Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

  The television was on. Chanu liked to keep it glowing in the evenings, like a fire in the corner of the room. Sometimes he went over and stirred it by pressing the buttons so that the light flared and changed colours. Mostly he ignored it. Nazneen held a pile of the last dirty dishes to take to the kitchen, but the screen held her. A man in a very tight suit (so tight that it made his private parts stand out on display) and a woman in a skirt that did not even cover her bottom gripped each other as an invisible force hurtled them across an oval arena. The people in the audience clapped their hands together and then stopped. By some magic they all stopped at exactly the same time. The couple broke apart. They fled from each other and no sooner had they fled than they sought each other out. Every move they made was urgent, intense, a declaration. The woman raised one leg and rested her boot (Nazneen saw the thin blade for the first time) on the other thigh, making a triangular flag of her legs, and spun around until she would surely fall but didn't. She did not slow down. She stopped dead and flung her arms above her head with a look so triumphant that you knew she had conquered everything: her body, the laws of nature, and the heart of the tight-suited man who slid over on his knees, vowing to lay down his life for her.

  'What is this called?' said Nazneen.

  Chanu glanced at the screen. 'Ice skating,' he said, in English.

  'Ice e-skating,' said Nazneen.

  'Ice skating,' said Chanu.

  'Ice e-skating.'

  'No, no. No e. Ice skating. Try it again.'

  Nazneen hesitated.

  'Go on!'

  'Ice es-kating,' she said, with deliberation.

  Chanu smiled. 'Don't worry about it. It's a common problem for Bengalis. Two consonants together causes a difficulty. I have conquered this issue after a long time. But you are unlikely to need these words in any case.'

  'I would like to learn some English,' said Nazneen.

  Chanu puffed his cheeks and spat the air out in a fuff. 'It will come. Don't worry about it. Where's the need anyway?' He looked at his book and Nazneen watched the screen.

  'He thinks he will get the promotion because he goes to the pub with the boss. He is so stupid he doesn't even realize there is any other way of getting promotion.' Chanu was supposed to be studying. His books were open at the table. Every so often he looked in one, or turned a page. Mostly, he talked. Pub, pub, pub. Nazneen turned the word over in her mind. Another drop of English that she knew. There were other English words that Chanu sprinkled into his conversation, other things she could say to the tattoo lady. At this moment she could not think of any.

  'This Wilkie – I told you about him – he has one or maybe two O levels. Every lunchtime he goes to the pub and he comes back half an hour late. Today I saw him sitting in Mr Dalloway's office using the phone with his feet up on the desk. The jackfruit is still on the tree but already he is oiling his moustache. No way is he going to get promoted.'

  Nazneen stared at the television. There was a close-up of the woman. She had sparkly bits around her eyes like tiny sequins glued to her face. Her hair was scraped back and tied on top of her head with plastic flowers. Her chest pumped up and down as if her heart would shoot out and she smiled pure, gold joy. She must be terrified, thought Nazneen, because such things cannot be held, and must be lost.

  'No,' said Chanu. 'I don't have anything to fear from Wilkie. I have a degree from Dhaka University in English Literature. Can Wilkie quote from Chaucer or Dickens or Hardy?'

  Nazneen, who feared her husband would begin one of his long quotations, stacked a final plate and went to the kitchen. He liked to quote in English and then give her a translation, phrase by phrase. And when it was translated it usually meant no more to her than it did in English, so that she did not know what to reply or even if a reply was required.

  She washed the dishes and rinsed them and Chanu came and leaned against the ill-fitting cupboards and talked some more. 'You see,' he said, a frequent opener although often she did not see, 'it is the white underclass, like Wilkie, who are most afraid of people like me. To him, and people like him, we are the only thing standing in the way of them sliding totally to the bottom of the pile. As long as we are below them, then they are above something. If they see us rise then they are resentful because we have left our proper place. That is why you get the phenomenon of the National Front. They can play on those fears to create racial tensions, and give these people a superiority complex. The middle classes are more secure, and therefore more relaxed.' He drummed his fingers against the Formica.

