Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

  'It's settled,' announced the Secretary on his return to the stage. 'All banned.'

  'Man!' said the musician.

  'Move on. Move on,' urged the Secretary.

  The musician stood up. He still wore his strange fingerless gloves. Maybe he didn't burn himself, thought Nazneen. Maybe he has some kind of skin disease.

  'If everyone's going to sit there and tell me I'm un-Islamic, then I ain't staying.'

  'Sit down,' said Karim. 'It's all right. We'll talk about music later. Now, I've got a list of the local estates here and I want two organizers for every estate . . .'

  From the corner of the stage, a figure materialized.

  Karim hesitated.

  'Don't let me stop you,' said the Questioner.

  'You're not,' said Karim.

  'I've just got something to show people, when you're finished.'

  The audience emitted a low noise, like a pan of boiling water.

  'Show it then,' Karim ordered.

  'Well,' said the Questioner. 'If you say so.' He reached into the lining of his jacket and took out a scroll of papers. He unrolled the sheets, rolled them up the other way and did his best to make them hang flat. He held them against his chest so that only a blank page showed. 'Our Chairman is a man of peace. I am also a man of peace. Islam is a peaceful religion. But what do you do if someone comes to fight you? Do you run away?

  'A few weeks ago, persons unknown launched an attack on American soil. Innocent people were killed. Civilians. Men, women and children. The world wept and sent money. Now, America is taking her revenge and our brothers are being killed. Their children die with them. They are not any more or less innocent. But the world does not mourn them.'

  He turned his sheaf of papers round and held it out, gripping both top and bottom to prevent it from curling. The photograph showed a tiny girl dressed in rags, her leg blown off at the knee. 'Some collateral damage,' said the Questioner.

  He showed the next photo.

  'This is a just war.' The boy was no more than six or seven.

  He rolled the pictures up and put them away. 'Our Chairman says we must show our strength. What he means is we must walk together down the street. We mustn't do more than that.'

  'What shall we do, then?' called someone from the audience. The crowd rumbled a bit, as if the last words had been stolen from the tips of their tongues.

  The Questioner shrugged. He put his hands in his pockets. 'The most powerful nation on this planet attacks one of the most ravaged countries in the world. We are fit young men. There are no chains tying us to these walls. With a little planning, a little effort, we can cross continents.' He shrugged again. 'What can we do?'

  Nazneen looked at Chanu. He had his head bowed. His cheeks hung like empty purses.

  The black man, the Multicultural Liaison Officer, got to his feet. 'I been reading up,' he began. He blew hard to signify just how much effort this had cost him. 'I been reading up, and it seems that being a Muslim brings many heavy responsibilities. Not just the praying, and laying off drinks and laying off bacon and women and laying off every other manner of thing. It also has it written in the Qur'an that every Muslim should work towards one, unified Islamic state across the world. It is written, Khilafah is fard.' He thumped a huge hand against the snowy expanse of robe that covered his great chest. 'Now, what are we all doing about that?'

  'Good question, brother,' said the Questioner.

  Karim stepped in front of him. 'Listen to me. Let's not get distracted—'

  A couple of seats to the right of Chanu, a girl jumped up and shouted over him. The sharp lines of her hijab emphasized the fine bones of her cheeks. 'According to United Nations statistics, there was another big tragedy on September eleventh. On that day thirty-five thousand children also died through hunger.' The girl looked straight at Karim as she spoke. Karim folded his arms. He looked straight back at her. The girl was barely out of her teens. She had large, long-lashed eyes, not too close together. The dark headscarf framed her forehead to perfection. 'What do we know about this tragedy?' the girl continued. She looked down at the piece of paper in her hand. 'Victims: thirty-five thousand. Location: the poorest countries in the world. Special news reports: none. Appeals for the victims and their families: none. Messages from Heads of State: none. Candlelight vigils: none. Minutes' silence: none. Calls for the perpetrators to be called to justice . . .' The girl looked up. Her face grew flushed with emotion. 'None.' She sat down quickly.

