Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

  Chanu with his stringy calves sticking out from oversized red shorts which dangled beneath an outsize belly. The girls tucked up in his armpits. Shahana in her dark green kameez and Bibi in pink, their expressions somewhere between Dutiful Daughter and Hostage.

  Nazneen rested the picture against the tiles. She looked at the clock. She looked out of the window.

  Chanu had called his daughters. 'There has been a change of plan.' He rubbed his face with his palms, getting the blood to flow again. 'I have suggested, and your mother has agreed, that the three of you come later.' He weighed his stomach and slapped it around a little. He cleared his throat and this time the obstruction seemed genuine; it brought tears to his eyes. 'I'll go on ahead now, clear – ahem – the path.'

  The girls looked at Nazneen. They saw that it was true. Bibi chewed the ends of both her plaits. Shahana went to her father and put her arms around his neck. 'But who will cook for you, Abba?'

  'Who will cut your corns?' said Bibi.

  Chanu tickled Shahana under the arms. 'What? Do you not know? I am a better cook than your mother. And look, Bibi, my stomach has gone flatter than a paratha. I can reach my own toes now.' He bent down to prove it. Then he began to rearrange bags and money, tickets and passports. He clicked on his money belt and tested the catch. 'Be good girls, do as your mother tells you, finish your homework every night, don't waste time on television and all that rubbish, read Tagore (I recommend Gitanjali), don't think that there's anything you're not good enough for, remember that—' He broke off. 'Yes, well. That should do for now.'

  Nazneen stirred the dal.

  'We're hungry as well,' said Shahana.

  The girls came into the kitchen and began the hunt for the rice.

  They took their plates into the sitting room and made space on the table.

  'When will we go to Dhaka?' said Bibi.

  'If we go,' said Shahana. 'We don't have to go. Do we, Amma?'

  'What about Abba?' said Bibi quickly. 'We can't just leave him on his own.'

  'He could come back,' explained Shahana. 'I bet he'll come back. And when he comes back he'll be a lot happier.'

  'Why will he be happier?'

  Shahana shrugged. 'He just will. I'm telling you.'

  'So are we not going, Amma?'

  'Just wait and—' Nazneen interrupted herself. She took more rice. She took more dal. She offered more to her daughters. 'We'll talk about it tomorrow, or later, and we'll decide what to do. Staying or going, it's up to us three.'

  MARCH 2002

  Razia took off her glasses. She held the sketch up to her face, almost touching her long nose. 'No problem,' she said. 'We can do this very, very easy.' She put her glasses back on. 'But it's going to cost them more. Do you see all this beading?' She offered the paper to Hanufa. 'Five pounds extra per piece. They can take it or leave it.'

  Hanufa passed the drawing to Nazneen. The trousers sat low on the hips, without a waistband, and the bodice cut away above the belly button. The detail indicated gold and diamanté dhakba work and the ends of the dupatta were beaded in a cobweb design. The swatch attached was ice-blue silk.

  'What about white organza for the scarf?' said Nazneen. 'Nice contrast.'

  'They don't pay us to design as well,' said Razia. She got up and pressed her hands into the small of her back. 'This sofa is an old bitch. It's more broken down than me.'

  The sofa came from a junk shop. It was pretend leather, dyed an uncertain purple, the colour of pigeon shit. It was so plastic that if your skin touched it, you received some kind of static shock to the teeth.

  'Why not?' said Nazneen.

  Razia looked at her sidelong, through narrowed eyes.

  'They can pay extra for it.'

  'Do it then. You make a design. I'll sell it.'

  Razia had been the one to set it up. Walked into Fusion Fashions, bold as a mynah bird, and asked for work. She cleared out of the sweat shop. She got on the bus and went to distant lands: Tooting, Ealing, Southall, Wembley. She came back with orders, swatches, samples, patterns, beads, laces, feather trims, leather trims, fake fur, rubber and crystals. 'These young girls' – she sucked in her lips and sprayed her words like lead shot – 'they'll put anything on a piece of cloth and call it an outfit. They'll be sewing kettles on their pants before you can say "lengha".' She laughed and her laugh clattered around the room like a couple of saucepans dropped from a great height.

