A Golden Age

November: Take my affliction

They decided to take a long ferry route, crossing the border in Rajshahi and floating downstream on the Padma, past Kushtia, Pabna, Faridpur. It would take two days, and they would arrive late at night on Wednesday after transferring to a train in Faridpur. Sohail would stay at Shona. On Thursday, Joy would come, and they would dig up the rifles buried beside the rosebushes. On Friday, after sunset, they would take out the power grid.

Sohail, Maya and Rehana spent most of the journey on the ferry deck, spread out on a bench that hugged the left side of the boat. The air roared past their ears, making it hard to breathe or to say much of anything. When they spoke, their words were sent up to the air, where the clouds curdled together, or into the water that swirled confidently below. The Padma spread out before them like the sea, its banks so far apart they were visible only as grey lines on the horizon, and in hints offered by the distant shore — a clutch of seagulls, the dotted wave of a fisherman.

They swayed in silence, narrowing their eyes against the sun and the warm needles of wind.

The ferry stopped in Pabna, and Maya bolted across the gangplank for a snack.

‘What do you think she’ll do?’

Silvi. So he hadn’t forgotten. ‘I don’t know, beta.’

‘Sometimes you can love someone more when they’re dead,’ he said, tracing the slanting metal floor of the ferry with the toe of his sandal.

‘Yes.’

‘But then you can also forget them.’ He looked at her as though she should know which direction Silvi’s affections would take.

‘Sometimes. Sometimes they just grow with each memory. You can’t know.’

He gripped the railing with white fingers. ‘She was acting so strangely — I just, I felt her slipping away.’

‘You have to wait.’

‘Bhaiya!’ Maya called out, running across the deck. ‘They have the best jhaal moori.’ She thrust her hand out, holding a newspaper cone.

Sohail plopped a handful into his mouth. ‘Ouch! How can you bear it so spicy?’ He hung his tongue out of his mouth. ‘Quick, get me some water, I’m dying.’

Maya darted into their cabin for the flask. The huts and tenements that ribboned along the river bank were tilting towards the water, as though aware of their fate; for every monsoon the rivers ate into the floodplain, stealing vast chunks of land, entire houses with their contents, cooking pots and holey mosquito nets and gas stoves and a bridal trunk in which three generations of women have carted their possessions and next year’s rice store and dried chillies and babies and doorframes and tin roofs. And every year they were rebuilt, new tin roofs cobbled together with the remnants of the old; new mud walls; the new year’s baby — hopeful little shacks bowed by the knowledge of what would always, inevitably, happen again.

Maya returned with the flask, flushed from the effort. ‘Eesh,’ she teased, ‘still can’t bear a little morich.’ The ferry horn sounded its animal blare.

‘You have a stomach like a steel tank,’ Sohail said, tipping the flask and gulping greedily. The ferry pushed away, swaying left to right with the effort, its egg-white wake trailing behind like a signature.

‘What do you eat out there?’ Maya asked.

‘Whatever I’m given. You wouldn’t believe some of it. But I can always talk the mess cook into something extra.’

‘Still using your charms to ill ends,’ Maya said.

He smiled a young smile, which she returned, and Rehana was suddenly jolted back to the past, when their faces were fresh, unmarked by grief or history.

When they descended from the ferry in Faridpur, Sohail crouched on all fours and kissed the silty shore.

‘Will you talk to her?’ he asked Rehana.

They were at the Faridpur Station, waiting for their train to Dhaka.

‘I’ll go to see her tomorrow.’

He stalked away and returned with a box of shondesh. The sweetmaker, a lean man with an improbably protruding belly, had tied it with a pink string that matched the lettering on the box. Alauddin Sweetmeat. In Faridpur, as everywhere else in the country, only the Muslim sweetmakers were left.

‘She likes shondesh,’ Sohail said. ‘She likes the molasses ones better, but you can’t get those till winter.’

As soon as she woke on Thursday she could feel the difference. It was there, even though the house was thankfully familiar — the old teak wedding bed, the shapes of the night-time shadows, the mothball scent of the cupboard, from which last night she had pulled out sheets, pillows, kathas, for them to collapse on after the long train journey home. She had kissed Sohail on the cheek and sent him to Shona, where he had curled up on the Major’s bed and fallen asleep with his chappals still dangling from his toes.

Rehana heard her daughter’s long breathing beside her. She rose, pulling her hair into a knot, crossed to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water. As she sipped, she leaned out of the kitchen doorway and into the small side porch. It was always at this time of the day that she allowed herself a selfish moment, when the house, the world, was hers, and there was no one to love, no one to save. It lasted only a few minutes. A few minutes was all the time she would grant it.

The air was grey and heavy with night. She ducked into the bathroom, splashed water on her hands, her eyes. The backs of her ears. She bent her knees on the prayer mat. Every day she asked for the same thing. Protect my children. Forgive me. Save that man. She could not bear to utter his name. She dared to have a hope she might see him today.

