The Newlyweds (44 page)

“Thank you,” Amina said, and then shut the gate behind her as if she had every right to be in the building.

There were two apartments on the top floor, both with nameplates: Razzak and Rahman. Amina hesitated for a moment, listening. In Razzak she could hear a couple arguing mildly, but the fish man had intimated that Yellow Barrette’s mother was alone. She chose the other and knocked.

The woman who answered was at least ten years younger than Amina’s mother, and beautiful in a completely different way. While her own mother’s looks had always been dramatic, with her sharp cheekbones,
sunken eyes, and long, perfectly straight hair, Mrs. Rahman had a soft, childlike quality to her features, enhanced by naturally thick eyelashes. She had pinned her hair up in back, in an unsuccessful effort to control her curls; black ringlets escaped around her face. Her cheeks were flushed from whatever labor she’d been engaged in before Amina had arrived, and her feet, in white plastic house slippers, were tiny under the hem of her sari. Yellow Barrette’s mother took in Amina’s fancy shalwar kameez and the ring on her finger.

“Yes?”

“Excuse me, is your daughter an English student?”

Mrs. Rahman looked wary. “Yes. But we’re not looking for a tutor. She helps the other students.”

“Oh no.” Amina smiled, switching to English and speaking fast. “I’m not looking for a job. I think your daughter may have dropped this outside the gate.”

Her mother was flustered by the fluent English, as Amina had expected. She took the book, hardly glancing at it. “Excuse me,” she said in Bangla. “I don’t speak English well—it’s only my daughter. You’re very kind to return it. She dropped it in the road?”

“She was getting into a rickshaw,” Amina said, taking a chance. She didn’t know of a college within walking distance. “I was all the way down the lane, and by the time I reached it, she was gone. I used to use this book myself.”

Mrs. Rahman frowned. “This was just now?”

“Some time ago,” Amina improvised. “I had to stop at home first.”

The woman shook her head, smiling. “Lazy girl—she could easily have walked. Please let me give you tea. Mokta’s always been careless.”

Mokta
, Amina thought: of course. She smiled at Mrs. Rahman. It was impossible to know whether Mokta really was careless or if the criticism was a rote politeness. “No, I can’t. I just wanted to return the book.”

“You went out of your way,” Mrs. Rahman said. “Please. Are you an English teacher?”

Amina shook her head. “I used to be, before I married. We live in the U.S.—I’m only here for a few weeks to see my family.”

Mokta’s mother gave her a frankly curious stare. “Do they live nearby?”

“We’re staying with a friend just down this lane. Actually, I’ve come to bring my parents back to America.”

“I’ve just put the water on,” Mrs. Rahman said. “You’d do me such a favor to keep me company for a minute.”

Amina finally agreed, as if hesitantly, and entered a living room, modestly furnished but with abundant light from two large windows. The room was immaculate, but Mrs. Rahman had been dusting anyway; a feather broom was hastily stashed beneath a small table. The table was covered with an embroidered cloth like the ones Parveen made; on top of the cloth was a fancy portable chess set, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the pieces indicating an interrupted game. Amina looked around the room, but the only photograph she could see was on a chest of drawers in the bedroom, angled away from her. On the wall above the dining table was a small oil painting in a deliberately naïve style, covered with a sheet of protective plastic. The painting showed a village scene: a girl in a green sari bending over a palm-fringed pond to fill a copper jug.

“Is this a painting of your village?” Amina asked when Mrs. Rahman returned, apologizing for the plate of packaged biscuits. They sat in the two wicker chairs, facing two walls of bookcases. Amina was surprised to see that several shelves were devoted to mathematics, along with a collection of Russian novels, translated into English rather than Bangla; an
Oxford English Dictionary;
and many volumes of poetry, among which she recognized Tagore, Mukhopadhyay, and Nazrul Islam.

“Oh, that’s just something Mokta did,” Mrs. Rahman said shyly. “She’s always amused herself with drawing and sketching. I like that scene because I think it looks southern, but our village is in Rajshahi.”

Working within a simple idiom, Mokta had somehow managed to indicate the shadows of the palm trees on the pond, the light on the copper jug, and a faraway expression on the girl’s face. Amina had noticed the painting because it reminded her of Haibatpur, but there was no doubt that Mokta knew how to paint.

