Nazneen turned round. 'No,' she said. 'He'll feed later.'

Mrs Islam took a handkerchief from her sleeve. She shook it out and wiped along her hairline. Winter and summer she wore the same thing: a cardigan over a sari, black socks, carpet slippers. She would not change for the seasons. They did not bend to her and she would not bend to them.

'You better do it now. I'm ready to go.'

'He's staying here,' said Nazneen. 'With me.'

Her guest looked at her. Her features could not accommodate surprise, but her eyebrows dug themselves a little closer together. Nazneen noticed for the first time how dark they were, untouched by the white that had leached her hair. 'What's that?'

Nazneen trembled, but the warmth of Raqib's body against her chest fired her resolve. 'He's staying here.' She could have added something to soothe. Something to show her respect. She could have said, I'll bring him later. He's not well today. Another day, I'll bring him. He'll be in good hands with you. All she said was, 'He's staying here.'

Mrs Islam gathered herself. She picked up her handbag and sat with it open on her lap. For a moment, Nazneen imagined her grabbing Raqib and stuffing him in the cavernous black leather. But Mrs Islam simply closed it, rubbed the glass clasp with her thumb, and got up. 'The white people,' she said, 'they all do what they want. It's nobody's business.

'If a child is screaming because it is being beaten, they just close the door and the windows. They might make a complaint about noise. But the child is not their business, even if it is being beaten to death.

'They do what they want. It is a private matter. Everything is a private matter. That is how the white people live.' She went towards the door and Nazneen followed, watching the uneven swing of her walk and forming questions about her hip that she did not ask. Mrs Islam passed her papery hand over the baby's face. The baby reached out to her and leaned across, but Nazneen held him fast.

The Dr Azad question was troubling Chanu. The question was this: was it hostility or neglect that led the doctor not to return hospitality? Or it was this: was it a matter of numbers, so that one more dinner would ensure an invitation? Or possibly this: did it matter, did it make any difference at all, if the invitations continued to be one-sided? More and more frequently, it was this: what manner of snob was this Azad?

'He eats my food, he reads my books. God alone knows where else he finds any intellectual stimulation, any companion of the intellect. Shall I ask him when we will be going to his house? I can ask like this.' Chanu rubbed the back of his head, tipped his chair back and spoke with the suggestion of a yawn. 'So, Azad, what are you hiding at your house? Are we going to come around and find out?' He let his chair fall flat again.

Nazneen spooned apple into the baby's mouth. He grabbed at the spoon and sent it flying. He laughed, spraying her with gunk. She was astonished that she had made this creature, spun him out of her flesh. When she remembered that Chanu had made him too she was stunned.

'Maybe he never thinks of it,' Chanu continued. 'He just needs a little prod. Or it could be that he doesn't consider me part of his circle. A doctor is a cut above. But what is a doctor, really, when you think about it? He memorizes everything from books: broken legs, colds and viruses, eczema and asthma, rheumatism and arthritis, boils and warts. It's learning by rote. Symptom and cure. Hardly an intellectual pursuit. No. He's just a finger blown up to the size of a banana tree. Let him guard his house, and put some barbed wire around it too. I am not interested.'

Nazneen put the baby on the floor while she hunted for the spoon. Beneath the table, the files and papers had been breeding, intermarrying with balls of string, boxes of staples, rolls of labels, chains of clips. A pair of pants lay exhausted in a heap; a sock sat fossilized in dust. The spoon was nowhere to be seen. The baby crawled under the table with her and pulled her hair. His face this last month had turned from awed to quizzical. His features were not fully drawn, but they were more than sketched. When he looked at her now, he was always on the point of asking a question. Behind the question was a very big joke, and he looked as though he would let her in on it. 'Hello,' she told him, 'I'm looking for your spoon.'

'Maybe if I get the promotion,' Chanu went on, 'then he will be more inclined to extend his hospitality. That's probably the kind of man he is.'

Nazneen came up. She scooped the baby under one arm. She checked Chanu's face to see if he required any response from her. He was mulling over his words, scrunching them this way and that, into a wrinkled brow, a taut cheek. His eyes looked somewhere far off. She was not needed. She took the baby through to the kitchen and fetched another spoon. He spoke these days of 'if. It used to be 'when'. When the promotion came through. And he never spoke about Wilkie, or his successor, Gerard, or Howard who came after him. He spoke more often of resigning.

