Spiral Road (15 page)

I leaf through the album again. I search my parents’ matrimonial life, looking for a period when they seemed discontented in each other’s company. I see only a blank and dutiful relationship. Ma was garrulous and Abba was a patient listener. They talked of domestic matters, affairs of their children and financial dealings. None of my memories, none of their own photographs, exudes the
warmth and exuberance of the ones I’m holding in my hands.

I open one of the diaries. It’s been written in with a fountain pen. Abba’s handwriting. But by now my curiosity has turned to fear. I close the diary. Sometimes knowledge that can cause anguish isn’t worth possessing. Let Sumita the mistress, and Rani, remain enigmas.

I begin to dump everything back into the trunks. But then, again, I change my mind—and grab the diaries.

Z
AFAR AND YASMIN
are back from school. The house vibrates with their voices. Ma has their undivided attention, as they breathlessly tell her about their day.

In my room I begin at once to read fragments of the diaries, feeling both dread and anticipation. For the first time I see how much help Abba gave the less fortunate members of the family. He gave away land to his cousins, paid for the education of their children and built a house in the village for his widowed sister. In some of his entries he despairs at the unfairness of the
zamandari
system, and its tenacity in perpetrating social injustice.

The third volume is thicker, and covers the years 1961 to 1963. The tone has changed. Where he was accepting earlier, Abba sounds forlorn now as he writes about his incompatibility with Ma. I’m saddened by his stark admission of entrapment. Then, on April 5th, 1963, he writes,

Sumita! After years of silence, I have unexpectedly received a letter from her. I am overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her again. She says that she has a surprise for me. I must make plans…I shall arrange to meet her in Calcutta. What I am doing is wrong to my family but my desire to be with her subdues guilt. I am as excited as a college student about to see his girlfriend. And Rabeyah? I know this is wrong! It is so unfair to her. How will I go on pretending that everything is normal? Sometimes I think she is extremely astute. But if she has ever been suspicious, then she has hidden it well. She has played the role of an ignorant wife quite superbly. Guilt and excitement. It is a potent mixture. There is a darkness in me that is beginning to emerge. The other side. I cannot say I understand it, but I am fearful. There is a lot to lose if I am not careful. Careful? That is a joke! For Sumita I am prepared to be as reckless as necessary…

I skim read other similar entries, until I get to May 27th. This is what I’ve been looking for.

I am the father of a girl of four! The meeting with Sumita was an anticlimax. She was aloof and curt. But Rani! She is a gorgeous child. Full of laughter and life. She kept calling me ‘That man’. My daughter! My God! What have I done? Why did Sumita not let me know as soon as she found out she was pregnant, I asked. She thought I would not want to know. I wish Sumita had made demands. She kept repeating that she wanted me to see
our child. She has accepted my offer of assistance. My greatest disappointment was the lack of warmth between us. Meeting her was like holding a handful of cold ashes. I only have memory to remind me of what it was like in Europe. Her father is now posted in Germany. Sumita is working as a translator at the United Nations. I could visit her in New York, I suggested. She did not think that was a good idea. We walked along the bank of the Hooghly River. Rani held my hand but Sumita kept a distance from us. I can only think of how things were. I must do what is right. I must—

Someone’s at the door.

I hide the diaries in a drawer. I didn’t expect Ma. Zia had told me that she rarely comes upstairs. She has breathing difficulties and the varicose veins in her legs hurt if she climbs steps.

She sits on the bed. ‘Did you find what you were after?’ she asks, and I see that she’s tearful.

‘Ah, no. I couldn’t find the blazer.’

‘You gave it away to your cousin, Shomu, before you left for Australia. Don’t you remember?’

I don’t wish to lie to her any more. ‘Ma, what was Abba like as a husband?’ I blurt hoarsely.

She becomes rigid and doesn’t answer immediately. Then she says, ‘Kind and gentle. He always took care not to hurt me. Even if it meant not telling me everything as it was.’

‘He was often away from home,’ I observe carefully. ‘What do you know about his travels?’

‘Whatever I was supposed to know.’ She considers me. ‘I was married on the understanding that I would be an obedient wife. Someone who would train her eyesight not to see beyond the domestic life.’

