CHAPTER THREE

She handed him his lunch, left-over curry between two slices of white bread, and he put it in his briefcase. He zipped his anorak and pulled up the hood. The hood was deep with a white furry trim. From the side his face was invisible. Front on he looked like a Kachuga turtle. She watched him from the window, green shell, black legs, scuttling across the estate. The tattoo lady was still in her nightdress. From the stump of her cigarette she lit a fresh one, keeping the sacred flame alight. She was fat like a baby. Her arms were ringed with flesh and her hands seemed tiny. This woman was poor and fat. To Nazneen it was unfathomable. In Bangladesh it was no more possible to be both poor and fat than to be rich and starving. Nazneen waved. Then she put on her cardigan, took her keys and left the flat.

She walked slowly along the corridor looking at the front doors. They were all the same. Peeling red paint showing splinters of pale wood, a rectangular panel of glass with wire meshing suspended inside, gold-rimmed keyholes, stern black knockers. She walked faster. A door flew open and a head bobbed out in front of her. It was bald and red with unknown rage. She nodded but today he did not acknowledge her. Nazneen passed with her eyes averted to the wall. Someone had drawn a pair of buttocks in thick black pen, and next to them a pair of breasts with elongated nipples. Behind her a door slammed. She reached the stairwell and cantered down. The overhead light was fierce; she could feel its faint heat even as the concrete cold crept into her toes. The stairs gave off a tang of urine. She bunched the skirts of her sari with one hand and took the steps two at a time until she missed a ledge and came down on her ankle against an unforgiving ridge. She caught the stair rail and did not fall but clung to the side for a moment, then continued down, stamping as if the pain was just a cramp to be marched out.

Outside, small patches of mist bearded the lampposts and a gang of pigeons turned weary circles on the grass like prisoners in an exercise yard. A woman hurried past with a small child in her arms. The child screamed and kicked its legs against the kidnapper. The woman produced a plastic rattle with which to gag her victim. Nazneen pulled the end of her sari over her hair. At the main road she looked both ways, and then went left. Two men were dragging furniture out of a junk shop to display on the pavement. One of them went inside and came out again with a wheelchair. He tied a chain around it and padlocked it to an armchair as if arranging a three-legged furniture race. Nazneen changed her mind and turned around. She walked until she reached the big crossroads and waited at the kerb while the traffic roared from one direction and then the next. Twice she stepped into the road and drew back again. To get to the other side of the street without being hit by a car was like walking out in the monsoon and hoping to dodge the raindrops. A space opened up before her. God is great, said Nazneen under her breath. She ran.

A horn blared like an ancient muezzin, ululating painfully, stretching his vocal cords to the limit. She stopped and the car swerved. Another car skidded to a halt in front of her and the driver got out and began to shout. She ran again and turned into a side street, then off again to the right onto Brick Lane. She had been here a few times with Charm, later in the day when the restaurants smelled of fresh boiled rice and old fried fat and the waiters with their tight black trousers stood in doorways holding out menus and smiles. But now the waiters were at home asleep, or awake being waited on themselves by wives who only served and were not served in return except with board and lodging and the provision of children whom they also, naturally, waited upon. And the streets were stacked with rubbish, entire kingdoms of rubbish piled high as fortresses with only the border skirmishes of plastic bottles and grease-stained cardboard to separate them. A man looked up at some scaffolding with an intent, almost ardent, expression as if his love might be at the top, cowering on the high planks or the dark slate roof. A pair of schoolchildren, pale as rice and loud as peacocks, cut over the road and hurtled down a side street, galloping with joy or else with terror. Otherwise, Brick Lane was deserted. Nazneen stopped by some film posters pasted in waves over a metal siding. The hero and heroine peered at each other with epic hunger. The scarlet of her lips matched the bandanna tied around his forehead. A sprinkling of sweat highlighted the contour of his biceps. The kohl around her eyes made them smoke with passion. Some invisible force was keeping them (only inches) apart. The type at the foot of the poster said: The world could not stop their love.

Nazneen walked. She walked to the end of Brick Lane and turned right. Four blocks down she crossed the road (she waited next to a woman and stepped out with her, like a calf with its mother) and took a side street. She turned down the first right, and then went left. From there she took every second right and every second left until she realized she was leaving herself a trail. Then she turned off at random, began to run, limped for a while to save her ankle, and thought she had come in a circle. The buildings seemed familiar. She sensed rather than saw, because she had taken care not to notice. But now she slowed down and looked around her. She looked up at a building as she passed. It was constructed almost entirely of glass, with a few thin rivets of steel holding it together. The entrance was like a glass fan, rotating slowly, sucking people in, wafting others out. Inside, on a raised dais, a woman behind a glass desk crossed and uncrossed her thin legs. She wedged a telephone receiver between her ear and shoulder and chewed on a fingernail. Nazneen craned her head back and saw that the glass above became dark as a night pond. The building was without end. Above, somewhere, it crushed the clouds. The next building and the one opposite were white stone palaces. There were steps up to the entrances and colonnades across the front. Men in dark suits trotted briskly up and down the steps, in pairs or in threes. They barked to each other and nodded sombrely. Sometimes one clapped a hand on his companion's shoulder and Nazneen saw that this was not for reassurance, but for emphasis. Every person who brushed past her on the pavement, every back she saw, was on a private, urgent mission to execute a precise and demanding plan: to get a promotion today, to be exactly on time for an appointment, to buy a newspaper with the right coins so that the exchange was swift and seamless, to walk without wasting a second and to reach the roadside just as the lights turned red. Nazneen, hobbling and halting, began to be aware of herself. Without a coat, without a suit, without a white face, without a destination. A leafshake of fear – or was it excitement? – passed through her legs.