  Hanufa gasped. 'Oh, poor Mrs Islam. Haven't you heard? She is very ill. She is not even coming out of her house. I am keeping her in my prayers.'

  'The old faker,' said Razia. 'She'll outlive us all.'

  'The doctors can't find what is wrong with her. She has baffled them all. Do you know, they called a fellow from Manchester. Another came from Scotland. And a third was flown from India. It's a terrible thing.'

  'Oh, yes, terrible thing. They can't find anything wrong, do you say?' Razia lay down on the floor. She had got used to the floor and now she thought it was better for her back.

  Hanufa opened her eyes a little wider. 'There's a special clinic in Switzerland. Probably she is going there to recuperate. In fact, she is thinking of taking her entire family with her.'

  'Her entire family,' said Razia. 'And all her bank accounts.'

  The bedroom door opened and Jorina tiptoed out. She wore a cherry-blossom-pink outfit of appliquéd chiffon, with shoestring shoulder straps and trousers slashed to the thigh to reveal the translucent pink silk churidar beneath.

  'Oh, my God.' Razia rolled onto her side. 'What has this Bollywood Beauty done with our Jorina?'

  Jorina twirled around, still on tiptoe. 'Look! It fits me so perfectly. Do you think I should keep it? It's like it was made for me.'

  'We took your measurements for the pattern,' said Razia. 'You are Mrs Average Shape. Don't get carried away. Are you going to wear it for frying onions? Listen, let us build up the trade first, then we can start dressing like film stars.' She reached over for her accounts book and chewed on the end of a pen while she studied the figures. 'Hanufa, I'm going to pay you today. Nazneen and Jorina, you wait until tomorrow because I get another payment in then. OK with everybody?'

  It was.

  Razia parcelled out the work. She had a brief conference with Jorina about the stretch in a woollen jersey fabric destined for a salwaar kameez. She made some calculations and gave Hanufa her money. Nazneen watched her friend, Razia, the businesswoman. In her head, she began work on the new designs.

  'How is your son?' Hanufa asked Razia. 'His studies and – everything.'

  'Studies are OK-Ma. Everything is OK-Ma.' Razia put her hand on Hanufa's wrist. She leaned in close. 'I thought I lost my Tariq. I thought, "He does not want to live this life I made for him."'

  Jorina said, 'But that is our problem – making lives for our children. They want to make them for themselves.'

  'Yes,' said Razia. 'They will do that. Even if it kills them.'

  Nazneen dropped her work off at the flat. She collected her bag and headed out again to the shops to pick up some lace trimmings. From the edge of the courtyard she glanced up to see how the window boxes looked from down here. Over the edge of the long white tubs a few dark green leaves were visible. She had bought winter pansies and they would soon be in flower. Razia had her washing out on a line tied between an overflow pipe and an iron hook. Her Union Jack sweatshirt flapped against the double glazing.

  Nazneen turned left, going towards the back streets behind Columbia Road. She hurried because she wanted to be home again before the girls came back from school. When Chanu went home, Bibi turned into a little owl. Nazneen would wake to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, her knees tucked up inside her white nightdress. Or she went to check on the girls and Bibi would be on a chair, keeping watch over her sister. In the day she was silent, black-eyed and sleepy. By night she was on guard, alert to the slightest movement.

  Only now was she beginning to relax. Nazneen found her curled up by the bedroom door, or asl
eep on the floor next to Shahana's bed.

  'I'm not going anywhere without you,' Nazneen told her.

  'I know that,' said Bibi. 'You won't, will you?'

  She always asked for stories. She wanted the words because the words stitched her mother close.

  'Tell us the one about How You Were Left To Your Fate.'

  'Not that one,' groaned Shahana. 'It's boring.'

  'True,' said Nazneen. 'I'll tell you a better one.'

  Nazneen walked through the car park, over the playground and onto the tarmac hill that bounded the concrete valley. She checked her purse: nearly twenty pounds. Maybe she would buy some chocolate for the girls. Nazneen gave silent thanks. Without Razia there would be no money at all, because Karim had disappeared. She had no middleman, no contact for the factory, no work for her needle, no means to support the children. She prayed to God, but He had already given her what she needed: Razia.