‘Do you know who Rani was?’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes! Now I do.’

‘And what can be done with that information now? In the last six months your father has said things that he shouldn’t have. He didn’t realise what he was revealing. It’s almost as if there’s another man speaking with his voice.’ She sits with her hands on her lap, staring out of the window.

‘So…you wouldn’t know what happened to Rani?’

‘I’ve never had the desire to know,’ she whispers.

I move to sit close to her.

The hurt and pain she has borne all these years have never been exposed to her children. Ma has looked after us with an efficiency that has not been affected by her own trials. She has been the dutiful wife and the loving mother. I’ve never known her to criticise Abba to us, or show him hostility. She always said what a caring father he was, and Abba played his part too, of course. I couldn’t accuse him of neglecting us. He found time for family activities and was the sort of person who extracted more than twenty-four hours of living from a day.

Until now I haven’t appreciated Ma’s resilience. She gave herself selflessly to us and, in return, she only longed for our company and attention. Zia and Nasreen have
been generous to her in many ways. But I’ve been aloof, removed from her needs. I’ve allowed self-pity and guilt from another segment of my life to fester inside me, when I could have done so much more. Absorption in my own well-being was a vehicle of escape, my way of keeping people at an emotional distance.

The truth is I’m still afraid of engaging intimately with anyone.

Latif runs up to inform us that Abba has woken suddenly from his afternoon nap and is lashing himself with a belt. I have to caution Ma against rushing down the stairs.

Abba is sitting on his bed, covered in sweat. He’s trembling. There are red welts on his left arm. As he sees Ma, he begins to cry. Ma puts her arm around him and lets him rest his head on her shoulder. She massages the back of his neck and calms him.

I stand helplessly next to them.

‘I’ll look after him,’ she whispers confidently.

‘Will you be all right?’ I ask, removing the belt from my father’s reach.

She nods. I retreat to the door.

Abba hears me and raises his head. ‘Nothing!’ he sobs. ‘Nothing!’

I’
VE WITNESSED THE
ebb and flow of a long relationship that has needed constant corrections and adjustments. It has been strained and deceitful, and yet with a strength of
will that has managed to contain the problems, if not eradicate them. I feel as if I’m an emotional simpleton, my limitations cruelly exposed by the entanglement of what I’ve seen, read and heard in the last few hours. It’s as though I’ve been made to see, in others, those dimensions of life—the gashes, the bruises and bleeding, with parenthesised periods of sublimity and unexpected turns—that I’ve been gripped by, but never thought that others, too, experienced.

I think of Amelia.

I must reach out and let her know that I care. I must curb my expectations of others and wade into life without the fear of being swept away by the strength of its emotional currents.

I visualise myself as an old man, sitting by the window in a nursing home. Other residents are visited by their children and grandchildren. I want memories of fulfilment, not regrets and despair. I’m haunted by faces from my past. They mock me about lost opportunities. I don’t wish to be reminded of my unwillingness to share and give of myself. I don’t want to open a Christmas present in the solitariness of my room.

Impulsively I pick up the phone and call Amelia.

‘Is everything okay?’ She sounds concerned, surprised to hear from me. ‘I’m expecting a postcard.’

‘Fine,’ I assure her. ‘I’ve written to you.’ I ask about the girls.

‘They’re well, thanks. No major dramas. I dare to hope that we are headed towards calmer times.’

‘And Melbourne?’

‘It continues to rattle along, the way it always does.’ She sounds bored. ‘When do you leave for Turkey?’

‘Soon,’ I reply. ‘I’m off to Chittagong with my nephew on Thursday.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s the largest port city in the south-east of the country.’

‘Does your nephew work there?’

‘He owns a textile factory somewhere in those parts.’

We talk trivia. Even from this distance I get the feeling that she’s trying to gauge my mood.

‘When you return, we must talk. I have to make a few decisions,’ she says firmly.

‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘It’s time we did. I had to get away from Melbourne to see the future more clearly.’

‘What do you mean?’ There’s a wary alertness in her voice.

‘Well, I think I’d like to talk a little more about us…The shape and direction of our lives. You know…’

Silence.

‘Amelia?’

