The Good Muslim Part 19

*It's never too late to seek justice.'

*Darling, it's 1985. Don't you see? We have bigger problems, Dictator isn't going to hold a fair election, we have to get him out. Then worry about other things. Country needs to move forward, not backward.'

She found herself bargaining with him. *Just a short editorial,' she said, but he was back at his typewriter, his fingers jabbing at the keys. She wondered if she should hang about, wait for him to finish, but she was angry now a he had made her feel old-fas.h.i.+oned, someone still clinging to her war-wounds. She gathered her things together and headed for the door, almost b.u.mping into Aditi in the corridor. She was holding a blue-and-pink box of Alauddin sweets, her face flushed with triumph. *Celebration!' she said, opening the box to reveal Kalo-Jaam, Chom Chom and a single, extra-large Laddu. *You're not leaving now, are you? I can't eat these all by myself. Can you believe it? I sweet-talked that printer into letting us do 800 for the price of five.'

Shafaat was still pounding away at the typewriter. *Come on, Maya,' Aditi said, *Let's keep these to ourselves. I'll make some tea.'

Maya arranged the sweets on the table beside the Linotype. She liked the smell in here, the dry warmth created by the machine.

*Isn't it exciting?' Aditi said, her cheeks pink with pleasure. She must have enjoyed the challenge of getting a deal from the printer. He would have been caught off guard by the sight of a woman in trousers, her hair braided tightly to the back of her head, as if she were zipped up. *What's the matter?' she asked, taking a bite out of the Laddu. *You peeved at Shafaat? What's he done, asked you to make his tea, did he?'

Maya nodded. *He's a pig.'

*I want to write a piece about the Razakars, you know, how they should be tried.'

*Really?' A small piece of Laddu clung to Aditi's lip.

*Shafaat isn't in favour.'

*You know how he is, can't see beyond his own two fingers.' And she imitated him, stabbing into the air.

*But he should care. And those people haven't forgotten.'

*Of course they haven't forgotten. All those people who lost their loved ones.'

*And the women.'

*Women too.'

*The raped women.'

*You mean the Birangonas?'

*Yes, the Birangonas. But calling them heroines erases what really happened to them. They didn't charge into the battlefield and ask to be given medals. They were just the damage, the war trophies. They deserve for us to remember.'

*What if they don't want to remember?'

In her years of exile Maya had met many raped women. Some wanted abortions, or came to her to get st.i.tched up, or simply to ask if there was a way for her to wash it out of them. Not one of them wanted anyone to find out. Not one of them wanted to file a police report, or tell her husband or her father. Perhaps it was wrong of her to want them to tell. But she could not get the image of Piya out of her mind. Piya squatting on the verandah, the words bubbling at her lips. She and Sohail had conspired against her that night. They had comforted her and told her it was over, that she was safe a but they had not made it possible for her to speak. It was an act of kindness that had led to the end of everything a Maya knew that now. And there was only one way to make it right.

Aditi popped the rest of the Laddu into her mouth. *Well, you know how it is. No one wants to stir all of that up.'

*That's not true.'

*Look,' she said, wiping her hands on her jeans, *if it's important to you, I'll go in there and sugar him into it, okay? Don't look so glum, yaar, you'll get your piece. I'll bring him this Kalo-Jaam and he won't be able to resist.'

Maya followed Aditi with her eyes as she sailed into the other room, the box of sweets in her palm, and realised that this was what everything had been for. The sweets, pretending to commiserate with Maya, the article a all just another opportunity to plead and flirt with him and get her way. Maya didn't want Shafaat to get sugared into anything. There was something sordid, she thought, about this office, the stale stink of cigarette smoke, the belching of the tanneries near by. She remembered back to the time when she and Sohail would talk about people like Aditi and Shafaat, how they had all the right ideas but lacked something, a sort of moral core. She remembered the conversations that took them deep into the night, until Sohail fell asleep with his hands in his pockets, his head falling back, and felt a stab of pain, of longing for him.

