The Bones of Grace (39 page)

Gabriela and I sat in silence, then, for a long time, until it was almost morning. I had to leave – Rashid would arrive
in a few hours. We agreed to return to the injured workers' hut the following afternoon, with Mo, and decide together what to do about the film. I left Gabriela dozing in the brightening day, her arm thrown over her eyes, as if she wanted to go back in time and erase the sight of everything she had seen in the last months.

I went to pick Rashid up at the airport. I don't know what I expected to feel when I saw him; I was raw from the night before, tired and full of uncertainty, and I thought maybe if I tried to reach out, tried to tell him something about what had happened, we might make a connection. He had just seen me, and we were waving to each other, and I was telling myself I was doing the right thing to let him in, when he stopped to talk to a man in a dark suit. The man put his arm around Rashid's shoulder and they passed through the gates and came towards me.

‘Darling,' Rashid said. ‘This is uncle Harry.'

Harry reached out and shook my hand. He was wearing gloves. ‘What a pleasure,' he said. ‘I have heard so much.'

‘Zubaida's been staying here. Taking in the Chittagong air.'

I smiled distractedly, wondering how long we would have to stay and make small talk. ‘Yes, I know,' Harry said. ‘Ali has told me everything.'

I turned to Rashid. ‘Ali?'

‘Uncle Harry owns the shipyard,' Rashid said.

Harrison Master. Uncle Harry. ‘Prosperity,' Harry said. ‘My father loved that place. I don't care for it much, but he made me promise we wouldn't sell.' He took a tube of chapstick out of his pocket and smeared it over his lips.

Here was my chance. Gabriela and I had wondered, time and again, what sort of people would own businesses like
these – well here was a man standing right before me, and I could ask him anything. How do you feel, sir, about lining your pockets with the broken backs of poor farmers from the north? And was it your idea to take a group of injured men and lock them away for the sake of your business? Of course I didn't say anything. I even managed a smile as we parted, watching Harry's companion, a man I hadn't seen at first, pull a comb out of his pocket and smooth Harry's hair before they exited the airport.

In the car on the way home, I exploded at Rashid. ‘You couldn't suck up to him any more if you were a mosquito on his leg.'

‘Oh, hell, Zee I was trying to be nice. For your sake.'

‘That man should be thrown in jail. No, shot by a firing squad.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘You have no idea what they do to these people.' I was angrier at myself than anything else; a lifetime of living with my mother should have taught me better. Of course the stories were worse than they first appeared; of course Ali was hiding the really dark truth; of course there was something dirtier, something more frightening, underneath.

It started to rain. ‘You can't fix everything,' Rashid said.

‘Everything? I haven't fixed a damn thing.'

‘If you want to feel guilty about something, there's a lot to choose from.'

I had given him a lifetime of ammunition. He would forgive me, I knew that, but I could see now that he would be free to throw it back in my face at any time. Isn't that what people do, accrue debts they end up paying off for the rest of their lives, waiting for something to happen that will narrow the difference between themselves and the people they destroyed? I couldn't tell him any of
it, I could see that now. We rode home in silence, beside each other in the back seat of his car, and I wondered if I was the only one who felt we were far, far away from each other, or if he, too, felt the distance stretching open between us.

Komola and Joshim greeted us gaily at the door. The rest of the family would arrive soon. ‘Go upstairs,' Komola said, ‘dress up for your mother-in-law.'

I went upstairs and saw that Komola had laid out my clothes. A green silk sari, the matching blouse and petticoat were all ironed and on the bed. Rashid was still steaming over our argument. ‘I'm going to play golf,' he said, changing into shorts and a polo shirt. ‘I'll be back in time for dinner.'

I showered, trying to put aside the sight of the injured workers, but there was too much there, Mo and Gabriela and you, always you hovering at the edge of my thoughts. I lay back on the bed, my hair blotting the bedcover.

When it was time to get dressed I realised I needed help putting on my sari. Komola wasn't in the living room or kitchen. I made my way to the back of the house to the servants' quarters. A narrow cement staircase led to the rooms above the garage. The washing – a checked lungi and a red petticoat – hung between two metal pegs at the top of the stairs and created a barrier over the open door. I called out and waited, heard nothing in return, and was about to turn back, already feeling like an intruder, when I heard shuffling from inside. Komola came out, fiddling with the soft cotton folds of her sari.

