Beloved Strangers (23 page)

I raised my eyes to look straight into my mother’s. Mine were searching, hers reaching out. I’m right here, her light-brown eyes seemed to say. I saw her then, a woman alight but not burning, absent but not quite gone, demanding but only of those she loved.

A few weeks later, after my mother left, I opened the kitchen cabinet to grab the coffee jar and found a blue sticky note pasted on the inside of the cabinet door. It said:

You are the best of all

    Always remember that

I think my mother meant to say ‘You’re the best’, in a casual American way, but by attaching the last two words – ‘of all’ – to her first sentence, she belied her recently acquired Americanism and confirmed her instinctive capacity to leave her own, loving, inimitable mark. For all the times you burn her to the ground, she will rise from the ashes. For all the times you chase her shadow, she will reveal her light to you so generously that you may live in the aftermath of its brightness. For all the times you wait for her to see you, she will turn to catch you at an odd second, when you stand with your heart exposed, unprepared for her kindness. That is my mother and, just like love, she is best preserved if you let go of her.

As I tuck her note into the kitchen drawer it dawns on me that it was only natural that Mother was missing from our customary evening ritual. If she had been there, ‘Fatal Hesitation’ would never have made as much sense as did it to Naveen and me back then and for the rest of our lives. It was all there in the words of the song, which we knew by heart.

To this day, when I thrum the tune of ‘Fatal Hesitation’, the lyrics form themselves into the image of a woman, lost and lonesome. She is walking barefoot on white sand, along a stretch of blue-green ocean, foamy frolicky waves teasing her toes. But every time she comes closer and I try to catch a glimpse of her, she looks away and all I can see is the curvaceous outline of her face, fanned by long, windswept hair. And though I can never see her face fully, I know exactly what she looks like.

I find myself increasingly drawn to babies, buttery masses of flesh and soft folds, unquenchable wells of thirst and desire from the moment they are born. Love, love, love, is all they ever want. Mouths agape, fists balled, their curled toes flail the air for more love. I think of my frail mother, manhandled by sixteen limbs, and I cannot resist smiling at her youthful consternation.

‘You need to have a child,’ Mother reminds me frequently nowadays.

‘Why? You certainly never wanted to.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she laughs nervously, not quite poised for a fight.

‘Didn’t you always say so?’

‘I did not.’

‘But you did!’ I cry.

‘What are you saying, exactly?’

‘I’m just wondering if having a child is worth the trouble,’ I say.

She bristles with irritation, her jaw tightens. This is when she will say exactly what she means not to say.

‘This is just the kind of nonsense one has to deal with as a mother—’ she stops short, checking herself in time.

‘Don’t worry, Mother. I might have a child if I find the right man.’

‘Ha! There are millions of men, just pick the right one.’

I don’t know what Mother guesses from such flippant discussions, but sometimes I do dream of being a mother. The age-old cycle will start again in me, filling my veins and organs with the promise of new life and love. We will play, my child and I, a new game of give and take, speaking a new language of right and wrong; we will laugh and cry, we will hug and part, we will doubt and share, but at the end of it all we will ask each other the same question that separates and unites us: Do you love me? Was it worth it then, the push and pull, the sweetness and the bitterness, the inevitable descent from womb to breast to lap to hard, unyielding ground?

Dhaka afternoons are as warm and tumescent as ripe gold olives. The tropical sun roasts the city and its dwellers into a caramel exhaustion. The rickshaw pullers lean against their parked vehicles, salt crystals gleaming on their strong brown backs. The crows flutter about impatiently, searching for food droppings. Young mothers in colourful saris throng the school gates as the last bell rings and children stream out, uniformed armies with heaving backpacks, faces alight with the arrival of freedom. The street children or
tokai
make a final push to sell their remaining merchandise of popcorn, balloons and flowers, before scampering off to roadside
dhabas
for the afternoon meal, stray dogs following at their heels.

At home, Amol rushes to perform the alchemical ritual of lunch, slicing the afternoon air with the six most reassuring smells of my life – onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, chilli and coriander. I kick off my school shoes and enter the kitchen. I tug at my mother’s sari as she bends over the stove, making my presence known, taking in the smell of her coconut shampoo and soap. Naveen pokes her head in next, Tilat and Avi follow and soon there are too many of us in the small kitchen. Carrots are jabbed, greedy fingers dip into curries, drumsticks jump out of a pot. ‘Get out of here!’ Amol swats at us like flies but we swarm around him, buzzing with demands. My mother laughs. ‘They’re hungry,’ she says tenderly.

We were hungry, but not just for food. We were hungry too for the delicious stretch of afternoon that spread before us, those gold-green hours of secrecy and silence that broke up the day into three essential parts, leaving the middle part for all things magical. In the dreamy olive shade of those afternoons, unburdened of morning’s duties and unoccupied by evening’s demands, each of us went our separate ways. In those sumptuously private hours, we found our own meandering paths to love, suffered our shames, lived our fears and forged our faiths.

But what made the afternoons perfect was the knowledge that at the end of our romps and gambols through those pre-twilight hours, we would come together again in a fire-flied dusk, to reconvene in the same, singular act of loving and living, together, as one entity.

