Bright Lines

by Tanwi Nandini Islam

  “Animals here look so crazy to me,” said Ella.

  “What do you mean?” Charu pulled her head off Ella. Leave it to Ella to zone out when emotions are on the table. But her predictable shit was comforting now.

  * * *

  The next day, at twilight, they returned to the cemetery of unmarked graves. Ella and all of her male relatives wore panjabis. Charu wore a white sari that Malika gave to her. From twenty feet below, where the sea gleamed in the setting sun, boatmen and swimming children saw their silhouette as a portentous falcon. The shrill call of hill mynahs filled their ears. They breathed in the earth and salt water. Azim Nana leaned on a shovel as though it were a cane. He recited Janazah from a parchment scrawled with his loopy script. His voice cracked on each word that began with A.

  Ella faded in and out of the prayer, hiding behind sunglasses. Trees cast camouflage-like shadows on the gravestones. Ella tried to focus on her grandfather’s words. Azim pulled back the shrouds. Anwar’s mouth had settled into a hint of a smile. Azim motioned to Ella and Rana and Stalin. The four of them lifted Hashi’s body first, then Anwar’s, setting them into the plot that Azim had purchased for his own death. Rana stabbed the soil next to the graves, lifted a mound of black earth, and threw it into the pit. Water ran down his cheeks.

  A shudder from Charu, who cried, “Baba.” She reached out for his body. But Stalin held her back, whispered something to her. Ella was certain that only she could see their affair—Charu wept into Stalin’s neck, and he held her close, playing all the roles: protective uncle, substitute father, brother she never had, lover.

  “Ella,” said Rana. “Did you hear me?”

  “No, sorry—I was—what did you say?”

  Rana frowned with pity. “You and I can handle this.” He handed her a shovel.

  Ella, Rana, and Stalin began filling the graves. Her grandfather’s final word, Amin, struck her, as the last mound of earth swallowed up the only parents she’d known, buried beside the father she barely remembered.

  Azim’s voice, taut with heartbreak, snapped like an old guitar string.

  * * *

  Night fell. Rana and Azim snored in the courtyard hammocks. In the parlor room, Charu and Stalin watched an ancient television playing Lawrence of Arabia with useless Urdu subtitles. A knob had broken off when Stalin tried to raise the volume, rendering the movie inaudible.

  What in hell are we watching? Stalin wondered. Somehow Charu had convinced him to let her borrow his clippers. And now she was bald like some goddamned temple devotee.

  Oh, his siblings had this way about them. Ruining things. Dying. Stalin rubbed his temples. He was dying for a drink, a late-night fuck. He had not fucked anyone in the past month, since before Charu had arrived in Dhaka.

  He was an idiot. His niece was an idiot.

  “I’m going into town. I need a drink.” He stood up abruptly.

  “Can I—come with you?” Charu asked quietly. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You know the rules around here. Girls are not allowed.”

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  * * *

  Charu rocked on the porch swing, waiting. Mosquitoes bit her ankles and arms, but she felt as though she could barely move enough to scratch the bites. She had no idea what time it was. Stalin still had not returned from town. She’d felt his chest heaving under her cheek—he felt all the same shit she’d been feeling, right? But there was no way to name what they had. It was already over, anyway.

  Rana snored steadily on the hammock in the front yard. With this driver-boatman extraordinaire Raahil around, Stalin hadn’t been able to convince Rana to give him rides. Azim had retired for the evening, and Ella was nowhere to be found.

  “Where the fuck are you?” whispered Charu.

  As she uttered these words, a figure became clear on the path to the house. For a moment she thought it was Stalin, but this person had the whimsical gait of a boy, much lankier than Stalin. Charu recognized him—it was Raahil.

  “Where’s Stalin?” called Charu.

  “Stalin Sir sohor-e.”

  Still in town, huh? Maybe he decided to walk.

  Raahil came up to Charu on the porch, and he handed her a single sprig of some daisy-like flower. “Charu . . . ami—sorry. Bakul phool,” he said, pressing a flower into her hand.

  “Thank you. What’s your name again?”

  “Raahil,” he said.