But they were not aware of her. In the next instant she knew it. They could not see her any more than she could see God. They knew that she existed (just as she knew that He existed) but unless she did something, waved a gun, halted the traffic, they would not see her. She enjoyed this thought. She began to scrutinize. She stared at the long, thin faces, the pointy chins. The women had strange hair. It puffed up around their heads, pumped up like a snake's hood. They pressed their lips together and narrowed their eyes as though they were angry at something they had heard, or at the wind for messing their hair. A woman in a long red coat stopped and took a notebook from her bag. She consulted the pages. The coat was the colour of a bride's sari. It was long and heavy with gold buttons that matched the chain on her bag. Her shiny black shoes had big gold buckles. Her clothes were rich. Solid. They were armour, and her ringed fingers weapons. Nazneen pulled at her cardigan. She was cold. Her fingertips burned with cold. The woman looked up and saw Nazneen staring. She smiled, like she was smiling at someone who had tried and totally failed to grasp the situation.

No longer invisible, Nazneen walked faster and looked only at what she had to see to walk without falling or colliding. It occurred to her that she had, without meaning to, compared herself to God. This thought distressed her so much that tears came into her eyes and she banged into a man whose briefcase swung against her knee like a mallet. She recited in her head her favourite sura.

By the light of day, and by the dark of night, your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He abhor you.

The life to come holds a richer prize for you than this present life. You shall be gratified with what your Lord will give you.

Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter?

Did He not find you in error and guide you?

Did He not find you poor and enrich you?

But the pain in her knee and her hands and her ankle destroyed the verses. Proclaim the goodness of your Lord. Proclaim the goodness of your Lord.

There was a patch of green surrounded by black railings, and in the middle two wooden benches. In this city, a bit of grass was something to be guarded, fenced about, as if there were a sprinkling of emeralds sown in among the blades. Nazneen found the gate and sat alone on the bench. A maharanee in her enclosure. The sun came out from behind a black cloud and shone briefly in her eyes before plunging back under cover, disappointed with what it had seen. She was cold, she was tired, she was in pain, she was hungry and she was lost.

She had got herself lost because Hasina was lost. And only now did she realize how stupid she was. Hasina was in Dhaka. A woman on her own in the city, without a husband, without family, without friends, without protection. Hasina had written the letter before she left.

Sister I have not know what to tell and this is how no letter is coming before. Now I have news. In morning soon as husband go out for work I go away to Dhaka. Our landlady Mrs Kashem is only person who know about it. She say it is not good decision but she help anyway. She say it is better get beaten by own husband than beating by stranger. But those stranger not saying at same time they love me. If they beat they do in all honesty.

Mrs Kashem have uncle in Dhaka and this uncles brother-in-law rent out property. I have saving from housekeeping. You remember Amma always tell 'A handful of rice a day.' I have manage it and more. Do you think Amma save? Why she did not save?

Every evening I go up on roof. There is beggar woman lie on street corner. Body is snap shut. If she sit on behind she can look only at ground. It like big big foot press on the back. Any time she wanting to look higher she roll on side. She move along with shuffling and use hands as paddle. After it get dark man come and put on handcart and take somewhere. One time he come and she do not want to go. She start shuffling back away and shout. She get so far as coconut vendor at other corner.

I like to watch this woman. She have courage.

When I get address I write again to you.

Hasina

A young man, tall as a stilt-walker and with the same stiff-legged gait, came and sat on the opposite bench. He put his motorcycle helmet on the ground. He ate a sandwich in four large bites. Something in his jacket crackled like a radio. He spoke to it and it appeared to speak back. He put on his helmet and left. Nazneen needed a toilet. The baby made her want to urinate about eight or nine times in the day, two or three times at night. It was past noon and all morning she had not thought of the toilet once.

She would have to urinate on the grass like a dog, or else wet herself and walk home in soaked clothes. But how would she go home? That was the point of being lost. She, like Hasina, could not simply go home. They were both lost in cities that would not pause even to shrug. Poor Hasina. Nazneen wept but as the tears started to come she knew that she was weeping more for her own stupidity than for her sister. What propelled her down all those streets? What hand was at her back? It could not help Hasina for Nazneen to be lost. And it could not give Nazneen any idea what Hasina was suffering. She watched heads above the railings. The people who looked in looked away again, neither slowly nor quickly, without interest or design. Razia always said, if you go out to shop, go to Sainsbury's. English people don't look at you twice. But if you go to our shops, the Bengali men will make things up about you. You know how they talk. Once you get talked about, then that's it. Nothing you can do.

Hasina would be talked about.

The baby had taken over her bladder. The baby was not much bigger than a lychee but it was in charge of all her internal organs, particularly her bladder. Nazneen got up and began walking again. The sun had gone somewhere. It no longer peeped out from time to time from behind the clouds. The clouds rushed at the tops of buildings as if they would smother them in a murderous rage. The buildings stood their ground, impassive as cows. And at the very last second the clouds went to pieces.

