“Wembley.”
His father looked surprised, and pleased to be surprised. Eamonn picked up a paperweight with a lion and unicorn etched on it, turned it in his hands, a little shy, all the other concerns pushed to the side as he told the man he loved most in the world about the woman he loved most in the world. Aneeka, he said. Yes, Pakistan—her mother raised in Karachi, her father a second-generation Brit whose parents were originally from Gujranwala. An orphan at the age of twelve, raised by her sister. Preston Road. Beautiful, and so smart, Dad, on a scholarship to LSE for law. Only nineteen but far more mature than that. Yes, very serious. Yeh ishq hai. His father took his hand and squeezed it when Eamonn spoke the Urdu words, beaming at his son.
“Well, if it’s love you’d better bring her around. Next Sunday?”
“There’s one thing I should warn you about. She’s a bit, well, Muslim.”
“How ‘well, Muslim,’ exactly?”
“She prays. Not five times a day, but every morning, first thing. Doesn’t drink or eat pork. She fasts during Ramzan. Wears a hijab.”
“Uh-huh. But she has no problem—” He brought the palms of his hands together and then separated them.
“What? Opening a book?”
“Sex.”
“Dad! No, she has no problem with that. There is no problem with that at all. And if you want hand gestures for sex, try one of these.”
“Those could be useful in Parliament, thank you. So, she’s no halibut. Glad to hear it.” He grinned in the way that had earned him the Wolf part of his nickname.
“You’re taking all this much better than I thought.”
“What? You think I have a problem with you dating a Muslim? I have a lot more trouble with all the double-barreled girls whose fathers don’t waste a minute telling me of their family’s long association with India—governor of this province, aide-de-camp to that viceroy. Helped quell the Mutiny. Helped quell the Mutiny! All delivered in a way that sounds perfectly polite, but everyone knows I’m being informed that my son isn’t good enough for their daughter.” Eamonn waited for the Chip to play itself out. Alice’s poor father would be mortified if he had any idea how much offense he’d caused with his “helped quell the Mutiny” line about his namesake. That’s what Alice had said, and only Hari had rolled his eyes in response, but then Hari had a little version of the Chip himself. “Anyway, if she’s only nineteen, I suspect she can be persuaded out of the hijab in time. Get your sister to take her off to the hair salon next time she comes to visit. I’m mostly joking. You know I grew up a believing Muslim. Didn’t harm anyone but myself with it.”
“I didn’t know that, actually. I mean, I knew your parents made you go to the mosque and fast and stuff, but I didn’t know you really believed.”
“No? Well, I did. That’s how I was raised. There are still moments of stress when I’ll recite Ayat al-Kursi as a kind of reflex.”
“Is that a prayer?”
“Yes. Ask your girlfriend about it. Actually, no, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention it to anyone.”
“You shouldn’t have to hide that kind of thing.”
“I’d be nervous about a home secretary who’s spoken openly about his atheism but secretly recites Muslim prayers. Wouldn’t you?”
“Do I look nervous?”
“You’ve been looking nervous throughout this conversation. Son, she’s your girlfriend. I’ll be on my best behavior, as always. What I might say when you break up is another matter.”
“There’s one other thing. There’s a boy she was close to at school. He’s gone to Syria—I don’t mean on humanitarian work.”
“Parvaiz Pasha.”
“How do you know?”
“I know all their names. Where they come from. Who they were before they went. There’s only one from Preston Road. It’s the last place in England I’d expect to find that kind of thing happening. But that one, he had exceptional circumstances. Terrorism as family trade. Illustrative of how much you need to do to root out this kind of thing. I mean, literally, grab by the very roots, and pull. Pull the children out of those environments before they’re old enough for the poison to seep in.”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“What’s not like what?”
Eamonn stood up; it was warm in here, oppressive. Already the script he’d plotted in his head was beginning to unravel by the sheer fact of his being in his father’s presence. He knows he was wrong. He was brainwashed but now he understands, and he wants to come back. He didn’t take part in the fighting, never actively recruited anyone. He’s only nineteen. No reason to ruin his life over this. His name has never been in the papers, you can make it stay that way. He just needs a new passport, and to slip quietly back into the country without any charges against him. His friends all think he’s been in Pakistan this whole time; no one will ever know. It’s best for everyone—imagine the media storm if anyone finds out your son is planning to marry the sister of a boy who went to Raqqa. You’d never survive it.
Trust me, he’d said to Aneeka. I know my father. I know how to spin it so he’ll agree. But that wasn’t spin, it was a threat. How could he possibly do that to this man who had always offered him the most unconditional of loves? And why was his father looking at him so strangely, as if he knew his son had come here with betrayal in his heart?
“Orphaned at the age of twelve, and raised by her sister?”
“Yes.”
“Just like Parvaiz Pasha.”
“All right, yes. She’s his twin.”
“Eamonn!” His father caught hold of him around the neck, half headlock, half embrace. “You stupid, stupid boy. My stupid boy.”
Jaan, she had called him, kissing his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks, his nose, when he’d said he would speak to his father. Jaan, my life. A word his father was now saying as he held his son. And just as suddenly, Karamat Lone disengaged, stepped back, and wiped a hand across his face. Where there’d been a father, now there was a home secretary.
“You will have no more contact with this girl. I’m setting up a security detail for you.”
“Dad! Look, just, meet her. All right? I’ll bring her over. Tonight, this evening, and . . . what’s so funny?”
“All this security around the house, and the nexus of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State is just going to waltz in on the arm of my son.”
