Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

  'Shahana is growing up fast,' she said.

  Chanu meditated for a while. 'Too soon ripe is too soon rotten.'

  He sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed wearing a yellow vest and checked blue lungi. Nazneen, in her nightdress, sat at the end and brushed her hair. She watched her husband in the mirror. She saw herself being watched by him, and there was no beginning or end to how they were caught up together. The brush travelled down the straight black lines of hair. Her forehead looked heavier than usual and she tried to stick her chin out to balance it.

  She thought about her husband. So many years he had talked of going home. And now he was working himself up to do it. The history lessons: they were not, after all, about the past.

  'Do you think they will be all right?' said Chanu.

  'Only God knows the answer.'

  Chanu's face contorted, and for a moment Nazneen thought he was responding and then she saw it was pain.

  'What is it?' she said.

  'Ulcer is coming again.'

  She brushed vigorously on the right-hand side. Chanu watched her. 'It's the right thing to do,' he said. She put the brush down. Hair fell across her cheek. It was dense and rich as treacle and she dipped her fingers in it. Her lips parted and in the mirror she saw a man looking at a woman. The woman's face was soft and full of gentle curves, and though she was not beautiful there was something that would make a man keep looking.

  'Are you happy to be going?' Chanu smiled. It made him look sad.

  'If it is God's will.'

  Chanu shuffled down the bed. He put a hand on the small of her back. She smelled his hair oil and deodorant, absorbed the warmth of his hand. Over their heads, a toilet flushed, a door opened and closed and bedsprings creaked.

  'But you want to, don't you?' He rested his chin on her shoulder. Her hair made a curtain between their faces.

  She thought, would we sit like this in Dhaka? In a room like this? And would we sit like this and would it feel just the same and would everything be the same but just in a different place?

  Chanu lifted his head from her shoulder. 'But of course you want to go.' He smiled again. 'What kind of sister would you be if you did not? Of course you do want to go.'

  The projects stopped. There was only one project and that meant no unnecessary expense could be entertained. No more gadgets for the computer or the car. Even book expenditure was curtailed. Chanu drove for long hours and when he returned he was too tired to talk about the ignorant types who rode in the back. And he was too tired or his ulcer was too troubling for him to relish his meals. He ate a bowl of cereal standing up, or bread that he cut in cubes from a loaf, as if cutting a whole slice would be too much effort. 'Just wait while I heat up the bhazi,' said Nazneen. But she could not persuade him.

  He wore the money belt that he had bought as part of his tourist outfit and took it off last thing at night. All the money had to be kept in it and Nazneen only opened the door after careful surveillance. Twice she heard Mrs Islam flay the outer corridor with sharp words. Nazneen stood inside the hallway with her back pressed to the wall.

  After a silence, Mrs Islam began again, in her invalid's voice. 'Just a small glass of water is all I beg of you. For an old woman who has climbed so many stairs to see a friend.'

  Nazneen stared at the crumbling plaster.

  'I know you are in there.'

  Then it went quiet again.

  Once, after a double shift, Chanu came home in the afternoon while Karim was using the computer.

  'Salaam Ale-Koum,' said Karim. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, after a long spell at the screen.

  'Walaikum-asalaam.' Chanu put his keys down on top of the showcase. He stood with his arms dangling. His trousers had ridden up and his socks showed, one grey, one black.

  Karim stretched his arms. For a few seconds he looked at the screen but then he set about yawning again, as if it were simply impossible to overstate just how tired and relaxed he was feeling. Nazneen dug her fingernails through her cotton sari into her thighs. If she dug hard enough she would be able to cry out and break the room in two. But no sound came from her mouth.

  Chanu unzipped his anorak and took it off. Holding it out by the hood, he looked at it as if he had no idea what it was. Then he let go and it fell on the floor, hiding his shoe and his grey sock.

  'Is it interesting?' he said.

  Karim was in no rush to answer. First he scratched his ear, then he cracked his knuckles. 'Yeah, brother. Islamic web site.' He covered his mouth for yet another yawn. 'Hope you don't mind.'