Nazneen wondered if Chanu worked in a building like these. She imagined him in a glass office, surrounded by piles of paper and talking in a big voice to his colleagues who hurried back and forth, getting on with their jobs while he talked and talked. It was lunchtime now and the streets were busier. People carried white paper bags with sandwiches poking out. Some ate and walked to save time. She might see Chanu; he might work just here, in this building, or this. These were important buildings. They were proud of what they were. They could be government buildings. Chanu might be walking towards her now. He could be behind her. She turned round and bumped into a man carrying a plastic cup of hot tea that spilled on her arm. She turned back again and walked quickly, stepping hard on her twisted left ankle, to distract from the pain in her arm, to punish herself for being so stupid. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she leaped like a dog away from a whip snake. He came round to the front. A brown-faced man in a dark coat and tie. He had a handkerchief arranged like an exotic flower in his breast pocket and his glasses had lenses as thick as pebbles. He said something. Nazneen recognized Hindi when she heard it, but she did not understand it. He tried again, in Urdu. Nazneen could speak some Urdu, but the man's accent was so strong that she could not understand this either. She shook her head. He spoke in English this time. His eyes looked huge behind their lenses, like they had been plucked from another, much bigger creature. She shook her head again and said, 'Sorry.' And he nodded solemnly and took his leave.

It rained then. And in spite of the rain, and the wind which whipped it into her face, and in spite of the pain in her ankle and arm, and her bladder, and in spite of the fact that she was lost and cold and stupid, she began to feel a little pleased. She had spoken, in English, to a stranger, and she had been understood and acknowledged. It was very little. But it was something.

She got home twenty minutes before her husband, washed the rice and set it to boil, searched through a cupful of lentils for tiny stones that could crack your teeth, put them in a pan with water but no salt and put the pan on the stove. She removed her shoes and examined her blisters. She put on fresh underclothes and sari and soaped the rain-sodden one. When she had twisted the water out of it, she left it in the bath like a sleeping pink python.

She was skimming brown froth from the lentils when he came in.

'You see,' he said, as though the conversation had not been interrupted by a whole day, 'there's very little that I could do anyway. What your sister has done cannot be undone by me, or by anybody else. If she decides to go back to him, then that is what she will do. If she decides to stay in Dhaka, so be it. What will happen will happen.'

He leaned against the cupboards. His hood was still up and he had gloves on. He folded his arms so they rested on the shelf of his belly. She could hear him breathe, and then he began to hum. It was the tune of a nursery rhyme, a silly song about going to uncle's house for rice and milk but being disappointed. Every particle of skin on her body prickled with something more physical than loathing. It was the same feeling she had when she used to swim in the pond and came up with a leech stuck to her leg or her stomach.

'Shall I take your coat?' she said. 'Would you like to go and sit down?'

'Oh, coat,' he said, and carried on humming. 'When my boy is born I will teach him some songs. Do you know that the child can hear even in the womb? If I sing to him now, when he is born he will recognize the tunes.'

He dropped to his knees, put his arms around Nazneen's middle and began to sing to her stomach. She held a ladle full of boiling scummy water above his head. She poured it with great care into a bowl.

'You could go there.' The words burst as hot and fast as boils.

'Where?' He pulled down his hood and blinked at her.

'Where? To Dhaka. You could find her.'

He got to his feet and cleared his throat. He stirred the lentils absently and lifted the lid from the rice so that the steam escaped and it would not be properly cooked. 'Well,' he said, 'yes, I could go. I could go and walk around the streets and ask for her. "Have you seen my wife's sister? She just ran away from her husband, and she sent us this address: Dhaka." I'm sure it would not take long to find her. Perhaps one or two lifetimes. And after all there is very little for me to do here. I only have a degree to finish, and a promotion to get, and a son on the way.

'Shall I pack a suitcase? Perhaps you have prepared one. I shall go to Dhaka and pluck her instantly from the streets and bring her back to live with us. On the way I could pick up the rest of your family and we could make a little Gouripur right here. Is that what you have in mind?'

Anything is possible. She wanted to shout it. Do you know what I did today? I went inside a pub. To use the toilet. Did you think I could do that? I walked mile upon mile, probably around the whole of London, although I did not see the edge of it. And to get home again I went to a restaurant. I found a Bangladeshi restaurant and asked directions. See what I can do!

She said, 'It is up to you. I was only suggesting.'

Chanu took his coat off. He began to rub his hand over his face, looked at his gloves and took those off too. 'You are worried. Let me tell you something. Sometimes we just have to wait and see. Sometimes that's all we can do.'

'I have heard it. I know it.' She put three pinches of salt in with the lentils, now that they were soft enough to break down. She stirred in chilli, cumin, turmeric and chopped ginger. The golden mixture blew fat, contented bubbles. Nazneen tasted some from a spoon and burned her tongue. But it was her heart that was ablaze, with mutiny.

Nazneen dropped the promotion from her prayers. The next day she chopped two fiery red chillies and placed them, like hand grenades, in Chanu's sandwich. Unwashed socks were paired and put back in his drawer. The razor slipped when she cut his corns. His files got mixed up when she tidied. All her chores, peasants in his princely kingdom, rebelled in turn. Small insurrections, designed to destroy the state from within.

