Split

by Taslima Nasrin

  I could not fathom what was wrong. What had happened? Had someone said something to her? Why was she angry?

  ‘Let’s go home.’

  ‘No.’

  What was that supposed to mean?

  It was M, Milan’s older brother, who explained to us what it meant. Yasmin wished to marry Milan, that too immediately. I have never been as flabbergasted by anything in my entire life as I was that day on receiving this news! Stunned into silence, there was only one thing I was certain of—Yasmin and Milan did not have a romantic relationship. As a result, no matter how hard I tried, I could not comprehend why she was suddenly talking about things like marriage and why she was so shamelessly demanding it for herself out of the blue. Yasmin had meanwhile declared that she was not going back to Abakash with us. She was set on her decision and no amount of coaxing and cajoling—short of dragging her out forcibly, kicking and screaming—was going to change her mind. Her body was taut as steel and somehow she had managed to beat her spirit into steely determination too; neither of us mattered to her in that moment. While this dramatic exchange was under way Milan had not put a foot inside the room and was standing at the door, his head hanging low. Yasmin had left home the day before in a salwar and kurta; she was wearing a blue sari when we found her. There was no apparent reason for her odd behaviour, at least not one I could think of that could explain the entire situation.

  Since M did not have any answer either, Dada tried reasoning with her. ‘This is not how you get married. Let’s go home for now, we can fix a wedding for later.’

  ‘If you are fixed on the idea of marrying Milan, finish your studies first and then you can marry him,’ I joined in. In response Yasmin gave us three days to make all the necessary arrangements for her wedding. I remember crying helplessly like a baby in front of the entire household. Yasmin saw me crying but it did not change her mind. By the time the situation was somewhat resolved it was well past midnight. I did not hear Yasmin’s verdict myself; she conveyed her decision to us via Milan’s sibling. They were closer to her suddenly, passing on any information she wanted to get across to us since she did not want to speak to me directly, although I could not understand the reason behind her sudden anger. What had I done to deserve such ire?

  That night I could not return to Abakash. Dada left while I spent yet another sleepless night in an unknown house beside a silent Yasmin. I tried talking to her, tried coaxing her to tell me what was wrong. Every time I placed my hand lightly on her shoulder to coax her to talk, she firmly moved it away. She did not fall asleep, though, and I was sure that there was something mysterious behind the entire charade. The next morning I somehow managed to convince Yasmin to return home with me, with the promise that we would get her married to Milan, if not immediately, if not the day after, then soon. Frankly, there was no way she would have agreed otherwise. She remained stone-faced throughout the journey, not looking at me even once. This behaviour continued after we reached Abakash. She spent the day in bed, staring at the wall. When Dada returned home in the evening, she shamelessly started screaming to remind us about her wedding. I asked her a thousand questions only to be met with unnerving silence. She told us nothing about what had happened the night she had not returned, not even where she had been. Neither did she reveal the reason behind her insistence on marrying Milan at such short notice! Not a soul in the house managed to unearth the secret.

  Later, years later—she was a full-blown housewife with a husband and children and had managed to overcome her adolescent awkwardness with me—she told me what had happened that day. Her classmate and friend Milan had taken his older brother’s motorcycle to college. After class he had invited Yasmin for a ride to Madhupur and Yasmin had not refused. Besides, the obvious lure of a long ride on a motorcycle had been altogether too tempting. They had reached Madhupur, and both being students of botany, gone on a stroll through the botanical gardens. After naming numerous trees, enumerating the diseases plaguing the various plants and collecting plant and root samples for later study, while on their way back to Madhupur Cottage where the motorcycle had been parked, they were stopped by a fat policeman. He had smirked at them and asked, ‘What are you two doing here?’ On learning they were college students on a visit to the botanical gardens, he had laughed loudly, looked around to see if they were being watched and barked, ‘Give me 5000 taka.’ Before they could question him about the sudden and exorbitant demand, he had continued, ‘Doing dirty things in the jungle, eh? If you don’t pay I won’t let you leave.’

  They had vehemently denied the dirty accusations, but to no avail. Instead, the man had leered at Yasmin and winked. ‘This one’s a whore. I knew the moment I saw her.’ He had said it despite having known absolutely nothing of the sort. Milan had told the man that they had no money and would have to return to the city to get some. The man had grabbed hold of Yasmin’s wrist and told Milan, ‘You go to the city. Leave this one here.’ Yasmin had tried wresting her hands from his chubby, rough paws, pitifully begging Milan to not leave her alone with the man. One can beg all one wants but not everyone is easily moved by someone’s plight. They think of themselves first and foremost, a fact Milan had been well aware of. At that moment, Yasmin’s fate was entirely dependent on him. She had known that if he were to leave it would be irrelevant whether he returned with the money or not. The man would probably have raped her and disappeared inside the jungle and her shame would have driven her to suicide. Her eyes tightly shut, a litany of these thoughts had been running through Yasmin’s mind. She had been afraid that any moment Milan was going to start his motorcycle and drive off. Terrified and trembling on the inside, she had tried shutting her ears to the devastating sound of the rolling engine. That day Milan could have refused to answer her call for help. He could have easily ridden off without a glance backwards; the policeman had let him go anyway. Yasmin had not been his lover whose honour he should have felt compelled to protect. But Milan had not left. Not only that, he had told the fat policeman, ‘Keep the motorcycle, sir. Let us go, we will go to the city and get the money.’

