by Elif Shafak
Then he says, ‘Zeeshan happy to meet you.’
What a ridiculous thing to say. His English is a shambles. I’m guessing he’s around forty. Far Eastern, brown, middle height. He tries to make small talk but I’m having none of it. Better to draw the line right away. Any other man in his shoes would instantly give up on me. He’d be worrying about how much of what he’d heard about me was true and whether he can sleep safely tonight. And every night for the next few months. But Zeeshan seems at ease. After enough playing mute, I decide to give him something to chew over.
‘The man who slept in that bed has died,’ I say.
‘Oh, I hear,’ Zeeshan says. ‘Also hear you good friends. Must be hard for you. Very, very sorry. Accept my apologies.’
‘You mean condolences?’
‘Right.’
I draw a blank. Compassion always catches me off guard. I never know quite what to do with it. ‘Now, I don’t care who you are or what your name is,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell you the rules around here. The sooner you learn them the better for you. Rule number one: don’t ever invade my space. Rule number two: don’t step on my toes. Rule number three: don’t get on my nerves. Clear?’
He blinks in confusion. His small, slanted eyes dart from me to the wall, and from the wall back to me. ‘Zeeshan clear,’ he says.
‘Good!’
Soon we hear the sounds. It’s time for the morning unlocking. Cell doors crack open on each side. We keep our silence, waiting to be counted, pushed, shoved and patted down.
Officer McLaughlin appears. A bandage on his left ear. He and I exchange hard stares. He hasn’t forgiven me for wolfing down Trippy’s letter, and I haven’t forgiven him for winding me up. He hasn’t forgiven me for biting his ear, and I haven’t forgiven him for sending me to solitary. We’re even and back to square one. Except sharper now.
‘Oi, I’m watchin’ you,’ Officer McLaughlin says. ‘One more mistake and I’ll be having you.’
I gnaw the insides of my mouth and say nothing. I take deep breaths to steady myself. He’s standing so close I can see the wisps of hair in his nostrils. It’s a nice distance, this one. I can easily butt his nose with a thrust of my forehead. Perfect angle. Pity, I let it go.
When we’re alone again, Zeeshan stares at me, full of curiosity. ‘Why he angry to you?’
‘’Cos he’s a mouse pretending to be a man.’
Zeeshan laughs as if it’s the best joke he’s heard. ‘Mouse-man, I like that.’ Then he turns thoughtful. ‘There are also fish-men, bird-men, snake-men, elephant-men. Very few human-men in this world.’
I have no idea what he’s talking about. There’s something weird about this bloke but I just can’t nail it. He isn’t put off easily and that smile of his gets on my wick. I’m about to tell him to wipe it off his face when he says, ‘It not easy to fight always?’
‘What?’ I say, processing his question. ‘Are you asking me if it’s hard to have to fight all the time?’
‘Yes, yes. I ask you. Fighting, fighting, not tired?’
I stare at him, stumped. He doesn’t seem to be off his trolley. He sounds frank, genuinely inquiring. ‘Where are you from?’ I ask.
‘Oooh,’ he pauses, as if I’ve posed an impossible riddle. ‘First time I was born in Brunei.’
‘Where the hell’s that?’
He looks offended. ‘Brunei Darussalam. Island of Borneo. We a British Colony. Then Brunei is independent.’
‘Well, the Queen’s servants have done a rather poor job in teaching you English, then.’
‘I learn English,’ Zeeshan says, ignoring my snarky remark. ‘I learn new things every day. Zeeshan good student.’
I scoff. I still haven’t decided if he’s just annoying or plain barmy. ‘You said, the first time I was born, what does that mean?’ I ask.
He beams, exposing all his teeth – small, narrow, mottled, like wild rice.
‘First time born in Brunei,’ Zeeshan repeats. ‘Second time born in whole world. So I’m from everywhere. The world is my home.’
Suddenly the penny drops. ‘Oh, bugger you. Don’t tell me, you’re one of those religious crusaders. Are you a God Botherer?’
‘A what?’
‘Question: are you a member of a cult or something?’
