The Hands of the Man of Light

Evening was descending; the spring sky overhung the canal next to the road. Legions of bats flew back and forth from the mahua tree on the other side of the canal. And on this side, Khoybor Ali’s ten-year-old son Khobir stood on the elevated highway pissing into the canal. The urine spurted noisily onto the water.

Kalimuddi was walking back from the marketplace that way. When he saw the boy he said, ‘You son of the devil, you’re pissing in the water? Your dick hole’s going to close off, I’m telling you.’

Khobir had forgotten that fereshtas, Allah’s angels, lived in the water. He had drunk a pot of water late in the afternoon. His entire afternoon had gone by without any food. In the evening, that pot of water turned into piss and created pressure in his lower belly, so he stood by the canal and pulled his short pants down to his knees and was pissing and then Kalimuddi saw him and told him this so now, fear had entered Khobir’s thoughts. Ten years old, and he didn’t know Allah’s book or His words. He didn’t know how to say tauba and repent. He looked skywards searching for Allah. If he found Him, he would say, Allah, forgive me, I’ll never do it again. But Allah wasn’t in the sky. The iron-hued sky remained silent. So Khobir uttered aloud as if telling himself, ‘It’s not so bad if it’s like small young folks pissing in the water.’

‘Whose son are you, eh?’

Startled, Khobir looked behind. A fair-skinned man, wearing a panjabi as white as milk, was grinning with his very white teeth.

‘Whose son are you? What are you doing by the canal in the evening?’

‘Khoybor’s.’ Khobir responded tersely and looked the man over. He had never seen a person who looked like this in his entire life. He hadn’t come out from the bottom of the canal, had he? He wasn’t a water fereshta, was he?

‘Khoybor’s? Which Khoybor is your father? What does he do?’

‘Doesn’t do anything.’

‘Doesn’t do anything? Then what do you eat?’

‘Nothing.’

The man came forward and took hold of Khobir’s hand. ‘Ah, your wrists are like sticks. What do you eat?’

‘Nothing.’

The man pushed his tongue against the base of his teeth and clucked.

Khobir thrust his neck forward like an egret and asked, ‘Who’re you?’

‘A person.’

Suspicion leaped in Khobir’s mind. For a moment he thought he should just make a run for it. But the man was holding his hand.

‘Hey, why are you shaking? Don’t be afraid, I’m not a kidnapper.’ The man pulled out a banknote from the pocket of his panjabi and gave it to him, saying, ‘Give this to your father.’

Khobir, son of Khoybor, the boy who believed that small children pissing in water wasn’t a sin, and to ask for Allah’s forgiveness without sinning counted as a virtue, gripped the note with all his fingers. He hid it in his fist and waited with bated breath for the man to let go of his hand.

The man delayed no longer; Khobir shut his eyes and took to his heels. He was terrified that by the time he reached home, the money would no longer be money, that it would turn into blank paper. He tripped three times on the way, but it didn’t discourage him, he kept running, and he kept on running, his short pants kept slipping down to his knees, and he kept pulling them back up with one hand. As soon as he entered his home, panting, he ran towards the lamp. He held his breath and smoothed out the crumpled note in lamplight.

‘Hey, where did you find that money?’ His father pounced on him and grabbed the note. ‘Fifty takas! Where did you find this, my son?’

‘The fereshta gave it to me.’

Khoybor Ali narrowed his eyes, his brows knotted. He looked at his son and then he held out the note this way and that in front of the lamp, examining it. He looked at his son’s face in surprise and said, ‘Which fereshta? Why did he give you this?’

Khobir said, ‘I was standing straight right on the bank of the canal, and then a bright white fereshta came down from the sky. Said, you’re poor so here’s fifty takas, I’m giving it to you. You can buy some sweets. Said, don’t give it to anyone though.’

‘You don’t need this much money to buy sweets. I’ll buy you some sweets tomorrow.’ Khoybor Ali tucked the note into his waist.

