Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

  Monju sister has take Khurshed in village. Boy has not see the mother. She will not allow. 'Promise me.' She say every time I go. Promise me the boy get his operation. What can I say? What to do?

  Nazneen stood up and walked about the room. Perhaps she would mention Tamizuddin Mizra Haque to Hasina, ask how she remembered him. Of course, she thought, the barber did not know everything. That was only how it seemed to us as children. But about village affairs he knew a great deal, and everyone deferred to his knowledge. He could settle such matters very easily. Or perhaps it was just a way of ending the conversation. Maybe they were mocking him, and he knew so little that he did not know even when he was being mocked.

  'Who benefits?' Karim got up so fast he kicked over his chair. 'That's the key question, man. Who benefits?'

  'From what?' It was obvious she should know what he was talking about.

  But he didn't hear her. 'I can tell you – no Arab nation benefits. No Muslim, anywhere in the world. We are the ones who're going to suffer. You got to ask, who benefits?'

  Nazneen looked behind her and back again.

  'Not that difficult to work it out,' said Karim.

  Nazneen thought, what a lot of rubbish I have in my mind about barbers and pipal trees, as if there is nothing important to think about. At the same time she thought, only my husband and this boy are thinking all the time about New York and terrorists and bombs. Everybody else just living their lives.

  Karim picked up the chair. 'A devout Muslim, right, willing to sacrifice himself for his religion. Does he go to bars and watch naked girls and drink alcohol? What kind of Muslim takes his Qur'an into a bar? And leaves it there? These stories are made up by idiots. People who don't know nothing about Islam. Maybe a Christian carries his Bible round like a pack of cigarettes. He don't know how a Qur'an is treated.'

  Glancing up at the specially built high shelf, Nazneen regarded her own Qur'an in its cloth case.

  'They're saying another Qur'an got left behind in a rental car by these so-called Islamic terrorists.' He laughed without mirth. 'All these devout men throwing away the Word of God like sweet papers.'

  'And a Muslim cannot commit suicide,' said Nazneen. No matter how many times he explained about martyrs, it seemed to her incontrovertible.

  He who kills himself with sword, or poison, or throws himself off a mountain will be tormented on the Day of Resurrection with that very thing.

  'It's not as simple as that.' Karim talked over her. 'There's other stuff too. It don't add up. Listen. All four black boxes from the aeroplanes – that's where everything that went on is recorded – were destroyed. But have you heard about the magic passport? One of the hijackers' passports survived the fire – heat of over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Found in the rubble of the World Trade Centre. What kind of fools does the FBI take us for?'

  'Who did it then?'

  He touched his skullcap briefly, as a woman might touch the hair coiled on her head to make sure it was still in place. 'Ask the right question. Who benefits?'

  It seemed to Nazneen that no one benefited.

  She would not let him pray at her home again. Maybe it was not, officially, a sin. But it was not right. It was something she could stop, and if she could stop that then maybe she could end the rest of it too.

  But she had tried and she had failed.

  'It isn't right,' she said, with his breath hot in her ear.

  'I know,' he moaned. 'I'll fix it. Don't worry.' And the weight of his body was all that she needed.

  How could she tell him not to come any more? What would it mean? That she had taken her pleasure and had enough? That what was between them was within her power to stop? That, controlling it, she need never have begun it?

  For a while she pinned her hopes on Chanu. That day when he wandered in and Karim was using the computer, she thought, he knows it all. But he said nothing to her. Everyone else knew. Nazma – that glint in her eye when she ran her hand over the sewing machine. 'Still getting plenty?' she had said. Razia showed no surprise at all when let in on the 'secret'. How early had she guessed it? Who had not noticed the comings and goings?

  Let my husband find out, Nazneen prayed. Let him kill me, she added.

  Chanu was not so obliging. Can't you see what is going on under your nose, she demanded silently of him every day.

  In the mornings she said her prayers and did housework and began her sewing and there was nothing inside her that demanded more. By lunchtime when she looked for Karim out of the window, her stomach began to surge with excitement and dread and on the days when he did not come she had to leave the flat and walk around the streets for fear that she would wear out the remaining threads of carpet.