‘Are you assuming that’s my intention as well?’

‘But I thought…’

‘I will decide the shape and direction of
my
life, you know. I have to look after my interests. That’s one of the things I’ve learned from you.’

It’s my turn to puzzle over the way I’ve just spoken. Amelia seems to be talking about the equality of decision
making. Balance and sensitivity. They don’t come to me naturally. And she’s said it before: so far our relationship has been largely determined by what’s convenient for me.

‘I’m among my own here and yet I’m lonely,’ I confess. It feels odd to open up like this.

‘I’ll see you when you come back.’

‘Do you want to meet me in Sydney?’

‘Sydney?’

‘Remember, I have to attend the librarians’ conference.’ I give her the dates. ‘I thought we might take a train back to Melbourne, just for a change.’

Amelia hesitates. ‘No, I’ll see you in Melbourne. Take care!’

She hangs up.

Nasreen stops filing her nails, surprised by what I’ve just proposed.

‘That’s very brave and generous of you!’

‘A feeble attempt to make up for the years of neglect,’ I say truthfully.

‘We haven’t been out together as a family for years! Not since those noisy family picnics.’ She smiles at my groan.

I recall those dragged-out and painful biannual occasions during the cooler months, late November and early February. Servants packed the cars early in the morning, and we’d set out in large numbers—uncles, aunts, parents, grandparents, cousins, sisters, brothers—
strictly ‘family only’. The younger ones resented not being allowed to bring friends and sulked their way through the drive into the countryside.

Before departure, we would have jostled for places and argued about who would ride with whom. We drove into forested areas to feast, play cricket, cards, carom and ludo. There was more food than could be possibly gorged in a day. Those who couldn’t sing tried to serenade the rest of us with the most sentimental of love songs. We gossiped, cracked jokes and quibbled over petty matters. Smiles and poses for cameras. We were made to hold hands or put our arms around each other’s shoulders, hug and kiss for group photographs. For posterity.

But it was a forced family togetherness, to show collective strength and a celebration of our traditions. Towards the end of the day, as tiredness crept in, this artificial harmony cracked and, like spot fires, jealousies, accusations and scandals ignited. The drive back was always marked by acrimonious silence. Later, there would be mutterings of discontent about the purpose of such excursions.

Alas! No sooner had the summer and the monsoon seasons ended, plans went ahead for the next picnic.

‘I’
LL TRY TO
be home early,’ Nasreen promises. ‘Ma will need a hand with Abba.’

She points out that we’re restricted in the choice of where we can eat. Ma is conservative about food, and her growing superstitions have narrowed her preferences to a
handful of restaurants in the city. Places that employ Christian or Hindu cooks are out of contention. I ask Nasreen to decide. She deliberates and then settles on a new restaurant that specialises in Mughlai cuisine.

‘I’ll make a booking,’ she offers.

‘For seven people—that’s if Omar can come.’

Omar’s not available on his mobile. I leave a message.

I return the box of keys to Nasreen. She asks me about my foray up to the loft.

‘Oh yes,’ I say vaguely. ‘I found things that were interesting.’

‘What exactly were you looking for?’

‘Bits of the past. I feel as if I’m beginning to know my father for the first time.’

‘Abba’s a complex man,’ she says in an undertone.

‘I’m discovering that.’

The ensuing silence convinces us not to pursue this matter any further. So, my sister, too, knows more than I had imagined.

‘Nasreen, why do I have the impression that, despite Abba’s illness, this is a house of illusions?’ I hope she’ll contradict me.

‘We pretend a lot,’ she says slowly. ‘We meet regularly over meals, talk and laugh, but we never seem to say what we want to. We’re afraid we’ll be betrayed by truth. That it might hurt us. You’d be surprised how much time we spend in our bedrooms, as though there are monumental secrets to be protected!’

‘In keeping with what Dada would say.’

‘A family without secrets can never strive to be anything but boring,’ we chorus and then laugh at our impeccable harmony.

Later I tell Ma about my plan for us to go out the next evening.

She’s perplexed. ‘But it’s not anyone’s birthday. Or is it? I don’t always remember the important days in the year.’

‘It’s nothing to do with any special occasion. I just thought it would be enjoyable to go out together.’