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘I'm disturbing you.'

‘I was praying,' Komola said.

‘How long have you lived here?' I asked, catching a glimpse of her cluttered room, the trunks stacked up against
the wall, clothes folded in an open shelf, a small round mirror nailed to the wall.

‘Since I was a girl,' Komola said, pinning her hair with a quick motion of her wrist. ‘Before you were born.'

I was about to ask her more, about where she had come from, where her people were, but Komola was uncomfortable, closing the makeshift curtain behind her.

‘Can you help me with my sari?'

She followed me back inside and up the stairs. I changed into my blouse and petticoat and started on the sari, but Komola took it from me, searching for the correct side, controlling the long, liquid fabric. I thought about how she always looked at me slightly indirectly, her head tilted down or to the side, but she was bold now, folding and tucking. ‘Apa, there's something,' she said. ‘I heard you crying in your room. Why?'

Had I been crying? I couldn't remember. ‘It's nothing; don't trouble yourself.'

She made pleats, holding the end of my sari between her teeth. ‘I knew you when you were a baby, you know.' The words came out narrow.

I took a moment for this to sink in. It wasn't unlikely – my parents had brought me here as a child to visit Dolly and Bulbul. Perhaps she had seen me then, peeling leaves off the banana plants. I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘You've been here a long time,' I said.

She passed the anchal behind me and over my shoulder. Then she crouched down and took hold of the pleats. I looked down at her and I could see the wide parting of her hair and the grey streaks that fanned out on either side. This was the head of a woman who had been parting her hair the same way her whole life, committing the same rituals, washing, oiling, braiding. Perhaps, as an occasional
indulgence, she had once or twice bought herself a clip.

When she was finished with the hem, she took a safety pin from her own blouse and started attaching my anchal. Her touch was light, her fingers papery, their lines deep and serrated. ‘Tell me,' I whispered, ‘did I seem all right?' What I meant to ask was, did I seem
different
, as in, different from the rest of them, born fully into privilege, but I couldn't quite get the words out.

‘You were a sweet child. Maybe a little lonely.'

She was finished. I sat down on the bed. My hands started to shake and Komola took them between hers.

‘I feel lonely now.'

‘God has blessed you.'

The breaths came so sharply out of me that I could hardly speak. ‘My mother – was she – did she love me?'

Komola put her arms around me, her body as soft as a whisper. ‘She followed you like a hawk.' She kissed the top of my head and retreated. I had embarked on what I must have thought was a heroic journey, but all I had done was wound the people I loved, starting with my mother, that wild bird who had been tamed and chastened by her desire for me.

An hour passed. I waited in the bedroom, draped in the green silk, until I heard Dolly and Bulbul at the door, and then I descended the stairs to the living room.

Komola and Joshim had gone to great trouble with the house. The furniture was primped; the glass cabinets that housed the family's baubles – the porcelain shepherdess that Dolly had collected on a trip to the Wedgwood factory, the blown Venetian glass, the gold painted Thai woodwork – were dusted and polished so that their contents gleamed from within.

The formal living room was opened and I was able to
see it for the first time. It was such a large room that Dolly had made four separate seating arrangements within, each with its own colour scheme and design. There was the leather suite on the eastern side, where the coconut trees cast their narrow shadows; the blue sofa and loveseat looked west; along the north–south axis of the room, a grey corner unit and a French-looking suite with carved wooden armrests faced each other. It shouldn't have worked, but it did, in the peculiar way of excess. When I entered the room, I asked myself how Dolly chose between one sofa and another. Did she enter the room and think to herself, I'm going to enjoy the sun on the leather settee today, or today I want to pretend to be Marie Antoinette so I'll make myself at home on the gold-tipped chair? Now Dolly was sitting upright on the blue loveseat, and when I entered the room, not for the first time I was a little afraid of her. She was heavily made up, a pair of thick gold bangles wrapped around her wrists, reading the newspaper with her Pomeranian, Clooney, draped across her feet.

‘Hello,' I said. ‘How was your flight?'

‘Fine. But your father-in-law is exhausted, he went to take a nap.' She folded her hands on her lap. ‘Tea, darling?'

