'So,' said Razia. 'You are leaving your old friend.'

'Dr Azad lent some money, and Chanu had some saved up.'

'Have you told the boy?'

Nazneen gazed at Razia and mouthed the word 'no'. She looked down at her tea. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes and escaped down the bridge of her nose.

'Come on. Tell me. Take my mind off- other things.'

So Nazneen began the conversation she had already rehearsed by herself, and still she played both parts. Razia, who had not learned her lines, stayed quiet.

'He lifts me up inside. It's the difference between . . .' She cast around. 'I don't know. It's like you're watching the television in black and white and someone comes along and switches on the colours.'

Razia said, 'Mmm.'

'And then they pull you right inside the screen, so you're not watching any more, you're part of it.'

'Mmm,' said Razia again.

Nazneen thought about what she had said. She was pleased. It was not an easy thing to describe.

'Is called in love, no?' said Razia.

Nazneen sighed. 'It is too difficult. It is ridiculous.'

'But you want this?'

'Everything goes against it. Family, duty, everything.'

Razia rolled her big bony shoulders. She was tired. Even her shoulders were too heavy for her today. 'In love,' she said. 'It is the English style.'

Nazneen lost a sandal and slid off the stool to retrieve it. She felt her friend looking at her but she would not return the look. How irritating Razia could be sometimes! Who was it who made herself so English, anyway? With her British passport and track-suit and Union Jack sweatshirt. Who was the one almost getting like the Queen herself? She would not ask for Razia's opinion now. She would do as she pleased.

A knock came at the front door.

'It will be the doctor,' said Razia, 'come to give Tariq his medicine.'

Razia let the doctor in. He had come with a helper, deployed just outside the bedroom door to discourage any idea of escape. Razia went to and fro, emptying slops, throwing away food that looked untouched and replacing it with fresh.

Nazneen sat on the stool in the kitchen and watched a pigeon walk the window ledge. The pigeon stood on the brink, ducked its head, and walked back along the ledge.

Dr Azad entered the kitchen. 'Ah, good, good,' he said. He found a glass and filled it with water.

She should show her gratitude, for the money. 'How is the boy?' she said.

'There is a lot of pain for him,' said the doctor. 'A lot, a lot of pain.'

'Will he get better?'

'Maybe. If that's what he decides.'

He drank the water down quickly and refilled the glass. Then he pulled something out of his suit pocket. 'I brought this for Tariq. I'll go and give it to him now.' But the doctor did not move. He shook up the snowstorm and watched the tiny blizzard whip around miniature castle turrets. He tapped the blue glass dome. 'It's calming, don't you think?' Another shake. 'Watching everything settle back down.'

Nazneen assented.

'You know, actually my wife gave me this particular one.' The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyebrows lifted into his peculiar smile, and met his thick black fringe. 'Back in the early days, we used to give each other gifts, only little things like this because money was scarce. We lived on rice and dal, rice and dal. But my wife told you that. We lived on a cup of rice, a bowl of dal and the love we did not measure.' The doctor drank his second glass of water. He checked his cuffs and ensured they were perfectly aligned, peeping virginally from his jacket sleeves. Nazneen thought, he will not continue. He would like to swallow his words with the water. But the doctor had gone too far to stop now. 'We thought that the love would never run out. It was like a magic rice sack that you could keep scooping into and never get to the bottom.' He let the snowstorm tip between his fingers and dangle upside down. 'It was a "love" marriage, you see.' The puffy grey skin around his eyes seemed to grow, as if he had shed tears on the inside. 'What I did not know I was a young man is that there are two kinds of love. The kind that starts off big and slowly wears away, that seems you can never use it up and then one day is finished. And the kind that you don't notice at first, but which adds a little bit to itself every day, like an oyster makes a pearl, grain by grain, a jewel from the sand.' He put the snowstorm back in his pocket. He rinsed his glass and stood it upside down on the draining board. Then he wiped his hands and inspected his fingernails. 'Yes, well, I will see the patient, and then I have a lunch to attend. Good, ah, good.'

He clicked his heels together as if in salute and made to leave. At the door, he turned. 'All the little irritations,' he said. 'Who would think they could add up to anything?'

Nazneen dreamed of Gouripur. She sat cross-legged on a choki and Amma sat behind her and plaited her hair. Hands that smelled of garlic and ginger tugged at her hair and lifted her scalp till it pinched.

'When you were born, I put you to my breast and you did not feed.'

She loved to hear the story. But a part of her was guilty. From the day she was born she had caused trouble.

'How many days, Amma?'

'Many, many days.' Amma tied a ribbon at the end of one plait. 'You looked like a chick fallen out of the nest.'

'Then what happened?'

Amma sucked on her teeth. 'Everyone came to look and advise. Take the child to a hospital, they said, or she will be dead by morning.' She began on the second plait, dividing the hair in three, yanking so hard that Nazneen put her head back. Amma pushed her head straight again. 'What could I do? I am only a woman and everyone was against me. But I told them, "No, I will leave the child alone. If she is meant to die, then it is already done. If she is meant to live, then the doctors will only mess it up." When they saw that I was firm, they went away.'

