Story
Translated by Alamgir Mohammad
I asked my father, ‘Did you know when you went to the office or I went to school, that man used to come to our home?’
Unmoved, Baba replied, ‘Yes, I knew.’
‘Didn’t you ask them anything about this, my mother or, to that man?
‘I informed your mother once that I knew the matter.’
‘Only that, nothing else?’
“No, nothing else?”
Probably he realized that I didn’t like the reply to his question. Now he questions me, ‘What would happen, if I said it?’
I was not of that age to understand what would happen then, for during this conversation between the father and the son, I was only twelve. Two years before this conversation my parents had got divorced. At ten, I preferred to stay with my father leaving the possibility of having a comfortable and tension-free shelter.
Our home has two rooms. The walls are shabby, worn out. The cracks on the wall are apparently visible. And the bathroom adjacent to it is an uglyt. Yet I have stayed here. He is a disgusting man, spiritless and eccentric. Mother could show one hundred reasons for leaving him. And most of them are appropriate. But I love this man tolerating all the anger, dissatisfaction, and irritation. Our mutual love is like the love of a homeless man with a street dog. A man is being beaten, afflicted with insults, yet he lives acknowledging the loss of every day smilingly – one cannot help loving this man.
My father is very fond of his friends. His friend list is not a smaller one. But it is not always possible for him to keep connected with everyone. He maintains a selected circle of friends for regular communication. He plays cards, drinks, and gossips with them. Eventually, most of them are quite opulent, even rich. I cannot say with certainty if his friendship was due to poverty or not. They used to help my onerous father, empathize and even love. In fact, someone is needed in a friend circle who will be the center of attraction for all mockery and who can be easily jeered at. For instance, that my mother had a love and she eloped with her lover was a matter of joke and obscene discussion for them and I saw my Baba smiling at this. I know the pain behind that laughter. Now I am fourteen, don’t I know this?
Friends are of two boats, One
Comes at the visiting hours, returns
Before the sunset
The other awaits before the hospital gate
Awakes the eternal night of distress.
Broken, but enthusiastic is the voice of my father. I could realize the message and tone of the poem by listening to him. I am fourteen now. I asked, ‘Do you have a friend who will wait throughout the night before the hospital gate for you?’
With a smile extended up to the ear, he said, ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Who?’
‘You. Hahaha.’
After a long time, it becomes impossible for me to stop tears at Baba’s words. Really, this man is both friend and father. Or, why didn’t I go with my mother? Why did I stay with someone who has no fixed shelter?
After returning from school I remain alone at home. After Baba returns home from work we two go out after eating something. For it is not safe to leave a boy of my age alone at home till midnight. Where is my study, where is my other affair! Only during the holiday, I can study a bit. Father teaches me. Amidst such things, I do get promoted to the next class at ease.
After the evening, Baba gossips with his friends, drinks, plays cards. They utter things that juniors are not supposed to hear. I adhere to him like shadows. I have no friends. Baba is my friend. I am accommodated at the corner of the drawing-room of his friends, at someone’s veranda, or the room beside the sitting room. Baba’s friends help him and me also, or they ignore us entirely. How could I say that they ignore us entirely, for they entertain me sometimes even with some food?
The little daughter of the surgeon fell in love with one of his classmates. That boy cheated on her. Even they captured some half-naked photos of the girl and shared them online. I saw my father running insane from one advocate friend’s home to another police friend’s home. It can be said for his relentless efforts that it became possible to detain the boyfriend of the surgeon’s daughter and those photos were immediately removed. That time the surgeon could spare his prestige. Holding my Baba’s hands he said, ‘Thank you, buddy.’
Baba was utterly moved, proud. He engages in such activities, even he carries the money of bribes from one friend’s home to another. He also further maintains some requests. Slavery and friendship have entwined. He isn’t tired at all.
Baby can easily seek help from others. He somehow forgets the memories of countless insults. Probably, he doesn’t forget. But who wants to be hurt, bringing the bad past back?
‘Can you lend me taka one thousand, buddy? I will pay back in the first week of the month.’ He implores, rubs his hands like a thief.
The managing director of the multinational company laughs and says, ‘Change your trick, buddy. It feels disgusting listening to the same recordings.’
