A Golden Age

July: The red-tipped bird

It was still only July, not yet August, the month of contradiction. In August, mornings were unbearably liquid, the air dense, tempers threadbare; wives and paratha-makers and jilapifryers laboured over breakfasts, and children woke from damp sheets and wiped their faces in limp, furry towels. And then, at some mysterious hour between noon and dusk, the sky would hold its breath and the tempers worsen, as the air stopped around people’s throats, not a stir, everything still as buildings, and there was a hush, interrupted only by the whine of the city dwellers, lunching, probably, or just tossing and turning on mattresses, debating whether it was hotter to stay still or to move; women with sinking make-up fanned their faces, men with bulging chests fanned their necks. But, after the stillness, after the gathering of clouds and the darkness, there was the exultant, joyous rain, sweet water that jetted violently, and scratchy, electric thunder, and exclamations of lightning. Altogether, a parade of weather, a feast for the hot, the tired; and every day there was one small boy, or a very old man, or even a dog, who would look up at the sky and wait for the first fat drop with his tongue outstretched, his face full of hope, all knowledge of the morning entirely forgotten.

But this was not August; it was July, a timid, confused month that cowered under the threat of what was to come. It was only the warm-up.

It was on such an in-between day that a wail could be heard coming from Number 12, a woman calling hysterically for water, ice water for her head. When Rehana arrived at her bedside, she exclaimed, ‘My poor daughter! My poor daughter!’ In the garden, a dog named Juliet howled at the afternoon.

The war had finally found Mrs Chowdhury.

She was beached on the four-poster with a wet compress on her forehead. The ceiling fan was on at full speed, slicing violently through the air. Silvi was fanning her mother’s face with a jute hand-fan. Between the ceiling fan and the hand-fan, Mrs Chowdhury’s face was flattened, the hair plastered to her forehead.

‘Faster, faster! I’m so hot!’ Mrs Chowdhury said. ‘Silvi, get my thermometer. I’m burning up!’

Impassively Silvi passed the hand-fan to Rehana and went to fetch the thermometer. Someone had stitched a red border around the rim of the fan, so that it looked like a seashell dipped in red paint.

‘One minute hot, one minute cold,’ Mrs Chowdhury cried. Rehana worked the fan back and forth over her, watching the loose tendrils of hair float from side to side. Mrs Chowdhury’s bedroom was crowded with family antiques. There was the mammoth four-poster that required a stepladder to mount, a dressing table with a heavy oval mirror and a wall of solid teak wardrobes, each with an open-mouthed keyhole the size of a baby’s fist. Tucked into Mrs Chowdhury’s sari was a gold chabir gocha that held the keys to the wardrobe and to the other important locks in the house: the sugar and oil store, the front gate, the back gate, the drawing room (which stayed locked and sheet-draped for special occasions), the ice-box room and, most importantly, the jewellery safe, set into the wall of Mrs Chowdhury’s heaviest steel almirah.

The rest of Mrs Chowdhury’s house was a museum of better times. Room after room contained haphazardly assembled family heirlooms. Some were so crowded that it was difficult to navigate among the furniture, the tarnished silver candlesticks, the clashing statues of Venus de Milo and Nataraj; others were mostly empty, a grandfather clock ticking erratically in one, a solitary birdcage in another, swaying in the breeze of an open window, its creaking echoing against damp, blistered walls. An air of accident permeated Mrs Chowdhury’s house, an expectation that something would come along and stir the sad, dormant air. Only a few knew the reason for this arrangement, and Rehana was one of them: Mrs Chowdhury was still waiting for her long-lost husband to come home.

Silvi returned with the thermometer and inserted it into her mother’s open mouth. She turned to Rehana and whispered, ‘Sabeer has been captured.’ Her voice was flat and unconcerned.

Mrs Chowdhury tried to speak through clamped lips. ‘Just wait one minute,’ Silvi told her. And then, ‘Ammoo, there’s no fever.’

‘Rehana,’ Mrs Chowdhury said. ‘This is my poor daughter’s fate. I knew she shouldn’t have married that man.’

‘What happened?’

‘His regiment were fighting the Pak Army in Mymensingh,’ Silvi began.

‘Why we had to get involved in this business,’ her mother interjected. ‘It was you, Silvi, you just had to marry him — because he was an officer. You were so impressed. Fan harder, Rehana, I’m burning up. But I never trust military men, never. You never know what kind of trouble they’re going to drag you into. What did you say my temperature was, girl? 98? That can’t be. Check it again. No, not that way. You have to wash it first. Go, go and wash it and bring it back.’

Silvi turned to go, and that is when Rehana noticed her head was covered in a dupatta. At first she thought Silvi might be getting ready for the Zohr prayer, but she checked the clock above Mrs Chowdhury’s bed and saw that it was only noon, still an hour before the Azaan.

‘It’s God’s will,’ Silvi said, coming back. She put the thermometer into its leather sleeve.

‘Nothing to do with God,’ Mrs Chowdhury said. ‘You see what’s happened to her, Rehana? Covering her head? She’s in pordah all of a sudden; spends all her time reading the Holy Book. Foolishness, that’s what it is. Sabeer should have fled, left the country, like Sohail. Your children have some sense. What possessed him to join that silly army? Your husband is a fool, girl, a fool and a dead man.’

‘Perhaps they’ll free him,’ Rehana tried to say, but Mrs Chowdhury wasn’t listening.

‘I’ve even lost my appetite,’ she said. ‘I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I’m so hot.’

Rehana began smoothing Mrs Chowdhury’s forehead with the wet compress.

‘Please, apa, don’t make yourself sick.’

‘We don’t know where he is, what’s happened. We wouldn’t even have known he’s captured, but one of his soldier friends sent a letter to Silvi. Show her the letter, Silvi.’

Silvi nodded but didn’t move to get the letter. She was massaging her mother’s foot, moving her thumb in circles along the heel.

On the antique canopy bed, Mrs Chowdhury’s bulk rose like freshly pressed dough.

‘There’s nothing to be done, Rehana, I don’t even know why I called you. Nothing! And I thought he would be the one protecting us.’ Mrs Chowdhury closed her eyes and waved Rehana away. She sighed deeply and turned over on to her side; in a few minutes she was snoring lightly. Silvi glanced at Rehana and whispered, ‘Thank you for coming, khala-moni.’

‘I’ll bring some food over this evening,’ was all Rehana could manage. How had Sabeer been captured? How did they know? And what was it about Silvi’s look, her calm self-assurance, pressing her mother’s feet instead of wailing and beating her chest like any other wife? Rehana felt slightly queasy, as though she hadn’t eaten all day.

After lunch, Silvi appeared at the front door carrying a small cloth shopping bag. She was panting and worked up, as though she had leaped across the street, and she gave off that summer body smell: sweat masked by a heap of perfumed talc. She was wearing a loose, long-sleeved salwaar-kameez, her face framed tightly in the dupatta.

‘Ammoo’s asleep,’ she explained, unwrapping her head.

Rehana watched her hair coming loose. ‘Here,’ she said, pouring a glass of water. ‘Drink.’

Silvi drank the water in one gulp. She set the glass down with an emphatic ‘Sobhan Allah!’ Then she said, as though they were already in the middle of a conversation, ‘It would be arrogant to say that God had found me, or that I had found God. Who are we to find Him, that holiest, most exalted of beings? For He is everywhere, in every breath, every heart. One has only to look.’ Her eyes shone healthily. ‘All this is but an illusion — do you not see that, khala-moni? This bodily life, this suffering.’ Her hands were restless, playing with the dupatta, smoothing the sleeves of the kameez. ‘You were the one who taught me the prayers, remember? Ammoo didn’t have the patience. It was you. You will be blessed for ever for that deed.’

Rehana gave Silvi a surprised nod of thanks, remembering the thin bones of the girl’s hands as she raised them, once, twice, three times, to her forehead.

‘God forgives everything, but only if we atone. Every day I beg for forgiveness.’

‘What could you possibly have to atone for?’

Silvi’s face was vigorously scrubbed, and she looked transparent, undifferentiated, all the colours blurred into a pale pink heat, except her cheeks, which pulsed, red and alive. She took a breath, hesitating, and Rehana could see the girl’s entire past in one instant: the stifling but strangely indifferent love of her mother; the vast, crowded house; the burden of losing her father, knowing that if she had been a boy, he might have stayed. Rehana had always imagined she could see into Silvi; the guilt she carried around with her had reminded her of her own guilt, her own burden. But now, in her simplicity, Silvi was predatory, fierce.

Silvi was clutching her bag and trying to say something. When she finally opened her mouth, her speech was formal, more like a recitation. ‘I wanted to give these to you. I would have burned them but I wanted you to bear witness to me, giving these to you, giving them up. So that you would know. I wanted someone — you, I wanted you. To know.’ Now the words were rushing out of her mouth. ‘God sees everything, so it should have been enough that He was witnessing it, but I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t.’ Silvi put her hand to her forehead and smoothed the middle part in her hair.

‘I’m sorry about Sabeer, beti,’ Rehana finally said. ‘Are you sure it isn’t just a rumour?’

‘It’s not a rumour.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Sohail,’ Silvi said, as though it was his fault, or even Rehana’s, but that she forgave them both.

Rehana felt her heart stop. ‘You’ve seen him?’ she asked, trying not to raise her voice, ‘Where is he?’

‘No. I haven’t seen him. I’m in pordah. I don’t appear before strangers.’