  “Sit with me,” she said, gesturing to the swing.

  “Accha,” he said. He sat down, careful not to touch her.

  Charu didn’t want to speak in Bangla; for some reason she worried if she did, she’d start to cry. She rested her head on his shoulder instead.

  “Sorry,” Raahil whispered again, stroking her buzzed head. “Cholo, amar shaate asho.” Come with me.

  * * *

  Raahil led her to a small stretch of beach where all the huts belonged to Raahil’s extended family, but they weren’t for living in, he explained. At least that’s what Charu understood of his warbling coastal Bangla. The huts were for fisherman to sleep in, for those days they expected a big catch after a storm.

  Raahil brought her into one of the huts and lit a hurricane lamp on the floor. Only a bare fishing net lay in the sand. The whole place had a rank, fishy smell to it. Charu tried to hold her breath, but couldn’t for very long. He waved his hand across his nose, as if to ask—Too stinky?

  “Yeah, it fucking stinks in here, dude,” said Charu.

  He unknotted a mosquito net from the ceiling, and gestured for her to sit in the middle of the fishing net. He draped the mosquito net around them.

  “I’m a catch,” muttered Charu.

  Raahil didn’t get the joke. His face had grown serious and sweaty from the effort to create a vibe. He grabbed Charu’s hand and rested it on his erection. He pushed her onto her back, and untied the knot of his lungi, letting the fabric unravel on her. He stretched the lungi flat on the ground and bade her to roll onto it. Naked, he seemed less gaunt, Charu noticed. Raahil untied the knot of her baggy salwar pants and pulled them down to her ankles. She’d stopped wearing underwear in this heat, and he let out a delighted gasp, deftly pressing his callused palm against her pussy. He grinned and brought his mouth down to her. His steady slurping reminded Charu of shucking oysters on Montauk with her father and Ella. It felt as though there was no room in this place for the memory. She wanted him to stop, so that she could remember.

  “Babaaa,” she cried, pressing herself harder against Raahil’s palm. “Babaa.”

  Raahil looked up, alarmed. After a moment, inevitably he said, “Sorry?”

  Charu heaved. She tasted nothing but the ocean, feeling as though she were being brined and breaded in sand.

  “I. Want. To. Fuck you,” he said.

  “Please, stop talking in English. Jesus. You sound terrible.”

  This time, he didn’t apologize. He turned Charu onto her back, then up on all fours. She stopped thinking about the oysters. She stared at the shadows they cast on the woven bamboo walls, the bristly hairs along his abdomen. She pressed her bottom against him, pushing back as he thrust inside her faster and faster. She gave one hard push, so hard that he lost his balance. He chuckled and let her ride him. Raahil scratched her back, then tugged her tits. Here she was, with this lean, brown-skinned man from the country her parents had grown up in. Where her parents had died.

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever return.

  Raahil sat up and twisted her around to face him. He fell on top of her and fucked her steadily until she came. She pressed her fingers into the small of his back and started kissing his mouth, tasting his sweat and her own tears.

  When he came on her belly, he did so loudly, as if to warn anyone who might try and enter.

  * * *

  Ella had been watching the black sky and ocean forg
e into a single abyss. Bioluminescence in the ocean rotated in a zodiacal wheel upward, spinning constellations out of the waters. The tide started to rise higher. She heard a loud, raucous wail from the beach huts. It sounded like Charu. Ella ran toward the lamp’s glow from one of the huts. She stooped in the doorway. “Hello? Is everything okay?”

  Charu was lying on her back, legs wrapped around a strange, naked boy.

  Charu gasped. “What are you doing here, El? Shit!”

  The boy pulled himself off Charu. “Ki chao? Ki?” As he oriented himself, he noticed Ella and jumped to his feet. “Sorry—”

  “Stop with the fucking sorry already—stay here,” snapped Charu, getting to her feet. “Ella—”

  Ella left without a word. She ran across the beach toward the rocky cliff path up to their grandfather’s house. Charu panted behind her.

  “I thought I heard something. But it was the two of you fucking,” said Ella, between clenched teeth. She quickened her pace to leave Charu behind.

  “Stop!” called Charu, racing after her.