She hurried to the kitchen and thought about breakfast. It was the last breakfast for a few weeks. Tomorrow was the start of Ramzaan. For one month they would eat before dawn and not again until sunset. She mixed flour and water and worked the dough with her fingers. She rolled out flat disks, enjoying the quick, steady movement. The kitchen was orange with the coming sun; she stacked the chapattis on the edge of the counter and covered them with a damp square of muslin.

She went back to the bedroom and tried to wake her daughter.

‘Ammoo, it’s so good to be home.’ Maya burrowed deeper under her katha. ‘Come,’ she said, patting the bed, ‘give me an ador.’

‘I’m already up.’

‘Come on’—she peeled back the blanket—‘please.’

‘All right,’ Rehana sighed. She sank into the mattress, which smelled of sleep and talcum powder.

‘It’s a big day,’ Maya said.

‘I know.’

Maya ran her fingers across Rehana’s forehead. ‘You feeling OK?’

‘Yes. Your doctor fixed me up!’ She searched Maya’s face for a clue. In the two months they had been in Calcutta, she hadn’t given anything away.

‘Ammoo — I want to tell you something,’ Maya said seriously. ‘The year we were in Lahore — we never talk about it.’

Immediately Rehana’s eyes began to water.

‘I want you to know — it was all right.’

‘How could it be all right?’

‘It was.’

‘You didn’t miss—’

‘Of course we missed you. We missed everything. But we were children. And it was only a year.’

‘It was a lifetime to me.’

‘You should forgive yourself, Ammoo.’

‘I thought — I keep thinking — it must have been very bad.’

Maya shook her head. ‘It wasn’t so bad.’

‘Was it very good?’ This was the other thing she worried about.

‘No — of course not.’

‘What’s the worst thing?’

‘Parveen Chachi made me wear frilly dresses — I looked like a cake every time we went anywhere.’

‘No, seriously. Tell me the worst thing. I want to know.’

‘I don’t know…’ Maya began slowly. ‘I think it was — oh, I know — I couldn’t remember your face. I kept asking Sohail, and he would say, Ammoo has the prettiest eyes, and I would nod, but I’d forgotten.’ Maya dropped her gaze and looked down at her fingernails. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I would have given anything — my life—’

‘I know, Ammoo. I always knew.’

At eleven, after they had both bathed and Rehana had washed her clothes and Maya had strung them up in front of the lemon tree and Rehana had picked the grit out of the lunch rice, they stepped across the street to Mrs Chowdhury’s house.

Mrs Chowdhury and Silvi met them at the gate.

‘You’re back! I thought I saw some lights on last night — beti, didn’t I say, that must be Rehana, but she wouldn’t come back without telling me, so I wasn’t sure.’ She turned to her daughter, but Silvi had disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Rehana, my goodness, you’re so thin! What happened?’

‘I haven’t been well. I brought you these — a little mishti.’

Mrs Chowdhury peeked into the box. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ she said, lifting the lid and examining the shondesh. ‘Now tell me, what’s happened to my poor friend? I hardly recognize you!’

‘Oh, nothing to worry about. Just a touch of jaundice.’

‘Jaundice! Ya’allah! How did you get that?’

‘We were at the refugee camps,’ Rehana began.

‘What, you went to the camps?’

‘Mrs Sengupta is there,’ Maya interjected.

‘Ki bolo! What are you saying? Mrs Sengupta? Our Supriya?’

‘Yes, the very one.’

‘And?’ Mrs Chowdhury’s hips were at the edge of her armchair.

Rehana shook her head. ‘Poor girl. She didn’t even recognize me at first, and even after weeks together she said nothing.’ She wouldn’t tell Mrs Chowdhury about the note, the bamboo pipe.

‘What happened to her mia?’

‘We don’t know. Something terrible.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I tried to bring her back with me, but she refused. And anyway I wasn’t sure how things would be for her here.’

‘Aharey,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, sighing deeply, ‘we have all lost so much already.’

Silvi came in carrying a tray with tea and salty nimki in an empty Horlicks jar. A scarf was pulled around her head and knotted tightly around her chin. Stray strands of hair had been disciplined and tucked away. She worked neatly, setting down the tray, arranging the cups on their saucers, stirring the teapot.

‘Sabeer — we got your telegram — I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s God’s will,’ Silvi whispered, kneeling in front of the tray. ‘Sugar?’ she asked Rehana.

Silvi had been making tea for Rehana since she was old enough to boil water. ‘Yes, two. And a little milk,’ Rehana said, unsteady in the face of this new formality.

‘Maya?’

‘One chini. No dood.’

‘Hai Allah!’ Mrs Chowdhury groaned, heaving herself backwards and piling her feet on an ottoman. ‘We tried our best. In the beginning the boy just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. He hardly spoke. And his fingers!’ She bit her tongue. ‘His fingers turned blue, and then his whole hand. Doctor said it was gangrene — they had to go. Both hands. Imagine, a young boy like that.’ She held up her own thick fingers.

Silvi was passing the tea around steadily.

