His prospects looked grim. I did not know what to do. Telling him that I was busy, I spent two days without speaking to him. I kept a newspaper at the dining table and read it again and again while we ate. Then I went to my room and closed my door.
I could not ask him to leave. That would be too embarrassing, considering the fact that in my mind I always believed I was an immensely powerful person. But, most importantly, it would be a social crime. It would destroy my reputation with Raihan Talukder. He would think I had let him down. You’re an educated person, he would say. How could you do something like that? If you yourself were not enough, couldn’t you talk to Sheikh Mujib? Nur Hussain had to leave of his own accord. I could only make things so complicated and confusing for him that he would give up and say goodbye.
Today or tomorrow, he was going to accept that Gangasagar was not only an easier and better place for him to live in, but that it was also a gross mistake to leave it for Dhaka. Perhaps one day he would understand why I had failed him, and would be able to forgive me.
Two more weeks passed. He did not appear unhappy or distressed. Instead, I noticed, he had adjusted to the wild attacks of the mosquitoes and the untarnished solitude of the flat as if he was on a pilgrimage and would accept any hardship. The only change was that he was more silent now, more detached, and more occupied with himself. When it rained, he sat at the window the whole day, leaning against the wall. He coughed a few times as the humid air entered his nostrils and got slightly frightened when thunder struck nearby. Then, once again, that awful silence, with his eyes upon the rain. I gave him one of my woollen hand-knitted pullovers. He accepted it without a word, wore it over his T-shirt, crossed his hands, and looked at me with gratitude. Then, stretching his neck, he watched me as I tidied the living room, but never rose to help me, not even when I struggled to lift the sofa to clean underneath it. Probably he did not want to do anything that I might consider foolish, insane or disturbing—or he had noticed the sharp anger I had to hide day after day. I was angry not because of my failure to find him a job, but because he was there every moment to remind me of that failure. ‘He has no right to embarrass me like this,’ I kept on telling myself. ‘Why on earth did Raihan Talukder send him to me? I would never have accepted his hospitality if I’d had the faintest idea this would happen.’
The only option I could think of was to engage him as my caretaker. I did not need a caretaker; in fact, I hated the concept of enslaving someone to secure my own comfort. That was obvious exploitation.
But he needed me. If enslaving him protected his existence, I should happily go for it. I decided that he would cook for me, sweep the house, wash my clothes, go to the grocer, and guard the door in my absence. If there was time, he would collect water from the market when tap water was unavailable. His compensation would be regular meals, clothes and lodging. I asked him if he wanted to do it, if he really wanted to do it. ‘I won’t be unhappy if you don’t do anything for me,’ I said. ‘If you find it condescending, that is okay, I’ll understand. Many people value dignity over comfort. I consider that a sign of character and strength. I just wanted to help.’
He nodded. He would like to begin right away, he said.
One or two evenings he chopped onions, washed the dishes and proved himself disqualified. He was absent-minded. He was not hygienic. He did not know how to peel potatoes or handle a knife safely while cutting through the spine of a three-inch freshwater fish.
Did I want to see blood on my floor?
Absolutely not.
On one of those nights, as I was lying on my cold, moonlit bed, tired from trying to think of someone who could employ Nur Hussain in a temporary but real job, I dreamt of sepoy Mostafa Kamal. I dreamt I was a young boy, younger than Nur Hussain, and I was in Gangasagar, just outside Raihan Talukder’s house, and was watching him fight against the mighty Pakistani military. Hiding behind a high mound of earth, soaking in my sweat, trembling with fear and anger, I saw how fiercely he chased the enemy with his automatic machine-gun. The colour of the sky changed from white to grey, darkness fell in the surrounding rice fields, the wind brought rain, stars shone and sank in the morning lights, but the battle continued. It continued for seventeen hours, and for seventeen hours I observed him from my hiding place.
‘I see you,’ he said to me, between chases. ‘Don’t stay here, go away, go away; leave this place. Fighting is not fun; it favours nobody; it wants everything—your body, your mind, your heart. Go away right now. There are just too many of them; they are in the sky, in the water, in the land; they’ve taken hostage of the whole universe. Hear that noise, that striking, brutal, monster noise, ruthlessly echoing in ten directions? That is from a twin-barrelled self-loading mortar; soon the whole area will be covered with a dense white smoke spiralling to the sky. Through that smoke they will come like ravenous beasts, searching for prey and glory and meaning. But I will not give up; I will not let them steal dust or a drop of water or a small leaf from this land. They will not touch any of our flowers, our fish, our beautiful evenings, our songs and waterfalls. You stay away, go to a safer place, find yourself something to eat, sleep well; there will be fights for you too, many of them, after this fight. Fights never end.’
I stood up, shouting through the smoke. ‘I can’t leave you alone,’ I said. ‘I’ve to learn fighting; I’ve to learn it watching you. Let me stay here, please; let me know what blood is when it is warm, what hate is when it is good, what endurance is when it is indispensable.’
‘You make me happy, kid; you make this war more inevitable and pleasing than it has been; you make this gun fire by itself. But staying here won’t do you any good. This is my fight; it had become mine long before I was born, before my mother uttered her very first word. Let me win it or die. Here they come. Close your eyes.’
I stayed. I did not close my eyes. I saw the destruction. I saw the elation of the human devils as they stood before him, pointing their weapons at him.
After he was bayoneted, and the earth became red with blood and then black, the air smelt of sulphur, and the military left, laughing like hyenas, spitting in his face, feeding his balls to hungry crows, I took him in my arms, wept for several hours, and carried him to the nearest deserted char land, where I buried him in the sand. It was useless writing an epitaph on the grave. The sands do not remember for long. There are heavy dust storms, which irritate the ground, sweep away sea crabs and their skeletons, and fill every snake hole. Frequently tidal waves come. But I wrote his name. I wrote his name in letters twelve yards long, perhaps expecting someone from the sky to look after him.
It was not a complicated dream. Its suggestions were also not complicated. I believed that the war in 1971 had happened for me and for me alone. It happened to boost my spirit, to keep me rational, to make me responsible. And Mostafa Kamal died only for me. He became history so that I would know exactly how important it was to remain motivated. I believed it was my turn now: I must do for Nur Hussain what Mostafa Kamal had done for the country. I felt ashamed of myself for not looking for a job for him.
So I began.