The Good Muslim (29 page)

The water was lukewarm, metallic. She drank it down. ‘So, this is your new place? What is it?’

‘A meeting house.’

‘Can anyone join?’

‘If they wish to, yes.’ He sighed heavily, then surprised her by putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘Is something troubling you, Maya?’

She decided to tread lightly. ‘That day, at the hospital,’ she said, ‘what did you whisper to Ammoo?’

‘Surah Yasin.’ His voice was tender, heavy with love. ‘Waalqurani alhakeemi, Innaka lamina almursaleena . . .’ It must have been this that roused Ammoo, the call of her firstborn. The miracle of his voice.

‘She’s much better, you know. She’s walking around and everything.’

A rickshaw pulled up in front of them. ‘Jaben?’ asked the driver, ringing the bell.

Maya was about to wave him away, but Sohail said, ‘Wait over there. Apa will need to get home soon.’

‘Sohail, please, let me come inside. I need to speak with you.’

He said nothing, just stood in front of the door as if he were guarding what was inside. She realised she would have to tell him right there, on the street. ‘It’s about Zaid.’ She checked his face to see if he knew, if he had any idea. ‘I heard he ran away. When Ammoo was in the hospital.’

Sohail sighed. His hand was heavy on her shoulder.

‘Did he tell you why he ran away?’

He shook his head. A weary, resigned shake. ‘The Huzoor said—’

‘It’s the Huzoor I want to talk to you about. There’s something going on, something not right – I saw Zaid, he didn’t look well. Ammoo was going into hospital that day, or I would have come to you.’ She was making excuses for herself. If only Zaid hadn’t arrived at that moment, if only she had taken him to the hospital with her. ‘The point is, you have to get him out of there,’ she said. ‘It’s not a safe place, not a place for children. That Huzoor is doing things, I don’t know exactly what, but the children have no defence against him. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

He turned away from her. Across the road, the rickshaw-wallah had curled up on the seat of his vehicle. The city sounds faded in and out, lorries labouring in the distance, the wheeze of carriages on the railway line. She reached for his hand, imagining the shock of it sinking slowly through him. When he turned around and spoke, his voice was cracked. ‘He lies, you know that. He lies all the time.’ A deep furrow between his eyes.

‘I know, but you can’t take the risk. Even if there’s a slight chance he’s telling the truth, you have to get him out of there. And I’m telling you, he didn’t look well. Rokeya said—’

‘You’ve seen Rokeya?’

‘I delivered her baby this morning.’

‘Sister Khadija was insulted by the way she left the jamaat.’ The evidence was getting shakier, less reliable.

‘The madrasa is not a good place, Bhaiya.’

‘You’re hardly objective.’ He was using both hands to smooth down his beard. The purple bruise on his forehead reflected the dying light. The devout believed that on the Day of Judgement, it would shine like a beacon, and she imagined it now, light pouring from his forehead, like a miner’s headlamp.

‘You’ll go tomorrow, then?’

He paused, pulling harder on his beard, taming the curl of it. ‘He is my son. I will ensure his safety.’

‘Promise me you’ll go tomorrow.’

‘I cannot promise you that.’

He could not mean what he appeared to be saying. He wouldn’t go, he wouldn’t rescue his son from whatever hellhole he had sent him to. ‘You want him to be just like you, is that it?’

Sohail took a step towards her, and he was close, very close, when he said, ‘I want, more than anything else, for him not to become like me. That is why I sent him away.’

It didn’t make any sense. She told him so. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ He kissed her gently, missing her forehead, his lips landing on her eyebrow. She held herself stiffly, wondering what to do now. All this time she had been waiting for something noble to come out of him. At the hospital, she had had an inkling of it. He had gone to Ammoo’s bedside, he had recited the words. At the time she had thought this might be enough. But he had not believed her. He would not rescue his son.

By the time she got home, Ammoo was already asleep. Maya packed a small bag. A toothbrush, a change of clothes. Then, thinking of Rokeya’s sister, she climbed up on to the roof and quietly pulled a long black chador and a nikab from the washing line. She wrote a note and left it on Ammoo’s bedside table. ‘I need to go back to Rajshahi for a few days. A few things to collect.’

Before slipping out into the morning, the sky pink and amber, she dialled Joy’s number. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, sleep thick in his voice. ‘Changed your mind?’