‘And then one day — one night, he came out of the bed and sat here, in the drawing room, and he smiled — so beautifully, na, Silvi? As though he was looking into God’s own eyes.’ She pointed to the sofa where Maya was sitting. ‘And he was gone.’

Rehana felt her stomach lurch, as Maya, shifting with a teacup in her hand, said, ‘Did you ever find out what happened? How he was captured?’ She directed her question at Silvi.

Silvi was unscrewing the Horlicks jar and arranging the nimki on a plate. She pursed her lips together and appeared not to hear the question.

‘Silvi, do you know what happened?’ Maya repeated, a little louder. Without a word, Silvi passed the plate of nimki to her mother. ‘Did you even bother to ask?’ Maya said.

‘These are unspeakable things,’ Mrs Chowdhury began.

‘Things which need to be known.’ Maya slammed her cup down with a porcelain clatter. ‘Silvi, your husband was a hero.’

‘That was his business,’ Silvi said finally, ‘nothing to do with me.’

‘But it’s your country!’

‘Not everyone believes what you believe,’ Silvi said simply.

‘You don’t believe in Bangladesh?’ The name of the country, still a new word, fell out of Maya’s mouth like a jewel.

Silvi was still crouching next to the tray. Now she lifted it and slid smoothly out of the room.

‘I don’t know what’s become of her,’ Mrs Chowdhury sighed.

‘You have to do something,’ Maya said; ‘she sounds so strange.’

Rehana found herself agreeing with her daughter for once, and feeling a stab of envy at how easily Maya could speak her mind.

‘Your problem,’ Silvi said, returning with a plate for the shondesh, ‘is that you can’t tolerate a difference of opinion. I happen to think this war — all this fighting — is a pointless waste of human life.’

‘When the army came and massacred us and drove us out of the country, we should have rolled over?’

‘They were restoring order,’ Silvi said, tugging at the knot under her chin. ‘Making things safe.’

‘Have you been anywhere beyond your drawing room lately? People are being massacred…’ Maya’s hands were in the air, the breath whistling out of her mouth.

‘Pakistan should stay together,’ Silvi said, as though reciting from a textbook. ‘That’s why it was conceived. To keep the Ummah united. To separate the wings is a sin against your religion.’

‘The sin is being committed against us — look outside your window!’

‘I’m not ignorant, Maya. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. And I’m not the only person—’

‘You and the army, thinking alike. What a relief!’ Maya’s voice was beginning to crack.

Her hysteria appeared to have a calming effect on Silvi. Mrs Chowdhury had given up and was leaning her head against her chair, looking at the ceiling like a martyr.

‘I want to believe in something greater than myself,’ Silvi said serenely.

‘So do I,’ Maya spat. ‘Ammoo, please let’s go.’ She tugged at Rehana’s elbow.

‘Silvi,’ Rehana said as she turned to the door, ‘the important thing is for you to look after your mother and for all of us to survive the war.’

‘Ji, khala-moni, thank you.’ She relaxed her forehead and her eyebrows separated, revealing her old, reverent face.

Sohail was waiting for them at the bungalow.

‘I can’t believe — I’ve known her my whole life!’ Maya was shouting at the walls, ignoring her brother.

‘She’s shocked — her husband dying like that.’

‘What’s going on?’ Sohail asked, moving his eyes from mother to sister.

‘But how?’ Maya’s cheeks were wet, and she was swallowing large gulps of air. ‘How could this happen?’

‘You want so badly for everyone to believe.’

‘Of course I do.’ Maya rubbed her nose violently against the sleeve of her blouse. She looked angrily at Sohail and bolted out of the room.

‘She’s upset,’ Rehana said slowly, ‘because Silvi wouldn’t—’

‘Wouldn’t what?’

‘She wouldn’t acknowledge the war in any way, beta.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She doesn’t think we’re doing the right thing.’

‘That can’t be true. You must have misunderstood.’

‘She said she thought it was a sin, the country splitting.’ Rehana put a hand against Sohail’s back, where his shoulder blades were stretched apart.

‘Someone must have done this to her. A bad influence.’

‘Doesn’t matter how. She’s turned against it, for whatever reason.’

‘Religion?’

‘Maybe,’ Rehana said, trying not to put the blame on God, ‘but she’s so young, who can know why?’

Maya came back into the room. She had tried to compose herself, and failed. Her face was wet and her lips a dark, angry bruise.

‘So you heard what happened?’ she said to Sohail.

He nodded silently, his eyes avoiding hers.

‘It’s a disgrace,’ she continued, brushing away the tears with the back of her hand.

Sohail pressed his palms against his face.

‘Are you still in love with her?’

‘Maya—’ Rehana warned.

‘You’re still in love with her. You’re bloody still in love with her!’

‘No,’ Sohail said, shaking his head weakly, ‘of course not.’

‘Look,’ Maya said in a thick, fierce voice, ‘this is the moment when you decide what is more important to you. Understand? This moment, right now. That girl is over there with her stupid, twisted politics and she’s not even thinking about you, and you’ve risked everything — everything — to get her. Now you let her go, bhaiya, please, I’m begging you, for all of us, let her go.’