Strangers? What had happened to Silvi? What religion had possessed her? Certainly not the familiar kind. Rehana was not irreligious herself. She prayed every day, at least once, at Magreb, the most important prayer-time of the day. When Iqbal died, she had used the prayer to give her something to do, something that didn’t immediately remind her of the cruel hand she’d just been dealt, and she was unashamed about the solace it had given her. Life had punished her enough; the God she prayed to was not a punishing, not a vengeful, brutal God; He was a God of comfort, a God of consolation. She accepted the relief with entitlement, with confidence, and in turn she demanded very little from Him — no absolution, no change of destiny. She knew, from experience, that this could not be achieved.

Now Silvi riffled through her bag and took out a square packet. It was tied together with a length of deep red silk. As Silvi untied the knot, a few flattened flower petals tumbled out, their edges brown and brittle. She unwrapped the package, and inside was a stack of folded pieces of paper. They were of different shapes and sizes, some of them lined, like school notebooks, others plain, with a small but confident hand. Rehana glimpsed English, Bengali, a snatch of Urdu — and then she knew.

‘From Sohail,’ Silvi said. When Rehana didn’t answer, she continued, ‘I wanted to burn them. And then I thought, perhaps you would want to have them. In case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘In case something happens to him.’ She said the words with deep sigh. ‘I can’t keep them any more.’

Rehana wondered if she should feel wounded, for Sohail’s sake. ‘But they’re yours.’

‘At first I was worried Sabeer would find them. But now I just don’t want to have them. It’s not right.’

‘You’re sure?’

Though her face betrayed no signs of a struggle, Silvi was still holding tightly to the stack of letters.

‘Yes, yes, of course I’m sure. You can read them. There’s nothing — just poetry, a lot of poetry. I thought you might want it.’

‘All right. Give them to me. I’ll keep them.’

Still she clutched the letters, ‘Or burn them. I was going to burn them.’

A few seconds passed. Then Silvi carefully picked up the petals and retied the bundle, her fingers smoothing the fabric, stretching it tightly, mask-like, over the letters.

When she finally held out the package, Rehana was struck with a presentiment, as though her son had already died and the letters were like a gift, an exchange — a life for a stack of letters. She promised herself she wouldn’t open them.

‘I’m sorry about Sabeer,’ Rehana repeated, in an effort to change the subject. Thank God, Rehana was thinking, thank God my son is alive. ‘So, Sohail told you about Sabeer?’ And again she thought that her son was alive. It sang in her chest. Just being able to ask was a relief. ‘You spoke to him?’

‘He came to the house. “I’m in pordah,” I said, but he insisted. So I opened the window, but I stayed behind the curtain. And he said, “Sabeer’s been captured. They’re holding him somewhere. I’m going to find out.” And he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring him back to you.”’

Foolish, foolish boy.

How much did the girl know? Rehana clutched the letters. Her poor, foolish boy.

She went straight to the Major. ‘I want to see Sohail,’ she said, keeping her eyes on his broken leg. ‘Did you know he was in Dhaka?’ She knew the answer. ‘You knew he was here but you didn’t tell me?’

As usual, he offered no explanation. ‘It’s too risky.’

‘I don’t care. Just do it. I haven’t asked you for anything. I’ve taken care of you. Now you have to do this for me.’

He seemed to hesitate, his skin glowing a dark, sickly amber. His fingers fluttered and landed on the buttons of his grey-green uniform. Rehana ignored the small stab of guilt she felt at reminding him of his debt to her.

Three days later she got her instructions.

She was to leave in the morning as usual, with Mrs Chowdhury’s driver. She would instruct him to take her to New Market. On the way there she would complain about all the shopping she had to do, that the tailor had mismatched her green petticoat, that she needed mutton bones to make haleem for Mrs Chowdhury, and where would she find mutton bones at a time like this. When she arrived in New Market, she would get out of the car and ask the driver to collect her in two hours. She would walk straight to the fabric section of the market and stop at the petticoat shop called Miss Pretty. She would ask for a green petticoat — the colour of a tia-pakhi feather, she should say. And the petticoat man would give her a package. It would contain the green petticoat and a kilo of mutton bones. The petticoat man would walk out of the store and lead her to Sohail’s hideout.

The petticoat man led her to a squalid block of flats in Nilkhet. He pointed to a four-storey building, told her to climb the stairs to the top floor and left her with a brief ‘Khoda Hafez, Joy Bangla!’

At some time in its history the building had been painted yellow. Now it was a rainbow of decay: the outside walls were streaked with bright green moss where the rainwater had collected; the paint had peeled in places and the cement showed pale grey underneath; and the remnants of the yellow paint were orange in some spots, coffee in others. The verandas were covered in wet laundry, lungis and blouses and soggy pyjama bottoms. Rehana saw a grey pair of men’s underwear, next to which was an equally tired brassiere, and beside that a small child’s nightie. She felt an old swell of longing for the unit, the family: man, woman, child. This was the formula for happiness, the proper order of things. All other equations suffered in its shadow.

As she approached the building the smell of shutki suddenly assaulted her. Some people considered the dried fish a delicacy, but in all her years in Dhaka Rehana had never been able to stomach it. She saw another clothes line dotted with a row of tiny fish. The smell followed her up the stairs and to the flat on the top floor, where she had been promised her son would be waiting. She knocked impatiently.

‘Ammi,’ her son said, as soon as she entered. The Urdu word was the secret language of long ago; it meant he was a boy, her boy, again.

‘My son,’ she said, ‘my poor Sohail.’ She was so relieved to be in his presence. Everything, the war, the Major, Silvi, all seemed so distant, so much smaller than this moment. She pushed him away and searched his face. She saw the bright, earnest gaze, the serious forehead. ‘Ammi,’ he said again. Through the grate of hardness she could still hear the sound of her son, who was never meant to be a soldier. It was him. She was always checking to make sure he was still there.

‘You heard about Sabeer,’ he said. Rehana looked around the room before she replied. A man’s whole life seemed to have been crammed into the tiny space, like a too-short novel. There was a bed in the centre, overpowering the room, the mosquito net still draped over it, like a giant, elephantine ghost. The windows were shut, and the only light came from a single bulb strung crudely from the ceiling, casting a tired mustard halo.

‘Silvi came to see me on Saturday,’ she said sharply, suddenly reminded of the danger Sohail had put himself in. ‘Why, beta, why did you tell her?’

‘I thought she should know.’

‘But she could find out more. About you, the guerrillas, Shona.’

‘She already knows.’

‘You told her? When?’

‘She’s always known. I saw her when we were setting up Shona. And then later, a few other times.’

‘You went to see her?’ Rehana tried to keep the tension out of her voice.

‘Only a few times.’

She couldn’t stop repeating the question. ‘You went to Mrs Chowdhury’s?’

‘Ammi, I’m sorry. I had to see her. After she was married, I just had to make sure.’

Rehana felt her eyes burning. ‘I can’t believe you would do such a thing.’

‘I thought…but something’s happened to her. Have you noticed? I didn’t see her for a few weeks and when I came back she said she wanted me to stop coming. She said we’d be punished, God would punish us. She said we had sinned.’

‘You went to see her? How many times?’ She wanted to hear the details, the dates, the number of times.

‘Not that many.’

‘How many?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘I’m so angry, Sohail, I can’t speak to you.’ For an instant she thought of leaving him there in his shadowy gloom. She began pacing the small room. She found a pile of his clothes next to the bed and began folding. She counted two shirts, three vests, one kurta, one pyjama, two pairs of trousers.

‘I thought, if I told her, she would begin to trust me again.’

One lungi, one pair of socks.

‘Ammi.’

‘Promise me you’ll never do it again.’

‘I can’t do that. I just need a little more time.’

Rehana put down the lungi in her hand. ‘She wants it to end.’

Sohail shook his head. When he turned, she saw the flattened curl on his forehead. ‘That can’t be true. She says it but she doesn’t mean it.’

‘She’s returned your letters.’

‘What?’ Sohail came over to the pile of clothes and stood above Rehana.

‘I have them at home.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I’m telling you, I have them.’ Rehana paused, and then she guessed: ‘You quoted Rumi, Amir Khusro.’

‘You read them?’

‘Only a little.’ It wasn’t true. She hadn’t dared break her resolve. But if she’d had love letters to write, those were the poets she would have chosen. Then she saw an opportunity and took it. ‘Sohail, listen to me. The Major says there’s nothing to be done anyway. Silvi doesn’t need to know. The important thing is to keep quiet from now on.’

‘You told the Major?’

‘Of course I told him. Who else can I turn to?’ And suddenly she wanted this meeting to be over, so she could tell the Major about it, about the painful love for her son, about the dirty flat, the girl that was no longer a girl but a curse, and she knew that it wouldn’t be until she told him that the day would have any meaning.

‘There’s nothing to be done, Sohail. Just let it go — Sabeer, God willing, will survive.’ For a second she was almost glad Sabeer was captured. She could trace back the start of all this madness to the day he’d walked into her drawing room with Mrs Chowdhury flushed and cooing with pride.

‘Nei, Ma, there is something. Something you can do.’

Rehana thought she had misheard. ‘Me?’

‘That’s why I came back to Dhaka. It’s you. You can save Sabeer.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘He’s been brought to jail. We know he’s somewhere in the city.’

The light outside was fading. Sohail was kneeling in front of her. His hands were on her knees but she couldn’t feel them. His voice was coming from far away, under water, and hers was unnaturally loud when she said, ‘You want me to offer to take Sabeer’s place? Should they torture me instead of him? That’s what you want?’ Rehana could barely see Sohail any more; he was a blur of hair and mouth.

