by Elif Shafak
A shadow of concern crossed Iskender’s face, a furtive look, but when he spoke his voice was unperturbed. ‘It seems like his girlfriend got pregnant. The money is for the clinic.’
Tariq sucked at his teeth. ‘This girlfriend –’ He paused. ‘Is she English English?’
‘Why, yes, of course,’ said Iskender.
That was a relief, that the girl was not one of the neighbourhood, or from another immigrant community. There would be no families involved, no fathers or big brothers with a vendetta. Tariq exhaled, deeply, as if releasing all the questions he had decided not to ask. Conscious of the boy watching him, he stood up and walked towards the safe, which he kept at the back of the shop.
When he came back there were banknotes in his hands. He put them in front of Iskender, who for a moment felt the need to glance away, uneasy. ‘Tell your friend that you’ll help him,’ Tariq said.
‘Thank you, Uncle.’
‘But also let him know that this will be the last time you’re cleaning up his mess. Your friend needs to get a hold of himself. Otherwise he’s in for deeper troubles. You send him my regards and make sure he understands.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he gets the message,’ Iskender said, as he put the banknotes in his pocket and headed to the door. Then he stopped. ‘Uncle?’
‘Hmm? Was there anything else?’ Tariq squinted, suddenly suspicious that the boy might be the sort of trouble a few banknotes couldn’t solve.
‘Nothing else. Just wanted to say you’re like a father to me.’
At which Tariq’s face softened. ‘Any time, son. I’m always here for you.’
Iskender gave the smallest of nods, suddenly serious. ‘Some day soon I’ll pay you back. You’ll see.’
The Man from Beyond
London, October 1978
On Friday, when Meral entered the shop at her usual time, she found her husband absorbed in a phone conversation. Tariq had thrust his chin forward and was pulling at his beard, the way he always did when he was about to lose his temper. Whoever was on the other end of the line seemed to be doing most of the talking. Quietly, Meral swished past him, heading towards the back of the shop, where she opened her tin pail and began to set out her husband’s lunch. Today she had cooked manti,* putting more chilli peppers into the yoghurt-and-butter sauce than usual, and she was worried that he might not like it.
Once she had set the table, Meral grabbed a damp towel and began to dust the shelves, the golden bracelets on her wrists clattering jauntily. She inspected the tins of meat and baked beans, the bottles of brown sauce, the tubs of coleslaw and potato salad, the jars of pickled onions – food she had never tasted.
‘Who buys such things?’ she had once asked her husband.
‘Modern wives,’ Tariq had replied. ‘They don’t have time to cook. All day long they work. In the evening they pop in, buy some tinned tuna, mix it with salad cream and call it supper.’
Meral wondered what kind of women they were. What types of families did they come from? Even the women on the cover of the men’s magazines didn’t surprise her as much as these wives who were not-wives. The girls in the magazines must have been either deceived or paid a fortune to pose in their birthday suits. They were fallen; may God help them to find the right path. But the modern wives were by no means victims. They earned money, drove cars, dressed smartly, and some even had children; yet they would not even stuff green peppers for their husbands.
Deep inside, Meral suspected that her sister-in-law, too, had that attitude in her. Hidden, of course, nothing in the open. There was an independent streak in Pembe that she couldn’t quite put her finger on – an undertow of unruliness in a sea of calm. But then Pembe’s husband was no good. He hadn’t shown up in ten months, and had not exactly been around before then. Her husband wasn’t like that at all.
‘Wife,’ Tariq yelled, still holding the receiver in his hand.
‘What is it?’
Tilting his head to the side, Tariq gestured towards the door. Three customers had just walked in. Two boys and a girl. So young. Probably the same age as my elder daughter, Meral thought. One of the boys had silver piercings on his eyebrows, and a lump of orange hair on top of his head, like a nest built by some exotic bird. The other boy was tall and lanky, and wore no shirt under his Afghan waistcoat, exposing his hairless chest. As for the girl, she had raven hair, skin as pale as flour, torn stockings and tattoos on every bit of flesh you could see.
