The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam Read Free Book Online

of the Art College, under which they had passed so many afternoons before the war. He pressed a palm against it and leaned back. ‘It wasn’t that kind of marriage.’
    ‘What, then?’ She thought about it for a moment, the answer came to her, and before she knew it she had blurted out, ‘Pregnant?’
    He laughed. ‘Maya-bee. Stings like a bee. Like Muhammad Ali.’
    That was the nickname. Maya-bee.
    He went on. ‘I married her so I could stay in the country. My student visa ran out and I didn’t want to come back.’
    ‘So attached to foreign,’ she said.
    ‘I know how you feel about it – you made it very clear the last time we saw each other.’ He pulled a box out of his pocket and held it up to her.
    ‘A cigarette from New York? I can’t refuse.’
    He put two cigarettes in his mouth, lit both and passed one to her.
    ‘I saw that in a movie once,’ she said.
    ‘Me too.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t like the cinema.’ She was reminding him of the soldier he had been, the one who was worried about appearing soft.
    ‘I’m not the same man any more.’
    ‘I don’t believe it.’
    He changed the subject. ‘But they tell me you haven’t changed a bit. Still the same fighting spirit.’
    She blushed, suddenly shy. She told him about Rajshahi, about becoming a village doctor, omitting the cause of her sudden departure. And she pictured him crying, the way he had lifted his hand to his face. She wanted to say something to him about his brother. Aref had been Sohail’s best friend at university, the two inseparable once Sohail discovered that Aref’s father, like Ammoo, was Urdu-speaking, that they both had relatives in Pakistan. It had set them apart from the others, having to square their politics with their family history.
    She was still holding her shoes. When she bent down to slip them on she saw that he too was barefoot, his trousers rolled up. ‘Where are your shoes?’
    ‘I left them at home.’
    ‘In New York?’
    They both laughed. He hailed a rickshaw, holding out his hand to help her to her seat, and just as she was about to wave goodbye he slipped in beside her. ‘I’d like to see Sohail,’ he said.
    She wondered how much he knew – and if she should tell him about the upstairs, and all the visitors, and the sight of their clothes, hanging thick and black on the washing line, and how years ago they had thrown away all their light bulbs, their darkness now interrupted only occasionally by the tiny yellow presence of oil lamps.
    ‘Now’s not a good time,’ she said. ‘He’s out of town.’
    He lowered himself out of the rickshaw. ‘Another day,’ he said, nodding his head to her as if he were wearing a cap. Then he said: ‘There’s a party next Friday at Chottu and Saima’s. Why don’t you come?’
    She had heard of Chottu and Saima’s wealth, their big house in Gulshan. She was a little curious. And, she thought, she wouldn’t mind knowing when she would see Joy again. ‘Maybe. I’ll phone you, okay?’
    On her way home, Maya recalled the last time she had seen Joy. Sheikh Mujib had been released from jail in Pakistan and was arriving in Dhaka that morning. People were lining up along the streets all the way from the airport to Road 32 in Dhanmondi, where he lived. Maya met Chottu and Saima on Mirpur Road. Chottu had painted a green-and-red flag on his cheek. She told him he looked like a clown. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Joy Bangla!’ By then the crowds were streaming in from all sides, pouring out of houses, shops, abandoning their cars, jumping out of rickshaws. Children were pulled up on shoulders. When she looked back, the road had disappeared behind her, replaced by a swell of bodies. Finally they came to the street where Mujib would be passing and staked out a place on the footpath. The singing grew louder. ‘He’s coming,’ Chottu said, standing on his toes. ‘I can see him.’
    A roar travelled up the road. Mujib was standing in the open top of a very