maya.
Halim looked stricken; never had Maya raised her voice to him—or to anyone, for that matter. “I just want to help you.”
“Then get the fuck away from me.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes. I do.”
Halim stood up, taking Marque’s hand into his. He raised his chin and pursed his lips. “C’mon, Marque, let’s go.”
* * *
“What’s going on here, guys?” asked Charu from the window, without her dance partner.
“Hold my hand, baby. I’m drunk!”
The voice was angry, the unmistakable voice of the street hawker Rashaud Persaud. He climbed through the window of the floor above, onto the fire escape. His long, stiletto-clad legs clanked down the stairs. Behind him crouched Malik, who balanced his hand on Rashaud’s shoulder.
“Rashaud’s legs are quite nice,” Maya commented to Ella.
As they came downstairs, Malik saw Charu in the window. His eyes widened with fear. He dropped Rashaud’s hand.
“Hi, guys,” he mumbled. “Hi, Charu.”
“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you . . . call me back?”
“I’ve been busy, sugar. Rehearsal, work . . .”
“You’re at a party—”
“I’m just”—Malik leaned in closer—“looking out for Rashaud. She—he’s drunk. I need to get her home before my shift starts. I’ll call you. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Right,” Charu said. She moved aside as Malik squatted to enter the building. He helped Rashaud inside.
“See y’all later, dearies,” slurred Rashaud as they walked away.
“Is he fucking Rashaud Persaud? I want to go home.”
“Charu, he’s a teenage boy. They’re practically, like, ninety percent
erections,” said Maya. “Come out here.”
“I want to go home.”
“He’s not fucking anybody. They’re just friends. Try not to think about him,” said Ella.
“I had sex with him, and then he went dark. I haven’t heard from him, and he’s just gallivanting around here like an asshole,” Charu said, choking on a sob. “I’m an asshole.”
Ella stiffened at the mention of them having sex. “We all do stupid shit.”
Maya smacked her arm, as if to say, Don’t be a jerk. “Look here, Charu, my love. You’ll get to college, you’ll find someone new, and forget Malik in no time.”
Leave it to Maya to say something kind and true while stirring up Ella’s unwieldy imagination.
14
At 111 Cambridge Place, Anwar lay awake next to his sleeping wife, after an hour of being unable to perform. Brushing his teeth beforehand had ruined everything. The imbalance in his mouth, the pervasion of mint toothpaste—it was gross. He’d even applied deodorant on her request. But when he came to her, there were more complaints.
They’d kissed for many minutes until she winced and pushed him off. “Shave your beard.”
“Shave yours,” he said, clamping his hand on her crotch. He let her go. His libido waned like a deflated balloon, and he rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling.
She poked him in the jaw. “What are you looking at?”
“You ever notice these ceilings?”
“It’s the same old ceilings, Anwar. They could use some paint.” She jabbed his forehead with a cold finger.
“They are beautiful. The builders who molded them kept in mind the wives on their backs.”
Bright Lines Page 14
