Spiral Road Read online

  ‘Do the Talukdars still live here?’ I ask, crossing the street.

  He looks at me dubiously. ‘This house is occupied by Mr Karim and his family.’

  Further along the road, the trees and the electric poles are as I remember them. But the tiny shop that sold cigarettes, paan and kites has disappeared. A rickshaw darts across the intersecting road. I’ve come too far. I turn and retrace my steps, stopping to read the numbers on the houses, until I come to ‘13’, engraved on top of a concrete pillar.

  I look up.

  It can’t be. This is a four-storey block of flats. The terrace is crowded with satellite dishes. There are clothes drying on an entanglement of rubber-coated wires. I wander through open gates into a barren, oil-stained concrete yard. A uniformed man sees me and comes running.

  ‘There was a double-storeyed house here…’ I’m no longer certain of my bearing.

  ‘No house here, sir!’ he contradicts me vigorously. ‘There’s a vacant flat for lease. You can have a look. It’s fully air-conditioned, mosaic floors, large rooms—’

  ‘But there was a house!’

  ‘Only luxury flats for the rich!’ the darwan says proudly.

  I CAN HEAR Ma and Nasreen talking in Abba’s bedroom. I pause near the staircase and then change my mind about going in. Solitude is what I need. I tiptoe up to my room.

  Alone, I sit on the bed, and abruptly my thoughts balloon. Had today’s ordeal been at evening in a deserted bazaar, I might not have left unharmed. There’s something utterly despicable in being called a spy. You lack independence, is what it says. You are willing to lie. You’re a person who has been brain-washed. To some of those men in the bazaar, I must have looked like an outsider with insidious intentions.

  I picture myself in a raincoat with a felt hat pulled low over my eyes, my footfall echoing in the dark lanes of a city—a human cliché.

  After a time it seems better to be downstairs.

  I wander into Abba’s room. He’s awake, sitting in bed, about to have spicy chicken broth and soft rice. He ignores me as I sit at the foot of his bed. He slurps the liquid noisily and smacks his lips, screwing up his face in distaste, while Ma encourages him to feed himself.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I ask, more for the sake of saying something rather than expecting a coherent reply.

  ‘Huh? This…This!’ He yells, hurling a spoon across the room.

  Ma immediately understands the problem. The doctors have restricted Abba to a small quantity of salt in his food.

  ‘Is there any point in making him miserable?’ I ask. ‘Why don’t you give him what he wants?’

  ‘You don’t have to look after him,’ she says despondently. ‘I follow what Zia and the other doctors tell me. It won’t make any difference if I bring him a pinch of salt or a whole tablespoonful. He’ll put the lot in his food and then complain again.’

  I make a fuss of sprinkling salt in the broth. Abba looks on gleefully.

  Ma returns to the kitchen. I sit and watch him finish the rest of the meal. He picks up the linen serviette and looks at it. I take it from his hand and dab his mouth.

  ‘What would you like to do now?’

  ‘Do?’

  I point to the rocking chair facing the window. ‘Do you want to sit there?’

  ‘Sit there,’ he repeats after me.

  I help him move and then part the curtains. The afternoon glare doesn’t seem to bother him. I place a cushion behind his head and cover him with a cotton sheet. He sighs, his gaze fixed on the horizon. A smile spreads across his face. He tilts his head back and his eyes close.

  I feel the anguish of the distance between us.

  ELEVEN

  Edge of the Maze

  The orderliness of my sister’s bedroom infuses calm into our conversation. For no reason, I find I’m whispering. It’s a sparsely furnished room—a single bed, a couple of chairs, a bookshelf neatly stacked with rows of secondhand paperback romances and a dressing table with an empty vase, a make-up kit, a hairbrush and half a dozen lipsticks on a brass stand. There’s a pile of toys and children’s books in a corner.

  I remember Amelia telling me that a woman’s personality can be determined by the state of her dressing table. A haphazard clutter of paraphernalia is a measure of self-confidence and boldness, an indication of independence and spontaneity in the way she lives. But there’s a sense of wholeness about Nasreen here, a unity of self. Resilience and strength. Nasreen has suffered, and yet I cannot discern the seams of healing. It’s as if she’s been stitched back together by a tailoring genius.