‘Faiz Chacha can get Sabeer out,’ said the under-water voice.

‘Faiz? Your uncle Faiz? No.’

‘I’m telling you.’ A wave, a roar.

‘Why?’

‘He’s got something to do with the army — we’re not sure exactly what. But he has a lot of influence.’ Sohail’s red-rimmed eyes widened.

The words sank in, and the room grew quiet. ‘You’re going to send me begging to him?’ Rehana whispered.

‘It’s the only way Silvi will trust me again.’

‘You’re serious.’

‘Yes.’

Rehana waited for the words to settle. Go begging to Faiz and Parveen. Rescue Sabeer. When she pictured it in her mind, she felt strangely relieved. It was the most distasteful, gruesome task. But it was also an opportunity. Her son was giving her another chance to atone. The years of slavish devotion, the mothering, the theft — she had always known they would not be enough. She could not help welcoming the prospect of some new sacrifice.

Still, the feeling of injustice did not vanish. ‘You can ask me to do this?’

‘He’ll think you’re doing it for Mrs Chowdhury. You can say she begged you to come to him. Say how fond you are of her daughter.’

‘You’ve thought of everything.’

‘Ammi, please do this for me. This is the only thing I care about.’

‘This is the only thing? What about the war, the country, the refugees, all of that? Suddenly none of it matters? What do you think will happen if I bring Sabeer back? You think Silvi will fall into your arms?’ Before he said anything she already knew the answer.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘She’s married to him. Not to you.’

‘She’ll know how far I’m willing to go.’

‘What have you been doing all these months? Fighting a war or throwing sand at Silvi’s window?’

‘Ammi, I was there when Aref died. He looked at me and he said, “If I had a hundred lives I would lose them all.” How can it be the greatest and the very worst thing we have ever done? Everything, everything is upside down. Wrong is right. My mind is full of the filthiest, most brutal things — and I just need her. I can’t explain it. When I see her, at the window, I just need her.’ Sohail’s eyes were swimming. ‘Please, Ma, for me, just once, I’ll never ask you for anything, just please, go and get Sabeer, get him out of there. Ammi, amar jaan, please.’

‘Enough. Stop begging.’

Sohail was sobbing now, his face collapsed, his palms pressed against his eyes. ‘It has always been Silvi, ever since I can remember.’

‘All right.’

‘You’ll do it?’

‘I’m as much a slave to you as you are to her.’

He looked up, and she knew he was thinking he would someday make it up to her, pass the debt back. Neither said anything for a few minutes. Sohail was still kneeling in front of her. She passed him a rag from the pile of clothes, and he wiped his nose. And then he smiled and said, ‘How do you like my palace?’

‘It’s disgusting. They couldn’t find you somewhere decent?’

‘I’ve been teasing Joy. He has your cooking, and I have to stay here.’

‘Why don’t you let me bring you something?’ It seemed such a pathetic question. What could she possibly bring him?

‘You can’t come back here,’ he said.

‘I can send someone with food, clothes.’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

Something snapped inside Rehana. ‘Dangerous! There are enough explosives buried under the rosebushes to flatten all of Dhanmondi. You’re worried about putting me in danger?’

Sohail wrapped his long arms around her and whispered, ‘Thank you, thank you, Ammi, you are saving my life.’

My life is your life, she thought. ‘Will you be here long?’

‘No. As soon as Sabeer is released I’ll go back across the border.’

‘There’s no guarantee Faiz will release him. Or even if he can.’

‘He can. I know he can. You just have to convince him.’

The first thing Rehana did when she got home was take a bath to get the fish stench out of her skin. She changed her sari and put the rice on the stove for dinner. Dusk was settling in the sky, its purple light gently grazing Shona and the bungalow.

Then she went to the Major’s room.

The record player was silent, and his hands were folded together on his lap. He appeared to have shaved, his chin and cheeks gleaming. He was sitting up and doing nothing, just staring at the opposite wall, which was bare except for a framed, garlanded photograph of Mrs Sengupta’s parents.

‘Was it far away?’ he asked without saying hello. ‘Did you get lost?’

‘No.’

‘You just got back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why is your hair wet?’

‘I bathed.’

‘I thought you said you just got back.’

‘Are you worried or just nosy?’

He didn’t say anything after that. It was obvious he wanted to know what had happened, but for some reason she was irritated at him, and the events of the afternoon refused to assemble themselves into any sensible order. Now that she had finally seen Sohail, she could no longer imagine they were using him for some exclusive, important task. He was just a beast like the rest of them, useful only for his body, his strength, like any other body, any other strength. If it was the same to them, why did they have to have him?

‘He thinks I can get Sabeer out,’ Rehana finally said.

‘You? Get a soldier out of jail? How?’

‘My husband’s brother. He has some connection with the army.’

The Major’s face closed up.

‘The thing is — Sohail is in love with Sabeer’s wife.’ It came out accidentally. Why did the words just fall out of her mouth in this man’s presence? Again he said nothing, and again she was grateful — probably because he appeared never to be shocked. To make herself feel better she told him to get up so she could change the sheet.

‘You told him you’d do it?’ he asked, not moving.

‘Of course I did.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

The suggestion irritated her further. ‘How can you?’ she said cruelly. ‘You can’t even walk to the gate.’

‘You could get caught.’

‘He’s my brother-in-law, he wouldn’t turn me in,’ she said, knowing it wasn’t true. ‘I can just be concerned for a neighbour. There doesn’t have to be anything suspicious about it.’

‘And when he asks you where you stand, with the war, if you believe in Bangladesh or Pakistan, what will you say?’

‘Whatever I have to.’

‘You shouldn’t do it.’

‘You don’t have children.’ She felt her neck burning, and she smelled the wheel soap she had scrubbed into her face, and the remnants of the jobakusum oil in her hair, and the astringent sharpness of the talcum powder under her arms.

The Major’s ceiling fan was switched off. In the afternoon, though it was always hot, his fever rose and he would shiver under his blanket until the sun travelled low and dipped beneath the horizon.

Rehana, wiping the dampness above her lip, said, ‘Why don’t you play a record?’

‘This is a bad, a terrible idea.’

‘I’ve already sent a message to Parveen. They’re expecting me for lunch on Friday.’

I won’t tell Iqbal, she said to herself that night, watching a mosquito trying to break into the net. If I tell him I’ll end up talking myself out of it. I know it’s dangerous, and it probably won’t work. And imagine the smug look on Parveen’s face. Those stupid, bulging eyes. No, it probably won’t work. Who is Sabeer to me anyway? Would he save my Sohail if he had the chance? Nothing doing. Phat-afat he would run the other way. Mrs Chowdhury? We both know the answer to that. And that girl, Silvi, she’s the cause of all this hangama.

By the end, she would have talked herself out of it. No, she would not visit Iqbal.

A black Mercedes-Benz came to collect Rehana. The driver was a man in a white shirt and a skinny black tie. He sat rigidly in his seat, blowing cigarette smoke out of the window. When he saw Rehana close the gate and turn to fasten the padlock, he shot out of the car and stood stiffly against it. He was dark and very thin. He crushed the cigarette with the heel of his shoe and waited for her to approach.

When she was within a few feet of the car, the man’s arm scissored into a clean salute.

‘Mrs Rehana Haque?’ he asked.

Rehana’s tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth. ‘Ji,’ she managed.

‘Quasem driver. Accompanying you to the Haque residence.’

‘Thank you,’ Rehana replied.

The door slammed shut behind her. The inside of the car was enormous and smelled of kerosene. Quasem jammed his foot on the accelerator, and they sped away. Rehana felt herself slide uncomfortably on the leather seat, her sari getting crumpled as she was dragged from side to side. She had dressed carefully for her meeting with Parveen. She wore the most unflattering sari she owned — a starched, grey organza that would puff out at the pleats and make her look thick-waisted. She didn’t try to iron out the creases; she didn’t even smooth them down with her hand. She didn’t wear any make-up; she tied her hair into a flat, severe bun and fastened it with plain black bun-clips. Parveen always needed to be the more beautiful one.

They went through Mirpur Road and turned on to Kolabagan. They sped past the open fields of Second Capital and approached the airport. Rehana sank further into the inky space and tried not to panic.

The car took a turn and suddenly she didn’t recognize the street. It was a wide road, like a highway, and it stretched into a foggy, unfamiliar distance. Her thoughts turned to the torture centre Sohail had described. She craned her neck, to see if any of the low-lying buildings looked like places that held dirty secrets.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Not to worry, madam.’ Quasem found Rehana in his rear-view mirror and gave her a small wave. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

A few minutes later, after crossing a set of railroad tracks, they turned and stopped beside a small booth. A man in an army uniform peered through the blackened window.

‘Window down!’ he barked, spraying spit on to the glass.

Rehana was struggling with the handle when Quasem interrupted.

‘Don’t you see the fucking plate!’ he called out from his side.

The soldier stepped in front of the car and examined the number plates. Then he returned to Rehana’s window and continued to peer in. ‘Who is the passenger?’

‘Sister of Barrister Haque.’

‘Who? I have to check the register,’ he said.

‘Don’t you know our own people, sister-fucker! We pass this checkpoint every day. Suddenly you don’t know the car? You want me to get out and teach you a lesson?’

The soldier paused for a moment; then he shrugged, as though it hadn’t mattered to him in the first place. ‘OK, go. But we have to report.’ And he rapped on the black windscreen with the wooden handle of his gun.

‘Don’t worry, madam,’ Quasem said as they sped away, ‘there’s no problem.’

