everything, his gas stove, the place where he keeps the chopped onions and the chillies, the bottle of tomato sauce, the box with the loose change.
At the bus stop, the snow has piled up in three heaps, over the garbage, making them look like old men and women sleeping on a white floor, huddled under white sheets.
To her left, the slums, too, are white, the snow sticks to the TV antennae, the cable wires like glistening cobwebs. The roofs of the shanties across the street are white, the tarpaulins showing in a few tiny patches of blue.
There’s no one on the street, all the houses are dark, the windows barred and shuttered, she can’t see the pigeons in the cage near the oil mill.
She looks at the sky which is now a huge white sari, the kind which widows wear, spread out over the grass to dry, crinkled in several places, the white fading away into a colour between light ash and deep grey. She feels dizzy, as in the first months of her first pregnancy, she wants to cry out but her lips are dry, she can hear herself breathe, the sound like that of the snow falling.
There’s not much of a wind, a few flakes have stuck to the grille in the balcony and before they can melt she touches them, shivers, watches them run down in lines of cold water, over the rusted iron and over her fingers.
She walks back into the bedroom, closes the door, it creaks again, she can see the reassuring shapes of her family in the dark, the two children, under the blanket, on the adjacent bed.
There’s work to do before they wake up. So she walks into the dining room where the two Godrej almirahs are, she switches on the lights, pulls the drapes so that the light doesn’t reach the bedroom and then she begins to unpack the heavy woollens.
The black coat Father got during his wedding, the leather gloves he hasn’t worn for twenty years. For the daughter, she takes out the blue jacket she bought last year from the Tibetan hawkers who sit on Chowringhee Road behind Hind Cinema.
For her son, she takes out the red socks she had bought for herself but doesn’t wear, they will be too large for his feet but a little bit of folding will take care of that. And they will reach up to his knees. As for herself, she chooses the Kashmiri shawl Father bought her a month after their wedding.
These woollens will not be enough but there’s nothing she can do. She recalls the household tip she got from a magazine: it’s warmer if you wear two thin sweaters rather than one thick one since the air gets trapped in between the layers and prevents the warmth from running away. She can smell the mothballs in the clothes, she can hear the snow still falling in the night.
And in the first light of the next day, when the sun’s rays, already weakened by the clouds, enter the bedroom through the green window pane, lighting the edges of the bedsheet, she wakes up her children and her husband and they all go to the balcony.
Other parents and children have come out of their homes, too, the rich ones who have read English books, whose parents have visited foreign countries, who get to watch American shows on Bangladesh TV, know what to do. They build snowmen, tie their old red ribbons around their necks, paint cricket balls black and put these for eyes and ears.
The children of the shanties stay at home, wrapped up in blankets and newspapers. The TV is down, there’s nothing to do, they ask their parents what the whiteness is all about and their parents say they don’t know. Sometimes, they come out to stand at the door and watch the other children throw snow at one another.
As for us, we are the family in the middle, so we spend the entire day in the balcony. Father in his black wedding coat which goes all the way up to his knees. My sister in her blue coat, my oversized red socks folded near the toes so that I don’t trip. Mother, wrapped in the Kashmiri shawl, rests her head against Father’s chest, he wraps one arm around her for the first time in my life
At the bus stop, the snow has piled up in three heaps, over the garbage, making them look like old men and women sleeping on a white floor, huddled under white sheets.
To her left, the slums, too, are white, the snow sticks to the TV antennae, the cable wires like glistening cobwebs. The roofs of the shanties across the street are white, the tarpaulins showing in a few tiny patches of blue.
There’s no one on the street, all the houses are dark, the windows barred and shuttered, she can’t see the pigeons in the cage near the oil mill.
She looks at the sky which is now a huge white sari, the kind which widows wear, spread out over the grass to dry, crinkled in several places, the white fading away into a colour between light ash and deep grey. She feels dizzy, as in the first months of her first pregnancy, she wants to cry out but her lips are dry, she can hear herself breathe, the sound like that of the snow falling.
There’s not much of a wind, a few flakes have stuck to the grille in the balcony and before they can melt she touches them, shivers, watches them run down in lines of cold water, over the rusted iron and over her fingers.
She walks back into the bedroom, closes the door, it creaks again, she can see the reassuring shapes of her family in the dark, the two children, under the blanket, on the adjacent bed.
There’s work to do before they wake up. So she walks into the dining room where the two Godrej almirahs are, she switches on the lights, pulls the drapes so that the light doesn’t reach the bedroom and then she begins to unpack the heavy woollens.
The black coat Father got during his wedding, the leather gloves he hasn’t worn for twenty years. For the daughter, she takes out the blue jacket she bought last year from the Tibetan hawkers who sit on Chowringhee Road behind Hind Cinema.
For her son, she takes out the red socks she had bought for herself but doesn’t wear, they will be too large for his feet but a little bit of folding will take care of that. And they will reach up to his knees. As for herself, she chooses the Kashmiri shawl Father bought her a month after their wedding.
These woollens will not be enough but there’s nothing she can do. She recalls the household tip she got from a magazine: it’s warmer if you wear two thin sweaters rather than one thick one since the air gets trapped in between the layers and prevents the warmth from running away. She can smell the mothballs in the clothes, she can hear the snow still falling in the night.
And in the first light of the next day, when the sun’s rays, already weakened by the clouds, enter the bedroom through the green window pane, lighting the edges of the bedsheet, she wakes up her children and her husband and they all go to the balcony.
Other parents and children have come out of their homes, too, the rich ones who have read English books, whose parents have visited foreign countries, who get to watch American shows on Bangladesh TV, know what to do. They build snowmen, tie their old red ribbons around their necks, paint cricket balls black and put these for eyes and ears.
The children of the shanties stay at home, wrapped up in blankets and newspapers. The TV is down, there’s nothing to do, they ask their parents what the whiteness is all about and their parents say they don’t know. Sometimes, they come out to stand at the door and watch the other children throw snow at one another.
As for us, we are the family in the middle, so we spend the entire day in the balcony. Father in his black wedding coat which goes all the way up to his knees. My sister in her blue coat, my oversized red socks folded near the toes so that I don’t trip. Mother, wrapped in the Kashmiri shawl, rests her head against Father’s chest, he wraps one arm around her for the first time in my life
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