Baba utters nothing in reply and keeps laughing. I feel terribly lost out of anger and hatred. Is this man my Baba?
The manager cuts a joking story. ‘Once there was a lame beggar in the Golpahar circle. I suspected him. Turning the glasses down, I said to him: Change this trick. It has been quite long… What a surprise! He changed his trick. The next day I saw his legs were okay. There was a bandage in his hands.’
Baba was still laughing like a fool. The manager gave him two notes of taka five hundred and said, ‘When will you pay it back? On the first week of which month?’
Very easily one friend has messed up a story with another friend seeking a loan? Baby has pocketed the money?
‘Don’t you understand insults and disrespect?’ I asked him in isolation with all my anger.
‘Where do you find insult and disrespect among friends? They can cut jokes and laugh at you.’
‘Can you?’
Baba doesn’t reply. He knows it well that he can’t do that. In their adda, Baba’s friends made no fewer jokes at my mother. But just one year ago, Baba’s entrepreneur friend’s wife divorced him and it was also because of adultery. People talked discretely about this but exchanged no single word in their adda.
I have no story of my own. I am just a character of my father’s story. During childhood, Baba used to take me out for he taught me it was not safe to keep a little boy alone at home. Even after I grow up, this trend still goes on. I have grown up in physique and mind but no separate entity is born. No individual story to share.
I stared at him with such an outrageous look that he could not dare proceed. This issue is done here.
Meanwhile, one day after returning from office, Baba said, ‘I have something to discuss with you.’
It can be inferred that with a hesitant look he was looking for a way to start the conversation. For many things, I have noticed that he cares for me like his solvent friends. Probably he has formed it a habit to remain obliged to the friends. I said, ‘Why are you hesitating thus? Tell me the fact.’
Later what Baba said was in fact a bit surprising. His ex-wife, I mean my mother phoned him. She has to undergo hurdles to collect his phone. More surprisingly she phoned from a rehabilitation center for the mentally distorted. She has been there for a year. Meanwhile, her husband has married again. He sends her expenses monthly but doesn’t come to see her. She has met a great danger in fact.
Hearing this, I looked at Baba without uttering any word. For a certain period of time silence fell there. I was feeling enraged. Maybe it was for the insult and deprivation that I had to undergo for these years. Instead of raising sympathy, I grew grudge against her. And then Baba said, ‘She insisted on taking you there. Will you go?’
His voice seemed to be wailing. Astonished, I stared at him. I asked him, ‘Why?’
‘Oh, yes it is. Why shall we go?’ It was to support me I guessed. The fact is he was wincing for going to her.
At last, we went to her. How pale one can be in distress! I realized it seeing my mother. She has grown old these years. Moreover, she has nearly lost her eyesight. But she was not as ailing as to be kept in the sanatorium for the mentally distorted. Seeing us, Ma was crying. She was requesting us repetitively for taking her back.
For Baba was speechless, I had to tell her, ‘How is it possible? You are wife to someone else now.’
My mother wanted to make it certain that he (her husband) won’t object to this; rather, he would be happy. We came back that day rejecting her cry and urge.
Baba seemed distressed for the last two days. The man who mastered the skill of hiding feelings despite insult, fraudulence, and extreme poverty has now failed to restrain his feelings. On a holiday morning, I told him, ‘It will be better if we bring my Ma back home. What do you say?’
In a moment the morning light has blazed out, he looked at me confidently. When he was certain that I was not cutting any joke, or there had been no irony in my words to bring back his ex-wife to our home who once eloped with someone else, he became enthusiastic like an excited child.
‘We have to bring her back home. Who else could do it? We will live the same again like we used to do. Poverty had been a constant companion all through. … Will we die?’ With much boldness, Baba was uttering some meaningless words.
I felt it very earnestly to recite that strange poem, ‘Friends are two kinds, One
Comes at the visiting hours, returns/before the sunset/the other awaits before the hospital gate/awakes the eternal night of distress.’ But my voice is not like my Baba’s. So I didn’t recite it.
In the evening of that day we two friends set out. Two of us were heading towards bringing the third one.
Biswajiit Chowdhury: Fictionist in Bangla Literature
Alamgir Mohammad : The Translator teaches at the department of English, Bangladesh Army International University of Science and Technology, Cumilla.
Illustration : Satabdi Zahid