  Karim let his gaze travel over the audience. He saw Nazneen, and Chanu with his head bent, and for a brief moment his eyebrows knitted together.

  Nazneen wondered how he would look at her if she jumped up now and began to make a speech.

  'How many were Muslims?' called a voice from the front of the hall. It was a woman's voice, emanating from somewhere in the region of the burkhas. 'How many of the thirty-five thousand were Muslims?'

  What does it matter? thought Nazneen. Those who were not Muslims, would they be any less dead?

  'People, people, let's get around to our business.' Karim paced up and down across the front of the stage. His elbow knocked against the Questioner, but Karim appeared not to notice. 'Out there, right now, are people who are twisted with hatred for us and for Islam. They are planning to march right on our doorsteps, and we are not going to let them get away with it. Let's show the Lion Hearts that Bangla Town is defended. Tigers will take on Lions any day of the week.' He strode over to the Secretary and procured a sheet of paper from the clipboard. 'Right. The list of estates. We need volunteers for organizers. First one: Berners Estate.'

  Over on the right-hand side of the aisle, two lads rose to their feet. 'That's ours.'

  Immediately, three boys jumped up on the opposite side of the aisle. 'It's ours, and you know it.'

  'It doesn't belong to you.'

  'Come here and say that.'

  'You come here.'

  The boys regarded each other with distinct and yet lazy menace, as if they knew there was much more in the way of menacing to be done and they did not wish to exhaust themselves.

  'In here,' said Karim, 'and out there, as Bengal Tigers, that's the only group we belong to. Get it? No one owns any estate. Leave everything else out of it. OK?' He looked from one group to the other. 'OK, lads?'

  Karim assigned people to the estates. He issued instructions for canvassing, targets to be met, reports to be filed, dates for the organizers to convene, plans for stewarding the march itself. He kept up a constant flow of talk, and all the time he talked he moved about the stage, filling it with his personality. Nobody objected to his allocated role. He eased each one into a slot, with a 'You'll be good at this, Khaled,' or 'This is just made for you, Monzur.' 'The Women's Committee I'm putting in charge of the banners.'

  Nazneen kept glancing at her husband to see when he would make his move. Chanu did not look at her. His neck curved closer and closer to his body until it appeared he was examining his chest rather than his writing pad. Nazneen moved her legs slightly so that her knee pressed against his. She elicited no response.

  For a while, as she watched Karim, she lost track of his words and witnessed only the tension in his body as he traced and retraced a path across the stage.

  It was supposed to be her. She was supposed to be the one who could not think about the world, who had a head so filled with herself, her week, her day, her hour, that the big things would not fit. But she looked at Karim now: how absorbed he was in his manoeuvrings. If the Questioner had talked about the Lion Hearts, Karim would have talked of Afghanistan. If he said black, Karim would say white. And she felt misery rise like steam from Chanu at her side, and knew that he was lost in his own private torment; Race, Class and Short Theses did not touch him there.

  But what was the good of aching for the world if she offered no balm to her own husband?

  'Let's go,' she said. He did not hear. She pushed her knee against his and his leg swung away from her.

  The meeting wound
up. Chanu cleared his throat and tucked his speech inside his folder. 'Better save this for another day,' he said and smiled while his eyes danced on hot coals, darting everywhere and flinching from everything.

  'Anyone who is interested in what I was saying, come and see me now,' called the Questioner.

  A few boys gathered round him. Nazneen saw Sorupa's eldest among them.

  'Insh' Allah, we all stand together,' shouted Karim as people began to file out of the hall.

  But God is not willing, thought Nazneen. Oh, Karim, why do you see only what you want to see?

  There was no escaping Mrs Islam this time. As Nazneen stepped over the threshold of the butcher's shop she practically stood on the great lady's toes.

  'Ah, to be young again and walk around in a dream,' said Mrs Islam.

  Nazneen enquired as politely as possible after her health.

  Mrs Islam ignored her. 'Dreaming of home? But not long to wait now.'

