The stone that Hasina first felt in her belly the day the helicopters came never leaves her now. Weeks go by and still it weighs her down. No matter what she does, she cannot shake it. It is the heaviness of fear.
She is not the only one who feels this way. Heaviness is everywhere. Even the air above seems thick with helicopters, squads of them flying up and down the Arakanese sky, now as familiar as the mountains, yet still terrifying. Each time they fly over, her father or Isak tells her that a village or settlement has been attacked by Sit Tat soldiers in their deep green uniforms.
Police begin to patrol the streets of Teknadaung more frequently too. Jeeps of men and women wearing blue camouflage speed up and down the dirt roads of Eight Quarters. They unsettle Monu Mush, who bellows just before they arrive and doesn’t stop until they are gone. Police march through the Rohingya part of the bazaar. They look for trouble, prodding truncheons into piles of longyis and knocking over tins of biscuits with their guns. Even U Ko Yin is unimpressed.
‘Police are terrible for business.’
‘This is war,’ Aunt Rukiah rages in her madrassa, ‘the never-ending Arakanese War. Buddhist versus Muslim. Myanmar versus the state of Rakhine. And Arakanese and Burmese against Rohingya. They want us out. They want us dead.’
Harvest comes. The rice crop is good. Men and women, knee deep in water, cut sheaves of rice, green stems heavy with yellow grain, and toss them onto dry land. Even Ghadiya joins them in the paddy field, her skirts hitched up. Araf chases the ducklings. A mother duck chases Araf back, pecking him on the legs.
‘Serves you right,’ laughs Nurzamal. Her flock of sleek and healthy ducklings is larger than Sabikam Nahor’s. She passes Araf a basket and tells him to hunt for eggs. He fills a basket with blue eggs.
‘Look, Hasina, I found six!’
Hasina smiles at his perfect blue eggs. This is the first year that she is allowed to winnow the rice with the women. She is still learning the knack for sending the coarse seed grains high enough into the air so that the husk floats off and the grains rain down.
It is during the winnowing that the women talk.
‘I hear they are looking for young men, men who might be in ARSA,’ whispers Rehana’s mother. ‘I hear they cut them into pieces.’
‘I hear they are killing children, babies,’ whispers Aziza Begum.
‘And doing worse things to young girls,’ whispers Rehana’s mother.
‘Shh,’ warns Aziza Begum, jutting her chin towards Hasina.
But it’s too late. Hasina’s mouth goes dry. She remembers Ghadiya’s story about Rivka, the girl left under a longyi in an open field. She remembers how Isak’s voice lifted when he spoke of ARSA on the day the helicopters came. The stone grows heavier.
After harvest, Nurzamal tells Hasina she must not walk along the main road anymore. Araf will be staying home. Nurzamal would prefer that Hasina stayed home too, but then who would take lunch to Baba? Could Baba come home? The stall is already losing money. Hasina begs, swears, promises she will be fine. She does not tell her mother that sometimes, when she flits past the Arakanese paddy fields, where the Arakanese families are also bringing in their rice, she hears the word ‘kalama’ behind her. She burns with shame every time she hears it. Ghadiya too feels the heaviness. Hasina often catches her biting her nails, staring into space and silently counting. One night, Hasina is woken by the sound of fumbling. On her side of the room, Ghadiya is putting things into her tattered orange bag.
‘What are you doing?’ Hasina whispers to her cousin.
‘Nothing,’ Ghadiya snaps.
Worst of all are the nights Hasina and Ghadiya lie awake listening to their mothers quarrelling.
‘You must close the school. It attracts attention. You will bring the police down on us.’
‘And so, our girls learn nothing and know nothing? What will they do when they are grown women? How will they stand up for themselves?’
Hasina winces at her aunt’s words, which seem designed to wound her mother. Her mother is a farmer’s daughter – she cannot read or write. Yet Hasina would prefer the school to remain open. She would prefer to learn.
‘Their husbands will do it for them.’ Nurzamal’s voice is bitter, hurt. ‘A good husband takes care of his wife. A good husband doesn’t run away.’
‘How dare you,’ Aunt Rukiah hisses. ‘Rashid sends us money and medicine. Rashid, a lawyer, working in a prawn factory, who pays bribes to do that menial job. It is Rashid who keeps this family afloat.’
As always, Dadi Asmah ends the fights.
‘Now, now, my daughters. The Arakanese Buddhists fight us, the government fight us, the police and the army too. Do we really need to fight among ourselves as well?’ Still, the peace at home is as uneasy as the peace in town.
