1985.

February.

Kakrail Mosque had none of the beauty of the mosques in the older parts of town. It was just a concrete structure, rectangular, with a minaret protruding upwards from its middle. Through the square-patterned grille, she could see men going about their business, kneeling down to pray, ducking under the taps to perform the Wazu, standing with their hands crossed in front of them, listening to a munajaat. So this was where Sohail spent all his time. Rising before dawn and making his way through the grey and sleeping city, to this place of fellow men.

She had woken Ammoo and told her she had to meet Sohail. Sohail, Ammoo said, sleep heavy in her mouth. You won't find him. She had rushed out of the house, still wearing the grey cotton she'd had on since the night before, the birth fresh in her memory.

She entered through the gate and found a few men milling around outside the building. They looked at her, turned away, looked again. Stared, scratched behind their ears. She held back a smile. It's all right, she wanted to say, I won't bite you. Finally one approached her. *Women are not allowed,' he said, clearing his throat.

*I won't stay long,' she said, resisting the urge to stare him down. He couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen. Beard coming in spare and reluctant. His shoulders still narrow, frame still folded in on itself. He was about to say something to her, but an older man came up behind him and put an enormous hand on his shoulder.

*Begum, I'm very sorry but we have no provisions for women. You must leave immediately.' His voice was as big as his hand, deep and rough, as if sc.r.a.ped along the road.

*I have business here,' she said. *I'm looking for my brother.'

*The Jumma prayer will begin soon. You must go.'

She was so tired. How hard could it be to find your own brother? *Sohail Haque a I'm looking for Sohail Haque.'

The man hesitated. His mouth opened and closed, a great, gaping hole surrounded by a pelt of beard. *He isn't here.'

He was lying.

*But this is where he comes, every day. Every day he is here.'

*He is no longer with us.' The man moved his arm, and she could tell he wanted to push her but he couldn't, not in front of the others, standing around now and nudging each other, the crowd growing as people arrived for the Friday prayer.

*No longer? Where is he?'

*I don't know,' he said, giving her a look of undisguised impatience. The muezzin began the call to prayer. A megaphone sprang to life. Allah-hu Akbar Allaaaah hu Akbar.

The crowd around them began to line up for the prayer. The man cupped her elbow in his palm and led her to the gate. *Please a I must find my brother.' She raised her voice. *Sohail, Sohail!' But they were already at the gate, and with great force he hurled her elbow out on to the street and slammed the gate closed. *What are you all looking at?' she heard him roar. *Get back to your prayers, go!'

He must be somewhere inside. She rubbed her elbow, and the night came back to her, Rokeya straining with her breech birth. Her confession. She considered the possibility of Rokeya's being overcome by the pain of labour a but, in her experience, women were often at their most lucid at the moment of delivery. No, it had to be true. As soon as she had said it Maya knew it was true. The truth of it stopped the air in her throat. Zaid had lied about coming home on a holiday. She remembered Khadija's words. We sent him back.

She heard someone behind her and turned around to see the young man she had first addressed. He leaned through a crack in the gate. *Your brother is at a mosque in Kolabagan. Take Elephant Road to Ghost Road. It's a small place, next to an empty plot of land. A new building.'

*A new mosque? But why?' She wanted to reach through the gap, but he was already gone.

She followed the directions, Elephant Road to Ghost Road. She asked for the new mosque, waving down pa.s.sers-by on the road. They pointed, directing her to smaller and smaller lanes. The people of this neighbourhood were intent on their tasks, the women dipping into buckets and coming up with pieces of washing, and the men carrying heavy things with agility, drums of water and boxed-up parcels and bags of cement. Even the telephone wires seemed to dangle over the pavements with lightness and grace.

When she saw the gate she knew it must be the one. Painted green, with a small star and crescent etched in white. She could smell the freshly laid cement, taste the white dust it imposed on the air around it. There was no bell to ring. She banged on the gate. No reply. She banged again. She turned the corner, looking for another entrance. A man walked past with a stack of bricks piled on his head. *Is this the new mosque?' she asked him.

The man could not nod but called out: *You have to wait,' he said. *They don't open the gate.'

More waiting. She found a small cut in the high wall that surrounded the building and wedged herself into it, shielding her eyes against the sun with her hand. The Ghost Road residents drifted past. She thought about finding a telephone and ringing Joy. What would she say? He would drive up in his Honda and try to rescue her. She did not want to be rescued. The sun battered her arm, the lower part of her leg that was out of the shade. She dozed, waking blearily to catch the curious glances of people walking by.

The afternoon opened up, then fell away again, the streets quietening and slowing down, the shops shuttered or lit up for the evening, fluorescent bulbs and kerosene lamps and tiny open fires.

