Bright Lines

by Tanwi Nandini Islam

  El took a puff. They’d never smoked together before. At their feet, a border of nineteen pint-size mason jars—each with nuggets of pungent dark green bud laced with purple—lined the floor. So, this was Anwar’s clandestine adventure. Surrounding them were dozens of small cardboard boxes, filled with enough cannabis seed to start a proper harvest. The recipient address read: Mr. Aman Saleem.

  “Charu, look,” said El. “Aman’s name is on all of these boxes.” Lying on the floor next to them, a folder with credit card bills. All in Aman’s name.

  They went outside to the veranda to watch the sunset and get high.

  “I see them every day,” said Charu, inhaling the joint. She passed it to El.

  “I do, too.”

  They stayed on the veranda all evening, smoking Anwar’s stash and searching for their parents, suspended somewhere in the unreadable city sky.

  * * *

  El had always loved Anwar’s easy take on morality, but the man’s secret had given them the perfect solution. Anwar had used two different credit cards for his purchases. El found one of the cards in his wallet, cut it up, along with the corresponding receipts, and threw everything away. El would keep the seeds bought with this card and harvest them as Anwar had intended. However, the other card had been used after Anwar’s death, according to the latest credit card statement. Anwar must have left the credit card in the living room. Aman had found it, mistaking it for his own.

  Though Anwar had named Aman the conservator of the estate, if he was unfit, then Bic Gnarls would take over.

  The next day, El paid Aman a visit at the pharmacy, armed with the incriminating receipts. Furious, Aman threatened to get his lawyers involved. El reminded him that he’d still inherited the deeds to Anwar’s Apothecary. If he wanted to hold on to that, he’d better keep quiet and get the hell out of their house.

  Aman’s suitcases were gone by the next morning.

  27

  In between fixing up the house and garden, El read Anwar’s handwritten parchment, but it was hard on the eyes. Then, a missed note in the corner: And the story continues on the computer. . . . Sure enough, on Anwar’s laptop, El discovered the transcribed parchment. And so, El started to read Anwar’s story, which he had titled The Black Forest.

  In November 1970, half a million people and even more cattle drowned in the deadliest cyclone that the Ganga delta had ever known. Your grandfather Azim’s family home in Cox’s Bazar was destroyed, along with all the fishermen’s boats and the harvest. After the storm came a landslide. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won a majority in the National Assembly. Groucho Marx’s evil twin, Yahya Khan, and future hanged man Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, president and prime minister, conspired to put us—those dark-skinned, backward kafir runts—in place.

  Of course, Kissinger and Nixon had their back. So did the Chinese.

  In the last hours of the 25th of March 1971, the Pakistani army’s bloodbath in Dhaka commenced. They swarmed Dhaka University, massacred Hindu students in Jagannath Hall, security, cooks, and the beloved botanist Mr. Zahar Lal. Most of our Hindu friends were native to Dhaka and its surrounding districts, so they stayed in the dorms. We’d known things were amiss—Westerners had been forced out of the country in the week leading up to it. Those of us fortunate to have family homes outside the city had evacuated. I went with Rezwan to his mother’s hometown in Sylhet, where her family owned a large tea garden. We’d been there for a week already, when we heard word of the siege on Dhaka.

  (My brother Aman was in Manikganj with his girlfriend Nidi’s family—they had been at her parents’ flat; Nidi lived in Rokeya Hall. I think surviving the sack of the city brought them closer together; if they had met under ordinary circumstances, Nidi probably would not have kept him around as long as she did.)

  Your grandmother Begum’s home in Sylhet was a gem of a house, a golden meteor made of brick and mica that overlooked the orderly rows of tea plants. Rezwan loved this house; he preferred the hills to the beach. Though he was a spectacular swimmer and boatman, the vastness of the southern ocean made him feel at the edge of the earth, small and insignificant.

  Everywhere in Sylhet is a green that tackles the sky, head-on. In the contours of those verdant hills, we saw breasts, bottoms. All the local girls seemed more nubile, fertile for the environs. Sorry. I hear myself, and I sound like a middle-aged pervert. But then, we were young. I had a half-witted hope of running into Hawa, a long burning wish, long ago spent like a matchstick. She could be anywhere, and I prayed she had returned to her home district of Sylhet. This was the land of Shah Jalal, a Sufi saint in the mountains, and I don’t know—maybe it was the caliphate green, fantasy, guilt, the war—but I prayed a lot.