Mrs Islam took her to see Dr Azad. The waiting room was foetid, as if to sweat the illness out of the patients. An old man with a knobbly nose sat in the corner sipping mournfully from a can of something. A large family of Africans, the colour of wet river stones with long, beautiful necks and small sloping eyes, fanned out on the front seats. The children sat on their hands and whispered to each other. The grown-ups were silent. Their faces expressed nothing other than the ability to wait. Waiting was their profession.

Mrs Islam sucked her teeth. She shuffled her feet beneath her chair and rubbed her right heel with the toe of her left slipper. From her large black bag (it looked like a doctor's bag, but it smelled of mints and the clasp was jewelled with bright glass) she took out a polythene envelope of handkerchiefs. 'Here, child,' she said. 'Take them. They're for you.'

'Very pretty, very nice,' said Nazneen.

Mrs Islam snorted. 'Someone gave them to me. My handkerchiefs are high quality. If you like these, I'll get more.'

'No. Don't get more,' Nazneen protested.

'You don't like them either.' She raised a hand to ward off denials. 'Give them to your husband.' She leaned in towards Nazneen. The wart on the side of her nose was encircled by three stubby hairs, toughened and thickened by tweezing. 'How are things now, with your husband?'

Nazneen looked away. 'He is well. Not counting the corns, and a little stomach problem sometimes.' From the corner of her eye she saw her companion waggle her head and purse her lips. There was a pause.

Eventually, Mrs Islam spoke. 'There is no need to tell me. I know how it is. I get to know these things.'

Nazneen stared at a notice on the wall, printed in five languages.

'All the young people, they come to me. Everyone knows that what they say to me stays in confidence. But if you do not wish to speak, I do not wish to hear.'

The notice said: No smoking, no eating, no drinking. All the signs, thought Nazneen, they only tell you what not to do.

'I'll tell you something instead.' Mrs Islam took Nazneen's wrist. Her hand was hot and dry. The skin was powdery, as if it would dissolve in water. 'When I was a girl, the nearest well to the village was two miles' walk. There was a well in the village but the water had turned bad because of a curse, and the pond water was also poisoned. Two hard miles to the water, and two harder miles back. And the women got fed up. They did the fetching and the carrying, and when they complained to their husbands, what was the result?

'There was no result. Because for the men, there was no incentive. They were not suffering. Why should they act? So then the women of the village came together to discuss. First they shared their complaints. Then they sympathized, one with another. After that they berated their menfolk. Once these important things were done, they moved on to decide what to do.

'One woman, I believe it was Reba, a seamstress, said, "Sisters, it is obvious. We must make the men suffer so that they will come to our aid and dig a new well. All we have to do is withdraw our labour. We go on strike. If they want water, let them fetch it for themselves." This suggestion found some favour and it was discussed. But then the faults emerged. Could the men be trusted to bring sufficient water for their families? Was it possible for the women to bring only their own ration of water and not share it with the men? Would the children be the ones to suffer most? Would the men see reason and begin to dig, or would they resort to violence?

'That is when Shenaz spoke.

'Shenaz was sitting just outside the circle. So far she had been silent. After marriage, Shenaz had gone to the town but her husband abandoned her there. That is when she became a Jatra girl, a dancing girl. When she came back to the village, she had to survive by selling the only thing that she had to sell. That is why she sat outside the circle.

'Anyway, now she spoke. "There is another kind of labour we perform, and if we withdraw it that will be a discomfort only for the men." Everyone turned to look at her, and though she could only look at the ground she was determined to press her point. "A man cannot live without water. He cannot live without it, but he can bear the thought of no water. A man can live without sex. He can live without it, but he cannot bear the thought of no sex. This is my suggestion."

'That's how the women in my village got themselves a new well. If you think you are powerless, then you are. Everything is within you, where God put it. If your husband does not do what is required, think what you yourself have left undone.'

Mrs Islam let go of Nazneen's wrist. She took a handkerchief and wiped her mouth, as if clearing the way for the next story. Her eyes were small and hard like a bird's; her white hair looked as if it would snap under a comb. On her face was written grandeur and weariness, and the knowledge that whatever happened she would be the one called to preside over it.

The receptionist, who had a cigarette tucked behind her ear, called Nazneen's name. 'Mrs Ahmed,' she said, leaning over the counter so that her breasts threatened to roll into the waiting room.

Nazneen got up but hesitated because she was unsure if she would go in alone, or with her chaperone.

'Go. Go,' said Mrs Islam. She glared at the receptionist's breasts, and the girl withdrew them at once.

Dr Azad sat with his feet together. His knees pressed against each other. Although his chair was large and well padded, he did not lean into it but kept his back straight, so that he appeared like a jointed doll balanced stiffly in a seat. He sat at a ninety degree angle to his desk, facing Nazneen. On the desk were a notepad, a pen, a yellow pocket file and a row of snowstorms. Nazneen learned about snowstorms on her first visit to Dr Azad. They were fascinating, these sleeping underwater towns. When you shook them they were whipped with a white explosion but then, only then, you could imagine the life within. Children's things, Dr Azad said. He didn't explain why they were on his desk.

'Any problems, any pain, any blood loss?'

'No,' said Nazneen. 'Everything is fine.'

'Any soreness, any swellings in the hands or ankles?'

'No.'

'You're having a good diet?'

'Yes.'

