The Bones of Grace (19 page)

Finally we decided it was time to go. Gabriela had parked in front of a small line of shops. The car came into view and she was jostling the keys in her hand when we saw a man walking purposefully towards us. He stopped and said, ‘Megna.' I thought he was calling to someone behind me, so I brushed past him, but he turned and raised his voice. ‘Megna, Megna!' Gabriela took hold of my arm and we were almost at the car, but he followed and came right up to my face. I found my voice and I asked him what he wanted. ‘Don't you know me?' he said. I shook my head and tried to push him aside, and that's when he did it. He put his hands on my arms and turned me around and held me where I stood, his fingers digging into my flesh. I shouted at him to let go. ‘Megna,' he said again, ‘don't be angry.' He was saying ‘Megna, Megna, Megna' and I was trying to wrestle out of his grip, and then a few seconds later Gabriela was shouting too, and when he heard her voice the man let go and looked over at Gabriela, and then
he looked down at my clothes, my long-sleeved tunic and jeans, and he stepped back, his hand over his mouth. ‘Allah,' he said, shaking his head, and he turned around and I watched him sit down, right there on the road. Another man came out and dragged him away, and they disappeared into a barber-shop. I bundled myself into the car and cried as if this man had beaten me, punched me straight in the face and broken my nose.

It was him, Elijah. It was Anwar. I can't imagine what he must have felt, believing I was the woman he had been searching for, only to realise I was nothing more than a stranger. And he must have been afraid, because I could have had him arrested. In fact, once I was home, I called Rashid and that's exactly what he told me to do: file a report with the police. We argued; I said the man hadn't really done anything, and Rashid told me I was foolish for always feeling sorry for people who didn't deserve it. Then he said he was leaving for a business trip to China and that he'd be gone for a few weeks, maybe even a month. Did I want to see him before he left? No, I said, angry now because he was so quick to throw a man in jail, and perhaps anticipating another, worse argument we would someday have about this very man. ‘I'll see you when you get back,' I snapped, and put the phone down.

This is how Anwar jolted himself into my life. By accosting me on the street and insisting I was someone else. I quickly forgot the woman's name. Megna. Nothing to me, right? Nothing but everything. But that's for later. Don't blame me for parsing out the story slowly, Elijah. These things take time, and I seem to have all the time in the world, because you never appear at the traffic lights any more; I've
sometimes waited at the coffee shop across the street, reading
Anna Karenina
and looking up every few minutes to see if I've conjured you, but there's no trace of you there or anywhere else in this cold, cold city.

You are about to arrive on the beach, and the very best and the very worst things are about to happen. These memories, if you choose to linger on them, will be the ones that pain you most. The ones that will make you want to stop, burn this letter, and never think of me again. So, before you read on, read this first: another love story, another quest, that of Anwar, a man who both rejected and accepted his fate, a man who protested silently, for his whole life, against the many injustices the world had decided to mete out to him. Read him gently, dear Elijah; let your gaze on this page soften; remember that he had nothing to do with my treatment of you, so regard him with kindness and judge him like the innocent he is.

The Testimony of Anwar

I How I Got Everything

Foreman likes to hoist the new ones up, see what they're made of. Some of them have never climbed higher than a tree in their village. Back home the place is flat, flat. I'm here nine years, I know what's what, so I tell them, don't look, don't look. Hold the torch in one hand, like this, and keep your eye on one screw at a time. From here to here, I show them, holding my fingers apart an inch, maybe an inch and a half. Your eye will see this much, no more. Understand?

I don't tell them the whole story. Whole story is this: you look down, you die. You see the world has shrunk below you. You call God but no one answers. You recite the Kalma. You see God is not there. You piss your pants. No one is watching. No one cares about your shitty speck of a life. The people below are specks and you are a speck. God looks down and sees nothing but tiny ants below Him. You choke. You move your legs. You scream. The building shifts, it moves, it throws you up, it throws you over. You're done for, a chapatti. They scrape you off the pavement; they don't even write to your family. Months later, someone will
go to your village and tell the news to your people. And that will be the end of your life.

