It was a stunning case of intimate partner violence — followed by the actions of an extraordinary woman who found light in the darkness.
****
In this excerpt, one week after Rumana Monzur’s return to Dhaka, she tells Sumon, who has abused her since the start of their decade-long marriage, of her resolve to file for divorce. Days later, he beats her. When her father, Monzur, unaware of the history of abuse in her marriage, asks about the angry welts on her arms, Hema — as Rumana is known to family — explains only that Sumon is responsible. Shocked, Monzur tells her he will speak to Sumon’s parents, Kabir and Ruby, who are in Texas visiting their daughter Sabira.
****
As morning would be dawning in Texas, Monzur, having wrapped up his day in the office, called Sabira and said he wished to speak to her father and mother. He told Kabir and Ruby what their son had done. “We cannot even conceive that a husband could beat his wife. A husband’s role is to give his wife shelter. The most trusted place for her must be with her husband.” He told Sumon’s parents he had barred their son from the house.
An upset Kabir repeatedly said he was sorry.
Monzur said that he wanted their two families, now, on the telephone, to settle the terms of the marriage between their children. He would insist on one point: from now on, Sumon and Hema must live apart. “The question of Hema living together with such a man does not even arise.”
The Kabirs resisted agreeing to anything over the phone. They were scheduled to return in less than a month. “Let’s not do anything in haste out of hostility. Please, wait for our arrival before you take any decisions. As soon as we get home, we will work something out.”
Monzur yielded, for now. To wait a short time seemed reasonable. He was sure the two families could reach an arrangement amicably.
****
Rumana was on her laptop browsing online articles for the most recent scholarship on climate change and security, to add to the bibliography of her thesis.
Her cell rang. The caller ID said Sabira. Rumana answered. Ruby was on the line.
Her mother-in-law was her usual friendly self. She asked after Anusheh (Rumana’s young daughter). What was it like being back with her? She must seem so grown up. Rumana played along, biding her time to see where the conversation was headed.
Ruby asked, now that she was done her program what were her plans?
Rumana burned with frustration that her mother-in-law couldn’t come right out and speak of what Sumon had done.
She answered, speaking only of her academic obligations and deadlines.
“I heard you want to make a separation from Sumon.”
Rumana’s anger erupted. “Yes. After what he did to me? I’m hardly back from Vancouver, we didn’t even have an argument. What kind of person does that kind of thing?”
Never before had she spoken with anything but respect to her mother-in-law.
Ruby’s geniality evaporated. “You have to forgive him. He just did it because he was angry. I told you that things like that happen. It’s part of marriage!”
Rumana repeated what she’d told Sumon. “I am going to file for divorce.”
Ruby shrieked over the line. “How can you make such a decision? Don’t you remember, you have a daughter. Think about her!”
“I am thinking about my daughter.”
Ruby changed tactics. Her tone softened. “Hema, if you leave Sumon, he will die. He can’t live without you. You know how much he loves you. He loves you more than he loves me.”
Rumana rolled her eyes. The call was a complete waste of time. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
An exasperated Ruby put her daughter on.
Rumana was prepared to give Sabira her say. More than once when Sabira and her husband were visiting Bangladesh, she had defended Rumana against her mother’s criticisms. One time when Rumana had left the room — not wanting to be part of an audience to Sumon mocking some visitor who’d just left — she heard her mother-in-law gripe to Sabira that as a wife, Rumana should stay by her husband’s side. “She probably has something that has to be done,” Sabira said.
Sabira took the same line with Rumana as her mother. “Sumon is madly in love with you. He’d die if you were to leave him.”
So they planned this, Rumana thought to herself. They think they are going to walk me through this, talk me into going back to Sumon.
She shot back, “What would you do if this had happened to you? If it was your husband?”
It was a subdued Sabira who answered. “You don’t want to give it a second thought?”
“I don’t have to think twice about it.”
Rumana kept from her parents that Ruby had called her. She didn’t want them to know that she’d been impolite, belligerent even, in parrying her mother-in-law’s defence of her son.
Her mother-in-law and sister-in-law would call a second time, trotting out the same lines.
****
Shawon (Sumon’s younger unmarried brother still living at home) sounded worried. He told Rumana that he was calling her instead of his parents, because it was only five in the morning in Texas. The previous evening, he’d heard his brother come in, long past midnight.
Usually, when up late, by two or three in the afternoon he’d emerge looking for something to eat. At four o’clock, when Sumon still wasn’t up, Shawon knocked on his bedroom door. There was no answer. “He usually mumbles something.” Shawon had tried the door; it was locked. He didn’t know what to do.
“Get the spare key,” Rumana told him. “Open the door and call me back.”
Shawon called back in a panic. He’d found Sumon lying semi-conscious on the bathroom floor. He’d managed to get him back in bed.
Rumana’s father was home. He reached Sumon’s uncle, Dr. Rahman, a pediatrician, and the two men agreed to meet at the Kabirs’ home in Paribagh.
Monzur and Rumana, the first to arrive, found a dozen or so empty blister strips on Sumon’s bedside table. The only pills Rumana had known Sumon to take were vitamin E — because he worried about hair loss — and multi-vitamins.
Monzur called Dr. Seddiqi (a doctor who was among Monzur’s relations).
“Check the strips. See if it’s diazepam,” Seddiqi said. “It can become habit-forming. If you really think he’s in danger, I can send an ambulance.”
When Dr. Rahman arrived, he and Monzur agreed that an ambulance was advisable.
In a waiting room outside the emergency ward at Labaid Hospital, there came a moment when both Monzur and Shawon had stepped out, leaving Dr. Rahman and Rumana waiting alone to hear of Sumon’s condition.
“Hema, the swelling and marks on your face? What happened?”
Rumana pulled up one sleeve, then the other, and held out her arms for Sumon’s uncle to see. Her voice flattened of emotion, she said, “Sumon beat me with a metal rod.”
Concern clouded Dr. Rahman’s face. He reached into his black bag. “You need to take these. You might find yourself in a lot of pain if there is infection.”
“It looks worse than it feels.” But, wanting to acknowledge Dr. Rahman’s kindness, Rumana accepted the pills and put them in her purse.
Sumon did not need to have his stomach pumped but was admitted to a ward for observation. Everybody went home.
Having broken her silence to Sumon’s uncle on what she had intended to withhold from her parents, Rumana felt freer to share now with her father.
Monzur leaned on his army training. A leader is not immobilized by shock; he absorbs it and takes action. That Sumon had been physically violent with Rumana in itself was unthinkable, that he’d taken a weapon against her was unforgivable. “Hema. You must now decide. A man who can do this is not a human being. He is not reliable. Enough is enough. You must never go back to living with him. If you do, he will kill you someday.”
For the briefest moment, Rumana thought of telling her father that she had no desire to live with Sumon, ever again. But a daughter could not just say such things to her father. If only her father would ask about her feelings, she could tell him that, in fact, her wish was to have the finality of divorce.
The moment passed.
Late that evening, Rumana got a call from Sumon’s uncle (Dr. Rahman). She still had his bottle of pills, untouched. She thought he was calling to ask if she had any pain.
Instead, he asked something else. “Hema, is anything going on, do you want to say anything?”
She was quick to answer no.
Maybe she and Anusheh might want to stay somewhere else? Would she like to stay awhile with him and his wife?
Rumana told him she had no need.
The call ended there. Rumana felt she’d said enough already tonight.
Excerpted from Out of Darkness: Rumana Monzur’s journey through betrayal, tyranny and abuse, by Denis Chong. Published by Random House Canada, 2024.
