Ayan shook his head.

‘Why is that? It’s only six days away.’

‘Abba said that this year he will sacrifice a goat. Not a cow. Aapamoni has been possessed by a jinn, don’t you know? Everyone’s sad because of that.’

‘Really? What kind of jinn is that?’

‘I don’t really know. Can’t you rid her of that, Hujur? Why don’t you ask the jinn to free Aapamoni? She weeps all the time.’

‘Who weeps?’

‘Aapamoni weeps. But actually, it is the jinn inside her that weeps. Isn’t it so, Hujur? Aapamoni doesn’t call me any more, to do things for her. She doesn’t talk to me either.’

‘Hmm.’

Two kinds of feelings were aroused in Tahirul. First, he felt extremely pained to hear about Riziya. Was the girl really very ill? Was she afflicted with a mental ailment? Was he himself the cause of the ailment? Wasn’t that wrong on his part? This inattention of his, after having expressed his love to the girl and telling her that he wanted to marry her – was that what Riziya could not bear? That may have been the case, but after all, Riziya knew how to love. There wasn’t supposed to be any flaw in her love…

Tahirul took leave of Ayan and retired to his room again. He felt utterly miserable. Caught between social structures on the one hand and Riziya’s bond of love on the other, Tahirul was robbed of peace. He resolved inwardly that if he did get married, it would only be to Riziya. He would have to leave Sadnahati in that event. Let that be. Allah could open a hundred doors when one was shut. If Riziya could lose her mind on account of love, couldn’t he give that bit up? Bakri Eid was six days away. He would announce that he was going to marry Riziya once Eid was over. He did not care about the buzz that would arise in Sadnahati. He would pay that no attention.

Should he visit her? The matter of the jinn could well be true. Tahirul kept wondering what ought to be done if that was the case.

fifty-four

Riziya was unable to take her own life. After standing for a long while on the Howrah Bridge, she realized that life was actually like this river. So many things floated along the river – muck, garbage, and so much else! But did the river ever stop flowing? It continued to flow at its own pace. If it encountered hindrances, it changed direction, but never stopped flowing. Wasn’t a person’s life, too, a river? The educated and free-spirited Riziya returned home that day. She brought back the means to be certain. She purchased a pregnancy test kit from a medical store. She had heard about how the kit worked from Reshma Bhabi about a year ago. If two drops of urine were applied to a card, two red marks would appear. If there was only one mark, it was negative. But if there were two marks, then it was certain that a seed had been planted in her. It wasn’t an easy matter for an unmarried woman to buy the pregnancy test kit from the shop. Although, as a Muslim woman, she wasn’t supposed to be wearing sindoor, like married women from the other community. So there was no way of making out whether she was married or unmarried. Such compunctions existed only in her mind. Yet her heart had been thumping. Overcome with embarrassment, fear and anxiety, she wrote out a chit and extended that to the store attendant. The attendant gave her the kit as if it was a routine matter. She paid for it. Riziya was most astonished. It was as if she was buying a lozenge or chewing gum! Did the store attendant have the time to think about who was married and who wasn’t! Riziya hadn’t even looked at the thing inside the packet given by the attendant, she had hurriedly put it inside her bag. The only thing Riziya had in mind was using the test kit. She didn’t feel like going anywhere else. She had boarded a bus and returned to Sadnahati. But she couldn’t open the packet immediately after arriving at home. She had looked at the kit a few times. When she carried out the test the next morning, an inexpressible feeling suffused her young feminine heart. She was shocked! Two clear red marks gradually appeared. She wondered what she ought to do now. The immoral seed of the horrible, lecherous Raqib was in her womb. A human seed.

Rahman Da’s wife had to have an abortion once, when she was two months pregnant. That was not by having some medicine, she had to be admitted to a nursing home; that took all of half a day. Reshma Bhabi had mentioned that once during their chats. Oh, how painful the procedure was! Even if one set aside the matter of physical pain, how would it be possible for an unmarried and, therefore, supposedly virginal girl to undergo that? Where would she go? Would she be able to show her face if word got around? Would the Miya household have even a shred of honour left after that? As Riziya pondered over all these matters, she suddenly heard Tahirul’s deep voice. Wasn’t Reshma Bhabi’s family milad taking place today?

She was listening to everything he said as she lay in bed. Tahirul was conducting the owaj for the sacrifice. He made the final declaration, ‘What had Allah signalled to Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice? His child! Oh yes, the most beloved thing to parents, the heart of their hearts.’ Hearing that threw Riziya once again into the vortex of her stream of thoughts. A child! The life that was planted in her womb was such a child. Was it right to destroy or kill that? Although it was undesired, was it really unbearable? Wouldn’t Tahirul understand once everything was explained to him?

Chhoto Mami brought Riziya her dinner. But today she didn’t say that she wasn’t hungry. She sat up in bed like an obedient girl. She ate all the food. She felt a lot more normal. She wanted to conceal her anguish with a veneer of firm conviction.

It was the dead of night. Two more days had passed by. She couldn’t afford to sit around any more. She changed into fresh clothes. Was there something she needed to take along? She didn’t take anything. She exited her house cautiously. As soon as she went past the main entrance and stepped on the road, a few street dogs began howling, and then fell silent. Riziya paid no heed to that. She made her way directly to the mosque. There was no one there. When she neared Tahirul’s room, she began trembling. She knocked on the door a few times. There was no response. She knocked on the door again, and then in a voice mixed with fear, she called out, ‘Hujur! Hujur!’

There was a response now. A loud voice asked, ‘Who’s that? Who’s calling?’