  The man had no interest in the motorcycle. He had been after Yasmin, waiting for night to fall so he could do what he wanted with her. Beside a petrified Yasmin, Milan had steadfastly refused to leave her at the policeman’s mercy. As if she had been granted a new lease of life Yasmin had cried helplessly. In the evening when darkness had swooped down upon the forest in the blink of an eye, the man had locked them up in the house of a forest department officer, ensuring they understood that they had to arrange for the money by morning if they wished to be set free. He had taken the motorcycle with him as insurance.

  When they asked Yasmin for her name and address she had given them a bunch of fake names—father, Abdur Rafiq, businessman from Kachijhuli. She had been terrified of revealing that her father was the renowned Dr Rajab Ali and sullying his reputation in the process. Not only had she failed to return home at night, she had also been apprehended by the police with a boy—in her head there could be no greater shame than that. Yasmin had been kept in the room for the children and had not slept a wink that night. In a room on the balcony, Milan too had stayed awake. He had called a friend from the house and asked them to arrange for 5000 taka and come to the forest officer’s quarters as early as possible the next morning. As agreed, once the money had been paid, Milan had got his motorcycle back and they had finally managed to return to Dhaka. Once in the city, the enormity of the situation had hit Yasmin! How was she going to live down the shame! The shame of having spent the night outside with a man! Milan had advised her that other than an immediate wedding there was nothing else they could do to avoid scandal. Yasmin had not agreed to the proposal, though she had first sought shelter at her friend Jahangir’s house near Abakash. There she had spent the entire day trying to decide whether she was going to return home or not.

  She had known that the moment she returned everyone was going to ask her questions about the previous night, to which she had no answer.
She had not been to her grandmother’s house or her aunt’s, nor had she been with a female friend; everyone at Abakash had already found all that out the night before. She had walked from Jahangir’s house to Abakash’s black gate, stood there for a long time, torn between walking in and walking away. She had stood there and waited for something, perhaps a sign, though she herself had not been sure what that would be—perhaps a ray of light to wash away the darkness looming over her. Or perhaps she had wished for magic, for everyone to go back in time and start the day again! How could she have known that she had nothing to be ashamed of? Pure self-loathing had inspired the scene we had witnessed at Milan’s house. She had been so ashamed that she had kept her face buried between her knees when we went to get her back.

  She was forced to show us her face eventually but she refused to meet anyone’s eyes even after that, mostly staring at the wall or the ceiling. She was convinced that she was no longer the old Yasmin, no longer family to us, no longer the youngest daughter of the house. I remember feeling terribly sorry for her despite being quite angry at her behaviour. One day, after she had kept refusing to speak even after being asked repeatedly why she wanted to get married in such a hurry, I simply sat down at her door. Looking away towards the darkening courtyard and keeping my voice loud enough so she could hear from the bed even if she refused to turn towards me, I kept talking. ‘You have one life. If an accident happened that night then it’s not a problem. So many accidents happen in life! You don’t have to get married because of that! What relationship do you have with Milan? If you have been going around in secret, so much so that you imagine you can’t live without him, then go ahead. Get married if that makes you happy! But remember one thing. It’s not right deciding these things in haste. Finish your degree, get a job, and only then think about getting married. Be self-sufficient; don’t become dependent on someone else so soon. Get your master’s in botany, do a PhD, get a job as a teacher! You will be eligible to teach at Agricultural University. And if you are really dying to get married then why does it have to be Milan? What does he know? What can he do? Can he even speak a proper sentence? Besides, he’s M’s brother, how good can such a demon’s brother be? So many good boys come to this house. Choose one of them. Rather, there are so many doctor friends of mine who would consider themselves lucky to be able to marry you.’

  I was afraid that if we did not go through with our promise of arranging her wedding with Milan she was going to do something horribly drastic. However, nothing of that sort happened and much to my relief I soon began to see flashes of the old Yasmin again. Her friends were visiting her at the house once more and she started visiting them too. Let alone thinking about marriage, she stopped taking Milan’s phone calls altogether. She did speak to him on one occasion only, just to firmly tell him that her marriage had been fixed elsewhere by her family and he should not call her again. Soon, a handsome boy called Rana, from the locality surrounding Agricultural University, began visiting—he was an older brother of Raka, a friend of Yasmin’s close friend Krishti. Finding them sitting in the living room and chatting at length managed to restore some of my sanity; at least she had gotten over the madness of wanting to marry Milan. Besides, Rana was far more suitable for her than Milan in looks, prospects as well as talent. She would speak to him in hushed, muted tones over the phone and he would often drive his own car to Abakash to show off and also take Yasmin out for drives. Of course, in the end, he would take the money for petrol from Yasmin. In fact, sometimes he would even take money from her to pay the rickshaw.