  Ella ran away from the huts toward the ocean. The tide had started to come in even higher, and the claylike sands pulled her feet into the water. Charu caught up and spun Ella around to face her.

  “El. Sometimes fucking is a good—I just needed to feel something.”

  “Maybe you need to try crying.”

  “You’ve fucking heard me crying. I can’t cry anymore.”

  “Well, I was too busy washing your mother’s dead body.” The words felt ugly, but Ella wanted to hurt her. “You think fucking a random kid would make them proud of you?”

  “It’s not like that,” whispered Charu.

  “And your stupid haircut,” Ella continued. “You’re crazy.”

  “You’re the one acting crazy. Don’t take your pent-up bullshit out on me—”

  “Fuck you—”

  The wet sand loosened under her heel, pulling Ella into the night tide.

  * * *

  Salt water filled her nose. Ella sputtered, trying to blow bubbles, thrashing instead of floating as Maya had tried to show her. A maniacal pendulum throbbed in her head. Had I been raised here, I would swim. Ella sank and surrendered to the blackness of the water. Here, her body shed its awkwardness. She let go, floating and letting the waves bring her up to the surface. She slammed into one of the sampans anchored in the ocean. The boat’s sharp side sliced open her flesh. Strong arms pulled her head out of water. “Put your arms around my neck,” said Rana, heaving. He sounded as far away as the screaming above. “Oho!” he shouted, as he made the grueling swim back to shore.

  * * *

  After nearly drowning, Ella had two gashes from hitting the sampan’s edge. One scar was on her left thigh, sickle shaped like the boat that had given it to her. The other was a long serpentine scar on her side, which healed quickly. She wrapped gauze around her chest to heal the wound. Binding her breasts became a ritual long after the scar had healed. Her breasts had always felt unnecessary. She’d taken to wearing the plaid lungis her grandfather and Rana wore, paired with tank tops. Most of the villagers assumed she was a boy. She never bothered to correct them. It didn’t feel like a mistake. She liked that they saw what she wanted them to see. She navigated the town with ease, which she recognized as a privilege that her cousin didn’t have. By the same token, she knew that Charu didn’t mind being stared at.

  Ella and Charu took leaves of absence from school to spend the rest of February until the end of March in Cox’s Bazar. Stalin bade them all good-bye to return to his teaching gig in Dhaka. He made it no secret that he was relieved to rid himself of them.

  They spent time with Rana and Azim, Ella learned to swim, and Malika’s home cooking seemed to help Charu process her loss. Ella apologized for the way she’d acted on the night of the funeral, but Charu assured her that she was simply glad that Ella was alive.

  * * *

  The evening before they were leaving for the States, Ella and Rana sat in the courtyard, drinking a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black that Stalin had left behind.

  “I want to bring you back to Brooklyn with me,” Ella said.

  “I’ve been thinking about this.” Rana grinned. “My only two shitty ideas are for us to get married or to win the DV lottery.”

  “Both impossible,” said Ella. They both laughed.

  “I’ll see you soon, New York Bhaiyya,” said Rana. “Sooner than we’ll both realize.”

  Ella would make a point to visit them, Rana and her grandfather, at least once a year. Maybe she’d do her senior year at Dhaka University. She would find her way back.

  * * *

  Rana left to go flirt with Malika while she finished preparing dinner. Ella heard Charu and Azim enter the house, back from their stroll on the beach. Charu still had to pack her massive bags. Ella knew her cousin would rather leave her stuff to Malika than schlep a heavy bag.

  Ella took a swig of whiskey and settled into the hammock. Little details like this hammock and whiskey are evidence these people are family. It was stifling hot these days and nights. The air was no longer tinged with brown delta dust. Instead all they felt was a rainless heat, with no succor until monsoon. This was the perfect time to go home.

  Her ruminations roused motley images. Maya held out a pinecone in her hand, and rested it on Ella’s head. From her back pocket, she pulled out a bow and arrow, and released her first arrow. She missed. Ella looked above to see the pinecone take on new shapes—an apple, a crow, and a candle—until the entire room turned into her garden. Maya had started to disintegrate into a pixelated sand in brilliant hues of blue. Each tiny block swirled around, dancing, until they spelled out a word, but Ella couldn’t make it out. She blinked several times, and reached out to touch the letters.