Meral closed her eyes for a moment, as if she hoped that the youngsters would be gone when she reopened them.
‘I bet she won’t serve us,’ the girl muttered.
‘Oh, no! Did we scare you, lady?’ the shirtless boy asked, leaning over the counter, half accusing, half amused.
Meral caught the smell of the young man’s breath: it was tinged with beer and tobacco. Inadvertently, she took a step back. Out of the corner of her eye she checked on her husband. Tariq was still on the phone and it didn’t seem like he would be getting off any time soon.
‘Yes, what you want?’ Meral asked guardedly.
How many times had she asked her husband to put in extra security in the shop, but he had refused on the grounds that it was too expensive. The only weapon that Meral could think of now, should the need arise, was a rod with a net that they used to take down items stored on the upper shelves.
‘You got ginger ale, lady?’ asked the orange-haired boy.
Raising her chin as if ready for a blow, Meral said, ‘No gingah isle.’
Her voice was feeble, insecure. Having no idea what they were talking about, she had found it safer to reject the possibility straight away. But in the meantime the shirtless boy had discovered the fridge, where they kept the fizzy drinks. ‘Oi, lady, you got loads of it here. Why did you say “no”?’
‘Maybe she’s planning to guzzle it all herself,’ the orange-haired boy offered, scrunching up his nose.
‘Don’t be silly,’ interjected the girl. Pointing at the shelves behind the counter, she then said, ‘May I have a pack of marshmallows, please?’
Meral’s gaze raked the merchandise in bewilderment. What on earth does the girl want? She grabbed the chocolate buttons, the liquorice bootlaces, the jelly babies, while the punks exclaimed in unison, ‘No, not those,’ until she found the requested item.
Their prattle was cut off by Tariq’s booming voice. Clasping his hands behind his back, fingering his rosary beads, he approached them. ‘Welcome,’ he said, and turned to his wife. In his politest English, he asked her, ‘So, what do we have here?’
‘Mashmolluuu,’ explained Meral, as she placed the pack on the counter with a loud thud.
Tariq nodded. ‘Tamam, ben hallederim.’*
Reluctantly, Meral went back to her dusting, but she was soon surprised by the sight of the orange-haired boy lifting two nougat bars. After a brief hesitation, she decided to pretend that she hadn’t noticed, as long as the boy did not go on to steal anything of more substantial value. She watched her husband engage in merry banter with his customers. In addition to the ginger ale and the marshmallows the punks bought a pack of cigarettes, matches and a bag of Twiglets. They left the shop, waving goodbye to Meral, who couldn’t help but wave back.
‘Look at them,’ Meral grumbled to her husband as soon as they were alone.
Tariq shrugged. ‘What can you do – they are young and hot-blooded.’
They are young and English, Meral thought. If one of their children dressed up like that, her husband would have a fit. She, at least, was consistent. At home, on the street or in the shop, she was the same person everywhere. She didn’t understand how on earth someone could pierce their skin or go around with torn clothes held together with safety pins. Meral was not going to pretend that she approved of their ways just because they were customers.
Oblivious to his wife’s thoughts, Tariq tucke
d into his lunch while standing. ‘Oh, this is quite spicy.’
‘Why don’t you sit and eat slowly?’
‘No time. I need to leave.’
‘What do you mean? I cannot wait here. I have soup on the hob.’
‘The girls are at home. They’ll take care of that,’ Tariq said, still chewing. ‘Wife, this is urgent. I hit a snag with the distributors. If I don’t solve this today, we won’t have anything to sell tomorrow. No milk, no butter, no eggs. Even the bread won’t be delivered.’
This elicited a sigh from her. She asked, ‘And where are you going?’
‘Oh, to the other end of bloody London.’
*
Tariq took the bus as he deeply disliked the tube. It made him uneasy to travel underground. When we die we end up beneath the soil, but what was the point of going there while still alive?