His son began wailing. ‘No, no, that is my money! The fereshta gave it to me and told me don’t give it to anyone, if you do the money’s going to turn into blank paper!’ He rolled around on the dirt floor, his wailing like a song. ‘Give me my money. Why should you take it, eh? The fereshta didn’t give it to you, they gave it to me.’

Khobir felt as if his father had become his enemy. He thought, if only he was a little taller and a little heftier, he could fight his father right now. He would knock the horrible man flat on his back in the yard, and then climb onto his chest, and then he would break all his fingers, crack crack crack, when he snatched the money from him.

‘Why didn’t the fereshta give me that strength?’ Khobir asked himself. ‘Koromali from that other neighbourhood rammed that shovel right into the chest of his own father, was that for nothing? Fathers are very bad people.’

*

Khoybor Ali was running. The heat of the money was making him rush to the subdistrict town. There, in a tin-roof shack, people of all kinds gambled together. That’s where Khoybor Ali was headed. Even when he spotted an unusual crowd flocking at the entrance to the alleyway, he didn’t have the patience to stop for even a moment. As he zipped past them, he overheard some of their conversation:

‘Yeah, yeah, a new leader. Does business in Khulna.’

‘So what kind of business, eh? How much money’s he got?’

‘Who knows what business, they say there’s no end to his money.’

‘It’s jute, his business is jute. They say he exports jute abroad.’

‘Why is he running on the boat symbol? This year all the votes are going to go to the sheaf of paddy.’

‘I get it now, now it’s clear who Khobir’s fereshta was,’ Khoybor Ali muttered to himself. His pace quickened.

*

His father had gone off to gamble. Khobir began feeling extremely resentful. He thought that people were right when they called his father a gambler. His father was not a good person; Khobir decided that when he was a grownup, he would beat his father every morning and night.

His father had left to gamble, and Khobir sat by himself in the yard, staring at the sky and weeping. After he had been crying for a long time, his mother came home. She brought back a plate of rice from the Mondal household after her day’s work there was done. Mother and son sat down to eat. As they ate, Khobir said, ‘Oh, Ma, a fereshta gave me some money. Abba grabbed it away from me and went off to gamble.’

His mother wrinkled her brow and asked, ‘What fereshta?’

Khobir told her the evening’s story. His mother didn’t believe him. ‘You stole the money, right?’ she said.

‘I swear by Allah, Ma, the fereshta gave it to me! Said, you’re poor, so here, take fifty takas. Buy some sweets, but don’t give it to anyone. If you do, the money won’t stay money, it’ll just turn into blank paper.’

‘Sure, fereshtas have nothing better to do. Tell me who really gave you the money.’

She started to interrogate her son. He kept repeating his story. But she didn’t believe any of it. She thought, however, that such a small child wouldn’t steal, somebody must have taken pity on him and given him the money. Which was a good thing, but that the father had snatched it from the son and gone off to gamble was not a good thing. The mother’s heart turned bitter.

‘Hey, Ma, why does Abba gamble?’

‘How do I know?’

‘He’s your meal ticket man and you don’t know?’

‘Shut up, you bastard. Does your father feed me that he’s my meal ticket?’

‘Your meal ticket man isn’t a good person, Ma.’ The mother slapped the son. The son hissed, ‘Your meal ticket’s going to die.’

He received another slap on the same cheek. ‘He’ll die, he’ll die!’

The mother got up and began whacking her son on his back and said, ‘Your father’s going to die, so you die too, you bastard!’

*

It was very late at night. Khobir lay beside his mother; his heart felt hollow every other moment. His father didn’t love him; why was his father such a bad one? Why had he taken the money away like that? Was there no tenderness, no fondness in his father’s heart? Khobir whimpered now and then. He felt wretched about his mother because she hadn’t consoled him at all. A mother who could leave her son in the middle of such gigantic sorrow and could sleep so unconcernedly was not a good mother. This thought made Khobir even sadder. His heart pulsed with hurt.

Khobir began thinking about Allah. Allah was the only good one. Allah would judge them for sure.