'Then I predict that things will go smoothly, you will have a healthy child and he will look after you in your old age.' The doctor smiled. He had the most peculiar smile. His chin pushed up, the ends of his mouth turned down. But still it was a smile. You could tell by the way his eyebrows lifted that he intended some kind of merriment.

'All I have to do now is take your blood pressure and make an appointment for you at the hospital. Do you have any questions?' His voice was soft, the words opened like flowers on his lips, and yet they had authority. Chanu spoke loudly. He weighed his words like gold and threw them about like a fool.

'Just one thing,' said Nazneen. 'My husband would like you to come to us again, for a meal.'

Dr Azad took out a black armband from a drawer and motioned for Nazneen to roll up her sleeve. She watched his face, trying to read his answer. She saw that his nose turned up at the end: a sign of weakness in a man, according to Amma. The doctor did not appear weak. His hair was like a shiny helmet, cut short and straight across the fringe and printed with a circle of light from the bulb overhead. The flesh around his eyes looked puffed and grey, and the eyes themselves were neither penetrating nor commanding. But his mouth was firm and his position erect. He held himself like a man who knew his place in the world, and knew that the world knew it too.

'Blood pressure is perfect. Good, good.' He put the armband and the little tube with the pump back in the drawer. 'Yes,' he said. 'I accept, with pleasure. We have a conversation to pursue, your husband and I. We were most rudely interrupted by my patients. And I have some books to return. There's one I'm still reading. I have it in my bag. Do you think I may be allowed to keep it a while longer?'

Nazneen did not know about conversations interrupted and books lent. Her back was hurting. Even lying flat on the new hard mattress was no relief. She needed to urinate, and now when she urinated it burned. The rest of the time it itched. But what could be said of this to Dr Azad? Everything is fine, she had told him. She could have mentioned the back, but what else can a pregnant woman expect if not back pain?

'Yes, your husband has been to see me once or twice.' He paused. 'No, let's say three or four times. I have tasted your excellent kebabs. I have signed his petition. I have been lent books. And I have engaged in literary debate. All these are fine things, but everything in its proper place. I shall, let's say, pay a home visit.'

A petition? What petition is this? Nazneen had not seen any petition. She returned to Mrs Islam, who was slumped in her chair with her head lolling back so that, but for the fact that her eyes were open, she appeared to be sound asleep. Perhaps she sleeps with her eyes open, thought Nazneen. That's how she misses nothing and knows everything. It must have been Razia though, who told her about Chanu and Hasina and our troubles. She smiled a little at the thought of Razia, curling up her long legs and dishing gossip sideways out of her man-size mouth.

She was on her knees and her hands were flat against the mat. Midday prayer. Everything must be kept clear now. All the complaints, all the anxieties and lists that made up her life must be set aside. She could be grateful. She could flush her body and mind with gratitude. There should be no room for other thoughts. Although she could think about God. And the words of the prayer. Glory be to my Lord, the Most High. God is greater than everything else. And remember the baby too, because God would not want her to forget that. Hasina, also. Because she was grateful for her safety, for the letter safely delivered. The baby she could not forget because he was scrambling around her belly, looking for footholds just beneath her ribs. She could not get her forehead down to the mat. It simply was not possible. There was a special dispensation for pregnant women. If she chose to, Nazneen could do namaz from her chair. She had tried it once and it made her feel lazy. But it was nice that the imams had thought of it. Such was the kindness and compassion of Islam towards women. Mind you, if any imam had ever been pregnant, would they not have made it compulsory to sit? That way, no one could feel it was simply down to laziness. How did I come to be so foolish, thought Nazneen. What is wrong with my mind that it goes around talking of pregnant imams? It does not seem to belong to me sometimes; it takes off and thumbs its nose like a practical joker.

She was half annoyed and half relieved to hear knocking, and Razia calling out, 'Sister, it's just me. I've brought medicine for you.'

Razia was wearing a woollen hat that came down over her ears and sat in a line with her eyebrows. Over her salwaar kameez she had a baggy jumper with some kind of animal (a deer? a goat?) knitted into the front. Her shoes were big as trucks and battered by untold collisions. She kept the hat on, and Nazneen was constantly on the brink of pointing this out.

'Dissolve the packets in water and take it twice a day. It will sort out your problem. No more burning.'

'I'll do it,' said Nazneen. 'I've got something to show you.'

The letter was longer this time. It gave an address. Hasina talked about her landlord, Mr Chowdhury, about the job he was going to get for her in a garment factory, and about the ice cream parlour at the end of the road. She sounded excited, especially about the pistachio flavour and the little plastic spoons. It seemed she had not the least idea about the danger she was in (and she was in danger, a girl, a beautiful young girl, alone in Dhaka) but Nazneen hoped that Mr Chowdhury would look out for her. Mr Chowdhury would be responsible. A man with property will be respectable, Chanu said, she will be under his protection.

'I'm glad for you,' said Razia. 'And your husband is glad too, I expect.'

'He didn't want to do anything, and now he doesn't have to.'

'Men like to be proved right. We must go out of our way to show them how right they are. My husband is just the same.'

'When he read the letter, he said, "What did I tell you? Sometimes we must sit and wait."'

'Did he push his lips out and waggle his head like this?' Razia made a fat bunch of her mouth, and made her eyes wide.