‘Don’t question my loyalty,’ Sohail whispered.

‘I’m not questioning your loyalty, I’m questioning your judgement.’

He moved his hands away from his face, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to get into a fight with her, shout things about devotion and love and the country, but instead he strode over to her and put his arms around her. ‘You’re right,’ he said, his shoulders shaking, ‘you’re right.’

It was getting late. Sohail was waiting for Joy at Shona; they were going to dig up the guns. ‘We have to make Sehri,’ Rehana said to Maya. ‘What do you want to eat?’

‘I don’t know.’ The tears were still falling heavily on to Maya’s cheeks. ‘Do we have to fast?’

‘Of course we do. Tomorrow of all days.’

For once Maya didn’t argue. She took the glass of water Rehana offered. ‘I want dalpuri,’ she said with a sniff.

‘Good idea. I’ll put the dal on.’

Maya brought the glass to her lips. As she began to drink, a fresh wave of tears overcame her.

‘Maya,’ Rehana said, chiding her, ‘we have more important things to worry about today.’

‘I know, I’m sorry — I just can’t help it.’ She blew her nose thunderously. ‘It’s just that it wounds me’—she prodded herself with a finger—‘here.’

‘The boys will be here in a few hours.’

Rehana parted the curtains and watched from the drawing-room window.

Joy and Sohail filed in through the back gate and circled the rosebush. It was hard to see through the moonless black. She recognized Joy’s bulk, and beside him was Sohail, slighter, carrying a shovel and a hurricane lamp. She allowed herself only a brief moment of disappointment. There was no reason to expect the Major.

Joy lit the lamp, and Sohail began to dig. After a few minutes they exchanged places, Sohail holding the weak light while Joy squatted down and pulled at the earth, the silt piling up beside them. Finally they paused, and Joy leaned over the hole they had dug. He shifted, laying flat on his stomach, and started to tug at something. Rehana could barely make out his face, twisting with the effort.

Just as Joy had pulled the object — a rectangular wooden box, discoloured by its long burial — they heard a scattered, staccato drumroll. Gunfire. The sound grew suddenly, filling the air. The boys crouched on the ground, dipping their heads. It was Joy who raised the box above his shoulders and stood upright and scurried out of the garden. He slipped behind the mango tree and waited for Sohail, who was shimmying towards him on his elbows. They became shadows, rustling through the branches of the tree. And then they were gone.

Rehana became aware of her heart pounding against her chest, and her breath making circles that grew and retreated on the closed window.

The drumming grew louder and Rehana froze, fixed in her place facing the empty garden, the hole they had left like a shout under the rosebush.

‘Ammoo?’ Maya came into the room, her hands white with flour. ‘What’s going on?’

They moved to the other side of the room, where the windows faced the road. Rehana parted the curtain in time to see a convoy of trucks hurtling down their street. A pillar of soldiers in green stood on the back of a truck, waving their guns in the air. Passing through the street they shouted, ‘Pakistan Zindabad! Pakistan Zindabad!’ As the last truck ambled away, one of the soldiers, a young boy with a thick mop of raven hair, pointed his gun at the bungalow. I could kill you right now, his face said.

Rehana snapped her head back and yanked the curtain closed.

‘Did you see that?’

Maya circled an arm around Rehana’s shoulder. ‘It’s just a show of force, Ma. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘But why here? It’s just a small road. That shipahi was pointing right at us.’

‘They’re getting hints India’s going to come down on our side. And then it’ll be over.’

They had started saying things like ‘when the war is over’. Rehana thought it was too soon, but people, especially the young ones, were confident the freedom fighters would save them. A rescue by the world. It had to end soon. I can taste the end, Sohail had said, and Rehana had thought of it as the kind of thing a child says to his mother when the lines between them become blurry and he no longer wants to be the child, and she no longer the mother. She had relaxed into the phrase, and his cool hand on her forehead. But she hadn’t believed him.

Without the diversion of meals, Friday spooled out slowly ahead of them. There were still things to be done. Pretend it’s any other day. Do the washing. The preparations for Sehri, for Iftar. Air out the house. Collect water from the taps. Boil it for drinking. Drag down the cobwebs.

All day she ignored the cold fear at her back. Sohail left in the afternoon, his face unmoved as she kissed his forehead and said Aytul Kursi and blew the blessing on his eyes. The fear breathed on her neck and sent the hair upright, electric. It caught her in the double-beat of her heart, the pulse she could feel at her temple, the tremor of her hand as she fried the Iftar food. Beguni, the crunchy strips of eggplant. Chickpeas and tomatoes. The dalpuri Maya had rolled out and stuffed. Orange juice. Tamarind juice. Lassi. It was not elaborate enough for a special occasion, not simple enough to indicate want. A meal for an ordinary day. A meal for a day without war.

Rehana brought the food to the table. They ate in silence, their fingers working the pooris with small wet slaps.

