“Now you take some,” I say, and I stand among my old friends, leaning against Chandana, putting my arm around Arzu. Haroon, the dutiful husband, shows no irritation whatsoever. Perhaps he thinks I am at last indissolubly tied to his family, a bond effected by the joining of our blood in the veins of our child.
But what I want my husband to witness here tonight is the embrace of my dearest friends, women and men who have known me since childhood, friends who know where I began my life. I watch Ananda move from one lap to another as we joke and sing old songs. I want Haroon to appreciate what my friends mean to me, to understand that there is precious life outside the bonds of one’s family. When everyone has eaten and tea has been served, I stand up and interrupt the flow of conversation around me, arguments about the economy and trade, jobs, society, and the family. “My friends, my husband,” I say. “I have something of importance to announce. Something that may take you by surprise.”
There is sudden silence as everyone turns to look at me.
“I have a slip of paper in my hand,” I declare, unfurling it like a scroll. “What do you think it is?”
“I have no idea,” Haroon says, beginning to laugh.
“Let me try to guess,” Chandana says. “Something to do with the marriage ceremony?”
Now Nadira starts to laugh. “I say it’s a divorce declaration!”
“Wrong again,” I reply.
“Have you taken to writing poetry?” Subhash asks.
“A speech by Lenin?” Arzu asks. In college, he was the Marxist, I, the Maoist.
“Close,” I say, laughing. “It is a letter I’ve written accepting a job.”
Now everyone falls silent. “I will be teaching at Bhikharunisa Noon’s primary school, starting tomorrow morning.” Everyone claps except for Haroon, but I continue my announcement. “Don’t imagine getting this job was easy. I had to apply, go for an interview, and take an exam.”
“You’ve done all of this without letting anyone know?” Haroon asks.
I lean in and give him a kiss, right on the mouth. “Yes, my dear. I did all this in utter secret.”
The party lasts well past midnight, and when we have put our boy back in Amma’s room and are comfortably in bed, Haroon asks, “Why didn’t you tell me about the job?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“And do you think I was surprised?”
“I could tell you were taken aback,” I say. I am relieved he’s smiling. “And weren’t you also thinking there were many other things I might be doing without your knowledge?”
At that Haroon goes silent. “You didn’t let me work after we were married,” I say softly, “which was a slap in the face. Now after a few years, I have surprised you by taking a job. It is like slapping you back.”
“Is that so?” Haroon replies carefully. “And how do you plan to work with a three-year-old son? Who will take him to school? Who will bring him home?”
“I will take him to school, and some days I will bring him back. You will, too. And so will Habib, if need be.”
“And who will feed him? And shop for food?”
It intrigues me that Haroon is not saying I can’t go to work. He won’t, it seems, prevent me from working. It seems such a long time ago he had those fits of jealousy, I can hardly remember that expressionless, marblelike countenance. And, clearly, he no longer thinks of me as a helpless woman.
“Ananda is not only your son,” I say now. “He is mine as well. I am as concerned about his welfare as you are.” Haroon turns his face toward the window.
“Are you short of cash?” he asks after a moment.
“Of course not. You give me plenty.”
“So?”
“That’s your money—not mine. I want to find out how it feels to earn money of my own, what it’s like to spend my own money on what I want. And I want to give money to others, even to you and Ananda and to my parents. I want to take responsibility as you do.”
It is clear to Haroon that I will now live life on my own terms. I will not be like the people he employs who don’t speak up or look him in the eye. I will no longer be the kind of wife who is beholden, a mere servant.
I can see this new state of things has agitated Haroon. He is turning in bed. He cannot sleep.
As I lie awake beside him, I watch day break through my familiar window and think to myself, I am finally Haroon’s wife, but not his slave. I stay with him to fulfill a human need for love and companionship, but I have no actual need, just because I am a woman, to dust and sweep, no obligation to breed and rear children.
I could not talk back to Haroon if I was dependent on his financial largesse. As much as I admired my father, I now take a different position from his on the necessity of marriage. Why is it not possible for a man and woman to spend time together without being married? Even to live together without marriage? If I had I spent more time with Haroon before we married, I would have seen the side of him that hurt me so much, even perhaps made a different choice.
The early morning sun falls on me, and despite an entirely sleepless night, I feel wonderfully refreshed. After breakfast, I drop Ananda at his kindergarten and take a tonga to my place of employment, the school on Bailey Road. I sit in the principal’s office and sign the register, then listen to her description of my new job. I am happy and I feel a new kind of strength. I am someone, separate and distinct from the wife of Haroon, mother of Ananda, bou of Amma, bhabi of Dolon, Hasan, and Habib, daughter of my parents and sister of Nupur. I am Zeenat Sultana, Jhumur, a teacher. I am finished with a life of submission, and my husband knows I will no longer stand for his cruelty.
I do not harbor any regret for the manner in which I brought Ananda into the world. I took the opportunity to avenge the loss of my first child and the indignity I’d suffered as a woman. But my heart lifts with happiness when I leave for work and Haroon takes Ananda in his arms, when our son calls to Baba as often as he calls to Mama. I have taken back my life and doused the fires of suspicion and jealousy that raged so fiercely in my husband’s heart they left my own heart charred. In the years since the birth of my son, I have been bathed with a contentment I could never have imagined.
Published in 2010 by the Feminist Press
at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
feministpress.org
Text copyright © 1992 by Taslima Nasrin Translation copyright © 2010 by Honor Moore and Taslima Nasrin Translator’s Note copyright © 2010 by Honor Moore Originally published as Shodh in 1992 by Srishti Publishers in India
All rights reserved
Publication of Revenge by Taslima Nasrin is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in any
information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First printing, August, 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nasrin, Taslima. [Shodh. English] Revenge / by Taslima Nasrin ; translated [from the Bengali] by Honor Moore with Taslima Nasrin. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-558-61689-9
1. Man-woman relationships—Bangladesh—Fiction. 2. Women—Bangladesh—Social conditions—Fiction. 3. Bangladesh—Fiction. I. Moore, Honor, 1945- II. Title. PK1730.3.A65S.4’4371—dc22
2010015312
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