Bright Lines

by Tanwi Nandini Islam

  “Well, everything you’ve got there exists all over the world.” Rana laughed. “I’ve never understood why people are disgusted by the difference in others. Take me, for example. I’m a Pahari, not your average Bengali.”

  “Pahari?”

  “My people are from the hills. Our features are different. So we’ve been kept from our share of the world. I’ve never been rude to another man, woman, or hijra because they aren’t like me.”

  Ella nodded. “Is there a word for the other way around?”

  “You mean, a woman who lives as a man?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rana tapped the steering wheel, trying to think. “You know, I’ve heard of one word—swadhin. An Indian photographer I met—he told me the word meant a woman turned into a man. Over there, they’ve got a lot of interesting words we haven’t found yet. I remember it stayed with me. Maybe because the photographer wanted to take me home after the exhibit. It’s a good word. Swadhin.”

  “Why? What’s it mean?”

  “‘Ultimate liberation.’ We use it when we talk about winning the war.”

  “I’ve heard Anwar say it.”

  “But in this case, it means a female finding salvation by becoming a man. Which I’m not sure is possible.”

  “What’s not possible?”

  “Finding salvation.”

  They had arrived at Shahbag Aziz Market. Rana called Stalin on his cell phone. “That’s strange. He isn’t picking up.”

  * * *

  By dusk, they hadn’t yet returned. Ella grew anxious. Rana told her that Stalin would take care of Charu; there was nothing to worry about. Ella went up to the roof. They’d been in the city for a day, and already Charu had ditched her. Down below in the alleyway, the street children played a game that resembled hopscotch. Trash piles burned around them, just like in the morning. The fires took on hellish, horned forms. A rock thrown in the air expanded into a Satan-faced balloon.

  Suddenly, the roof light came on. “Fuck,” she gasped.

  “It’s only me, child,” said Azim. “What’s happening up here?”

  “Just . . . waiting for Charu.”

  Azim took Ella’s face into his dead hand. This inundated her with déjà vu. “When you were younger, the only thing that would make you relax was pressing into my hand. You claimed you’d seen scary things.”

  “I did. I do.”

  Azim zoomed his hands in and out, right up to her face. “I’m going to keep zoom-zooming with my hands. I want you to say what you see, each time I push in, and each time I pull out.”

  Ella decided to humor him. Nothing he did would do anything to change the jarring array of shapes:

  “A hunchback. An army general.”

  “Good, good; keep on.”

  “An old man. A coral reef. A pile of bones. A halibut. A severed head. Maya.”

  Ella watched as the great satanic head down below evaporated into Maya’s visage. Her lips looked streaked with tar, or dried blood. Ella shook her head and muttered, “Please, stop.”

  Azim took out an ophthalmoscope from his pocket and flashed it into her eye. “Look straight into the light, child. Do you see a tree?”

  “Yes. Everyone sees the tree.”

  “I do not believe this is an ophthalmologic problem, I’m afraid. I happen to know a neurologist husband-wife duo, Dr. and Dr. Masud, right here in Dhaka.”

  Ella looked down at the children playing below. “Nana. I’m not having brain surgery in this country. No offense.”

  “Of course you’re not. I would never assume such a thing, despite how much it pains me to hear it. But why not learn more about your condition, with your Nana beside you? Will you let me make you an appointment? You know it will be painless and illuminating. What’s better than that?”

  Lightning flashed, and all the rooftops across the horizon lit up for a moment. The steady rumble of thunder followed. The alley children screamed and scattered. The sweet chime of a bicycle bell rang. Below, Ella saw Anwar and Hashi, giggling and paying for their first rickshaw ride in sixteen years.

  22

  Two days later, Azim, Anwar, and Hashi went with Ella to the Masud Mostishko Center for her afternoon appointment with Dr. Darwin Masud. Azim explained that Darwin and his wife, Sonali, met while completing residencies at Mount Sinai. They wanted to open a private center with sliding-scale options and payment plans, and none of the government hospital red tape. The building’s facade had as much character as any old clinic in the States. All services were devoted to the mostishko, the brain.