Faiz and Parveen lived in Gulshan. It was at the opposite end of town, edging across the northern periphery of the city, past the airport and the army cantonment. Gulshan was newer and even less settled than Dhanmondi; the plots were bigger, the fields between them vast and waterlogged. There was a lake. Faiz’s house was off the main road on a street lined with old trees. The house itself was invisible behind a high gate and solid brick fencing. A darwaan opened the gate, and then they were in the half-circle of the driveway, which led them to the front door, a wide, dark purple teak against a black-and-white chequered patio.

Rehana rang the doorbell. A tinny, fake-bird sound echoed through the house. Then the clatter of shoes on an expensive floor. A few seconds later the door swung open, and Parveen appeared, presenting Rehana with a warm, open-mouthed smile.

‘As-Salaam Alaikum,’ she crooned. She wore a gauzy, canary-yellow chiffon. Around her neck was a string of fat, rolling pearls. Her lips were shiny and parted with lipstick. With a start Rehana realized that she had pulled up the achol of her sari so that it covered her head. The chiffon headdress made her look like Grace Kelly. Has there been some sort of decree, Rehana wondered, no more bare-headed ladies in Dhaka?

‘Walaikum As-Salaam,’ she replied.

‘Please,’ Parveen said with excessive tenderness, ‘come in. I’m just so happy to see you.’ They began to walk through a brilliant white corridor. ‘It’s been — so busy — I’ve been meaning to call, and when you did I was just thinking of you and wondering why you sent the children to Karachi — they’re perfectly safe, with Faiz’s influence, no one would ever harm them — and anyway, this will blow over in no time — tea? Abdul! Abdul!’

Abdul, the old servant, wore a pair of smudged gloves and a hand-me-down suit. The trousers were rolled up to reveal the twin twigs of his bare feet.

‘My bhabi is here,’ Parveen announced when Abdul appeared. He nodded with his eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Bring some tea — the English tea — and the biscuits in the round tin — not the crackers, the biscuits—he always confuses them.’ She led Rehana into a sunny sitting room and sat her on a large, sinking armchair. At the back of the room a wall of windows overlooked the garden, a tangle of trees and bushes that stretched back into the distance, blocking out the city.

‘I knew you’d like the view,’ Parveen said, pleased with her own forethought.

‘It’s a beautiful garden,’ Rehana replied.

‘I can’t take any credit. The trees must have been here since the British. I didn’t think I’d like living so far from town, but it’s very peaceful here. And lots of new houses going up. This one was just finished.’

Rehana registered the astringent smell and the bluish tinge of the walls. Aside from the armchair she sat in and its matching sofa, on which Parveen was birdily perched, there was just a round brass-topped table.

‘We’re still moving in,’ Parveen said, noting the swivel of Rehana’s gaze, ‘it’s still in such a state.’

‘It’s lovely. Very spacious.’

The empty walls reverberated with Abdul’s scattered footsteps.

‘Have you had any news of Sohail?’

‘Yes, he’s well mahshallah.’

‘Is he staying with one of your sisters?’

‘No.’ Rehana had rehearsed this. ‘No, he’s with a schoolfriend. You know how children are — always preferring their friends. A friend from Shaheen School. They haven’t seen each other in years but always exchanged letters.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Parveen said. ‘That Sohail. Such a popular young man. Always surrounded by people. Who would have thought, na, he was such a quiet little boy.’

It was always a dangerous thing, their shared past, but Rehana wanted to sweeten Parveen. ‘Yes, you’re right. He was very quiet. He’s changed — once he discovered books, suddenly he couldn’t stop talking.’

‘I’ve heard he gave some pukkah speeches at the university!’

Rehana was wary of being baited. Sohail’s speeches had titles like ‘Peking or Moscow? Third World Socialisms’ and ‘Jinnah: Statesman or Imperialist Demagogue?’

‘And his poetry!’ Parveen gushed.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he does have a knack for recitation.’

‘What was that Ghalib he did for us? Na tha kutch tho Khuda tha…’ she began in broken Urdu. She proceeded with a blundered rendition of the poem.

‘Excellent. What a wonderful voice you have.’

Parveen’s gaze descended from the distance and landed on Rehana. ‘Thank you. People often say that — it was all those years of acting study.’ Rehana was always amazed by people who managed to multiply, rather than deny, compliments to themselves.

‘And what about Maya?’ she asked, and again Rehana conjured the speech she had practised.

‘Maya is in Calcutta,’ she began.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘I still have some relatives there — my father’s people. And they were eager to see her.’

‘I thought you’d sent her to Karachi.’

‘No — well, it was closer,’ Rehana grimaced a little to indicate it also had something to do with money, which Parveen pounced upon.

‘But you should have told us—’

‘I couldn’t impose.’

‘We’re always here to help.’

‘Actually, there was something—’

‘Abdul — the tea, what’s keeping you?’

Abdul entered the room sleekly and set the tray down on the brass table-top without a rattle, for which he was rewarded with a nod from Parveen.

‘Pour,’ she said, handing the biscuits to Rehana. Rehana chose one from the proffered tin and admired, through crumby lips, the buttery crunch.

‘Now that your brother is…in a position, we are allowed these small indulgences. And well deserved, wouldn’t you say? In times like these?’

Rehana realized that in this house, the war would be referred to with phrases such as ‘times like these’ and ‘troubled times’, as though God had sent these times to them without warning and through no fault of their own.

‘Yes, difficult times, I know.’

Footsteps. Rehana’s stomach lurched as Faiz paraded into the room with his arms wide, a deep, satisfied smile illuminating the lower half of his face. The top was obscured by a pair of enormous dark glasses.

‘Sister!’ he boomed festively. ‘How wonderful to see you!’ Rehana stood up to receive his embrace. He was wearing a stiff white kurta and a matching cap, and he had the faint rosewater and dirty-feet smell of the mosque.

‘This is a sight,’ Parveen exclaimed, not getting up from her chair. ‘You don’t know, bhabi, how long it’s been since your brother has been home for lunch. It’s impossible to get him, even on a Friday.’

‘I’m grateful,’ Rehana whispered, as Faiz sighed into a chair.

‘I wouldn’t miss lunch with my bhabi.’ He pulled off the glasses and pointed them at Rehana. ‘Mahshallah, you’re looking very fresh.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose, where the glasses had left their indentations.

Rehana, not sure what to do with the compliment, looked around at Parveen, who had arranged herself on the armrest of the sofa.

‘Isn’t she looking lovely?’ Faiz continued.

‘Yes, of course,’ Parveen said.

‘You know what I admire about you, bhabi. You manage to remain so cheerful despite all your hardships. Being a widow — no fate worse for a woman — and yet here you are, two children, almost grown up—’

‘Of course,’ Parveen interjected, ‘everyone has their suffering. For instance, I was not blessed with children, but you don’t see me complaining.’

At once Rehana was reminded of the day she had taken the children from Parveen. Parveen had sobbed and wailed and beaten her chest. She had fallen at Rehana’s feet and begged her to let her keep them. One, she had said, please, let me have one. Sohail, she said, I want a son. I want the boy. And Rehana had left her there, rolling back and forth on the pink marble floor as though putting out a fire, and all Rehana could think was, poor girl, she’ll catch cold. And Abdul was there, and he had opened the door for her and she had marched through it, a child in each hand, holding on for dear life.

Rehana pulled self-consciously at her grey organza. Faiz combed his moustache with his thumb and forefinger.

‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘how are my niece and nephew?’

Rehana repeated the stories, careful to add a few new details. Schoolfriend from Shaheen Secondary. Nice boy, studies accounting in Karachi.

‘Mahshallah!’ Faiz said. ‘Thank God the boy has the sense to stay out of trouble. It’s not safe for the young men.’

Because you kidnap and mutilate them, Rehana thought. ‘Yes, that is why I insisted,’ she said.

Faiz raised one hand, palm upturned. ‘Bad influences.’ Repeating the gesture with his other hand, he said, ‘Impressionable youth — and you have what we have now.’

Genocide?

‘Gondogol!’ Troubled times. Parveen’s arm snaked into her husband’s kurta pocket and emerged with a square silver case. Faiz ignored her as she pressed a switch and snapped the case open. Then she pulled out a cigarette, holding it up between two loudly manicured fingers.

As she raised her hand to her lips, Rehana found herself gawking.

‘Really, bhabi, don’t look so shocked.’

Faiz, ignoring Parveen, continued his speech. ‘The integrity of Pakistan is at stake.’ He leaned towards Rehana and the hot steam of his breath passed over her.

‘National integrity, religious integrity, this is what we are fighting for. We are the freedom fighters.’

‘Lunch, sir,’ Abdul interrupted.

‘Ah, lunch. Come, Rehana, let’s eat together.’

As they moved to the dining room, Faiz gripped Parveen tightly at the elbow. Rehana, walking behind them, pretended not to notice the pink patches Faiz was leaving on his wife’s arm. ‘Put it out,’ he muttered.

‘I have nothing better to do,’ she replied, louder than she needed to. Her hollow womb shouted its presence.

The table, an enormous teak plank, was set for three.

‘You shouldn’t have gone to such trouble,’ Rehana said to Parveen, taking in the row of dishes.

‘I didn’t make a thing — didn’t even plan the menu. It’s the cook that comes with this place. Making me fat.’ And she patted her slate-like belly.

‘Please, sit,’ Faiz said, waving to his left.

Rehana examined the spread. There was an oily eelish curry and an even oilier rui. There were two preparations of chicken: mussalam and korma. And, stretching to the end of the table, polao, a steaming bowl of dal, several bhortas, salad and a dish of pickles.