  A couple of workmen tried to manoeuvre a walnut-legged table with a green baize top through the doors of the community hut. Another rolled thick cream paint over the graffiti on the dull red brick. The long, low sloping roof had been replaced and it was black as melted midnight against the watery blue sky. A sign had been erected above the doors, in English and in Bengali: 'Dogwood Estate Youth Club'.

  The table squeezed through the doors and a thin young man walked out into the pale spring sun.

  After the riot, everything was going to change.

  Politicians came and walked around the estate with their hands behind their backs to show that they were not responsible, leaning forward slightly to indicate that they were looking forward to the future. A councillor in a corduroy jacket and round-necked shirt came to Nazneen's flat and looked at the hallway where the plaster had come off. He had a reporter and a photographer with him. The photographer took a picture of the councillor with his hand against the bricks.

  'How long has it been like this?' said the councillor, dispensing his words one by one.

  'Seven, eight years,' said Nazneen.

  'Are you finding it hard to cope?' asked the councillor.

  'No,' said Nazneen.

  'How many children do you have?'

  'Two,' said Nazneen.

  The councillor looked disappointed. He went away.

  Television crews came in the afternoon. There was nothing to film, so they filmed each other. They returned after dark and filmed the boys riding around in cars. They found the disused flats where the addicts gathered to socialize with their addictions, and filmed the grotty mattresses and the bits of silver foil. It was a sensation. It was on the local news.

  Three dealers were arrested. Job opportunities opened up.

  A Tower Hamlets Task Force was established to look into Youth Deprivation and Social Cohesion. In two years' time it would deliver its verdict.

  In the meantime, reporters equipped with notebooks and tape recorders roamed the estate looking for gang members. They accosted Tariq. 'Where are the gangs? Are you a member?'

  'No,' he said. 'There are no gangs here.'

  'Fundamentalist, then. Are you one of those?'

  On Brick Lane scabs formed quickly over the wounds. Plasters were applied. There was nothing that would not heal and after a few weeks, when the wooden boards and the plasters came off, it was as if nothing had happened. There were no visible scars.

  Nazneen descended the steps into the concrete basin. The thin young man walked over the flagstones, away from her. She quickened her pace.

  'Salaam Ale-Koum.'

  He turned round. 'Walaikum-asalaam.'

  'Do you know,' she asked him, 'what has happened to the Bengal Tigers?'

  He regarded her with a devouring interest. His nose, large, pestle-shaped, became inquisitorial. 'It was disbanded. The Chairman went away.'

  'Oh,' said Nazneen, looking down. 'Where did he go?'

  'Karim? He went to Bangladesh.'

  'I see. Yes.'

  'Or he joined the caravan. That's what some people say.'

  Nazneen had a vision: Karim in his jeans and white shirt, a thin gold chain at his neck and a bale of dresses over his shoulder; Karim in a mountain cave, surrounded by men in turbans wielding machine-guns.

  'But I think he went to Bangladesh.'

  'Yes,' said Nazneen.

  'Anyway,' said the boy, 7 wouldn't go for jihad in some faraway place. There's enough to do here.'

  Nazneen glanced at the youth club sign.

  'Yes, exactly. They are looking for Organizers. And I'm starting a new group. You know, I never approved of allowing women in the Bengal Tigers. It was supposed to be an Islamic group! It was a mixed-up idea. Not my idea.' He gave her a look that said, we both know whose idea. 'My group, it's not religious anyway. It's going to be a political organization. Local politics. You should come along.'

  If it was his group, then he would become the Chairman. The Questioner was moving on. That left a vacancy.

  'I'll come. I'd like to, though I only went to a few of the other meetings,' said Nazneen. An aeroplane passed overhead. She looked up. The plane climbed steadily. The higher it climbed, the deeper the sky. It rode up. And it went on. Nazneen stopped watching. She said, 'But that was before I knew what I could do.'

