excerpt from "Crisis of Faith"
by Sanchari Sur

Each afternoon when the school bus turns onto our street, I seek out the barred balcony. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse, but it’s not difficult to locate. Its metal bars glint furious in the midday sun.

It’s not my fault that I’m obsessed. Did he walk to the balcony, or sprint, when abruptly in the middle of an argument with his father he jumped off their fourth-floor veranda? Fati doesn’t know. All she can confirm is that he survived.

It was a scandal, made worse by the bars his father promptly installed to prevent any future “accidents”—a makeshift cage. A scandal so sordid that even after two years, the neighbourhood kids call him names. Mental. Animal.

I imagine what he saw when he went over the rails. I am acquainted with the view. Family friends from Dhaka—Rahim uncle, Shamoli aunty, and their son, Mithun—who live on the seventh floor, have the same view. It overlooks a three-necked main road, the head of a fast-moving hydra, swishing cars a constant soundtrack. Across is Port Rashid, which on a sunny day opens up to the glittering sapphire of the Persian Gulf. At night, all-consuming darkness.

***

Fati claims if it wasn’t for the “incident,” she would have married him one day. Aware of her tendency to exaggerate, I am ambivalent. In her retellings, every boy she’s ever encountered has fallen head-over-heels for her.

 

 

 

From The Malahat Review's fall issue #228