by Tahmima Anam
The men that Mo had chosen for our film were the lowest and poorest on site, the ones who took whatever scrap of metal was peeled off the ship and dragged it up the beach to the smelter. The pullers came from the north of the country, where there weren’t any jobs and the threat of famine hung over them every winter. The men that Ali had introduced me to were locals; they were given their jobs in exchange for permission to use their land. They had clout with Ali, setting their own price and acting as supervisors to the other workers. But these men – boys, really – from up north were recruited in the winter, paid by the hour, and sent home at the end of the season, their pockets only a little fuller than when they arrived.
Before they would agree to speak to me, I had to answer a few of their questions. Mo pointed to a young boy, older than him but not by much, and said, ‘Shuja wants to know if you are married.’
The others covered their mouths and giggled.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Do you have children?’
‘No.’
‘What is your father’s name?’
‘Farhan Bashir. His nickname is Joy.’
‘How many brothers and sisters?’
‘None. It’s just me.’
‘Hai, Allah!’ Shuja said. ‘Are they dead?’
‘Shut up motherfucker,’ Mo said.
‘My father was a freedom fighter,’ I said.
Shuja asked to see a photograph of my parents. I handed him my phone, and he passed it around. He turned to Gabriela. ‘Is that the real colour of your hair?’
‘Yes,’ she said, emerging from behind her camera.
‘Why did you come here?’ Mo said.
‘Because we want to know about your lives,’ Gabriela said.
This seemed to satisfy him. Here, in this room, Mo was in charge, putting himself beside me, gesturing with his hands for the others to talk or be quiet. ‘All right. You can start now.’
By the third week, I had memorised everyone’s names, and they had started calling me ‘Apa’ instead of ‘madam’. We met in one of the bigger rooms in the dormitory, the boys crowding onto the bunks, me sitting among them with the microphone, Gabriela behind the camera. The sessions began in the evening, after the shift had ended, and went on for several hours into the night. Mo kept a close watch on me, sitting beside me and directing the conversation, saying, this one has something important to tell you, or ask that one about his village, where the water is full of arsenic, yes, you cunt, she wants to know about the arsenic too. The whole story is what she needs. We hadn’t said this to him specifically, but somehow he knew that we were there to get under the surface, to hear all the little details that made up the people that made up the shipyard. He hadn’t needed a class in ethnographic field methods to know this, he just knew, because Mo was like that, a kind of effervescent psychic, reading our minds and telling other people what we wanted them to know.
One night we started late. The cutting crew had taken a huge piece of metal off the oil tanker that sat next to Grace. The pullers had tried to fix their ropes to get this piece of the tanker up the beach, and as the light had faded they had just about given up, but Ali had pushed them to try again, and they had spent several hours trying to manoeuvre it without success. The cutters would have to break it into smaller pieces the next day, and they would try again.
When I arrived, the boys were tired, their bodies slumped forward as they balanced on their heels in front of me. Mo had come up with the idea that each of them would tell me the story of where he had come from, about his village, his family, the people he had left behind. Last week, there was a boy, Russel, who said his brother had come to the beach to work as a puller the year before. He had sent money, just as he’d promised, but eight months later the money stopped coming. They tried to contact a relation, the cousin who had set him up with the job, but no one could find either of them. So they sent their second son to find his brother, but when Russel landed in Sithakunda he realised how futile the search would be, the locked gates in front of each of the shipyards, the miles and miles of lots. They hadn’t even known the name of the company, or the foreman in charge. So Russel just stayed, lucky to have been recruited as a puller for Prosperity, which was one of the better employers. He hadn’t been home in two years, just sent the money to his parents, as his brother had done before him.