Khobir couldn’t tell how late it grew as he pondered all these things. Gradually, their yard brimmed with a strange illumination. A man made of light came down from the sky and stood in their yard. Then, as if floating, he walked into their home. Immediately the entire room was flooded with orange light. The man of light came close, and closer still.

Then Khobir saw his mother right next to the man of light. She was smiling.

A man of light and a skin-and-bones woman were gesturing with their hands, smiling, nodding their heads and whispering together.

The man kissed the woman on her forehead, and Khobir saw that in the blink of an eye, his mother became as beautiful as the women on television.

His beautiful mother was now laughing loudly, and shiny, bright coins dropped from her mouth like pearls. Shiki, adhuli, taka, different denominations poured out onto the ground, rolling around the room like the wheels of a car.

A large coin, as big as a bicycle wheel, suddenly rolled out into the yard. It rolled beyond the yard into the alley, and then kept going. Khobir ran after it. The silver coin, or the divine bicycle wheel, kept rolling and Khobir followed it madly. His short pants kept slipping down to his knees and tripping him up.

The coin as big as a bicycle wheel continued along the road and then suddenly – shloomp – jumped into the canal. And Khobir, who had stopped in his tracks by the canal, felt his belly swell up and bloat. He pulled his pants down to his knees and pointed his penis toward the water and said, ‘…’eady, one two theeree…’ With immense force he … Oh, no, there was no force. His flow was stymied.

‘So what’s going to happen now, Khoybor’s son?’

‘What’ll happen? Will I die?’

‘Hold it, why die now? Oh, look, there’s Abedali headed towards the marketplace, carrying his sewing machine on his shoulder to sew lungi seams. Call him, call him.’

‘Oh, Abedali Bhai, you have a needle, don’t you?’

‘I do, why?’

‘The hole in my wee wee is closed up, will you open it for me?’

‘Sure I will, why wouldn’t I?’

Abedali wielded a needle and settled himself in front of Khobir’s penis. Khobir thrust his hips forward and held out his penis. ‘Do it, brother, do it!’

As soon as the needle touched the tip of his penis, the tiny organ turned into the hosepipe of a firetruck. A great surge of liquid silver emerged with immense force and swept Abedali into the canal. Gleeful, Khobir clapped as he noticed that there wasn’t a single drop of water in the canal, instead of water it was money, bright red bank notes. It was now a stream of money; and a man was drowning in it, dying.

*

Khoybor Ali left the gambling den at the subdistrict town and stood on the road; he saw that the rice fields of the month of Ashwin were flooded with moonlight. He dreamed as he began to walk homewards, his waist pouch stuffed with cash: one day, I’m going to buy all this land in this field. This Khoybor Ali will be the owner of five or even seven hundred bighas of land. Possible, must be. Only possible by gambling, not in any other way. All those rich people are gamblers, or perhaps their fathers or grandfathers or great grandfathers were gamblers. Of course, of course. What other way could there be to get rich? Khoybor ruminated as he walked home. His waist tingled with the heat of cash. Suddenly, a pair of ghosts emerged from behind a tree. They waylaid him.

‘Give us a share, you bastard.’ One of the ghosts sounded hoarse.

‘A share!’ echoed the other ghost.

‘What share? I won it, it’s my money. What share?’ Khoybor Ali’s attachment to his money was stronger than his fear of ghosts.

‘Want to share or die?’ the first ghost threatened.

‘Want to share or die?’ the second ghost threatened.

‘Won’t share, won’t die, do what you can!’ Khoybor took a stand with his feet apart.

The attack wasn’t unexpected, in fact, Khoybor was getting ready to fend them off. But it happened in such a way, meaning, before he was prepared, a long strip of gamccha wrapped around his neck so suddenly, with first a yank, and then, without letting up for a single moment, growing tighter and tighter, turning into a noose, Khoybor Ali had no choice but to have his eyes bulge out, his tongue protrude like a turtle trapped under a rock, foaming at his mouth, as he glimpsed the eternal darkness with his eyes.