The next morning, after a brief drizzle, a man came with the news of two corpses being found on the bank of the river. When they were told to help identify the corpses, Su and Karim got ready to visit the spot. It so happened that Sultan’s relatives were also among the people who had taken shelter around Rahim Mollah’s home. Rahim summoned Malek to accompany Su and Karim to the river bank. The corpses were kept on the river bank facing the sky. Dark marks on the neck and throat indicated death due to strangulation. All over their bodies signs of battering testified physical abuse before their demise. It became quite difficult to identify the corpses as their deformed faces were already disintegrating. By looking at the cheque lungi and the ring on the forefinger, Karim identified one of the corpses as his cousin Hoson. When Malek identified Sultan’s corpse Karim called for more men and two stretchers for carrying the corpses.
Within half an hour, twenty Rohingya youths arrived at the scene with stretchers. By wrapping polythene around their hands, quite tactfully the unpleasant task of placing the corpses on the stretchers was done. Everyone wanted to carry the corpses to the front yard of Rahim’s hut, but Karim objected to this idea because of the stench. If they saw the decomposed corpses, it would mentally disturb the children and women; this was another factor behind Karim’s objection. Subsequently the funeral was held in a field next to the teak grove of the Mollah clan. It was something Su had never witnessed. For the first time she observed how Muslims buried their dead. On television and movies, she had seen partial pictures of it. Now she saw the whole ritual with her own eyes.
While everyone had been busy placing the corpses in their graves after the funeral prayer, all around them, darkness fell like the sun had set upon them. The ritual of burying the dead in mud and water was somehow completed amid heavy rainfall. And then everyone used the rain water to wash themselves. Su had an umbrella with her. Spreading it over her head, she kept watching everything from underneath a mango tree. Only a few feet from her, Karim had also been observing the situation. Su turned to him, and said, “Please don’t mind, but I think Almighty is displeased with you guys, or else why would there be so many obstacles to everything you do?”
To comprehend the implication of what she had uttered, Karim kept quiet for a few seconds. Then he responded, “Do you really believe that Almighty is responsible for all our miseries?”
Su was hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want to be perceived as being arrogant or rude. In the end, she shrugged off her hesitation, and said quite frankly, “Well, it looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“Have you heard about Egypt’s Pharaoh?”
“Yes, I have and read the brief history of it at school as well.”
“Do you think Almighty was responsible for what Pharaoh did?”
“No, He wasn’t. He did warn Pharaoh of the consequence.”
“If He wasn’t responsible for what Pharaoh had done, why would He be responsible for what Tatmadaw and a few extremist monks have done?”
“Are you trying to say that Tatmadaw and extremist monks like Win Thura are responsible for the miseries of the Rohingyas?”
“Of course, we have been made stateless, and this is the main reason for all our miseries. Certainly, you know all too well who did this to us. It’s not only us, most of the Muslims in the world are living in the kingdoms set up by twenty first century Pharaohs. The names, appearances and nationality of these Pharaohs of the atomic age are different, but their attitude and their way of life have not changed a bit even after thousands of years. They are the latest replicas of Pharaoh.”
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After the cloud cleared the next morning, there was an unofficial meeting at the yard in front of Rahim’s hut. Unanimously, the meeting came to conclusion that the Rohingyas could no longer live peacefully in this country. All their human rights had been crushed by the state. Taking advantage of this situation, unscrupulous people were busy attacking their honor and properties. They had to fight back in order to exist, or else they would have to take shelter in the neighboring states. As it was not possible to wage a war having children and women in their homes, they chose the second option. In future when the situation would become normal, they were to return home. For being geographically closer, everyone was in favor of migrating to Bangladesh. However, before doing so, Rahim advised everyone to take care of the necessary documents of their properties, because after returning home, they would need their documents to prove the ownership of their ancestral land. All of them requested Su to submit a photocopy of their documents to the human rights desk of the UN, situated in Yangon. Problem arose when Rohingyas came up with hundreds of documents. It was not possible for Su to carry them in sacks and travel to Yangon all by herself. Finally, two Buddhist neighbors came forward who were willing to assist Su.
At night, after getting a phone call from Rafiq the disappointment, fear and weariness which had paralyzed Su, gradually disappeared. After a while, for some reason, Su could sense some sort of hesitation in Rafiq. She said, “Say what you want to. You know, I won’t say no to you, if it’s possible for me to do, what you want me to do.”
“Earlier, I told you about Solimulla bhai. He wants us to do something. For this we will be given a handsome remuneration. However, we have to be a bit tactful in order to do it.”
There was a faint smile on Su’s lips when Su said, “Of course, you won’t have any problem collecting your remuneration. But from Yangon, how will I get mine or do you plan to send me the check through Federal Express?”
“It can be arranged, but it’s going to be problematic. It’ll be better if we open a bank account against your name over here. Your remuneration will be deposited in that account.”
“How will you open a bank account against my name without my signature?”
“I will send you a form, fill it up and send it to me with your photo and signature then you can operate the account online.”
“You’re quite resourceful!”
“We have no choice, do we?”
“Well, I haven’t yet heard what you want me to do.”
“Of course, I will tell you, all about it. You can provide us sensitive information when we talk.”
“What kind of information?”
“Activities of the Tatmadaw in Arakan, the problems faced by the people of Arakan, this kind of information.”
For quite some time Su remained silent. Just to check whether she had hung up, Rafiq asked, “Are you there?”
“Yes. Rafiq tell me something clearly. Do you want me to get into the business of spying?”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that. You can take it as journalism.”
Upon hearing this from Rafiq Su burst out into laughter. Then gently she said, “Alright, I get it. You want me to be a journalist. I’m sure you know, just how risky the business of journalism is nowadays. Do you really want me to do this?”
Rafiq tried to visualize the situation Su was in. Suddenly, his heart was filled with compassion. His vision became blurry when he said, “No my dear, I don’t want you to do this. Forgive me, I will tell Solimulla, you’re not going to do it.”
For a few seconds, both of them remained quiet. They tried to listened to the sound of their respiration. Earlier, Kulsum had fallen asleep next to Su. She found Su talking on the phone when a nightmare woke her up. Su had been sobbing while talking to someone. Kulsum chose to remain silent as she lay there with her eyes closed. She heard Su saying, “Don’t tell anything like that to Solimulla, I’ll try my best to help you guys. Our conversation has most probably awakened your in law. Over here, it’s three o’clock in the morning. My dear I am going to hang up now.”
“Alright, within two three days, we will have our conversation again.”
After hanging up, very quickly Su drew up a plan for the next few days. First of all, she would go to Hin Kao’s temple and talk to Than Kin. She would try to have an idea about the intentions of the Buddhist monks. Then she would return to Yangon with the two Buddhist youths and submit the documents of the Rohingya properties to the human rights desk of the UN. Upon completion of this task, she would return to her home in Yangon. Before talking to Rafiq she had managed her mother. On the other hand, she used her project as an alibi to manage her father. Hence, she did not expect any kind of problems from her parents. As she stared through the open window, it had been raining cats and dogs. Unwittingly, she lost herself in a slumber, while quietly standing over her head, Hajera Begum raised her hands to heaven to pray for the stranger who lay before her.