Authors: Monica Ali
Nazneen looked around. The room was crammed with things. Furniture, Tariq's bed, bikes, clothes, stepladders, plastic crates, toys, shoes, tins of paint, stacks of wooden planks, gas heaters, electric heaters, carpets, carrier bags of stuff, a stockpile of rice, a pyramid of tinned food. There was more here than the average villager would acquire in a lifetime. A village child was lucky to have a football. To have both a football and a bike was a luxury. To have a football, a bike and a heap of toys besides was unheard of. Yet Nazneen did not remember the children complaining, could not remember complaining herself.
'I told him straight,' Razia continued. 'Open up your purse, you son-of-a-whore, or else.'
The swearing was new. Or Razia was relaxed enough with her now not to hold back. The grown-ups had grumbled, of course, from time to time. The carpenter needed a new saw. The shoemaker needed more customers. (All those children running around barefoot!) The sweetmaker complained of the price of pistachios. But if they had a chair and a table and food to eat every day, then God be praised!
'I'll get a job myself. I told him straight.' Razia looked at Nazneen, not sideways and sceptically but straight on.
'What kind of job?' said Nazneen. In Gouripur a sweetmaker was a sweetmaker, a shoemaker was a shoemaker, and a carpenter was a carpenter. They did not want to be teachers or librarians. They were not waiting for promotions. They did not make themselves unhappy.
'I talked to Jorina. There are jobs going in the factory.'
'Oh,' said Nazneen. 'Mrs Islam says Jorina has been shamed. Her husband goes with other women. She started work, and everyone said, "He cannot feed her." Even though he was working himself, he was shamed. And because of this he became reckless and started going with other women. So Jorina has brought shame on them all.'
Razia snorted. 'Is that what Mrs Islam says? Let her say what she likes, it will not stop me.'
'What about the community? She will not be the only one.'
'Will the community feed me? Will it buy footballs for my son? Let the community say what it will. I say
this
to the community.' And she flicked her fingers.
'What does your husband say?'
Razia narrowed her eyes. She looked down her long, straight nose at the baby. 'Mrs Islam is one to talk. She's a fine one to talk.'
'Mrs Islam?'
'She of the thousand hankies.' Razia smiled for the first time.
Nazneen laughed. 'What is it all about? All those handkerchiefs.'
'You've never heard? You've never had the mystery of the handkerchiefs unravelled?' Razia's laugh vibrated on its high, metallic note. 'Sister, did you just jump off the boat? Let's see. Some people say that she is self-conscious about her nose. You know she has a wart. They say she began by using the hankies to cover it up whenever she thought someone was staring. But who would dare to stare at the old witch's wart? I bet she was an old witch even when she was a girl. Another theory is that she had a lover once who made her a gift of lace handkerchiefs, and she keeps his memory alive now through her collection. What rubbish! Some other people say it is superstition. A fakir told her mother to catch her breath in a cloth and shake it away at arm's length because it would bring bad luck. Some people are this foolish.' Razia handed Raqib back to Nazneen. He sucked his lolly dementedly. Razia got up and stretched. The knees of her tracksuit bulged.
'So what is it then?' Nazneen asked. 'What's the real reason?'
'It's a system. That's how it started, anyway. Her husband, he was a Big Man. Ran a business, made plenty of money. They have houses all over the place, rented out. In Dhaka they have two flats. A big house in the village with concrete pillars. The husband was only the front man, though. The brains belonged to Mrs Islam. She never kept purdah. She says she's 'adapted' now, that she has to walk outside because she's a widow. All rubbish. Even if she stayed indoors she never kept purdah. Her husband would bring his associates home, and they would do their deals there. Mrs Islam was always present. She kept in the back, serving and tidying. But she knew what they had come to talk about, and she pulled the strings. The handkerchiefs were how she did it. She signalled with them. Spotty one meant no. White one for yes. Lace edging for one-year contract. Plain muslin for two years. That's the sort of thing, anyway.'
Nazneen bounced Raqib on her knee. He looked round as if to say, do you mind? 'Now it's just a habit she picked up.'
'Yes,' said Razia. 'And no. There's still business to attend to. With her sons, this time.'
'Import-export?' said Nazneen.