  'Why should I mind?'

  Karim shrugged. He looked at his fingernails.

  'When I was a young man like you, do you know what I wanted to be? I wanted to be a British civil servant. I was going to sit all the exams and be a High Flyer, Top Earner, Head of Department, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Secretary, Right-hand Bloody Man of the Bloody Prime Minister.' For the first time, Nazneen saw that his face was capable of growing as serious as his eyes. His face came together. 'I saw no reason why not. That's the truth. Anything is possible.'

  Karim's foot jacked up and down, working an invisible pump.

  'Anything is possible so everything I wanted was possible,' Chanu went on. 'But what about all the other possibilities? The ones we never see when we are young, but are there all along. One day you wake up and say to yourself, I didn't choose this. And then you spend a long time thinking, but did I?'

  'I know what I want,' said Karim. He stared at Chanu, but Chanu seemed to have forgotten him.

  Chanu picked up his coat and his keys. He put the keys in his pocket and jangled them.

  'I know what I want,' said Karim.

  'The thing about getting older,' said Chanu, 'is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need some things to be certain.'

  He put on his anorak and, though there was nowhere to go, went out again.

  The mela was cancelled. Karim said, 'It don't look right. Think about it. The American President is preparing his Crusade. And we're preparing to party? It's not on.'

  The girls were upset. Chanu took the news so philosophically that he did not even care to philosophize about it. In any case, he had stopped singing. He had even stopped humming. At first Shahana said, 'Thank God he's put a sock in it.' After a week or so, she said, 'Is he sick or something?' Finally, she said, 'It's going to happen, isn't it? He's going to kidnap us.'

  Chanu sat on the floor reading a newspaper.

  Shahana approached of her own volition. 'Do you want me to turn the page?'

  'You are a clever girl. Go and study.'

  'Abba, how much money do you have now?'

  He carried on reading.

  'Because I was thinking, if you left me behind, me and Bibi if she wants, then you wouldn't have to save as much. And we could be adopted, or just looked after by someone. Really, we could look after ourselves.'

  He didn't look up. 'Do you want me to beat you?'

  Shahana screwed up her face. She clawed the air. 'Yes,' she screamed. 'Yes.'

  'Well, I won't beat you,' he said quietly. 'And I won't leave you behind either.'

  He chewed indigestion tablets, whole packets at a time, and still his stomach pained him.

  'Go to the doctor,' said Nazneen every day.

  'It's a symptom,' said Chanu. 'I've got to tackle the cause.'

  Bibi tried to interest her father in her schoolbooks. 'Good,' he said. 'Study.' He patted her on the head cautiously, as if she were made of chalk.

  'Abba, do you want me to walk on your back?'

  The girls hated walking on their father's back. Shahana refused outright and risked floggings; Bibi trod along the furrowed flesh with all the relish of a girl stepping in fresh cowpats.

  'Back?' said Chanu. 'No.' As if he did not even possess such a thing.

  Then Chanu made a purchase. He laid it on the sofa and they all lined up in front of it. Bibi bent over to touch it, to check if it was real. Shahana closed her
eyes and her lips moved silently. Chanu unzipped it and lifted up the lid.

  'Might as well make a start on the packing.'

  It was an unremarkable suitcase: shiny black nylon and two straps with silver buckles, like a pair of cheap raincoats stitched around a frame. Nazneen was astounded. That Chanu should buy a suitcase was not in itself surprising. All of his projects required equipment. But there was something different this time. Chanu made no speech. He did not clear his throat. He did not begin to speak about his plans for the Dhaka house, or the rural retreat. Peasant types and ignorant types were not mentioned. Of the immigrant tragedy, the clash of cultures and the lessons of history nothing was said. There was no singing, no humming and not a proverb in sight.

  Nazneen thought, it is going to happen. We are going to Bangladesh.

