|
|
The
Hemingway Resource Center Short Story Contest> Winning Entries>
Rhythm of Alone
Visit our sponsor...Writer's Digest!
The winner of
our writing contest receives a free subscription! Click the banner to visit the site
devoted to serious writers!
Rhythm
of Alone
by
Sonia
Augusthy
Ahmed
was watching the news but he really wasn’t. He was also reading the
newspaper that was delivered weekly from New York, written entirely in
Bengali. The news there was more familiar to him. Sometimes he even
recognized the names. He liked to tell people about his past. In truth,
he liked to hear himself speak, which is astonishing considering his
stutter. Ahmed saw their eyes widen in respect and disbelief when he
told them his father was the head of the army. So close to the
President, he had played games at the royal palace.
People here were impressed by his past. People in Bangladesh were
impressed by those who left for America. Neither really understood the
full picture. In Bangladesh his father had tried to kill him. In the
United States, his wife had left him for another man. “Who can you trust
if-if-if you can’t trust your own father,” he questioned Raji. Now, he
couldn’t trust Raji, either. His interest in other people was not their
life stories or what their children were studying in college, but seeing
what fired neurons in the American mind and comparing it to the brain
activity of those in Bangladesh consumed his thoughts at any gathering.
It was barely the answers, it was their facial expressions when they
thought, where their hands rested while they lied. How their mouths
formed words when they spoke the truth, so carefully; as though the
situation was so delicate, the listener so in the dark, that the words
needed to be wrapped carefully in other words so that they would not
smash.
The last time he had been in Bangladesh, a man whose wife had obviously
been controlling him for years, checkbook and balls, said that Islam was
the only religion which gave human beings a specific roadmap for
behavior. He argued that the genius of the religion was its outline of
responsibilities.
It was written on the face of every other man standing there. They
finished their drink, or took another handful of spicy peanuts, and
avoided eye contact. Zev, the cousin of their host said directly to
Ahmed, “my wife seems to have missed a few chapters.” Ahmed replied,
“But Usef’s wife ah-ah-also controls him completely, he is talking about
some f-f-fictional life. I would like to see a true example of these
roles in play.” The others laughed nervously and Usef smiled and
finished his drink. He hadn’t meant it as a joke. Ahmed wanted to
continue the discussion on gender roles and the Koran. Why couldn’t we
be honest and say she controlled the man? It was true. Nothing to be
taken so personally. In fact, it served as an example of the current
social climate and its interaction with the religion of the state.
The rest of them began to talk about cricket. Moving away from him, as
though afraid he might attack their family lives as well, as though he
had insulted Usef.
Ahmed really wanted, strove toward, and worked his mind around universal
harmony at all times. Why did human beings insist on making life so
difficult for themselves? If they would only sit down and hear each
other, they would realize they were speaking with the same voice.
But now there was no one left to hear him. Except Raji, who listened to
laugh at him. He didn’t need them for their companionship, he needed
them to listen and spread his ideas. He needed them to listen so that he
could talk the thoughts in his head aloud and perfect them. See the
holes in his plan to anticipate struggle before implementation.
Looking around, he saw this was no way to communicate his mission, to
help people realize their mistakes. The walls of his apartment were
bare. Muneesha had covered the beige carpet in heavy traffic areas by
Pepto-Bismol colored towels, to prevent it from becoming dirty. The
television sat under the two windows which faced a parking lot and a
line of weeds growing up around a dumpster. The apartment smelled of
garlic, ginger, and bleach. Years of frying fish in garlic and ginger
paste had marinated the walls and the sofa. Muneesha used to clean
everything with bleach. Bleach is poison. She tried to hide it from him,
but one day he entered the kitchen quietly and saw the big jug on the
counter, she was adding water to the plastic container they used to
store curry.
He folded his arms, “What are you doing?”
“Baba, I’m just cleaning it okay? The soap does not take away the oil
and tumeric color. The whole bottom has turned orange. Only bleach takes
it out.”
He roared as the knocked the bleach onto the counter, the cap had been
left off and it spilled all over her blue salwaar and streamed onto the
tile floor, “You bitch! You, you, you know this is poison. I’m not
stupid. You can thank Allah you did not get a stupid husband.