He wasn’t at all familiar with the part of South-West London to which he was travelling. It was a long way away and the bus was slow, but at least the drivers weren’t on strike again. Smouldering with resentment at having to go to such lengths to solve what he regarded as a simple misunderstanding, he planned the conversation he would have with the manager. The man on the phone had accused him of not having a contract with them any longer. Idiot! Tariq took out a folded piece of paper from his inner pocket and checked it. They would be ashamed when he shoved the contract in front of their noses. Perhaps, to make it up to him, they would come up with a special discount. In any case, he had to clear up this mix-up right away. He was a self-made man, and he wasn’t going to let some chinless bureaucrat ruin years of sweat, blood and tears.
Two changes of bus and what felt like hours later, Tariq got off at Brixton. Though the afternoon was chilly, a bright sun had come out, as unexpected as a surprise party. There were people on Coldharbour Lane, enjoying the warmth while it lasted. Tariq observed the English children, their button noses red, their skins pallid, and their clothes always too light. Turkish mothers would swathe their babies and toddlers in cardigan after cardigan, and place a knitted blanket on top of them before taking them outside. English mothers, however, made do with a pair of shorts and a thin anorak. Sometimes the children didn’t even wear socks. Why didn’t they freeze? For the life of him, Tariq couldn’t understand how the ability to deal with the cold could be cultural.
He would have liked to stop by a café and have some tea, but it wasn’t in his budget. He was the only one in the entire Toprak family who had the wisdom and the willpower to save for a rainy day. Khalil was wrapped up in himself. He had his own life in Australia and never asked them if they needed anything. As for Adem, he was hopeless. He gambled, and whatever he won he handed to that Russian dancer everybody was gossiping about but whom Tariq had still not seen.
Doggedly, Tariq ambled past a cobbler’s, a religious bookstore, a down-at-heel-looking charity shop, and rows of identical red-brick houses. Unlike the main road there were no pedestrians here, and the place looked deserted. Even the cinema had an eerie air to it, like a relic from another century. It was so old, this city. Full of traces of the past. Once Tariq had found pieces of shrapnel when he had dug out the flowerbeds in his garden.
He wondered how Meral was doing back at the shop. She would have to learn English fast if she was going to help him in there. Perhaps he should get her a pocket dictionary and make sure she memorized at least five words every day. All these years his wife had survived in England by speaking only Turkish in her small world and it had not been a problem. But now he saw clearly that Meral had to do better than that. After all, Tariq was not getting any younger, and he was now taking care of two families – his and his brother’s.
Yet it wasn’t only because of her poor English that Meral was so terrible with customers. She was too stiff and judgemental, and didn’t know how to wait on other people. Odd though it was, this woman who had waited on others her entire life – her husband, her children, her relatives and her neighbours – could not bring herself to serve strangers. While he, who had never tended anyone at home or anywhere else, was good with the clientele.
The sun had again disappeared under thick, grey clouds. A storm was coming. Tariq quickened his steps, having finally reached his destination.
*
The meeting was tense. Tariq was not allowed to see the manager, who had some important business to attend to. Disappointed, Tariq showed the deputy his contract, and they showed him a clause that said that the company could ask for certain changes, and even terminate the agreement without advance notification. Tariq threatened to find an alternative supplier, to which they responded with an ‘as you wish’.
Twenty minutes later he stomped out of the building, feeling down but not defeated. He would have to ask around a bit, consult with other shopkeepers in Hackney and contact another company. The only problem was that he liked to advise others, not to get advice from them. He had a reputation to uphold. Tariq slowed down as he approached the cinema and inspected the poster on the wall outside.
THE MAN FROM BEYOND
HARRY HOUDINI
Though not a fan of cinema, Tariq was interested in the life of the great magician. A man who could break free while hanging upside down in a tank full of water, chained by his ankles and wrists, was a man who merited some attention. So he entered the foyer and took a look around. There was a board on the wall with several photos and reviews. Perusing these, he was disappointed to learn that it was an old silent movie. Black and white no doubt. Did people still come to see such things?