  Nasreen tries to steer me away from talking about her marriage. I persist, but also remark on her composure.

  ‘If I give the impression of being unaffected by what happened to me, it’s because of Zia’s help,’ she confesses. ‘He adjusted to my needs and made me think I was important. He helped to keep my dignity intact. I felt worthy of my place in the family, even through humiliation and sleepless nights.’ Nasreen no longer engages in arguments. Silence is her way of dissent. Whatever she says is guarded and unlikely to create friction, and her voice is never raised beyond what can be judged as inoffensive and rational.

  ‘Are you happy working at the bank?’

  ‘It’s a job,’ she replies indifferently. ‘It pays reasonably well. As for being happy, it’s not a state I’m intimate with these days. I have responsibilities to my children and to the rest of the family.’

  I tell her I’m uneasy about Omar.

  ‘Oh, he’s a private person. As long as we don’t ask too many questions, Omar is a genial soul.’ She smiles. ‘He’s good to my kids and he humours and flatters Ma as though she were a child. He’s her absolute favourite! When Omar visits, everything else becomes unimportant.’

  ‘So, why doesn’t he live here when he’s in Dhaka?’

  ‘Doesn’t get along with Zia,’ Nasreen replies frankly. ‘Omar has this view that we represent the remnants of a decadent lifestyle. He thinks our ways reflect our inability to adjust to the needs of a new world.’

  ‘He may not be entirely wrong there.’

  ‘Sometimes I think he’s unnecessarily harsh on his father. Whenever they meet, there’s serious argument over social and political issues. Omar resents Zia’s carping about the need to give more time to the family.’

  There’s a pause and I look around this austere bedroom.

  ‘Is there…I mean, have you ever thought of…ah…’

  Nasreen understands my reticence. ‘I’m neither interested nor do I have the time to meet anyone else. The thought of another marriage scares me. Besides, I’m divorced. No family would trust me.’ She points to the bookshelf. ‘It’s far easier to engage in the emotional lives of fictitious characters. They are controlled and manipulated. Blissful lives, with predictable upheavals. By the end of a day, I’m exhausted. After work the children need attention and sometimes Ma gets depressed about Abba. I have to look after her as well. Mindless reading is all I can take.’ Nasreen pauses and looks at me as though she’s trying to figure me out. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course! There’s no need to be formal.’

  ‘Is there any reason why you’re still so unsettled? I know you’re upset about Abba. But something more seems to be bothering you.’ She squeezes my arm affectionately.

  I don’t know how to answer. It’s not that I want to be evasive. ‘I feel…as if I’m disconnected with everything that should be important to me.’ I pause. ‘I keep looking for…an attachment—the umbilical cord to feed me with the nourishment of the life I’ve known.’ I look into my sister’s concerned face. ‘I don’t have a sense of oneness like you seem to do. I can’t focus on anything—it’s as if there are bits of me all over the place…And there are things that I find I don’t understand. What was once familiar has gone. That troubles me. I’m anxious, even afraid—of what, I don’t know. I’m finding it impossible to adjust to the new reality here.’

  ‘Maybe you’re just ti
red.’

  ‘I am. But that doesn’t necessarily explain this perilous condition. It’s like standing on the edge of a maze. I fear if I enter, I’ll be lost.’

  ‘You’re upset by the changes you’ve found. The country. The population explosion in the city. Landmarks that have disappeared. The family…we’ve known better days.’

  I nod in quick agreement. ‘I’m flustered by Abba’s condition, even though Zia warned me about it. I’m saddened by the struggle to keep up our pretences of landed gentry. I suspect Zia lives beyond his means just to keep Ma’s illusions intact. And I’m equally guilty. It’s utterly irrational to be yearning for a past that’s vanished, I tell myself. But that doesn’t work. I guess I’m afraid that it’ll disappear from my memory as well.’ I recall my consternation earlier in the day. ‘I didn’t know that our old house in Dhanmondi had been demolished. I’m upset about that. It felt as if someone had deliberately smashed me with a jackhammer.’

