Free The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam Page B

know now, how people fall in love – in the words they recite to each other, the images they weld out of theirabbreviated encounters, narrating themselves into the sort of connection that they will later refer to as fated.
    In the evening, Zamzam and Jimmy brought me dinner and some sachets of oral rehydration salts. Zamzam put a sachet on the ground next to my sleeping bag, and I thought I heard his footsteps retreating, but he was rummaging around in my backpack, looking for water. He tore the sachet open and poured the contents into my flask.
    â€˜Did you find anything?’
    â€˜Only the murmurings of ghosts,’ Zamzam said.
    I opened my eyes and noticed that his face was leavened by pale-green eyes. ‘I’ll be back on site tomorrow,’ I said.
    Jimmy said, ‘When I was in Afghanistan, I passed out at least a dozen times. This kind of dry heat can kill you.’
    Zamzam finished making up my saline water and dropped the flask beside my sleeping bag.
    I was eager for them to go, but they seemed to want to stay until I’d finished eating. I took a bite of bread and felt it turning back into dough in my mouth. ‘What was it like out there, in the war?’ I asked.
    â€˜Paid off my loans,’ Jimmy said.
    â€˜My dad was in the army once,’ I offered.
    â€˜Was he a Mukti Bahini?’ Zamzam asked.
    I nodded, surprised he knew the Bengali word for ‘freedom fighter’. ‘Bangladesh used to be a part of Pakistan,’ I explained to Jimmy. ‘My father was in the war of independence.’
    â€˜Fighting for a cause.’ Jimmy said. ‘Wish I knew what that was like.’
    I put the plate down and took a large gulp of saline, its sweet saltiness reminding me of the time I had contracted food poisoning from eating a stick of roadside sugar cane. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I feel better.’
    Zamzam put his hand to his forehead in a gesture of farewell. I recognised something – a mournful yet euphoric expression I often caught on my parents’ faces, the look of a person who believed they could remake the world. I sometimes thought, when I looked at Zamzam, that he was trying to tell me something. But I was tired and a little light-headed, and as soon as he left I closed my eyes and stopped thinking about him.
    The next morning Bart announced we’d be spending the day at camp. No, it wasn’t on account of my heatstroke – we were having a few guests for lunch. When I emerged from my tent, I saw a seating arrangement had been made around the middle of the campsite, with plastic sheets and tablecloths covering a shady patch near the cooking area. The bolsters had been brought out from Bart’s tent, and there were even table settings, tin mugs and plates arranged in a semicircle. Bart rolled a cigarette, smoked it, wrapped a betel, chewed it, swallowed, and started all over again with the tobacco, all the while shouting orders to the workers to clear up the site and hurry up with the cooking. The smell of singed meat and baking bread spiralled around us.
    Bart said it would be better if I wore the burkha and the face veil again, so I did, and then he said something to me about keeping a low profile, which I gathered meant that I should either stay in my tent or not talk to anyone. I was going to ask Jimmy who exactly we were expecting, but I hadn’t seen him since breakfast.
    A convoy of jeeps arrived just after noon. The men, about a dozen, greeted Bart warmly, embracing him, then holding their palms to their chests. Jimmy and Zamzam approached, and, as they made their introductions, Zamzam fell to the ground and touched a man’s feet. The man put his hand on Zamzam’s head, and when Zamzam stood upthey hugged. Someone came around and served stone bread and roasted goat. From inside my veil, I observed how the men were expert at positioning themselves so they didn’t have to remove the guns slung across their