As if in response, the doors at the entrance of the auditorium opened and an English couple walked out. The film had come to an end, and the few members of the audience were leaving. Behind the couple Tariq caught sight of a woman. She was wending her way towards the exit, her eyes glued to the ground.
Inadvertently, Tariq stepped forward as if to apprehend his sister-in-law. He was about to call her name, ask what she was doing here on her own and offer to go back with her, when he noticed a middle-aged man approaching Pembe. He grabbed her elbow, murmured something inaudible and gave her a piece of paper, which she accepted with a smile and swiftly put in her pocket.
Behind them, Tariq stood perplexed, his mind roaming wildly, his eyes darting back and forth, under a poster that read: NOTHING ON EARTH CAN HOLD HOUDINI A PRISONER.
The Decision
London, October 1978
On Saturday morning, when Iskender approached the café where he was to meet Katie, he was astonished to see Tariq standing outside, pacing up and down, tugging hard at his beard.
‘Uncle, what you doin’ here?’
‘Waiting for you. I stopped by Aladdin’s Cave and your friends told me you might be here.’
Uncle Tariq had left the shop during opening hours to search for him? Iskender felt his stomach twist in a knot. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘We need to have a talk. Man to man.’
‘Is this about the money you gave me the other day?’
‘Oh, just shut up and listen to me.’
‘But I’ve got to see someone now.’
‘Never mind about that,’ Tariq said, his voice coming out as a croak.
Only then did Iskender realize how tense his uncle was, how profusely he was perspiring in his sweater, as if the day were scorching hot. They sat on a nearby garden wall, surrounded by an awkward silence. Tariq lit a cigarette. Iskender wondered if Katie could see them from where she was sitting inside the café, and what he would say to her if she came out to ask what on earth was going on.
‘My son,’ Tariq said. ‘I’ve some bad news for you.’
‘Yeah, I figured.’
Tariq drew unsteadily on his cigarette, smoke curling in and out of his nostrils, and said, in the quietest voice, ‘It’s about your mother.’
*
When Iskender entered the café, his lips were pursed, his eyes h
ard, his face as pale as a ghost. He marched towards Katie, who was waiting at their usual table, about to finish a scone and halfway through her second strawberry and banana milkshake.
‘Late again,’ Katie said with a sigh.
‘Sorry.’
‘I’ve got used to it, you know. But I was hoping today would be different. I thought, for once, you’d care about someone other than you.’
Iskender took her hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘Why’re you so grumpy?’
‘Why? As if you don’t know why.’ Katie paused, as if on the verge of saying something else, but then she started to cry.
Iskender fished a wad of money out of his pocket and placed it into her palm. ‘This should help a bit.’
When she didn’t make a comment, he added, ‘I got it from my uncle. Never had a chance to give it to you because you didn’t want to see me.’
‘Well, I told you I had to think this over. On my own.’
‘So?’
‘So put that money back,’ Katie snapped and pulled away as if she had touched a red-hot coal.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve changed my mind, Alex.’
‘You’ve done what?’
‘Don’t give me that look. It’s just . . . I’m not going to do it. I’m having this baby.’
‘Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?’ Iskender exclaimed. Then he dropped his voice. ‘You’re only sixteen. Your mother will have a heart attack.’
‘It’s all right. She already knows.’
‘You must be kidding!’ Gripped with a new suspicion, Iskender hissed, ‘Oh, I see. She’s the one who’s brainwashed you.’
‘That’s not true! Why do you always get so worked up when I mention her?’
‘Because we’ve talked this through. We made a decision! Together! I went to my uncle, got the money. I found the clinic. I made an appointment. Twice! You kept postponing. Finally we agreed to go ahead. And now the princess says she’s changed her mind.’
Katie started to cry again. But it felt different this time, devoid of self-pity. A tear dropped into her milkshake, leaving a salty drop on the pink surface. ‘This is a child of love. He has a right to be born.’
