Spiral Road (21 page)

‘You know they were,’ I say bitterly.

‘Then you agree, attribution of blame is not always easy to justify, even though it may seem obvious?’

We are in polarised and well-entrenched positions. But now, somehow, I feel that my moral high ground doesn’t necessarily give me the advantage that I’ve been taking for granted. ‘Behind all this is your people’s arrogant belief
that you have a monopoly on righteousness and truth.

That’s what I can’t accept.’

‘It’s what the other side also believes.’

‘Your driving force is religious militancy.’

‘Haven’t history’s monumental periods been driven by religion? Or anti-religious forces, if you like. Don’t you think those politicians we oppose pray to
their
God for victory? Perhaps if God chose to speak and tell us which cause is just, we could call a truce. But somehow I doubt if that’ll happen.’

‘And you intend to achieve your aims from this remote forest? With these resources?’ I don’t hide my sarcasm.

‘This is only a modest beginning, Mr Alam. We’re in no hurry.’

I recall Shabir Jamal’s article on Al Qaeda. ‘Why did you leave your country?’

He’s surprised by the sudden shift. ‘Britain wasn’t my country,’ he murmurs. ‘The attitude of some there is that the ledger of colonialism has been balanced and now we should return to our native lands. The prejudices burst into the open after New York was attacked. It seemed like the signal that a great many people had been waiting for.’

I think of the few days after the attack. Melbourne remained quiet. In shock. Quietly comforted by its remoteness from other Western nations. ‘I didn’t experience that.’

‘You would have if there were another two million Muslims in Australia.’ He begins to walk away in the
direction forbidden to me. As an afterthought he turns. ‘Mr Alam, I urge you to reconsider your position. All we ask is a bit of assistance for, shall we say, a reasonable remuneration. We’ll talk again in the evening.’

‘There’s no point in any further talk. I would like to leave. Now, if possible.’

He frowns as if I’ve confronted him with a preposterous intention. ‘That’s not possible, just as yet. Tomorrow, perhaps? That is, if you don’t change your mind. Your departure depends on the availability of a guide. It’s so easy to lose your way in the forest.’ And he disappears among the trees.

I’m a little wiser, and considerably alarmed at my predicament. I could never have imagined not trusting Omar, not going where he invited me. But being manipulated and outmanoeuvred makes me foolishly defiant.

My father had pleaded with me just before I headed out on that March night after the tanks had rumbled along the streets of Dhaka. ‘Think of what it’s doing to the family.’ I remember my vitriol and scorn, as I brushed aside such myopic concerns. I wanted to be enmeshed in the grand design of one of the subcontinent’s great upheavals. His look, etched with pain and failure, ripples across time and speaks more intimately to me in this moment. Belatedly, I understand the pain of a despairing father.

It could be that Omar feels the same way as I did then. Zealous and detached. Filled with desire to be swept along
by monumental change. Exhilaration and indifference. All fear suspended. The Devil speaks with the utmost sincerity—and abruptly I see it.

I’m expendable.

I’ve intentionally wandered quite far into the forest. I begin to panic. Fallen leaves rustle behind me. Firm hands grip my arms from the sides.

Two tribesmen exert gentle pressure and force me to turn around. I must be near the training area. They speak enough Bangla to tell me that I must head back to my tent. I argue and gesticulate. I have to see my nephew immediately. They smile and nod their understanding, without loosening their hold on me.

I’m propelled, between them, back through the trees. On the edge of the clearing they release me.

Head bowed, Omar is sitting in front of my tent.

The silence is disconcerting. It could be misconstrued as guilt, or defiance. But it’s the only response I have. Omar has accused
me
of misleading
him
.

Why was I so eager to come with him? How could I be naïve enough to think that someone can suddenly spurn affluence for the sake of starting a garment factory in a remote part of an underdeveloped country? What ‘adventure’ did I think he was going to provide?

Betrayal and cowardice, selfishness and indifference—I resist hurling some of these bitter allegations back. How could he be so presumptuous about my beliefs and the way I think? Why didn’t
he
tell me where we were headed?