  'Why do you like me?' she asked one day, hoping that the words came naturally, as if she had just thought of them.

  He was in a playful mood. 'Keno tumake amar bhalo lage?' Who says that I like you? His fingers touched the hollow of her throat.

  'I do,' she said in a firm way.

  'I see.' He kissed a trail from her throat to her armpit.

  'I am not beautiful. I am not a young girl.'

  'Not young and not beautiful? Then I must be crazy.'

  'And you are young.'

  'What about beautiful?'

  She was determined to be serious. 'But you do not answer me.'

  Karim rolled onto his back. As he moved his hands up behind his head Nazneen watched the muscles in his arms tense and relax. His skin was golden, like honey. It looked like you could lick it off.

  'Well, basically you've got two types. Make your choice. There's your westernized girl, wears what she likes, all the make-up going on, short skirts and that soon as she's out of her father's sight. She's into going out, getting good jobs, having a laugh. Then there's your religious girl, wears the scarf or even the burkha. You'd think, right, they'd be good wife material. But they ain't. Because all they want to do is argue. And they always think they know best because they've been off to all these summer camps for Muslim sisters.'

  'What about me?'

  He propped himself up on one elbow. She smelled his sweat and it stirred her. 'Ah, you. You are the real thing.'

  'Real thing?'

  'You can arrange for a girl from the village. Bring her over here.' He was still setting out his options. 'But then there's all the settling-in hassle. And you never know what you're going to get.'

  'I am the real thing?' A conversation overheard in the early days of her marriage came to her mind. She stood in her nightdress in the hallway while Chanu was on the telephone. An unspoilt girl. From the village. All things considered, I am satisfied.

  Karim was getting out of bed. He had his back to her.

  'My husband is taking us to Dhaka,' she said.

  She watched the curve of his spine to see if he had noticed: the emphasis in her voice had got out of control.

  He straightened up but he did not turn.

  She curled herself into a ball. The shush of air in her nostrils, the minute clicks of her skull, the wheeze of her chest, gurgles from her gut, blood thumping dully in her ears.

  At last, he spoke. 'When I went to Bradford, I went to see a girl. Selected for me. I turned her down. For you.'

  'What can I do?' Her face was hot and wet.

  'What do you want to do?'

  She had wanted to go. But now she did not know. The children would suffer; Chanu would face fresh agonies of disappointment; and she was not the girl from the village any more. She was not the real thing.

  Karim picked her up like a child and held her. 'Don't be scared. Let your husband go. It's gonna be the best thing. Then you get a divorce because he's left you. Don't be scared. I'll sort it.'

  * * *

  October arrived and with it Chanu's chilblains, colds and coughs for the girls, and condensation. Nazneen began her winter ritual of wiping the windows with a towel every morning. It helped with the damp. Two workmen blundered along to fix the toilet.

  'How long's it
been broken, darlin'?'

  She told them.

  'That's the council for you, darlin'.'

  They poked around a bit and then cleared off.

  'Got yourself a problem there, sweetheart. Shouldn't'a left it so long.'

  The suitcase stood on its little smart wheels at the bottom of the wardrobe, on top of Chanu's certificates. Nazneen tested the handle. It was heavy.

  She gave up trying to persuade Chanu to eat and then she gave up cooking. The girls had burgers or baked beans or whatever they wanted. Once, when she got up in the night and pulled open the door of an empty fridge, she started making cauliflower curry, and as the spices hit the hot fat and burst their seams she thought she would waken everybody and they would eat together like a normal family. But it was two o'clock in the morning and she ate alone, standing up against the sink, watching the moon and wondering if she would ever eat a meal with her sister again.

  The next day, the leaflet appeared through the letterbox.

  MARCH AGAINST THE MULLAHS

  Karim picked it up. He turned it over. 'Yes!' he said. 'We've got a date.' He folded his arms and stood with his legs wide. 'Let them come. We'll be ready.'