Besides, there is truth to what Aunt Rukiah says. Hasina can see for herself that their family stall is doing poorly. So is the Brothers & Sons Puppet Stall. So are all of the Rohingya businesses. At the bazaar, Arakanese customers no longer wish to buy from Muslims. Here too Hasina hears the word ‘kalama’ flung at her as she passes by.
The days grow hotter. At the bazaar, the TV is surrounded by a crowd of Arakanese and Rohingya men and women. Buddhist extremists in a big northern city are marching and shouting about how her people are Muslim intruders. A yelling match starts. A man shoves a woman. The police are called. Hasina knows this is how riots begin.
A few days later, when Hasina takes lunch to her father, there is a big empty space where the TV used to be.
‘The men came and took it down,’ Isak tells her. ‘It’s not just the cartoons we will miss. They don’t want us to see what they’ve been doing to our people.’ He picks up Daamini, who is no longer a kitten but now an accomplished hunter, her blue eyes as deep as the Bay of Bengal. ‘Jamaal says the less we know, the worse things will get.’
That afternoon, as Hasina sits with Ibrahim, the Rohingya part of the bazaar is hot, sleepy and empty. There are no shoppers browsing in the aisles. There have been no shoppers for days.
‘Why did they take the TV, Baba?’
He sighs and wipes his face with his hand. ‘It is a way to control. No information, no warning. No information, no understanding.’
Lately, Ibrahim looks defeated. He opens up earlier, stays open later. None of it makes any difference. The stall is doing worse. Hasina hates to see him so stressed. She works to spare him, dusts the stall, tidies his newspapers.
‘Not that you could rely on the news they broadcast anyway,’ her father mutters, and Hasina remembers what Asmah says: ‘They are clever. They know how to sow dissension.’
The mysterious they. Hasina does not understand why ‘they’ are so against her people. Are ‘they’ the government? She asks her father.
Ibrahim takes a deep breath. ‘They are the government who wants to stay in power. They are the generals who want to keep their power and the riches they have made as the rulers of Myanmar. They are the extreme Buddhists who believe that Myanmar should be one religion only, and that religion is Buddhism. They are the Arakanese who want their own homeland and think we will take it from them. They are the UN and the NGOs who only watch and do not help us.’
‘So, why don’t we fight like ARSA wants us to?’
‘I do not wish for you to fight. I do not want to see Araf fight. I only wish to live. We want to live in our homes, to live our lives. How would fighting help us?’
Later, Hasina lies awake sifting through her father’s explanation. It hurts to think of herself as second-class, in the same way that it hurts to be called kalama. It makes her feel small and insignificant. For what is a person without a home? Without a name?
As the weeks pass, Nurzamal worries more and more. The happy, carefree mother from the harvest has gone, the mother eaten up by worry returned.
The rains begin to fall, the air heavy and humid. One day, while Hasina is helping at the stall, there are more protests in town. Mobs gather. They parade up and down the main street, past the police station, past the International Aid office. They insist that foreigner aid organisations, who are biased towards Muslims, leave. Now. Her father shuts the roller door to the stall and together, they hide in the back until they can make their way home after dark.
Nurzamal is waiting for them, crazed with fear. Tears mar her lovely face and she is shaking. She takes Hasina by the shoulders and shakes her until her teeth chatter.
Hasina is terrified to see her mother so wild. Her father pulls her from her mother’s grip.
‘Where were you?’ Nurzamal demands.
‘There were protests,’ Ibrahim explains wearily.
‘I’m sorry, Mama.’ Hasina whispers.
‘Stupid, stupid girl. A Rohingya is a target; a Rohingya girl is an easy target. You will not go to the bazaar anymore. Go to your room.’
So Hasina stays home now. Her poor, worn-out baba must take his lunch in the mornings and eat it all alone. Cold rice. Cold fish curry.
It is on a heavy, grey morning just before Dhurh that her mother rushes into the madrassa holding a flat, shiny thing. ‘What is this?’ she shouts.
The colour drains from Aunt Rukiah’s face. ‘Tara, Rosie, Aman, school is over for today. Please pack up your things. Quickly.’
The three girls trade surprised looks as they gather their books and pens. But before they have finished, the thing in Nurzamal’s hand emits a loud shriek and, shocked at the sound, Nurzamal drops it. It falls to the floor with a tinkling thud.