Now it was the turn of one of the older ones. He cleared his throat and shifted the weight on his feet. With slow deliberation, he pointed his mouth at the tape recorder, anticipating the nods and the shakes of the head that would accompany his speech, the men who knew what it was to be him, the ones who had suffered like him, seen the things he had seen, tasted the bitter things he had tasted. ‘It was the Monga, seven years ago,’ he began, referring to the famine that grips the north of the country between harvests. ‘We thought we had enough rice. It was my mother and my father, my wife, three children, another coming.’ I knew what he was about to say, and so did the others, but we all trained our eyes on him and listened. It was two months before the harvest that the rice ran out. He went to sell his labour, but there was no work going. His father walked into the fields one day and didn’t come back. But still there wasn’t enough. He had a daughter, three years old, and she was the first to go. Then winter set in, and, with it, a fever that spread through the village. The man wiped his face again and again with his right hand, telling the story with his left hand. As he came to the death of his wife, he put his head down between his knees, shaking his arms back and forth, as if he could wipe the story from his memory. Now he works to feed the two remaining children, left up north with his brother.
‘Say your name into the tape recorder,’ Mo said.
‘Belal,’ he said.
I asked the men to tell me what had happened that day, and they said that the cutters would sometimes take enormous chunks from the ships, pieces they knew the pullers wouldn’t be able to haul up the beach. ‘They do it to torture us,’ one of them said. The pullers would waste time trying this or that to get the piece to move, knowing all the time that it wouldn’t work. Then they would be forced to wait while the cutters split the large pieces into smaller ones. The managers knew what was going on, but they didn’t interfere. There was an order on the lot, a hierarchy that had to be maintained and obeyed, and the pullers from the north were at the very bottom.
I passed around a flask of tea. They sipped in silence, gazing into the kerosene lamp. Gabriela and I took our leave, promising to return the following week. We stepped out into the darkness with Mo. The moon was weak but we could still see the outline of Grace. Small fires illuminated the darkness as the night shift worked on the remaining sheets from the oil tanker. We passed through Prosperity’s gates.
Mo had to return to the beach to finish something for Ali. ‘We’ll be all right,’ I told him, ‘it’s not far.’ He said he would walk with us but I insisted and Gabriela told him to go on, that we would see him the next afternoon when he came to cook dinner. The stories went around and around in my mind. As I was listening to Belal I had made every attempt to remain impassive, but, now that I was no longer in his presence, the depth of his loss slowly sank in. It was quiet and I could hear the sound of the water hitting the shore. Gabriela and I walked in silence until we were home. I almost ran the last few steps because I felt a strange sensation, like someone was following me. At the apartment Gabriela wanted to talk about the meeting, but I was rendered mute by the memory of Belal’s face, his thin, sad lips mouthing the story of his daughter’s death. Gabriela suggested we go out. There was nowhere really for us to go at that late hour, so I called Komola and asked if I could come over with a friend, and of course she said yes and asked what we wanted to eat.
Gabriela borrowed the Shipsafe car and we drove into the city with the windows rolled down, and immediately I felt better. I was embarrassed when we entered the house; Gabriela looked everything up and down and I could tell I was being cast in a new light, but Komola brought us a tray wit
h ice cream and tinned fruit, and the heaviness that had lodged in me started to dissipate.
‘There must be something we can do for them,’ Gabriela said, putting a spoonful of cubed fruit into her mouth. ‘How can you stand it?’
‘We’re doing something. You’re making this film.’
Her spoon clattered against the side of the bowl. ‘A film seems like a pathetic response. Is there any more of this?’ she asked, gesturing to her empty dish.
‘I’ll ask Komola.’
Downstairs, Komola said there wasn’t any more fruit, but that there was some leftover rice pudding in the fridge. She had been chewing betel, and her mouth was lined with red. She reminded me of Nanu, not that Nanu chewed betel – she didn’t – but in the way that she regarded me, with a love that she expected to flow in only one direction.
In the morning Komola made us omelettes and we sat in the garden with our tea cups. I was thankful to Gabriela for not asking me to explain about the house or my marriage. Neither of us wanted to go back to Prosperity, so we had Joshim take us on a long walk around the estate. After lunch, Gabriela sketched out a few ideas for the film while I read over my notes from the night before. Finally, reluctantly, we prepared to return to Sithakunda.
It was dusk by the time we set off, carrying plastic tubs of leftover chicken curry and dal. A cool breeze rustled the tamarind trees as we walked down the path to the car. I was feeling refreshed; Belal’s story would make it into our film, and though it wouldn’t bring his daughter back, it would be something. I was finally making some headway, not just with this project but with my life. The film would be no replacement for Diana, for Zamzam, nothing against the death of Belal’s daughter, but at least I could chalk up one small accomplishment, one attempt at making a dent in the world.