  Ella’s heart felt as though it might break open her chest. She knew that her few years in Bangladesh were the origin of her hallucinations. But what if there was some tangible cause? With the support of her grandfather, and now Anwar and Hashi, she felt like it was finally the right time to do this. Besides, with Maya gone, she had nothing else to lose.

  “Are you nervous, Ella? Don’t be,” said Anwar. He squeezed her hand. “You know, we could’ve done this back home. I had no idea the visions were so—strong.”

  “They’re worse when I’m stressed.”

  “Most things are, my love,” said Hashi. Ella could tell that though she was worried, her aunt was holding it together.

  “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

  “Bah! Don’t even say it,” said Anwar.

  Hashi nodded. “We’ll be here the entire time.”

  “But I think the tests will take all day,” said Ella.

  “We’re in the heart of the city that never sleeps,” joked Anwar. “Rana can take us away if we get hungry or bored.”

  “I’m old and like sitting down. So I am just fine,” said Azim.

  Dr. Masud poked his head out of the doorway. He had a young face and a head full of white hair. “Ella? How are you? Please come. If you’d like anyone else with you, they are welcome.”

  “Do you want me with you?” asked Hashi.

  “I’ll go alone,” Ella told her.

  * * *

  Dr. Masud walked Ella through the process of getting an MRI. Each time he grew excited, he tapped the cleft on his chin, as if inspired by an idea.

  “It will feel strange to be unable to see,” said Dr. Masud, as he slipped off Ella’s glasses. He pocketed them in his white coat and checked to see if she wore anything else metal. “Do not panic. It’s not easy if you’re claustrophobic, so try to relax. Just lie completely still inside the hollow tube. We’ll administer a contrast dye through an IV in your arm, so we can see clearly what’s going on. A magnetic field is generated around your body. Water molecules in your tissues temporarily realign. MRI sends radio waves through you, triggering a resonance signal at different angles. Then, we’ll read the 3-D scans to see if there are any cysts or lesions. Got it? Good. Let the tests begin.” Dr. Masud grinned.

  * * *

  For the next four hours, Dr. Masud conducted a series of tests on Ella to uncover the cause of her hallucinations.

  The MRI was the easiest part, a mere one hour. Afterward, it was time for the electroencephalography, which would measure electrical activity going to her brain. I should’ve done the damn thing at home. She reclined in a hospital bed and ultraefficient female nurses studded her scalp with fine-needled electrodes.

  “Now the fun begins,” said Dr. Masud.

  She felt like a lab experiment, but admitted she was curious to see what Dr. Masud discovered. He introduced an array of stimuli—bright, flashing lights in multiple colors—and asked her to open and close her eyes, breathe heavy, then slow. Ella stared at a black-and-white checkerboard screen that dissolved into stripes and then back to squares. Violet light shifted through the spectrum.

  “What are you seeing, Ella?”

  “Um . . . the nurses’ scrubs are growing big and wide into 1950s-style hoop skirts. Your bald spot is turning into a
theater spotlight. And there’s—my mother and father. Your head has turned into a stage. My father is lifting my mother over his shoulder. He’s riding a horse on a golden carousel. Everything is red, orange, blue, and now violet. Then there’s this—girl.” Ella paused, blinking. Maya had appeared. Blossoms grew from her eyes, lips, and mouth. She blew smoke from her mouth. Ella materialized as a figure made in this smoke, muscled and naked.

  “That’s it,” she said finally.

  “Good work, Ella,” whispered Dr. Masud. “We’re going to do a polysomnogram to jot down your brain, eye, heart, and muscle movements while you sleep. Now it’s time to rest.”

  * * *

  Ella woke up around seven a.m. She noticed a massive book on the bedside table, as high as the proverbial stack of Bibles. On the brown leather cover, stamped in gold leaf:

  AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF

  The Sushruta Samhita

  Based on Original Sanskrit Text

  VOL. I—SUTRASTHANAM

  Ella started to read Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna’s translation, which Azim had left for her. The book was littered with English, Russian, and Bengali scribbles in the margins. Sushruta, a surgeon-physician from the holy city Varanasi, heralded as the father of modern surgery, documented volumes of his studies on illnesses, remedies, medicinal herbs both anesthetic and antibiotic, even surgeries for the eye. He’d been hailed with many titles, none of them proven—a student of Dhanvantari, physician of the gods and bona fide avatar of Vishnu. Hours passed, as Ella read. Her grandfather had dog-eared several pages, several times. The black ink throughout the volume had faded. Ella found one creased page, stained by brown coffee droplets. There were several passages underlined repeatedly.

