Brick Lane (84 page)

'Then what happened?'

Amma sucked on her teeth. 'Everyone came to look and advise. Take the child to a hospital, they said, or she will be dead by morning.' She began on the second plait, dividing the hair in three, yanking so hard that Nazneen put her head back. Amma pushed her head straight again. 'What could I do? I am only a woman and everyone was against me. But I told them, "No, I will leave the child alone. If she is meant to die, then it is already done. If she is meant to live, then the doctors will only mess it up." When they saw that I was firm, they went away.'

Amma worked on the plait. The pinches on Nazneen's skull stung like ant bites.

'And so I was left to my Fate,' said Nazneen. This was the part she liked. It sounded so important.

'And so you were left to your Fate,' said Amma. 'And that is why you are here with me now.'

'What shall I do now, Amma? Amma?' Nazneen turned round. There was no one there. A black dog loped across the courtyard. She decided to go and look for her mother and began to uncross her legs. As soon as she moved, the smooth wood of the choki turned to glue and stuck to her thighs. She tried to free herself but sticky tendrils lashed around her legs. In her struggle she overbalanced and ended on her back. Thick fronds whipped around her stomach and arms, warm and wet as mucus and tough as vines. She tried to move her arms but they were locked against her sides. She bucked her body but the more she struggled the more the fronds lashed at her until they covered her chest, her neck, her face. She tried to cry out but her mouth was filled with sticky fibres that bore into her throat and down and down.

Nazneen woke up and felt the wet on the pillowcase. Was it possible to cry in your sleep?

She went through to the sitting room and sat at the sewing machine. She rested her head on the cool plastic.

'What shall I do now, Amma?' she said out loud.

Amma walked through the door wearing her best sari. Her Dhaka sari, in green and gold. 'You modern girls. You'll do what you like.' She had kohl around her eyes and her thick gold necklace that weighed as much as a baby. 'But you should remember one thing at least.'

'What's that?' Nazneen closed her eyes. Now that Amma had come, she wanted her to go away again.

There was no reply.

Nazneen opened her eyes.

'That's better,' said Amma, and she smiled with her hand over her mouth. 'Your son. You seem to have forgotten him.'

'No. Not forgotten.'

'All those things you said to yourself, I heard every one of them.'

'What things?'

'Oh! Oh!' cried Amma, so loudly that Nazneen feared the girls would wake. 'She has forgotten. This woman, who calls herself a mother, has forgotten.'

'Where are you going?' said Nazneen suddenly. 'Why are you dressed up?'

Amma tilted her head. 'I don't think that is really any of your business. Now let me remind you of a few things. When your son, your true blessing from God, was lying in that hospital I heard every word you said.'

'You already told me that,' said Nazneen, and marvelled at the casual way she spoke to her dead mother.

'Don't think I wasn't watching you,' Amma snapped. A little ooze of red ran out of the corner of her mouth. Still a secret pan chewer, thought Nazneen. 'You thought it was you who had the power. You thought you would keep him alive. You decided you would be the one to choose.' She began to spit the words out and drops of red flew with them. 'When you stood between your son and his Fate, you robbed him of any chance.' Amma walked towards her. She held her hands over her chest. The red spurted from between them. 'Now say this to yourself, and say it out loud, "I killed my son. I killed my son."'

'No!' screamed Nazneen.

'Say it. Say it.'

'No. No. No!'

Chanu's face hovered over her, loose with gravity and tense with worry. 'Just a dream,' he said. 'Wake up and tell it to me. When you chase it with words it will run away.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

D
HANMONDI
, D
HAKA

October 2001
Sister I do not know which way to go. Now I have unquiet mind. It do not leave alone but must give question at all and every time. Morning time children play in hallway. Little Jimmy push car inch and inch along tiles to door. Inch and inch he push it back. Then he begin again. Baby Daisy roll ball down two stair. Pick it up and roll. I dusting all glass frame photo hang on wall. These photo Lovely lean on tree Lovely lie on couch Lovely blow kiss Lovely look shock fingers spreading out. Children whole body mind both inside the game. I wish was same for me wipe the glass. How long I stay here? Big house it good house. But one room house feel big if belong in fact to you.

Amma always say we are women what can we do? If she here now I know what she say I know it too well. But I am not like her. Waiting around. Suffering around. She wrong. So many ways. At the end only she act. She who think all path is closed for her. She take the only one forbidden.

Forgive me sister I must tell you now this secret so long held inside me.

You remember in our house the store hut how it build with tin roof and bamboo wall squash shape like two big arm hug it tight? But how you forget? It there Mumtaz auntie find her. I see so clear the day. Sky is red and purple hang down on us. We wait for rain so late that year. I have new shoe black leather shine bright as buckle. I in love for those shoe. Amma say they for best but I cannot keep my foot from out those shoe. I walk around look down all the times. Every few step I bend down and put the dust off. Then I start game with the chickens and I forget the shoe. I try to make the chickens fly but they too hot and fat and lazy. Like better the cooking pot to stretch the wing. I make some special insults for them and then I see how brown and scratchy the shoe have come. I sit down and spit the leather. Then I see her. Amma have Dhaka sari on. I want to run to her and call Hai, Amma where it is you going? But I worry for the shoe. If she see them I getting red stripes on back the leg.

I follow her but I keep from sight. She walk very quick and she not looking around only in front the nose. We go past Mumtaz auntie ghar. I remember I scrape the side of shoe on wall. I want clay to stick on side. I think to make the toe look less bad. Amma go past kitchen. No one is there. She go into store room. One two moment I stand outside. Then I go in stand behind the kalshis they stack tall up near to ceiling. You remember those kalshis how beautiful each one paint with flower?

I am bandit stand there rob her secret.

She take spear and test on the finger. She take another and put it back. And third one she take before is happy. When she move the rice sacks she grunt a bit but she never look round. Another sack I think is chickpea but inside the light is weak and I never go again to look.

I think then maybe Amma not go out anywhere but someone is coming for visit today is why she have put on fineries. I dont know why but I run away then. Is it that she look around? Is it just I get bored? I go back to chickens or I go to find you. I dont remember. But I go away from her then.

May Allah forgive her. It she who leave.

May Allah show His Mercy onto her. She see no other way.

Sister I sitting in my electric light room write to you and I asking Him to put light in my heart so I see more clear the ways.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The paper was pale blue and light as a baby's breath. Nazneen looked at the outline of her fingers beneath the letter. She held her hand open, flat. Hasina's letter lifted at the ends, cleaving to its folds. Breathless, she watched it flicker and held it by her fascination alone, like a butterfly that alights from nowhere and, weightless, displaces the world.

Nazneen curled her fingers. She pinched along the creases and clapped the letter between her palms. There was no escape. Turning the letter deftly between the heel of one hand and the hollow of the other, she worked it around and around. Then she tucked it into the drawstrings of her underskirt at the place where she had pleated her sari.

The plane left tomorrow and she would not be on it. She opened a drawer, took out a pile of Bibi's vests and pants and put them into a suitcase. From the cupboard she pulled down an armful of salwaar kameez and flung them on top. It would not do. She knelt down and began to disengage the metal hangers. Down on the floor she looked at the shelves beneath the girls' desks. The books were tumbled and askew, and the corners dented by feet. She looked up at the wallpaper, shyly turning in on itself. Nothing would stick to those walls. They would have to be scraped clean and begun afresh. Three, four, five, six kameez folded. What else to pack?