  Nazneen took a tea towel and dried the plates. She wondered if the ice e-skating woman went home and washed and wiped. It was difficult to imagine. But there were no servants here. She would have to manage by herself.

  Chanu ploughed on. 'Wilkie is not exactly underclass. He has a job, so technically I would say no, he is not. But that is the mindset. This is what I am studying in the sub-section on Race, Ethnicity and Identity. It is part of the sociology module. Of course, when I have my Open University degree then nobody can question my credentials. Although Dhaka University is one of the best in the world, these people here are by and large ignorant and know nothing of the Brontës or Thackeray.'

  Nazneen began to put things away. She needed to get in the cupboard that Chanu blocked with his body. He didn't move although she waited in front of him. Eventually she left the pans on the cooker to be put away in the morning.

  'Ish,' said Chanu, breathing sharply. 'Did you draw blood?' He looked closely at his little toe. He wore only his pyjama bottoms and sat on the bed. Nazneen knelt to the side with a razor blade in her hand. It was time to cut her husband's corns again. She sliced through the semi-translucent skin, the build-up around the yellow core, and gathered the little dead bits in the palm of her hand.

  'It's OK,' he said, 'but be careful, huh?'

  Nazneen moved on to the other foot.

  'I think it was a success this evening,' said Chanu when Nazneen got into bed next to him.

  'Yes, I think so,' said Nazneen.

  'He doesn't know Dalloway but that's not important. He's a good man, very respectable.'

  'Respectable. Yes.'

  'I think I am certain of the promotion in any case.'

  'I am happy for you.'

  'Shall we turn out the light?'

  'I'll do it.'

  After a minute or two in the dark, when her eyes had adjusted and the snoring began, Nazneen turned on her side and looked at her husband. She scrutinized his face, round as a ball, the blunt-cut thinning hair on top, and the dense eyebrows that crawled across his brow. His mouth was open and she began to regulate her breathing so that she inhaled as he did. When she got it wrong she could smell his breath. She looked at him for a long time. It was not a handsome face. In the month before her marriage, when she looked at his face in the photograph, she thought it ugly. Now she saw that it was not handsome, but it was kind. His mouth, always on duty, always moving, was full-lipped and generous, without a hint of cruelty. His eyes, small and beleaguered beneath those thick brows, were anxious or far away, or both. Now that they were closed she could see the way the skin puckered up across the lids and drooped down to meet the creases at the corners. He shifted in his sleep and moved onto his stomach with his arms down by his side and his face squashed against the pillow.

  Nazneen got out of bed and crossed the hall. She caught hold of the bead curtain that hung between the kitchen and the narrow hallway to stop it tinkling, and went to the fridge. She got out the Tupperware containers of rice and fish and chicken and took a spoon from the drawer. As she ate, standing beside the sink, she looked out at the moon which hung above the dark flats chequered with lights. It was large and white and untroubled. She thought about Hasina and tried to imagine what it would be like to fall in love. Was she beginning to love Chanu, or just getting used to him? She looked down into the courtyard. Two boys exchanged mock punches, feinting left and right. Cigarettes burned in their mouths. She opened the window and leaned
into the breeze.

  The woman who fell, what terror came to her mind when she went down? What thoughts came? If she jumped, what thoughts came? Would they be the same ones? In the end, did it matter whether she jumped or fell? Suddenly Nazneen was sure that she jumped. A big jump, feet first and arms wide, eyes wide, silent all the way down and her hair wild and loose, and a big smile on her face because with this single everlasting act she defied everything and everyone. Nazneen closed the window and rubbed her arms. Across the way the tattoo lady raised a can to her lips.