Again he doesn’t get it, and for a second he looks frightened.
‘’Cos I’m telling you I’m not having anyone preach me the righteous path. Sick and tired of all that rubbish. You’d better get off your soap box.’
‘Soap box,’ he echoes, totally lost.
‘What I mean is, are you a fanatic?’
‘Fanatic!!’ Zeeshan’s face brightens, happy to finally recognize a word. But then his expression gets serious. ‘Fanatic says, everybody wrong, I am right. Zeeshan says, everybody right, I am wrong. How possible me fanatic?’
‘O-kay.’ I can accept that. But then I am seized by a new thought. ‘If you say you are from everywhere, then what’s your religion?’
‘My religion is love,’ he says.
I roll my eyes. ‘Never heard of that.’
For a moment, he looks affronted. ‘Ear hears what it can hear. Lots of sounds in this world, we don’t hear.’
‘So are you Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Christian . . . what are you?’
‘Ay, ay, ay,’ he says, as if I have stepped on his foot. ‘You ask are you this, are you that?’ He pounds on his chest. ‘All universe is in one person.’
‘And that person is you?’
‘That person is you,’ he says, stressing the last word.
Okay, that’s it for me. The fun is over. Now he’s rubbing me up the wrong way. I don’t like self-righteous people who think they have an answer to everything. ‘The universe, huh? I’ll tell you what’s in there. Aggression, brutality, corruption, terrorism . . .’ Then I add, ‘Murder.’
‘Uh-hmm,’ says Zeeshan, as if he has never heard of any of these before. He closes his eyes, and for a second I have the impression he’s going to sleep. But he soon starts to speak, his voice bright. ‘You look at nature. You see animals kill animals. Big insects eat small insects. Wolf eats sheep. Oh so much blood. But in nature also animals protect animals. Fish swim together. Birds fly in flocks.’
‘That’s because there are sharks and hawks everywhere. If you stay together there’s a better chance of survival.’
‘Creatures care very much for creatures.’
‘Yeah, nice bullshit.’
He opens his eyes. ‘Zeeshan no bullshit.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to break the bad news. Nature is all about war. Same here under this roof. Same everywhere. It’s a rat race.’
He leans forward and squints at me as if seeing through me. ‘Harmony everywhere . . .’ he says, pronouncing the word ‘harmony’ like ‘how many’. He then goes on: ‘Same here. But main question is, is there harmony inside you?’
These last words I hear as ‘How many inside you?’ Perhaps it’s the right question after all. I have no idea how many Iskenders I harbour within my soul.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘If it all boils down to bloody harmony, if the bad and the good balance each other, then everyone can do as they please. What difference does it make?’
‘Nooo, not like that. You can’t do whatever you want. You only do what God puts in you. I have elements. You have elements. Zeeshan mostly water. You, maybe fire? Yes, I think you fire. If there is no harmony inside, that person always angry. Always fight, always pity. Sharp tongue like arrow. Universe is jungle, you say. In big jungle, I make my own garden.’
‘What bleedin’ garden are you talkin’ ’bout?’
‘Dear friend,’ says Zeeshan, as if writing me a letter. ‘Anger is tiger. You see the tiger and you think, oh what great animal, I want a tiger. But you cannot tame him. No one can. The tiger will eat you.
‘Forget angry tigers, we don’t learn anything from them. We learn from humans. When you meet different person, another name, another religion, that’s all good. We learn from difference, not from sameness.
‘Ego is like vulture. Wild bird. Vulture says, fly with me, you become strong man. But that’s lie. It’s trick. If your ego strong you are weak. If ego weak, you strong.’
He speaks slowly but surely. He picks his words carefully, as if they were glass flowers. When he finishes, I say, ‘There’s only one thing I’m wondering . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘Why didn’t they put you in the loonies’ wing?’
‘What’s that?’
I rotate my index finger around my ear. He recognizes the universal gesture for insanity. He laughs, a happy laugh. ‘Yes, yes, true. They say Zeeshan a bit crazy in the head.’