Wa-wa-what? Are you trying to kill me? Wa-wa-why? Is there some other
man, you stupid woman? You think you can easily jus-jus-just kill me
like that? Hmmm?”
He really wanted an answer. Or did he? He could go on like this for
hours, Muneesha would lock herself in the bathroom armed with a knife
(thank god he never saw that) and he would scream at the walls until he
wore himself out and passed out on the bed.
Once, someone called the police. For weeks afterward he wondered which
of the neighbors had done that, had tried to have him arrested. Which
one was spying on him. He was nearly certain it was the Indian family
downstairs, he wasn’t exactly certain where they lived, but he had seem
them come in and out of the building. There were six of them. They lived
like animals. This building only had two bedroom apartments. There must
be no privacy, not in Bangladesh from his family, and not here. And four
girls with two men. Even if it is their daddy, they must not share a
room, and certainly not with their brother. Although, this is America,
and so many people come to this country and forget their culture.
That is America, rich, fat, and forgetful. The news channel was
reporting that children in this country walk less than any other country
in the world, but they eat more than anywhere else too. Wouldn’t it be
funny, if, they got so fat they couldn’t run the world anymore? If they
were all stuck in their bedrooms? Screaming bloody murder because they
couldn’t get their hands on a hamburger? Wouldn’t it been funny to
future generations that the most advanced and powerful society in all of
time became extinct because they got too fat to fight?
Anyway, those Indians called the police, and two officers came to the
door after Ahmed had passed out on the bed in the back of the apartment.
He heard her at the door talking. Quietly and without breathing he slid
his feet across the floor, avoiding the creaky area in front of his
bedroom door. He could not see them, but he heard her, “Officer, no
problem at all. My husband—no he is asleep. Not here, he has been asleep
since I came from work. He works night shift. Only us two. Maybe
someone’s TV? Certainly yes. Certainly. Thank you for coming.” Click,
lock.
“Muneesha, ma-ma-make me a cup of tea.”
Tea. It was tea. That was how she tried to do it. Like his dad eleven
years ago. Only she was more sneaky about it. In 1991, Ahmed’s younger
brother, Zyad, had won a spot on the national team for cricket. Zyad had
always been the favorite one. Ahmed had made it easy for him. Being the
opposite of all their father’s hopes. A man hopes for a son. But once he
has the son, he realizes he wants more. He wants a brave son. An
intelligent son. An athletic son. Ahmed wet his bed until he was
fourteen, failed his A-level mathematics exam, could not run more than a
half mile before his breath felt like death. And he stuttered. That was
the worst.
Ahmed had stuttered for as long as he could recall. Although at one
time, it was not so bad. The summer he was forbidden to read quietly in
the library (as was his habit); his father glared at him over his
newspaper while Ahmed tried to read the Alphabet B book aloud, which
crippled his speech. Each word began to be a struggle. It felt like he
could read the entire book to himself in the time it took to read one
word aloud. At the time, he had worked his way through Othello and
MacBeth and he could not read aloud, “Cat does not begin with K, Cat
begins with C.”
It was true that his father had sharp intelligence; a keen smell for an
enemy that enabled him to make his rivals vanish before they became true
competition. His eloquence was widely praised; even more as people
learned of his eldest son’s inability to speak one sentence in under a
minute, rubbing salt in the gash by over-complimenting him.
Thankfully, Zyad had taken after their father. Tall and handsome like
his brother. He has thick strong calves and powerful thighs. His
shoulders were broad and his chest was deep. He had an unusual body
shape for a Bangladeshi man, built more like a German in stature and
carriage. Until Zyad was ten, Ahmed could teach him a lesson. After
that, he stayed out of his way. One summer, Ahmed had refused to help
Zyad clean his bedroom and they were both beaten for it by their father.
Ahmed was used to that. After, he walked out of the room and Zyad was
standing there red-faced and he lunged at Ahmed. Ahmed only made it out
into the front yard before Zyad pushed him forward onto his face in the
dusty grass, “Why must you be so stubborn? Every beating I take is for
you,” he exhaled blows on his older brother. After he was finished,
Ahmed realized he had wet himself. Though later in life, Zyad would
understand his brother better, that day built a wall too high for either
of them to climb, even if they wanted.
At age 18, the coach of the national cricket team came to the house to
recruit Zyad. From his room, Ahmed heard the exclamations of his father.