‘Start with the fish, Rehana, it’s fresh — caught today,’ Faiz said.

There had been no fish — certainly no eelish — in the market for months. Rehana’s teeth ached.

‘These youths,’ Faiz said, after Abdul had served the rice, ‘young Turks — are fighting for what? A useless battle. You think Mujib cares about them? He is just getting fat on his paycheck from India. The point is, Pakistan must not be divided! What do you say, sister?’

The bite of eelish Rehana had taken stuck drily in her throat. She asked God to forgive her. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she managed, ‘you’re right.’

‘Pakistan Zindabad!’ Parveen proclaimed, the Grace Kelly veil falling to her shoulders.

While Faiz’s fingers were still dipping into the sludge of dal on his plate, Rehana decided to take her chance.

She cleared her throat. Her own plate was still crowded with food. She pushed the rice and fish to the side, to make it look as though she had finished eating. ‘Faiz, bhaiya, I’ve actually come to ask you for a favour.’

‘Of course!’ Faiz said, pulling the napkin from his collar. ‘What’s mine is yours,’ he said, as though there could be no other reason for her visit. ‘Let’s wash our hands and have some sweets, and you’ll have whatever you wish.’ He waved in the direction of the kitchen. Abdul appeared with a brass bowl of water and a cake of soap.

As they rearranged themselves in the drawing room, Rehana began again. ‘The thing is, my neighbour has fallen into some trouble.’

Faiz frowned with his forehead. ‘Your neighbour? The Hindus?’

‘No, not the Senguptas. They’ve left.’

‘Parveen told me you had Hindu tenants.’ Faiz said. ‘Now they’ve gone and what are you supposed to do? No chance you’ll find tenants in the middle of this mess. I suppose they didn’t even pay you the rent?’

‘They were in such a hurry—’

‘That is what I always say! Haven’t I said this a thousand times, wife, haven’t I said it? They don’t treat it like their own country. Leaving at the drop of a hat, going off to India — they were never a part of Pakistan. Good riddance to them, I say, let them go back to where they came from. So, you need money, is it?’

‘It’s my neighbour Mrs Chowdhury.’

‘Oh, the famous Mrs Chowdhury,’ Parveen said. ‘Jaanoo, remember Mrs Chowdhury?’ She didn’t wait for him to remember. ‘You know.’

‘Yes,’ Rehana said.

‘And how is dear Mrs Chowdhury?’

It was not going well. ‘Mrs Chowdhury has been extremely kind to me over the years,’ Rehana said.

‘Yes, we know all about that, don’t we, jaanoo?’

Faiz patted his wife’s knee. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, already slightly bored.

‘It’s her son-in-law.’

‘That slip of a girl is married?’ Parveen asked.

‘She married an officer,’ Rehana began.

This elicited a look of mild interest. ‘An officer? Who? Do I know him?’

Rehana decided to tell the whole story all at once. ‘He was in the Pakistan Army, bhaiya, but he joined the rebellion along with all the other Bengali regiments. He’s been fighting. And he’s been captured. They’ve heard he’s in Dhaka and I’ve come to ask you for his release.’

Before the words could settle, Parveen draped a protective arm around her husband. ‘You shouldn’t have asked, Rehana. This is not something your bhaiya can do for you. Something for you, for the children, of course, but not this.’

‘She’s right,’ Faiz said tersely. ‘You shouldn’t have asked.’

‘This is why you came here? This is why you’ve come to see us after all this time?’ Parveen blew air out of her nose.

‘I just — I wanted to help.’

‘This woman has been giving you bad advice all these years, and still you prefer to take her side?’

‘The poor girl — Silvi — she’s desperate—’

‘She shouldn’t have married a Bengali rebel, then, should she?’

‘She didn’t know he was going to join the resistance before she met him. Mrs Chowdhury thought she was marrying her daughter to an army officer.’

Something in Faiz’s face told Rehana to press on. ‘He just got swept up in the thing. What could he do? His entire regiment was rebelling. The boy is weak, actually. He was in the army before the’—she was going to say massacre—‘before March, and then he just got swept up.’

‘Swept up?’

‘Oh, you know, young boys, they don’t know what they’re doing — you said so yourself, they just go along with whatever everyone else is saying. He’s no leader, that boy, he just follows, and now he’s gone and got himself into this mess; in fact, you’d really be saving him, you know, you’d be saving him from himself. He would come out of it so grateful to you, and he would know that you, I mean, the army, were here to put things right, to restore order, not to punish anyone. You would be doing us — your country — a great service.’ The words were tumbling out of Rehana’s mouth; she didn’t stop to think or even breathe, just read Faiz’s growing interest and mowed forward. ‘Perhaps the boy can be saved,’ she finished breathlessly.

‘Saved?’

‘You can save him.’

Faiz considered this for a moment. Parveen rearranged the sari around her head and tried to look righteous.

‘How do I know he won’t return to the mukti bahini? Isn’t it safer to keep the boy in custody?’

‘That’s true,’ Parveen said, her voice raised high. ‘Listen to my husband, Rehana, he understands people.’

‘Be quiet, wife, let me think.’

After a suitable pause, Rehana said, ‘Have faith, bhaiya. If you save the boy he will be changed. Changed by your generous act. When he sees you opening those gates, he will never want to join that dirty rebellion again.’ How easily the treacherous words slid out of her mouth.

This time he was waiting for her in Shona’s drawing room. He sat on the sofa facing the door with his leg propped up on a cushion. He was wearing a new shirt.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘He said yes!’

He shifted his leg so that it pointed to her; his heel was scrubbed clean, pinkish and smooth. ‘He could still change his mind. It could be a trap.’

‘I’m telling you I fooled them,’ Rehana said. ‘They had no idea!’

‘I don’t think it’s safe.’

He was beginning to sound like Iqbal. Here she was, triumphant — over Faiz and Parveen, how sweet! — and all he could talk about was safety. She felt her face warming up. ‘You said joining the rebellion was the greatest thing you’ve ever done — well, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Something for my son. Can’t you understand that?’

He seemed to consider it. Then he said, ‘Risk is too great. Aren’t you doing enough?’ He moved his arm to indicate Shona, the guerrillas she had harboured, himself.

‘No,’ she said, angry now, ‘I’m not doing enough. I want to do my part. Maybe it’s not for my son — maybe it’s something else. What, you don’t think I can love something other than my children? I can. I can love other things.’

‘But not as much.’

She was startled by this wisdom. Peering into her as though she were a pool of water. ‘No, not as much.’

Faiz had sent a message to say he would arrive at ten. At six, just after the Fajr prayer, when the sun was still rising up behind Shona, Mrs Chowdhury and Silvi appeared at the door. Rehana did not ask them why they had come so early. They didn’t ask her why she was already dressed. Mrs Chowdhury held Rehana’s hands in hers and smiled gratefully, her pale yellow eyes lined heroically with kajol.

‘Let’s have breakfast.’ Rehana said.

‘Yes, what a good idea. Silvi, help your khala-moni in the kitchen.’

‘What shall we have? Egg paratha?’ Rehana knew how to crack an egg in the middle of a paratha without breaking it.

They had just settled themselves around the table when there was a hesitant knock at the door. Rehana went to answer and found Mrs Rahman, wearing a pink cotton sari and holding a few stems of rojonigondha in her hands. The flowers smelled innocent. The grey at Mrs Rahman’s temples stood out like steel wings. All this time she’s been dyeing her hair, I didn’t know! Rehana smiled at the new knowledge. It all felt like such a long time ago.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Mrs Rahman asked. She looked wounded. ‘I didn’t know you were so involved.’

Rehana didn’t know what to say.

‘I could have helped.’

‘I rang them,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, approaching from behind Rehana. ‘Aren’t you going to invite her in?’

‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ Mrs Rahman said, shifting in the doorway, still looking hurt.

‘No, please, we’re just having breakfast.’

‘Oh, here, these are for you. They’re from my garden. I didn’t know what else to bring.’

As she was closing the door, Rehana saw Mrs Akram approaching. She was getting out of a rickshaw with another woman. Who else had Mrs Chowdhury told?

‘Rehana,’ Mrs Akram said, as she made her way up the driveway, ‘Mrs Chowdhury told us you were going to rescue Sabeer. This is Mrs Imam. Her husband was also taken.’

Rehana taught Silvi how to plunge the paratha in the hot oil, wait until it was almost crisp, then tip the egg into its centre. Mrs Imam was bringing the egg paratha in batches from the kitchen. The guests sat in a circle in the drawing room and said very little. After serving the tea, Rehana realized they were waiting for her to say something. Something brave and defiant, something to temper the images of horror stored in their hearts — the deaths of strangers, the sounds of tanks rattling through the city, the rap at the door, the rap of the bullet, the dull, heavy sound of a lover, a son, falling to the ground.

‘I can only hope,’ she said, ‘that if my son were in danger, someone — perhaps one of you — would come to his rescue.’

The egg-paratha finished, Rehana passed around a plate of wrapped betel. The party quieted down into a lazy mid-morning hush. Now would be a good time to make her escape.

‘Time to go, I think,’ she said to no one in particular. Mrs Chowdhury, red-lipped and drowsy from the betel, was sprawled across the sofa. Eggy plates and empty glasses were scattered around the room.

Rehana was about to bid them all farewell when a car sounded in the distance and fired its horn.

Mrs Chowdhury was suddenly galvanized into action. ‘He’s here!’ she cried. ‘Hurry up, your brother is here. You should go now. Get ready and stand by the gate so you don’t keep him waiting.’