It was Sunday morning. They would go out for a walk soon, around Brick Lane, and Chanu would push the pram and she would walk a step behind. When people stopped him in the street to admire Raqib, to give him a kiss or a tickle, Chanu would grow a couple of inches. If people did not stop him, he stopped them. 'See how alert he is. Notice the large size of his head. The bigger the head, the bigger the brain. You think I'm joking? Do you know how big dinosaurs' heads were? And do you wonder why they are extinct?' And the person would smile vaguely and walk away. At the shops, Chanu would buy vegetables. Pumpkin, gourd, spinach, okra, aubergine. Whatever was in season. He would buy spices and rice and lentils and sometimes sweetmeats: a tub of milky roshmolai, sticky brown gulabjam, golden whirls of jelabee. He would not haggle. He would not 'abase' himself, or 'act like a primitive'. He broke off bits of jelabee and fed them to Raqib, and licked his fingers where the liquid sugar spilled out.

Before they went out today, she had to cut his hair. She was always cutting bits off him. The dead skin around his corns. His toenails. The fingernails of his right hand, because his left could not do the job properly. The fingernails of his left hand, because she might as well do that while she had the scissors. The wiry hair that grew from the tops of his ears. And the hair on his head, once every six weeks when Chanu said, 'Better smarten me up a bit.'

She strapped the baby into his seat and gave him a piece of bread to chew. Chanu sat at the table with a book open. He underlined some passages while she trimmed around his nape. The degree course would never be finished. Nazneen wondered if he really had a degree from Dhaka. Perhaps he used to finish things in those days.

'I'm fed up with the Open University,' said Chanu, as if he had read her thoughts. 'They send you so much rubbish to read. I'm returning to my first love.' He held up his book. 'English literature at its finest. You've heard of William Shakespeare. Yes, even a girl from Gouripur has heard of Shakespeare.'

'That is true,' Nazneen responded. No, the degree would never be finished. The promotion would never be won. The job would never be resigned. The furniture would never be restored. The house in Dhaka would never be built. The jute business would never be started. Even the mobile library, the petition for which had taken Chanu from door to door, would be forgotten.

'Have you heard of King Richard II?' Chanu made some preparations at the back of his throat. 'It's not so easy to translate. Give me one minute. This is a wonderful passage.'

'If I went to the college with Razia, you would be able to tell me in English.'

'To understand Shakespeare? Just like that! Is that what Razia is learning?'

'I don't know.' Nazneen brushed some hair from his shoulders and wrapped it in a piece of toilet tissue.

'O! that I were as great As is my grief, or lesser than my name, Or that I could forget what I have been, Or not remember what I must be now.'

No. The library would not be forgotten. It would be remembered, along with the rest. It would go on the list and it would never be forgotten.

'Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see: And yet salt water blinds them not so much But they can see a sort of traitors here. Nay, if I turn my eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest.'

Chanu closed his eyes. He began to hum. He played the table like a tabla. His head swayed to the tune so that Nazneen had to stop cutting. When he opened his eyes he shook himself like a wet dog. 'So,' he said. 'Well. Let's get on.'

The baby dropped his bread and began to cry.

'See how quickly he is frustrated,' said Chanu.

He can see, thought Nazneen. He can comment. But he cannot act. She went to pick up the bread. The baby chewed and was quiet. Chanu was quiet. The scissors went snit, snit. She heard the air enter and leave her nostrils. Her stomach growled because on Sundays, with Chanu close by, she didn't eat much.

She had missed morning prayers again today. Yesterday she missed both the fajr and zuhr prayers. But Raqib had needed her. The day before that he was napping and she was looking at a magazine. There was no excuse for that day. Except that her mind walked off on its own sometimes. She was looking at a magazine, an English magazine that Chanu had left. There was a picture of a couple: ice-skaters. She stood on one leg. Her body and the other leg were horizontal. Her arms reached out and held on to his hand, but she looked up and smiled directly at Nazneen. Her body was spangled, silver and blue. Her legs were long as the Padma. She was a fairy-tale creature, a Hindu goddess. Nazneen fell, somehow, into that picture and caught hold of the man's hand. She was shocked to find she was travelling across the ice, on one foot, at terrible speed. And the man smiled and said, 'Hold on tight.' Little green gems twinkled in his black suit. Nazneen squeezed his hand. She felt the rush of wind on her cheeks, and the muscles in her thighs flexing. The ice smelled of limes. The cold air made her flush with warmth from deep down. Applause. She could not see the audience but she heard them. And the man let go of her hand but she was not afraid. She lowered her leg and she skated on. Until Raqib woke and looked at her sceptically. 'Yes,' she told him, 'your mother is a foolish woman.' But she went to the mirror and stared hard at her serious face, the wide cheeks and big forehead and the stubby-lashed, close-set eyes, and wondered for a while about what she saw.