Sohail's building did not stir. She hadn't seen anyone go in or out. There was no call of the muezzin, no shuffle of bodies preparing for the prayer. Ammoo would have started to worry. She realised she hadn't eaten all day, a throb in her stomach. She thought again that she should have waited for him to come home. Then the gate swung open and he was in front of her, his hands crossed over his chest.

*How long have you been here?'

*A long time. Can I come inside? I'm very thirsty.'

*Wait.' He dipped back through the gate and emerged with a tin mug of water.

The water was lukewarm, metallic. She drank it down. *So, this is your new place? What is it?'

*A meeting house.'

*Can anyone join?'

*If they wish to, yes.' He sighed heavily, then surprised her by putting his hand on her shoulder. *Is something troubling you, Maya?'

She decided to tread lightly. *That day, at the hospital,' she said, *what did you whisper to Ammoo?'

*Surah Yasin.' His voice was tender, heavy with love. *Waalqurani alhakeemi, Innaka lamina almursaleena . . .' It must have been this that roused Ammoo, the call of her firstborn. The miracle of his voice.

*She's much better, you know. She's walking around and everything.'

A rickshaw pulled up in front of them. *Jaben?' asked the driver, ringing the bell.

Maya was about to wave him away, but Sohail said, *Wait over there. Apa will need to get home soon.'

*Sohail, please, let me come inside. I need to speak with you.'

He said nothing, just stood in front of the door as if he were guarding what was inside. She realised she would have to tell him right there, on the street. *It's about Zaid.' She checked his face to see if he knew, if he had any idea. *I heard he ran away. When Ammoo was in the hospital.'

Sohail sighed. His hand was heavy on her shoulder.

*Did he tell you why he ran away?'

He shook his head. A weary, resigned shake. *The Huzoor said-'

*It's the Huzoor I want to talk to you about. There's something going on, something not right a I saw Zaid, he didn't look well. Ammoo was going into hospital that day, or I would have come to you.' She was making excuses for herself. If only Zaid hadn't arrived at that moment, if only she had taken him to the hospital with her. *The point is, you have to get him out of there,' she said. *It's not a safe place, not a place for children. That Huzoor is doing things, I don't know exactly what, but the children have no defence against him. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

He turned away from her. Across the road, the rickshaw-wallah had curled up on the seat of his vehicle. The city sounds faded in and out, lorries labouring in the distance, the wheeze of carriages on the railway line. She reached for his hand, imagining the shock of it sinking slowly through him. When he turned around and spoke, his voice was cracked. *He lies, you know that. He lies all the time.' A deep furrow between his eyes.

*I know, but you can't take the risk. Even if there's a slight chance he's telling the truth, you have to get him out of there. And I'm telling you, he didn't look well. Rokeya said-'

*You've seen Rokeya?'

*I delivered her baby this morning.'

*Sister Khadija was insulted by the way she left the jamaat.' The evidence was getting shakier, less reliable.

*The madrasa is not a good place, Bhaiya.'

*You're hardly objective.' He was using both hands to smooth down his beard. The purple bruise on his forehead reflected the dying light. The devout believed that on the Day of Judgement, it would shine like a beacon, and she imagined it now, light pouring from his forehead, like a miner's headlamp.

*You'll go tomorrow, then?'

He paused, pulling harder on his beard, taming the curl of it. *He is my son. I will ensure his safety.'

*Promise me you'll go tomorrow.'

*I cannot promise you that.'

He could not mean what he appeared to be saying. He wouldn't go, he wouldn't rescue his son from whatever h.e.l.lhole he had sent him to. *You want him to be just like you, is that it?'

Sohail took a step towards her, and he was close, very close, when he said, *I want, more than anything else, for him not to become like me. That is why I sent him away.'

It didn't make any sense. She told him so. *You wouldn't understand.' He kissed her gently, missing her forehead, his lips landing on her eyebrow. She held herself stiffly, wondering what to do now. All this time she had been waiting for something n.o.ble to come out of him. At the hospital, she had had an inkling of it. He had gone to Ammoo's bedside, he had recited the words. At the time she had thought this might be enough. But he had not believed her. He would not rescue his son.

By the time she got home, Ammoo was already asleep. Maya packed a small bag. A toothbrush, a change of clothes. Then, thinking of Rokeya's sister, she climbed up on to the roof and quietly pulled a long black chador and a nikab from the washing line. She wrote a note and left it on Ammoo's bedside table. *I need to go back to Rajshahi for a few days. A few things to collect.'

Before slipping out into the morning, the sky pink and amber, she dialled Joy's number. *What's the matter?' he said, sleep thick in his voice. *Changed your mind?'

*No.'

*Good. We can elope, you know. Kazi offices all over the country. Slip them a few bucks and they'll do it on the spot.'

She told him she was going to Rajshahi for a few days. *Let me come with you.'

*No. But I need a favour.'

*Anything.'

