Kind-faced Chinese Nurse is on night duty and walks quietly into Hassan’s room. She unobtrusively checks his pulse, his drip, his bag, and then puts an envelope on his side table. ‘Nurse,’ calls out Hassan weakly. ‘What is that?’
‘Go back to sleep,’ she admonishes gently. ‘It’s just a letter. It came for you today, but got left in the office.’
‘Where is it from?’ he asks. ‘Is it from Singapore?’
‘From Bangladesh,’ says Nurse, unembarrassed to admit that she has inspected the letter on the way up. She takes it as her due; her patients have no secrets from her; she takes care of their every private bodily function, washes them like infants and turns them to avoid sores. She wipes their arses, and their tears when they cry with the pity of what they have come to.
‘I’d like to see it now,’ he says insistently, and so Nurse switches on his light and hands it to him. She props him up at his request, warning that she won’t be able to return for another half an hour.
Hassan scans the letter; it is from an old friend in Chittagong, as he expected. It is formally titled ‘RE: Your enquiry’. The letter starts with some chatter about life during retirement and the state of the mango trees and the cost of his youngest daughter’s second wedding to a ‘hairy Frenchman’, but gets to the point by the third paragraph. ‘So the long and short of it is that after exhaustive communications with the appropriate authorities here in Chittagong, in Dhaka and Kolkata, there is simply no record of the birth of a baby girl to Ms Nazneen Ali, daughter of Mr Nazeer Ali and Mrs Muryam Ali. Nor is there any record of an adoption in the year you advised, or in any of the five subsequent years. I’m sure you already knew that births and adoptions weren’t routinely recorded in the postwar years, unless requested of the administration – even I’ve had the devil of a time getting a birth certificate for my Roshan, and she was born in the seventies; she never needed one before, but now she needs it to register her marriage in France. The Chittagong administration told me that if you provide all the details, they would be able to issue you with a certificate of birth or adoption for the usual consideration, but I assume that your interest, unlike mine, is in information, not in simply gathering missing paperwork.’
Hassan sighs, and skims the letter to the end. He’d checked before, of course; he didn’t know why he expected the answer to be any different this time. Hospitals might have been modernized, but records hadn’t; he was surprised that any of the old handwritten ledgers had survived. Nazneen’s family had their way; there is nothing to prove to the world that Nazneen Ali ever had an illegitimate baby, staining their good name and ruining her cousins’ marriage prospects, nothing to say where that baby is now. Had they killed the infant, and buried her discreetly with Nazneen, in the quiet but respectable funeral at the family plot in Chittagong, to which Hassan had obviously not been invited? Such things had happened in India in the past: baby girls born to untouchable families in the villages would be suffocated gently by those who could not afford another mouth to feed; violated servant girls who fell pregnant were found drowned in the river or with their necks broken in the family home; unwanted or barren wives were found wrapped in nylon saris, soaked in cooking oil, and burning in their kitchens. Stillbirth, the midwife would say; Tragic Accident, the head of the household would say; Suicide, the policemen would record obligingly, before buying a gift for their own wives with their unexpected, slyly handed-over windfall. And even healthy young socialites, in private disgrace, died mysteriously in childbirth. It was possible, but he remembers the letter he received from Nazneen’s aunt: ‘The baby is beautiful and thrives with her ayah’s milk. God is gracious, even in our grief. I will make all arrangements for her future care.’ Surely, in the aftermath of the war, all life was precious; even that of an illegitimate girl. Why would Nazneen’s aunt go through with the charade of the letter, and telling him about the adoption, if that was all it was? He sits upright in the early hours, bathing in the pool of harsh electric light, waiting for Nurse to return. He is ending his life untethered, the loose ends and unanswered questions floating in the water as carelessly as his discarded husk of a body is floating in his white sheets. And somewhere in this floating world, he hopes that Nazneen’s daughter, a hale woman in her fifties with her mother’s liquid eyes and reckless optimism, is living, and raising her face to the morning sun.
Hassan met Nazneen at the cricket in Calcutta, although he didn’t know he’d met her at all. He walked in late, at the start of the second innings, and took his usual seat among his cronies from the club. ‘Sorry, chaps,’ he said. ‘Was working. Don’t know where the time went.’ Fazel and Sadek clapped him on the back, but were distracted by the sharp crack of the bat connecting with the ball, and started cheering wildly. ‘Who’s up?’ he asked.