All this I don't say. I say only what is useful.

This new kid won't listen. Came in with a swagger – I spotted it right away, the way he moved his legs and his trousers hanging, his head loose on his shoulder, nodding, doesn't look down when foreman is talking, raises his head and gives two eyes to the boss. Eye for an eye. Foreman smiles. I know that smile; it means I'll take that two-eyed look right out of your skull. Soon you'll be like the rest of them, giving me the top of your head and mumbling into your shirt.

‘I have schooling, sir,' the kid says. ‘Intermediate Pass.'

Foreman says, ‘Crane will take you to the top.' And the kid says, ‘
Yessir
.' as if he's been given a gift. All that school, he doesn't even know when his ass is being strung up.

Later I ask the kid where his people are. We're on the same sleeping shift, starts two in the afternoon, the shed hot as an animal's mouth. You can't touch the metal rails on the bunk, you just jump on the mattress and pray for a breeze.

He says he's a Pahari, says it with a little edge, like, I'm a Pahari, you gonna fuck with me? I've never seen such pride in a tribal, and I say, ‘So what, no one cares here.'

Army took our village, so I had to come here, make some money. He shrugs like he doesn't mind but I can see when he closes his eyes he's going to dream about college, hearing his name in the roll-call, getting his degree and spending his life in a shirt with buttons and getting some respect. Someday, someone might even call him ‘sir'. Buy a scooter and get himself a salty wife.

But now he is here. ‘Shit,' he says, ‘it's like a fry pan inside.'

It's only March. Wait a few months, I tell him. Then
you'll see what hell feels like. Then I give him my two paisa little bit of advice. I tell him, ‘Stay away from foreman and keep your mouth shut. And when he hauls you up, whatever you do, don't look down.' The kid nods, but I know what he's thinking, thinking it's not going to be him at the end of a rope.

I go to my bunk and try to sleep. This month I'm in the middle. We take turns, Hameed, Malek and me. Top bunk is hottest, but there's a breeze, if you can catch it, from a small window out of the side of the shed. Bottom bunk is cooler, but closer to the ground and the toilet stink is strong. Middle is the worst, like being sandwiched between two asses, especially because this month I've got Malek on top. He makes the springs creak as he pleasures himself to sleep. I'm used to the steady rhythm of it, I don't say anything. A man has his needs, out here in the desert. Myself, I can't do it. I reach down and Megna's face comes into my head. She won't let me sleep. I see her little tears and she's asking me to stay – ‘What will I do when the baby comes?' And I'm saying no, I'm shrugging. I'm calling her a slut, even though I know it was her first time, and I'd told her I loved her and meant it, except my uncle is there too, and he's telling me, ‘Dubai, Dubai, son, it's like paradise, shopping malls and television and air con. Marry my daughter and the ticket is in your hand.' ‘You're a slut,' I tell Megna, and I swivel around and leave her there, except I don't leave her, because whenever I try to get myself a little something, like a piece of sleep or a full stomach, she comes out and she comes out strong. I want to know what she did to the little seed I planted in her, where does it live, does it know me, and does it have the eyes of its mother? I'm in the dark and I can't sleep. Malek sighs, rolls over, and the room gets hotter and the stink rises.

Too quickly the sleep shift is over and it's time to get back to the site. Pahari kid is about to get his first kick in the head, but he doesn't know it, he just pulls on his uniform like he's the sheikh himself. I have to throw water on Malek's face to wake him up. He curses me and jumps down. The floor vibrates. Next shift is already waiting outside – it's dark, and starting to cool down, the lucky bastards.