He was called down but did not go; now that he was 25 his father
wouldn’t beat him for disobeying. While Ahmed would have smiled at his
brother’s failure, it is still unclear, even to him, if he had anything
to do with what happened that day. When he tried to think back on it,
pressed himself and squeezed his eyes shut to recall the scent and the
heat of the morning, the actual events always became hazy and humid. No.
He would not do that to his brother.
People often misinterpreted Zyad as the calm one. They did not see his
sneaky ways of highlighting his brother’s imperfections or his nasty
temper. They did not hear his snide, under-handed compliments, “Really,
Ahmed, you should go into politics. Who cares about your speech
problems, man? It’s your ideas that these people need,” he would say to
humiliate Ahmed in front of guests. Ahmed could hear the ridicule as he
pointed out his speech to others.
The morning of the first national cricket match, Zyad was downstairs
having breakfast. The team had spent the night in a hotel near the
field, but Zyad declined because he claimed to want to be home with his
mother for prayers on this big day. Ahmed knew it was to soak in the
glory of the house a little while longer. If he were with the team, his
inexperience would surely cause him to feel like an outsider. Ahmed sat
in the bath. His prick was pointing up through the water. It was so
pink; in sharp contrast to the deep brown just underneath. He was
thinking about his first run for politics, how small groups of people
would gather and then slowly, slowly over the years, the crowds would
grow. His ideas would be so innovative that it would become more like a
religion than politics. People would have questions and his answers
would be pristine in their simplicity. It was all over his bath water.
Disgusted with his inability to control even that, he slid out of the
water. Towel-wrapped he looked at himself hard in the mirror, examined
his face as others might see it. Was this the face of a leader? Yes.
Absolutely. –Outside, he heard Zyad exclaim that the morning paper was
late. Ugh, he probably wants to see what they’re saying about him. They
won’t be discussing him yet, not until he’s actually done something.
Then, he saw it and was horrified with himself. Zyad had been hit by a
car and was lying parallel to the road. There was no blood, but his left
leg was bent backwards and his knee had made a forty-five degree angle.
Halfway to ninety degrees. No. Why was he thinking that about his
brother. He loved him. The water in the tub burped as the last swirl
went down the drain and Ahmed opened the bathroom door.
It was as though he opened it to another world. There was a blur of
shrieking and running. Gathered on the front porch was a crowd of the
extended family who had come to watch Zyad’s debut. Zyad was laid at the
bottom of the porch steps, there was no blood. His left leg was bent
backwards and his knee had made a forty-five degree angle. Ahmed’s tears
burst and the feeling from within burst through his throat. No one heard
or saw him stumble backwards into the house his eyes transfixed on that
powerful leg. He had not touched himself since that day.
Gradually, the story came out. Zyad had gone to get the newspaper from
the edge of the property. He bent to pick it up and remained crouched
there for a few moments skimming the headlines to see what they had
written about the day’s match. He could not wait. He could not take
those moments back. If he had walked back to the house before reading
the truck would not have come hunching down the road. Zyad blamed the
truck driver. Ahmed knew better and believed his father did too.
Fariz was a general in the army. His eyes had been trained for many
years to spot an inconsistency. He had learned to see movement amidst
trees. Had learned to watch a man’s eyes to see if he was telling the
truth. His eyes were shiny. Hard. They could not be broken. Those eyes
watched two boys become men. Those eyes could see guilt like others see
beauty.
Ahmed could see his father’s face harden after Zyad’s accident. He knew.
Ahmed had wished it, seen it, and it happened exactly that way. Fariz
stopped taking meals with the family. At first, he ate with Zyad. But
Zyad was unendingly positive and refused to allow Fariz to mourn him.
Ahmed slunk into the kitchen, his steps ran slightly to either side when
he walked and he seemed to be testing the floor’s quality with his toes
before deciding to place his entire foot down. Fariz was at the table.
His arms came together at a short glass filled high and golden. He
raised his head.
“So, now you’re all I’ve got,” he laughed. “This is my legacy.
Worthless,” the words spat out of his mouth like sour mango pickle. “I
know you never liked him,” he said as he rose. He measured his son with
his eyes, “I could see the evil thoughts in your eyes. Well, you finally
got your way. With it comes responsibility.” He was gone. The glass, now
empty remained.