Riziya remained silent. Words seemed to elude her. She cast a glance behind her. No one had spotted her, had they! She knocked on the door again. The door opened soon after. Tahirul was wearing a half-sleeve vest and a lungi. Seeing a girl standing in front of the door, he was dumbfounded. But before he could say anything, Riziya pushed him aside and went inside the room. Tahirul had not been able to recognize her in the dim light. As soon as he turned back into the room, he reached for the switch beside the door. As the light came on, he saw it was Riziya. Astonishment and panic writ large on Tahirul’s face, all he could say was, ‘You?’

‘Yes, it’s me, turn the light off, Hujur! Turn the light off!’

Tahirul turned the light off and said in alarm, ‘I can’t understand what you are up to!’

‘There’s no need to understand. Understand just this, that your Riziya wants to live. She wants to live with her head held high. I’ve come with a lot of trust, Hujur. Accept me. Today itself. Or else your Riziya will be washed away in some sea.’

Tahirul was utterly confounded. His heart was thumping like a galloping train. He exited the room, he looked all around. He looked at the clock on the minaret of the mosque and saw it was two o’clock. Returning to the room hesitantly, he said, ‘Rizi, go back the way you came. I shall go to your house in the morning. We’ll talk then. I beg you to leave now. It’ll be a terrible scandal if anyone sees us. Leave now.’

Riziya inhaled deeply a few times and said emphatically, ‘No. I’m not leaving.’

‘Why are you acting like you’ve lost your mind? What do you want me to do?’

‘You have to marry me.’

‘Marry? Isn’t it Raqib…’

Riziya was shocked. Had Hujur figured everything out!

‘What about Raqib?’

‘Your marriage to him had been fixed. And now you tell me…’

‘Don’t you know Raqib’s not around? It’s been a month and thirteen days since he ran away from here.’

‘Wow! I see you remember what day and date it was. Have you come to me because he’s gone?’

‘No, Hujur. I love you. Take me to your house in the Sundarbans. I want to live there. I feel suffocated here in Sadnahati. Please rescue me from Sadnahati.’

The two of them were standing in front of each other in the tiny room. Riziya was weeping. Tahirul was covered in perspiration, his throat was dry with fear. Had Riziya really lost her head? Didn’t she realize what a terrible disaster it would be if someone spotted her! Tahirul wanted to lead her subtly towards the door. With utmost calm he said, ‘Sit down. Let me go out and think about it a bit.’

But Riziya was at the door in a flash. She stretched out her arms and began her crazy antics again. ‘No, you’re not going anywhere. I don’t have any time at all, Hujur. I have no option but to take my life now.’

‘What rubbish are you talking! You are being impractical, Riziya. You have to fight to survive!’

‘Then run away with me today itself, Hujur! Let’s leave Sadnahati far behind. We’ll never come back here again.’

Riziya sat down after she said that.

Tahirul, Sadnahati’s eminent imam, was losing in the face of Riziya’s obstinacy. What a terrible irony! He shut his eyes. He prayed to Allah for help. Prophet Yusuf had fallen into such a predicament. It was in just such a room that Zuleikha had confined Yusuf. He had sought Allah’s help. The walls fell apart. Yusuf escaped from Zuleikha’s clutches. But he did not escape from the slander that followed. It took him fourteen years to erase the slander and establish the truth. But Tahirul was just an ordinary man. What ought he to do at this difficult moment? Should he run away, like Riziya said? Why was she in such a terrible hurry? Tahirul said, ‘Get up, Riziya. It’s only you that I will marry. After Eid. I had already planned to do that. Please leave now. No one will know if you leave now. Don’t take the road in front. Please think about my situation.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Do you trust me?’

‘Don’t talk about all this now, go away from here.’

‘No. First tell me, do you trust Riziya?’

‘Achchha, yes, I do. Please go, Rizi. I’m asking you with folded hands, go.’

Bakri Eid was the next day. The excitement that people felt on the day before the Eid at the end of the month of fasting, Eid-ul-Fitr, was absent at this Eid. There was none of the anxiety over purchasing gifts, none of the kids’ demands for clothes. It was the joy of unostentatious renunciation. But Sadnahati was abuzz now. In every nook and corner, there was only astonished conversation, whispered gossip.

Someone had observed a young woman departing silently from Imam Saheb’s room in the dead of night. But who was the girl? Before that could be ascertained, she seemed to have vanished. And that was the source of the mystery. Was it really a woman of flesh and blood? His adherents said it was Hujur’s supernatural powers. It could be a jinn, or a fairy too. After all, they could take on human guise. The critics squinched up their eyes, turned their faces away and sniggered. That prompted other critics to begin reciting epic verses on love.

No one had the audacity to ask Maulana Tahirul about the matter. But the person who had spotted the woman was shocked and at an utter loss all through the day. What a fall! Had he really caught a glimpse of something? Father and son had stitched garments all through the night to meet the boss’s order. And after that, Asmat Chacha stepped out on the road. The bundle of goods was on the bicycle’s carrier. Just as the wobbling bicycle turned at the crossing in front of the mosque, he thought he saw a person, a female form, in the darkness, standing in front of the Imam Saheb’s room. He was stunned. There was a heavy bundle behind him. As soon as he slowed down the cycle, the bundle tilted. Fearing he might fall, he got off the bicycle. He tightened the fastening around the bundle. He was inattentive for only that long. And then when his curious eyes returned to the room, he was astonished. The girl seemed to have vanished. Sure, he didn’t recognize her, but it was clearly a woman.

This eyewitness was an adherent of Imam Tahirul. He had abundant faith in Pirs and darbeshes. He announced exaggeratedly in the morning, at Chacha’s tea shop beside the majar, that he had seen something supernatural. And ever since then, many people visited him in secret to find out. ‘Tell us properly, what exactly did you see? Could you make out which family she belonged to?’