A Golden Age (39 page)

‘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

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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 spit- ting 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 some- thing, 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.’

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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 sweat- ing, 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 edu- cated 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

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you’re talking about.’ And then he smiled again and she remem- bered 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.’

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Jabeen unbuckled his gun and pointed it. Then he changed his mind, turned the gun around and hit him with the muzzle. It col- lided 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 tri- angle 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, exhil- arated 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!’

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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 swal- lowed 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.

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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.

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16
December
1971
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