The bus drops us at the canteen. Hameed sits at the end of the table so people can bring him the letters. He's the only one who can read. We pay him a few dirhams to tell us the news from home. He reads me letters from my darkie wife, she says, ‘Take care don't forget to eat and does it get cold do you have a shawl?' The others are always laughing – ‘She's going to tell you how to wipe the shit from your ass,' they say. I laugh with them. Stupid girl. I don't write back.

Hameed says sometimes he changes the letters, because there's only so much a man can take. Last week he read that Chottu's mother had died. Poor bastard's only been here a month, still cries every time he has to stand out in the baking hot, carrying bricks on his head. So Hameed told him his mother was well, much better, in fact, since he started sending money for her asthma medicine. Later, when Chottu gets hard like the rest of us, Hameed will tell him the truth. And by then he won't even stop to take a breath.

The canteen manager is Filipino, so stingy we get a piece of bread, dal and a few vegetables, and even that they cut from our pay. Eid comes he gives us meat, but only bones and fat. One thing my uncle said was true – as much Coke as we want, straight out of a spout.

‘Tareque Bhai,' Hameed says, ‘your sister has given birth to a healthy baby boy.'

‘Mashallah,' Tareque Bhai says. Tareque has been here the longest and he has gone the religious way. Two ways a man can go here, in the direction of God or the direction of believing there is nothing up there but a sun that will kill you whether you pray five times or not.

We wash our hands and head to the site. They've turned the lights on, the buildings are winking. We come to the Mall of Dubai, which Tareque Bhai remembers was only a few years ago a pile of rubble, and Pahari kid says, ‘Why don't we walk through here?' And we all look at him like he was born yesterday. Even dumber than I thought.

‘You can't go in there,' I say.

‘Why, is there a law?'

‘Doesn't have to be a law.'

‘I'm going in,' he says, loose, like it's the easiest thing in the world. ‘Anyone coming with me?'

I think Hameed's going – those book-learning types always stick together – but it's Malek that breaks off and joins him and I'm cursing myself for not grabbing him before it's too late, telling him, don't even smell that, it'll kill you.

The rest of us make tracks, shaking our heads. This month, Hameed and me are in the hole. Two buildings going up side by side. We call them ‘Bride and Groom'. Bride is almost finished, Groom still in foundations. ‘Fifty-fifty,' they tell us, fifty storeys for Bride, fifty for Groom. Who knows what they'll name it once it's finished? Burj-al-Arab-al-Sheikh-al-Maktoum-al-kiss-my-ass. Shit, if I said that aloud I would be finished. I giggle to myself and Hameed swings his arm around my shoulder, laughing with me even though he hasn't heard the joke.

Bride and Groom make me think of darkie wife. She was the skinniest, ugliest girl I ever saw. I took one look
at her and I swear a few tears came to my eyes. To this girl I was going to be tied for life? ‘Just do it,' my mother said, ‘you won't even see her for years. Who knows what will happen between now and then? But give us a grandchild, something to keep us company while you're gone.'

I did my duty. Girl started to cry and I even felt a little sorry for her, though I was also thinking, two times I've done it and both times the girl has burst into tears – something wrong with me or what? Next day I took her to the cinema, but even Shah Rukh Khan couldn't wipe the sad from her face.

We climb down and the bright lights make the hole turn blue-grey. The diggers are awake and we start to haul the dirt around, everything dry and sucked of life.

I pick up a basket. I wonder if Malek and Pahari have made it out of the mall without getting their eyes pulled out, and just as I'm imagining what it must have looked like, two guys in their blue jumpsuits staring at those diamond-necked swans of Dubai, I feel a jab in my side, and there's Malek, laughing so hard I can see the gap where he lost a tooth last year after biting down on a piece of candy he bought from the Filipino. ‘Worth it,' he'd said, ‘I never tasted anything so good.' Now he's telling me about the mall, the cold air that made your sweat dry to salt, and the high ceilings, and the women, the women, didn't cover their legs, no, or even their breasts. ‘Breasts, man, like you wouldn't believe.' He slaps me hard on the back, shaking up my basket so I can taste the dirt. ‘Go to work,' I say, but he's too busy talking, and now some of the other boys, Hameed and even Tareque Bhai, have joined in, and I can see them all thinking it could be them next, them in the ice-cream cold of the mall, gaping
and staring and taking a little slice of heaven back to the hole to chew over.