‘No.’

‘Good. We can elope, you know. Kazi offices all over the country. Slip them a few bucks and they’ll do it on the spot.’

She told him she was going to Rajshahi for a few days. ‘Let me come with you.’

‘No. But I need a favour.’

‘Anything.’

‘I want you to find someone for me. Someone I lost in the war.’

The Following Day

There was always this: the Jamuna River, even in its diminished winter state, beating powerfully against its banks. Although she had raced here, Maya paused now for a moment before boarding the ferry, savouring the loam and brown silt of it. Little, in this country, inspired awe, but this river, thick and dangerous, was a wonder.

The ferry was crowded on this Saturday morning. Maya took her seat on the lower deck. A blaze of the siren, and the ferry picked up speed, tilting like a rocking chair as it hit the Jamuna current.

She knew little about the madrasa apart from the few clues she had been able to piece together. Sohail had told her he was taking the boy to Chandpur, and Zaid had said the madrasa was on its own island in the middle of the river. She had looked on a map, and found three different Chandpurs. Only one was near a river. At dawn, before she departed, she had gone upstairs and questioned Khadija, who had told her nothing. You no longer visit us, she said.

Maya had allowed herself to be duped. All those afternoons she had spent, drunk on the possibility that there might be some other hand in her mother’s illness, a divine hand she could manoeuvre with the help of Khadija and the jamaat. How could she have been so foolish? She should never have allowed Sohail to take Zaid to the madrasa. Ammoo’s illness had clouded her judgement. And when Zaid had come to her, she had swatted him away. What kind of mother would she make? She couldn’t even see the thing that was right before her eyes.

The cabin was packed now, and thick with heat. Being inside was making her thirsty. She stepped on to the deck and leaned her arms against the railing, tiny droplets of water landing on her face.

She found a cold-drinks stall. A boy with a lungi hitched up around his thighs squatted in front of a tub of ice and soft drinks. ‘Coke, please,’ she said. He looked about twelve, strong arms protruding from a vest that used to be white. He pulled a bottle out of the tub, wiped it with a cloth and opened it against the battered wooden table in front of him.

She gave him five taka. He caught her eye and smiled so broadly, so hopefully, that she found herself asking him why he wasn’t in school.

He shrugged, still smiling.

‘Where do you live?’

‘On this ferry. The driver is my uncle.’

A large family approached the stall and ordered their drinks. ‘Three Mirindas and seven 7 Ups!’ the father shouted, thrilled by his own joke ‘And hurry, na.’ The boy rushed through the order, fishing the bottles out of the icy water, throwing in new ones from the crates stacked up alongside. Maya lingered, watching him work. The man took his drinks, throwing his money at the boy, dodging the thin, pointy straws as they bobbed in the open bottles.

‘Do you live in Dhaka?’ he asked her.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’m a doctor.’

He pushed out his lower lip and nodded, impressed. ‘Dakhtar.’

They were in the middle of the river now, the shores disappearing on either side. A muezzin announced the Asr prayer. The ferry slowed down, the engine coughing. Then it suddenly stopped, and everything was quiet; only the lapping of the water against the boat.

‘Sometimes the engine breaks,’ the boy said. They heard shouts coming from below, and the sound of running feet. There was no longer a breeze. Passengers crowded the walkways, squeezing themselves against the railing.

‘Come with me,’ the boy said. ‘I know a better place.’

‘Oh, it’s all right.’ Maya shook her head. ‘Really, it’s all right here. And you shouldn’t leave the stall; people will be wanting their drinks.’

He was already sliding the tub under the table and folding down the small cubicle. She followed him as he led her up a set of steps, then through the ferry and up a narrow ladder. He climbed up quickly, his bare feet curling around the metal rungs, then turned and held out his hand to Maya.

It was bright, the sun reflecting off the painted white roof, but it was also cooler, the wind open and rough. There was a tiny ledge on the eastern corner, and they perched there together. The muezzin called again. There were a few others; a man rolled out a small rectangle of cloth and began to pray, dipping his head to the west. Unbidden, the words of the prayer came to Maya’s lips. She remembered her mother patiently teaching her the verses, and how reluctantly she had submitted at the hospital. An hour passed. The boy took his leave. ‘I have to sell the drinks,’ he said.

