Like magic, the city changed.
This was all we could whisper as we watched the stormy faces of the soldiers and the sharp barrels of their machine guns sticking out from behind the piles of sand-filled sacks. It was like we had nothing else to say. Everything had ended. Lost. This was the only thought that pierced our surprised, shocked, restrained voices. The city – when did it change? Like sorcery. The rickshaw wala mutters one word, and my partner’s lips pick up another. I take the rest and fearfully voice the constructed sentence.
The same words whirl around and confound us. We struggle to get out but cannot. Yet, if there were some passers-by, we could ask, ‘What’s happening? Do you know at whom those terrifying barrels are pointed?’ We could have thrown such questions at each other. This was not a thoroughfare but a road as empty as a barren field at night. There was no one here but us.
The rickshaw wala said, ‘How would there be? There’s a curfew today.’
‘Curfew! How come you’re out with your rickshaw?’
‘So what? Did you come first or did I?’
Indeed! Did we step onto the road first or did the rickshaw wala? Who broke curfew first? (That is, if there was any curfew!). We were in a dilemma. What would we say if we were caught? Who knew when those sharp barrels and glowering faces would grow annoyed? Half a chance and they’d go ‘rat-ta-tat-tat!’ Bullets from those machine guns would tear us to shreds! Would they leave without pumping some bullets into us? What then was the point of pulling all those sacks together and keeping watch all night? A dig with my elbow prompted my partner to say, ‘I know nothing of this’ as he sat there with his arms tucked between his knees. I knew what he was secretly conspiring.
His eyes whirled like a top. The next moment he grew still as a stork about to catch a fish – as if he would jump off the rickshaw as soon as he spied an alley. Then, from alley to alley. How would I know where the addicts’ den was! I would never find it even if I searched all night. I hold his hand tight. The soldiers from the other side of the sand-filled sacks glare at us – as if I were breaking curfew by holding a man’s hand. If he snatched his hand away, they would parade towards us and split us apart like peanuts from their shell. The shell would fall to the ground and the peanuts would be in their fists or on the edges of their tongues. I could not think of any trick to extricate myself from this dilemma either. My soul had been dead for too long. I hadn’t been able to trust this unarmed man, so how could I rely on these armed soldiers? But I could not possibly insult the crocodile while I was still in the water. I had to find a way to save myself somehow.
‘Listen! Let’s go back. I can’t trust either you or those men.’
In the orange glow of the street light, I caught a glimpse of my partner laughing silently. His right hand danced simultaneously with the Buddha’s sign of reassurance. Then, as if he were the shell and I a peanut, I slipped under his shawl. There was safety here, no doubt, but for how long?
The rickshaw crept silently through a grieving city. If this went on, we would find ourselves at the bedside of some dying patient. If we moved the curtains aside, we would not see anyone whimpering or wailing. Who has seen such a silent departure of a dying person? Who knows how many such dying patients lie scattered around this city? Or were there only the dead? What if the coffins rolled out of each alley onto the main road?
I could not think anymore, and I could see nothing except the dark. I could only hear the beating of his heart. A city was trembling in fear and excitement. Struggling bated breaths threatened to be stifled. I moved my partner’s shawl aside suddenly and emerged: ‘Let’s go back.’
‘Where?’
‘Home.’
‘Why would we go home? My friends are waiting outside.’
‘No. They won’t come out today. It’s just one night. Can we go back?’
‘I don’t like home.’
You and I had sat at home, uninvolved, hiding. When the inebriation heightened, the house seemed to boil. I rushed outside behind you. Peace! But where was peace? The night city was also boiling under the machine guns. A whole city was being squashed under soldiers’ boots. There was no one, nothing else.
‘I’ll just go buy a cigarette.’
The man jumped off the running rickshaw on the pretext of buying a cigarette. Just like magic. I didn’t realise when I had let go of his hand. Goodness! I lose my senses when I’m engrossed in talk.
In this part of the city, there were soldiers in patrol trucks but no sand-filled sacks or machine guns. What harm could have come from holding on to his hand? The rickshaw wala spoke up, ‘I have no clue where we are now.’ Neither did I. It was only possible to identify a cantonment by its soldiers, not a city without its people. There wasn’t even a beggar on the footpaths that I could ask. The rickshaw had stopped. If I had no idea which way to go, what was the point of sitting here?
I strode off. I had no idea where I was going or why. I felt as if I had the great responsibility of finding the man. Whether I found him or not, I had to keep looking. You lose all sense of time in such situations. You may return home with someone other than the one you set out to find. And you discover that he is exactly like the previous one.
‘He-he! Did you find him?’ The rickshaw wala kept sniggering as he rang his copper bell. I found myself back at the same spot after traversing so many alleys. That’s what happens when you lose your way on nights like this. The rickshaw wala’s metallic laughter made me cringe. Thank goodness he had stuck to laughing only, and not asking for his fare. If he did, how would I pay? All my money was in that man’s pocket. But what was the guarantee that he wouldn’t ask for the fare at some point? The road was a labyrinth. I had no idea where it began or ended. It would be better to hide in the nearby park.