Worst of all, Pahari kid got hauled up to the top of Bride and nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. He swung like a monkey and laughed his way through the shift. Turns out those tribals like floating on top of buildings, hitched up so the whole world is spread below them.

For the next two weeks, every day, Malek and Pahari pass through the Mall of Dubai on their way to the site. They take their jumpsuits in a plastic bag and go in wearing trousers and T-shirts. One day Malek comes over to my bunk with a pair of sunglasses draped over his eyes. ‘Look,' he says, ‘I'm James Bond now.'

I keep my head down. I have debts to pay, I can't take the chance.

Once, only once, I am tempted. They are going to the cinema – not the cheap, rundown place by the camp, I'm talking a brand-new theatre, air con, seats like pillows. Pahari knows this guy at the ticket stall, been wooing him since day one, going up and talking about home, saying
yaar
this and
my friend
that. And finally the guy gave it up, late show on Monday nights usually empty, come in with the cleaning crew and sit at the back. Four people, max. Don't get me fired or I'll tell the cops everything, even about the girl.

Pahari has a girlfriend. Not even a darkie or a chink, a proper fair-faced blondie, a shopgirl who sells perfume. He leans over the counter and she smiles like she's seen a film star. We huddle close to Pahari, trying to catch a whisper of that girl's smell.

While we're heaving bags of sand to Groom, Pahari and Malek start arguing about what to see. Malek says it has to
be the new
Dhoom
. But our boy wants to see an English film. ‘What you're going to do with an English film, you little shit?' But Pahari's not thinking about himself, he's thinking of his girl, moving his hand in the dark, cupping her knee, fingering the edge of her skirt, and what's going to make her open up, a movie with mummy-daddy and fake kissing and chasing around trees, or real humpty-dumpty, tongues and blonde hair and New York City?

Pahari has a point, but I'm just hauling the sand, keeping my head low. Wife has sent another letter. April and the waters are going up, up. Last week my brother, who works at a weaving mill, came home with a bad leg. Needs an operation. Can I send money? I shove the letter under my mattress.

Send money, send money. All anyone ever wants. I have to ask for an advance, so I crawl to foreman. He's got a toothpick hanging from the side of his mouth, and he twirls it around and around. ‘You Bangladeshis,' he says, ‘can't hold on to your money,
na
. Look at this.' He points to a big black book, lines of names. ‘Everyone borrowing, nobody saving. You're going to drown, all of you.'

He opens his mouth, toothpick falls out, frayed and shining with spit. Should I pick it up? I stare at my feet.

‘How much you want?'

I don't know why, but I don't say anything for a long time. Pahari and Malek are going to the movies tonight. He's going to lean back on that chair and swing his arm over his girl. He's going to sip Coke through a straw and the music will breeze through him, free and liquid.

Then I say, ‘I have been loyal, sir.'

Foreman leans back. Chair squeaks like a dying mouse.

‘Sure, you never stole.'

‘Yes, sir. I always do what you say.'

I lift my chin a little and he knows what I'm talking about, the little cover-ups, taking a few bags of cement off the truck, losing a little cash. The boss, the sheikh with three wives, always wearing a prayer cap and telling us to call him Master Al-Haj because he goes to Saudi every year and kisses the Prophet's grave – he wouldn't miss a few things here and there. A sack of rivets, a few pots of paint were nothing to him.

So you're telling me what,
na
, that I should be grateful? Fresh toothpick in his mouth. Now I'm thinking about Megna, her crazy thick river of hair, how she smelled so good and told me I should be a proud man. Nothing to be proud of, I always said.