My mind turns to the forbidden place somewhere beyond those trees. ‘How many men are you training here?’

‘Thirty-seven new recruits,’ he replies petulantly. ‘There are others who’ve been here longer.’

‘I recognised the man with the scar on his cheek.’

‘Hamid has decided to spend all his time with us.’ Omar looks troubled. ‘It was handy to have someone at the airport. But he has already been replaced there.’

‘You seem to have doubts about Hamid.’

‘We aren’t exactly friends. He comes from a poverty stricken background,’ Omar explains. ‘He resents taking orders from the descendant of a
zamindar
. He answers only to Amin Haider.’

‘Are there men from other countries?’

‘Yes.’

‘Arabs?’

‘They aren’t all Bangalis.’

‘Where will they go after training?’

‘Places far away.’

‘I saw tribal women bathing in the stream. But it didn’t appear as if they were intruders.’

‘They provide certain necessities. They’re here by choice, and we’re generous with money for them and their families.’

Omar appears to have calmed down. The best I can do is to plead the obvious with him. I think of the damage to Zia’s pride. To his expectation as a father. ‘I’ve no doubt you’re aware of the consequences of such extremism,’ I
venture. ‘If you’re trying to fight a war, it’s one you’ll never win!’

He spits on the ground with contempt. ‘A sycophant! Uncle, you’re a convert!’ He makes the sign of the cross. ‘War? We don’t have a conventional army. The other side does. There’ll never be a formal surrender on our part, with thousands of soldiers laying down their arms. No generals to sign admissions of defeat. Although we’ll lose many more than they will, the struggle will be on
our
terms. We aren’t located in large numbers in any one place, but we’re everywhere. We’re a presence and yet invisible. And we’re not about winning outright, but about eroding the enemy’s resolve, creating doubt. About saying that if you discriminate, exploit and hurt us, we’ll hit back. No one can
win
in this struggle.’

‘But the foolishness of what you’re doing to yourself!’ I throw up my hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘What’s to be gained from martyrdom?’

‘You’re so wrong!’ He shakes his head in admonishment. ‘I don’t plan to become a suicide bomber. I’ve not known the despair of men my age in the Middle East. I love life—but I’m not going to let it blind me to the abject plight of oppressed people.’

My only chance of reaching him is to do what he’s wanted for so long—explain myself. Maybe then he’ll think about knots in the soul. And because I’m compelled; it’s as if a projector begins to whirl inside me, casting images that have been packed up within me for so
long. These memories are also the present, and the future. It’s me. I become my own witness again.

I speak for nearly an hour, sparing no details of that crossover landscape of permanent twilight. ‘It was only after everything was over, after the celebrations had ended, the honours were bestowed, the glories enshrined and a country born, that I realised how broken up I was inside.’ A voiceless chamber, full of rubble, bereft of righteousness.

I look inwards and see a gathering of young men with lustreless eyes turned upon ceremonial proceedings. They are seated on the ground, their presence intended to pay homage to peerless acts of courage. Only a week previously, we were being treated as failures, bullied and badgered during interrogation.

Under an awning there are professional soldiers, honoured with medals that glint in the sun. Tokens of their proud achievements. Three of us stand on one side, listening to words of praise. I pay no attention to what’s being said. I’m engaged in coping with sounds that pierce and hurt my senses. They’re like shrapnel from an exploding bomb penetrating the sides of my head. Each of us marches up to the general standing on the platform and salutes. I have a medal pinned on my uniform.

I march back to my position amidst enthusiastic handclapping.

All I can focus on is the darkness of a warm, quiet night. Then the world begins to burn. I can hear a splash in the water. There’s another burst of clapping. Patriotic slogans. ‘We will prevail.’ ‘Sacrifices are necessary…’

But what about those who were killed? The innocents caught in the spiky wheel of war?

Omar looks thoughtful. Curiosity begins to prise open the shutter that’s dropped between us since we began the journey to the Hill Tracts. ‘I’ve never thought of you as being fragile, or susceptible to the past,’ he says.