The park was a good place on a night like this, safe. Paths trailed randomly through the large bushes. Trucks, cars or rickshaws could not enter here. If they tried, the trees would picket and the bushes would use their thorns to torture them. The problem was that my eyes, used to the city lights, were now confounded. The stars didn’t help. Instead of lighting the way, they scattered darkness. As I groped my way along, the shadows began to play tricks. Though they made my eyes clear, I couldn’t be sure when this confusion of the real and unreal would pass. In the meantime, the fine, pitiful tune from a flute, passing from leaf to leaf, floated past me. I was astounded. Who was playing a flute on a night such as this? When Rome was burning, Nero had sat playing a flute on the outskirts of the city. So this was nothing new. Anyone could be playing the flute. I began to make my way towards the flautist. Or perhaps I was propelled by the music.
‘So, dear, what do you think of the city’s condition?’ The flautist lowered his flute and asked as I approached. I couldn’t tell if he was friend or foe. So I inquired warily, ‘What’s the situation here?’
The flautist smiled at my words. He continued smiling as he raised the flute to his lips again. As he resumed playing, he said, ‘What could possibly happen here? What could have transpired, already did. See how neatly the cut grass lies, the bushes trimmed down? Only that pond lies wounded.’
I saw none of this – the grass, bushes or pond. I could only hear a voice from behind the black curtain saying, ‘When the temple was bombed, it tumbled into this pond. The men were hanged from the broken pillars here and there. The moss-covered stones in the dry season, the bent rods, and the human skeletons seemed like the starved versions of Michelangelo’s sculptures. As the Pakistani occupation forces left, they inserted the Shivalinga into the vaginas of the girls. Violence is such an innovative art, isn’t it?’
‘What?!’ When I jumped up, he grabbed my hand and pressed it to his member. War drums began to beat around me. Who said this was art? How violent was its creation; how horrific its pain! The thunderous beat cried itself into nothing with the earth’s last breath.
At my feet now lay a bunch of uniforms with badges. Where was the flute? Had all the men gone to bathe? I flee. From the city to the village, from the tarred roads to the grass and earth. I reach the unending vastness beneath the earth. I had just begun to still myself after the arduous journey when Montu stretched and awoke. Oh Montu! The sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Montu of 1971 had died and stayed the same. Surprising that I remembered his name through all these years. I hadn’t forgotten his face either. Not that Montu was grateful for it – because, as soon as he saw me, he said, ‘Hey, can I put my hand down your dress? You never screamed then – because your chest and mine were the same! Ha! Ha! Ha!’
‘Come, Montu, let’s run around and play. We’ll play husband-wife like in the past when we return home.’
‘No! I smell men on you. How many did you sleep with?’
‘How many!’ I can’t remember what happened in the park. Still, Montu sat like the final judge. I tell him about every part of my life. ‘Montu, I can’t keep waiting for anyone who leaves me. Not at all. I come out to look for someone and return home with someone else. Like this evening, one left on the pretext of buying a cigarette and, as I searched for him, I found you in the middle of the night. Now I won’t have to go home alone anymore. It’s a good thing, right?’
‘Good thing?’
Wasn’t it? What was Montu saying? My eternal paradise depended on ensuring his adoration. I wasn’t going to rot in hell again! ‘Listen, Montu! Do you know what my fault is…?’ An impatient Montu stopped me and scolded, ‘No need to grumble! Come, let’s go home. I too haven’t been home in a while.’
Montu and I were returning to the city of our memories – the silent city of the dead. Neither Montu nor I comment on how the city changed mysteriously. The experience of one night had dispirited me forever. Montu had seen innumerable ghostly towns like this twenty-five years ago. We walk alongside. I had no need to hold tightly onto his hand. He wouldn’t leave with the excuse of buying cigarettes. Even though he was six or seven years older than me, he wasn’t yet old enough to smoke.
We were walking silently. Montu was absent-minded. A flute played somewhere. I felt nauseous. As I control my urge to vomit, I search for Montu. Where was he? He was with me and yet wasn’t. Wouldn’t we return home today? ‘Look, Montu, who are those behind the sand-filled sacks?’
Montu began to retreat silently.
‘What happened? Weren’t you the one who threw dynamite at the Pakistani Army’s jeeps in ’71? You weren’t scared then – how come you’re terrified of walking past them now?’
‘Who knew they would still be lying in wait?’
‘Montu! This is what happens when you don’t grow older. How can I make you see that they are not Pakistani soldiers?’
‘So what?’ Montu kept moving away stubbornly. And I along with him. Then, from the city to the village, from the tarred roads to the grass and earth, at one point, we reach the unending vastness beneath the earth.
*
This story, written in 1996, was published under the original Bangla title ‘Aro Emon Raat Chchilo’ in Golposhomogro 1, Maula Brothers, 2008.
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Shaheen Akhtar is a notable Bangladeshi short story writer and novelist. Her novel Talaash (translated into English by Ella Dutta as The Search and published by Zubaan, Delhi, in 2011) won the Asian Literary Award in 2020 and the Prothom Alo Best Book Award in 2004. Another novel, Shokhi Rongomala (Beloved Rongomala), originally published in translation (translator, Shabnam Nadiya) by Bengal Lights in 2018, was to be published by Westland in 2022. Her short stories have appeared in Words without Borders and other prestigious literary magazines; ‘Chander Pahar’ translated into English by Kabita Chakma as ‘The Moon Mountain’ appeared in Out of Print. Akhtar’s works have been translated into English, German, and Korean. In 2015, Akhtar received the Bangla Academy Literary Award, the highest national award for literature in Bangladesh.
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Arifa Ghani Rahman is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English and Humanities at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. In addition, Arifa is an editor and translator, with translations of several short stories, a book of poetry, a novel, and an autobiography to her credit. She is also the Executive Editor of Crossings, the ULAB Journal of English Studies.