Coming out onto the veranda in the morning, Afsar Siddique sees that the blue shirt hanging on the line has got wet. It rained in the night. The shirt has been hanging there four days. Rezaul Karim does not take it in.
Afsar feels the cloth. There is mildew near the shoulder. He takes his hand away and wipes his fingers on his lungi. Reza’s door is pushed to. There is no answer from inside.
There are six rooms on this tin-roofed first floor. A narrow veranda along the front, Afsar’s room at one end, Reza’s at the other. The four rooms in between are taken by the garment girls. They leave before six and come back after ten at night. During the day there is nobody on this veranda. Afsar works at a binding shop in Nilkhet, leaves at eight in the morning, comes back at nine at night. Coming back he looks at the shirt. It is in the same place.
Rezaul Karim has been in this lane in Katasur for fourteen years. He came from Bhola and went into Harun sahib’s tile shop at Mirpur One and was there nine years. Then the shop changed hands. Reza’s job went. What he did for the two years after that, the people of the lane cannot exactly say. He went out in the morning and came back in the afternoon, sometimes with a polythene bag in his hand. Asked what work, Reza would clear his throat twice and then say, Looking into it.
Looking into it was Reza’s phrase. When the landlord Abu Taher pressed him about the rent, Reza would say, Looking into it. When the credit built up at Sobhan’s shop and Sobhan would sit staring at his book without speaking, Reza would say, Looking into it. Two years ago Afsar lent him four thousand taka. What it was for, he no longer remembers. The money never came back. Afsar never asked for it and Reza never mentioned it.
People did not call Reza a bad man. He had done nothing to be called bad for. It was only that when they stood talking in front of him they hurried a little, as though it were necessary to finish and move away.
One afternoon in Jaishtha a rickshaw stops at the mouth of the lane. The man who gets down has a bag on his shoulder and an earthenware pot in his hand with paper tied over the mouth. He has come from Bhola. His name is Alauddin. He is the husband of Reza’s sister Rahela.
Afsar was at the shop. He comes back and hears that Alauddin sat in Reza’s room the whole afternoon, left new molasses, drank tea, and went back on the afternoon coach. Mariam, the girl on the ground floor who does sewing work, stands on the veranda and tells Afsar, Brother, Reza bhai’s nephew has got into school, they say. Reza bhai sent the money.
Afsar says, Who says?
That man said. He kept saying thank you, over and over.
Afsar goes and stands at Reza’s door. Reza is sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. The pot is in the corner. The paper has not been opened.
Afsar says, Your brother-in-law came?
Reza nods.
You sent money?
Reza is quiet a while. Then he says, I didn’t send any money.
Afsar laughs. He says, Good. You wouldn’t have said so anyway.
Reza looks at him then. That look stays with Afsar, though at the time he gives it no weight. When a man starts to say something and realises that saying it will make things worse, he looks like that.
The pot of molasses stays in the corner. Eleven days later Mariam sees that a thin line of ants has come up the wall to the mouth of the pot. The line does not break. Mariam sweeps them away, and the next day the line comes up along exactly the same track.
In the evenings men sit on the bench at Sobhan’s shop. On rainy days a tarpaulin is hung and the steam gathers inside. It is on that bench that Afsar first hears it.
Farid has his phone in his hand. Farid used to be a bus helper; now he sells vegetables off a van at the head of the lane. He puts the phone down on the bench and presses a button.
First the sound of a throat being cleared. Twice. Then: Farid bhai, have you eaten? It’ll rain today, I think. Keep your goods covered.
Nobody on the bench is startled. Sobhan stays bent over his stove. One of them says, Reza bhai keeps in touch these days.
Afsar says, When did he send it?
Last night.
What time?
Farid looks at the phone and says, Two forty.
Afsar says nothing. Last night at two he had come out onto the veranda for water. There was no light in Reza’s room. There has been no light at night in Reza’s room this last month.
Later, when all of this is talked about in the lane, one man will say that a dog could be heard barking in the background of that recording. Another will say it was this lane’s dog, the black one, the one that made a coughing sound at the end of its bark. The black dog died during Ramzan; the rubbish van took it away. Nobody argues about it. Farid had deleted the recording; there was no space on the phone.
That night the rain falls on Afsar’s tin roof. His daughter Tuli is in class nine and is asleep. His wife Nasima is tucking in the mosquito net. It is eleven o’clock. Afsar’s phone rings.
He sees the name: Rezaul.
Afsar goes out onto the veranda. At the far end Reza’s door is shut. It is dark inside.
Afsar answers and says, Hello.
On the other end a throat is cleared. Twice. Then: Afsar bhai, had you gone to sleep?
No.
What was Tuli’s result?
Afsar looks out at the rain. Water is running off the edge of the tin. He says, Good.
Wasn’t she low in one subject?