  When Chanu got home he picked up the leaflet and studied it for some time. Then he put it down, went into the bedroom and closed the door.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The only thing on which everyone could agree was that the boy had been stabbed. Everything else was as hotly disputed as the price of brinjals on market day. Some said the fight was between two gangs, with as many as ten boys involved. Others said twenty or thirty or fifty while their opponents maintained it was only two, the stabber and the stabbed. It was said that the gangs had a long history of rivalry, dating back to their schooldays when they had all bunked off to attend noon-time raves in darkened warehouses, getting changed in the toilet, taking nips of whisky and drags of cigarettes and listening to Joi Bangla, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Amiruddin and Abdul Gani, making up new dances and hostilities, inventing their lives in a way that no one – especially not their parents – had imagined for them. Between these two gangs there was always tension, and the only surprise was that someone had not been stabbed sooner.

  But this was all lies. The boys involved were members of the same gang, and they had fallen out over a girl. More lies. The issue was drugs. Or it was money. Indeed, it was drugs money. This, for a certain fact, was what led the boy to end up in hospital with a wound this deep in his thigh.

  Some people were ignorant as donkeys! For the wound was to the chest and he was not expected to live, although only Allah would decide and it was not up to anyone to be expecting or not expecting, but it was difficult not to expect this kind of thing to happen because what else were gangs for but trouble?

  Of course some people had only mustard plants growing between their ears and they would believe anything. As a matter of fact, and as the song said, in spite of their eyes they were blind. There were no gangs at all. The white press had made them up to give Bangladeshis a bad name. The Tower Hamlets Bugle was the worst offender (but all white newspapers were culprits); if you read that rubbish you'd think that our boys were getting as bad as the blacks. No, there weren't any gangs. Just boys who grew up together and hung around together.

  The Bugle reported the identity of the victim as Haroon Zaman. The majority took issue with this report. The boy who lay at death's door – or on his right-hand side to protect his wounded left thigh – was actually Jamal Zaman. Or Jamal Shamser. Or, according to Razia who got it from Tariq, it was somebody called Nonny. And nobody seemed to know Nonny's real name, although many people pretended to have heard of him and agreed that he was a violent character, just the type to be fighting, and many others felt sorry for Nonny because he was such a meek boy, just the type to be picked on.

  Chanu said, 'Do you know the problem with these boys?'

  'Not enough studying,' said Bibi smartly.

  'Too much roaming around,' said Shahana. 'Like goats.'

  'Don't try to be clever.'

  'Tell us, Abba.' Bibi stood up to speak.

  'I don't know,' said Chanu. 'Apart from this: sometimes, when it seems that the world is against you, it is tempting to side with the world.' He picked up his car keys and Shahana reached for the television remote. 'Of course, if they studied more then they would be strong. Mental strength, that's the key.' He took the remote control from his daughter and gave it to Nazneen. 'They will sit with their books tonight.'

  Razia and Nazneen stood with a little group of mothers outside Alam's High Class Grocery shop on Bethnal Green Road. On a pair of wooden trestle tables beneath the windows was a box of tomatoes that had ripened to a point beyond red, darkening now like old bruises, a hairy pyramid of coconuts, a heap of dark green knobbly korela, bitter even to look at, and a large glass jar filled with neem twigs. Nazma poked a tomato and wiped her finger on the fake grass mat covering the table.

  'High class?' she said, and a wobbling indignation set up in her cheeks. 'In Bangladesh, a man calling his wares high class and selling rotten tomatoes would not be allowed to get away with it.'

  'Oh yes,' said Sorupa. 'There are laws against that kind of thing.'

  'Laws?' cried Nazma, as if she had never heard the word before. 'A scoundrel like that would never get to see the inside of a court.'

  Sorupa was less sure now and, to compensate, spoke more emphatically. 'Never.'

  'The people would take the affair in their own hand. One or two good thrashings is all you need. Is simple. Is quick. Is effective.' Nazma went over to the table with the korela. Nazneen imagined her rolling along on little round feet. Nazma picked up a vegetable and pinched it. Judging from the expression on her face she had squeezed out at least a dozen caterpillars.