  Karim had a new style. The gold necklace vanished; the jeans, shirts and trainers went as well. Some of the parents were telling their daughters to leave their headscarves at home. Karim put on panjabi-pyjama and a skullcap. He wore a sleeveless fleece and big boots with the laces left undone at the top. The fleece and the boots were expensive. Nazneen saw him running his finger over the labels. When he took off the fleece he laid it down with care. The boots had to be unlaced in just the right way, neither too high nor too low. Nazneen felt that Karim did not want her to mention the new clothes. The matter was either too trivial or else too important to be discussed.

  There was a labourer who worked on her father's land whose name was Arzoo. Besides his name he possessed very little. He had his arms and legs, tough as jute from his work in the fields, and he had two lungis and two vests. In cold weather he wore both vests at once and a sack with holes cut in it.

  One day Arzoo caused a stir. He appeared in a jacket made of red wool with two patch pockets on the front and four brass buttons. Nobody could understand it.

  'Hey, Arzoo! Joining the circus?'

  'Quick, everyone run. Police inspector coming.'

  'Trousers coming next year, eh, Arzoo?'

  Arzoo was dignified. He walked more slowly than before, giving everyone the chance to appreciate the jacket. And he sniffed with his nose held high.

  'Something flavouring the air. Whoever thought jealousy stink so bad like that?'

  As far as anyone knew, he never took the jacket off. He wore it in the fields and it became caked in mud. When he walked around he took to picking off lumps of dirt and he could never get enough of touching the jacket.

  In the village, people had to make their own entertainment.

  'In this day and age, a man doesn't need a wife to make love to. All he needs is a nice jacket.'

  'Oh, maharaja! Sahib! Can't you see that we are in need? What is a few lakh takas to a man like you?'

  Arzoo ignored them all but he walked in an urgent way, and it seemed to Nazneen that he was trying to give his jacket the slip.

  He came to collect his wages. Abba studied his vest and knotted shoulders.

  'What has happened? Dacoits?'

  The labourer lowered his head and looked glum. 'If someone wanted to take my jacket they would have to kill me first. But I have finished with that jacket. Was nothing but trouble.' His skin was dark as dates and the only parts of him that were not dusty were the whites of his eyes. He widened them now. 'You think that a clothing is just a clothing. But as a matter of fact it is not. In a place like this it is a serious thing.'

  Nazneen could not concentrate on her sewing. She watched the back of Karim's head, the strong lines his neck made. If she were to describe him to Hasina, what would she say?

  That even when you knew you had not, you could end up believing you had said something that might change his life.

  She would say that he knew so many things.

  Chanu also knew many things but they only left him bewildered. If knowledge was food then while Karim grew strong on his intake, Chanu became only bloated, bilious and pained. The way Karim made you feel was . . .

  Casting around in her mind, she rejected all the words that came. How could she make Hasina understand? She meandered back into the village.

  Tamizuddin Mizra Haque was Gouripur's barber. Beneath the shade of a moss-encrusted pipal tree he set up his shop with three or four stools, two buckets, special soaps and oils, cutlass-like razors and his gleaming scissors, the cleanest and brightest object for miles around. A few feet behind, bamboo grew like a living wall, defining the space and investing it with an official quality. If you had to describe Tamizuddin Mizra Haque to someone who did not know him and was, nevertheless, intent on finding him in a gathering of men, you would simply tell them to look for the most important person in the room. Inevitably, they would gravitate towards the barber. For of all the men in Gouripur, if looks were kingmakers, it was the barber who would be crowned. It was not a matter of 'handsome' or 'beautiful'. It was simply that Tamizuddin Mizra Haque had an important face. Even when he was working – and a barber's status was not high – he was undiminished. By his face alone you would guess that this man of influence had fallen suddenly on hard times, or was merely playing a role. Perhaps it was this quality that wrote the rule that everybody at all times addressed him as Tamizuddin Mizra Haque. It was not possible to shorten his name in any way, and though it was the custom to show respect by naming people Uncle or Brother or some other fictitious relative, it would have been frowned upon in this case.

  Even when his wife came to call him, she said, 'Tamizuddin Mizra Haque, would you kindly bring your miserable backside over here.'