Maths.
Don’t worry about maths. Girls come to maths late. My sister was the same.
Then the line goes dead.
Afsar stands there. Below the veranda the water is running in the drain. He has told nobody about Tuli’s result. Two months ago, one evening, on this veranda, he had told Reza the girl was weak at maths, that she needed a tutor, that it would cost. Reza had cleared his throat then and said, Looking into it.
Afsar goes in and gets under the mosquito net. Nasima asks, Who was on the phone?
Afsar says, The shop.
Why he told that lie he does not himself know. Afterwards it comes back to him many times. After a man has told the first lie the second does not feel like a lie, and the third feels like a household chore.
In the middle of Ashar the money starts coming.
Sobhan’s credit first. Three thousand two hundred and forty taka, by bKash, after eleven at night. Sobhan opens his book and draws a line through it in red ink. He shows the book to everybody. Then Abu Taher’s four months of rent. Getting the money, Abu Taher comes and bangs on Reza’s door; the door does not open, and he calls out from the veranda as he goes, Brother, you’re a good man, you just don’t talk.
Afsar’s four thousand comes on the twenty-first of Ashar, at one twenty-seven in the afternoon. He is at the shop, his hands on the cutting machine. After the message comes he sits a long time with the phone in his hand. Then he does not withdraw the money. He leaves it three days.
On the fourth day he withdraws it. He buys Tuli a pair of shoes, black school shoes; the sole had come off the old ones. The rest of the money he puts into Nasima’s hand. Nasima asks, Where did you get so much money?
Afsar says, Reza bhai gave it. An old debt.
It was not a lie. He could not have said anything truer. But having said it, it seems to him that somebody was standing inside the room, listening.
At night he goes and stands at Reza’s door. The door is open. Reza is on the floor. A hurricane lamp is burning; the power is out.
Afsar says, I got the money.
Reza looks up.
Afsar says, You didn’t send it. I know. But money is money.
Reza says, Yes.
Afsar says, Why don’t you do something?
What Reza says then, Afsar only half hears, because the girls in the next room have put the television on. Reza says, What am I to do, Afsar bhai. I’m here, aren’t I.
A little after that the power goes. Afsar goes down.
Two days later Nasima puts rice and vegetables on a plate, covers it, and hands it to Tuli. She says, Take this to the next room.
Tuli goes. She is back very soon, the plate in her hand.
Nasima says, You didn’t give it?
I did. Uncle wouldn’t take it.
What did he say?
He didn’t say anything. He was looking at me. Then he showed me with his hand.
Nasima puts the plate on the table. Then she turns to Afsar.
What’s wrong with that man?
I don’t know.
You live in the next room and you don’t know?
Afsar says, I’m not a doctor.
Nasima says, You don’t need a doctor. He’s drying up in front of your eyes. And you’ve bought your daughter shoes with his money.
Having said it she goes off to the kitchen. There is the sound of pots being moved.
Afsar does not eat that night. The shoes were under Tuli’s bed. Before sleeping he bends down once to look; the shoes are exactly where they were.
That same week Farid shows him a photograph.
At Sobhan’s shop, on the bench. He turns the phone towards Afsar. In the photograph Reza is standing in front of a green gate. Behind him a wide road, and on the far side of the road high ground like a hillock, and trees. Sunlight on it. Reza is wearing the blue shirt.
Farid says, Where had he gone, brother?
Afsar says, I don’t know.
Sobhan leans over and looks and says, Looks like the Sylhet side.
Another man on the bench says, Chittagong.
They talk about the place for a while. Then the talk turns to rent, and then to the market. Everybody on that bench knows that Reza has not come out of the lane for a month. Nobody raises it. No place is made in the conversation where it could be raised.
Afsar goes home and stands on the veranda. It rained before dusk. The blue shirt hangs heavy and wet on the line, the sleeve touching the railing. He lifts the sleeve and lays it on the railing. Then he goes inside.
In Shrabon, Reza comes to Sobhan’s shop one day.
After three months he comes out into the lane. He is wearing that blue shirt, taken down from the line, the mildew mark on the shoulder. He sits at one corner of the bench. Sobhan gives him tea and takes no money.
At first nobody speaks. Then Farid says, Brother, keeping well?
Reza goes to clear his throat. No sound comes. He tries again. This time a broken sound comes, a rasp. He says, Well.
The men on the bench look at him.
Sobhan says, Brother, why’s your voice like that?
Reza says, A cold.
Farid says, It’s fine on the phone, though.
Farid does not say it unkindly. He says it laughing. But the remark lies there on the bench and nobody picks it up.
As Reza finishes his tea and gets up, Farid says, Brother, thank you for what you said.
Reza stands. He says, What did I say?
Farid’s face changes. He says, What you told me. About my sister’s marriage being called off.