As we drove south to Sithakunda, I spotted a clearing in the highway. There were a few cars parked on the side of the road, and beyond, a stretch of beach. ‘That must be Patenga,’ I said. ‘Shall we stop?’ Gabriela was thrilled at the possibility of a swim, though disappointed when I told her she would have to go into the water more or less fully clothed. ‘You can roll up your trousers a little,’ I said, ‘but don’t go above your knees.’
The beach was crowded by women in shalwar kameezes who dangled their babies over the water. We lay on our stomachs and let the tide nudge us gently towards the shore. In the distance, we heard the sound of a flute among the cries of the gulls and the shrieks of the children. ‘This isn’t so bad,’ Gabriela said, her shirt ballooning beneath her. ‘The water is delicious.’ As the sun neared the horizon, we climbed onto a large rock on the shore and waited for our clothes to dry. ‘I never want to leave,’ I said, and Gabriela nodded.
Finally we decided it was time to go. Gabriela had parked in front of a small line of shops. The car came into view and she was jostling the keys in her hand when we saw a man walking purposefully towards us. He stopped and said, ‘Megna.’ I thought he was calling to someone behind me, so I brushed past him, but he turned and raised his voice. ‘Megna, Megna!’ Gabriela took hold of my arm and we were almost at the car, but he followed and came right up to my face. I found my voice and I asked him what he wanted. ‘Don’t you know me?’ he said. I shook my head and tried to push him aside, and that’s when he did it. He put his hands on my arms and turned me around and held me where I stood, his fingers digging into my flesh. I shouted at him to let go. ‘Megna,’ he said again, ‘don’t be angry.’ He was saying ‘Megna, Megna, Megna’ and I was trying to wrestle out of his grip, and then a few seconds later Gabriela was shouting too, and when he heard her voice the man let go and looked over at Gabriela, and then he looked down at my clothes, my long-sleeved tunic and jeans, and he stepped back, his hand over his mouth. ‘Allah,’ he said, shaking his head, and he turned around and I watched him sit down, right there on the road. Another man came out and dragged him away, and they disappeared into a barber-shop. I bundled myself into the car and cried as if this man had beaten me, punched me straight in the face and broken my nose.
It was him, Elijah. It was Anwar. I can’t imagine what he must have felt, believing I was the woman he had been searching for, only to realise I was nothing more than a stranger. And he must have been afraid, because I could have had him arrested. In fact, once I was home, I called Rashid and that’s exactly what he told me to do: file a report with the police. We argued; I said the man hadn’t really done anything, and Rashid told me I was foolish for always feeling sorry for people who didn’t deserve it. Then he said he was leaving for a business trip to China and that he’d be gone for a few weeks, maybe even a month. Did I want to see him before he left? No, I said, angry now because he was so quick to throw a man in jail, and perhaps anticipating another, worse argument we would someday have about this very man. ‘I’ll see you when you get back,’ I snapped, and put the phone down.
This is how Anwar jolted himself into my life. By accosting me on the street and insisting I was someone else. I quickly forgot the woman’s name. Megna. Nothing to me, right? Nothing but everything. But that’s for later. Don’t blame me for parsing out the story slowly, Elijah. These things take time, and I seem to have all the time in the world, because you never appear at the traffic lights any more; I’ve sometimes waited at the coffee shop across the street, reading Anna Karenina and looking up every few minutes to see if I’ve conjured you, but there’s no trace of you there or anywhere else in this cold, cold city.
You are about to arrive on the beach, and the very best and the very worst things are about to happen. These memories, if you choose to linger on them, will be the ones that pain you most. The ones that will make you want to stop, burn this letter, and never think of me again. So, before you read on, read this first: another love story, another quest, that of Anwar, a man who both rejected and accepted his fate, a man who protested silently, for his whole life, against the many injustices the world had decided to mete out to him. Read him gently, dear Elijah; let your gaze on this page soften; remember that he had nothing to do with my treatment of you, so regard him with kindness and judge him like the innocent he is.