Epilogue

On a cool September dawn, I awake to the promise of a new beginning. I am getting married a second time, three years after the end of my first marriage. I wake from a dreamless sleep and greet the brisk summer morning. I see the women who have come to scrub and polish me with their selection of unguents and bathe me in boiling hot water but I turn away from them. I will not allow them to paint my face into a glittering mask of red and gold. Luxuriously, I lather myself with Mother’s coconut soap, letting the cool water wash away yesterday’s scents. Standing before my mirror, I tuck fresh jasmines into my own hair, place a red bindi in the centre of my eyebrows and carefully smudge kajal under my eyelids. After I finish, I linger by the mirror, studying my reflection. I am looking for signs of fear, for shreds of doubt. The woman who stares back at me is neither apprehensive nor giddy. Calm and expectant, she basks in the lucidity of this moment. I open the door and let everyone in.

‘Answer each question loudly and clearly,’ says the kazi, stroking his grey stringy beard.

‘Are you at least eighteen years of age?’

‘I am.’

‘Do you accept this Nikah which is sanctioned by law and deemed holy in the eyes of God?’

‘Yes.’

‘Miss, I cannot hear you. Speak louder.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Do you accept Asif Ahmed as your lawfully wedded husband?’

I close my eyes.

‘Miss, would you answer the question?’

‘Yes, yes I do.’

‘Do you have any other reservations at this time?’

‘I do not.’

‘Then please repeat the word kobul three times to indicate your consent.’

‘Kobul, kobul, kobul.’

‘Will the witness please come forward to sign the Nikahanama?’

My grandmother’s older brother steps forward.

‘What is your name, sir?’

‘Saidul Hossain.’

‘And the name of your father, sir?

‘I am the son of late Sohrab Hossain of Old Maulvi Bari, Comilla.’

‘Please write your name and your father’s name here,’ the kazi points to a section of the marriage certificate.

At the sound of my great-grandfather’s name, I raise my veiled head. Before me I see my great-grandmother, mad, shackled to her bed, her face turned towards the majestic image of a chariot-cloud floating up to her window, carrying her husband Sohrab Hossain inside. He speaks to her his last words, words of hope that will last her a lifetime without him. He has come back now to speak his last words to me. He will always come back to witness these moments of love in the lives of his descendants. I sense him around me, gently reminding me that love hasn’t disappeared, that it never does, that it only changes form. Old loves transmute themselves into new trust and new desires.

I see my great-grandmother on her daughter’s wedding day. With her bony hands she wraps a red silk sari around my grandmother as she tells her, ever so softly, to be kind and loving to Najib Ali, who is now her husband. My grandmother looks up at her mother’s face and sees only love in her eyes.

Now I see my grandmother on my mother’s wedding day. She wipes the sweat off her brow as she enters the room where my mother is sitting, surrounded by a group of women. My mother looks resplendent in red and gold. Nanu approaches her with a small earthen bowl of orange turmeric paste. She dips her index finger in the bowl and touches the cool paste to her daughter’s forehead. Turmeric, the ancient healer of all ailments, the antidote to decay and nature’s generous source of beauty, given by mother to daughter as a token of love, as purifying and invigorating as turmeric itself.

I turn my head and search the crowded room. I see my mother, sitting in one corner, quiet and unmoving. Her spine is straight, her head slightly bent, her eyes are closed, her hands cupped before her face in a gesture of pleading. She is saying a prayer for me. I can feel her appeal to the universe to hold me tight and keep me safe. I can hear the rhythm of her heart, as if I were a child inside her womb again, tied to her forever.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank my teacher Rebecca Brown, for guiding me with such love when I first conceived this book. She never lost faith in my vision and never failed to make me feel special as I shared the pages with her. My heartfelt thanks to Kazi Anis Ahmed for pushing me beyond my comfort zone, for cheering me on, for answering all kinds of questions and for being such an invaluable friend over the years. I am truly grateful to Masud Khan Shujon for being unduly generous with his time and for providing me with so much insight when I really needed it. And last, but not least, I cannot find the words to thank my editor Diya Kar Hazra, who, with her kindness, patience and unbelievable warmth and clarity, helped this work come to fruition.

A Note on the Author

Maria Chaudhuri was born and raised in Bangladesh. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religion from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, Vermont. Maria Chaudhuri’s essays, features and short stories have been published in various collections, journals and literary magazines. She lives in Hong Kong.

Copyright © 2014 by Maria Chaudhuri

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN--PUBLICATION DATA

Chaudhuri, Maria.
  Beloved strangers : a memoir / Maria Chaudhuri. — First U.S. edition.
       pages cm
  “First published in Great Britain in 2014”—Title page verso.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
  eISBN: 978-1-62040-623-6
 1.  Chaudhuri, Maria. 2.  Bangladeshi Americans—Biography. 3.  Immigrants—United States—Biography. 4.  Muslims—United States—Biography. 5.  Young women—Biography. 6.  Dhaka (Bangladesh) —Biography. 7.  Jersey City (N.J.) —Biography. 8.  Coming of age. 9.  Belonging (Social psychology) 10.  Transnationalism—Psychological aspects.  I. Title.
  E184.B13C47 2014
  305.8914'126073092—dc23
  [B]

   2013041951

First published in Great Britain in 2014

First U.S. edition 2014

This electronic edition published in June 2014