The Good Muslim Part 7

But none of these pilgrims would know that. They probably believed it was a gift from G.o.d.

Zaid was flitting in and out of the medical tent, translating the day. *There's an American tent,' he said, gasping. *They gave me this.' It was a red-and-green-striped sweet in the shape of a walking stick.

*You can eat it after lunch.' It would be a very late lunch; already the afternoon prayer was under way. Along the banks of the Turag River, thousands upon thousands of men bent their heads and faced west. They pointed themselves towards Mecca, but they were also bowing to the afternoon sun, which cast sharp beams into their eyes as they raised their hands. Together they stood, turned their heads from side to side. They folded their hands, kneeled and performed the Sejda, putting their foreheads to the ground. It was at this moment, Maya thought, recalling something her mother had told her, that the heart rose higher than the head.

Zaid led her to a tent and found them a small square of carpet. A woman walked past, willowy in her chador, and handed them a bowl of spicy chickpeas. *As-Salaam Alaik.u.m,' she said, pinching Zaid's cheek and wandering away.

Maya unwrapped their lunch, a box of chicken and rice. *I saw Abboo,' Zaid said.

The chicken dried up in her mouth. *Where?'

*Over there.' He pointed in the direction of the praying men on the river bank.

Here was her chance. At the prospect of seeing him again, she allowed herself a sliver of hope. A reunion. She would approach him, ask about Zaid. Toe in the water. See if there was somewhere they could meet, she and her brother. She had travelled to his home turf, he might like that. She looked at the boy, allowing herself, for a moment, to wonder what it would be like to take charge of him. School, first of all. He would go to school. She would have to teach him not to wander off in the middle of a sentence, and how to sit behind a desk all day. He would have to wear a uniform and carry his tiffin to the playground.

They finished their chicken and rice, washed their hands by the side of the tent. *All right,' she said, *let's go and find your father.'

They pushed through the stream of pilgrims and made their way to the river, pa.s.sing row after row of tents, each one housing tribes of men, their lungis hanging on strings to divide the s.p.a.ce between them. They would eat, sleep and pray here for a whole week. The larger tents were set up with speakers and microphones and makes.h.i.+ft stages where famous orators from India, imams from Jerusalem or Shanghai or Mozambique, would stand and spread the word. Maya had heard on the news that it was the biggest gathering of Muslims after the pilgrimage to Mecca. Even the Dictator would be attending the final recitation, to seek blessings from the spiritual leaders of the jamaat.

The prayer ended; men shuffled away, putting their shoes back on and wiping the sun from their eyes. Zaid was holding her hand and dragging her forward. They pushed against the tide of men leaving the prayer ground, inching slowly towards the lip of the river. Large boats packed with pilgrims were floating on the river, waiting for a s.p.a.ce to drop anchor. Impatient, some jumped into the water and waded, their capped heads bobbing as they swam. Zaid wriggled his way through the crowd, tugging on Maya's arm, and finally they came to a stretch of sand.

*There,' Zaid said, pointing. A clutch of men stood talking. Sohail was smiling, gesturing with his hands. He embraced each person in turn, and then the group dispersed. Zaid hesitated for a moment, looking up at her as if she were about to tell him what to do, and then he released her hand and scurried away, disappearing into the crowd.

Sohail was standing with his back to her, gazing into the water, his hands folded behind him. She watched him quietly for a moment. She had practised this meeting countless times. His back was broad, his hips. The white that draped his body ended above his ankles, which were black, his thick heels in a pair of cheap rubber sandals.

He turned. They regarded one another for a moment, and then he held out his arms to her, and she dived straight into them until she was wrapped in his pillowy chest, his fragrance of rosewater and attar.

He kissed her forehead. *As-Salaam Alaik.u.m,' he said. She clung to him, and slowly, gently, he s.h.i.+fted away.

*Walaik.u.m As-Salaam,' she heard herself reply. *How are you?'

*I am well, by the grace of Allah.'

Maya s.h.i.+fted her weight from one foot to the other. The things she wanted to say, dense, historical words, sat at the bottom of her. *I'm so sorry, about Silvi.'

There was a time when she would know, from the way he glanced at her, or the shape of his lips when he spoke, exactly what he was thinking. But he had learned to disappear within himself, and his face told her nothing. *It was her time.'

She wanted to touch him. He was fragile and he was remote. She watched the Adam's apple moving up and down in his throat. She steadied herself. *You know I've come back,' she began.

*Yes, I know.'

He knew. He hadn't come down to see her; she hadn't gone up to see him. Brother and sister, once inseparable. Tell me, she thought, tell me you've missed me, that you wished for my return. That you want to make up. He stepped closer to the water, and she followed. *I a I'd like your permission to enrol Zaid in school. There's a new one on Road 4, I went to see the headmistress and she agreed to take him at the start of the next term.' She was so nervous. Every word was a struggle.

He stopped. *He's lonely, I know.'

Because you left him alone, only days after his mother died. *He's a sweet child.' She had said the wrong thing, revealed how little she knew the boy.