Nazneen was not finished. 'He cannot accept one single thing in his life but this: that my sister should be left to her fate. Everything else may be altered, but not that.'

Razia leaned back on the sofa. She made the sofa look small, and she knocked one of the plastic headrests to the floor. 'What can we say against fate?'

'I am not saying anything against it.' Nazneen thought briefly of telling the story of How You Were Left To Your Fate. It was too long to go into now. 'I am just. . .' What? Angry with Chanu. But about what, exactly?

'You are just concerned for your sister. It's natural. And in your condition, things become more of a worry. You have to take care, and don't overdo things. Did you know that Nazma had her third on Saturday and he was two months early? I don't know if it's true, but Sorupa says that it was because her husband wouldn't leave her alone, and that made the baby come before it was ready.'

'Ish,' said Nazneen, narrowing her eyes at the thought. She rubbed her stomach, and pressed on it firmly to feel around the curve of the baby's head, or his bottom. She put her feet up on a footstool. There were three footstools now, and an extra chair. (This one had things growing on it, strands of grey, mouldy stuff, but Chanu said it was valuable, and when he had fixed it he was going to sell it again.) It was getting difficult for her to navigate the furniture now. They were both growing, Nazneen and the furniture.

'Anyway, it was a quick labour. Not like her first. That was thirty-six hours. Mine was twenty-eight.'

'When I was born, Amma thought it was indigestion. She said that some women make a big fuss.'

'Hah,' said Razia. She picked up one of Chanu's books from under her feet and put it on the coffee table.

'It's a natural thing, which happens to all women.'

'Hah,' said Razia. 'I'll come with you to the hospital. Next time I come, I'll help you pack a bag for the big day.'

'Amma didn't make a single sound when I was born.'

'Mmmm,' said Razia. She looked around the room, as if she had just stepped into it for the first time. Nazneen looked around too. A piece of wallpaper was curling back just by the window and the thin grey curtains looked like large, used bandages. It was afternoon but the light had crept away and the greyness of the curtains seemed to hang over everything.

'Did you know about Amina?'

Nazneen did not know.

'She's asking for a divorce. I heard it from Nazma, who heard it from Sorupa. Hanufa told her about it, and she got it straight from the horse's mouth.'

'I saw her with a split lip. And one time she had her arm in a sling. He must have gone too far this time.'

'Not only that,' said Razia. She looked at Nazneen from under her curly eyelashes and Nazneen knew she was savouring the moment. 'He has another wife that he forgot to mention for the past eleven years.'

'May God save us from such wicked men.' And from ourselves too, that we should enjoy such stories.

'Anyway, your husband has not made you a co-wife. You have something to be grateful for.' Razia smiled. There was nothing feminine about her face, and with her hair tucked into her hat she could have been a labourer or a fisherman, but when she smiled her face lost its sly, sideways look and her nose seemed smaller. When she was smiling she was almost handsome. 'Any news of the promotion?'

'My husband says they are racist, particularly Mr Dalloway. He thinks he will get the promotion, but it will take him longer than any white man. He says that if he painted his skin pink and white then there would be no problem.' Chanu had begun, she had noticed, to talk less of promotion and more of racism. He had warned her about making friends with 'them', as though that were a possibility. All the time they are polite. They smile. They say 'please' this and 'thank you' that. Make no mistake about it, they shake your hand with the right, and with the left they stab you in the back.

'Well,' said Razia, 'this could be true.'

Nazneen turned the words over. This could be true. She waited for more. Razia was unpicking a thread from her jumper.

Nazneen said, 'My husband says it is discrimination.'

'Ask him this, then. Is it better than our own country, or is it worse? If it is worse, then why is he here? If it is better, why does he complain?'

These were questions she had neither asked nor thought of asking. She was in this country because that was what had happened to her. Anyone else, therefore, was here for the same reason.

'I don't know if he complains,' she found herself saying. 'He just likes to talk about things. He says that racism is built into the "system". I don't know what "system" he means exactly.'

'My son's teacher, she's a good one. She helps him a lot, and he likes her. My husband has a work colleague, he gives us things. Clothes that his children have grown out of. A machine for drying hair. A radio and stepladders. All sorts of things. There are good ones, and bad ones. Just like us. And some of them you can be friendly with. Some aren't so friendly. But they leave us alone, and we leave them alone. That's enough for me.'

'But the ones at my husband's work – they could be the bad ones.'

'Something else: if you don't have a job here, they give you money. Did you know that? You can have somewhere to live, without any rent. Your children can go to school. And on top of that, they give you money. What would happen at home? Can you eat without working? Can you have a roof above your head?' Razia took off her hat.

Nazneen squeaked.

'I cut it,' said Razia. 'I was fed up with it, all that brushing and brushing.' She ran her hand over her hair and pulled a piece around her face. It didn't even reach her mouth. She read what Nazneen was thinking. 'He didn't say anything yet. He just looked at it like this.' She let her mouth hang open and crossed her eyes. Her laugh was like a saucepan dropped on a tiled floor; the burst of it made you jump.