The Testimony of Anwar
I How I Got Everything
Foreman likes to hoist the new ones up, see what they’re made of. Some of them have never climbed higher than a tree in their village. Back home the place is flat, flat. I’m here nine years, I know what’s what, so I tell them, don’t look, don’t look. Hold the torch in one hand, like this, and keep your eye on one screw at a time. From here to here, I show them, holding my fingers apart an inch, maybe an inch and a half. Your eye will see this much, no more. Understand?
I don’t tell them the whole story. Whole story is this: you look down, you die. You see the world has shrunk below you. You call God but no one answers. You recite the Kalma. You see God is not there. You piss your pants. No one is watching. No one cares about your shitty speck of a life. The people below are specks and you are a speck. God looks down and sees nothing but tiny ants below Him. You choke. You move your legs. You scream. The building shifts, it moves, it throws you up, it throws you over. You’re done for, a chapatti. They scrape you off the pavement; they don’t even write to your family. Months later, someone will go to your village and tell the news to your people. And that will be the end of your life.
All this I don’t say. I say only what is useful.
This new kid won’t listen. Came in with a swagger – I spotted it right away, the way he moved his legs and his trousers hanging, his head loose on his shoulder, nodding, doesn’t look down when foreman is talking, raises his head and gives two eyes to the boss. Eye for an eye. Foreman smiles. I know that smile; it means I’ll take that two-eyed look right out of your skull. Soon you’ll be like the rest of them, giving me the top of your head and mumbling into your shirt.
‘I have schooling, sir,’ the kid says. ‘Intermediate Pass.’
Foreman says, ‘Crane will take you to the top.’ And the kid says, ‘Yessir.’ as if he’s be
en given a gift. All that school, he doesn’t even know when his ass is being strung up.
Later I ask the kid where his people are. We’re on the same sleeping shift, starts two in the afternoon, the shed hot as an animal’s mouth. You can’t touch the metal rails on the bunk, you just jump on the mattress and pray for a breeze.
He says he’s a Pahari, says it with a little edge, like, I’m a Pahari, you gonna fuck with me? I’ve never seen such pride in a tribal, and I say, ‘So what, no one cares here.’
Army took our village, so I had to come here, make some money. He shrugs like he doesn’t mind but I can see when he closes his eyes he’s going to dream about college, hearing his name in the roll-call, getting his degree and spending his life in a shirt with buttons and getting some respect. Someday, someone might even call him ‘sir’. Buy a scooter and get himself a salty wife.
But now he is here. ‘Shit,’ he says, ‘it’s like a fry pan inside.’
It’s only March. Wait a few months, I tell him. Then you’ll see what hell feels like. Then I give him my two paisa little bit of advice. I tell him, ‘Stay away from foreman and keep your mouth shut. And when he hauls you up, whatever you do, don’t look down.’ The kid nods, but I know what he’s thinking, thinking it’s not going to be him at the end of a rope.
I go to my bunk and try to sleep. This month I’m in the middle. We take turns, Hameed, Malek and me. Top bunk is hottest, but there’s a breeze, if you can catch it, from a small window out of the side of the shed. Bottom bunk is cooler, but closer to the ground and the toilet stink is strong. Middle is the worst, like being sandwiched between two asses, especially because this month I’ve got Malek on top. He makes the springs creak as he pleasures himself to sleep. I’m used to the steady rhythm of it, I don’t say anything. A man has his needs, out here in the desert. Myself, I can’t do it. I reach down and Megna’s face comes into my head. She won’t let me sleep. I see her little tears and she’s asking me to stay – ‘What will I do when the baby comes?’ And I’m saying no, I’m shrugging. I’m calling her a slut, even though I know it was her first time, and I’d told her I loved her and meant it, except my uncle is there too, and he’s telling me, ‘Dubai, Dubai, son, it’s like paradise, shopping malls and television and air con. Marry my daughter and the ticket is in your hand.’ ‘You’re a slut,’ I tell Megna, and I swivel around and leave her there, except I don’t leave her, because whenever I try to get myself a little something, like a piece of sleep or a full stomach, she comes out and she comes out strong. I want to know what she did to the little seed I planted in her, where does it live, does it know me, and does it have the eyes of its mother? I’m in the dark and I can’t sleep. Malek sighs, rolls over, and the room gets hotter and the stink rises.