  A man who sees

  The fiery orb of the sun by night,

  And the mellow disc of the moon by day,

  Or to whom the earth appears

  Enshrouded in a sheet of fine linen

  Or checkered with cross lines

  Or to whose sight

  The Pole Star remains invisible

  Should be reckoned as already

  With the dead.

  The droplets grew in diameter near the ophthalmologic treatise Uttar Tantrum. More underlined and crossed-out words: Bhu, the muscles; Vayu, the iris; Agni, the blood. Ella had never seen her grandfather drink coffee. She realized the stains were from that fateful night with his brother-in-law.

  Why did he leave the book here? What’s the point of all this shit?

  Should be reckoned as already with the dead.

  The words stirred her. Losing his hand meant the dissolution of her grandfather’s hope of becoming a surgeon. Losing her parents had rewired her, forced her to survive a primordial loss. She recalled her airplane ride from Bangladesh to New York with Anwar and Hashi. That was the first time she’d ever experienced her hallucinations. She’d watch clouds turn into people’s faces. Once they appeared, she had felt much less alone.

  * * *

  At noon, Dr. Masud came by to review Ella’s MRI results. He pulled the scans from a folder, and pointed to the film depicting cross sections of her brain.

  “It’s incredible. Your brain is as clear as the day’s sky.” Dr. Masud shook his head. “I admit, I am surprised, Ella. The . . . severity of what you’ve described left no doubt in my mind that there was some sort of lesion or tumor. But every day we are gathering evidence that the brain has unconventional ways of healing our—traumas.”

  His words disappeared in the air between them.

  Dr. Masud cleared his throat and continued. “The elasticity of a child’s brain and body is astonishing. We scientists are still trying to understand. Your very young brain has seen a world that many of us can only dream about. Perhaps there is some solace in that. Perhaps, one day, you will no longer see your phantasms.” Dr. Masud winced, looked at Ella with pity and wonder. “You’ve gone through a lot.”

  He left her to fetch Azim, Anwar, and Hashi.

  She had but a few fragmentary memories, wisps of her mother and father, collaged from photographs and others’ stories. She no longer had Charu, or Maya, who had almost died trying to see the world the way Ella did. She would be leaving her grandfather and Rana soon, to reenter Ithaca’s long winter, alone. Anwar and Hashi would be in Brooklyn, hours away. She didn’t have much, if anything, except for these visions. Through them she saw colors, people, and patterns beyond the world she lived in. She saw her parents. She saw Maya. The hallucinations were a residue of what she had lost. She’d come to depend on this predictable magic. In this life where she’d had little power over what had happened to her, they were the wild gift that let her survive.

  And no one could take them from her.

  * * *

  Anwar, Hashi, and her grandfather were simultaneously confused and elated by the news that Ella was lesion-free. They returned to the flat, where Anwar and Hashi retired for the afternoon. They’d been unable to sleep the night before. Rana had left to drive Charu and Stalin to a women’s studies lecture at Jahangirnagar University.

  Ella was happy to lie low with her grandfather. They peeled oranges on the veranda, discussing his birthday plans.

  Azim said, “For my seventy-fifth birthday, I want no celebrations, no fanfare, no gifts. We can also do your belated birthday celebrations. I imagine the Christmas holiday is a poor time to ask people to remember you.”

  “That’s true,” said Ella. “Maybe we could go out to dinner? Hashi’s not going to let you do nothing.”

  “I want two things: a fried rupchanda fish and a chance to show my granddaughters Cox’s Bazar. It is the world’s longest sea beach. We can escape Dhaka for a respite in my hometown. Dhaka and her surrounding towns have their share of old ruins, but I prefer the history down south. You’ll love Cox’s Bazar, I promise. The salt air and beaches were home to Buddhist kingdoms, Magh pirates in cahoots with the Portuguese mavericks, Mughal emperors.”