Afterwards Maya crawled under the bed and pulled out the kerosene lamp.

‘Put that away!’ Rehana said.

‘Why? When the current goes out—’

‘We don’t know the current is going to go out.’

‘Of course it will.’

Rehana shot Maya a warning look. ‘Put the lamp away and say Isha with me.’

With Shona’s long shadows edging towards the bungalow, they tried to pick up the radio transmission. Maya fiddled with the knob, but all they heard was static.

‘Do you want a song, Ma?’

Rehana was taken aback by the offer. ‘Really? I would love that. Sing “Amar Shonar Bangla”.’

At nine o’clock, when only blackness and the nail-shaped crescent moon remained, they held their breaths and waited.

Rehana began to think of what she would like to be doing when the lights went out. She could go into Sohail’s room and count the medicines and blankets that still needed to be distributed. She could start a letter to her sisters. But what would she say? The letter would have to be full of lies. And she wouldn’t end up sending it anyway, or she would have to contend with a reply. Thank Allah you’re alive — we’ve been worried sick — why don’t you leave that godforsaken place and come to Karachi — we’ve been telling you for years. No, she wouldn’t write a letter.

Maya was fidgeting with the dinner plates, stacking them carelessly.

‘Just leave those.’

‘I want to make sure—’ Maya bit her tongue.

‘Leave them.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Ma.’ But she left them anyway and threw herself on the sofa beside Rehana.

‘What now?’

‘We wait.’

Maya had never been good at waiting for anything.

‘But there’s nothing to do.’

‘Do you want to play rummy?’

Her face brightened. ‘Shotti? We haven’t played since—’

‘Since Sohail started beating you and you refused to play.’

‘No — no, that’s not how it happened. He discovered poetry that year, and everything else was forgotten.’

‘That was a year later. There was a period in between, for about eight months, when you wouldn’t play anything with him — not cards, or chess, or badminton.’

‘You can’t blame me for the badminton. He was so tall, it wasn’t fair.’

‘True. But poor Silvi — she persevered.’

‘That’s because he always let her win.’

They grew silent, collecting their memories together.

‘OK,’ Maya said, slapping the armrest, ‘I’ll get the cards.’

But Rehana had changed her mind. ‘Do you mind if we skip the cards? I want to read a little.’

Maya nodded. ‘OK.’

‘What do you want?’ Rehana asked, but Maya was already in Sohail’s room, fingering his bookshelf.

‘Let’s have some tea.’ Maya pulled out a slim volume. ‘I’ll make it,’ she said, tucking the book under her arm.

A few minutes later she emerged from the kitchen with a tray.

‘I think I’ll read Iqbal,’ Rehana said, ‘it’s been a while.’

‘Which one?’

‘Baal-e-Jibreel.’

Maya pulled out her own choice with a flourish. ‘Gitanjali!’ she said mischievously. Tagore had been banned, and, though the poetry was all about love and God and the monsoon, there was still an incendiary thrill in reading it. His white beard triangled down the cover, matching the shock of white hair that framed a long, serious face.

They climbed into bed with their tea and their books. Rehana forced herself to read hers from the beginning. Perhaps once she reached her favourite, ‘Chamak Teri Ayaan’, the house would be in darkness. By an unspoken consent they kept the overhead tube-light buzzing and the fan rotating at full speed. The circulating air kept their pages rustling.

‘Chamak Teri Ayaan’ came and went. Maya was flipping her own pages slowly, reading out the title of each poem before she began it. She made her way through ‘Alo Amar Alo’ and lingered at ‘Amar E Gaan’, which Rehana knew was her favourite.

Rehana was at ‘Kya Kahun Apne Chaman’, with three poems to go, when they heard something in the distance, like passing thunder. ‘Was that it?’ Maya leaped to the window and peered out into the street. ‘All the lights are still on. Maybe they couldn’t do it — maybe they tried, and they just couldn’t.’

Rehana ignored her, and eventually Maya crawled back under her katha. She sighed heavily and picked up her book again. Rehana could tell she was beginning to regret not having chosen a longer volume.

Iqbal was finished and the lights were still blazing. Rehana checked her watch. 12.20. Her eyes were beginning to sting. Maya had slipped Gitanjali under her pillow and was unbraiding her hair. ‘I’ll brush my teeth,’ she said in a joyless voice.

She was stepping over the threshold with the empty teacups, sighing heavily, when it happened: a scratching thud, unmistakable, a flicker of the light, an electric blink, and they were sunk into darkness.

‘Maya?’ Rehana felt under the bed. ‘Come back and take the hurricane.’

‘THEY DID IT THEY DID IT THEY DID IT!’

They fell asleep in their clothes, Maya laughing into her pillow.

‘Rehana.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘Shhh.’ A finger on her lip. A lip on her lip. Hands tunnelling under her, lifting her up, swinging her out of the room. Three long strides to the garden gate, kicking it open, navigating the steps. Ashes in her nostrils, measured breath in her ear; her body was a feather, a wisp of cotton, a gust of wind in his arms. Swivelling past the gate, through Shona’s front door, her bare feet brushing the frame.