  While I prayed and stayed a virgin, Rezwan (also a virgin) met girls. Most of our peers held off until marriage. Some dishonored a housemaid. And some lucky bastards had sex with their girlfriends.

  Your s'tud father met a girl his first week in town. He was a flirtatious man when he remembered to be. He met his girlfriend Nayana Das in Jaflong, a border town forty miles from the tea estate. Bored in the tea gardens, Rezwan and I would hitch rides to try and scope out any action on the border. Mostly we saw refugees crossing over to India. Rezwan ached to cross the border to join a training camp. But I thought we had it pretty good at his parents’ house.

  Besides, I’d developed a slight crush on his little sister.

  Rezwan’s girlfriend Nayana Das hailed from a family of Hindu stone collectors on the Piyain and Goyain rivers. On these hotbeds of grueling labor, families sifted for stones tumbled down from the Himalayas. In Meghalaya, the same river was called the Dawki, named for the Indian border town across from Tamabil. Nayana and her brother and sister, Mukul and Putul, worked from morning until sunset, crushing stones. Not exactly glamorous. But for us city guys, this valley between two not-yet-formed states was beautiful. It always felt like sunset there, because of the amber-colored rocks in the water. We could watch the women all day. It sounds creepy, I know. But their silhouettes against the mountains of collected boulders felt unearthly. These rock-river women would find nooks along the river to bathe or wash clothes. It amazed me how strong their bodies were, how they’d spent their entire lives bathing with their clothes on, because they’d never had, and would never have, the privacy to be naked.

  We helped Nayana wheelbarrow those massive stones. We liked doing it. It showed us a different way of life. And that was interesting enough.

  * * *

  In late June, the Pakistani army’s jeeps and tanks rolled through Sylhet city. Rezwan wasn’t home. Probably with Nayana, I figured. I flirted with teenaged Hashi, laughing about parabolas or some other silliness. Begum was in the shower, Azim fixing himself a snack.

  A terrifying pounding on the door.

  Two beige-suited SSG officers brushed past Azim. They stepped into the living room, where Hashi and I sat.

  —Yaha kisko ghar hai? demanded one of the officers, a mustachioed fellow with a serpentine head tic. He looked from Azim, to me, to Hashi.

  —Mera ghar, hai, sir, said Azim, gesturing with his crippled hand for them to look around.

  The second officer, a man in his forties, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He was sweating profusely in the June heat.

  —Pani do.

  Hashi fetched two glasses of water, which they drank in one gulp. The mustachioed one gripped her wrist and asked her to show him what she was reading. I almost explained quadratic functions, when the older officer tilted his head—daring me to interrupt. It was a warning: His buddy was a loose cannon.

  —Rani meri favorite actress, hai, said Hashi shyly, opening her notebook plastered with images of the Pakistani film heroine, Rani.

  The officers started laughing, then grew serious. They motioned for me to stand up, and patted me down.

  —Vaha kuch bhi nahi hain. I was unarmed.

  Perha
ps it was our limited faculty in Urdu, or Hashi’s star-studded notebook—they left us be. Nothing amiss in the golden house on the hills.

  When Rezwan heard he’d missed the action, he was incensed Pakis would dare invade his home without him being there. Azim reminded him that another strapping young man would not have helped their cause. Rezwan stayed at home the next day. We prepared Coke bottle bombs, for nothing.

  I wondered where Rezwan had been, and finally mustered up the courage to ask—was he having sex with Nayana Das?

  —I’ve been seeing another girl, actually.

  —What, man? Two girls? Who is she?

  —Her name is Hawa. Hawa Lyngdoh.

  * * *

  I’d never told Rezwan about my Hawa. I pushed away the thought that this was the same girl, my first love returned, in the flesh. After she’d left my family in Jessore, she’d returned to her family’s village in Narayanpunji. At least that’s what I’d heard from our neighbor’s servant girl.

  * * *

  —Anwar, you’re a man now. Hawa clapped her hands in delight.