Her mind would not be still. It tried to pull her off here and there. Whenever she got a letter from Hasina, for the next couple of days she imagined herself an independent woman too. The letters were long and detailed. Nazneen composed and recomposed her replies until the grammar was satisfactory, all errors expunged along with any vital signs. But Hasina kicked aside all such constraints: her letters were full of mistakes and bursting with life. Nazneen threaded herself between the words, allowed them to spool her across seven seas to Dhaka, where she worked alongside her sister. Raqib came as well. Sometimes, at the end of the day, she was surprised when Chanu arrived home. Then she made vows to herself. Regular prayer, regular housework, no more dreaming. She sent brisk, efficient letters to Hasina. Look, she said to Amma (who was always watching), look how good I am now.

She had completed the haircut. It was, perhaps, a little jagged at one side but Chanu would not check it. 'Blow on the back of my neck,' he said. She blew, and dusted with her fingertips. 'We're not going to fester here any longer,' he said, wagging a finger. She held her breath. 'We're going out for a walk. Go and unfold the pram.'

She still saw Razia. Shefali liked to play with the baby. She gave him a row of dolls' heads, and he pinched at each one in turn. Tariq was more or less mute these days. An eight-year-old version of his father.

'I had to shave his head again,' said Razia. Tariq scratched at his bristles. 'Lice. They pick them up at school.'

'Can I have some money?' said Tariq. He kicked his sister surreptitiously.

'I don't have any money. Leave your sister alone.'

'I want five pounds.'

'What? Go and play. Run away.'

'I want five pounds.'

'Why?' Razia sighed, and pointed to the baby. 'They're much easier at that age.'

'I want a football.'

'You have a football.'

'I want a proper football.' It was the most Nazneen had heard him say in a long while. He always looked so on guard, so tough, that it was almost a surprise to hear his child's voice. 'I want five pounds,' he repeated, whining this time.

'I want five pounds,' mimicked Razia. She caught his voice just right.

'I want five pounds,' Shefali joined in. Tariq kicked her again and she began to squeal.

'Outside, both of you,' yelled Razia. 'Tariq, take your sister and go and play in the corridor. If I hear her crying, I'll whip your backside.'

They went out, and began bickering behind the door. Razia sat on the floor, and lifted Raqib onto her lap. He reached up and pinched her nose. He went cross-eyed looking at it.

'I'm going to strangle those kids,' said Razia. 'I've had enough of them.'

Nazneen knew she would never speak about Raqib like that.

'And I'll do my husband as well. He spends all day at the factory, comes home to eat, sleeps for two or three hours and then he's out again. All night.'

'Why?' said Nazneen. 'Where does he go?'

'He's driving trucks. He delivers meat to the halal butchers all around here. When he comes in, he stinks. Good job he doesn't hang around for long.' She put her hand in her trouser pocket and pulled out a lollipop. The baby was stupefied. All he could do was drool. Razia unwrapped the sweet and put the wrapper back in her pocket. She was wearing a garment she called a tracksuit. She would never, so she said, wear a sari again. She was tired of taking little bird steps.

'It's good for a man to work. I don't mind. Let him work twenty-four hours a day.' Razia waved the lollipop in front of Raqib's face. He watched it devotedly. He became its disciple. For its sake, he would sacrifice everything. 'But we don't see a single extra penny. That's my objection. He sends it all back. He is the biggest miser. The biggest bastard miser. If the children need toothbrushes, I have to beg. I have to get everything second-hand. Does he expect his children to get second-hand toothbrushes? I can't give them anything.' She put the lollipop to the baby's lips. He cooed gently over it. 'All the money goes back home. I don't know who looks after it. His brother, most likely. And most likely his brother is a thieving bastard. I don't think we will ever see that money again.'

Nazneen looked around. The room was crammed with things. Furniture, Tariq's bed, bikes, clothes, stepladders, plastic crates, toys, shoes, tins of paint, stacks of wooden planks, gas heaters, electric heaters, carpets, carrier bags of stuff, a stockpile of rice, a pyramid of tinned food. There was more here than the average villager would acquire in a lifetime. A village child was lucky to have a football. To have both a football and a bike was a luxury. To have a football, a bike and a heap of toys besides was unheard of. Yet Nazneen did not remember the children complaining, could not remember complaining herself.

'I told him straight,' Razia continued. 'Open up your purse, you son-of-a-whore, or else.'

The swearing was new. Or Razia was relaxed enough with her now not to hold back. The grown-ups had grumbled, of course, from time to time. The carpenter needed a new saw. The shoemaker needed more customers. (All those children running around barefoot!) The sweetmaker complained of the price of pistachios. But if they had a chair and a table and food to eat every day, then God be praised!

