Chapter 1 / 51 · 5 min

How I Became a Good Man

Translated from Bengali

My first kill was a slaughter.

Abchar Bhai held the man pinned to the ground while I pressed the knife against his throat and pushed.

When I was a child, I used to watch cows being slaughtered during Eid al-Adha. When I grew up, I slaughtered a human being. There isn’t really that much difference between the two. The only thing is that there are certain rules when you’re killing a person. You have to be a bit more careful with the cuts.

Abchar Bhai used to say I was a born killer. Murder, he said, ran in my blood. Nobody’s first kill was ever that perfect.

Strangely, I never once felt like I was committing murder for the first time. To me, killing a person wasn’t very different from slaughtering a chicken and skinning it afterward. Perhaps that’s why my reputation as a professional hitman spread so quickly.

Especially after I murdered a wealthy man’s daughter and cut her body into five pieces. After that, demand for my services skyrocketed.

By then, I no longer worked with Abchar Bhai. Clients contacted me directly. I never needed a manager or middleman.

My rates were fixed.

A shooting cost fifteen thousand taka.

For another ten thousand, I’d dispose of the body. Guaranteed. If the body was ever found, I’d even refund the murder fee.

Slaughtering was more expensive. That required an assistant, and assistants needed to be paid too. If the client wanted the body cut into five pieces afterward, the rate was forty thousand.

In total, I’ve killed twenty-seven people.

But I’m not here to tell murder stories.

I’m here to tell you how I became a good man.

One afternoon, Abchar Bhai called.

“Got a job offer for you.”

I’d entered this line of work through him, but sentimentality is a weakness in this business.

“Tell whoever made the offer to contact me directly.”

He swallowed the subtle but unnecessary insult.

“It’s a small job. Budget is thirty thousand. Interested?”

I thought about it.

There’s no artistry in shooting someone. You don’t feel anything. But slaughtering… slaughtering is an art. Not everyone can do it.

Still, forty thousand was my minimum.

I should have simply shot the target.

Yet there is such a thing as professional satisfaction. Life can’t be all about money.

I remember one of my early jobs, maybe my third or fourth.

I had an old man standing by the riverbank. A loaded revolver in my hand.

The old man was trembling.

“How much are they paying you?” he asked. “One lakh? Two? I’m worth millions. Let me go and I’ll give you ten million.”

The moment he finished speaking, I shot him.

I may have been a murderer, but I wasn’t a traitor.

As I said, this isn’t a story about murder.

It’s a story about becoming a better man.

When I received the target’s information, I understood why the budget was so low.

It was a little boy.

Killing him and disposing of the body would be easy.

Still, I was disappointed.

There was no satisfaction in slaughtering children. They didn’t struggle much. Their throats were soft. The knife slid in effortlessly. Their bodies were fragile. They died too quickly.

Because he was just a child, I didn’t hire an assistant.

The budget was low anyway.

At one point I considered simply shooting him, but it had been a long time since I’d used a knife. Skills need practice.

When I removed the black cloth covering his face, he stared at me with wide eyes.

It was a full moon night by the river. Everything was clearly visible.

There is a unique beauty in slaughtering beneath a full moon.

Bright red blood spraying under pale white light.

I always liked the sight.

Then the boy startled me.

“Assalamu Alaikum, Uncle.”

I froze.

He was a beautiful child.

Awkwardly, I replied,

“Wa Alaikum Assalam.”

“Uncle… could I have some water? Please?”

“Of course. Just wait a moment.”

He hesitated.

“We’re very poor, Uncle.”

By then I had already drawn my revolver.

Too much conversation was dangerous.

Something strange was happening.

My heart was softening.

I’d put a bullet right through his forehead. Quick. Painless. He’d be dead before he even felt it.

But the moment he saw the gun, he burst into tears.

“Please, Uncle! Please! Please don’t kill me! Please…”

To this day I can hardly believe what happened next.

Thirty thousand taka.

That’s all it was.

Forget it.

Leave it.

With complete disbelief, I heard myself say,

“Alright. Go. I’m letting you go.”

Then I untied his hands.

“Go. Be careful.”

Tears still streamed down his face.

The moment his hands were free, he threw his arms around me.

He hugged me tightly and cried.

“Thank you, Uncle. Thank you.”

Before I could even react, he kissed me on the cheek.

Nothing stranger has ever happened to me.

As the boy ran away, I briefly considered shooting him in the back.

I’d broken my word.

Worse, I’d broken it to Abchar Bhai.

How was I supposed to maintain my reputation after this?

I called Abchar Bhai.

“Sorry, brother. Couldn’t do it. No need to pay me.”

Then I switched off my phone.

The next morning, I opened the newspaper.

And sat there in silence.

The boy had been murdered.

His body had been cut into twenty-six pieces.

Twenty-six.

After cutting him into twenty pieces, someone had gone back and made six more cuts.

I hadn’t killed him.

Someone else had done my job.

More perfectly.

More brutally.

More cruelly.

That was the day I became a better man.

The eighteen murders I committed afterward were all done the same way.

A single bullet to the forehead.

No unnecessary words.

No unnecessary blood.

Just a quick and clean death.