‘Oh no,’ Aunt Rukiah cries, ‘what have you done?’ She snatches up the shiny thing. She smooths her hand over the cracked screen, her tears falling on the glass.
‘What is it?’ Tara whispers to the others.
‘A hand phone,’ Ghadiya whispers back, her hands shaking. ‘It is how we talk to my father in Malaysia. He sent it to us.’
A hand phone! Hasina can’t believe her aunt has such a thing. Hand phones are illegal and if you are caught with one, the police take you in.
‘You bring that into my house and ask me what I have done? How could you be so stupid!’ Nurzamal roars.
The hand phone emits another shriek.
‘Shush.’ Aunt Rukiah, distracted by the phone, dismisses Nurzamal’s scolding with a wave of her hand. ‘Look at this, Babi,’ she says, using the family term for sister-in-law. Her face is stricken.
Aunt Rukiah holds the phone up for Nurzamal to see. All of them, Tara, Rosie, Aman, Ghadiya and Hasina, crowd around the shiny screen. There is a blue square of text which reads: Going out today? Be careful! Muslim gangs are on the move. Stay safe, friends.
Nurzamal gasps in horror.
‘Wait.’ Aunt Rukiah swipes her thumb across the glass. Another message appears. Going out today? Be careful! Buddhist gangs are on the move. Stay safe, friends.
It is the same message – except for one thing.
Cold fear prickles Hasina’s scalp. Why send the same message about different groups like that? What does it mean?
Just then, Dadi Asmah shuffles into the madrassa. ‘What is this shouting about?’ Her voice is calm but firm.
‘Your daughter has brought an illegal hand phone into this house,’ Nurzamal begins.
‘Never mind that, look at this, Mama.’ Rukiah shows her mother the messages. Asmah takes a deep breath and sucks her teeth.
‘But the Buddhists are already mad with us,’ Tara exclaims, her voice fearful. ‘What will happen when they see that?’
‘They will be even madder,’ Asmah replies. ‘And so will the hotheads among our people. Whoever sent that message wishes the people of Rakhine to fight among ourselves. They will divide us to conquer us. The British did the same thing in their day.’
Who sent the message? Hasina wonders. Who wins if everybody is fighting with everyone else? Who is they? The government? The Arakanese Army? Extreme Buddhists who want Myanmar to be of one religion? Sit Tat? ARSA?
And who will help people like her and her family? People who just want to live peacefully?
Hasina feels sick with fear, worn out by worry.
The day after Hasina’s mother finds the hand phone, Aunt Rukiah closes the school. She bids a tearful farewell to Tara and Aman and Rosie. She packs up their books and gives them homework to get on with. But how will they do it all on their own?
‘It’s as if the Buddhists and the army have won and we helped them,’ she growls through her tears, and Ghadiya puts an arm around her shoulders.
‘We will continue on our own,’ Aunt Rukiah tells Hasina and Ghadiya, drying her tears and trying to comfort them. ‘We will have our own school, just us.’
Sadly, Hasina flicks through the pages of her maths problems. The equilateral triangle, the square of a hypotenuse – that is as much as she will ever know about geometry. Despite Aunt Rukiah’s promises, she fears that this is where her education will end. She wanted to finish the tenth standard like her father. To go to university, like her grandmother. But none of that is possible now.
Early in August, army and police flood into Teknadaung again. They stop men and boys, they stop women, they stop anyone they don’t like the look of. They confiscate anything that might be used as a weapon. Housewives lose their fish knives, little boys their slingshots.
Nurzamal is out in her paddy field when she is approached by a man wearing a blue police uniform. He takes her hasi, the long, wide-bladed knife she uses to cut the weeds and trim the plants.
‘Please, Thakin, but how am I supposed to plant without that?’ she asks him.
She is body searched for her insolence.
‘He touched me everywhere,’ she howls at Ibrahim, ‘everywhere.’
Hasina and Ghadiya lie rigid in their beds listening to Nurzamal’s rage at this humiliation. In the morning, she will not leave her bed. She refuses to go to the paddy field. She won’t cook. She won’t eat. Araf begs her to get up. Aunt Rukiah takes over in the kitchen.
Now, each morning when she wakes up, Hasina dreads what might happen that day. Nothing could be worse than this.
She is wrong.
Three weeks later, at the stroke of midnight, ARSA attacks police stations again, just as they did before. Their ‘soldiers’ are farmers with slingshots and fishermen with sticks.
And after that, things get far worse.