*
That day the police came to Katie’s house, I ran out the back door. I was lucky. I nicked a bike, cycled out of Hackney as far as I could go, then I hitchhiked. Two French students gave me a lift. Their accents thicker than a plank. Gay as a picnic basket, both of them. I had never met a homosexual couple before, and didn’t like the idea at all, but was in no position to judge them. They saw my distress, sensed trouble, didn’t ask anything. They bought me lunch, offered cigarettes, made me listen to some odd music.
They dropped me in Warwick. Before they left we smoked grass outside the castle. I remember us laughing our heads off, but I don’t recall what the joke was, if there was one. Then they headed north.
Suddenly I was on my own. Four days later I was arrested – they caught me sleeping rough in one of the parks. By that time I was gasping for food. I was so worn out it was almost a relief. During the interrogation, I was calm, cooperative. They didn’t tell me she was dead. Not for a while. I was confident that her injury was nothing big. It was only a stab, close to her right shoulder. How bad could it be? Then an officer came in and said, ‘Don’t you know? You killed her.’
Gobsmacked, I said, ‘What d’you mean?’
‘You killed your own mum, you sick bastard. How are you going to worm your way out of that?’
I didn’t believe it. I thought it was a hoax to make me talk. One of those old copper’s tricks. But they took a newspaper and put it in front of me. The same clipping Officer McLaughlin had filed, probably. That’s when I learned Mum was dead.
During the trial, I was numb. I froze, just as I had in the tree the day I was circumcised. The press. The photographers. There were people with placards against me outside the courtroom, complete strangers. There were people supporting me, again strangers. In the crowd I saw Esma’s face, like a white mask. Then I saw my brother, Yunus. His eyes wide open, uncomprehending. That was when I couldn’t breathe. My lungs wouldn’t yield air. I collapsed, wheezing like an old man on a respirator. They thought it was an asthma attack. The doctor was kind. He examined me, found nothing. Then I got the shrink. Horrible man, full of shit. I threw an ashtray at his head, sadly it missed the wanker.
But the very first night I was in the nick I slumped on my bunk and stared at the ceiling. For a good hour. I wondered if the shrink could be right. Did I have issues that went deep? Was I out of my tiny mind?
‘He’s not insane,’ the prosecutor had declared in court. ‘This young man is in his right mind. He deserves full punishment.’
Next night, again not a wink of sleep. In my experience the worse you sleep the crankier you end up. And so it went. Those early years felt like one long nightmare. And I was a nightmare to others. I gave them a hard time. Much later, one midnight, I remember it well. It was raining outside. Big storm, thunder, lightning and all. Then the rain stopped but the silence felt worse. It was then that I had the strangest feeling. It was as if my mother was here with me. She wasn’t upset or vexed. She was beyond such things.
I started to sob. I cried, my chest heaving, hurting. All the tears that I couldn’t shed all my life bled away from me.
*
After spending two weeks with Zeeshan I go against one of my own rules. I ask him, ‘What are you in for? A man like you.’
His face falls. ‘Oh, they say Zeeshan made terrible crime. No proof. But there is this gentleman. Court listened to him because he comes from famous surname. He say he saw me take handbag and harm old lady. She in hospital, coma.’
‘You assaulted an old woman for money?’
‘Zeeshan did no such thing,’ he says. ‘When lady opens her eyes she will tell the truth. I wait. I pray.’
‘Okay, let me see if I’ve got this right. So you’re telling me you’re in for a crime you haven’t committed? You expect me to believe that crap?’
He gives me this queer look, as if wondering how to break the news. Then he says, ‘Since the day police come my house, I am thinking why did this happen? Nothing happens for nothing. God has purpose, what is it? I ask but no answer. But now I understand.’
‘What’re you going on about?’
‘Listen, I didn’t know why God put me in gaol. I said, why, why. But then I meet you. And I am not sad any more.’
‘If you don’t stop this gibberish I’m gonna make you really sad.’
He doesn’t look the least bit intimidated. ‘Now I understand why Zeeshan here. Thanks to you.’ He pauses, sighing. ‘It be easier if you had come to me, of course. But no, you didn’t. So I had to come to you. So Zeeshan becomes prisoner. All for a purpose.’