*I want you to find someone for me. Someone I lost in the war.'

The Following Day.

There was always this: the Jamuna River, even in its diminished winter state, beating powerfully against its banks. Although she had raced here, Maya paused now for a moment before boarding the ferry, savouring the loam and brown silt of it. Little, in this country, inspired awe, but this river, thick and dangerous, was a wonder.

The ferry was crowded on this Sat.u.r.day morning. Maya took her seat on the lower deck. A blaze of the siren, and the ferry picked up speed, tilting like a rocking chair as it hit the Jamuna current.

She knew little about the madrasa apart from the few clues she had been able to piece together. Sohail had told her he was taking the boy to Chandpur, and Zaid had said the madrasa was on its own island in the middle of the river. She had looked on a map, and found three different Chandpurs. Only one was near a river. At dawn, before she departed, she had gone upstairs and questioned Khadija, who had told her nothing. You no longer visit us, she said.

Maya had allowed herself to be duped. All those afternoons she had spent, drunk on the possibility that there might be some other hand in her mother's illness, a divine hand she could manoeuvre with the help of Khadija and the jamaat. How could she have been so foolish? She should never have allowed Sohail to take Zaid to the madrasa. Ammoo's illness had clouded her judgement. And when Zaid had come to her, she had swatted him away. What kind of mother would she make? She couldn't even see the thing that was right before her eyes.

The cabin was packed now, and thick with heat. Being inside was making her thirsty. She stepped on to the deck and leaned her arms against the railing, tiny droplets of water landing on her face.

She found a cold-drinks stall. A boy with a lungi hitched up around his thighs squatted in front of a tub of ice and soft drinks. *c.o.ke, please,' she said. He looked about twelve, strong arms protruding from a vest that used to be white. He pulled a bottle out of the tub, wiped it with a cloth and opened it against the battered wooden table in front of him.

She gave him five taka. He caught her eye and smiled so broadly, so hopefully, that she found herself asking him why he wasn't in school.

He shrugged, still smiling.

*Where do you live?'

*On this ferry. The driver is my uncle.'

A large family approached the stall and ordered their drinks. *Three Mirindas and seven 7 Ups!' the father shouted, thrilled by his own joke *And hurry, na.' The boy rushed through the order, fishing the bottles out of the icy water, throwing in new ones from the crates stacked up alongside. Maya lingered, watching him work. The man took his drinks, throwing his money at the boy, dodging the thin, pointy straws as they bobbed in the open bottles.

*Do you live in Dhaka?' he asked her.

*Yes,' she replied. *I'm a doctor.'

He pushed out his lower lip and nodded, impressed. *Dakhtar.'

They were in the middle of the river now, the sh.o.r.es disappearing on either side. A muezzin announced the Asr prayer. The ferry slowed down, the engine coughing. Then it suddenly stopped, and everything was quiet; only the lapping of the water against the boat.

*Sometimes the engine breaks,' the boy said. They heard shouts coming from below, and the sound of running feet. There was no longer a breeze. Pa.s.sengers crowded the walkways, squeezing themselves against the railing.

*Come with me,' the boy said. *I know a better place.'

*Oh, it's all right.' Maya shook her head. *Really, it's all right here. And you shouldn't leave the stall; people will be wanting their drinks.'

He was already sliding the tub under the table and folding down the small cubicle. She followed him as he led her up a set of steps, then through the ferry and up a narrow ladder. He climbed up quickly, his bare feet curling around the metal rungs, then turned and held out his hand to Maya.

It was bright, the sun reflecting off the painted white roof, but it was also cooler, the wind open and rough. There was a tiny ledge on the eastern corner, and they perched there together. The muezzin called again. There were a few others; a man rolled out a small rectangle of cloth and began to pray, dipping his head to the west. Unbidden, the words of the prayer came to Maya's lips. She remembered her mother patiently teaching her the verses, and how reluctantly she had submitted at the hospital. An hour pa.s.sed. The boy took his leave. *I have to sell the drinks,' he said.

*What is your name?' Maya asked.

*Khoka.'

*Goodbye, Khoka.' She waved, then added, *G.o.d be with you.'

The ferry gasped to life, the siren blaring as they began to move. Soon they approached the other side, floating towards the embrace of land, the sun light, high-spirited, on the horizon.

As she was leaving the ferry, Maya found Khoka waiting for her, hugging a small bundle. *Dakhtar, where are you going? Let me come with you. I can help.' She saw him clearly now, in the full brilliance of the afternoon. He had dark, luminous eyes. He would be handsome one day, if he were fed properly. If his shoulders weren't burned and bowed from long hours on the dock. But she didn't want to be burdened by anyone; he would ask questions and she would not be able to answer them. *No, it's all right.' She reached into her bag for a few notes.

He shook his head, refusing the money, suddenly shy.