Fear grew in his mind. Ahmed replayed the drunken speech in his mind
incessantly. Each time, the words became more cryptic. He convinced
himself his father knew about the bathtub. But how? Had someone seen?
What would they have seen? Responsibility for what? Did he say something
out loud without realizing?
His stutter increased. He talked less and less. Two years passed and the
web in his mind grew more menacing. He refused to eat anything that was
prepared for him. He varied his meals so that poison would not be put in
the roti or rice. He locked his door at night. His mother barely noticed
the change in him.
“Isn’t it time we thought of your marriage?” she asked him one day after
realizing how old he had become. Ahmed did not look up from his book; he
snorted and laughed at once. “A man of your age cannot be without a
woman, especially now that you are finished with school. I will talk to
your father to see if he knows anyone. Your brother will remain with us,
so it is your responsibility to get married and give us a
daughter-in-law.”
Responsibility. They relished using the word, as though by saying it,
their children would leap up and down as though they had been offered
candy. Who the fuck wanted responsibility? If you want a person to be
motivated toward a goal, telling them they must do it will always lead
them to thinking why they need not. Responsibility? For what, his
parents had barely looked at him since the accident. Not one piece of
him felt like he owed them anything. That scared him.
He didn’t know anyone else who had the thoughts he had. Other kids (if
you can call them kids, by god, he was nearly thirty!) had sex, drank
beer, and cursed in the streets. But no one talked about moving away
from their families to start over where people didn’t know them. No one
talked about an independent life. It seemed foreign to them to live
entirely for yourself. Community. It was suffocating. It came into the
bedroom even. My god, how much money do you have to make to just be left
alone! How could he make more money and not need them for anything? What
did he need a wife for? Fucking? That was not enough to chain him to a
lifetime in this house. He didn’t have these conversations out loud. He
didn’t have any friends. Just his books. Though a wife would be a
constant. A constant ear. A constant body.
Three months after she first mentioned it, Ahmed’s mother accepted a
daughter-in-law into the house. She never heard her son’s laments or
mental protestations. To her, it almost seemed like it was his idea.
Muneesha was fair-skinned (all the newspaper advertisements called it “wheatish”)
had startling black eyes that popped when you addressed her. She was
deliberately chosen to be short and slight so she would not physically
be dominant to her husband, because women allow power to take over their
minds. Physically, she was average. It was the family ties that were
considered at great length; her family owned a great deal of property
and her father was a personal friend of Ahmed’s uncle. She was a devout
Muslim and prayed the full five times a day not just as a show for her
in-laws, but even when she thought they weren’t watching. They were
always watching.
But she was bright. It took her nearly a month to realize Ahmed’s
problems. He had become so accustomed to taking care of himself, he had
not yet entered her. He did not speak to her for weeks except testing
out the orders he could demand of her. Three weeks into the marriage, he
burst into her bedroom, rambling as he arrived. “They can’t think for
themselves. Community. Human community. In its truest sense, is the
absolute key to human happiness. But not the way they do it, they’ve got
the whole system fucked up. They only move, think, feel, and see they
way they think other people do and have for hundreds of years before us.
But, we’ve never yet had a truly enlightened society, so why should we
continue in the same vein. Trying a different track is only logical.
It’s really the only damn plan that makes any sense. Once we listen to
one another without censorship and allow the ideas to flow naturally,
then we can accept each other and guide one another to a global
happiness. Although, what would we do with stupid people and
degenerates? Perhaps they are only a product of our current way of life,
perhaps a happy side-effect of true community would either be a natural
extinction of those who are incapable of participating in a an honest
sense or perhaps once honest communication begins, those people will
become uplifted.”
He turned and was upon her as the words finished. She was so shocked at
his touch, the wetness came quickly. His eyes bored into her face and
she felt like the definition of beauty. That night, he confessed his
fears to her and she listened without reply. He agreed they needed to
leave.
America was the most logical place to take these ideas. These were a
people whose entire basis was rejecting the previous in hope of
attaining something more true, honest, and amazing. And they had
succeeded to an amazing extent; they were the true-life model of Ahmed’s
theories. Once he went there, he would be in a positive environment and
the ideas would flourish and finish themselves.
