With a lantern on her head, Ma walked in the moonlight. Crossing the courtyard, she went close to the neem tree.Then she stopped. I knew that Ma was asleep.
Toru mashi said, your mother walks in her sleep. Keep an eye on her, don’t let her go near the pond.
There was a pond near our house. Its water was heavy and black. And translucent. Ma did not know how to swim. In a country of waterbodies, she did not learn to swim. She had to be guarded at night.
Toru mashi was rigid in the matter of guarding Ma. Will you get your Ma back if she drowns?
Utterly scared, I could not sleep at night. All the siblings knew, Baba also knew that it was I who kept vigil on Ma’s nocturnal walks. Whenever she went, I followed her to bring her back. She had to be brought back. Then, she had to be laid on the veranda floor.
Ma kept going out. I kept bringing her back. Next morning she could not remember a thing. Those who walk in their sleep don’t know that they indeed walk in their sleep.
When I would tell Ma what happened, that she had done such and such things at night, she would get extremely embarrassed. She would act like she did not believe what I said.
Who else had a sleepwalker for a mother! But that did not mean that I loved Ma any less. Rather, I felt connected to her and loved her for what she was. I was scared that if Ma fell into the water she would drown.
My brothers and sisters used to sleep peacefully. I did not know how they could sleep undisturbed. They knew that I was on guard. Ma used to sleep with them on the veranda floor and came inside the house only on bitter-cold winter nights. Ours was an open veranda. When she would get up and slip out of the courtyard in her sleep was anybody’s guess. A veranda was not a room that you could bolt its door.
We were five. Two brothers and three sisters. I was the eldest. Baba was the only earning member of the family. He struggled a lot to feed such a big family. A teacher at the local primary school, he also practiced homoeopathy. Local people addressed him as daktar-moshai, which took care of master and the doctor at the same time.
In our small drawing room, Baba practiced homoeopathy from early morning to 9 a.m. Then, after getting ready, he left for the school at ten in the morning. It took seven minutes on a cycle. Twelve to fourteen minutes on foot. Baba used to ride very slowly. There was no person in the vicinity as decent and courteous as him. He was respected by all. But he was a lower- middle-class man. Because what he earned from practising homoeopathy was his reputation. He took a meager amount as fees. His box of homoeopathy medicines did not close until 10 p.m. He had to attend to his patients after coming back from school until late at night. He did not have any degree. But he had the reputation.
I was the eldest son of a primary school teacher. What teacher? Doctor- teacher. Doctor was the adjective to teacher. The profession, by becoming the main marker of identity for rural people, confined them to the profession, and earned them admiration as it happened in the case of my father. He was esteemed as a teacher too. Sincere and hardworking. He never beat or caned his students. His voice was smooth and reassuring. He wore a half-shirt and dhuti. White. Spotless white. He tucked the edge of his dhuti in his left shirt pocket and wore sandals.
In our family, the sense of modesty was very high. But this world doesn’t have much respect for modesty. Because of modesty, when he was not paid for his medicine, Baba would say, give it to me later sometime. That money would never come.
I was utterly embarrassed by the fact that my mother was pregnant again. It would surely be a girl. There were some women who could deduce the gender of the child in the womb by looking at pregnancy symptoms.
Toru mashi came to say, Your mother will have another girl. Don’t panic.
Toru mashi kept repeating that. From then on I was too ashamed to lift my head. And Mashi alerted me again, Keep an eye on your mother.
I shuddered.
After that, I could not concentrate on my studies. The books remained open on the table, I just wanted to run away somewhere.
I did not know whether Ma heard what Toru mashi said. Ma used to stare at me. For a long time. Without blinking. There was anxiety in her eyes. And suppressed guilt.
I was nineteen then. I started understanding everything. I had to appear for higher secondary exams in just a few months. I did not have any time to waste. But I was too stressed to study.
You are not studying properly.
No, I am.
I can’t see it.