  This went on for a while until one fine day Yasmin abruptly broke off her affair with the greedy Rana. She started going to college and coming back home straight after class. Otherwise, recitation at Shokal or musical programmes by Anandadhwani kept her occupied. Everything she wanted, even things she needed which Father did not want to spend money on, I would buy for her. Her shame over the incident with Milan eventually faded but something else took its place: the growing feeling that no one liked her. Whenever any of my acquaintances or friends used to visit the house, be it the doctors or the writers, they usually showered me with attention without even sparing a glance at her.

  However, one day her complaints about these things vanished in their entirety when Ataul Karim Shafeeq began to notice her. Shafeeq was my age, a handsome, refined and polite man from tip to toe and dedicated to literature. Not that he had chosen a life of poverty for that reason. He had finished his studies, earned his BCS degree and was working as a deputy magistrate. His interest in Yasmin was reassuring to me, not that I ever actively set her on him deliberately. However, when he would come to meet her I used to eagerly call her outside. When she dressed up or put on lipstick or neatly did her hair before meeting him I never discouraged her or said, ‘Why are you dressing up so much? What’s the matter? Go as you are!’ When they would sit and talk for hours I never interrupted them. In fact, I used to become even more indifferent, often making an excuse and leaving them alone to talk. I would also ask someone else to get them some tea and snacks or take it to them myself. After he left I would ask her, ‘What did Shafeeq say?’ Yasmin used to smile sweetly and reply, ‘He said I looked beautiful.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He asked me if I wanted to go somewhere for a few days.’

  When Shafeeq offered to take Yasmin out she came to me with a shy smile on her face to ask for my permission. ‘Of course! You can go.’ I let them go because the incident with Milan and her sudden demand for marriage was still terrifyingly fresh in my mind, stalking me like a predator waiting for a chance to pounce. I had always been different from the others. Besides, I had always envisioned that Yasmin and I would be together always, with our music and our poetry to accompany us. If not for that incident, Yasmin getting married was not a scenario that would ever have caused me concern. A marriage, if it had to be, should be for love; it should not be based on a mistake or an accident.

  After Yasmin returned I asked her, ‘Where did you go? What did Shafeeq say?’ She replied, ‘He took me to Agricultural University,’ to the first question but evaded the second with a shake of her head and a ‘nothing much’. I wanted to know if he had said something like ‘I love you and I want to marry you’. My parents were asking about him already and I had told them, ‘He is a very good boy, one in a million, and he really likes Yasmin.’ For my parents it did not matter in the least that he was dedicated to literature. What mattered was that he had a good job.

  I noticed after a few days that Yasmin was starting to avoid Shafeeq. She would not go to meet him even if I asked her to. If I tried pushing her to go and see him she would free her hand forcefully from my grasp and say, ‘Don’t push me! I don’t want to go!’ She did not tell me what had brought about her sudden change of mood. Only once, later, she had confessed, ‘The scoundrel keeps trying to touch me.’

  ‘What!’ My ears were ringing. ‘What do you mean he keeps trying to touch you?’

  ‘What else does that mean?’

  ‘He wants to hold your hand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The ringing reduced a fraction. ‘So? Holding hands is not such a bad thing.’

  Yasmin had not said anything more that day. Not that she could have; there had always been an invisible chasm between us preventing us from talking about our bodies. Perhaps that day she had been unable to tell me anything more.

  Years later, when she was already raising a family with her husband and children, she had laughed out loud at the mention of the educated, handsome and cultured Shafeeq’s name and told me that she had managed to catch a glimpse of the devil under the handsome deity’s guise. The pain such a realization had caused her, plus the inability to reveal anything to anyone, had shown up so many years later as dark lines creasing the fair skin on her forehead while reminiscing. Shafeeq’s interest in her had initially reassured her that their marriage would finally make everyone in the family happy, besides forever eliminating any lingering fear of public shame from
the incident with Milan. But when Shafeeq should have said ‘I love you’, when they should have been walking hand in hand in some garden somewhere, when they should have been sitting by the river gazing at the greenery around them and dreaming about their future, he had instead taken her to an empty room and tried to grab her breasts. Not just that, one afternoon when no one else had been home at Abakash he had pounced upon her and tried to rip off her clothes. After her screams had woken up Sufi sleeping in the veranda, she had abused and thrown him out of the house, locked herself in her bedroom and wept with her face buried in a pillow. That incident had strengthened her conviction that no one loved her; most just wanted her body.

  Our bodies are very cheap. When there is nothing else in us to love men think our bodies too will be easy to violate. Like the young poet Kajal Shahnawaz, whose hostel room Shafeeq had taken Yasmin to. He had spent a long time chatting with me about literature at Abakash over tea, and on his way out winked at Yasmin and asked her to visit his hostel room alone sometime. I also remember the elephantine Abdul Karim, Hasina’s brother, who had grown quite close to us. He would often visit Abakash with his wife and children and Mother used to cook and feed them. He had cornered Yasmin once and offered to pay her 1000 taka—totalling a nice, tidy sum of 4000 a month—if she would agree to sleep with him once a week. Yasmin had been stunned by his audacity but she had not uttered a word of the incident to me.