Chapter One
March 1971
Shona with her back to the sun
Every year, Rehana held a party at Road 5 to mark the
day she had returned to Dhaka with the children. She
saved her meat rations and made biryani. She rented
chairs and called the jilapi-wallah to fry the hot,
looping sweets in the garden. There was a red-and-yellow
tent in case of rain, lemonade in case of heat, cucumber
salad, spicy yoghurt. The guests were always the same:
her neighbour Mrs Chowdhury and her daughter Silvi; her
tenants, the Senguptas, and their son, Mithun; and Mrs
Rahman and Mrs Akram, better known as the gin-rummy
ladies.
So, on the first morning of March, as on the first
morning of every March for a decade, Rehana rose before
dawn and slipped into the garden. She shivered a little
and rubbed her elbows as she made her way across the
lawn. Winter still lingered on the leaves and in the
wisps of fog that rolled over the delta and hung low
over the bungalow.
She dipped her fingers into the rosebush, heavy with
dew, and plucked a flower. She held it in her hand as
she wandered through the rest of the garden, ducking
between the wall-hugging jasmine and the hibiscus,
crossing the tiny vegetable patch that was giving them
the last of the season’s cauliflower, zigzagging past
the mango tree, the lemon tree, the shouting-green
banana tree.
She looked up at the building that would slowly, over
the course of the day, cast a long shadow over her
little bungalow. Shona. She could still hear Mrs
Chowdhury telling her to build the new house at the back
of her property. ‘Such a big plot,’ she’d said, peering
out of the window; ‘you can’t even see the boundary it’s
so far away. You don’t need all that space.’
‘Should I sell it?’
Mrs Chowdhury snapped her tongue. ‘Na, don’t sell it.’
‘Then what?’
‘Build another house.’
‘What would I do with another house?’
‘Rent, my dear. Rent it out.’
Now there were two gates, two driveways, two houses. The
new driveway was a narrow passage that opened into the
back of Rehana’s plot. On the plot stood the house she
had built to save her children. It towered above the
bungalow, its two whitewashed storeys overlooking the
smaller house. Like the bungalow, it had been built with
its back to the sun. The house was nearly ten years old
now, and a little faded. Ten monsoons had softened its
edges and drawn meandering, old-age seams into the
walls. But every day, as Rehana woke for the dawn Azaan,
or when she went to put the washing in the garden, or
when, after bathing, she fanned out her long hair on the
back of a veranda chair, Rehana looked at the house with
pride and a little ache. It was there to remind her of
what she had lost, and what she had won. And how much
the victory had cost. That is why she had named it
Shona, gold. It wasn’t just because of what it had taken
to build the house, but for all the precious things she
wanted never to lose again.
Rehana turned back to the bungalow and entered the
drawing room. She ran her palm across the flat fur of
the velvet sofa, the dimpled wood of the dining table.
The scratched, loved, faded whitewash of the veranda
wall.
She unfurled her prayer mat, pointed it westwards and
sank to her knees.
This was the start of the ritual: wake before sunrise,
feel her way around the house; pray; wake the children.
They were not children any more. She had to keep
reminding herself of this fact. At nineteen and
seventeen, they were almost grown up. She clung greedily
to the almost, but she knew it would not last long, this
hovering, flirting with adulthood. Already they were
beings apart, fast on their way to shedding the fierce,
hungry mother-need.
Rehana lifted the mosquito net and nudged Maya’s
shoulder. ‘Wake up, jaan,’ she said. ‘It’s our
anniversary!’
She went to Sohail’s room and knocked, but he was
already awake. ‘For you,’ she said, holding out the
rose.
While the children took turns in the bath, Rehana ironed
their new clothes. This year she had chosen an egg-blue
sari for herself and a blue georgette with yellow polka
dots for Maya. For Sohail there was a brown
kurta-pyjama. She had embroidered the purple flowers on
the collar herself.
‘Ammoo,’ Maya said, ‘I have to go to campus after the
party-I can’t wear this.’
‘I’m sure your activist friends won’t mind if you don’t
wear white for one day.’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she retorted, tucking the
sari under her elbow anyway.
After they had all bathed and put on their new clothes,
the children took turns touching Rehana’s feet. ‘God
bless you,’ she said, hugging them tightly, their
strong, tanned arms around her neck almost beyond her
imagination.
They were both taller than her. Maya had passed Rehana
by a few inches, and Sohail was a full head and
shoulders above them both; Rehana was often reminded of
the moment she’d met Iqbal, hunched over the wedding
dais, how he had towered over her like a thunder cloud.
But in fact Sohail had grown to resemble Rehana. He was
pale and had her small nose and her slightly crooked
teeth; his hair was fashioned into a wave at the top of
his head, the crest threatening to tip over his eyelids.
Sometimes, like today, he wore kurta-pyjamas, but
usually he was seen in more fashionable attire: tight,
long-collared shirts and even tighter trousers that hung
over his shoes and drew tracks in the dust.
It was Maya who looked more like her father. She had his
chestnut skin and deep-set eyes that made her look
serious even when she was trying to say something funny
or make a joke-which rarely happened-but Rehana had
often seen her friends pause and look at each other,
wondering whether to laugh.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from A Golden Age
by Tahmima Anam
Copyright © 2008 by Tahmima Anam.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Harper
Copyright © 2008
Tahmima Anam
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-147874-1