‘What is your name?’ Maya asked.

‘Khoka.’

‘Goodbye, Khoka.’ She waved, then added, ‘God be with you.’

The ferry gasped to life, the siren blaring as they began to move. Soon they approached the other side, floating towards the embrace of land, the sun light, high-spirited, on the horizon.

As she was leaving the ferry, Maya found Khoka waiting for her, hugging a small bundle. ‘Dakhtar, where are you going? Let me come with you. I can help.’ She saw him clearly now, in the full brilliance of the afternoon. He had dark, luminous eyes. He would be handsome one day, if he were fed properly. If his shoulders weren’t burned and bowed from long hours on the dock. But she didn’t want to be burdened by anyone; he would ask questions and she would not be able to answer them. ‘No, it’s all right.’ She reached into her bag for a few notes.

He shook his head, refusing the money, suddenly shy.

As soon as she hit the ferry ghat, she was surrounded by porters, tea-wallahs, chotpoti-vendors, boatmen, and all manner of people wanting to buy, sell or rent things. Dusk was already falling, but she wouldn’t stop here; she wanted to start travelling north, towards Chandpur. Clutching her bag, she scanned the shore for an empty country boat. The boatmen saw her and called out.

‘Apa, you need to go somewhere, come with me!’

‘Upstream, downstream, anywhere you like, apa, come, come.’

She hesitated beside one boat, suddenly unsure of what to do. She had travelled alone so many times, but as she looked around now and saw that she was the only woman on the shore, she found herself wishing she had brought Joy. You’re going soft, Comrade Haque
.
Irritated by her sudden lack of confidence, she waved to one of the boatmen.

‘I need to travel upstream,’ she announced.

‘Yes, yes,’ the boatman nodded, ‘let me take your things.’

‘Tell me the price first.’

‘Don’t worry about the price, sister.’ He reached out again, grazing the strap of her bag.

She pulled back. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

The man skipped lightly off his boat and came to stand beside her. ‘Don’t worry, sister, price will be fair. And anyway’ – he fished something out of the corner of his mouth, chewed on it, then spat it out – ‘a woman should not travel alone.’

She turned away, thanking him for his assistance. The other boatmen watched. ‘Lady doesn’t know where she wants to go!’ the man called out after her. ‘Letting a poor man go hungry, chee chee. At least leave us something for our trouble.’

The ridiculousness of the demand made her turn back. ‘What trouble? You should pay me, harassing me like that.’

His face darkened. ‘You think you can talk any way you like?’ He grabbed her arm. ‘Because you have money and I’m just a boatman?’

Her anger swelled. ‘You think you can talk to me any way you like, just because I’m a woman?’ She twisted away and headed back in the direction of the ferry, the man continuing to call out to her. People stopped washing their boats and stared. She was a spectacle, running up and down the shoreline all by herself.

Khoka was carrying a crate of Coke bottles on his shoulder. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she called out, trying to stop her voice from trembling. ‘Find me a boatman, an honest one, who will take me upriver.’

‘It’s too late, Dakhtar, no one will take you now. They’re all leaving the ghat, see, it’s getting dark.’

She gathered herself together, unbearably hot now, even though the day was turning from yellow to grey, and she wondered if she were doing the right thing, feeling the urgency of it, the black panic of not knowing where Zaid was. This boy, this cold-drinks boy, was so poor he had to spend all day stuck between one shore and another, opening bottle after bottle and never going to school. But he had that open sky above him, he could walk away on his own legs, with his own will.

‘Please, you have to find me someone. I’ll pay, I’ve got money. But it has to be tonight.’

‘All right, I will try.’ He relieved her of her bag and led her further down the shoreline. The boatmen were packing up their things, cleaning out their engines and bailing water. He left her at a small shop. She bought a packet of Nabisco and a cup of tea. He returned a few minutes later, leading her to a simple country boat. A very old boatman greeted her. ‘Chacha will look after you,’ Khoka said, ‘won’t you, Chacha?’

Khoka reached out to steady her as she stepped on to the boat. ‘With your permission, Dakhtar, I would like to come with you.’

‘You think I can’t make it on my own? I’ve done it before, you know. I was in the war.’

‘You were in the war? My uncle too. He has a scar here’, he said, running a finger along his cheek, ‘from a bullet.’