  ‘We didn’t have any say over what the new owner did, once it was sold,’ Nasreen says guilelessly.

  ‘Everything’s different except my recollection of how things were once. And that too cracked after this morning.’

  Nasreen hugs me. ‘Don’t surrender so abjectly to the past. It will only bring you anguish. The ability to forget is a rare gift, I’ve found.’

  EVENING ARRIVES, ACCOMPANIED by a thunderstorm. Silvery whips lash the southern sky, goading it into a chesty rumble.

  I manage to corner Zia.

  ‘You never told me the house had been demolished.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ Zia asks tonelessly. ‘It had to be sold.’

  ‘Who bought it?’

  ‘A property contractor.’

  ‘Did you know what he was planning to do?’

  ‘Yes.’ Zia’s careful to avoid looking at me.

  ‘And you still went ahead with the sale!’

  ‘He offered substantially more than the others did. One has to be practical about such matters.’

  I pause to wonder what I might have done in his position—dithered, allowed my attachment to the house to enervate me. Everywhere I go, the land elicits my migrant guilt. My brother does not have the luxury of wooing memories as I do. While I’ve been reinventing the past and placating my conscience from the safety of a time and distance that, to an extent, embalms reality, Zia has had to deal with the problems close-up, pragmatically and as they’ve occurred. Abba’s financial indiscretions crashlanded on my brother without warning. His generosity to our parents, his magnanimity towards Nasreen and her children—these are not lost on me. He’s never complained or accused me of selfishness or of not doing enough. And I feel wretched about that.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmur reluctantly. ‘I suppose one does.’

  ‘It hurt me too, you know.’ Zia sounds as though he has reached inside me to know how I feel. ‘That day when the last truckload of furniture left the house, I felt I was falling apart and losing parts of my past. I had seen death, but not this kind of loss. It was different, as though I was witnessing my own passing away. But you have to pick yourself up and move along.’

  MA IS PLEASED that Uncle Rafiq has dropped in to see us. Then Omar appears—an added delight!

  His presence energises Ma and gradually we’re all affected by her enthusiasm for the gathering. It’s one of those rare occasions when we’re consciously grateful to her for knitting us together again as a family.

  ‘Without her…’ Zia shakes his head as though unable to conceive of any cohesion among us in Ma’s absence.

  ‘The wife, mother, sister, aunt and grandmother work furiously together in Ma all the time,’ Nasreen observes affectionately. ‘Sometimes it creates a whirlwind of confusion.’

  ‘For her or for us?’ I say with a straight face.

  Zia laughs and Nasreen slaps me playfully on the arm.

  Ma tells us the story of the time Zia and I raided the pantry and gorged ourselves on sweetmeats that were intended for guests. We took no notice of the thin, edible silver foil and sprinkled almonds that decorated the sweets. We tore into them like savages!

  Then we embarrass Ma by recalling her fit of rage afterwards. Nasreen had dobbed us in because we wouldn’t share the sweets with her. Ma reacted by chasing us unsuccessfully through the rooms upstairs, waving a wooden ruler. Trying to smack me, she took a wild swipe, missed, and hit a door instead. The ruler broke in two. Meanwhile downstairs, unaware of these antics, Abba was entertaining the guests in the lounge.

  Within minutes Ma gave up and joined the party as if nothing had happened. Zia and I could hear her chatting animatedly. The driver was sent out to find a sweet shop that was open for business. Dinner was deliberately delayed on the pretext that the cook had suddenly fallen ill. (Much to the cook’s surprise, he had been given money and told to disappear for an hour!) We knew that Ma’s anger never lasted. We were safe, our daring made all the more enjoyable by Nasreen’s sulking. She had realised that we would escape without retribution!

  Omar moves easily among us, playing with Nasreen’s children, walking Abba around the room, teasing his grandmother and talking to his aunt. For a few minutes, Zia and I talk idly about the health problems that afflict middle-aged men.

  But Zafar and Yasmin demand attention. We’re obliged to play hide and seek. A ludo board appears and, much to Yasmin’s delight, she wins the first two games. Zia and I pretend to be offended and huff off to the corridor, where Omar and Zafar are playing indoor cricket with a plastic bat and a table tennis ball.