She didn’t think to worry until she was sure it was him. There wasn’t enough light to see; she reached out, felt the scar on his cheek. Then she said, ‘What happened? Is everything all right? What are you doing here? Where’s Sohail?’

‘They did it.’

He put her down on the bed in Mithun’s room and stepped away, sitting on the rattan chair, his hands just beyond her reach.

‘You were supposed to go,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he replied, his eyes piercing the black.

‘Why?’ she asked, knowing the answer and wanting to hear it anyway.

‘I had to see you. Suddenly you were gone—’

‘So were you — and no letters.’

She heard him rustling through his bag and shaking something. Then there was a small scratching sound, and he held up a match. She saw his eyes, and the tightly curled hair on his head. He held the match steady, until it burned down to the nub. He let it drop. He struck another. She felt its passing heat, the dusty sulphur as it flickered away; he shook his wrist and put it out.

‘So pale,’ he said.

‘I was — I had jaundice.’

‘I know.’ He was whispering, his breath on her eyes.

A sob, hard as salt, welled up in her throat. She caught it, and the tears fell freely, but before they could drop from her chin his hands were there to catch them, spread them thinly on her cheek, like butter.

She heard his tongue moving around inside his mouth. Tonguing the teeth. Caressing the roof. She heard it so clearly it seemed like her own tongue, teeth, roof.

He kissed her. His lips were softer than she had imagined. She felt his tongue; reaching, knowing. Like a conjuring trick, he unfastened her blouse. He dipped his head. He ran his tongue across the width of her. Up one breast, down. Across the bone, up again. Like an aqueduct.

The lick-track burned.

He placed his thumb on her face. A heartbeat pulsed inside the thumb. She turned her face and met his lip, which she had the urge to bite, but did not.

Moments, an eternity, passed. A tiktiki cackled from the ceiling. The poor slice of moon offered only the dimmest light, through which she could just make out his square face and the dense, wiry hair.

She wanted to tell him how foolish he was to have come, but she was afraid if she said the words he would know for sure that she had willed it with all her strength.

‘I have to go. Before sunrise, for Sehri.’

He moved a thread of hair from her cheek.

‘Don’t tell me when you’re coming back.’

Now his thumb scraped her collarbone.

‘Otherwise I’ll be holding my breath.’

He nodded, a slight dip of the head.

‘Take care of my boy.’

Rehana crossed the garden, swinging her arms, past the mango tree and the lemon tree and the rosebush, which was emptied of its secret, and the hydrangeas, which flowered blue and white like a china sky. At the bungalow, Maya was sprawled across the bed like a shipwreck. Rehana made for the kitchen, but then stopped, decided to lie down instead. It was still an hour till sunrise. She closed her eyes and remembered. Just once. Above her, the ceiling fan moved slightly, pushed by the swirl of November air floating through the veranda. Her skin was awash with scents, his watermelon breath, his burned-rubber sweat.

She heard the trucks before they turned on to the road; she felt them slowing in front of the bungalow, lining up along the neighbourhood gates. She had time to wake Maya and drag her to the drawing room. The army is here. She thought to straighten her hair. She passed a hand across her lips. And then they were perched on the sofa, straight-backed, as though waiting for a guest, except that they were still swimming in the ink-wash of night.

Young men in green uniforms spilled out of their trucks, dozens of them at once, each with identical savage eyes and boots that moved like hammers. They didn’t notice the women. Their eyes were for Shona, what Shona would give up. The prayers spilled from Rehana’s lips. God, let him be safe.

The boots stomped heavily through the bungalow; they tore books out of shelves, smashed dinner plates, knocked over the brass lamp, ravaged the cupboards. They ripped the posters from Sohail’s bedroom, Mao against a red background, Che with a cap and a jaunty smile. A pillow was bayoneted. Yellow cotton scattered like dandelion.

Nobody was arresting them. Through the autumn haze, the sun was making a slow and careful ascent.

A shout went up. ‘All clear!’ and then the soldiers lined up and stood at attention as a man came through the door, his hand on his hip where a gun was resting.

‘Mrs Rehana Haque,’ he said in strained, rehearsed English. He had a moustache but no beard. She couldn’t determine his age. Youth and age clashed in his face like competing scores. ‘My name is Colonel Jabeen. I have an order to search your premises and arrest your son, Sohail Haque.

Now the boots were on the bungalow roof, thudding like elephant feet. Rehana gripped Maya’s hand. It was hot and slippery. Next to Jabeen there was another man. He leaned over the window and spat into the hydrangeas. His eyes were on Maya as he swivelled around and cleared his throat. There was spittle still on his lips. He licked them. He looked at Maya — up, down — and licked them again. Maya stared back. Her palms were wet, but she stared back anyway.

Colonel Jabeen did not speak Bangla. He spoke Urdu. He shouted into the spitting man’s ear and the spitting man translated for him.