  She put the chocolate in the fridge, went into the sitting room and turned on the radio. The radio was tuned to one of Shahana's stations. A man sang about love and leaving, rain and tears. He sang of loss and perhaps – the words were not clear – of death. He sounded inexorably happy, bounced along by the drums and the tune. Nazneen took a pen and paper and sat down at the table. She began to sketch out a design. The sun warmed her hands. It poured into a glass of water and spilled golden rings on the dark table top.

  Razia would pay her tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go to Sonali Bank and send money to Hasina. There had been no letter from Hasina for more than two months now.

  Chanu wrote every week. Sometimes there was a gap of three weeks and then all three letters arrived at once. Then, especially then, it was easy to see that it was always the same letter that he wrote. He wrote this and that about the weather. It was hot. It was cooler now. And now very hot. He was sweating very much, or not so much. He was looking forward to the rain. He wrote about food: his breakfast, his lunch, his dinner. She knew the contents of his stomach as intimately as ever. He mentioned soap, management, strides forward, little setbacks. The Big Boss was either 'encouraging' or 'encouraging but cautious'. These lines gave little away. It was as if the censor's pen hovered over them, ready to strike out any material fact. Other aspects of his new life Chanu detailed with precision. He had embarked on an exercise regime and reported faithfully the week's programme. Twenty-five sit-ups and thirty press-ups on Monday, forty press-ups and fifty squats on Tuesday and so on. And week by week he constructed a word map of his new home. Living area twenty feet by ten feet, kitchen area six feet by four feet, nearest barber two hundred and fifty yards, nearest butcher six hundred yards, nearest bank approximately one mile. Week after week he sent the information. Everything else he kept to himself. He wrote on thick yellow paper and filled one side, right to the end. He never stopped short of the end of the page. Sometimes he reported twice on the weather, simply to fill the space.

  Once a month or so, he telephoned.

  'How are things with you? Shall I send money?'

  'No,' she said. 'We are all right.'

  'The girls are studying?'

  'Getting good marks. Shahana is starting French lesson.'

  'Well. It's all right then.'

  The line crackled conveniently. Their voices echoed down the wire. It was difficult to talk.

  One time she asked him, 'Is it how you expected? Is it what you wanted?'

  White noise filled the earpiece, like a gale caught in the telephone. Then the line cleared.

  'The English have a saying: you can't step into the same river twice. Do you know it? Do you know what it means?'

  She knew.

  Another time he calle
d and said, 'I've seen her.'

  'Hasina!'

  'The family she is with is respectable-type family. But it would be better if she had her own living accommodation.'

  'How did she seem?'

  'She seemed . . .' Chanu paused. 'Unbroken.'

  'What did she say? How did she look?'

  'We must send some money. Will you send to her?'

  The first wage that Razia paid was not much. All month they ate rice and dal, rice and dal. And at the end of the month there was five pounds left to send to Hasina. Next month there was more.

  Nazneen put down her pen. It was not working. She was not ready. She had thought it would be a matter of trying. Now she realized that the work would come later. First she had to imagine.

  A new song came on the radio.

  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeelll

  A woman's voice, half singing, half screeching.

  You know you make me wanna shout

  She went to the radio and turned it up. The singer jumped off her cliff of expectation and cavorted in an ecstatic sea.

  Nazneen moved her head to the song. Her hips went side to side. She tapped her right foot, then the other. She raised her arms and moved her chest. The music broke in waves over her entire body.

  She waved her arms, threw back her head and danced around the table. Shout! She sang along, filling her lungs from the bottom, letting it all go loose, feeling her hair shake out down her neck and around her shoulders, abandoning her feet to the rhythm, threading her hips through the air. She swooped down and tucked her sari up into the band of her underskirt. Shout!

  Nazneen put her hands on her waist and kicked her legs high. She turned and kicked, turned and kicked, jumped and kicked and her foot went over her head.

  The phone rang. Nazneen ran to the radio and switched it off.

  'Hello.' She was panting.

  'What's wrong?' It was Chanu.

  'No. Nothing. Just running for the phone.'

  'Your sister has vanished.'

  Nazneen's chest hurt. She pushed it with her hand. 'Oh, God, what has happened?'