Her look makes me feel like a son who’s been tried and convicted of filial neglect.

‘I’ll ring Raffat to see if she’s available to look after your father,’ she says.

‘I want Abba to go with us.’

Ma looks incredulous.

‘I want all of us to go,’ I insist.

‘But your father hasn’t gone out for…I can’t remember how long it’s been. You know how difficult he can be. Just for an evening I would like to relax and enjoy the outing. Is that being selfish?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ I assure her. ‘I’ll take care of him.’ I sound more confident than I am.

The rest of the evening peters out quietly. After dinner I go up to my room and read. Close to midnight, as I think of turning in, my phone rings.

Omar apologies for not being able to accompany us for dinner. ‘But I shall see you on Thursday night, of course. Seven sharp. Not too much luggage. The car will be full.’

Why has he phoned so late? Why is he being so precise about the time of departure? ‘I don’t want to be away for more than three or four days.’

‘I’ll get someone to drive you back. See you Thursday.’

Before I can ask him anything else, Omar hangs up.

Now that I’ve agreed to go, I can’t say I’m looking forward to the trip. There are too many imponderables. Is Omar deliberately being reticent? Where exactly are we going? There has been no mention of accommodation. I can’t even guess where Omar lives.

I switch off the light and lie down. But the questions pile upon the uncertainty that has gripped me ever since I left Melbourne. And the phone conversation with Amelia is still upsetting me. I had expected her to be agreeable about meeting me in Sydney. But then that’s one of my shortcomings, I’ve been told. When we argue, Amelia invariably points out that I’m entrenched in a set of assumptions. I expect people to respond in specific ways to what I have to say, and when they don’t, I’m upset.

You’re a conceited bastard, Masud.

Yes.

Is that all you can say? God! You exasperate me sometimes!

It’s not intentional.
I just can’t communicate.

Do you think you could change? Just a tiny bit?

How many beginnings can there be in a lifetime?

I drift in the dark.

T
HERE
I
AM
, a carefree young man from a privileged family. I don’t have to think about making a living. My education is a matter of prestige, of fulfilling my father’s expectations. I play cricket and go to parties with my friends. Left-wing students’ politics alleviates the boredom and displeases my family. I’m fashionable, an activist with long sideburns, shoulder-length hair, and knowledge of Marx and Trotsky. I can even quote from Mao’s red book.

Then
that
night. March 25, 1971.

I hear tanks rumbling down the street.

I
WAS STAYING
with Naeem Hassan, a friend, in the old part of the city where it’s almost impossible for cars to move speedily along the sinewy lanes. Naeem was a political activist, a student member of the Awami League, which had won the national elections by a sizeable majority.

A show of strength by the army, we thought. A parade of fire-belching monsters to frighten the natives, we joked. A different general was certain to speak to us on the radio the next morning. The baton of dictatorship would have been passed onto someone slightly younger, more ruthless and ambitious. But power would continue to reside within the ranks of the uniformed family. Arrests, trials and retributions. Promises of a better life for the Bangalis. We were all Pakistanis, the general would remind us. But he wouldn’t say that the Muslims in the east were tainted by Hindu culture.

It was a warm night. Naeem and I went up to the
terrace of his family house. He was restless, and I tried to calm him down. There was nothing to be done. The morning would probably bring with it a more stringent form of martial law. Democracy would remain an ideal. There would be renewed promises of an election, once things had settled down. I was already anticipating the day when club cricket would resume and the university would reopen. Normality shaped by gun barrels.

And then the sky flashed with arcs of light, like a dark canvas scratched with lines of bright colours. A deafening noise, and a fireball crashed into the distance. We watched, horrified and mesmerised.

That night the tanks demolished an entire neighbourhood.

In the following days would come mass burial of the troublemakers who agitated against the army, including women and children.

A sad realisation chastened and frightened me on that terrace. My youth abandoned me. We had been dragged into the morass of a new world. And as the days passed, I mourned for myself and for the way of life that had died in front of me.

This was the pivotal point in my life.

