They had come.
They scattered their chatter and left. Did they really leave? Yes, there they go, step by step, breaking the stairs as they descend.
We sat in stunned silence. Paru and I. We are sisters—I am the elder.
I don't know what Paru is thinking, but I am thinking... thinking so many things. Thinking and drowning in the depths of thought.
If only we could have made them stay! But could we? We could not. And so we generously announced our helplessness. Their bright faces turned dark and dim in moments. They turned and left. Where did they go? I don't know. Perhaps somewhere else, or back to their own sheltered grove.
A holiday.
No rush from the office. So I was washing my face and hands quite late after leaving bed, when they came. Three of them.
We don't know them.
So we fixed our unfamiliar gaze upon them. The beautiful, graceful young woman came forward with a tender green shoot in her arms—a few months old, innocent and lovely. She smiled and said, "Forgive me, is your village home in Bogra?"
: Yes.
: You both work at the post office, don't you?
: That's right.
I was giving brief answers. The girl seemed a bit more hesitant now and said, "Look, we heard you might rent out a room? Our home is also in Bogra. If you would be so kind..."
: I understand. But where did you hear that we rent rooms? This is a government flat.
: From the flat below yours.
To maintain courtesy, we brought them inside and seated them. The young man with them finally spoke. "Look, the room you're asking about—it's not really a house, more like a shack. Dirt floor, bamboo walls, and in the monsoon it's barely livable! Yet the rent is 6000 taka. That's why I was saying..."
When we finally expressed our inability to help, they left like lifeless beings, slowly breaking step by step down the stairs.
The boy of twenty-one or twenty-two, the girl of seventeen or eighteen, and the baby of a few months. They are husband and wife. How beautiful the baby is. How soft the child's eyes, face, nose, cheeks, entire body.
We two sisters are older than both of them. I'm now past thirty springs at thirty-one, and Paru is twenty-eight; yet neither of us has ever been fulfilled. Yet they...!
We were forced to turn them away. Through the endless mercy of the government, we two have been given only two rooms in staff quarters. We are both working women, ever since father died.
Father died in 2013. Since then, for eleven springs now, we two sisters have spent our days buried in the ledgers of work, eyes and ears closed, keeping the wandering spirit of our hearts bound in strong chains. We too want to see the colors, forms, and flavors of the world, but we are helpless.
Seven more younger brothers and sisters remain. They are all minors, mother is helpless. We alone are their precious blue gem.
Rafiq, how cruel you are! Couldn't you have filled my life with completeness... just like theirs... those who left a moment ago?
You could have, I know.
But you didn't—that is today's greatest truth.
Their tender baby is so beautiful, so soft. Together—husband, wife, and child—their life is so full of laughter and tears, so vibrant, so alive.
And us? A rigid map. The lament of failed lives. Handfuls of failure are the only treasure of our personal lives.
We are Professor Akhtaruzzaman's daughters. Father taught at a college in the district town of Bogra. Rafiq was father's favorite student.
While father was alive, Rafiq wove so many dream-webs before me. It was through Rafiq's eager initiative that we met. He was the eldest son of the city's renowned contractor, Hasan Saheb.
We were lower middle class. Our household ran on father's meager income. Compared to that income, our family was quite large. Nine brothers and sisters plus mother and father—eleven mouths to feed in total. We two studied at college, the younger ones all at school.
Mother and father all knew—Rafiq loved me, and Tariq loved Parul. But as soon as father died, when poverty advanced to crush us completely, just then they vanished from our lives, or rather, escaped to save themselves.
In these long eleven years, many office colleagues have extended their hands to lift up my or Parul's lonely life, but once the strings of our life's violin were broken, we could never mend them again.
We have peacefully accepted our companionless lives. So what happened today?
Paru has been sitting in a daze since then. I can tell she too is perhaps drowning like me in the turbulence of inner conflict, in the dream-touched pages of the past, in Tariq's spell. But why... why?
They had come. They have also gone. Their tender young shoot—that vibrant little life—how alive, how fresh!
Rafiq and I dreamed so many dreams. Dreams of a small nest. Of two or three tender shoots. Not cars, not houses, not the glitter of saris and jewelry—not kingdoms, not capitals—just a small, peaceful nest filled with love. That's all, nothing more.
Paru too, perhaps, embracing Tariq, mixing her heart's sweetness, had hummed with such small dreams. But no! What was not meant to be, happened. They fled. They disappeared.
Later I heard Rafiq married some renowned barrister's beautiful modern daughter. And Tariq married the only daughter of a millionaire jute merchant. May they be happy. How can I curse them to be unhappy with my small mouth!
But what great sin have we committed that we live like this, scattering the offerings of failure, for birth after birth?
They had come. They have also gone. The boy in their arms—that tender shoot—how beautiful! How complete they are, how serene! How alive, true, and meaningful their dreams!