Desh by Kim Kellas Page B

the monsoon season. When the car stopped outside the house, a tree had crashed across the courtyard, and the dog had disappeared, leaving only a grey length of rope on the ground.
    She was shown to her room and left to unpack. As the locks of her suitcase unclicked, she saw how little she’d brought: just two new saris folded in cellophane and the red box with her wedding jewellery. She strained to listen through the half-open door and then decided it was as good a time as any to call the forced marriage office. They answered quickly and she spoke quietly, confirming the name of her village. If they didn’t hear from her regularly, they’d be able to find her.
    Good to know, she thought. The wind outside had picked up and she could feel a current of air in the room, but couldn’t see any windows. High up in the bamboo wall, she saw a gap – like a slit in a castle and realised glass windows would be dangerous in a high wind. A pale shaft of light filtered through the wire mesh nailed across the gap and landed squarely on the floor in front of the bed, as if to remind her she could quite easily become a prisoner again.
    She looked across the room. In the time since the wedding they’d built a bathroom. Small and ill-equipped, but nonetheless a bathroom, with a toilet, a sink and a plastic bucket on the floor for washing. It seemed somehow sad and she managed a smile when Gourab’s sister came in with water for her.
    After bathing, she dressed in the sari and jewellery as a new bride should and joined Gourab’s parents at the table in the main room. She tried to finish the white rice and green tomatoes, but the smell of the paraffin stove stuck in her throat.
    Barely any words were spoken throughout the meal. A good daughter-in-law should know her place, so once the dishes had been cleared away and the floor swept Aila returned to her room for the night.
    It had been arranged that she would share the bed with Gourab’s sister, Brusia, until he returned from Dhaka at the weekends, so she lay down on one side of the bed and let Brusia take the other side. From behind, came a stream of words and shrieks and, rolling over, she saw that Brusia appeared to be praying, though she was still asleep. As she watched, the clapping started, a strange rhythmic clapping that seemed to accompany the words of prayer.
    At first, it drove her mad, but then the chanting and clapping became part of the patina of the night and she managed to drift off to sleep while the days passed in almost companionable silence as Aila did whatever chores were required of her or stayed in her room until the first Friday and Gourab came home.
    No-one pressurised Aila to begin with. Abba and Amma stayed in the background to give the newly-weds space over the weekend and, just to help matters along, they made the stockroom into a bedroom for Gourab, for the time being.
    The deal was to work on the friendship, but that first weekend Gourab decided to woo her and wear the mantle of a boyfriend. “What do you like?” he’d ask. “What sort of things do you like to do?”
    â€œShopping.”
    â€œI can take you shopping – to Bluewater if you like?”
    â€œThey’ve built a Bluewater here? That’s scary. No, I don’t like.”
    â€œWe could go into town and have a meal or see a movie,” and “How long have you been driving?” and “Tell me about your friends – what are they like? What do they do?”
    In reply, all he got were monosyllabic grunts, but her husband persisted. He’d do his best to make Aila change her mind. So, for a time, he seemed happy and Aila felt nothing beyond mild revulsion. He went back to work and the threat passed for another week. She left his mother to clean the stockroom and sort through his laundry.
    In the course of week two, Manufa come to visit and Aila felt genuinely pleased to see her little cousin; less so her uncle Fadil,