The women roused themselves and shuffled towards the door. Rehana waited for them to say their goodbyes, but they just moved into the driveway and stood looking at her.

‘Please,’ she said, feigning politeness, ‘don’t wait for me.’

‘Nothing doing,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, ‘we’ll see you off.’ The others nodded in assent.

‘We’ll wait.’ Mrs Rahman said. ‘It’s the least we can do.’

‘But I — please, don’t trouble yourselves.’

‘We’re staying,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, relishing her own magnanimity, ‘don’t argue, girl.’

‘All right; I just, I just have to change my shoes.’

‘Go, go! Hurry up!’

Rehana hesitated. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’

In the bedroom she regarded the shoes absurdly, finally settling on a brown pair with a short, square heel. She had put on a navy-blue cotton sari and, at the last minute, a pair of gold jhumka earrings.

‘All right,’ she announced brightly, ‘I’m ready.’

‘Go on, then, you don’t want to be late,’ Mrs Chowdhury said, a heavy hand upon her wrist.

Rehana made her way to the gate, the small party trundling behind her. Silvi took Rehana’s arm and began to mutter softly in her ear:

La te huzuhu sinetun wala nawmun,

Lahu ma fissemawati wa ma fil’ardi.

(No slumber can seize Him, nor sleep,

All things in heaven and earth are His.)

They were at the gate. ‘I’ve — I’ve forgotten something.’

Rehana slid past their surprised faces; she heard Mrs Chowdhury say, ‘Poor thing must be nervous,’ and she thought she heard Mrs Akram ask, ‘Has she changed her mind?’ And then she was too far away to hear the answer. She fled, past the driveway and through the drawing room, unlatching the small veranda gate, hurtling through the wet sheets hanging like surrender flags. She fumbled with her keychain, cursing her slow fingers, and finally pushed open the lock of Shona’s back door.

The Major was waiting, dressed in the uniform in which he had arrived; she had stitched the trousers back together with bottle-green thread. He stood up, his gaze fixed on her as though she had been there before she arrived.

She had rarely seen him standing. She had always hovered above him. She had known the top of his head, the dense thickness of his hair, the meandering seam of his hairline. She had known his face — at least, as far as she had dared to know it.

But, since that first day when they had met and he had taken her palm in his big hand, she had not been confronted with the full, standing presence of him.

The grey flints of his eyes.

The horizon of his chest.

If he had been sitting, she could have pretended he was still her patient, her charge. Standing up, he was a stranger.

The stranger said, ‘Don’t look anyone in the face.’

She nodded at the stretched-tight fabric of his shirt.

‘In fact,’ he said, raising his voice, making a little space between them, ‘don’t say anything. Don’t speak at all.’

‘All right,’ Rehana said.

‘Doctor sent a message,’ the Major began.

‘What?’

‘I’m cured. Leg is healed. Time for me to go.’

She felt the weather stirring. She pressed it down. ‘Goodbye, then.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll stay till you return.’

She shrugged, a show of bravery.

‘If you’re not back in three hours I’m coming for you.’

‘I’m late,’ she said, ‘everyone is waiting.’

‘Khoda Hafez.’

‘Khoda Hafez.’

‘Fiamanullah.’ Godspeed.

Quasem did not get out of the car this time. Nor did Faiz. The black Mercedes swallowed Rehana. ‘Good morning,’ Faiz said solemnly. He wore a coal-coloured suit with a shiny handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket. A lemony scent whispered from the suit. The slicked black hair, thinning at the temple, revealed the rake of a thin comb.

Don’t look anyone in the face. Rehana averted her gaze, so that it landed on the back of Quasem’s head, square and coconut-oily.

Faiz remained silent. He wore his dark glasses and sat close to the window, holding a newspaper. Rehana was relieved; she didn’t feel like talking. She concentrated on what she would find at the police station. Mrs Imam had said her husband’s body had never been returned. She tried to school her thoughts.

I’ll come for you.

Minutes passed, the city sailing by, washed by the morning’s rain. Faiz sat so still and quiet Rehana forgot he was there. Instead she tried to think of old film tunes she used to sing with her father. She couldn’t remember any. For some reason ‘God Save the King’ was circulating in her head, and Send him victo — rious!

Faiz was still reading the newspaper. He must have been reading very slowly, because he didn’t turn the page.

Hap-py and glo — rious!

At the Tongi light Faiz turned to Rehana and said quietly, ‘You lied to me.’ His voice was a reedy tremble. She could feel him frowning behind the glasses.

There were so many things he could mean.

‘You lied to me. You’re a liar.’

‘There must be some sort of misunderstanding.’

‘You’re a liar and a traitor.’

Rehana straightened to face him. He knew something. She ran through the list of possibilities in her head. She determined which would be worst (knowing about Shona), which best (nothing, nothing would be best).

‘You’re a traitor and your children are traitors. What do you have to say for yourself — do you deny it?’

Rehana didn’t deny it.

‘You come to my house…’

It wasn’t what’s mine is yours any more.

‘…you nod your head when I talk about Pakistan and inside you’re stabbing your country in the back!’ There were two white points of spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Rehana said.

‘You’re going to deny it? To my face?’

‘What I mean is, there must be some sort of misunderstanding,’ she repeated.

‘Misunderstanding?’ He shook his hand at her. The newspaper flapped in his fist. ‘I’m reading the paper this morning. I’m reading this traitorous rubbish, about how brave, how valiant, are the muktis, and how corrupt the Pakistan Army is — then the heading catches my eye — and what do I see — what? My niece — that girl of yours — it’s her! Sheherezade Haque Maya, that ridiculous name my brother gave her — the name of a storyteller, you said. Well she certainly has made up a story — lies, full of lies—’

The hand with the newspaper continued to shake.

Rehana pressed her back against the seat and resisted the urge to close her eyes.

‘LIAR!’ He hurled the newspaper so that it landed at her feet.

She thought he meant to throw it, but when she left it there he said, ‘READ!’

She picked up the newspaper and read. ‘Chronicles of a Young Woman in Wartime. By Sheherezade Haque Maya.’ It isn’t her, Rehana wanted to say, but a smile, unbidden, crawled into her lips. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

‘I shouldn’t have lied to you,’ she said.

‘I won’t begin to count the things you shouldn’t have done. You should have controlled your daughter.’

‘It’s not her fault.’

‘How do you explain this? You let Maya join the resistance? At least your son had more sense.’

So he didn’t know about Sohail.

‘What have you done with my brother’s children? We should never have let you take them. You ruined them.’ He leaned into her, so that she could see her own reflection, her forehead bulging in the sunglasses.

Rehana felt guilty at the mention of Iqbal; she realized she hadn’t thought of him in some time. A long time. It’s been so busy, and so strange, she told herself. And then she wondered if there wasn’t something more to it. Would she be here if Iqbal were alive? Would she be here, asking Faiz to release Sabeer? Would she be allowed to want something dangerous? Or would she have learned to want what her husband wanted?

She was relieved she didn’t have to know. She wouldn’t have to know if Iqbal would have had the strength to stay in Dhaka, or if the children would have inherited his small, anxious world. Her head began to spin with the thought of all the things that might have been different. Now she was remembering the cloud of his fears, the orbit of worry, the nervous, scared man who had tried his best not to upset fate, to live without danger, without risk. Had she ever wondered what life would have been like without him, and had she rejoiced, even a little, when he had died? Despite the bone-breaking grief, had there also been release?

She wanted to pretend it wasn’t true, but it was.

‘Now see what you’ve done,’ Faiz was saying.

What could it be that moved Faiz to believe the opposite of what she believed? How could he be on the other side of her black-and-white? She could imagine herself believing nothing else; it was as plain to her as God.

He was not a bad man.

It was time to tell the truth.

‘I sent her there. To Calcutta, to join the muktis.’

The spittle points grew. ‘You sent her there?’ He let out an angry breath. ‘You tell me everything. Right now.’

Quasem’s shoulders were hunched up against his ears, as though he was trying not to hear.

Rehana saw Faiz’s chin quiver in anger. Time to tell the truth.

‘I’m sorry I lied. I shouldn’t have lied—’

‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘But I’m not ashamed.’ Rehana swallowed a few times to steady herself. ‘She had a friend who was captured by the army in March. The girl’s name was Sharmeen.’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘You listen to me. Her name was Sharmeen. They took her and they kept her at the cantonment — not a mile from your house. And the girl was tortured until she died. They did things — unspeakable things — to her. She was the same age as Maya. How do you explain that?’

‘I don’t have to explain these things to you.’

‘How? You think I could look my daughter in the eye and tell her it was all right?’

‘So you sent her to the muktis?’

‘I should not be ashamed; you should be ashamed.’

‘You don’t know anything.’ He turned his face away from her. She saw the square chin, the one that marked him as the older, more confident brother. ‘It’s nonsense.’ And then: ‘The girl was a casualty of war. When you believe in something, certain things have to be sacrificed.’

‘Children?’

‘There are always casualties.’

‘I thought there was a chance you didn’t know what the army was doing. But now I’m telling you. You can wash your hands of it. Surely you don’t want this on your conscience?’

With his index finger Faiz loosened the knot at his neck. Rehana thought she saw a flicker of doubt.

The car slowed to a halt. ‘Sir,’ Quasem said, ‘Mirpur Thana.’

Faiz seemed to consider something. He paused while Rehana gathered her handbag. Then he said, ‘Go.’

‘Where?’

‘The police station is over there.’ He pointed to a low building across a field.