  Life made its pattern around and beneath and through her. Nazneen cleaned and cooked and washed. She made breakfast for Chanu and looked on as he ate, collected his pens and put them in his briefcase, watched him from the window as he stepped like a band leader across the courtyard to the bus stop on the far side of the estate. Then she ate- standing up at the sink and washed the dishes. She made the bed and tidied the flat, washed socks and pants in the sink and larger items in the bath. In the afternoons she cooked and ate as she cooked so that Chanu began to wonder why she hardly touched her dinner, and she shrugged in a way that suggested that food was of no concern to her. And the days were tolerable, and the evenings were nothing to complain about. Sometimes she switched on the television and flicked through the channels, looking for ice e-skating. For a whole week it was on every afternoon while Nazneen sat cross-legged on the floor. While she sat, she was no longer a collection of the hopes, random thoughts, petty anxieties and selfish wants that made her, but was whole and pure. The old Nazneen was sublimated and the new Nazneen was filled with white light, glory.

  But when it ended and she switched off the television, the old Nazneen returned. For a while it was a worse Nazneen than before because she hated the socks as she rubbed them with soap, and dropped the pottery tiger and elephant as she dusted them and was disappointed when they did not break. She was glad when the ice e-skating came no more. She began to pray five times each day, rolling out her prayer mat in the sitting room to face east. She was pleased with the order it gave to her day, and Chanu said it was a good thing. 'But remember,' he said, and coughed away a little imaginary phlegm, 'rubbing ashes on your face doesn't make you a saint. God sees what is in your heart.' And Nazneen hoped it was true because Chanu never to her knowledge prayed, and of all the books that he held in his hand she had never once seen him with the Holy Qur'an.

  He took down his framed certificates and explained them to her. 'This one is from the Centre for Meditation and Healing in Victoria Street. Basically it is a qualification in transcendental philosophy. Here's the one from Writers' Bureau, a correspondence course. I applied for some jobs as a journalist after that. And I wrote some short stories as well. I have a letter from the Bexleyheath Advertiser somewhere. I'll look it out for you. It says, "We were most interested in your story, 'A Prince Among Peasants', but unfortunately it is not suitable for our publication. Thank you for your interest in the Bexleyheath Advertiser." It was a nice letter, I kept it somewhere.

  'Now this is not actually a certificate as such. It's from Morley College evening classes on nineteenth-century economic thought, and it's just directions to the school, but that's all they gave out. No certificates. Here's my mathematics A level. That was a struggle. This is cycling proficiency, and this is my acceptance letter for the IT Communications course – I only managed to get to a couple of classes.'

  He talked and she listened. Often she had the feeling he was not talking to her, or rather that she was only part of a larger audience for whom the speech was meant. He smiled at her but his eyes were always searching, as if she were a face in the crowd singled out for only a moment. He was loud, he talked, he joked, and he sang or hummed. Sometimes he read a book and sang at the same time. Or he read, watched television and talked. Only his eyes were unhappy. What are we doing here, they said, what are we doing on this round, jolly face?

  It was when he talked about promotion that Chanu grew serious. 'This Mrs Thatcher is making more cuts. Spending cuts, spending cuts, that's all we hear. The council is being squeezed dry. Now we have to pay if we want biscuits with our tea. It's ridiculous. And it could affect my promotion.' And then he was silent for a while, and Nazneen began to include the promotion in her prayers, although it came below her prayer for another letter from Hasina.

  Once or twice she went out. She asked Chanu for a new sari. They looked in the shop windows on Bethnal Green Road. 'The pink with yellow is very nice,' she said. 'Do you think so?'

  'Let me think,' said Chanu. He closed his eyes. Nazneen looked up at the grey towers, the blown-by forgotten strands of sky between them. She watched the traffic. There were more cars than people out here, a roaring metal army tearing up the town. A huge truck blocked her line of vision, petrol on her tongue, engines in her ears. The people who passed walked quickly, looked ahead at nothing or looked down at the pavement to negotiate puddles, litter and excrement. The white women wore clinging trousers, like tights with the feet cut out. They pushed prams and their mouths worked furiously. Their children screeched at them and they screeched back. A pair went by who were differently dressed, in short dark skirts with matching jackets. Their shoulders were padded up and out. They could balance a bucket on each side and not spill a drop of water. They saw her looking and whispered together. They walked and laughed, and looked at her over their puffy shoulders.

