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history. Do you know that the finance minister has come to this house for dinner? And we’ve had parties where the who’s who of this city have come. But he’s never let his success go to his head. As big a man as he is, his heart is even bigger. Do you know how many struggling and suffering people he has helped? It will take me all day to count them. Yet he never asks anything in return, doesn’t expect anything back. He doesn’t even tell me when he has helped these people. I hear it from them, and they can’t stop from singing his praises. I can tell you that when he wants you to come and live here, he has no ulterior motives. I know people are saying this and that, casting aspersions on his intentions, but I challenge these murkhaharu and bekammaharu to find me someone with a purer heart. I challenge them! In fact, I say that instead of talking behind his back, if they come and touch his feet, then the darkness in their own hearts will begin to evaporate.”
    Sanmaya goes on and on, but Tarun doesn’t mind because he likes her leathery face and how the skin around her eyes turns into multiple folds when she smiles. Even when she’s complaining and calling people murkha , her face is soft and open. Most important, she doesn’t expect you to give her your undivided attention when she talks. She continues her monologue even when you’re watching the birds in the garden or if you’re staring at a painting or if you ask for a glass of water. So when Mahesh Uncle is on the phone, Sanmaya keeps on about what a great man he is, and Apsara, her gaze on the floor, is only half listening.
    Tarun wonders if he is betraying her when he enjoys Didi’s affection. His mother rarely asks about Tarun’s Saturday visits to Bangemudha, but when Sanmaya briefly leaves the room, she asks him, “So what does the Masterji have to say when you visit? Anything?” She then asks about Amit and Sumit, trying to hide the bitterness in her voice, as though she really likes Didi’s sons. Tarun tells her that they are fine and that he plays with them. He brings a neutral inflection into his voice, pretending that his playing with Amit and Sumit is the most natural thing in the world. His mother doesn’t ask Tarun about Didi, but she says, “So you must have eaten delicious snacks in that house,” and Tarun tells her, as indifferently as he can, “It was all right.”
    Tarun thinks how nice it would be if Didi also lived with them here. He imagines he and Didi sleeping in the same room upstairs, with Mahesh Uncle in the room that faces the main gate and his mother in the room from where shecan view the fountain. But he knows this is foolish. Mahesh Uncle has gotten off the phone and entered the dining room now, and Sanmaya is serving the food on fine china plates and with polished cutlery.
    Sanmaya is not as good a cook as Didi, but Tarun doesn’t mind because he’s enjoying the newness and the opulence of Mahesh Uncle’s house: the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, the lemon water in small bowls to dip their fingers in after they finish eating, Mahesh Uncle lighting his cigar. On the way back home in Mahesh Uncle’s car, as they pass the Ratna Park area, Tarun glances toward the direction of Bangemudha. He thinks of Didi’s malpua , and suddenly his mouth waters.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    O NE EVENING A PSARA doesn’t come home. Tarun thinks that she has been delayed at work, although as the evening progresses this idea doesn’t sound plausible, given that often she doesn’t go to work in the first place. At ten o’clock, a neighbor knocks, asking for his mother. “She’s working late today,” Tarun tells her. The neighbor looks at him skeptically, then asks him whether he wants to wait for his mother in her flat instead of sitting here by himself. “I have homework to do,” Tarun says.
    All night long he waits in the dark. He thinks she is dead. Night noises come from surrounding houses and flats. An old woman coughs