‘You’re not coming with me?’

‘I’m not a cruel man, bhabi. You remember that. Now you go and rescue the man yourself. I can’t risk having anything to do with you — if I hadn’t already sent the release order, I would send you home right now.’ He dipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. ‘Show them this.’

‘But I — you want me to go there alone?’

‘I’m not making this my business any more.’ And he swivelled his face so that she was left looking at the thinning blackness of his hair.

She turned to leave. Suddenly all the possible consequences of his knowing collapsed upon her. ‘Are you going to tell anyone? About Maya?’

‘You should have thought of that when you let her print this garbage,’ he said roughly, still looking away.

He hadn’t answered the question. He could do anything, now that he knew. It would be easy to find out Sohail wasn’t really in Karachi. And all he had to do was arrive at Shona in the middle of the day to discover the Major. ‘Don’t forget she’s your niece. Your blood,’ Rehana said. She wanted him to turn around, so she could read something in his face. But he had dismissed her.

Rehana stumbled out of the car. The door slammed shut behind her. Quasem gave her a brief, apologetic smile, and then the car careened away, leaving her in its choking, dusty wake.

Rehana clutched the envelope in one hand and straightened her sari. She considered hailing a rickshaw and going home. Mrs Chowdhury would understand. She looked down the road, towards Dhanmondi, but she couldn’t get Sohail’s pleading face out of her head. So she made her way across the washed field, stopping occasionally to readjust her ankle strap.

High above, the sky thickened and the air swirled in a leisurely trance. It was an hour, maybe two, before the noon shower. As she approached the entrance to the thana, Rehana realized she had forgotten to rehearse what she would say. She paused outside the door, which had a rusted metal handle dulled by the press of palm prints. The field had soaked her shoes. As she opened her handbag to check for the bundle Mrs Chowdhury had given her, she shifted on her feet and tried to shake away the crawling damp. The sight of the bundle, rolled up comfortably in its rubber band, reassured her. She took a deep breath and prepared to enter. She was about to reach for the handle when the door swung open. A tall, bearded man in a military uniform stood there. He gave her a look of mild bemusement and brushed past her with a brief ‘Excuse me’ in Urdu. And he stepped aside to let her pass.

Rehana crossed a dark corridor and arrived at a large, windowless room. At one end of the room was a bald man behind an enormous glass-topped table. Metal chairs were arranged in rows in front of the desk. Anxious, silent people sat in the chairs. She felt their eyes on her as she made her way to the glass-topped desk. The whirr of the ceiling fan above the desk was accompanied occasionally by the creak of the bald man’s chair as he shifted his weight this way and that. As she approached him, he looked up from under a pair of heavy eyebrows.

‘I need to speak with someone,’ Rehana said. Her voice came out louder than she had intended.

‘Take your form and wait over there,’ the man said absently, pointing with his chin.

‘Form?’

‘Prisoner Visit Form — here.’ He handed her a soggy sheet of paper.

‘I’m — I’m not here to visit.’

His head snapped up. ‘Then what?’ Betel juice had stained his lips a sunrise orange.

‘I’m here — to release a prisoner.’

‘You’re here’—he laughed an orange saliva laugh—‘to release a prisoner?’ Tiny orange dots of spittle fell on to the Prisoner Visit Form. ‘Who are you, Police Commissioner? You don’t release prisoners, we release prisoners — understand?’

He wore a police-blue uniform, tight at the armpits and the collar. Over the back of his chair, where his head would usually rest, was a pink-and-white striped towel. The man turned to the towel and wiped the betel spittle from his mouth.

Rehana held out the envelope Faiz had given her. ‘I have a release order,’ she said.

‘Let me see that.’ He pulled it roughly from her hand. ‘Sabbeer Mus-tafa,’ he said. He turned to an enormous notebook and began to shuffle through the curling pages. Rehana leaned as closely as she dared. The book gave off a sweaty smell. He ran his finger down a list of printed names.

‘He isn’t here.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

The man turned the register around impatiently. ‘Do you see his name?’ he said, before snapping it shut with a clap.

‘Please,’ Rehana said, ‘check again.’

The book remained closed. ‘I said he’s not here. You’re wasting your time.’

Rehana pulled out the bundle of Mrs Chowdhury’s sugar money. She unwrapped it slowly, making sure the man could see the rupee notes. She pulled out fifty. ‘Check again,’ she said, mustering her courage.

He grabbed the money with five fingers, shoving it into a gaping breast pocket, and reopened the notebook. After a brief pause he said, ‘Yes. Mustafa. Released — no, transferred.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘To Muslim Bazaar.’

‘Muslim Bazaar? Another thana?’

He smiled, revealing a set of stripy teeth. ‘No. It’s not a thana.’

‘What is it? How will I find it?’

‘I can’t help you any more.’ He shook his head and waved her away. Rehana didn’t budge. She felt the row of chairs shift behind her. The man opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like a folded handkerchief. He unwrapped it, revealing a stack of heart-shaped leaves. He peeled one off the stack and placed it lovingly on the glass counter. Rehana watched him unscrew the lid from a small round tin. He snapped off the stem of the betel leaf and plunged it into the tin, emerging with a glob of white paste. This he smeared on the leaf. Then he added a pinch of shredded betel nut and a pinch of chewing tobacco, finishing the job with a few folds of the leaf and popping the triangular packet into his mouth.

Rehana let him chew the paan until it settled into a round bulge in his cheek. Then she said, reaching into her bag again, ‘Perhaps you can telephone someone at Muslim Bazaar and ask them.’

The door opened behind Rehana. The man quickly swallowed his paan and tented his fingers on the desk. He cleared his throat. ‘As I was saying, the prisoner is not here.’

‘Kuddus?’ Rehana heard. She turned around to see the man she had passed on her way inside. ‘Ei Kuddus,’ he said in rough Bengali, ‘cha do.’

Kuddus disappeared for a few minutes, came back and squeezed into his chair.

‘Boss likes the Chinese tea,’ he said, sounding a little embarrassed. He rubbed his hands on his trousers.

Rehana was ready with another fifty. ‘Can you ask someone to bring him here?’ She pressed the note on to the glass.

The Chinese tea had made allies of them. ‘I’ll see,’ he said. He picked up the heavy black telephone and turned the dial. ‘Hullo? Inspector Kuddus. Mirpur Thana. There’s a woman here. Says she has a release order. Sabeer Mustafa. Was here — he’s been transferred to you. Hold on? OK. Who’s this? Oh, yes, sorry, sir. Sir, the woman is asking — yes, yes of course. I’ll tell her. Ji. Khoda Hafez, sir. Ji, sir, Pakistan Zindabad.’ He turned slowly to Rehana.

‘You’ll have to go over there yourself,’ he said, almost regretfully. ‘They have to see the paperwork. I’ll send word. They’ll be expecting you. You can catch a rickshaw — tell them Muslim Bazaar, the pump house. They all know it.’

‘Thank you,’ Rehana said.

‘No problem. Best of luck.’ Kuddus looked her over and nodded. Then his face changed as he pointed over Rehana’s shoulder. ‘Sen?’ he said, ‘Mr and Mrs Sen?’

An elderly couple approached the desk, their heads tilted towards one another, the woman holding a tiffin carrier. Rehana heard the slosh of something liquid inside the tiffin carrier and conjured up an image of this woman’s son, sinking his grateful hands into his mother’s dal.

‘You can go in now.’ Kuddus stood up and unhooked a circle of keys from his belt. ‘Come with me.’ They left together. Rehana heard the clang of the gate as he locked it behind him.

Outside, it was raining. Thick sheets of water fell heavily from the sky, hardened by a bellowing, circular wind. The sucking sound of her feet accompanied Rehana as she made her way back across the field and on to the main road. An uneven line of tea stalls greeted her at the roadside, surrounded by a cluster of rickshaws. Rehana tried her best to cover her head with her achol, but it was no use; the wind attacked from all sides, knocking the achol out of her hand and sending her flailing to gather her sari together.

She ducked under the slim awning of the nearest stall, where she saw a group of men sitting cross-legged on the raised floor, their faces lit red by a flickering kerosene lamp.

‘Muslim Bazaar? Keo jabe? Anyone?’ The stall smelled of biscuits and petrol.

They were saying something to one another. Rehana couldn’t hear through the drumming rain on the tin roof. One of them, the youngest and smallest, uncrossed his legs and rose. ‘Bokul will take you,’ a man at the back said, motioning towards the boy with the burning point of his biri. Bokul packed and tucked his lungi between his legs. He looked like he was down to his underwear, but Rehana was beyond embarrassment; her sari was moulded to her body, and she didn’t let herself look down to see what had happened to the colour. At least the rickshaw-men had the decency to gaze into the kerosene lamp rather than to look at her directly.

‘Wait here,’ the boy said, darting out of the shop. Rehana watched him struggle with the hood of a rickshaw; once he had secured it, he pulled a sheet of plastic from under the seat. ‘Ashen! Come quick!’

Rehana clung to the scalloped rim of the rickshaw hood as Bokul pumped mechanically through the rain. He stopped just once, to yank the front wheel out of a flooded ditch. She couldn’t see anything, she was only aware of the driving, unceasing rain, of the sari clinging to her and the violent wind, which made her shiver and wish desperately for a change of clothes. She ignored the street names and stopped looking for familiar landmarks. The trees glistened in the wet.