  The smell of meat was intense. Entering the shop was like wandering into a giant intestine. A huge stack of plucked chickens filled the window. It was a plain old massacre, nothing like the polite displays of cello-phaned body parts in the English supermarkets. Behind the high counter the men wore white coats, honestly and decently covered in blood. Inside the counter was every cut of mutton and all the cuts were jumbled together. Sides of beef coated in yellow fat hung from ceiling hooks. At the back, a solitary chill cabinet contained only an empty ice-cream tub, placed there to collect drips when the cabinet was unplugged after a brief and never-to-be-repeated term of service. The chill cabinet never caught on. Nobody wanted to buy meat that had been hidden away in there for who knows how long.

  The meaty smell was so thick that when Nazneen opened her mouth it felt like she had licked a raw and fatty chop.

  'You are looking very well today, Mrs Islam,' said Nazneen.

  Mrs Islam fumbled in her cardigan sleeve. She took out a pink lace-edged handkerchief and coughed into it. It was the first time Nazneen had heard her cough. Maybe she had run out of Benylin Chesty Coughs.

  Mrs Islam stuffed the handkerchief back into her sleeve. Both sleeves bulged massively, as if she had elephantiasis of the arms.

  'I am dying,' she snapped. 'Perhaps you think it suits me.' Her little black eyes glittered and raged.

  Nazneen studied her as closely as she dared. It was true that Mrs Islam seemed a little different today: not in any obvious way, but lacking somehow in substance, as if she had begun to fade out. Nazneen tried to pinpoint it. Had she lost weight?

  'So, your husband will have bought the tickets by now,' said Mrs Islam. 'Run home and start packing.'

  'What tickets?'

  Without warning, Mrs Islam grabbed Nazneen by the chin. Her fingers felt crispy, like dried leaves. 'Such an honest face. All the better to lie with!'

  It occurred to Nazneen that, even at such close quarters, beneath the blood-heavy air she could not smell Mrs Islam's sickroom smell. This was what she had lost.

  'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Nazneen. She held Mrs Islam's hand and gently removed it from her face.

  'You don't? Of course such an innocent creature as Mrs Ahmed hardly knows a thing. You don't know that your husband went crying to Dr Azad and Dr Azad gave him the money to make his escape?' Her breathing became laboured. She swayed on her feet and Nazneen had to restrain herself from putting her arms out to steady her. 'Dr Azad is a fool. He will never get his money back. I told him, but who listens to an old woman who has reached the end of her life?'

  Nazneen stepped back. The doorway was not far behind. She turned her head to see how close it was. She had an urgent desire to get away from this woman.

  Reading her mind, Mrs Islam snatched her hand and rubbed it between her papery fingers. She sweetened her voice as much as possible; it was like mixing chillies with sugar, an inadequate disguise. 'I would let you go, my child, give you my money and my blessing – but how would it look to all the others? Let one slip through and they all slip through. I have my sons to think about. Just give what you owe.'

  'But it's impossible,' cried Nazneen. 'Whatever we give, it's not enough.'

  Mrs Islam let go of Nazneen's hand. 'God always provides a way,' she said, and smiled humbly as she spoke. 'You just have to find it.'

  Chanu drove until the early hours of the morning but Nazneen was ready for him when he walked through the door.

  'Is this true?' she demanded as if she had already laid everything out before him.

  'It's a good question,' said Chanu. 'It is, perhaps, the best of all questions.'

  'I want to know . . .'

  'Wait then,' said Chanu. 'Wait a minute. Didn't I just step inside a second ago? I still have my coat on.' He tugged at his anorak to ward off denials. 'Isn't it fair to say that you hate it when I come inside and forget to take it off? Isn't it fair to say that you would rather suck a cockroach than watch me eat with my coat still on?'

  Her mouth became dry. How did he know that? She had been so careful to hide her feelings.

  'Yes,' said Chanu. 'You see, I am not totally blind.' He made no move from the hallway. The light bulb hung over his head. It was a feeble light bulb, the wrong kind. It didn't get rid of the dark; it swept it into the corners, and into the crevices of Chanu's face.

  For a while, Chanu just stood there and Nazneen began to fill up with dread, not at anything he might say or do but at what he saw when he looked at her.