'I'll get a job myself. I told him straight.' Razia looked at Nazneen, not sideways and sceptically but straight on.

'What kind of job?' said Nazneen. In Gouripur a sweetmaker was a sweetmaker, a shoemaker was a shoemaker, and a carpenter was a carpenter. They did not want to be teachers or librarians. They were not waiting for promotions. They did not make themselves unhappy.

'I talked to Jorina. There are jobs going in the factory.'

'Oh,' said Nazneen. 'Mrs Islam says Jorina has been shamed. Her husband goes with other women. She started work, and everyone said, "He cannot feed her." Even though he was working himself, he was shamed. And because of this he became reckless and started going with other women. So Jorina has brought shame on them all.'

Razia snorted. 'Is that what Mrs Islam says? Let her say what she likes, it will not stop me.'

'What about the community? She will not be the only one.'

'Will the community feed me? Will it buy footballs for my son? Let the community say what it will. I say this to the community.' And she flicked her fingers.

'What does your husband say?'

Razia narrowed her eyes. She looked down her long, straight nose at the baby. 'Mrs Islam is one to talk. She's a fine one to talk.'

'Mrs Islam?'

'She of the thousand hankies.' Razia smiled for the first time.

Nazneen laughed. 'What is it all about? All those handkerchiefs.'

'You've never heard? You've never had the mystery of the handkerchiefs unravelled?' Razia's laugh vibrated on its high, metallic note. 'Sister, did you just jump off the boat? Let's see. Some people say that she is self-conscious about her nose. You know she has a wart. They say she began by using the hankies to cover it up whenever she thought someone was staring. But who would dare to stare at the old witch's wart? I bet she was an old witch even when she was a girl. Another theory is that she had a lover once who made her a gift of lace handkerchiefs, and she keeps his memory alive now through her collection. What rubbish! Some other people say it is superstition. A fakir told her mother to catch her breath in a cloth and shake it away at arm's length because it would bring bad luck. Some people are this foolish.' Razia handed Raqib back to Nazneen. He sucked his lolly dementedly. Razia got up and stretched. The knees of her tracksuit bulged.

'So what is it then?' Nazneen asked. 'What's the real reason?'

'It's a system. That's how it started, anyway. Her husband, he was a Big Man. Ran a business, made plenty of money. They have houses all over the place, rented out. In Dhaka they have two flats. A big house in the village with concrete pillars. The husband was only the front man, though. The brains belonged to Mrs Islam. She never kept purdah. She says she's 'adapted' now, that she has to walk outside because she's a widow. All rubbish. Even if she stayed indoors she never kept purdah. Her husband would bring his associates home, and they would do their deals there. Mrs Islam was always present. She kept in the back, serving and tidying. But she knew what they had come to talk about, and she pulled the strings. The handkerchiefs were how she did it. She signalled with them. Spotty one meant no. White one for yes. Lace edging for one-year contract. Plain muslin for two years. That's the sort of thing, anyway.'

Nazneen bounced Raqib on her knee. He looked round as if to say, do you mind? 'Now it's just a habit she picked up.'

'Yes,' said Razia. 'And no. There's still business to attend to. With her sons, this time.'

'Import-export?' said Nazneen.

Razia shook her head. Nazneen waited. Her friend looked away. 'What, then?' asked Nazneen.

'I'm not one hundred per cent sure.'

'What do you think?'

'I don't want to gossip.'

This was news. 'About what?'

'I don't know. I'd heard something before, but I didn't believe it. I talked to her the other week, and I think I believe it now. But I don't want to say anything.'

Why had she, then? 'All right,' said Nazneen. 'It's better left unsaid.'

They caught the bus on the Mile End Road. The conductor was an African. 'Look how fit he is,' whispered Chanu. 'So big. So strong. You see . . .' He paused a while. Nazneen shrank in her seat. The baby looked around without comment. 'They were bred for it. Slavery.' He hissed the word, and the couple in the seats in front turned round. 'That's their ancestry,' said Chanu, abandoning the whisper. The bus began to move, and the noise of the engine stopped him from addressing all the passengers. 'Only the strong survived that. Only the strong ones were wanted; they fetched the highest price. Commerce and natural selection working hand in hand.'

Nazneen did not know what he was talking about. 'If you say so, husband.' She had begun to answer him like this. She meant to say something else by it: sometimes that she disagreed, sometimes that she didn't understand or that he was talking rubbish, sometimes that he was mad. But he heard it only as, 'If you say so.'