‘Khan’s batting,’ said a young man he’d not met before, dressed impeccably in a pale Western suit with a hat pulled down close over his eyes against the blazing sun. ‘Working up to his half century,’ he added in a disarmingly soft voice. As Khan hit another six, Hassan cheered too, carried along by the enthusiasm of the club. The young man didn’t cheer, he noticed, but applauded, with soft hands that had the unmistakable look of money, which had never done a day’s work in their life; he had superbly white teeth when he grinned. That’s a boy, thought Hassan, who certainly didn’t fight in the war.
Later in the clubhouse, Hassan was leaning against the bar, sipping lemon sherbet disconsolately, trying not to miss Anwar. He liked the other fellows at the club, but just not nearly as much; I’m someone, he thought, who can only have one friend at a time. His myopic affection for Anwar pushed everything else out. He had the same singular obsession with his work; because he wrote he did almost nothing else, even in a postwar Calcutta heaving with social engagements and dilettante activities. He had only come to the cricket because he had promised Anwar he’d keep him updated on the team’s progress. He pulled a cigarette out of the thin silver box he kept in his jacket, and was patting his pockets for a light when a soft voice said, ‘Allow me,’ and lit it for him.
Hassan looked up, it was the handsome young man from the stands. ‘Thanks . . .’ he said, but then hesitated because he didn’t know his name, and wasn’t sure if he was meant to, ‘. . . old chap,’ he finished weakly, feeling treacherous because that was Anwar’s name, and didn’t belong to anyone else.
‘It’s a pleasure,’ said the young man. ‘I’m an enormous admirer of your work, Mr Hassan. If I’m honest, I came here today hoping to meet you.’
‘How kind,’ muttered Hassan shortly. ‘It’s just Hassan, by the way. I’m not even thirty yet, and Mr Hassan sounds like I’m your father.’
‘I suspect that my own father wouldn’t approve of me being so forward. Forgive me, I haven’t even introduced myself, I’m Naz Ali.’
‘So Nazeer Ali’s your father, I guess,’ hazarded Hassan.
‘One of the Chittagong Alis,’ confirmed the young man, ‘There are several of us.’
‘Are you named for him, then?’ Hassan asked, taking a drag of his cigarette, wishing that he could think of some less tedious small talk.
‘No, for my aunt, Nazneen,’ said the young man, blowing expert smoke rings, and then apologizing with a grin. ‘Sorry. It’s a childish habit of mine.’
Hassan looked at the soft hands, the white teeth and realized how stupid he’d been. ‘You’ve been having some fun at my expense, Miss Ali.’
‘Forgive me,’ she said again, and he wondered how he could have possibly thought that her velvet, husky voice, grated by cigarettes, could ever have been a boy’s. She grinned, ‘I couldn’t resist.’ She pulled off her hat and her daringly short hair fell like liquid to her jawline. ‘But I really am a huge admirer of your work.’
‘I’m sure I’ll return the compliment at your next amateur performance of Twelfth Night,’ said Hassan. ‘You’re playing Viola, aren’t you?’
‘This is my costume,’ she admitted. ‘It’s so comfortable that I took it with me.’ ‘What does your father make of you striding around like a boy, on and off stage?’ asked Hassan, wondering why he was sounding so disapproving, like some elderly betel-chewing chacha, when he really felt so admiring. He supposed he was still embarrassed about having been taken in.
Nazneen nodded towards her father in the corner of the room, and waved him over. ‘He blames himself. He didn’t have a son, and so he made me love cricket and crosswords and shooting. I’ve become such a suitable boy, my mother despairs she’ll ever find me one. I think that everyone is resigned now to the fact that I’ll grow old gracefully at home, reading the papers with my Baba like a couple of bachelors in our rocking chairs.’
Nazeer Ali, tall and quiet, walked across and joined his daughter at her side. ‘Baba, you already know Mr Hari Hassan, I believe.’
‘Asalaam alaikum, sir,’ said Hassan, respectfully bowing, and shaking his hand.