  'Is this true?' He weighed each word. 'It's a question I like very much. A student of philosophy must enquire all the time: is this the real nature of the world? But so must a student of physics, of history, of literature even and art, for only art which is true is worthy of the name.' He stopped and unzipped his anorak. It immediately slid off the slopes of his shoulders. He picked it up and patted it. 'Whenever we are told something, before we receive it into our minds and hearts, we must put it to the test. We open a book, we turn a newspaper page, we allow the television and the radio to come into our homes. All the things we are told every day – are they true?'

  She waited for him to continue.

  'When the imam speaks, it is not the word of God. Does he speak true? It is easier to believe than not believe. Just think about gossip. The things our mothers told us, that fill our bones like marrow. We learned them before we learned to question.

  'All this. All this, and more. Because it is possible for a man to lie to himself. And a woman too.' Chanu looked away from her. He spoke to his coat. 'A heart says this and that, it shouts and makes a big scene. But put it to the test and sometimes you will find it out for what it is: a big and hollow noise. When you feel something so strongly that it can't be questioned, you have to ask yourself – is this true?'

  For a few seconds they remained frozen, unable to end the moment.

  Then Chanu rubbed his nose with the palm of his hand and shook his cheeks like a man who has just dipped his head in a bowl of water. 'Let's go inside at least, and I'll show you the tickets.'

  Nazneen examined the sloping red letters of the Biman Airlines logo on the ticket wallet. She ran her fingers over each ticket and was surprised how flimsy they were, how lacking in substance.

  Twenty-seventh of October. Five more days,' said Chanu. 'There is a lot to do.'

  'But we will never be ready. What about the flat? We can't just leave it.'

  'Dr Azad has come to our aid once more. He has agreed to deal with everything. Rent it out for us, or hand it over to the council – whatever I instruct from Dhaka.'

  Nazneen moved around the room. She touched the trolley, the corner cabinet, the glass showcase, the dining table, the coffee table and the bookcase. She stood behind the dung-coloured sofa and gripped the top. Her little finger popped through the fabric and into the stuffing.

  'But what will you do in Dhaka? How will we live?'

  Chanu patted his stomach. 'Do you think that my stomach will go long without being fed? When I went to the doctor, I went for medicine, n
ot money. Don't worry. The ulcer will soon be gone and I don't plan to live on water alone. There's nothing to worry about. I am going into the soap business.' He cleared his throat prodigiously but there was nothing waiting to get out.

  She sat on Razia's windowsill with a big bubble of panic caught in her mouth. Slices of grey sky wedged themselves between the blocks of flats. How small they were. How mean. In Gouripur, when she looked up she saw that the sky reached to the very ends of the earth. Here she could measure it simply by spreading her fingers.

  The bubble moved to her chest and lodged just beneath her collarbone. She sat very still. If she moved, the bubble might get into one of her lungs and burst it. A rhythmic knocking came from the bedroom door.

  Razia lay on the floor. Her hair, filled with static from the carpet, lifted around her head like a great grey sea anemone.

  Nazneen said, 'Shall I see what he wants?'

  'No,' said Razia. 'Only one thing he wants.'

  There were three more days to go. Three more days to take action, if any action was to be taken. Chanu had bought more suitcases. The girls and Nazneen gathered round them as at a graveside.

  The knocking grew louder. It became a pounding.

  Razia got up. She rubbed her arthritic knees. Approaching the door, she walked against an unseen drag, as if wading in chest-high water.

  Nazneen felt the bubble expand. Her collarbone would snap. She breathed carefully.

  Razia stooped and examined the iron bar across the bottom of the door. Then she checked the top bar.

  Only three more days to go and then all this would pass. She felt the bubble subside a little. Having won this advantage, Nazneen pressed for more. They would get on the plane and go.

  An enormous bang shook the door. Tariq must have thrown himself at it.

  Now it was quiet. Perhaps he had knocked himself out.

  Razia turned round and back again, like a cat about to curl up. Then she lay down on her side and closed her eyes.