Those who had been advocating the cause of a separate nation had been dealt with to preserve the integrity of Pakistan. That was the official story the next morning on the radio. The only problem was that the Bangalis didn’t believe the Punjabis and the Sindhis. Genocide was on the army’s agenda. The western part of
the country was to rule all of Pakistan forever. The initial plan had been implemented without a hitch. The night belonged to the soldiers. But then, how were they to know that the usually placid Bangalis would awaken in outrage and fight back?

I had never read about explosives, let alone handled them. But for whatever reason, I quickly understood the principles on which they worked. My knowledge of school chemistry and electronics was useful. We were never told the exact location of the training camps for those who were keen to join the armed resistance. Somewhere in West Bengal, near Kolkata.

After a month, I was sent on incursions across the border to gain experience in guerrilla warfare. Nothing spectacular. I worked in a small group. We set a food warehouse on fire in Jessore. We destroyed electricity and telephone poles. Hit and run. Specific instructions held us back from direct engagement with the Pakistani army.

Then, my first major assignment. I was sent to Dhaka to blow up an army petrol depot. There were six of us. Three remained outside the perimeter of the compound that was girdled by wire fencing.

Cutting the wires and crawling across the yard were easy enough. The dangers supposedly lay ahead. But what surprised us was the complacency of the guards. Instead of being vigilant, patrolling the area, they were huddled under a tin-roofed shelter, playing cards by the light of a lantern. The four massive storage dumps were unattended. It was all too easy to attach the explosives, fix the charges
and set the timers. The getaway was smooth. We were already behind some trees when we heard the first of the big bangs and watched the yellow and orange funnel of fire rise thrillingly high into the air. Then another bang. And another…

I think of the newspaper reports that we read so gleefully. I remember one headline: ‘M
ISCREANTS ATTACK PETROL DUMPS’
. Those of us who were engaged with the liberation struggle used the term ‘freedom fighter’. I wonder if the Palestinians and the Iraqis think similarly today. But there is a difference. We didn’t deliberately target civilians. Nor did we use suicide bombers or believe that we were on jihadic missions.

‘R
IGHT’ AND ‘WRONG’
are woefully inadequate words to describe the greyness of the worlds I traverse. Naturally. I’ve aged. Retrospective guilt can paralyse moral judgement. The confusion grows as I become more conscious of family ties and my responsibilities than ever before. Strangely enough, I’m no longer contemptuous about honour and reputation.

My half-sleeping reverie is interrupted by Zia, calling from Bangkok. He seems to have the times all wrong. He asks if everything is all right. I mention that I am leaving for Chittagong with Omar tomorrow.

Somewhere, in a street of Bangkok, a car honks.

‘Don’t do or say anything rash,’ he finally advises.

‘Meaning?’

‘I wish you’d spoken to me before deciding to go.’

‘Well, I’m going,’ I reiterate firmly. ‘And after I return, we will have to sort out some issues.’

‘Yes.’ He sounds tired. ‘Yes, I should have explained a few things to you earlier.’

‘What things?’

‘Perhaps I should have talked to you about my unease with Omar. Well, when I come home. Enjoy the trip. You’ll find maps in my study.’

Within minutes the phone rings again.

Steven Mills.

He’s abrupt and aggressive. ‘Let’s talk about your brother.’

‘We already have, in front of your American colleague.’

‘Let’s talk some more. And I’m bloody serious this time!’

‘What about him? He’s in Bangkok at a conference. He’s not—’

‘I know that,’ he interrupts. ‘What else can you tell me about him?’

‘Nothing.’ Why is he calling me in the middle of the night? Has he been drinking?

‘You don’t seem to realise that your brother could be in very serious trouble, mate. Do you want to help him or what? I’d say—’

I hang up.

I suppose getting on the wrong side of Steven Mills may not be such a bright idea. There could be repercussions when I return to Australia.

Sleep evades me. I walk through a dense forest,
followed by flitting shadows and hearing ghoulish laughter. I come across a deep trench. There are people sitting on the dry ground, talking. They look up. I don’t recognise the faces that mock me. They’re all bloated, discoloured and in various stages of decay. Despite my reservations, I jump in. The bed of the trench opens like a gate and I’m sucked into an abyss of sights and sounds that can only be conjured up by a primitive mind.

I continue to fall until the first light of dawn rescues me.