One morning, he faced a roomful of three girls and seven boys, ranging in age from eight to twelve. He started to read a story on the battle between Horatio Nelson and Napoleon.

During a pause, Hameed interrupted, "Who are those two?"
"Military chiefs from two countries far, far away to the west. And more than a hundred years ago."
"Why do they have such strange names?"
"That's what names sound like in those countries. One was English, the other French."
"What are French and English?"
"Europeans, foreigners."
"Like those white-skinned people who came here after the storm?"
"Yes, something like them. They were from Japan, another country far away, but east of here."

After the lesson was over, Moni thought about Nelson and Napoleon. The British had left and yet the schoolbooks were still full of stories about the Europeans. He asked himself, what did the children care who Nelson or Napoleon were? Would they not be better served with books that helped them understand their world? We will be a free nation soon, Moni felt certain, and when that happens, we will have our own war stories, and Hameed, along with all the others, can have something meaningful to relate to.
But what did it take to be a warrior?

Even when everyone had called him a coward Moni dreamed of a different destiny. He assumed as he grew in body and bone, courage would automatically follow. When his cousins came to visit, he and Belal would organize them into military units, with straw baskets for helmets and bamboo poles as swords and guns.

Before he turned eleven, his uncle Zia suggested sending Moni to a cadet college. "It will do him good to be separated from the end of your sari," he lectured his sister. "They will force him to take part in physical training and he will get taller and stronger. It is not good for a boy to have his head in books."

Moni was horrified. But as he imagined his life away from home, he suddenly found himself excited. He would learn how to shoot guns, and play war games. Each day he came to his mother with another story of what he would do if she sent him to the military school. It didn't work. She turned down her brother's idea. "He's too weak. The other boys will kill him. My son will be a professor, not a soldier."

As Moni neared his next birthday, he felt that since his mother had denied him the chance to attend cadet college, she owed him a consolation prize.

"Can I get an air gun for my birthday?"
"We went through this last year. The answer is still no."
"But why can't I? You gave one to Belal."
"You're not Belal," she laughed. "Look at you, you're such a skinny little boy."

He came up with new arguments. "I don't really need to be stronger to use the gun. I've used Belal's. It's not like a real rifle or shotgun. There's no kick." His uncle had taken the boys out to hunt birds and Moni had noticed the man's shoulder reeling from the recoil of the gun.

"It's not safe. You know your father's cousin accidentally got shot during a school picnic. We'll get you something else."

"I don't want something else. It's probably a book. Books, books, books! I don't want a book. I want an air gun!" He stomped away to his place of refuge, the roof of their apartment building.

When his birthday rolled around, he woke to find a shiny new world atlas lying at the foot of his bed. He remembered asking for it once when they had been browsing the bookstores in New Market. He took the atlas to school and showed his friends all the countries he hoped to visit someday.

"How?" they asked.
"On a bicycle," he replied. "I want to be the first person from here to cross the globe on a bicycle."
"How do you ride a cycle across the oceans?" They laughed at him.

Moni wasn't exactly sure, but there had to be a way. He opened up the atlas and pointed to Australia. "Remember the white man who came on a bicycle. He crossed over to Asia. If he could find a way, so can I."

There, he shut them up.

In his classroom, Moni acutely felt the absence of an atlas or globe. He read from a chapter about the Mughal Empire that controlled much of India before the English conquest. He tried to explain that the Mughals had come all the way from Mongolia and that we had been ruled by them. The children stared back at him blankly.

An idea popped into his head. He asked Hameed to fetch a piece of soft brick. On the verandah floor outside the classroom, Moni used the brick to draw a rough map approximating the land mass of the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and China. He shaded in the Himalayas and the oceans and marked an X near Naodubi. The children asked him if he'd been to all those far flung lands. No, he laughed and pointed to the location of the capital where he was from. They perked up when he described how he and his mother made their journey down here by bus and launch. They pressed him to draw a picture of a bus. None of them had seen one.

After the kids left, Moni contemplated the map. His eyes were drawn to what was supposed to be his country, Pakistan. What a strange geographical entity. One country, split into two regions, separated by a thousand miles of India. Belal was probably in India now, acquiring military training. Over the radio, Moni had heard that many Bengali soldiers and officers in the Pakistan army had revolted upon being attacked by their comrades. But with their resistance put down, they retreated into India. Quite possibly his uncle was among them.