  She was starting to think that being in Bangladesh, miles away from Cornell and the familiarity of Brooklyn, was good for her.

  “We should also take a day trip to Rangamati. The lake and the hills are lovely. But there is always a dark side, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve dispossessed people in the hills of their ancestral lands. Abused by the continual sadism of unwanted Bangali settlers planted by the government. Refuge lies in the surrounding forests, just beyond the border of India, Burma. But the land is not ours. It belongs to the Pahari tribes.” Azim peeled another orange, and split the slices. “Names sweet and strange on the tongue.” As he popped each of the twelve slices into his mouth, he recited the names of the tribes: “Chakma, Manipuri, Marma, Tripura, Tanchangya, Lushai, Pankhua, Garo, Khasi, Kheyang, Khumi, and Mru. There are many more tribes, but I can’t remember. Much easier to call them Pahari.”

  * * *

  Anwar was excited. In just an hour by airplane, they’d be on the beach. What a perfect way to end the week. Ella was healthy and sound. He and Hashi were getting along well, and Charu seemed in good spirits. Anwar had always loved Cox’s Bazar’s expanse of unadulterated ocean, the groves of supari, betel, coconut, and pine that grew wild everywhere. The one drawback was the rampant religiosity of the locals. While Azim owned a flat in Chittagong, his father-in-law preferred to stay at his modest beach house in Cox’s Bazar, away from the city’s congestion and pollution.

  “Who should we invite, Baba? What friends of yours should I call?” Hashi asked. She sat next to her father, to figure out details for the party.

  Anwar smiled. “Darling. Your father’s friends—”

  “Are all dead,” said Azim.

  “I was going to say they’ll be there when we arrive, so we can call them later. . . .” Anwar let his sentence trail off.

  “I’ve got my daughter, sons, and granddaughters. I don’t nee
d friends,” said Azim.

  An hour later, they landed in Cox’s Bazar’s airport. The air was crisp and cool from the ocean breeze. “Nice ride, Rana,” said Anwar, as Rana pulled up in a jeep. “Quite renegade of you.”

  “Thanks, Anwar. I like it, too.”

  Rana had arrived in Cox’s Bazar a few hours earlier, to get the house in order and be able to pick them up from the airport. He drove them past a cluster of ugly high-rise hotels that had popped up on the beachfront, near Inani Beach. What is this nonsense? They rode past the city’s main roundabout, through a narrow brick-walled alleyway with snack stands along the roadside. Once they got onto Marine Drive, all vestiges of the town disappeared.

  For miles, all Anwar could see was the Bay of Bengal’s silvery waters. Even Charu and Stalin, who always seemed to be engrossed in conversation, were quietly watching the scenic drive. As with much of the country’s most beautiful land, Anwar knew the military had paved this road, which they planned on extending all the way to Teknaf, at the Burmese border.

  He loved being at the Indian Ocean, the very end of Bangladesh. Wild grasses and flowers native to the south flourished. Krishnachura trees flashed their crimson flowers and fernlike leaves in the late morning sun. Miniature yellow and pink lantana blossoms and pale morning glories crawled freely over the white sand. He noticed chunks of hillside had been excavated, perhaps to make room for hotels and housing developments. This foolish lack of foresight meant landslides in the years to come.

  “There’s the house!” said Hashi, pointing excitedly. They pulled up a sandy dirt road, where a two-story adobe house stood. Azim had built the house just after the war. There was an adjacent, equally large house for the cooks and property caretakers. Anwar appreciated the old man’s sense of design. Both houses had open floor plans. The kitchen and living room composed the heart of the house. And all of the rooms led to the courtyard bounded by hibiscus, mango, and banana trees. There wasn’t much privacy, but it was always airy and sunny inside.

  The smell of fried rupchanda fillets, grilled lobster, and roasted chicken and rice wrapped in banana leaves wafted into the car. A sign painted in purple Bangla characters read, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!