Chanu settled down in his seat. His elbow dug into her side but he did not notice. 'Aah,' he said, 'it's the day.' A puzzled look came over his face. 'What shall I say when he opens the door?'

It was Nazneen's turn to be puzzled. Even her husband should be able to manage that. 'Salaam Ale-Koum?' she ventured. She giggled and the baby pursed his lips.

Chanu looked like a man who had been startled from sleep. 'Ha? Oh, ha! Yes, salaam and all that. What shall I say?' He chewed his lip.

Nazneen shrugged inwardly. She checked in her bag that she had everything she needed for the evening: wipes, nappies, rattle, muslin cloth, banana, spoon, blankets, Raqib's pyjamas. She would change him at Dr Azad's house and let him sleep on her shoulder on the way home.

She stood the baby up on her knee so he could look out of the window with her. It was dark, and cosy with lamp-posts. The people were tucked into big coats, and steamed as they walked. Headlights and red rear lights turned the road into a crawling carnival. The bus bumped along. The shops were lit up still. Leather shops, dress shops, sari shops, shops that sold fish and chips and samosas and pizzas and a little bit of everything from around the world. Newsagents, hardware shops, grocers, shops that sold alcohol, shops whose windows were stacked with stools and slippers and cassette tapes and seemed to sell nothing but were always full of men in panjabi-pyjama, smoking and stroking their beards. Between the lights were black patches where the windows were boarded or the For Sale signs were hung. A woman in a massive orange coat, zipped up to her white eyeballs, was darting in and out of traffic. She bunched her sari in one hand and held the other hand to her chest. The car horns worked together, goading her to run.

'I just don't know,' said Chanu. 'I think I will tell him straight off that I have brought a box of kalojam.'

'If you say so, husband,' said Nazneen. She had given up her domestic guerrilla actions. They annoyed only her. Besides which, the flat was becoming so cluttered, and the baby took up so much time, that it was as much as she could manage to keep her head above water. She had no time to mess about.

'It will be good. I'm looking forward to it.' He smiled uncertainly, as if he were practising a smile for the first time. He had on his green anorak. The one with the snorkel hood. His trousers were shiny at the knee, and the sole of one shoe (she noticed on the way to the bus stop) was coming unstitched. When they were first married he was, if not handsome, at least smart. He preened himself before he went to work. He kept two pens and one pencil in his breast pocket. He polished his shoes. He polished his briefcase. Those were the days when he talked of 'when'. When the promotion would come.

'I could say that we were just passing.'

Raqib twisted round and made a lunge for his father's nose. Chanu surrendered. He allowed his nose to be pinched and his hair to be pulled. The baby wore a blue jacket with so many layers beneath that his arms were lifted, as if the air was thick enough for them to rest on. He showed his teeth, all four ivory chippings, and grunted. Nazneen slowly absorbed the information. Just passing. After all of Chanu's efforts they were not even invited. Why did her father marry her off to this man?

He just wanted to be rid of me, she thought. He wanted me to go far away, so that I would not be any trouble to him. He did not care who took me off his hands. If I had known what this marriage would be, what this man would be . . .!

What? What, then? I would have run away, like Hasina? I would have eloped with the sweeper? Hah. I would have wept on my wedding day. I did! I did weep. What good did it do?

She held Raqib in her lap and rocked him back and forth, although he was not sleepy. A sharp, hot smell came from behind as a new passenger sat down with a meal wrapped in paper. The light inside the bus was furred up. It buzzed and crackled and leaked a yellow pollution. Even Raqib's face looked sickly in this light. The bell rang twice, quickly and smartly, and it sounded impatient to get on. The bus ground along and the seats vibrated grimly, as if a tornado had passed just barely out of range.

It was her place to sit and wait. Even if the tornado was heading directly towards her. For her, there was nothing else to be done. Nothing else that God wanted her to do. Sometimes she wanted to get up and run. Most of the time she did not want to run, but neither did she want to sit still. How difficult it was, this business of sitting still. But there was nothing really to complain of. There was Chanu, who was kind and never beat her. There was Raqib. And there was this shapeless, nameless thing that crawled across her shoulders and nested in her hair and poisoned her lungs, that made her both restless and listless. What do you want with me? she asked it. What do you want? it hissed back. She asked it to leave her alone but it would not. She pretended not to hear, but it got louder. She made bargains with it. No more eating in the middle of the night. No more dreaming of ice, and blades, and spangles. No more missed prayers. No more gossip. No more disrespect to my husband. She offered all these things for it to leave her. It listened quietly, and then burrowed deeper into her internal organs.