On this island, most people had heard about the atrocities, but the war was remote from them. The army may never even come here, though Moni knew they were only a day's journey away. If there was reason for them to come, they would.

In the areas under military occupation, the Pakistanis looked upon most young Bengali men with suspicion. With Moni away from their eyes, his mother felt secure. He had to concede she was right. But safety wasn't the same thing as peace of mind. He still could not understand her stubborn refusal to escape to India. Over there, they wouldn't have been so detached.

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs. His mother cried out, "Moni, come and eat." Not getting a response, she approached and stood across from him. She said, "What a beautiful map you've drawn! How did you use it?"

Moni explained that he was trying to get the children to have a feel for the larger world they lived in. Reading from the books alone wasn't working. Neither was him talking. He thought he would try pictures.

"You're really smart. I've always known you will make a resourceful teacher."
"I'm not sure I want to be a teacher any more."
"Don't be silly. You've always wanted to be a teacher."
"Those days are over. Everything's different now." He paused, then added, "To be honest, what we need today are fighters."
"You want to run off and join the Mukti Bahini, is that what you're telling me?"
"I'm not sure. I just want to be contributing something."

She came and sat next to him. Placing a hand on his arm, she said, "Listen, I've been thinking about us. When we first came, I wasn't sure how it would work out. But have you seen how the children, and even the adults, look at us? After the war is over, we should support a permanent school here. You and I."

He turned and regarded her. There was something to what she was saying. These past few weeks on the island, he'd witnessed a change in her. She no longer walked around carrying all her pain on her shoulders. She'd become thinner, as had he, but she stood straight. And even though she didn't smile a lot, she appeared purposeful in everything she did. But he wouldn't concede anything. "First we have to win the war. Besides, we can't stay here for very long. Our money will run out and we'll have to go back. While we still can, we should head for India. You could even find other people with whom to discuss your future plans."
She shook her head. "No, no. It's too risky. I can't risk losing you too."
"You've never let me do anything by myself."

With his childhood atlas, Moni had dreamed of traveling the world. In reality he would have been happy with a way to explore his own city. The next time his birthday rolled around, he asked for a bicycle. A bike would allow him to visit Selim, his best friend from school who lived near the Azimpur graveyard. He announced to his mother, "Since you won't get me a gun, I deserve a bicycle."

Busy at the dining table grading some student papers, she paid him no attention. Moni pressed on. "I made good marks in school."
She nodded absent-mindedly.
"I even finally became a Muslim, just like you people forced me to."

During the last summer vacation, Moni had finally given in--at a shockingly late age--to the mussalmani ritual. Moni, being the coward that he was, had managed to put it off year after year. It had almost become a scandal in the neighborhood. There were neighbors who kept track of which boy's foreskin was cut and which one's wasn't. They looked forward to the milad where sweets were distributed. The procedure turned out to be the most painful thing he had ever endured, and it had taken Moni a month to recover.

His argument seemed to work. Putting her papers away, she replied, "We'll see. It's possible you're ready."

In truth, Moni had become ambivalent about the meaning of his mussalmani. He had no choice but to make his body conform to what was required of a Muslim boy. But his mind had detoured in another direction. At the end of the summer, his friend Zahir had died of leukemia. When he first heard the news, Moni had begged Allah to save his friend. But Allah had not responded. What use was prayer? What kind of God was one who took the life of a child?

A week before his birthday when Moni was returning from school, he passed by a road accident. As his rickshaw wound its way through a thick, agitated crowd, his eyes fell on something on the asphalt surface. It was white with red specks in it and it seemed to quiver in the sunlight. Next to it lay a clump of blood-soaked hair. He kept his eyes on the fragments as the rickshaw pedaled away. When he got home he didn't share this story with anyone. But his body betrayed him. He came down with a fever, his stomach rebelled at the first taste of food, and he confessed to his mother that he had seen a terrible thing. That night he sobbed in her arms.

There was no bicycle that year. Even though he protested, he understood. If he'd only kept his mouth shut.

Mahmud Rahman is at work on his first novel.