‘Or battered and perpetually afraid?’ I add. ‘There’s no courage left in me.’

‘This is a damn awkward time to try and reinvent you. And yet I must, it seems.’

‘Why must you? Can’t you see why I would be unable to join you? Even if I believed in what you’re doing?’ I cannot say any more.

Omar looks unsure, as though his judgement is suspended between condemnation and acceptance. He continues to sneer at me. Then his expression softens. Perhaps for the first time he’s beginning to see me for what I am.

‘Give it away!’ I implore, sounding limp and inadequate. A single man’s words against a tidal force of history.

‘The world is more important than my family,’ he says. ‘And the reasons you’ve given me are unconvincing.’

T
HE DAY HAS
paled. I feel exhausted. Empty. The trees seem to have crept closer, a dark and brooding presence, sorrowful in their stillness. Thick grey clouds float above us. A wind whips up a swirl of dust. Fat raindrops begin to splatter the earth.

Omar starts to say something and then changes his mind. He strains to find the strands that could connect us again. ‘Did you learn anything new about Dada from the diaries?’

‘Yes. A part of his life I didn’t know about.’

‘What did you find?’

‘The man behind the father. He isn’t a figure of idealisation any more.’

‘Like you aren’t?’

I ignore the barb. ‘We stand on the same level. I can look him in the eyes. If we could communicate now, I’d talk to him about flaws, treachery and lies. Hurt and healing. Fallibilities in a genuine relationship. I feel for him more now than I did before.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Maybe because closeness is about shared imperfections. One may admire saints, but I doubt if you can have intimate relationships with them.’ The wind picks up again. ‘Will I be allowed to leave soon?’

Omar looks at the sky. He gets up and circles my tent, checking that the pegs are firmly embedded in the ground.

‘Will I have to see Amin Haider again?’

‘No,’ he says gravely. ‘Don’t wander too far from your tent. Bal will keep an eye on you…’

‘Bal?’

‘One of the guards. His mother and sisters work for me.’

Omar leaves, jogging to one of the other tents as the rain becomes heavier.

I think of Steven Mills. Is he journeying through the waterways of Sundarbans, heralded by the sounds of
snipes, woodcocks, sandpipers and yellowlegs among the dense foliage? Is he unaware of how elaborate the network of forests is? How far will he be led before he realises the hoax? I shudder at the thought of a sharp, single sound. Frightened birds desert their nests. Spotted deers dash blindly into the interior. Even a tiger or two might retreat.

Far away, in a different terrain, a woman is waiting for her husband’s return. Rattled civil servants and politicians will continue to wear their masks of ignorance. Eventually, the media will know. Screaming headlines. Indignation. Sanctimonious politicians waiting to be advised by bureaucrats. Calls for a Royal Commission.

The reverberations of one bullet across a nation.

The clouds thunder across the sky like a rabble army—unrestrained and full of wrath. They unleash sheets of water that flood the ground within seconds, then scuttle over the hills like a pack of wild dogs.

It’s over within minutes.

I’m left stranded in the middle of the tent—holding my bag over my head, watching the mattress float in a puddle of muddy water.

The absurdity of my helplessness is overwhelming. I’d laugh, but what chokes me is thinking that I might be the architect of these circumstances.

Did I actually mislead Omar into believing that I was willing to embrace a radical and violent cause?

D
USK IS ABOUT
an hour away. The water drains rapidly from inside the tent, leaving the ground a marled mess. The sky clears rapidly. I look towards the hills. A rainbow. Like a multicoloured bow of a giant archer. I think of what Amin Haider said. Somehow, the dancing devils seem threateningly real.

I look in the direction of the trees through which we came last night and note their position in relation to the tent. Casually, I walk from the entrance in a straight line and measure the number of steps it takes me to reach the trees. I close my eyes and count the same number of steps sauntering the other way. I miss the side of the tent by a narrow margin. Trying to look like I’m simply pacing, with each attempt I venture further into the trees. All I have to do is follow a straight line. If there’s a moon, then the task will become easier, although the likelihood of being spotted will be significantly increased. Crawling on my belly is the other option I’ve considered, though it’s many years since I’ve done that. Not for an instant do I admit the foolhardiness of these plans. Whatever the dangers, I shall have to take the risk. Sometime after midnight.