Reza says, I never said that.
What do you mean, never said it? Farid stands up. You said you were the one who spread it, back when you were sitting in Harun sahib’s shop. You said you’d been wrong. After all these years you said it. I cried. My sister’s in Khulna now, three sons, I told her too.
Reza says, I never said it, meaning I never spread it. I didn’t spread it.
Farid stands looking at him. Nobody on the bench says anything. Sobhan pours water into the kettle; there is a sound.
Farid says, Then why did you ask my pardon?
Reza goes out. He walks off down the lane. Watching him walk, Afsar, who is just then getting off a rickshaw at the head of the lane, cannot tell whether he is angry or tired.
Towards the end of Shrabon, Afsar goes to Mirpur on shop business. To buy glue and board. Getting down at One he sees that Harun sahib’s tile shop is still there. The signboard has changed; Harun sahib is sitting inside.
Afsar goes in. Gives salaam. Introduces himself: Katasur, the room next to Rezaul Karim’s.
Harun sahib stands up. He says, Sit down, sit. How is Reza?
Well.
Harun sahib sends the shop boy for tea. He says, He called before Eid. We talked over an hour. After all these years.
Afsar sits with the cup in his hand.
Harun sahib says, You wouldn’t know which year the truck overturned; you weren’t around then. Eighty sacks of tile, all powder. The bank instalment over my head. That night I shut the shop and sat inside. Reza stayed. He didn’t leave.
He sips his tea. He says, That day on the phone he brought up that night. He said, Brother, do you remember that night?
Then, after a silence, Harun sahib laughs. He says, That night I cried. Not another soul in the world knows.
Afsar says nothing. Out on the road there is the horn of a bus.
Harun sahib says, Tell him to come to the shop. I’ll give him the manager’s job. You don’t find men you can trust in this line.
Afsar says, All right.
On the way back the bus is stuck in traffic. Near Shyamoli it stands half an hour. Afsar looks out of the window and thinks he will tell Reza. Home again, he stands on the veranda. Reza’s door is open, dark inside, Reza sitting on the floor.
Afsar says, Harun sahib sends his salaam.
Reza lifts his face. He looks at him.
Afsar says nothing more. He thinks he will say it tomorrow. Tomorrow he does not say it. Nor the day after.
Over the days that follow Reza speaks less and less. First he answers briefly. Then he nods. Then he starts writing on paper.
He tears sheets off an old calendar and writes on the back. Afsar takes the paper down. He passes it to the landlord, mentions the water line, tells the grocer about the rice and dal. Large letters on the paper, the spelling wrong, and at the end there is always a line: Keep well.
One day the paper says, Afsar bhai, will you talk to me?
Afsar stands with the paper in his hand. Then he says, Say what you want to say.
Reza sits with his head down. His lips move. No sound comes.
At the end of Shrabon the writing on paper stops too.
In the neighbourhood nobody says anything bad about Rezaul Karim then. The opposite, in fact. In Bhadro, at the time of Sobhan’s son’s operation, money goes to the hospital. Money goes for the cataract operation on Mariam’s mother’s eyes. Money goes for the grille on the mosque window at the head of the lane; the committee writes the name in the receipt book: Rezaul Karim, house no. 34/B.
At the end of Bhadro a marriage proposal comes for Mariam. The man does electrical work in Savar, older, married once before. Mariam has no father, her mother is in the village and cannot see. Mariam cannot decide whom to consult.
That night she writes and sends it up.
The next morning, hanging out the washing on the roof, she calls the other girls and reads out the answer. A long answer. It says, a previous marriage is no fault, but you need to know why it ended. It says, find out whether the man’s shop is his own or rented. It says, your mother can’t see; settle before the marriage who she’ll live with, because if it’s said afterwards people don’t keep their word.
The girls on the roof listen. One of them says, He’s right, though.
Mariam folds the paper and puts it inside her blouse. Three months later, after the wedding, she takes that paper to her husband’s house.
That afternoon, going up the stairs and along the veranda, she passes Reza’s open door. Reza is sitting on the floor. Mariam gives salaam. Reza nods. Mariam goes on to her room. She does not tell Reza about the marriage, because she assumes he knows.
By then people do not come up onto the veranda and knock at the door. They raise a hand from below and give salaam. If Reza is standing in the doorway, they give salaam. If he is not, they look at the shut door and give salaam. There is no difference between the two.
At the beginning of Ashwin, Rahela comes from Bhola. With her a seven-year-old boy, sniffing with a cold. She goes into her brother’s room and puts down her bag. Then she stays in the room till noon.
Afsar did not go to the shop that day. He sits at his end of the veranda smoking. No sound of talking comes from inside. Once only a child’s voice: Ma, rice.
At midday Rahela comes out. Standing at the head of the stairs she calls Afsar.
Brother, you live next door.