Maya often imagined the last day Sohail wore trousers. She wasn't around to see it, but there must have been a final day, a day when he woke up in the morning, brushed his teeth, b.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt and pushed his feet through a pair of trousers. They may even have been his cherished jeans, handed down by a friend with a relative in America, procured through a mixture of pleading and bribing, like his Elvis LPs and his battered copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

All day her brother would have walked around with his legs piped through those trousers. He would have sat on rickshaws and brushed against tree trunks, and taken things in and out of his pockets. But at some point on that last day, he would have decided it would be a moulting, changing, skin-shedding sort of day. A day to abandon old fas.h.i.+ons and adopt even older ones.

Had he predicted it? Had he known beforehand, and enjoyed those final moments, the stylish figure he cut across the university campus, the looks of admiration from his cla.s.smates, the sly glances of women?

Maya didn't think so. The last day was probably as much a mystery to him as to everyone else. It would not have been premeditated. It would have come upon him suddenly, as a revelation: that he should dress in the style and manner of the faithful, that his outward appearance should match the changes that were occurring within, that it wouldn't do to look like everyone else, to look as though he could attend parties and sit behind a desk and be called smart.

He would have decided on that day, and that day would have been the last. He would not have lingered over the trousers, or wanted a few final hours to enjoy them. As soon as he'd made up his mind, that would have been it.

And after: A starched, white jellaba, the loose cotton pants underneath, pearl b.u.t.tons on the collar. And, like a hand pressed in benediction, the cap that never left his head. That was what he wore every day after that last trousered day.

It wasn't open for debate, Maya decided. If Shafaat didn't let her write the article, she would send it to another paper. She would send it to the Observer. She went home and began to type.

My name is S. M. Haque, and I am here to tell you a few truths about our war. None of us is completely free of responsibility a not when we live in a country that is a living example of what we fought against a a Dictators.h.i.+p, led by a man who cares nothing for this country, and a refusal to acknowledge the criminals who live among us. If we stand by and allow the crimes of the past to go unpunished, then we are complicit in those crimes. If the Dictator does not hold a trial for the war criminals, he too is a war criminal.

She signed it *Sheherezade Haque Maya'.

1985.

February.

The advance rent from the German tenant meant that there would be no money coming from the big house for six months. Maya's savings had dried up. She decided to take up Dr Sattar's offer of a position at the medical college hospital. He asked her to come in for an interview. The committee noted her high marks, her letters of distinction in the final examinations, but they were perplexed by her years in the countryside. Why had she given up surgery? She answered as best she could, making the years sound far more purposeful than they had been. She managed to impress them. She would be a junior doctor, subordinate to the other doctors in her cla.s.s, but it was a start. She felt a lightness in her chest as she pa.s.sed through the hospital on her way out. There would be a system here, charts and registers and written prescriptions. Students to boss around. She would not be held solely responsible if a patient died, or know the patient's husband and her three other children, what they'd had to sell in order to afford the trip to hospital. Her world was contracting and expanding: she thought happily of colleagues, hospital politics, gossip in the corridors.

These were her thoughts as she returned to the bungalow that day. When she saw Joy's car in the driveway, her stomach did a little dip.

The living room smelled of perfume. A small, middle-aged woman sat on the sofa and sipped tea from the good cups. Joy sat beside her, loading his plate with biscuits and shondesh. Ammoo was perched opposite, her hands clasped in her lap, smiling.

Because she felt she was interrupting something, Maya knocked on the doorframe.

*Oh!' said her mother, *come in, beta. Sit down. This is Mrs Bas.h.i.+r.'

Maya avoided looking at Joy and concentrated on the woman who was now standing up and reeling her into a tight embrace. *My dear girl,' she said, *I am so happy to meet you. I knew your brother, but this is the first time I'm seeing you. Let me take a look. Oh, you are a beauty, those big eyes. Not so fair as your brother, but never mind, we don't care about those things in our family.'

*h.e.l.lo,' Maya said, leaning back as far as she could.

*Do feet-salaam,' her mother whispered.

*Oh, no need for such formalities,' Mrs Bas.h.i.+r said, releasing Maya. *Sit beside me, you must be tired. Joy told me you're a very busy doctor. Very independent-minded,' she said, waving her arms.

Joy crossed and uncrossed his legs. Maya tried to catch his eye, but he was looking the other way. *Maya,' Ammoo said, her voice like warm milk, *why don't you tell Mrs Bas.h.i.+r what you did today? Will you have another cup of tea, Mrs Bas.h.i.+r?'