Ma left the veranda and came close to me in this small room. I closed the book and wore a shirt.
You are going somewhere? Ma asked.
Yes.
Where?
Seeing me leave without uttering a word, Ma called me from behind. I have something to share with you, Shontu. It’s a secret.
Suddenly I was angry at Ma. Bowing my head, I said in a low tone, Whatever sharing you have to do, why can’t you do it with Baba? What do you have to share with me?
It can’t be with your father.
Why?
You will understand it if you listen. You will have to do the job.
Job?
Of course. You will have to bring Bishtu Kobrej of Nabipur to see me at home.
Taken aback, I looked into Ma’s eyes. Ma was so close to me that her breath touched me.
Ma said, My disease won’t get cured with your father’s medicine. And your father won’t let me see other doctors.Your father has taken leave next weekend. There is the poite of your paternal aunt’s son at their place. All of you will go except for me. Then Bishtu Kobrej will come and visit me. What do you say?
Saying this, Ma moved away and leaned against the wall. Drops of tears glistened in her eyes.
My surprise mounted with her every word.
Startled, I asked, You won’t go to the poite ceremony?
How can I go? Pennampur is so far away. Your mother should not spend a night outside home, should she? Your father said that the pond at your aunts’ is deep. The edge of the water almost touches the courtyard. You, a sleepwalking woman! Who knows whether you would bring some calamity at a sacred ceremony! And also, you should not go at this stage. My son, my dear, I don’t want to lose face in the extended family.
Ma rushed out of the room. I understood some of her words, some remained hazy. I sensed that Ma was trying to hide something. Late in the afternoon, she readied the earthen oven in the courtyard but without much firewood.
This oven was a serious matter. Ma collected dry jute and dry twigs painstakingly, they were hard to find. To collect firewood from others’ gardens or from undergrowth was difficult and embarrassing. I had to do that regularly.
We had very little farmland. Whatever we had was farmed in the shared barga system. The field yielded little crop, about a cart and a half of jute. Half of the dry jute fenced the courtyard, the other half went to the oven. The dry jute stalks were stacked in a corner of the courtyard.
We were Brahmins. In this locality, there were only two or three Brahmin families. These families didn’t cluster together, they were spread across the village. There were some Hindu families belonging to the caste of oil pressers, ironsmiths and weavers. The rest were Muslims. In such places, Brahmins are much revered.
Pondering on the supposed reverence for Brahmins, I came to the courtyard with a daa, an iron blade. I was to go to Dhola Qazi’s orchard to collect firewood. They never stopped us from collecting firewood from their orchard, but I would be utterly embarrassed.
Standing by the oven, Ma said, Don’t go to other peoples’ orchards with a daa in your hand at such an unearthly hour. Dhola Qazi came and forbade us from collecting firewood without permission like that. He said, Doctor, Brahmins cook in the town with coal fire. Rather than using coal, you are sending your son to bring firewood from others’ orchards? Does it look decent? Your father replied, But it is not town Mian, it is a village.
But before Ma could finish, Baba entered the courtyard towing his bicycle. From its handles hung his medicine bag and a bag for vegetables.
It was a Saturday. Autumn had begun. The air was still heavy with the yield of the monsoon, the smell of rotting jute in water. The jute stalks were kept upright, sharecroppers had stacked dried stalks of crops in a corner. Half a cart for fuel and half a cart to fence.
Being a Saturday, it was a half-day at Baba’s school. Now it was half past four. After school, Baba used to go to the homes of his patients to collect offerings in lieu of money. It was his payment as a doctor that he never got. It was a Brahmin’s due that he received from householders. After visiting the fishermen’s area today, he came along the path between the vast waterbody and the field.
Nibhanoni put the fish in an earthen water pitcher to keep it alive. It was a kalbosh and weighed almost one ser. Such a heavy fish is an exception here. Gokul Malla said, Take it Doctor, otherwise how will I repay the value of your medicine? It is only a simple fish. You healed my wife’s pregnancy fever. Son, why are you carrying a daa in the afternoon?