‘Tell them they have no choice. Give up the son.’

‘Mrs Haque,’ the spitting man said, ‘Apnar aar kono upai nai.’

‘Colonel,’ Rehana said in Bangla, addressing Jabeen but looking at the spitting man, ‘there must be some sort of misunderstanding. My son is in Karachi, with my sister Marzia. They live in Clifton — you can send someone and see for yourself.’

‘Says her bastard’s in Karachi.’

Colonel Jabeen didn’t reply at first. Then he looked directly at Rehana and said, ‘There’s no misunderstanding. Your son is a traitor to Pakistan.’

The spitting man said, ‘Apnar gaddar cheleke amra charbo na.’

The soldiers returned from the roof, from the garden, from Shona. They brought in the boxes of clothes, saris that would be turned into kathas, the penicillin. No Major. One of them righted an upturned chair, and Jabeen sat down heavily. He looked bored. They laid the boxes at Rehana’s feet. A graveyard of evidence.

Rehana said, ‘We’ve been collecting donations for the refugees.’ She renewed her grip on Maya’s hand, and thankfully, for once, the girl did not have the urge to speak her mind.

‘Tell her we know about the cache.’

A rush of cold gripped Rehana’s arms. She swallowed. ‘We know about the guns you buried under your rosebushes,’ the spitting man said.

Rehana opened her mouth to speak.

‘No need to explain. We already know everything.’

Rehana waited to see if Jabeen would tell the spitting man what they knew. ‘My son is in Karachi,’ she repeated, pulling Maya closer to her. Again Jabeen whispered something Rehana could not hear into the spitting man’s ear. The spitting man replied. Jabeen smiled. Had she seen him before?

Jabeen and the spitting man looked at each other, serious as new lovers, for a few more minutes before the spitting man said, ‘You have more than one child.’

Rehana’s legs were slowly, painlessly, turning to jelly. To keep them from buckling under she thought of her bones. She had bones. They stood her up.

‘Take the girl into the other room.’

The spitting man turned, a smile settling across his face.

‘Ma,’ Maya whispered, ‘I don’t want to go.’

Rehana locked arms with her daughter. The spitting man was at her elbow now, a pair of handcuffs clattering against his palms. Wait, Rehana told herself, just wait one more minute. I’ll think of something. She looked at Jabeen. She saw something, a hunger, in his eyes. She saw that he wanted something more, something more savage, than the triumph over two women. She broke free of her daughter and played her only card.

‘Colonel Jabeen,’ she said in her perfect, native Urdu, ‘this cannot be the way you want to wage war.’

Jabeen cocked his head. Had he heard right? He cleared his throat. He mopped his forehead with the back of his arm. There was no electricity and hence no fan, and so everyone was sweating, especially Jabeen, who liked to wear his full army uniform on special occasions such as the routing of traitors.

‘You speak Urdu,’ he said. It was not a question. The spitting man was still tugging at Maya’s elbow, and she was grunting, twisting away from him. The corners of his mouth were wet.

‘Stop,’ Jabeen said to the spitting man. He obeyed, smiled, taking pleasure in the delay.

‘Sergeant, go and search the garden again,’ Jabeen said, ‘and the neighbourhood. Arrest anyone suspicious.’

The spitting man hesitated.

‘Go!’ Jabeen said. ‘Take the boys with you.’

The spitting man saluted and ushered the rest of the soldiers out of the bungalow, leaving Rehana and Maya alone with Jabeen in the strangled afternoon heat.

Jabeen turned to Rehana. ‘You see the problem,’ he said. ‘I’ve already promised my man.’

‘Then tell him you’ve changed your mind.’

He stroked his moustache with the back of his thumb. ‘Please, let’s be reasonable, Mrs Haque, shall we?’ He sat down, gestured hospitably to a chair and tented his fingers. ‘I see you are an educated woman. There were three boys on the mission last night. One was your son’s friend Joy. The Hindu boy, Partho. And Sohail was the third. We know they would have tried to cross the border. We believe we’ve picked up their tracks. But something tells me they may also have tried to come home. Especially your son.’ He crossed his legs and rocked his foot. ‘I have a feeling he may have been prone to…prone to sentiment.’ He sighed and wove his fingers together behind his head.

Yes, that was true. He was prone to sentiment. For instance, at this moment, his hands scratching with gunpowder, he was not just a man running for his country or for his life. He was also trying to fall out of love. To Jabeen she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And then he smiled again and she remembered where she had seen him before. ‘I’ve seen you. At the thana.’

‘Yes, that’s right. I spend a lot of time there.’

‘You asked for Chinese tea.’

He nodded, impressed. ‘I’m not an unreasonable man, Mrs Haque. I would rather not have the sullying of a woman on my hands. Those boys in the field,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘have allowed the excesses of war to go to their heads. A pity.’

He exhaled deeply, as though blowing smoke.

‘However, I have a job. I have to bring those Bengalis back. I have to arrest them. And then I have to shoot them.’

‘Then there is no reason why I should tell you where he is.’ Rehana swallowed.