  Sorupa had by now got the idea. 'Is the best best system. Beat up the scoundrel on the double. No bribes to pay, no waiting around for police and lawyer and all that thing.' She extolled the virtues of the village justice system. What she lacked in material she made up for in her willingness to repeat herself.

  Nazma quickly grew bored. 'I hear the boy who got himself stabbed has got punctured lung. I hear he getting involved in drugs.' She looked at Razia and opened her eyes as wide as they would go so Nazneen could see the whites top and bottom.

  Nazneen watched the two women. Nazma's breasts, high and round as footballs, heaved beneath her thin black coat. They emphasized the slackness of Razia's chest, hanging low beneath her jumper.

  Razia looked at the coconuts. She picked one up and weighed it in her hand, selected another and weighed that.

  'Drugs,' said Nazma. She said it the way a parent might say 'monsters' to thrill a young child.

  'Drugs,' said Sorupa.

  Nazma looked annoyed. She clicked her tongue at Sorupa, who pretended not to notice.

  'Of course you hear all sorts about boys getting mix-up in drugs these days. The parents can't control and they bring shame on the family. Anyone who had any sense would send them back to Bangladesh.'

  Little light flakes, no bigger than Chanu's dandruff, began to fall on the tomatoes and other high-class items and on the women's heads. They landed and vanished without trace.

  'Rain,' said Razia to Nazneen. 'We'd better go.'

  'Snow,' said Nazma. 'Of course, some people can't see what's beneath their own nose.'

  Sorupa brushed the air with her fingers, demonstrating clearly the fact of snow. 'Right beneath their nose.'

  On Commercial Street there was a funeral procession. Four big black cars followed a hearse packed with lilies and chrysanthemums and presumably somewhere beneath them a coffin. Inside the cars, people were stuffed together as densely as the flowers. A red van with a picture of a pig on the side was caught up in the procession and kept swinging out into the other lane in an attempt to overtake. The pig sat as if on an invisible chair, with his fat little legs crossed, eating a pie. As Nazneen waited in the middle of the road she looked inside one of the funeral cars
and a woman raised her head from checking her lipstick in a compact mirror and stared back at Nazneen. The woman had short blond hair cut in an efficient style around her jaw. She looked at Nazneen with a ready kindness, a half-smile on her lips, but in her eyes there was nothing. It was the way she might look at a familiar object, her keys that she had just found, the kitchen table as she wiped the juice her daughter had spilled, a blankness reserved for known quantities like pieces of furniture or brown women in saris who cooked rice and raised their children and obeyed their husbands. Nazneen lifted her hand and waved. The funeral procession pulled away with the red van trapped like a beating heart in a comatose body.

  They walked over to Wentworth Street and Razia did not say a word all the way. Nazneen thought about Nazma and Sorupa and the little group outside Alam's. At the time she had not realized it, but none of the women had spoken to her. Had it been deliberate? Would she find that people hurried past her in the street? Would there be no more women popping round to borrow something for the kitchen, an eggcup's worth of misti jeera, a couple of sticks of cinnamon, just a pinch of saffron when an unexpected visitor stayed for dinner? It happened to other women. Only recently Hanufa had been frozen out when it was discovered she had been attending a massage course. It was un-Islamic behaviour and, apparently, the imam at the Jamme Masjid had preached against that very thing. Hanufa protested that it was a women-only course and that she was practising for the sake of her husband who suffered with a bad back. But it was too late. 'If she so damn proud of it, what the hell she creeping around behind our backs for?' Nazneen remembered that she too had not called on Hanufa, though she had not snubbed her deliberately. She turned this last thought over a few times, trying to decide if it was true. In the end she gave up and reflected that Hanufa would at least have the opportunity to snub her in return, Nazneen's crime being so much vaster than her own.

  They walked along past the shoe stalls, where every shoe resembled an instrument of torture. At the fried chicken stand, a man patted chicken quarters with a kind of tenderness as though he was trying to rub them back to life. Nazneen saw that he was coaxing spices into the skin. A group of African girls tried on shoes, twisting their backs to look down at the heels.