  Nazneen and Hasina loved to play near the barber's shop. When a customer's face disappeared inside a cloud of white soap, it was thrilling to see the razor fly over the throat and cheeks and see how the skin beneath looked new and untouched. When the barber applied the lotions with a great slapping noise Nazneen felt her own skin tingle at the touch.

  But the best thing about the barber's shop was the information. If you wanted to find out something about somebody, the best plan you could make would be to hang around near the pipal tree. Not too near because men would shoo children from their path as easily as ducks. But not too far either.

  Eventually, one way or another – and learning a great deal in the meantime – you would have your information. For in this great establishment every topic under the sun and several which lay above, in heaven, was discussed not once, not twice but many, many times. Men came for shaving and haircutting but most of all they came for talk. As a result Tamizuddin Mizra Haque was the greatest repository of information in the entire village.

  Typically, two or more men would dispute something, anything. If there was nothing really to dispute, at least one man would take issue just out of politeness.

  'Abdul Ali has bought his land, finally. Three and one-half hectares.'

  'I heard it was only two.'

  'Three and one-half hectares.'

  'That is what he was planning. But in the end he only bought two.'

  'As God is my witness, I swear—'

  'May God strike me deaf, dumb and blind if I lie, and shrivel my manhood like a dead woodlouse.'

  This would go on for some time while the scissors flashed like miniature lightning against dark heads. Detached and ineffably impressive, the barber took no part in debate. He bided his time.

  Eventually, someone would say, 'Tamizuddin Mizra Haque, settle this affair. How many hectares?'

  And without hesitation the barber made his pronouncement.

  'Three and one-half hectares.'

  Or, 'Two hectares only.'

  Whatever the verdict, the opposing side immediately caved in. A man could be yellow and purple from his exhortations; he might have sworn on his honour, his children's lives, or even his testicles; he might have ranted in every emotional key, oozing sincerity, spitting with frustration or weeping with anger, but when Tamizuddin Mizra Haque pronounced, he would cave.

  'Is it so, Tamizuddin Mizra Haque? Well, you know best.'

  Nazneen and Hasina delighted in this mom
ent of transformation. Squeezing each other's hands, they squatted with their hems in the dirt and stared at the man who settled everything with a word or two. They were proud that a man like this, who knew all that there was to know, actually lived in Gouripur. That he should choose to live among them was a wondrous thing.

  The girls said to each other, 'What do you want to know? Let's go and ask Tamizuddin Mizra Haque.'

  Nazneen thought hard. Hasina said, 'How high is the tallest mountain in the world? No, that's too easy. If a python swallowed a baby whole, could you cut open its tummy and take the baby out still alive? Who killed Auntie's mynah bird? That's what I'd ask him. No, what I really want to know is, who are we going to marry?' They often played this game but they never went to ask the barber anything. To actually ask him would spoil the anything-at-all-ness, which is what they liked.

  Some of the children were not quite as enraptured. They shouted from a safe distance, 'Tamizuddin Mizra Haque, what the President having for breakfast today, eh?'

  Anyway, thought Nazneen, I should write to Hasina soon. Running a hand along the eggshell cracks of the pale green sewing machine, she realized she had scarcely begun on her work. And it would be better if Karim left soon. Another few minutes and the salaat alert would come on his mobile phone, and then he would stay for his prayer. She let the thought wash over her. It saturated her so heavily that she was unable to act on it.

  From the set of his neck, Karim was intent on his work at the computer. Magazines, he had explained, could be radical. But the internet was where things got really radical.

  Nazneen knew she would never write about him to Hasina. Her next letter, when she got round to it, would follow in the footsteps of the others. We are all well. Shahana is getting top marks in her class, and Bibi has grown at least one inch. I tried again to make dhoie but it never comes out quite right, too much sugar I think, or not the right kind. I pray for your friend Monju and her boy.

  What a poor answer it would make. Hasina's letter had arrived yesterday:

  I tell you about friend Monju. Acid melt cheekbone and nose and one eye. Other eye damage only with pain and very hate. Difficult thing how I make you describe? Is worse see this good eye. Is where hope should be but no hope is there.