They were married for three years. His parents still don’t know she was
gone. He did send a note saying they had come to America but they never
received a response.
Raji owned the East Indian store by the train station. He knew everyone
of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi descent in the entire city. His
store sold basmati rice, ghee, goat meat, and lottery tickets. He never
talked about a wife; people said he never called for her to join him
after he came to New York.
“Hey man? Wha wah why do you sell these lotto tickets? It is like
robbery of your own people, man,” Ahmed protested.
“Here, a man has no people. That is lesson number one in becoming
American. It is a country of lonely people. Capitalism is screwing your
grandmother and making your uncle pay to watch. No one here has any
people. They’re all alone.”
Raji enjoyed rattling Ahmed. Watching this freak adjust to life in the
United States was like a social science experiment. Even when he told
Ahmed the truth, he embellished to make it worthwhile.
“You cannot be a politician here. Didn’t anyone tell you that in that
stupid country you came from? I thought your father was a high-ranking
general? No one said you must be an American citizen to be the
President?”
“Uh. Uh. Uh. But, um, it is true that in America, a person can be
anything he wants to be. Farmers and actors can be politicians.”
“Yes, but they have a form of apartheid even here. No where can you
escape it. You must be white and born here to become President. Even the
small-town politicians, it is the same.”
Raji enjoyed Ahmed because he didn’t seem breakable. Even after
deflating the reasons he had left behind his family, the man would come
back the following day just as enthusiastic, it was amazing to see.
D-d-difficult to listen to, that was for sure. But amazing to see.
He felt more alone than he had in Bangladesh and it was comforting to be
near someone who would talk about politics and religion. Americans
rarely talked about matters of true importance with one another, even
though they had the right to do so. They debated sports teams, players,
discussed weather patterns, and the stock market.
So it was not a true trust of Raji that Ahmed involved him in his
marriage. It’s foreign to Americans to grasp, but in many cultures, the
community is involved in all matters. If a wife believes her husband is
out of line, she will bring the matter to her in-laws and they will
attempt to persuade him. Ahmed wanted Raji to explain to Muneesha just
how lucky she was to be married to him. He had brought her to America,
what more did she want?
Well, perhaps she wanted him to share his income with her. Or at least
pay for half of the bills. Muneesha worked full-time as a biology
teacher during the day and at night, she worked as a security guard for
the local university.
“Y-y-you think my money is just going to buy me new clothes? No.
Certainly not. I am investing in our future.”
“But, what kind of investments? Are you certain they are safe?”
“You always want to stick your nose into everything. Can’t y-y-you at
least contribute to our life? Cccan’t you ah ah at least work? Why must
I explain every little thing to you? These are cccomplex investments.
Okay? This is not Bangladesh, women here work as hard as the men do.”
She didn’t point out to him that she worked nearly twenty hours a week
more than he did and still cleaned the house and cooked the meals. She
just brought him his tea and the Dutch butter cookies which had become
his habit. Truly, he could not have been more fortunate to have her, any
other woman would have gone long ago.
“Wa-wa-what is this?”
“Tea?”
“I never ah-asked for this. Wa-wa-why did you bring this?”
“I just wanted to calm you down. You always have tea at four o’clock.”
He did not blow up. He just looked at her for a long moment, “Ha-have I
been a good husband?”
“Yes, you have.”
“Tha-then why are you trying to kill me?”
The day she left he knew Raji had been there. The pistachio shells were
still in the trash. She didn’t take much with her, just her clothes. He
still talked to Raji; in fact, he told him he knew what happened. If he
let the friendship go, he would be alone. At this point, that’s the only
difference between him and those that live on the streets of the city.
Raji never tried to dissuade him. He just thought it was funny.
Some days, instead of sitting at home absorbing the news, he visits the
train station. Not to take a train, just to watch. There is always music
overhead in America, in the malls, on the phone, in your car. But no one
hears it. If he watches carefully, he can see the rhythm of daily life.
The purse on that woman running down the stairs is flapping against her
hip to the beat, and the clop of that man’s shoes, and their movements
are all nearly in time, but no one else sees it but him.
The End
©2004 Sonia Augusthy
>>> You can leave
feedback about this and other stories at the
Writing Room forum of our message boards.
|
|
