Fiction
The cruel conflict
"What's that to me?"
"Don't be naïve. I know what you are doing. I'll tell bhaiya about it." Rebeca cracks a joke, awaiting a ready response to the provocation.
"Your brother is not a kid. He knows and understands what he is doing." Rehana falls prey to Rebeca's design.
"I am not clingy like you." Rehana adds anticipating a reaction from Rebeca.
"What do you mean?" Rebeca retorts.
Rehana remains unresponsive, and at some point Rebeca gets back to the room, not getting any reply from Rehana. Right at that moment, a thunderous roar erupts from the stadium, taking the people by surprise.
"Rebu, what happened?" From inside the room a curious Bhabi asks Rebeca, who immediately switches the radio on. Commentator Shahjahan Bhai is narrating the history of the first division Dhaka Football League over the radio. His narrative is being punctuated by intermittent blasts of crackers. Inquisitive Bhabi comes out, and as she
doesn't find Rebeca there, she asks Rehana: "Who won?" Not waiting for the answer to come through, Bhabi returns to another room in search of Rebeca.
"Rebu, who won?" Finding Rebeca in her room, Bhabi repeats the same question.
Instead of answering the question, she raises the volume of the radio, and Hamid Bhai, another commentator, comes up with the revelation: "Mohammedan one; Abahoni zero."
Unbothered about what is going to happen later, overjoyed Bhabi embraces Rebeca in a flash and says: "I've won the stakes. Nobody can stop me from now on."
"Who did you win your stakes with?" Rebeca is all at sea.
"Your marriage. Your marriage with Rakib." Animated Bhabi spills out her plan.
The disclosure fails to charge her up although she is tightly held by Bhabi in her clasp. Still she is perturbed by Rehana's mordant remarks. Releasing herself from Bhabi's clutches, Rebeca once again returns to the balcony in search of Rehana. Where is Rehana? Eventually, she discovers her. Rehana, down in the dumps, is lying on the bed, and sitting beside her, Rebeca caringly places her hand on Rehana's back. With Rebeca's empathetic touch, a miserably low-spirited Rehana seems to be breaking under an emotional strain.
Emotion is a great leveler. Rebeca catapults into someone who is genuinely aggrieved by Rehana's sadness. Gently caressing her cheeks and neck, Rebeca compassionately says:
"You know, Shojib hasn't been coming home for the last two days."
In a flash, Rehana sits herself up on the bed and catches Rebeca's hand of her own accord. Both of them then cast their looks at a kite that is floating out towards Naya Polton, after it had snapped off.
"Yes, he is a changed person. We have met after so many days, yet he is…" Rehana sounds strikingly saddened by the events that are developing around her.
"Oh yes. Bhaiya is a thoroughly changed man. He almost doesn't talk to me these days. It is unthinkable, still…" Rebeca's resolve to unearth the reasons behind her brother's apparent changes meets a setback as she finds no clue to corroborate her claim.
"From India he would often write that without me he wouldn't survive. Now he is a different Shojib. What is that which is making him…" Rehana releases Rebeca's hand from her grip.
Before trudging back to her room, Rebeca says: "Whatever it used to be, good or bad, he would always share it with me. Now he avoids me. I can't understand why he is becoming so…"
As the night proceeds further, sleepless Rehana once again returns to the balcony, washed away by the moonbeam that sneaks in through the empty space of the twin buildings, standing in front. Gazing into the looming emptiness, she feels she is being increasingly consumed by a surge of undefined pain. Hearing the sound of the word 'Shojib, Shojib' twice, coming from the bedroom of her sister and brother-in-law, she tiptoes to the south-west corner of the balcony and tries to snoop in on the rest of the conversation.
Jotsna, Rehana's elder sister who is the empress of the family, is raucously putting across her message: "Who is Shojib? This is my family. My word is the last word. This marriage must happen."
Badrul, in his resonant yet comparatively weaker voice, makes a vain attempt to quell the argument: "Do whatever you understand better, but …"
The so-called authority of the husband is in jeopardy.
"What do you mean? Are you afraid of Shojib?
"Why do I have to be afraid of my younger brother? It's not about that. I think we should discuss the matter with him, with Rebeca, with everyone."