Ma said, How will I light the oven then? I don’t have firewood.
Baba said, This is the problem with humans Nibhanoni. They never have enough. Now these are from the first batch of cucumbers, these are a Brahmins right. So I tore them off the creeper without waiting for Dhola Qazi’s consent. I don’t care what they think. Saying this, Baba shook out five tender cucumbers from his bag on the veranda.
What have you done, Baba? This is theft! You should not take new crops from a field like that. Wait Ma, you should not touch these. These are sacred. The Muslims offer this, the first batch, to Khoda at the mosque. These will have to be returned to Dhola Qazi.
I flung the daa from my hands on the courtyard in despair. Ma was startled, Baba surprised. Exactly at that moment, a long-tailed bird flew out from somewhere and started dancing and leaping on the cloth wire at the edge of the veranda and then on the slanting roof, twitching its long tail.
Its long tail got caught in something and the bird shuffled its tail vigorously to set it free.
Ma stood shaking near the oven. She watched the bird’s crisis with its tail. Baba’s face darkened in humiliation.
But he still wanted to say something. As soon as I put the five cucumbers back in the bag, Baba asked, Then doesn’t a Brahmin have rights to anything? My forefathers were feudal landowners. Once upon a time, all acres of land in this vicinity belonged to us. Can a Brahmin be a thief? It’s his sacred right to take offerings from others. Or take a share of the first crop. I might be poor. But being a Brahmin, I am a part of the divine.
Toru mashi entered the courtyard, making my mother tremble more. The fish jumped up and down on the veranda gasping for air. The bird flapped its wings in frenzy. The fish and the bird recited some evil prophecy in the mildly chilly autumnal afternoon breeze.
I took the bag of cucumbers and leapt down from the veranda.
I asked Toru mashi, What happened mashi?
Mashi said, Jamaibabu grabbed the cucumbers through the fence
without asking for permission. What to say! Qazi himself saw the whole thing standing behind the scarecrow. He did not show himself for the sake of jamaibabu’s honour. But Qazi saheb asked me to come here and see the proof.
Suddenly Baba said in a heavy voice, You have not done right Torulata. What kind of sister-in-law are you! You have come to search your brother-in- law’s house on the Qazi’s orders? Did I not heal the Qazi’s wife? You haven’t heard the name of that ailment – enteric. He who saves a life, is he not a part of the divine? Who else is a doctor in the nearby villages? Who else belongs to a higher clan among Brahmins? Who else?
Toru mashi said, There is only you, jamaibabu. But your habit of taking away things as your own without consent is not right. Your eldest son is an adult now. He will be ashamed if you trespass. Why do you do such things? Why can’t you ask for something?
Baba, suddenly furious, burst out, Are you calling me a thief?
Mashi said, Why would I? I am taking about bad habits. Don’t you know what you do? Son, let’s go, let’s return these cucumbers. This village has a Muslim majority. If you are a Brahmin, he is a Qazi too. People have already gathered in Qazi’s drawing room now. Who knows what judgment they will pass on you.
Is that so? Wait. Don’t go, Baba burst out. I got surprised. A timid person like Baba could burst out like this! How could I go to Qazi’s orchard to collect dry firewood if Baba kept up his obstinacy?
Baba charged up to me and snatched the bag. He then brought out five tender cucumbers and chewed them up in a jiffy. All my siblings came running and stood around us. Baba chomped on the cucumbers so quickly that we were too shocked to restrain him. Dumbstruck, we just stared at him.
Watching Baba chewing and gulping down the baby cucumbers, Ma suddenly covered her face with her palms and started sobbing. She sat down heavily on the courtyard, wracked by the force of her sobs.
Then she whimpered to Toru mashi, Whenever a girl child comes in my womb, this man commits such acts. Don’t you know your jamaibabu? Otherwise can someone like him eat the offerings for Khoda? What will the villagers think! Oh my god, yes, I walk in my sleep, I cannot run away. Shontu, my son, I cannot run away in my sleep. I would have left otherwise. Torulata, my sister, save us.