For now I must pass the time. I turn to the diary to take my mind off the present. The wet mattress feels cool under me and not as uncomfortable as I’d anticipated.

S
UMITA DID NOT
show up for lunch. According to a servant at her uncle’s house in Ballyganj, Rani had fallen sick with influenza. Abba cancelled his return to Dhaka and made new arrangements to meet them. This time Sumita came alone. Rani had still not recovered.

Lunch was a tense affair. Sumita alternated between coyness and shrewishness. If Abba loved Rani as much as he claimed, then he would at least ensure her financial security. Sumita had assessed my father with considerable acumen. Unlike many of the men in our family, Abba was a believer in fair conduct. ‘It characterises the quality of your life,’ he told us once, after a villager had come to him about inadequate payment for a fence he had erected for us.

The diary entries for the next couple of months are sporadic and short. Abba stayed in Dhaka, and sold some shares and a house in the older part of the city. He wrote several letters to Sumita and received one reply, confirming their next meeting in Kolkata. I flip forward, vainly hoping to find Sumita’s letter stuck between the pages.

Judging by what Abba wrote after he returned to Kolkata in September 1963, Rani must have had a grand time. Abba gave her toys from the New Market, clothes and chocolates. Rides in horse-drawn carriages and visits to the cinemas to watch cartoons. They spent entire afternoons strolling on Park Street, dawdling over peach melbas and tutti-fruttis in ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Kwality’, buying cakes from ‘Flury’s’. Abba must have conjured up
a world of near perfection for his daughter, and he recorded every happy detail. There’s no mention of Sumita now, even though her shadowy presence is in some of his comments: Rani is not allowed to eat in places where beef is on the menu, and there are restrictions on how long she can stay out in the evenings.

It’s mean-minded of me to think back and make an odious comparison, but I cannot ever recall being treated as extravagantly in my childhood. Though there are no redemptive qualities in retrospective jealousy, I can’t help wishing that Abba had been equally indulgent with us.

It’s the recording of the last meeting with Sumita that saddens me the most. Even with my determination to be charitable about my father’s past, I cannot exonerate him for the recklessness of his final gesture. Anxious to take care of his daughter’s future, Abba gave Sumita a cheque for 100,000 rupees, gold jewellery—and 200 black pearls.

My thoughts jump to Uncle Musa. In the affair of the missing jewellery he had always pleaded his innocence, and we’d never believed him. Zia’s presumption about Uncle Musa’s guilt now suggests that my brother had merely skimmed over parts of Abba’s diaries.

Uncle Musa’s complaints about victimisation were not the ramblings of a guilty old man. He had every right to be bitter. Not even for a fleeting moment had we considered that Abba could have been the culprit.

I go over the entry again. There’s no mention of the
armlet. Its disappearance from Ismael Alam’s safe is to remain a mystery.

I follow the rest of my father’s story as though it’s fiction. I get involved. I imagine, take sides and make judgements. After the way he has squandered the family’s fortunes, I want this character to be wretched and hurt. I even create a scene in which he seeks our forgiveness in a state of guiltridden anguish. We lash out in fury and humiliate him.

Eventually, though, I come to the reality of Abba’s present condition, and the futility of imagining a confrontation with him about his past. It might seem easy to think there’s belated justice in his suffering. But all my outrage is superseded by the image of Abba as a broken old man destined to die in the confusion of guilt. My father—deceitful, cunning…impulsive. But my father nonetheless.

Abba never saw Sumita or Rani again after his generous gesture. Sumita reneged on her promise to live in Kolkata and allow him access to his daughter. She simply disappeared. Abba reasoned that her family conspired with her to cover the trail. No one knew where she’d gone. Of course Abba didn’t go to the police. He did employ several private detectives to look for his daughter, without success. His obsession with Rani’s disappearance dominates the rest of the diary.