“If only you’d come later,” Mrs. Rahman said. “We would’ve had sweets for you. Mokta’s stopping on her way home because my husband’s bringing a colleague for supper.”

“What kind of work does your husband do?”

“He’s a mathematics teacher,” Mrs. Rahman said with evident pride. “Do you know St. Joseph’s School?”

“Of course.” A part of Amina was surprised to learn that the family was so respectable—cultured, educated, and industrious—and again she wondered why Sakina wasn’t more enthusiastic about the match. Why was she still considering other candidates, if this was the girl her brother admired? It occurred to Amina that Sakina might not like the idea that Nasir had discovered the young woman himself; she would want to exercise complete control, to select her brother’s wife as she’d selected her little sister Shilpa’s husband. Sakina was someone who’d been thrust into a responsible position at a young age, and instead of collapsing under it, she’d determined to execute her responsibilities to perfection, so that no one could find a single error. Some people mourned a loss like the one she’d suffered; others spent their whole lives defying it.

“He’s also one of the chess instructors. They’ve graduated three grand masters”—Mrs. Rahman said the words in English—“though not while he was there. If only it were a school for girls, he always tells me. If Mokta were a boy, she might attend St. Joseph’s for less.”

“She’s your only child?”

Mrs. Rahman nodded and squinted out the window, as if she were trying to make out something across the street.

Amina had asked the question innocently, but she was familiar with the way people prodded when you admitted to having only one. She’d watched her mother shrink under that question for years. “I’m an only child as well,” she said quickly. “My mother had a complicated labor, and they decided one was expensive enough.”

Mrs. Rahman smiled gratefully at Amina. “And now you’re bringing your parents to America—how wonderful.”

“If my father’s visa gets approved,” Amina said. “We’re still waiting. My parents already gave up their apartment—we used to live in the Kaderabad Housing, not far from here.”

“I know the building!” Mrs. Rahman said.

“We were going to be with my aunt and uncle in Savar, but it was too far from the embassy. And our host here is the son of my father’s oldest friend.”

She could imagine what Mrs. Rahman would think if she knew her
daughter was already meeting Nasir in secret or talking to him late at night on the phone. They had only one child, but that didn’t mean they had any less love than a family with three or four. It was simply intensely focused on this one girl, who would be likely at some point to break under the pressure. She might even jeopardize the future her parents had so carefully planned for her, just for the feeling of escaping their scrutiny for a little while. Amina felt angry suddenly, but she wasn’t sure whether she was angry at Mrs. Rahman or at Sakina or at her own parents. She had the peculiar feeling that she wanted to do something for Mokta, something selfless and pure. If she were able to arrange a meeting, one that appeared to happen naturally, wouldn’t that help forward a match that both Nasir and Mokta obviously desired?

It hadn’t escaped her that in doing this she would be proving something to Nasir. He would see she hadn’t been undone by what had happened between them and that she fully intended to go back to her life in America. She would also teach Sakina a lesson about the limits of even the most meticulous plan. You couldn’t control your own life, much less someone else’s.

She thought she must’ve had a strange look on her face, because Mrs. Rahman was watching her with concern, as if she thought she might have caused some offense.

She smiled to reassure Mokta’s mother. “Where did your daughter go to school?” she asked.

“Oh,” her mother said. “Just the local primary school.”

Amina had been thinking of secondary school, but she didn’t want to embarrass Mrs. Rahman, who might not have gone further than primary school herself. She could imagine evenings in the apartment, Mokta’s mother cooking and then clearing away the dishes while Mokta and her father worked through her problem sets or enjoyed a game of chess. The pieces now standing at attention must be the remnants of one of those games.

“And your husband?” Mrs. Rahman asked. “What does he do in America?”

“He’s an electrical engineer,” Amina said. Mrs. Rahman would learn about Amina’s marriage soon enough, but she wasn’t going to be candid now. She had thought before she’d come that there must’ve
been something wrong with Yellow Barrette or her family, but everything Amina had learned since she’d been in the apartment made the match seem equitable or even tilted in favor of the Rahmans.

“I would love for Mokta to meet you, if you have time before you go. She’s always been interested in studying abroad … but, of course, the expense. Her father would like to try”—her mother smiled apologetically—“but I’m selfish. I can’t imagine my life here without her.”