  They were gone.

  Swadhin, thought Ella. Ultimate liberation. She repeated the word. She traced the scar on her side, grazing the gauze with her fingertips. The word filled her up the way her visions did. She felt more complete, somehow. Ella decided she would be called what Charu had always called her—

  El.

  26

  Traffic obeyed lights, lanes, and signs, as they stepped off the C train at Clinton-Washington. The air was unusually cold for April. El wasn’t the tallest person on the street; no one paid El any mind. They hadn’t been gone long, but Charu swore there were more white women with strollers and tattooed brown queers with oversize glasses. A natural hair salon had opened, and would draw the clients who could no longer get a fix at Hashi’s. As they turned onto Cambridge Place, a brick wall with black spray paint read: Everything is Everything. After winter must cum spring.

  They were home.

  * * *

  Dried-out vines crawled up the side of 111 Cambridge Place. Specks of rust corroded the wrought iron gate. Flaking brownstone paint reminded El of a Butterfinger bar. The limestone pots on the stoop held no flowers. Of course, after winter, the garden was in shambles. Every broken twig seemed an accusation, for being away so long. “It’s like no one ever lived here,” whispered Charu.

  El’s throat swelled. Maintaining the grandeur of this old house had never been effortless. Now it was their responsibility. They wheeled their suitcases into the living room.

  “What is that suitcase doing there?” gasped Charu. “What is that smell?”

  Had someone broken in? No—

  “Aman. Bastard. He must be squatting here.”

  “Is he going to be living here?” Charu groaned. “I’m going to go back to school. I can’t deal with that motherfucker.”

  “We’ll figure it out. He won’t be here much longer. Now, let’s air this place out.” El opened the curtains and windows. Millions of dust particles floated in the afternoon sunlight. Piles of paper and Anwar’s leather-bound diaries covered the sofa.

  “I’m going upstairs,” said Charu, snee
zing. “I can’t deal.”

  El went to check on the garden. The remaining hibiscus trees had flowered into two colors, half the buds pale purple, the other half white. Open. Roses sprouted out of the demolished flower clock. Flowers grew out of concrete in this city, just as lotuses sprouted from shit, Anwar would tell her. The cucumber trellis was a crisscross of rotting beams. Soil and leaves were grayed, thirsty for water and seed. Unkempt morning glory had turned into a vicious weed.

  Inside the seed vault, permanent winter reigned. El flipped through the card catalog of thousands of varieties of heirloom seeds that Anwar had amassed in his lifetime: rice, wheat, barley, soy, cannabis (thirty-six varieties), carrot, tomato, potato, cilantro, lavender, peony, gardenia, magnolia, myrtle, and pine. Missing were poisonous varieties of datura, of course. Maya’s recklessness forced Anwar to throw the seeds away. El shivered and went back into the house.

  * * *

  El went upstairs to check on Charu. Anwar’s side of the bed looked mussed; the other side was as neat as it had always been. The ceiling door to his studio was open. Without the help of Anwar’s chair, El climbed up to his studio, immediately greeted by the smell of herb burning.

  Besides some dust and cobwebs, Anwar’s studio was pretty neat. Books arranged by color, papers collected into piles. There was a Rorschach-like stain on his rug. On his desk, El recognized the brown parchment paper Anwar had been writing on with such concentration. Taken as a whole, the parchment seemed to be broken into a map. It was divided into two sections, by a thick black line, like a river from which civilization sprung. El pocketed the parchment, and remembered the task at hand.

  “Charu?”

  “I’m back here.”

  She spoke from behind a white curtain that quartered the studio kitchen from the rest of the space. El peeled it back, discovering an annex wallpapered in silver Mylar.

  Charu was sitting there, crying and smoking a joint. “This shit is so good. I fucking love Baba. The will thing pisses me off, though. Leave it to Baba to cut Aman a piece of the action, outta guilt. But at least we have a stash of weed to last us the rest of our lives.” She started giggling. “Have some.”