Yes.
Is there some illness with my brother?
Afsar says, We took him to a doctor. He says there’s nothing.
Rahela is quiet a while. Then she says, He talks well enough on the phone. He calls every night. Asks after the boy’s cold. He called last night too. Told me to come today, and if the bus was crowded to sit by the window.
Afsar says nothing.
Rahela says, He’s sitting in there looking at me and he doesn’t speak. What am I to do, brother. It feels to me as if I’ve come to the wrong house.
Then Afsar says the thing that troubles him for a long time afterwards. He says, Apa, he’s all right. Don’t you worry.
Rahela nods. She says, Yes, that’s what I think too.
Rahela leaves on the afternoon coach. As she goes she touches her brother’s feet. Reza lifts a hand and puts it on her head. His lips move. No sound comes.
The next night Rahela calls. Her brother’s number.
From the other end comes the question: Did you get there?
Ashwin and Kartik go by.
The blue shirt is still on the line. Sun and rain have taken the colour out of it, gone whitish, and the mildew on the shoulder has spread. Twice Mariam has taken the shirt down and left it by Reza’s door. Both times, by the next morning, the shirt was back on the line. Nobody speaks about it.
The pot of molasses empties. The line of ants stays a while even after that, comes up the wall, circles the mouth of the pot, comes down again.
At the end of Kartik the cold sets in. The drain in the lane dries up, black filth settles at the bottom, and in the mornings the smell rises. The landlord Abu Taher has the ground-floor walls limewashed. He does not have the first floor done; he says there is no money. Towards dawn the cold air comes in through the gaps in the tin.
Afsar’s phone rings two or three nights a week now.
He no longer goes out onto the veranda. He answers from inside the mosquito net, keeping his voice low. At first he only answered. Now he talks.
He says the shop owner has cut two hundred taka from his pay because a bundle of paper was spoiled, and he did not spoil it. He says Tuli’s school fees are three months in arrears and the school has sent a letter. He says the pain in his back is getting worse, that his right leg goes numb if he works sitting down. He says his brother in the village has shifted the boundary posts of the homestead, and does not answer when he calls.
The other end says a little now and then. About the paper it says, Don’t argue in front of the owner; say it later when the moment’s right. About the posts it says, Go and see for yourself. Land is not discussed on the phone.
One day, talking, Afsar notices that in fourteen years he has never told Reza anything about himself. Reza was in the next room, was on the veranda, would move his hand to make space when Afsar came to hang up washing. That was all.
Afsar keeps the phone at his ear and looks at the wall. On the other side of the wall is Reza’s room. In that room there is no sound.
One evening in Agrahayan, Afsar comes back from the shop and finds Reza sitting on the veranda. After a long time.
Afsar sits down beside him. Down in the lane a van is going past, Farid’s van, the sound of the wheels. On the roof of the building opposite somebody is bringing in washing.
Reza turns towards Afsar. His lips move.
Afsar brings his ear closer.
Reza whispers, Make a call.
To who?
Reza taps his own chest twice with a finger.
Afsar takes out his phone. It does not take him long to find Rezaul Karim’s name; it is near the top, in the recent list.
It rings. Once. Twice. Five times.
Then somebody answers.
Nothing is said. There is no sound on the other end, no traffic, no fan. Only something like a held breath, which might equally be the phone’s own noise.
Afsar holds the phone to Reza’s ear.
Reza shuts his eyes. His throat rises and falls once. He tries to clear it. No sound comes.
The line goes dead.
Afsar puts the phone in his pocket. His hand shakes a little; to hide it he keeps his hand in the pocket and sits. Reza looks down through the gap in the veranda railing.
After a while Afsar gets up. There is no rice in the house; Nasima told him.
Going down the stairs he hears somebody in one of the ground-floor rooms talking on a phone. What is being said cannot be made out. But at the start of the talking there are two small dry coughs.
Afsar stops on the stairs for a moment. Then he goes down, and does not look at the doors. The lights have come on in the lane. There is a crowd at the grocer’s, people taking rice and dal, talking about prices. He joins the queue.
Standing there it occurs to him that on the way back he will go up and take the shirt down and fold it and leave it. He has thought this many times in the last six months.
Coming back with the rice he sees no light on the veranda. Reza’s door is pushed to. On the line the shirt moves a little in the air.
Afsar goes into his own room. The rice goes on. After eating, while he is putting up the mosquito net, his phone rings.
He does not go out onto the veranda. He answers from inside the net.
Two small dry coughs.
Afsar bhai, have you eaten?
Afsar says, Yes.
Is Tuli studying?
She’s gone to bed.
There is a silence. Then: Take that shirt in. It’s going mildewed.
Afsar says, All right.
The line goes dead. From the other side of the net Nasima asks, Who was it?
Afsar says, Next door.