'He wasn't angry?' Razia's husband appeared to Nazneen to be perpetually angry. She had seen him at their flat several times, and once or twice in the courtyard. He worked in a factory that made plastic dolls. Such a big man, making little dolls. There were legs in the kitchen cupboards, heads on the windowsills, torsos down the back of the sofa. Either he brought home only parts or Tariq and Shefali were keen on dismemberment. She had never heard him speak except behind a closed door, to Razia, so she could not make out the words. Although he was silent, he had a. thunder in his brows and his mouth had a murderous set. So different from her own husband. Even when Chanu was ranting he seemed more bewildered by the world than enraged.

'Let him be angry,' said Razia, as if it were none of her business. 'Will it bring my hair back? I have to go now. Don't forget the medicine. I have to go, because I am going to college. I am going to learn English.'

Nazneen struggled to her feet. She reminded Razia to take her hat. She suddenly had a picture of Hasina with short hair, striding about in a pair of men's trousers and smoking a cigarette with bright, painted lips.

'Do you know why I'm going to learn English?' said Razia as she was leaving. 'So that when my children start telling dirty jokes behind my back, I'll be able to whip their backsides.'

Chanu, cross-legged on the bed. Bald knees pointing blindly at the walls. Stomach growing goitre-like over his privates. Hands tucked beneath the belly folds, exploring, weighing. Thin dark arms, a cluster of pimples over the right elbow. Shoulders that are slender, correctly held, almost graceful. Above, a round, plump face. On another man, such a face would look content.

Chanu was thinking. His mouth twitched. It slid over to the left. Back over to the right, high this time, pushing up the cheek, twisting the nostril, closing the eye. For a second, the lips relaxed, and then parted, stretched, rejected a word. The eyes took over. They narrowed in concentration, parted in surprise, squinted in evaluation. They made the eyebrows work, and they gathered the marching lines at the temples to do their part. If Chanu was awake, he was thinking, and his thoughts were written on his face. He is like a child, thought Nazneen, who has learned to read but must mouth the words.

'You see . . .' He chewed for a while, as if tasting his thoughts. He cleared his throat, brought his hands out from under his stomach. 'You see, Azad was implying a deception on my part, a fraud. Yes, he definitely inferred that a malpractice had taken place. That is not on. It simply isn't on.'

Nazneen handed him pyjamas. She slung his trousers on a hanger, without folding them properly, and put them in the wardrobe. He did not notice the dirty socks, the crumpled trousers. Her rebellions passed undetected. She was irritated by his lack of interest; she was pleased by her subtlety.

Chanu looked at his pyjamas as if there were something surprising or unfamiliar about the flowered material. 'But, you see, the point of the inserted clause was not deviousness but clarification. Naturally, I would be in charge of running the mobile library. Who else would do it? It was my idea, my petition, my baby, so to speak. No one could be better suited than I to bring the great world of literature to this humble estate.

'Of course, there wouldn't be much to start off with in the way of Bengali books. But I could go to Dhaka. To Calcutta, to scour the bookstalls around the university. On a sort of literary mission, I suppose.' He made a satisfied noise, as though he had just finished a meal. Then his face became animated once more. He raised a finger and his voice. 'But Azad said, not in so many words, that I had done something underhand. I told him, "Look, Azad (7 was there! Don't you remember? I was there, and you always call him Dr), I asked you to sign my petition and you signed. You agreed with the idea of a mobile library for the estate. I believe you used the word 'splendid'. Are you now telling me that if I am in charge it will turn from splendid to sordid? (No, you didn't. You didn't say that.) And I hardly need to point out to you that amending the wording of the petition was an act of correction, not corruption." And he kept quiet.' Chanu put on his pyjama top. He smiled. 'I think that says a lot.'

'When will you get it, the library?'

'Ah, it's a funding issue of course. The cost of a van, the books, petrol. All these things. Anyway, I haven't yet finished collecting signatures.'

'How many signatures do you have?'

Chanu made some reckonings, leaning his head this way and that. 'Altogether, I'd say seven or eight. But I am aiming for more. Do you think Azad will put out that copy in his surgery?'

'I don't know,' said Nazneen. 'Maybe.' She looked at the man in the yellow-flowered pyjama top, with his bald knees splayed on the pink bedspread. She looked up at the massive black shiny wardrobe and the gold zigzag design that you could pick off with a fingernail. She looked at the brown carpet, at the patch worn through to the webbed plastic that held it together. She looked at the ceiling light that lit up the dust on the shade and bent shadows across the walls. She looked at her stomach that hid her feet and forced her to lean back to counter its weight. She looked and she saw that she was trapped inside this body, inside this room, inside this flat, inside this concrete slab of entombed humanity. They had nothing to do with her. For a couple of beats, she closed her eyes and smelled the jasmine that grew close to the well, heard the chickens scratching in the hot earth, felt the sunlight that warmed her cheeks and made dancing patterns on her eyelids.

'Maybe, maybe not,' said Chanu. 'Perhaps I should not get him involved. God knows what he will accuse me of next. A bald man does not walk under the bell-fruit tree twice.' He laughed. 'Although I am not bald quite yet.' He struggled into his pyjama bottoms without leaving the bed, then rolled onto his stomach and picked up a book from the floor. 'This is a very good book. Sense and Sensibility.' He said it in English. 'It's difficult to translate. Let me think about it.'

'Razia is going to college to study English.'

'Ah, good.'

'Perhaps I could go with her.'

'Well. Perhaps.' He didn't look up from his book.

'I can go then?'