  —I have tried to be one, I said, making a silly joke. Rezwan slung his arm protectively around her. She pressed herself into his arms. There was none of the cowering I’d seen with her and Aman.

  —This man here is the one person I trust with my life, said Rezwan.

  —When did you come back? I asked. I regretted this as soon as I said it. Hawa’s memories of her time with our family could not be pleasant.

  —I came here . . . just after I left your family. Hawa stared at me, then looked at Rezwan and smiled.

  Here we are, five years later. Hawa was Khasi, a classic Pahari beauty—lips full, black, lunate eyes, black as the hilly tea we drank. Her father, Marx Lyngdoh, was owner of several betel leaf gardens on the northern Bangladesh–India border. He acted as syiem, the spiritual leader of his village. They were better off than other Khasis, who were very poor jhum cultivators, never in one place longer than a slash-and-burn.

  I learned that Hawa’s family lived in Meghalaya, a-state-not-yet-a-state, like ours. Their home was in Mawphlang, a forest just beyond the reaches of Shillong, the capital city. She was as well versed as ever in local medicinal herbs, and I was still fascinated by her knowledge. I respected their law of the forest (the word for which is “law” in Khasi). Their faith was a mix of Hindu, Christian, and tribal ritual. Not a drop of Islamic din in the mix. Hawa knew the dawai kynbat of each and every plant, flower, seed, or vine. Rezwan learned a broken Khasi, and I learned a lot, from her. His favorite phrase: shit-dang, or feel very hot. She gave him a name that sounded close to his name in Khasi—Reit-shan, which was a durable, hardwood post.

  How befitting.

  —Name me, name me, I begged.

  I became Ang Ang, or in the open sun.

  I learned that Hawa wasn’t named for the first woman on earth.

  Hawei-ha-ar, or to be elsewhere. The lilt of her real name reminded me of distant valleys.

  They had been seeing each other while I was praying, picking my nose, and flirting with Hashi. I suppose I was happy for him. But I felt a despair, too, that somehow fate had given me a true brother, and taken away my true love at the same time.

  * * *

  Rezwan admitted feeling bad for having disappeared on Nayana, since he no longer spent time at the riverbeds. Rezwan and I searched for her, just to say hello. She wasn’t working. We looked for her along the dusty roads, in the market. When we went back to the riverbeds, we noticed a pile. Fibers of coir and jute, dried leaves of palm were arranged on a raft of sticks. Funeral pyres. Two purohits brought out a young child’s bayoneted body, her eyes closed as if she were amid a dream, her body split in half at the guts. The child’s burning body turned to ash upon the river, and our resolve hardened.

  We never found Nayana Das.

  * * *

  July. Rezwan turned twenty-one.

  Rezwan was in love with Hawa. And no longer a virgin.

  Barsa’s monsoons have been the bane of conquerors’ existence since the days of the Delhi sultanate, and by August, the rivers’ waters turned into oceans. Word was that Paki morale was plummeting.

  Azim and Begum gave their reticent blessing for us to leave for the Dawki training camp. Besides finally being able to join the war effort, Rezwan would live closer to Hawa.

  * * *

  Exodus to Meghalaya brought millions of people—exhausted, on foot—to Sela, Mailam, Balat, and Dawki refugee camps. Cholera outbreaks rampant. Fires set by local Khasi, angered by the presence of outsiders. We heard rumors. Motor oil instead of cooking oil poisoned some refugees, while a family was killed stealing fruit from an orchard. Murder seemed gratuitous for a crime committed out of hunger. Black market prices for rice, dal, and saline skyrocketed to Rs. 500, when it should be no more than Rs. 50. No matter how much they doused the camps with bleach, cholera persisted. Even for Bangalis who stayed with relatives in Shillong, locals demanded that refugees be turned away if they did not properly register.

  In those days, rail, road, and maritime routes were vital arteries between our nations.

  People swam across the Surma, Someshwari, and Goyain rivers to get between India and East Pakistan. With only a canvas backpack rolled with some clothes, toothpaste, toothbrushes, flashlights, and a pistol Rezwan inherited from his grandfather, we headed for the Tamabil-Dawki border in a rowboat. Our boatman was one of the purohits who performed rites for the dead at the camps. He bade us luck, and rowed back to Jaflong.