Bokul stopped in front of a square concrete building. The building had a high, triangular roof made of wavy sheets of tin. A faded sign painted on the tin read india gymnasium. As she made her way out of the rickshaw, Rehana gave Bokul twenty rupees. ‘I’ll have another twenty for you when I come out. You wait here for me,’ she said, shouting above the roar of the rain. ‘You wait here, no matter how long it takes. An hour, two hours — anything — you wait, you hear me?’

Bokul nodded. ‘Ji, apa!’ he said.

In the third hour of her vigil, Rehana began to worry about food. She had no idea what time it was. She was hungry; it must be after lunch. She berated herself for not packing a biscuit in her bag. She couldn’t be seen fainting. The rain made it difficult to determine the hour; the sun was blotted out by the grey mass of clouds that sat low on the horizon. Through a narrow, barred window pitched close to the ceiling, Rehana could see it was still pouring steadily. By the time her sari was dry, her eyes were stinging, and there was a dull throbbing in her joints. She folded her knees under her and thought of closing her eyes, just for a moment, just until they stopped burning.

When the guard finally brought Sabeer out, Rehana thought she might be dreaming. She jerked herself upright, ignoring the ache in her arms from where her head had rested. The thana was a dim memory. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep. It had stopped raining. The tube light buzzed steadily; it smelled of evening.

There was something black covering his head. A mask — no, a hood. It was pulled tight over his face. She could see his nose, his square chin. He shook his head back and forth, breathing noisily through the gaps in the weave.

He wore no shoes. His soles made sliding tracks in the dirt.

Rehana turned to the man who had brought Sabeer. She saw a sleek black beard. Her gaze travelled upwards. He was very tall. Had she seen this man before? She checked again. Don’t look. The man smiled briefly. Stop panicking. She held hands with herself to stop from trembling.

‘You can take him,’ the man said. ‘Sign here.’ He handed her a form and a pen.

Rehana didn’t read the form. ‘Can you remove — the hood, please?’ she said, scribbling on the sheet. ‘And untie him.’

‘Of course,’ the man said politely.

He undid the knots at Sabeer’s wrists. The sleeve of Sabeer’s shirt flapped over his hands. The man lifted the hood with a flourish.

Rehana kept looking at Sabeer’s face to see if it was him. It was. She recognized the bulge of his Adam’s apple, the thickness of his neck. His lips were blistered; a white crust had formed around them, like a ring of coral.

‘This woman has brought a release order,’ the guard said. ‘You can go.’

Sabeer stared blankly at Rehana. ‘I’m Rehana — Mrs Haque.’

The rain had left the leaves shiny and the air smelling of rust. Rehana and Sabeer said nothing to one another, and she could hear only the movement of his breath, the clouds invisible above, the stars beginning to flicker, the delta beneath them churning and swimming.

‘Bokul!’ Rehana called out. ‘Bokul!’ The road was empty and slick. No sign of the rickshaw-boy. She couldn’t remember where the main road was. There were no shops here, just an empty stretch of road flanked by dipping telephone wires.

‘Sabeer, beta, can you walk a little?’

Sabeer was squatting on the edge of the road like a stray dog, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.

‘We have to walk,’ she said a little louder.

His head was between his knees.

‘Sabeer?’

Rehana heard a sound like a siren coming from his bent head. ‘Sabeer?’ she repeated. No answer. She pulled at his shoulder. The wailing grew louder; it was high-pitched and alien; a cry with no mouth.

She wasn’t sure what to do. He looked so small and insignificant, folded up as though the earth might swallow him; and no one would care that he was gone because he was just a wailing, rocking speck. She crouched awkwardly beside him, wondering whether he could hear her, if he even knew who she was. She felt a sudden, hysterical urge to leave him there and run away.

In the distance she heard the keening of the evening curfew.

‘We have to go, Sabeer, please try,’ she said. He didn’t move. She saw the dirt around his collar, and his neck, grey and tired. Perhaps he was asleep.

‘OK. You wait here,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll find something.’ She continued to speak to him as if he would answer. It made her feel less alone. ‘Stay here. Don’t move. You hear me? Don’t move. I’ll be back.’ He didn’t shift when she stood up and began to trudge up the broken path.

Rehana walked away from the gymnasium, clutching her handbag, feeling for Mrs Chowdhury’s bundle of money. I’ll throw this at the next person I see and beg them to take me home. Or anywhere, anywhere away from here.

She turned a wide corner and continued to walk until the gymnasium was out of sight. It was getting darker; without streetlights or a moon it would soon be impossible to see the road in front of her. I should turn around, she thought. Stay with Sabeer, at least I’ll have him with me. She was about to go back when she slammed into something.

‘Who’s there?’ she shouted into the gloom. She reached her fingers out in front of her and found the ridge of a rickshaw frame, fanning out like a ribcage.

‘Apa, it’s me,’ someone whispered. It was Bokul.

‘Bokul!’ Thank God. Rehana wanted to let out a cheer, but instead she said angrily, ‘Where in God’s name have you been? I told you to wait! I’ve been walking for miles.’

‘They wouldn’t let me stay. A man came out of the building with a stick.’ She could make out his face now. ‘I’ve been here, waiting.’

Rehana climbed into the seat. ‘We have to go back.’

Sabeer was not where she had left him.

‘Half an hour till the curfew, apa,’ Bokul said.

Rehana scanned the area for Sabeer. It was too dark to see anything. ‘Sabeer!’ she called out, ‘Sabeer!’ Then she heard a clanging sound coming from the gymnasium. Hands slapping against the door.

Rehana ran towards the gymnasium. She could barely make out his shape; she tried to reach around to his hands. ‘Sabeer, quiet! I have a rickshaw. We’re going home.’

She grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him towards the rickshaw. Suddenly he let out a scream. ‘No, please!’ he cried.

Rehana held on, trying to soothe him, stroking the softness of his fingers. ‘Beta, cholo, let’s go, I’ll take you home.’ But Sabeer kept screaming and twisting away from her. The sleeve of his shirt peeled away, and she saw that the hand she was holding was dark at the tips. Someone had painted his fingers. Sabeer grunted his animal grunt and said, ‘No, please, I didn’t do it!’ His voice was thick and gummy. Finally Rehana released him, and he sank to his knees and began to sob. ‘No, no, no,’ he whispered, holding his hands against his chest, ‘please.’ Rehana bent down and looked closer. The nails were soft and pulpy. Closer. Not nails, just red-tipped fingers. There were no nails. No nails; only red-tipped fingers.

‘Oh, God,’ Rehana whispered. She was afraid to touch him now, afraid to know what else lay hidden beneath his clothes.

‘Apa, I can carry him to the rickshaw.’ Bokul had come up behind her. He squatted in front of Sabeer and cradled his head. He dragged his other arm under Sabeer’s knees and rose with a grunt. He was stronger than he looked. Sabeer’s head flopped back. Bokul trundled to the rickshaw. ‘Can you hold him up?’

Rehana climbed in from the other side and pulled on Sabeer’s collar. ‘Sit up, please, son, try to sit up.’ She felt the tears falling from her eyes. Sabeer’s body stiffened a little, and, with both arms around his shoulders, she managed to keep him upright. ‘Go, hurry,’ she said to Bokul.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Dhanmondi. Road 5.’

All she could think was, I have to see him, just once, just look a little at him. The black hood will disappear, Sabeer will not die, Sabeer is a red-fingered bird, oh, God, just one more time, even if he doesn’t say a word, not a word, I won’t have to tell him, he’ll already know, he’ll know before I step through the gate, he’ll know before I open my mouth to tell him. I won’t tell him about the hood, I won’t say it, I won’t hope he’s still there. I’ll imagine he’s already left; I’ll go home and unroll my prayer mat. I’ll ask God to do it. God will do it. I won’t ask for anything after that. Just take the man away. Take the man away.

Sabeer is a bird, a red-tipped bird.

He wasn’t there. Shona was empty. When her sister Marzia had malaria, Rehana’s mother had sat beside the sickbed and said, please, God, take the sickness from her and give it to me. Not my daughter. Give it to me. Now Rehana wanted someone to look after her in the same way. Take it from me. Take his blistered lips. Take his milky, dead eyes. Take his tired breath. Please, oh, God, take his bleeding hands. Take his red-tipped wings. I don’t want them. Not me. Take my relief. Take my relief it wasn’t Sohail. Take my want, take my want. Take the missed beat when he wasn’t there.

She lay down on the pillow, dipped into his scent.

God, she said, the tears flowing freely from her eyes, take my want.

The room spun around. Mrs Sengupta’s parents stared down at her from the wall. She closed her eyes and dreamed of a man kneading her shoulder with a rough, callused hand. His hand travelled to her neck, pressing the tendons, pressing until she almost choked; and then the hand was on her shoulder again, and then travelling down the length of her arm, slipping through the hollow between her elbow and her waist.

‘Rehana.’ She was startled by the sound of her name. Her name was a stranger. ‘You were dreaming.’

‘No — it was all there — Sabeer—’

‘I know.’ I knew you would know!

The Major’s breath was in her hair. She felt the warmth of his belly against her back. She saw his hand, its tense vein, snaking across her waist and holding her down, as if she might float away without its weight.

The burned-rubber scent flooded her nose.

She pressed wet eyes against the pillow. She opened her mouth and swallowed the sob. She felt him knowing everything. This was his gift. Speaking little and knowing more.

His hand tightened, and she tilted backwards, feeling the hard weight of his chest. Brick and breath. The breath burned into her ear.

Her fist closed around the pillowcase.

‘Sleep,’ he said, ‘you can sleep.’

Miraculously, her eyes closed, and she felt her limbs relaxing, and, though her breath was still quick, she drifted into a hard, dreamless sleep.