Sohail shook his head. *His education is continuing in the hands of Sister Khadija.'

Maya swallowed the lump of anger rising in her throat. *Do you remember what it was like, when Abboo died?'

He turned, smiled, his lips criss-crossed by the beard. *Of course I remember.'

*How hard it was.'

*Yes.'

She guessed that he was not unaware of suffering, but had decided he would no longer be in thrall to it. That he would embrace it. The death of his father, his wife. There was a grand design, and it left no room for self-pity. But she ploughed on. *He's only six. His mother has just pa.s.sed, he needs us, me and Ammoo. We're his family.'

He said nothing, turning his face away and peering into the water. Perhaps he was about to tell her about all the ways he had reconstructed the word *family', and that she was nothing more than a girl he once knew.

She looked towards the camp, where Zaid was no doubt waiting, swinging his arms and pacing through the alleys. She was about to renew her appeal, repeat the arguments, but Sohail reached out and clutched her arm, pulling her towards him. He peered straight into her, awakening all the parts of her that he had once known.

This was it. This was her moment. She had thought of it so often, it was a dream, a dream worn out from constant dreaming. He would see himself reflected through her eyes a see the absurdity of what he had become. He would see the ugliness of turning his family away, the cruelty of his own fathering. Cracks would appear in his belief, his faith would be shaken a not in the Almighty, she would not wish to take that away from him (or perhaps she did, but she was not willing to admit to it), but in whatever force had taken him from her and delivered up a stranger.

He would remember himself, awaken and resume the life she had imagined for him. And he would forgive her for wis.h.i.+ng him different.

A man is not born once, she would say, a man can come into the world again.

The years disappeared.

She was ready to forget everything.

Brother, I will be yours again. I don't care about the people upstairs, and it doesn't matter if you've forgotten about our war, or our youth, no matter if this life is no longer your concern, that you have given up Ghalib and dear, dear Shakespeare, and no matter that I have ached in my bones because you appeared to forget me. If you want to put it aside, I say, yes, I accept, I forgive you, I ask you the same, let us return to it.

*School is out of the question,' he said.

Out of the question. Out. The burning sensation started in her gut and rose to her throat. She felt herself struggling to breathe. How foolish she had been to imagine she could come here and get her brother back; the dream was just that, a mirage. Her limbs were restless, angry. Yet she fought the urge to run from him. She had done enough running. Think of the boy, she said to herself. Forget your disappointment and think of the boy.

She swallowed her anger, ready to negotiate. *All right, then. Can I teach him a few things a sums, the alphabet? When he's not busy upstairs, of course.' For the moment, she would settle for this. One agreement at a time.

*All right,' Sohail said finally. *I will consider it.' He bent to embrace her again, and she knew the meeting was over. She darted away, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear, clinging to her small sc.r.a.p of victory. She would be Zaid's tutor, and when Sohail saw how quickly he learned, she would persuade him to send the boy to school. She would mourn her little dream later, at night when the sight of him came back to her, his serious, closed face. But for now she told herself to be satisfied, and so she slipped into the crowd, eager to share the good news with her little charge.

Zaid came down for a few hours every day, at lunchtime. He ate undisturbed while Maya taught him the alphabet. Then, as a treat, she showed him a few card games. He cheated, hiding cards under the table or in the sleeve of his kurta. Sometimes her purse was lighter than it should have been, but she didn't tell Ammoo. She didn't mind. It was only a few coins, only Gin Rummy and 21. Sohail departed again, on a mission to Nepal, and she didn't see him after that day by the river. She tried to call Rajshahi again but the line was constantly engaged. She wrote another letter to n.a.z.ia, pleading for a reply. She spent another day in the garden shed, looking for newspaper cuttings from the war, and she stumbled across a typed page dated September 1971. It was one of her old articles from the war a no one had agreed to publish it, she remembered, and she smiled now as she read the t.i.tle: *The World Looks on as Bangladesh Bleeds: A Cry for Help' by Miss Sheherezade Maya Haque.

1984.

May.

It took her awhile to find the shabby building in Old Dhaka. It was at the back of an alley that led down to the river, flanked by a leather factory. The stench of the tannery was overpowering. She held her nose and knocked. Aditi came to the door.

*Ah, the doctor!' she said. She was dressed as she had been at Saima's party, in a pair of jeans and a short kurta, but she looked different. Her fingertips were stained with ink, and she wore a green bandana around her hair. *I'm so glad you decided to come. I won't hug you, I'm filthy.' She waved Maya inside.

*It smells like death,' Maya said.

Aditi laughed. *It's horrible, isn't it? We're all used to it, don't even notice any more.'

Inside was a windowless room, piled high to the ceiling with stacks of newsprint. There was a large table on one side, scattered with pens, books, empty cups of tea. A man sat with his back to them, huddled over a typewriter, his knees bouncing up and down.

*Aditi, is that you? Bring me some tea, please, my nimble fingers are about to produce a miracle of a sentence.'