  'According to Hume,' said Chanu, 'aaah, ahem.' He prepared himself. He spoke in English at some length, then screwed up his face. 'It's not easy to translate. Let me try. "All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, that is, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact." Yes, I think that is a reasonable translation. He gives some examples from geometry and arithmetic of the first kind, meaning Relations of Ideas. "That three times five is equal to the half of thirty." Do you follow? "Though there never was a circle or triangle in nature the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence." Are you with me? Don't worry about the circle and triangle. They are from his other examples.

  'Don't be anxious, I am getting to the point shortly. "Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature." This he illustrates, to my mind, brilliantly. "That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise."

  'Do you see? Two proper objects of human enquiry, and you ask me if the pink and yellow is nice? What shall I say? I can say that it is nice or not nice, and how could I be wrong?' He stopped and smiled at Nazneen. She saw that he was waiting for a reply.

  'I think it is nice, but I don't mind.'

  He laughed and went inside the shop. He returned with the length of fabric. 'Foundations of Modern Philosophy. It's a very interesting module. Here is your sari.'

  That night, as she lay awake next to her snoring husband, Nazneen wondered what kind of job it was that he had where the rising of the sun or the failure of the sun to rise could be a topic for serious discussion. If these were the things he had to learn to advance himself, what could he be doing? He worked for the local council. This much she understood. But whenever she asked what he did he gave such a long reply that she got lost in it and although she understood the words, they got together in such a way that their meaning became unclear, or she became confused by them. She remembered Chanu's words about the sun and wondered what he meant. If the sun did not rise tomorrow that would be beyond everyone's understanding but God's. And to say that it will not rise, and then that it will is definitely a contradiction. As sure as when I say the bed is too soft and toss and turn all night because of it, and Chanu says it is not too soft and falls asleep immediately. But then both of us can be right in our own way about the bed, but not about the sun. Either way, what is the point in lying awake and thinking about it? Let me sleep, let me sleep, let me sleep. And she drifted off to
where she wanted to be, in Gouripur tracing letters in the dirt with a stick while Hasina danced around her on six-year-old feet. In Gouripur, in her dreams, she was always a girl and Hasina was always six. Amma scolded and cuddled, and smelled as sweet as the skin on the milk when it had been boiled all day with sugar. Abba sat on the choki, sang and clapped. He called out to them and took them on his lap, and sent them away with a rough kiss on the cheek. Then they walked around the lake to watch the fishermen pulling in great nets of silver fish, and saw the muscles knot on their arms and legs and chests. When she woke she thought I know what I would wish but by now she knew that where she wanted to go was not a different place but a different time. She was free to wish it but it would never be.

  She did not often go out. 'Why should you go out?' said Chanu. 'If you go out, ten people will say, "I saw her walking on the street." And I will look like a fool. Personally, I don't mind if you go out but these people are so ignorant. What can you do?'

  She never said anything to this.

  'Besides, I get everything for you that you need from the shops. Anything you want, you only have to ask.'

  She never said anything to this.

  'I don't stop you from doing anything. I am westernized now. It is lucky for you that you married an educated man. That was a stroke of luck.'

  She carried on with her chores.

  'And anyway, if you were in Bangladesh you would not go out. Coming here you are not missing anything, only broadening your horizons.'

  She razored away the dead flesh around his corns. She did not let the razor slip.

  The days passed more easily now than at first. It was just a matter of waiting, as Amma always said. She had waited and now they passed more easily. If it wasn't for worrying about Hasina, she could call herself calm. Just wait and see, that's all we can do. How often she had heard those words. Amma always wiped away her tears with those words. When the harvest was poor, when her own mother was taken ill, when floods threatened, when Abba disappeared and stayed away for days at a time. She cried because crying was called for, but she accepted it, whatever it was. 'Such a saint,' Abba said. And then she died, and in dying proved life unpredictable and beyond control.