‘Surely you’re more intelligent than that, Mrs Haque.’

The weather was a gale in her stomach.

‘Because I could hold him in a nice little cell and not shoot him right away. But perhaps that’s not suitable either? You saw what happened to his friend. Poor fellow.’

Jabeen’s cheeks were shining. Then he asked, as though the question had just occurred to him, ‘Where is your husband, Mrs Haque?’

I once had a husband. His face was round, and his fingers were breadsoft. One day his heart stopped beating. He sank to his knees in front of our house. ‘Rehana,’ he said, ‘Maf kar do.’ Forgive me.

‘Dead,’ she said, trying to sound as hard as the sewer-pipe woman who had given her the same reply.

‘Ah, what a blow for your children.’

My children have not always been my children. My children once belonged to someone else.

There was a sharp rap at the door. A shuffle of feet, a small thud. It was the Sergeant. ‘Sir, we’ve got him.’ He kicked a man into the room. His face was streaked with blood. A sickle scar on his cheek. A frame of curly hair. ‘Caught him running to Satmasjid Road. Stupid bastard. Right in front of our eyes.’

Jabeen unbuckled his gun and pointed it. Then he changed his mind, turned the gun around and hit him with the muzzle. It collided with the man’s chin; Jabeen’s arm came down again, and with his other hand he threw a fist into the man’s stomach. The man did not try to fight. He collapsed on to the floor, a small triangle of blood on his cheek. He tried to smile. Then he was doubled over, and Jabeen was kicking his back, his arms. ‘I should kill you right now, you Bengali sonofabitch. Thought you would take out the lights?’

‘Wait! This is not my son.’

Jabeen paused, his boot in the air. ‘What?’

‘He’s not my son.’

The boot landed, heel first, on a hand. A muffled grunt, bitten back.

‘Look at him — he’s too old to be my son.’

‘You want to trick me, woman?’ Jabeen was panting, exhilarated with the effort. ‘Who is he?’ His breath was hot on her face.

‘I don’t know. He could be anyone — you just picked him off the street.’

‘You think I don’t know a mukti when I see one? I know every single one of those bastards — I hunt them for a living. I know them better than you. I am their executioner. You are only their mother.’ Jabeen laughed. The back of his mouth was grey. He wanted something more savage. This was it.

‘This is not my son. I tell you, this is not my son. I swear on God, on the Holy Koran, on my mother’s grave, this is not my son. What good will it do you to catch the wrong man? Where’s the glory in that?’

And Jabeen stopped, patting his pockets, shaking off a trickle of sweat at the tip of his nose. ‘Dammit!’ he said, with a final kick to the man. ‘Sergeant!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Get on the radio. See if there’s any development.’

‘Should I tell them about him?’

‘What did I tell you? Go!’

Rehana’s head was in her hands. If only she didn’t look at him. Maybe it wasn’t even him; maybe it was as she said, he was a stranger, caught crossing the road at the wrong time.

The Sergeant came back. ‘Colonel, sir, it’s on the radio. They’ve been found.’

Rehana’s heart fell to her feet.

‘All three?’

‘No, sir. Not Sohail Haque. The other two. Tracked them in Comilla.’

Thank you, God. Thank you thank you thank you. But where was Sohail? They were supposed to take the road to Daudkhandi, into the thick autumn rice, threading through villages, swimming across eddies, their trousers rolled up, their guns held over their heads.

Jabeen crouched, wove his fingers through the man’s hair and raised his head. This time he turned to Maya. ‘Let’s try this again. Is this man your brother?’

She said nothing, pushing urgently against Rehana’s arm. ‘Is this man your brother?’ Jabeen repeated.

‘Tell them,’ the Major said, the breath whistling out of his mouth.

She had once told him her secret. Which was not about T. Ali, or about her father’s lost wealth, or the stolen jewellery, or her secret love of the cinema, but about the children. How far she would go. Anywhere. Any distance. That was the secret. The shameless, hungry secret.

And with his knowledge, he held her children in his hands, breathing them to life.

It was her choice, not his. She had asked him herself. Take my affliction. The rest could only follow as it did. One love that swallowed another. Stacked up like clouds in a hot sky.

She wanted the knowledge back. I should never have told you.

I’m so grateful, he said, so grateful you told me.

All my life I’ve been waiting for this day.

This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done. All my life I’ve been waiting for this day. Now say it, and let’s be done.

She said it.

‘God be with you, my son.’

‘And you. My mother.’

Your life for mine.

Take my affliction. She had asked him, and he had answered.

The Sergeant wrenched him away, a hand on his collar, and he was gone, in the dragging, loping walk of a handcuffed man. Maya was pulling Rehana from the window, but she was like a stone. She owed him the looking. She fixed her look. She held him tightly in her gaze, through the black hood they slipped over his head, knowing he could see through it, and through the heart-shaped grille, and into the bungalow, and into her eyes, so that he would know all that she thought, all that she was, at that very moment, belonging to him as he disappeared from sight.