Razia shook her head. Nazneen waited. Her friend looked away. 'What, then?' asked Nazneen.
'I'm not one hundred per cent sure.'
'What do you think?'
'I don't want to gossip.'
This was news. 'About what?'
'I don't know. I'd heard something before, but I didn't believe it. I talked to her the other week, and I think I believe it now. But I don't want to say anything.'
Why had she, then? 'All right,' said Nazneen. 'It's better left unsaid.'
They caught the bus on the Mile End Road. The conductor was an African. 'Look how fit he is,' whispered Chanu. 'So big. So strong. You see . . .' He paused a while. Nazneen shrank in her seat. The baby looked around without comment. 'They were bred for it. Slavery.' He hissed the word, and the couple in the seats in front turned round. 'That's their ancestry,' said Chanu, abandoning the whisper. The bus began to move, and the noise of the engine stopped him from addressing all the passengers. 'Only the strong survived that. Only the strong ones were wanted; they fetched the highest price. Commerce and natural selection working hand in hand.'
Nazneen did not know what he was talking about. 'If you say so, husband.' She had begun to answer him like this. She meant to say something else by it: sometimes that she disagreed, sometimes that she didn't understand or that he was talking rubbish, sometimes that he was mad. But he heard it only as, 'If you say so.'
Chanu settled down in his seat. His elbow dug into her side but he did not notice. 'Aah,' he said, 'it's the day.' A puzzled look came over his face. 'What shall I say when he opens the door?'
It was Nazneen's turn to be puzzled. Even her husband should be able to manage that. 'Salaam Ale-Koum?' she ventured. She giggled and the baby pursed his lips.
Chanu looked like a man who had been startled from sleep. 'Ha? Oh, ha! Yes, salaam and all that. What shall I say?' He chewed his lip.
Nazneen shrugged inwardly. She checked in her bag that she had everything she needed for the evening: wipes, nappies, rattle, muslin cloth, banana, spoon, blankets, Raqib's pyjamas. She would change him at Dr Azad's house and let him sleep on her shoulder on the way home.
She stood the baby up on her knee so he could look out of the window with her. It was dark, and cosy with lamp-posts. The people were tucked into big coats, and steamed as they walked. Headlights and red rear lights turned the road into a crawling carnival. The bus bumped along. The shops were lit up still. Leather shops, dress shops, sari shops, shops that sold fish and chips and samosas and pizzas and a little bit of everything from around the world. Newsagents, hardware shops, grocers, shops that sold alcohol, shops whose windows were stacked with stools and slippers and cassette tapes and seemed to sell nothing but were always full of men in panjabi-pyjama, smoking and stroking their beards. Between the lights were black patches where the windows were boarded or the For Sale signs were hung. A woman in a massive orange coat, zipped up to her white eyeballs, was darting in and out of traffic. She bunched her sari in one hand and held the other hand to her chest. The car horns worked together, goading her to run.
'I just don't know,' said Chanu. 'I think I will tell him straight off that I have brought a box of kalojam.'
'If you say so, husband,' said Nazneen. She had given up her domestic guerrilla actions. They annoyed only her. Besides which, the flat was becoming so cluttered, and the baby took up so much time, that it was as much as she could manage to keep her head above water. She had no time to mess about.
'It will be good. I'm looking forward to it.' He smiled uncertainly, as if he were practising a smile for the first time. He had on his green anorak. The one with the snorkel hood. His trousers were shiny at the knee, and the sole of one shoe (she noticed on the way to the bus stop) was coming unstitched. When they were first married he was, if not handsome, at least smart. He preened himself before he went to work. He kept two pens and one pencil in his breast pocket. He polished his shoes. He polished his briefcase. Those were the days when he talked of 'when'. When the promotion would come.
'I could say that we were just passing.'
Raqib twisted round and made a lunge for his father's nose. Chanu surrendered. He allowed his nose to be pinched and his hair to be pulled. The baby wore a blue jacket with so many layers beneath that his arms were lifted, as if the air was thick enough for them to rest on. He showed his teeth, all four ivory chippings, and grunted. Nazneen slowly absorbed the information. Just passing. After all of Chanu's efforts they were not even invited. Why did her father marry her off to this man?