I opened my eyes. I must have slept for several hours, for I could see the white sun through the window and hear the bells of rickshaws from the street below.
I could hear his footsteps. I could hear jumbled sounds of utensils, washing, sweeping. Those small sounds gave me hope. It really was a new day.
He had washed his clothes and put them on the line to dry. He had swept the sitting room, the kitchen, his own room. This was the man I knew. This was the man who cared for himself and for me and for the place we lived in.
I brushed my teeth, went to the kitchen, sat at the breakfast table. He had prepared parata roti and potatoes, eaten half of it, and left the other half for me on a plate. From there, I could hear him practise the 7 March speech. I stopped eating and pricked up my ears to be sure the sound came from his room.
My brothers, he said, then cleared his throat before beginning with My brothers again. I have come before you today with a heavy heart. He started the way he had always started. The pace was slow, but the old determination was there.
He did not go out for two days. He ate, slept and recited the speech. Sometimes he looked out of the window. But the scenes of the street did not make him desperate to run with bowls of food to the refugee camp, to sell whatever he found near at hand. He did not look absent-minded either. When he kept his mind occupied with the speech, nothing else could enter there. It all depended on what he wanted to do with himself, and how he wanted to deal with the times.
I did not go out either. I cooked for us, but I ate alone. I must give him a comfortable space to think, I said to myself. He needed that space to recover. By practising the speech he had already begun the process of healing.
Sitting on the bed I read some old copies of the Freedom Fighter, which I had read many times before. I read the reports, looked at the pictures, holding the paper up to the light from the window for a better view. Some exaggerations sounded funny. Some details seemed baseless. Some jokes were obscene. Some conclusions appeared extremely hypothetical. They made sense during the war. That was why we wrote them and printed them. But now, looking back, they seemed appalling. They were rubbish. We were not ourselves when we were at war. Something bigger than human reason guided us forward from day to day. It was not always beautiful and adorable.
On the third day I had to go out. We needed groceries. Our kitchen was empty of food. Only a few onions were left. No dal, no vegetable, no protein whatsoever, no cooking oil. I thought I would buy a hilsa fish today. The appetising smell of fried hilsa right from the hot pan would improve his mood. I would also buy some fine rice. The long, thin rice, washed in wax. It was expensive, but famine or no famine, I would buy some, at least a kilo, for his sake. Beyond that, I planned to buy him a punjabi and a coat.
On my way back from the market, I hired a rickshaw to carry the groceries. I sat on the seat, with my feet on the sack. I told the rickshaw-wallah to drive carefully. I specifically advised him to avoid the ‘manholes’ that could gobble up a man like me easily and suck me into the dark underground sewer in seconds. Plenty of manholes on the streets remained open. The whole country could disappear through them.
We left the main street to enter the neighbouring lane and then came closer to the small market where we would turn right for my flat. Before we did that I thought I saw someone like Nur Hussain walking in the crowd. I told the rickshaw-wallah to slow down so that I could get a closer look at him. He stopped in the shadow of a store.
It was him. He looked around suspiciously as if plotting something, and walked past the confectioner’s, the pharmacy and the rickshaw garage, before crossing the opening where every week amateur sellers sold various household items. He was heading to the Shaheed Minar.
The Shaheed Minar area was as crowded as always. A woman had hooked an end of her tattered green sari to the columns of the Minar while draping herself with its other end. The sari flew like a giant flag; its flapping produced the sound of rogue waves in the sea. A few more refugees had moved to the cement yard from the school field. They were raising their tents and setting up their ovens in the sun. A small girl cried, holding her empty tin mug; she cried sitting and then lay down on the cement, crying more shrilly. A man wearing a gamchha around his waist came running—probably her father, smacked her in the face, snatched the mug from her, and thrashed it until it was flat under his feet. A little boy came to her rescue. The man smacked him too. The girl stopped crying. She got to her feet quickly and watched with surprise as the man threw the mug into the small bush behind the Shaheed Minar.
The woman pulled her sari from the columns, and ran to the children. ‘You pig,’ she said to the man, and gathered the two children in her arms. ‘Get lost. Get lost from our lives; or you will see the last of me.’
I was still in the rickshaw. As Nur Hussain moved towards the centre of the yard, walking through the scattered crowd, I watched the surroundings more cautiously. I wanted to be sure nobody ran to attack him. He was man enough to protect himself against any surprise attack; still I felt besieged by my usual sense of insecurity. The Shaheed Minar was a ghostly place today, I could feel it; a place taken by a very powerful force. That was why Nur Hussain had to come back here; that was why more refugees were crowding here, why the small girl cried, the sari flew, the cow dung smelt so heavy. I envisioned something coming, something I had suspected for a long time; a wanton destruction was galloping towards us, gathering speed, getting wider and vaster and raising its head to absorb Nur Hussain’s simple mind.
Joy Bangla, he began. He said it twice, enough to draw everyone’s attention. The second one was longer than the first. Joooooooooy Bangla! Those who recognized him got closer. Among them I saw the two men I had assaulted the other day. They looked meek, like two kids. Those who did not recognize him followed the others. He spoke a few sentences, including: We have given lots of blood; but if it needs more, we are ready to give more. Then he stopped, looked around, giving the crowd time to understand the meaning of those words.
I laughed at myself. How could I think of such abomination! Force, destruction. The seduction of a simple mind. I must have abandoned my own mind somewhere, without knowing it. ‘I know nothing about this place. I know nothing about him. I know nothing about these people.’
‘Move on now, will you? Come on, let’s go home. I’ve fish in my bag, they will rot,’ I said to the rickshaw-wallah. ‘Take the shorter route, if you know any. Let’s get out of here.’ He pushed the rickshaw a few feet backward before dragging it on to the street. Then he rang the bell, seeking a passage through the crowd, and got on the driver’s seat. Before his feet had completed a full circle, I heard Nur Hussain speak again.
‘My brothers,’ he said, in the most memorable tone of the 7 March speech, ‘I have stood here many times before. But I have not felt what I am feeling today. Today I can tell you that there is no hope in the words that I have spoken for so long, that they were words unconnected to our lives, to our dreams, our future. Look around you and tell me truthfully: where are all your brothers, your sisters, parents, children and neighbours; where are they, why aren’t they here with you now? They were not as lucky as you were because of the famine? No. We have won our luck in the victory in 1971. We have written our claim on hope forever by winning freedom. This is the mistake of one person and one person alone. I have struggled with myself hard but today I can tell you the truth: Sheikh Mujib has become a monster, and as I speak of my emptiness here, he is coming for you.’