Aditi cleared her throat. *We have a guest, Shafaat, please behave.'

The man swung around. *I am so sorry, how rude. h.e.l.lo, I'm Shafaat. Shafaat Rahman.'

*Shafaat is the editor.'

*Editor, reporter, manager, tea-boy.'

*Well, not the tea-boy, it seems,' Maya said.

*Yes, you've spotted my weakness. What can I say, I like to give orders. But don't worry, no one ever listens to me.' He lit a cigarette and dangled it on the edge of his mouth. *The next issue comes out in a week. Here's a mock-up.' He handed her a leaflet printed on cheap paper. She began to flip through the articles. There was one about the Dictator's wealth, another exposing corruption in the army. It ended with a tirade on the changes that were being made to the const.i.tution.

*You can print this?'

The man smiled through dark, tobacco-stained lips. *No, but we do.'

*Won't you get arrested?'

*Arre, who's afraid of a little time with uncle?'

As she turned the pages, the ink bled on to her fingers. She looked around, took in the typewriters, the empty gla.s.ses of tea, the floor littered with bits of paper, and for the first time since returning to the city she felt a ripple of belonging.

*Aditi tells me you've been away.'

*I lived in Rajshahi for a few years.'

*Really? Do you have people there?'

*No, my people are here.' She could count all her people on the fingers of one hand.

*So you went all the way to the middle of the country, for what?'

She looked at Aditi. *I was a "crusading" doctor.'

*Aditi tells me you want to write.'

That's what she had told Aditi, when she had called and asked if she could visit the newspaper office. But suddenly she wasn't sure any more a it had been years since she'd picked up a pen. *Well, I thought a I did some writing during the war.'

*You have something you want to say?' Shafaat lit another cigarette, threw the match on the ground. A young boy in a tattered vest and lungi entered with a broomstick and pan and began to s.h.i.+ft the dust to the corners of the room.

*Something about village life, I guess.'

*You mean all that bucolic I-love-the-countryside c.r.a.p?'

*No, nothing like that. About what's really going on out there, sort of like a memoir. I was there for seven years, I saw a lot.'

*All right, 500 words by next week. Let's see what you come up with. But please, don't write any sentimental drivel about the green valleys of Rajshahi, eh?'

She smiled. *All right.'

*You sure your husband won't mind?'

*Does Aditi's husband mind?'

Aditi looked up from her desk. *He's too busy playing golf. I just ignore him.'

*So, yours will?'

*Stop hara.s.sing her, Shafaat, she's not married.'

He raised his eyebrows. She imagined what he was thinking a poor girl, still without a husband. But he surprised her by giving her a thumbs-up. *I have a daughter, and I tell her, marriage only if she meets a prince. Otherwise men are b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.'

*My,' she said, *I could sign you up right now a first male feminist of Bangladesh.'

*Do it!' he said, slamming his fist on to the table. *We'll make an official announcement in the next issue.'

*You'll be a celebrity,' Aditi said drily. *Now come with me, Maya, I'll show you the rest of our humble establishment.' They went down a corridor and into a smaller room. There was a desk at the back with a large rectangular box on top. *You'd better look out for Shafaat, he's a flirt.'

*He reminds me of my brother.' There was something about the way he thumped his hand on that desk that brought back a flash of Sohail.

*Really, I thought your brother had gone the religious way.'

*He was different before.' No one seemed to remember the old Sohail. They heard he had become a mawlana and forgot how he had been before. Only Maya had archived his image a hands wedged into his jeans, the cap he wore with a red star in the middle.

Aditi showed her the typesetting machine. She had to take every letter of every word and slot it neatly into a groove. The words were then dipped into the ink and pressed on to the paper. *Try it,' Aditi said. Maya pulled out a few letters, arranged them on a tray. Dipped into black ink. MynameisMayaHaque.

*You have to remember the s.p.a.ces between the words, Doctor.'

The typewriter's keys were tight. Probably angry with her for all the years it had spent under Ammoo's bed. There was a time you couldn't take it from her; she would bring it to the table and tap away while eating her dinner. And when she wasn't banging on the keys, she was scribbling on anything she could find, an old newspaper, a piece of brown paper that the vegetables had been wrapped in. Now she struggled to find the words. Chronicles of a Crusading Doctor? That sounded pompous. There was nothing so lofty about what she had done. She began to write about the Dictator, the sight of him tossing flowers on the Martyrs' Memorial. She tore the paper out of the typewriter. No one wanted to read about that. Five hundred words on the true story of the countryside. The true story. She remembered all the children she had brought into the world, all the mothers she hadn't been able to save. She thought of n.a.z.ia a n.a.z.ia who had been punished because it was the hottest day of the year and she wanted to cool her feet. She started at the beginning. I once knew a girl called n.a.z.ia. What was she thinking a she couldn't use real names. n.a.z.ia. Zania. Inaaz. Aizan. I once knew a girl called Aizan.

1972.