  Yasmin follows us.

  ‘Girls can’t play cricket,’ Zafar says superciliously.

  The men nod in agreement.

  Yasmin’s piercing howl draws Ma’s attention. She buries her face in her grandmother’s stomach and sobs about our meanness.

  ‘She will play!’ Ma declares, grabbing the bat from Omar’s hand.

  ‘That is not fair!’ Zafar cries.

  ‘It’s very fair,’ Nasreen says sternly.

  ‘We better do what we’re told!’ Omar grins. ‘Otherwise, we may not get to eat.’

  The game resumes. This time there are no concessions for Yasmin.

  I enjoy being absorbed into the ordinariness of this gathering, the cosiness, the intimacy of knowing everyone. It’s the warmth that emanates from a sense of belonging. Here I don’t have to stand in a corner with a drink in my hand, giving the impression that I’m having fun. I feel as if the house is my own, as though I’ve shed layers of social pretensions to be my natural self, without being viewed with reservation or spoken to with a wary politeness. This evening I’m not a cultural outsider. The years of changes are momentarily rescinded and my rhythm of being merges with the ebb and flow of familial life. It’s almost an induced delusion to think that nothing that matters has changed.

  Zia offers to drive Uncle Rafiq home. I don’t understand the rapport between them now. Zia used to hate Uncle Rafiq, for his belief that religious rituals define a Muslim. When he was in medical school, Zia would even seek confrontations with the old man. He was eager to prove the superiority of rational thinking over the tenets of religious belief.

  Abba and the children are fed and sent to bed, but not before a noisy protest from Zafar and Yasmin. Ma’s favourite television show has been recorded and, dutifully, Nasreen agrees to watch it with her.

  Omar makes no move to leave. I suggest we go up to Zia’s study.

  ‘I’m sure your father won’t mind if we sit there,’ I say, as we head up the stairs. ‘What do you think of Saladin?’

  ‘Yeah…Another age. Different values. You could afford to be honourable. They didn’t have cluster bombs back then.’

  THE ROOM IS locked.

  ‘You never know what secrets my father may be hiding,’ Omar says lightheartedly.

  ‘Seems to be a family characteristic.’

  Omar looks alarmed and then laughs. ‘Speaking from experience?’

  ‘I’ll never forget my tenth birthday. T
here was a party for my friends and a dinner for the family. I knew Dada was giving me a special present. But he kept insisting that it had to be kept a secret until evening—“A family without secrets has no imagination,” he teased me. “Where have you hidden it?” I demanded. “Behind the moon, where it’s always dark,” he said!’

  ‘What was the present?’

  ‘The best new bicycle that was available.’

  ‘Behind the moon…’ Omar muses aloud as we head for my bedroom. ‘That’s not a bad hiding place.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where clever terrorists hide,’ I joke.

  ‘Osama’s hideaway.’ Omar sprawls on the bed. ‘So! How are you enjoying it here?’

  ‘It’s a bit like standing in front of a mirror after years of not seeing my own image. Frankly, I’m also a little bored.’ I rock gently on the padded chair that Zia has sent up to the room.

  ‘You’re not the only one who’s changed. The entire world has, we’re told.’

  ‘Your aunt said something similar…I see how different your father is now. And you.’

  ‘How am I different?’ He sounds amused, as though I’ve made a superficial judgement of him.

  ‘Well, you’ve matured, of course. You’re very articulate. A handsome young man. And…’ I falter, groping for a subtler dimension.

  ‘Yes?’ he says sharply.

  ‘I can’t put it in words. It’s something elusive that I sense in your father as well. It’s as if, in your own ways, you’ve each stumbled upon a—a meaningful existence. And yet you don’t want to share it with others…A kind of unshakeable faith seems to guide both of you. Does that make sense?’

  Omar laughs. ‘Uncle, no one can accuse you of lacking intuition. But you do realise that you’re as much of a mystery to me?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Why won’t you talk about your war experiences?’ he pushes. ‘My father knows as little as I do about what happened. Or, at least, that’s what he’s told me.’