Amma worked on the plait. The pinches on Nazneen's skull stung like ant bites.

'And so I was left to my Fate,' said Nazneen. This was the part she liked. It sounded so important.

'And so you were left to your Fate,' said Amma. 'And that is why you are here with me now.'

'What shall I do now, Amma? Amma?' Nazneen turned round. There was no one there. A black dog loped across the courtyard. She decided to go and look for her mother and began to uncross her legs. As soon as she moved, the smooth wood of the choki turned to glue and stuck to her thighs. She tried to free herself but sticky tendrils lashed around her legs. In her struggle she overbalanced and ended on her back. Thick fronds whipped around her stomach and arms, warm and wet as mucus and tough as vines. She tried to move her arms but they were locked against her sides. She bucked her body but the more she struggled the more the fronds lashed at her until they covered her chest, her neck, her face. She tried to cry out but her mouth was filled with sticky fibres that bore into her throat and down and down.

Nazneen woke up and felt the wet on the pillowcase. Was it possible to cry in your sleep?

She went through to the sitting room and sat at the sewing machine. She rested her head on the cool plastic.

'What shall I do now, Amma?' she said out loud.

Amma walked through the door wearing her best sari. Her Dhaka sari, in green and gold. 'You modern girls. You'll do what you like.' She had kohl around her eyes and her thick gold necklace that weighed as much as a baby. 'But you should remember one thing at least.'

'What's that?' Nazneen closed her eyes. Now that Amma had come, she wanted her to go away again.

There was no reply.

Nazneen opened her eyes.

'That's better,' said Amma, and she smiled with her hand over her mouth. 'Your son. You seem to have forgotten him.'

'No. Not forgotten.'

'All those things you said to yourself, I heard every one of them.'

'What things?'

'Oh! Oh!' cried Amma, so loudly that Nazneen feared the girls would wake. 'She has forgotten. This woman, who calls herself a mother, has forgotten.'

'Where are you going?' said Nazneen suddenly. 'Why are you dressed up?'

Amma tilted her head. 'I don't think that is really any of your business. Now let me remind you of a few things. When your son, your true blessing from God, was lying in that hospital I heard every word you said.'

'You already told me that,' said Nazneen, and marvelled at the casual way she spoke to her dead mother.

'Don't think I wasn't watching you,' Amma snapped. A little ooze of red ran out of the corner of her mouth. Still a secret pan chewer, thought Nazneen. 'You thought it was you who had the power. You thought you would keep him alive. You decided you would be the one to choose.' She began to spit the words out and drops of red flew with them. 'When you stood between your son and his Fate, you robbed him of any chance.' Amma walked towards her. She held her hands over her chest. The red spurted from between them. 'Now say this to yourself, and say it out loud, "I killed my son. I killed my son."'

'No!' screamed Nazneen.

'Say it. Say it.'

'No. No. No!'

Chanu's face hovered over her, loose with gravity and tense with worry. 'Just a dream,' he said. 'Wake up and tell it to me. When you chase it with words it will run away.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DHANMONDI, DHAKA.

October 2001

Sister I do not know which way to go. Now I have unquiet mind. It do not leave alone but must give question at all and every time. Morning time children play in hallway. Little Jimmy push car inch and inch along tiles to door. Inch and inch he push it back. Then he begin again. Baby Daisy roll ball down two stair. Pick it up and roll. I dusting all glass frame photo hang on wall. These photo Lovely lean on tree Lovely lie on couch Lovely blow kiss Lovely look shock fingers spreading out. Children whole body mind both inside the game. I wish was same for me wipe the glass. How long I stay here? Big house it good house. But one room house feel big if belong in fact to you.

Amma always say we are women what can we do? If she here now I know what she say I know it too well. But I am not like her. Waiting around. Suffering around. She wrong. So many ways. At the end only she act. She who think all path is closed for her. She take the only one forbidden.

Forgive me sister I must tell you now this secret so long held inside me.

You remember in our house the store hut how it build with tin roof and bamboo wall squash shape like two big arm hug it tight? But how you forget? It there Mumtaz auntie find her. I see so clear the day. Sky is red and purple hang down on us. We wait for rain so late that year. I have new shoe black leather shine bright as buckle. I in love for those shoe. Amma say they for best but I cannot keep my foot from out those shoe. I walk around look down all the times. Every few step I bend down and put the dust off. Then I start game with the chickens and I forget the shoe. I try to make the chickens fly but they too hot and fat and lazy. Like better the cooking pot to stretch the wing. I make some special insults for them and then I see how brown and scratchy the shoe have come. I sit down and spit the leather. Then I see her. Amma have Dhaka sari on. I want to run to her and call Hai, Amma where it is you going? But I worry for the shoe. If she see them I getting red stripes on back the leg.

I follow her but I keep from sight. She walk very quick and she not looking around only in front the nose. We go past Mumtaz auntie ghar. I remember I scrape the side of shoe on wall. I want clay to stick on side. I think to make the toe look less bad. Amma go past kitchen. No one is there. She go into store room. One two moment I stand outside. Then I go in stand behind the kalshis they stack tall up near to ceiling. You remember those kalshis how beautiful each one paint with flower?