‘I didn’t embarrass you today, did I, Baba?’ asked Nazneen, squeezing her father’s hand affectionately. ‘Coming out in my stage clothes.’ Mr Ali swatted away her hand with equal affection.
‘At least you got a better seat, Jaan, than you would have done hidden away with the other women,’ he replied in Bangla. He stood uncomfortably with them for a moment, and was grateful when an acquaintance came up to him and he could turn away. He glanced back at his daughter, clearly expecting her to follow.
Nazneen looked apologetically at Hassan. ‘I just wanted to tell you, Mr Hassan, I mean Hassan, that I thought Azure Skies was a work of genius.’ She reached out and shook his hand, a little mannishly. ‘I’d be honoured if you’d come to the play this week. You could sign my copy of your book.’ She followed her father and his friend, and glanced back over her shoulder just briefly. Her pale brown skin was unpowdered, and had a slight gleam; her lips were unmade up too, and her plumper lower lip was just slightly pinker than the other. She replaced her hat, and the cigarette in her hand trailed smoke behind her in a curling, wispy stream.
Hassan went to the play, later that week. Nazneen was undoubtedly the star of the piece, more beautiful in her boy’s suit than Olivia in all her finery. Oddly, he preferred her in the suit, than dressed and made up like a girl for her opening scene; although his opinion wasn’t shared by the other spectators. ‘What a poppet!’ declared an elderly Englishman, the leathery native type who had made his home in India, spoke fluent Hindi, and had no intention of ever leaving for the dubious joys of a damp terraced house in the Home Counties. ‘Whose wife is she?’ On Hassan’s other side, one of the bejewelled middle-aged ladies, in a splendid silk sari, whispered to her friend, ‘Twenty-five and still unmarried. A tragedy. A waste. They had arranged something once, but it fell through. The boy’s family had lied about their land interests. The shame of it. Once a family has bad luck, it stays. And now look at her – these people from the provinces have no idea how a girl should behave.’
Hassan went backstage after the performance to offer the traditional congratulations; although Nazneen was considered unmarriageable, she was clearly popular in Calcutta society. Wearing the rose-coloured gown she had first appeared in on stage, her shoulders covered demurely in a shalwar, her blunt bob catching the light and her rouged lips laughing as she dragged on a cigarette, she seemed every inch the sparkling socialite. Hassan waited a moment, and saw that it would be impossible to fight his way through the crowd to Nazneen’s dressing table. He felt surprisingly bereft; he had thought he was just being polite, and he realized now how much he wanted to speak to her. About the play, or about cricket, or the acclaimed collection that he had unimaginatively named Azure Skies, or Chittagong, or anything really. He caught her eye just as he was leaving, and she waved to him and mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ helplessly, indicating the hubbub around her and that she couldn’t get through either.
Late that evening, Hassan was working on his veranda, in his pyjamas and crested slippers, when he heard a banging on the back door to the house. ‘É Ruby,’ he called, so the maid could answer it, but had no response. He shouted for Ruby again, and as she still didn’t wake, started strolling to the door himself. He unbolted the door cautiously to the dusty street, and saw a young man in a pale suit, holding a slim volume of poetry in one hand, and a lit cigarette in the other to ward off the flies.
‘Dear child,’ he said, attempting to disguise the surprised pleasure he was feeling with a condescension that seemed unconvincing even to him, who was only a few years her senior, ‘whatever are you doing here?’
‘You never signed my book,’ said Nazneen. ‘Would you mind doing me the honour now?’ There was no flirtation in her liquid eyes, but rather determination, as she held his gaze with a long, steady look; her eyes were swimmable, drown-innable. She was, he realized, the calm before the storm.
‘Come in, old chap,’ Hassan said to Nazneen, letting his avuncular pretence disappear into the air with the warmth of his breath. He felt that he had been waiting for her all his life, and she had finally arrived. He reached out, and held her by the tops of her arms, embracing a dear friend after a long absence. ‘Come home.’
Nurse came back as she had promised, and she switched off the light, and laid him gently down. As she shut the door, she heard Hassan weeping gently in the shadows, ‘Come home,’ he was crying to himself. ‘Come home, my darling, darling child. I’ve waited so long. Please come home.’