Toru mashi sat on the courtyard. The fish jumped once. The bird flew away
somewhere.
Toru mashi watched the fish gasping for breath for some time with her palm pressed against one cheek. Suddenly, she brought out a boti from the kitchen and started scaling and cutting the fish. Ma’s sobbing stopped abruptly. Baba escaped to the drawing room like a thief. Some patient had come amid this bedlam.
Then the sun set on the western horizon. That rare fish was cooked by burning a fresh stock of patkathi in the oven. Baba gravely sat to eat that fish. As if he did not have any decency.
Baba ate alone. We did not touch the fish.
Mashi told the other siblings, Do not eat that fish. Your father will eat alone.
It was an emotional game. We never cook the whole course with patkathi. As the jute stalks are thin and light, the patkathi fire was weak and short-lived. Patkathi was only used to set firewood ablaze. Ma used to save patkathi the whole year round and use only a little each day.
Baba ate everything on the platter, stuffed himself to the gills and burped out loud. Kalbosh – a rare guest of the river. And a foreign vegetable – cucumber. A burp revealed everything he ate. Do you get the smell of cucumbers in my burp, son? Even if the Qazi now punishes us, nothing can be done.I am having a great big stomachache, Nibhanoni. No medicine can cure me. Burp. Can you smell it, son? Burp.
II
This is not a story of Nibhanoni, my mother. This is not a story of her husband Bolai Mukurjee either. To tell you the truth, this is not anybody’s story. This is my own story. Or my sister Ekshona’s who was yet to be born.
This story started when she came in Ma’s womb. That day, when the evening darkened, Toru mashi took me to her place.
Walking towards her house she said, We are not going to Qazi’s house anymore, Shontu. What would I tell Qazi? That yes, my brother-in-law has stolen and eaten the offering for Khoda? Or should I completely deny it and say, no, he has not? A sleepwalking mother and a compulsive-thief father! How fortunate are you, my son! Do you think that it will be respectful if Bishtu Kobrej comes? He is a person of ill repute.
Why?
I was scared. The slope of the road in front of us rose. The enchanting autumnal night sky glowed with a gleaming moon. We came near Qazi’s property. There were creepers with blossoming crops – cucumber, gourd, bitter gourd and many more. The scarecrow was still awake.
What ill repute, mashi?
A handful of women die during abortion. Who kills them? Bishtu! No matter how many women die, there is no pause in killing female fetuses. Your mother planned to...
Stop, mashi. No need to tell me more.
Suddenly I stopped. Qazi and Bishtu Kobrej emerged from behind the scarecrow. I started running.
My dear Ekshona, I was able to save you. I am sending this story of your birth to your college hostel address.
Our mother, Ma, when fully pregnant, placed a lantern on her head and went deep down into the pond, radiating blue light from above her head. I brought her out of the water. She then delivered you.
From The Open-Winged Scorpion and Other Stories by Abul Bashar, translated from the Bengali by Epsita Halder, forthcoming from Seagull Books in 2018.
Abul Bashar (b. 1951) is a major contemporary Bengali prose writer who has authored more than forty books. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Bankim Puraskar and the Ananda Puraskar. Hailing from the complex socio-religious terrain of district Murshidabad in West Bengal, Bashar creates a new paradigm of storytelling about local Muslim communities that live precariously on the borders of the state, pushed to the margins by the aggressive forces of religion and masculinity. Bashar's writings emerge from the conflict between scripture and ritual, masculine and feminine, state policy and human lives, and explore without sentimentality the conflict within.
Epsita Halder teaches Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University. She works on the Muharram traditions of West Bengal, for which she has received grants from the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore, and Sarai-CSDS. She writes on vernacular Islam, Muslim popular piety and new medial practices. She is currently working on a new book about her ethnographic journeys.