I am bandit stand there rob her secret.

She take spear and test on the finger. She take another and put it back. And third one she take before is happy. When she move the rice sacks she grunt a bit but she never look round. Another sack I think is chickpea but inside the light is weak and I never go again to look.

I think then maybe Amma not go out anywhere but someone is coming for visit today is why she have put on fineries. I dont know why but I run away then. Is it that she look around? Is it just I get bored? I go back to chickens or I go to find you. I dont remember. But I go away from her then.

May Allah forgive her. It she who leave.

May Allah show His Mercy onto her. She see no other way.

Sister I sitting in my electric light room write to you and I asking Him to put light in my heart so I see more clear the ways.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

The paper was pale blue and light as a baby's breath. Nazneen looked at the outline of her fingers beneath the letter. She held her hand open, flat. Hasina's letter lifted at the ends, cleaving to its folds. Breathless, she watched it flicker and held it by her fascination alone, like a butterfly that alights from nowhere and, weightless, displaces the world.

Nazneen curled her fingers. She pinched along the creases and clapped the letter between her palms. There was no escape. Turning the letter deftly between the heel of one hand and the hollow of the other, she worked it around and around. Then she tucked it into the drawstrings of her underskirt at the place where she had pleated her sari.

The plane left tomorrow and she would not be on it. She opened a drawer, took out a pile of Bibi's vests and pants and put them into a suitcase. From the cupboard she pulled down an armful of salwaar kameez and flung them on top. It would not do. She knelt down and began to disengage the metal hangers. Down on the floor she looked at the shelves beneath the girls' desks. The books were tumbled and askew, and the corners dented by feet. She looked up at the wallpaper, shyly turning in on itself. Nothing would stick to those walls. They would have to be scraped clean and begun afresh. Three, four, five, six kameez folded. What else to pack?

She stood by Shahana's desk. A cracked mug bearing a picture of a thatch-roofed cottage and a mouse in trousers leaning on the gatepost. It was a picture of England. Roses around the door. Nazneen had never seen this England but now, idly, the idea formed that she would visit it. The mug held pens, a gnawed ruler, hair slides and two lipsticks. Nazneen pulled the lid off a lipstick and it gave way with a satisfying pop. On the back of her hand, the colour showed like dried blood. She saw Shahana's pink mouth turn to black.

She recapped the lipstick and put it back in the mug. There was a lot to be done. It would look best, she had decided, if most of the packing was finished by this evening. Or Chanu would find a way to make her change her mind. The children were distorted with anxiety, but she could not help it. Not yet. When they left for school for the last time, as far as they knew Shahana had stamped on her foot. 'Be careful,' said Nazneen, swallowing a scream.

'I hope it's broken,' said Shahana. She cracked her thumb joint.

Bibi ducked away, and dodged a kiss. She did her own plaits before Nazneen had even risen. They were tight and straight and without need of a mother's hands.

Nazneen worked quickly. The clothes went into the suitcases with room to spare. The gaps made everything more unhappy and she rearranged until they disappeared. Then she fished the books from beneath the desks and piled them into boxes. How little time it took. Nazneen left the room without looking round.

The rest of the packing could wait a while. There was something she had to do now. The sitting room was half packed. The computer sat inside an old nappy box. A pink and white baby reached its little fist out from the side. Brown cardboard boxes, full of Chanu's papers and files, were stacked up on the trolley. The door of the corner cabinet was open and the only thing inside was yellowing newspaper, lining the shelves. What had been in there? When was the last time she had opened it? Inside the glass showcase the pottery tigers, lions and elephants still roamed freely, hampered only by dust and lack of will. The shelves had been cleared of books. Only the Qur'an floated above on its special ledge. Nazneen went to the trolley and opened up one of the brown boxes. She searched through, looking for Chanu's address book. She knew the name of the street where Mrs Islam lived. She knew the house by sight, but she did not know the number.

For some reason, it was impossible to go out on her mission without arming herself with this knowledge. She wished she had something else to take with her. A piece of paper, a letter with official stamps and powerfully illegible signatures, an amulet to hang around her neck. She felt the letter at her hip, and removed it to the table. Then she lifted a corner of the sewing machine and slipped it beneath the flat metal.

There was somebody at the door. Nazneen touched her hair: the temples, across the forehead, the crown and the bun at her nape. She went to the hallway and caught the cloying smell of medicine and the high lift of mints.

'I was on my way to see you,' Nazneen told Mrs Islam.

It was impossible for Mrs Islam's face to register surprise. Her eyebrows lifted but they could say nothing more than 'I disapprove'.

'Indeed?' Mrs Islam rolled into the hallway, massaging the top of her thigh. Two wide shapes swung into view and overlapped in the doorway, like a pair of ill-fitting double doors. 'What are you dawdling around there for? Get along now, for the love of God.' She didn't bother to look over her shoulder. Her sons walked behind her, one toting the black bag, the other clutching a can of Ralgex Heat Spray.