'You know, I should be reading about politics. Nineteenth-century elections. But they make it so dry. You can learn a lot from novels as well. All sorts of things you can pick up, about society, politics, land reform, social division. And it's not so dry.'

'Will it be all right for me to go?'

'Where?' He rolled onto his back to look at her. His belly showed.

'To the college. With Razia.'

'What for?'

'For the English lessons.'

'You're going to be a mother.'

Nazneen picked up a glass from the windowsill. Yes, she was going to be a mother.

'Will that not keep you busy enough? And you can't take a baby to college. Babies have to be fed; they have to have their bottoms cleaned. It's not so simple as that. Just to go to college, like that.'

'Yes,' said Nazneen. 'I see that it is not.'

'Good. Now let me read. All this talking, talking, talking.' And he rolled over again.

The fridge hummed like a giant mosquito. In the distance, traffic growled. Nazneen did not turn on the light. Half a moon, gritty tonight, clung to the dark sky. The linoleum shocked her warm feet. She took a tub of yoghurt from the fridge and sprinkled it with sugar. She leaned against the work surface and ate. 'Eat! Eat!' her husband told her at mealtimes. But for him she would not. She showed her self-restraint like this. Her self-denial. She wanted to make it visible. It became a habit, then a pleasure, taking solace in these midnight meals.

Amma used to make yoghurt: thick and sweet and warm. Nothing like these plastic pots from the plastic English cows. But still. With the sugar, it went down. And it was very convenient. When she thought about Gouripur now, she thought about inconvenience. To live without a flushing toilet, to abandon her two sinks (kitchen and bathroom), to make a fire for the oven instead of turning a knob – would these be trades worth making? She tried to imagine Chanu, marching off to the latrine with a heavy book in his hand. He liked to read, sometimes for half an hour or more, while sitting on the toilet. The flies would see him off the latrine.

Chanu had fallen asleep with his face in the book, the page marked with dribble. All that reading was not good for him. It made his mind boil. He could end up like Makku Pagla.

It was a long time since Makku had come to her mind. But when she was small, she used to follow him around. Hasina and Nazneen walked behind him, holding hands and swinging their free arms. Hasina shouted, 'Yee yaw, Makku Pagla! Lend us your umbrella. Be quick, because it's raining.'

People said he was soft in his head because he was always reading. Books had cracked him, and the more cracked he became the more books he read. That was how he earned his name, Makku Pagla, or Lunatic Makku.

It was Hasina who spotted his umbrella in the well. Numerous repairs over the years and patches of different colours had made it famous, and Makku never set foot without it. 'He's killed himself,' screamed Hasina, running back to the house. 'Makku Pagla has killed himself in the well.' Amma began at once to say her prayers, while Abba picked up a rope and sprinted. Nazneen and Hasina walked over on wobbly legs.

Although a stench had been coming from the old well for a few days nobody thought it remarkable – people had begun to tip rubbish down. But now that Makku's umbrella was in there it was only reasonable to assume that he was with it. A crowd quickly gathered. Everyone had an opinion but no one was willing to be lowered into the soup of rubbish and flesh to retrieve the body.

At last, the village council retreated to Nazneen's house. Abba took charge of the meeting. Nazneen and Hasina, waiting outside, heard him say, 'He had an undignified death. Let us give him, at least, a dignified burial.' They repeated the words to each other, whispering behind hands, into ears. Later, they found a cricket, on its back, turning to husk. And they said the words again and dug a shallow grave. It was a game they played over and over, Nazneen solemn as a raven and Hasina faking.

When the council emerged, the offer was made: sixty rupees plus expenses, a large bar of Sunlight soap and a bottle of perfume to the first man to volunteer. A labourer stepped forward and was cheered. He stripped to his nengti and shouted to his wife to bring mustard oil which he rubbed over his body. The equipment was assembled. A large bamboo basket, thick ropes, and two iron balties for clearing the rubbish.

As he was lowered down below the ground the labourer shouted up a running commentary on his activities, his voice distorted and echoing. 'I've secured Makku,' he reported and another cheer went up from the spectators. The assistants began to winch the body up. 'Slowly, slowly,' said the voice in the well. 'Do you want to knock his head off?' Makku's naked body was carefully laid on the ground. It was completely white and there were holes where the flesh had dropped off. When the labourer was lifted from the well, he carried with him an arm which he set gently on Makku's chest. Nazneen and Hasina held each other.

'They've forgotten his umbrella,' said Hasina.

'We shouldn't have teased him,' said Nazneen.

In the evening, Amma was still crying. Her nose was red, her eyes raw. Sometimes she made a sharp call, like a frightened monkey. She put her hand up to cover her mouth because she was ashamed of her teeth, which were shaped like melon seeds. Abba smoked his pipe and sat on his haunches.

'Don't cry, Amma,' said Hasina, and kissed her with pomegranate lips.

'Your mother is a saint,' said Abba. 'Don't forget that she comes from a family of saints.' He got up and walked away, and he held himself straighter than any man. He did not come back for three days.

'Where does Abba go?' asked Nazneen.

Amma looked towards the heavens. 'Look! Now my child is asking where he goes.'

Nazneen looked up too. The sky was thick with beating brown wings. The ducks were coming, it was the season. They came in hordes, casting great shadows across the rivers and threatening the sun. Amma hugged her fiercely. She took Nazneen's wide face between her two palms and spoke to her: 'If God wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men.'