‘That’s crap. Are you telling me that you’re innocent of any crime but some cosmic force sent you here for me?’
‘Yes, now you correct.’ He beams, happy as a child with a new balloon.
The man is mad as a hatter. And he’s getting worse every day, unless he’s doing it deliberately. It suddenly hits me. I grab him by the collar and push him against the wall.
‘Did Officer McLaughlin put you in here with me? Is this his idea of teaching me a lesson? You wanna drive me nuts, right? Is that the plan?’
He screws his face up as if I have already punched him. ‘I tell you God send me here. You say, McLaughlin. Your McLaughlin small, God is big.’
I let him go and rub my temples – the beginning of a headache. ‘How old are you?’ I ask.
He lowers his eyes, shyly. ‘Sixty-seven.’
‘No kidding.’
‘It’s true.’
‘You don’t look sixty-seven.’
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Zeeshan looks at himself.’
‘You mean, looks after himself.’
‘Yes, yes, looks after.’
Again he starts to talk crap. ‘I came to you,’ he says. ‘I was of no use lately and God brought me here because God doesn’t like laziness. We should all work very hard.’
‘What work?’
‘Mystics say –’
‘What’s that?’
‘Mystic someone who looks inside heart, thinks all people connected. Differences only on the outside, skin and clothes and passports. But human heart always the same. Everywhere.’
‘Here we go again. Another load of bollocks.’
He smiles either because he doesn’t know what bollocks are or because he means to ignore me.
‘Mystics believe when we die and wake up, God asks four questions. How did you spend your time, hmm? Where did you get your money from, hmm? How you spent youth, hmm? And fourth question, very important: what did you do with the knowledge I gave you? You understand?’
‘No.’
‘I have knowledge,’ he says. ‘I am a teacher –’
‘I remember you telling me you were a student.’
‘Every teacher is student.’
‘Oh, give me a break.’
‘I am a teacher,’ he repeats calmly, ‘and I came here to share my knowledge with you.’
I have seen all kinds of men inside. Among s
crews and my fellow prisoners alike. Psychos, loonies, the saddest, the weakest and the meanest, sometimes all together in the same person. But there never was and never will be anyone in Shrewsbury like Zeeshan. Born in Brunei, bred in the world. I don’t know what to do with him.
Iskender Toprak
Esma
London, May 1978
Uncle Tariq and Auntie Meral came for a visit with their four children. After dinner we all gathered around the TV, watching Coronation Street while drinking tea and munching on fruit. There was little talk in the room apart from the occasional remarks addressed to the characters on the screen. Everyone was curious to see what would happen now that Suzie had managed to seduce Steve and Gail had caught them in an intimate situation. Uncle Tariq didn’t think the affair would last long. Aunt Meral agreed, but nobody took her seriously because she always missed the point. I had to translate the key scenes for her because she didn’t have enough English to follow the plot. Sometimes I added a few things of my own to strengthen the storyline.
After the guests had left and everyone had gone to sleep, I was in the bathroom again, observing myself in the mirror, when a knock at the door yanked me from my reverie.
‘Busy!’ I said through the keyhole.
Another knock, timid but persistent. Annoyed, I opened the door. It was Yunus standing there in his Peter Pan pyjamas. ‘Oh, my goodness. What have you done to yourself?’ he exclaimed.
Only now did I remember I had a goatee on my face. The best defence being a good offence, I retorted, ‘What are you doing here at this hour?’
‘I need to pee.’
I switched to Turkish as I noticed the bed sheet tucked under his arm. ‘You sure you need to pee? It looks like you’ve already taken care of that.’
My brother’s eyes flickered away. There was a brief silence as we each waited for the other one to say something, anything.
‘All right,’ I conceded. ‘Just a sec, okay?’
I closed the door, turned the lights on, put out the candle and inspected my face one more time in the mirror. Then I poked out my head. ‘Tell you what? Why don’t you leave the bed sheet here? I’ll take care of it.’