There was no reason that she had to see the girl’s picture before she invited her. If she wasn’t pretty, Nasir would never have noticed her in the first place. Still, she was disappointed not to have a mental image of Mokta to take away from the visit.

“I would be happy to meet her,” Amina said. “Perhaps the two of you could come to tea one afternoon before we leave. My parents and I are home all day.”

Mrs. Rahman looked delighted. “That would be wonderful. If you promise you won’t go to any trouble. You’ll only embarrass me again about these biscuits.”

“My father’s friend passed away years ago, and his son and I grew up like cousins. But he’s a bachelor and so his apartment is shabby. You see, we’ll be apologizing to you.”

Mrs. Rahman laughed. “I doubt that. Well, we’ll call on you then. On Thursday?”

It was Tuesday now, and Amina considered the logistics involved. She would have to bring it up as soon as she got back and admit to her parents that she’d lied about visiting her student. When she finally met Mokta, she would have to act surprised that the book wasn’t hers and speculate about how it had come to be lying in the street. And of course, sometime between now and Thursday, she would have to confess to Nasir that she’d gone to see the girl for herself. If he were angry, she could confront him with the facts she knew from her mother. Sakina was still considering other candidates; why hadn’t he told his sister that he wasn’t interested in the “very beautiful” girl she preferred? Amina would tell him he was being a coward—that his whole life’s happiness was at stake.

“Come in the evening, if you can. You might as well meet your neighbor—our friend—since we’ll be gone soon.”

Mrs. Rahman nodded. “If Mokta’s father is home early, he’ll accompany us.”

“I hope it’s actually Mokta’s book,” Amina said. “How ridiculous if it turns out I’m wrong.”

Mrs. Rahman was surprised. “You mean you didn’t actually see her drop it?”

“I did—but of course I didn’t know which apartment. The fish man said there was a girl on the top floor. I thought I might have knocked on the wrong door, but now that I see you, I think it must’ve been your daughter.”

Mrs. Rahman nodded slowly. “Most people say Mokta resembles her father’s family. But I have an idea—if you can wait just a minute?” She disappeared into the bedroom, and Amina couldn’t help smiling at her success. She thought that Mokta would be a version of her mother, twenty years younger. She thought of black curls, round black eyes, and full scarlet lips.
Mokta
, she thought. A pearl.

Mrs. Rahman came back, flipping through a plastic pocket album and frowning.

“This was taken at Eid. You see—I made her clothes myself.”

Amina found herself looking at the photograph of a young girl. Mokta had her mother’s large, round eyes, but as Mrs. Rahman had suggested, the rest of her face didn’t show a particular likeness. Her hair was straight—the barrette, this time, was white—but her skin was luminous and clear, and the smile at the corner of her mouth was playful, as if she had promised to hold still for only a second. She was looking at the photographer, who was probably her father, with an expression that combined innocence with absolute trust.

Amina turned to Mrs. Rahman: there had been a misunderstanding. “But this is from many years ago?”

“From last year. You see, she isn’t like me—much more like her paternal grandmother.”

“How old is Mokta now?”

“Sixteen. She’ll graduate the year after next, and then her father hopes she might win a scholarship at BRAC. When I think that I was married by her age—things have changed so much since then.” She paused, seeing Amina’s confusion. “But I think my daughter isn’t the girl you saw?”

“No,” Amina said. Her hands were shaking. “I’m so sorry to have troubled you.”

“No, no.” Mrs. Rahman was eager to be gracious. She retrieved the English book from the table, where it had been sitting next to the plate of biscuits, and handed it back to Amina.

“I didn’t think this looked like Mokta’s. I can’t read her books, but I certainly pick them up enough.”

She was joking with Amina in order to put her at ease, but of course she couldn’t begin to understand what was really the matter. Standing in Mrs. Rahman’s door, she had to admit to herself that she was in love with Nasir for the second time in her life. She had been able to stand the idea that he might end up with someone else, when the someone else had been an accomplished young woman of twenty-five. It was something entirely different to think he was pursuing a girl who had not yet finished high school, even if he was prepared to wait for her. She was ashamed of how she’d suspected Sakina of sabotaging Nasir’s happiness: finally it was clear why his sister would’ve been reluctant to approach this family.