"Shut up. Don't talk anymore. What is the importance of their opinions? This is my family. Whatever I say, it's going to be the same. I'll get them married tomorrow." With the declaration, once again Jotsna stamps her authority.
And then there is a lull in the proceedings. Cat-footed Rehana returns to her room, and she feels claustrophobic with a deepening distress occupying the small room. Although to her the full moon seems like a ball of fire, to the others, it has been having an anesthetizing impact: Rebeca, Ruma, Shuma, Numa, her nieces, have been fast asleep under its deadening influence.
Rehana begins having a sort of pain in the lower abdomen. Gradually rising upward, the pain begins giving a terrible burning sensation in the middle of the chest. Perhaps only a dip in an ocean can douse the flame? To rid herself of the feeling, she hurries into the washroom and splashes water, several rounds, on her face. Then she looks at herself in the mirror. What's that in and around her neck? There are lots of red spots! Some of them are turning blackish. While Jotsna makes her way into the kitchen through the dimly-lit room, she finds Rehana seated on a corner of her bed. Rehana is clasping her stomach with her hands, a futile attempt to suppress the increasing pain. On her way back to her room, the elder sister Jotsna sounds a note of caution for her sibling: "People become sick during this time of year. Take care."
The Fazr prayer call from Kakrail mosque floats out to Rehana soon after she lies on the bed. The muezzin's soothing and melodious rendering of the Azaan tranquilizes her body and mind. At one stage her tired eyes become heavy, and she falls asleep.
In deep sleep, Rehana sees that she is floating in an endless, frightful and turbulent sea. All of a sudden, countless red lotuses emerge on the cerulean water. Someone, faintly visible, is standing on the bed of lotuses. Suddenly, she sees neon-lit streets crisscrossing the sea. Gradually the sea turns into a wilderness of sunflower fields. Like mechanical toys the flowers are dangling in the wind as if they are beckoning her. Enticed by their charm, she veers off into the sunflower garden, leaving the streets. Like a snake, a shadowy figure is slithering its way through the garden. To follow the apparition, Rehana starts walking faster. Some distance covered, the figure comes to a halt and slowly proceeds towards her. Scared, Rehana draws back and begins running toward the well-lit streets. But where are the streets? Where are the street lights? It is pitch dark all around.
Rehana screams: "Help!" Opening her eyes, she sees Shuma laughing and saying: "I have bitten your hand." She is shocked to see that Shuma's small teeth have left an imprint on
her right arm. For some moments she has had a steady gaze at it, and then suddenly she gives her a tight hug.
"Why didn't you bite me more? Why did you stop?" Rehana lands kiss after kiss on Shuma's cheeks, presumably in an effort to mitigate the pain she is afflicted with.
Like a garland, Shuma keeps hanging around her khala's neck, not knowing that a severe storm is battering her mind.
With each day passing, Shojib is turning so unpredictable! The relationship he enters into today apparently may seem so deep and lasting, but the next day it is very much likely that the same relationship will vanish into thin air. Possibly he has measured life up; now he knows that in the center of politics of relationship stands nothing but power and authority, and money is at the core of power. Since Shojib is unemployed, penniless at the moment, he is a powerless person, a non-entity in the periphery.
A new girl coming to his life bears the same significance and consequence as his old girlfriend even if she decides to dump him; no charm, no emotion seems to have any binding impact on him.
An overpowering silence seems to be occupying the entire area as Shojib returns to 68 Kakrail. The collapsible gate is locked from inside. It gets locked after 10 p.m. When Shojib wanted know the reason behind it once, the owner of the building took a pinch from the snuff-box and said: "It's for people like you. I am really afraid of the young people like you." Since then Shojib has devised his way: scaling the boundary wall and then jumping on the cemented lawn. It's the same option open for him tonight, and when he repeats the same feat, a dog from the cantilever of the second floor starts barking, the echoes of which eventually get mellowed down after sounding against the surrounding buildings. Unbothered, Shojib hurries through the stairs and softly knocks at the main door. He is returning home after two days and nights, so he is unaware of the changes that have happened over the past two days.
(The first segment of this story appeared on Saturday, 12 November. The third and final segment will be on this page next week).
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