‘All right.'

Dolly pressed a button on a small rectangular object – her calling bell – and Komola appeared. ‘Bring bou-ma her green tea. And snacks.'

‘Aren't we having dinner?'

‘It's early,' she said, looking at the slim gold watch on her wrist. ‘Baby Babu isn't even home yet.'

Dolly watched me lift a roast-beef sandwich from the trolley. ‘You skipped lunch, didn't you, sweetheart? I told you, you have to eat.'

I nodded, taking a large bite.

‘And I've heard all about your … friend.'

The white, crustless bread swelled in my mouth. I remembered reading a story about how several people die every year in Japan while attempting to eat mochi rice cakes. I had tried mochi once, and found it quite disgusting. I wished now that it had killed me.

‘I thought you looked a little unsettled. So I made a few phone calls. Everyone knows everything, my dear. You should have been more careful.'

I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes. ‘I'm sorry.' How many times had I said that?

‘Does Rashid know?'

I took a sip of tea. The lump of sandwich travelled slowly, painfully, down my throat. ‘Yes.'

Clooney shifted, raised himself up, and reapplied his torso over Dolly's feet. Dolly lowered a bangled hand and scratched behind his ear. ‘Poor Baby Babu.'

‘I didn't mean to—'

‘Of course you didn't. But you did.' She sucked in her lips, redistributing her lipstick. ‘People warned us, you know. But I told them there was no way you would disrespect Rashid, or us.'

Lately there had been a few stories in the papers about how Bangladesh was built on a major fault line. That the apartment buildings in the big cities were too close together, put up without any regard for safety, and even a tiny tremor would be catastrophic. If ever there was a time for an earthquake, this would be it. The house would slide down the hill and this conversation would end. The rest of the sandwich sat in my hand. ‘It was a mistake,' I said, using my free hand to wipe my mouth. For a few minutes, there was only the sound of me sobbing, and the rustle of my sari as I shifted to find a tissue on the side table.

Dolly summoned Komola again. ‘Take the trolley away,' she scolded. ‘Can't you see she's finished?'

When the tray was cleared, she turned to me again. ‘I've been trying to protect you all these years. Making you feel it didn't matter where you came from. Treating you like you were my own daughter. But you have disappointed me. And I can only assume it's your bad background.' She dropped it in casually, like a cube of sugar into a warm mug of tea. I looked up to see if she regretted the words as she uttered them, but she looked at ease with herself as she always did.

I was emboldened by this revelation of fact and prejudice. ‘If it was so bad, why did you agree to the marriage?'

Dolly ran her hands up and down the armrest of her chair. ‘You're not a mother, you wouldn't understand.'

It would be easy to assume she had hated me all along, but I knew this was not the whole truth. There was loyalty in her acceptance of the match, a genuine regard for my parents, and not a small amount of affection for me. I had squandered all of this.

‘Anyway, what's done is done. I don't know if Rashid will forgive you. That is between you. But you will never be the same to me. And I'm no longer willing to protect you.'

I wasn't sure what she meant; I could only assume she would speak openly and publicly about who I was, so that if word got out about what I had done, or if Rashid and I were to break up, she would have an easy explanation.

‘I had a servant girl,' she continued. ‘She heard us talking about your parents – we talked about it all the time, the tests, the doctors. They tried so hard. This girl came to me and told me a girl in her village was – that she needed help. We went to Mymensingh, we met the girl. The husband
had abandoned her. She had no money, nothing. We paid her twenty thousand.'

‘You bought me?'

‘Don't be naive. The girl needed money.' It was hard – impossible, really – to imagine myself at the centre of this drama. That money would have exchanged hands. And then, me, a salve for my mother's wounds. Komola appeared at the periphery of my vision, switching on a lamp in a corner of the room. I heard the distant rumble of thunder. In a few minutes, I would hear water pounding the trees and the lawn. Dolly shifted; she was going to get up and leave me there in the dark room with my red face and the sandwich still in my palm. ‘And there was one more thing,' she said, pointing her toe. ‘I haven't wanted to mention it, but like I said, I don't consider you mine any more, so you might as well know. The girl didn't tell us at first, but when we got to the village, there were two babies.'