  Once we were in Dawki, an Indian BSF jawan, a pockmarked boy in his early twenties, made an unenthused inquiry about our arrival.

  —Training, sir. Mukti Bahini, said Rezwan.

  —Welcome to India, said the jawan, stamping our registration papers.

  * * *

  Our trainers were proper military men. Former members of the Pakistan Army gone rogue. While Indira Gandhi would not officially declare war until December, heeding General Sam Manekshaw’s directive to wait for the rivers to recede, Mukti Bahini would be trained.

  Mud, leaves, and twigs became our camouflage. We learned the physical art of guerrilla war. We shot bayoneted rifles—practicing first with bamboo, then the real thing—and simulated hit-and-run sabotage. Treaded through swamp. Blasted sacks of rice with Molotovs, hand grenades. Stabbed the sacks with the bayonets and kukris, right where the entrails should spill out. By mid-September, Rezwan and I were selected to join the Mukti Bahini. With three other young men—villagers from Tura—we were given our first order: to attack Tamabil’s police thana, where Pakistani officers had created a temporary headquarters. A pair of Rajakar twins would be there, said the most talkative boy on our team, Khaled. The twins had raped and killed women in Tura village, and had moved throughout Sylhet. Reddish-haired, faces angular enough to sharpen knives. Easy enough to recognize.

  * * *

  The damned thing about guerrilla warfare is that it’s a quick business. You have a minute to make your move, retract, make another move, escape. My nerves and spoiled stomach made me a very bad guerrilla.

  On that darkest of nights, we bided our time in a ditch, waiting for the light to go off in the police thana. We were twenty feet away, hidden in swamp grass. In the window, I saw two Pakis listening to radio news, laughing. A shiny black Royal Enfield Classic 500 motorcycle gleamed in the moonlight. A man—he did have reddish hair—rode up the dirt road and parked his motorcycle in front of the station. He left the ignition key hanging off the bike. I noticed that he was not fitted in a beige uniform, just a regular pant-shirt, and a fez on his head. Khaled nodded. This man was one of the twins.

  Our band of guys was pumped on adrenaline, trigger fingers on their rifles. Rezwan put a finger to his lips and motioned for us to follow his lead. He pointed to the basket I carried, grenades covered in water hyacinth.

  Ligh
ts off.

  Each of us grabbed a grenade, as pranksters grab rotten eggs—in denial of the potential consequences. We yanked the grenade pins and flung them with all of our might. Some landed in front of the police station, and one exploded through an open window. Men cursed and shouted. Grenades would not take down the bastion, and just as soon as we saw flames, machine guns fired. We threw more grenades.

  Suddenly, Khaled ran toward the Royal Enfield, and miraculously fumbled the motorcycle on. He looped away from the station, toward us, gesturing for his two Tura village men to hop on.

  —What are you doing, sister fucker! I shouted.

  Our Rajakar target, owner of the stolen motorcycle, stumbled out of the station. He pointed a gun at Khaled and one of the Tura villagers. Two shots, two men down.

  Rezwan shot the Rajakar in the kneecap. The man groaned and collapsed in pain.

  We hopped onto the Royal Enfield. Me first, and Rezwan behind me, his gun held ready to fire. The last of our Bahini men had fallen, bleeding out from his stomach. I turned away at the sight of his viscera.

  —Make it stop, bhaiyya, the boy begged.

  I sped away, just as Rezwan delivered the coup de grace to our comrade.

  * * *

  On our way back to Sylhet, to visit Rezwan’s parents, we passed the Dawki border post again. This time, however, our new mode of transport piqued the jawan’s interest.

  He narrowed his eyes at the Enfield. —Kaha se? Where’s it from?

  —Courtesy of Pakistan, I replied. Bang. I shot a fake gun with my thumb and pointer finger.

  The jawan nodded with approval.

  I felt his coveting eyes as we rode away. When we arrived at the house, Begum was beyond herself with happiness at our survival, despite yelling at us for being filthy. I took Hashi on a spin on our new ride. Azim just shook his head, as if to say, I don’t even want to know.