*I have to wash my hands,' Maya said. *I've just come from the hospital. You wouldn't want to catch TB, auntie.'

Mrs Bas.h.i.+r blinked, smiled through her surprise. *Please, beta, go right ahead.'

At the sink Maya caught a glimpse of herself. Her eyes were small and tired, and her braid had become ragged. She splashed water on herself and retied her hair.

Joy was waiting for her outside the bathroom. *TB?'

*Well, there's been an outbreak. I wanted to warn your mother.'

In the living room, more tea had been served. Maya sat as far from Mrs Bas.h.i.+r as she could and stared at the ceiling. Mrs Bas.h.i.+r looked expectantly around the room. Her eye caught the basket beside Maya's chair.

*Do you knit, Maya?'

*No, not me.' Had Joy told this woman nothing? *It's Ammoo's.'

*I'm just a novice,' Rehana said. *Something to do with my hands. I thought I'd start with a scarf.'

Mrs Bas.h.i.+r's voice trembled when she said, *I used to knit too. For my husband.'

They had found their common ground. *Maya, why don't you and Joy sit in the garden for a while while us mothers have a talk?'

Outside, Joy tried to take her hand. She shrugged him off.

*You want to go for a drive?'

*No, let's walk. We need candles; the electricity's been going off at night.'

They left through the kitchen door. As soon as they had crossed the road, Maya turned to Joy. *What's going on?'

*Nothing.' He searched his pockets and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. *I told my mother I wanted to marry you, and she said the proper thing to do would be to pay a visit to your house. She insisted.'

He wanted to marry her. Marry her. She suppressed the tiny cheer that went up, unbidden. Marriage was a life sentence. *Do you do everything your mother says?'

*No.'

Why hadn't he said anything to her? *And did you think of consulting me first?'

*Of course. But I thought it would be best if I appealed to auntie.'

*That's pathetic.'

*Look,' he said, inhaling sharply, *there's no conspiracy here.'

*It's pathetic and you are just trying to make me feel guilty. You know how much she wants me to get married a you're just using it against me. She's dying, you know.'

*I thought she was in remission.'

*Well, it's just a matter of time. Don't you know I think about giving her some comfort a wedding, babies?'

*I thought you didn't want any babies.'

*That's not the point. The point is I have never given her anything.' Would it be for herself, or for Ammoo? She might never know.

*Well, then, all the more reason not to delay.'

*You don't care whether I love you, you just want to take advantage of my position?' They were at the park now, where the road curved. She turned, marching towards the small cl.u.s.ter of shops on the corner.

*Maya, please, I know you don't mean that. Why do you always have to talk that way?'

*Because I'm a hard-hearted woman, that's why. You shouldn't want a shouldn't even dream of marrying me.'

*I dream, I can't help it.'

*Well, I can't help myself either. You can't marry me. You can't marry me and turn me into one of those women, with the jewellery and making perfectly round parathas and doing everything my mother-in-law says and only letting nice words out of my mouth.'

*Think of all the nice words you have stored up. Since you've used up all the nasty ones.'

*Don't joke.'

He flicked away the cigarette and stopped in front of her. They had arrived at the shop, which was dimly lit by a hurricane lamp. The shopkeeper recognised her and waved. *I'm not joking. I want to marry you.'

*You can't. Go now, I have to buy the candles.' She walked away from him and up to the shopkeeper's counter, ordered the candles. She heard his footsteps retreating, and she lingered, buying oil, soap, eggs, chiding herself for listening out for him, for hoping he would come back, beg her again.

When she got home, he was leaning on the bonnet of his car.

*Drive,' she said, flinging herself into the pa.s.senger seat.

He was slow, almost casual, as he backed out of the driveway. She pressed her face against the window and the breath dragoned out of her, hot and fierce.

*Where do you want to go?' One hand on the steering wheel, the elbow poking out. It made the blood pound in her ears.

*Just drive. I don't care.' Don't cry, she told herself. It'll be so stupid if you cry. *You could have asked me yourself, you know.'

*I wanted to get your mother on my side first.'

*She is on your side. Everyone is on your side.'

*There isn't a side.'

*You just said.'

*No sides.'

*Do you even love me?'

He s.h.i.+fted into fourth. Relaxed on the clutch. Smooth as forest honey.

*So you don't even love me.'

*You have something against marriage?'