“Don’t you ever refer to her in that way again. She’s the woman I’m going to marry.”
Nothing moved in his father’s face. “Stay here.”
“Or what, you’ll arrest me?” But the home secretary was gone before the end of the sentence, door slamming behind him.
Eamonn sat down in his father’s chair, looked at the computer screen, which asked for a password. Riffled through the file of news clippings from this morning’s papers. Wished he hadn’t left his phone in his jacket—Aneeka was at his flat, waiting for him to call and tell her what had happened. She’d finally given him her number, but he hadn’t thought to memorize it. If only he hadn’t laughed off the suggestion when his mother said he should have a landline.
I could just leave, he kept telling himself. I could at least go up and eat something.
He had a small moment of satisfaction when he realized he could use his father’s phone to call directory assistance and ask for the Rahimis’ number.
“It’s Eamonn,” he said, his voice fissured, when Mrs. Rahimi answered. “Could you please do me a vast favor? There’s a friend of mine upstairs, in my flat. Would you call her down. I really have to speak to her.”
“The beautiful one in the hijab, you mean? I’m sorry, she just left. Almost knocked me over as I was taking the rubbish out. She seemed in a great hurry. Are you all right?”
He walked over to the sofa and lay down on it, curled up like an animal protecting its soft parts. A few minutes later, his
mother entered the study and sat down beside him. No, she wouldn’t bring him his phone. No, he really should just stay in here until his father said otherwise. She told him to close his eyes, and stroked his back until he fell asleep. When he woke up, feeling he’d slept a long time, his father was sitting at his desk, watching him.
“My fault,” his father said. Eamonn sat up, rubbed his hands across his eyes, tried to understand what that meant.
“My fault,” his father repeated sadly. “I say it’s your mother’s doing, but I’m the one who never wanted you to know what it feels like to have doors closed in your face. To have to fight your way in. I didn’t think it would make you so sure of yourself, so entitled, that you wouldn’t stop to ask why a girl like that would have time for a public-school boy who lives off his mother because he can and has no ambition beyond beating his own high score in computer games.”
“What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything. The officers who were called in when her brother left were concerned about her. They said she was clearly shocked by what he had done, but seemed more upset about being kept in the dark than the fact of his going. They thought she might be at risk of trying to join him. So there’ve been some people keeping an eye on her, for her own safety. But apparently there’ve been no phone calls, no texts, no communication of any kind that could be intercepted to suggest she was in touch with my son. Nothing to set off alarm bells. Which sets off alarm bells. And now, this.” He placed Eamonn’s phone on the desk. “Twenty-three missed calls from Aneeka Pasha.”
Eamonn stood up. “Something’s wrong.”
“On that, at least, we agree.”
Parvaiz
5
THE TWO MEN WALKED into the electronics store in Istanbul with near-identical attitudes of ownership, though their South Asian features marked them as foreign. Their white robes, shoulder-length hair, and long beards further distinguished them as men whose attitude of ownership you don’t contest. The younger of the two walked over to the wall of mics and scanned the empty display boxes. His companion leaned against the counter behind which the shopkeeper was standing and flipped his phone from hand to hand while looking at the other customers. They filed out quickly in response, leaving the two men and the shopkeeper alone in the cavernous store.
“Look at all this!” the younger man said. “The RØDE SVMX. The Sennheiser MKH 8040. The Neumann U 87.”
“Uh-huh. Just get what Abu Raees asked for, and let’s go. I’m starving.”
The shopkeeper reached beneath the counter and pulled out a box. “The Sound Devices 788T. Didn’t Abu Raees receive my message? I’ve had it for over two weeks.”
“Should I tell Abu Raees he needs to dance in Raqqa when you snap your fingers in Istanbul?” The older man turned his muscular bulk toward the shopkeeper, who paled and started to stammer an apology that was cut short by the younger man’s whoop of delight as he took the box containing the 788T into his hands, testing the weight of it.
“Sorry, Farooq. This will be a while. Abu Raees said I should try out some different mic combos with this to see which works best.” He walked back to the wall of mics and started to pull empty boxes off the shelves, tossing them back toward the shopkeeper, who cried out, “Just tell me which ones you want! You’re ruining my display.”
Farooq made a noise of disgust. “I’m going to that café on the corner. You have half an hour before we go to the airport.”
“Okay. Pick up some takeaway for the new recruits. You didn’t give me anything to eat for hours after I arrived.”
Farooq grinned. “What a baby you were, Parvaiz—afraid to ask for a slice of bread.”
“I’m not Parvaiz anymore.”
“Ma’ashallah,” said the older man, his voice tinged with irony.
“Ma’ashallah,” said the younger one, placing his hand on his heart.
||||||||||||||||||
His journey to the electronics store in Istanbul had started the night last autumn when Isma walked into the kitchen and said she was going to America and so it was time for all three of them to leave their home.
Nothing in the early part of that evening had suggested what it would become. It was just a few weeks after Aneeka had started university, and Parvaiz hadn’t, but already the old routines of their lives had become a thing of the past, so there was a feeling of celebration about Aneeka being home to cook dinner for the first time that week, consulting the grease-stained recipe book with her usual intensity of concentration, as though a recipe might have changed between the forty-ninth time she followed it and the fiftieth. Parvaiz was sous-chef, cutting onions with his swimming goggles on to prevent tears. The playlist compiled by their guitarist cousin in Karachi streamed through the speakers—chimta and bass guitar, dholak and drums; overlaid onto it, the sound of Parvaiz’s knife cutting through the yielding onions, hitting the hardness of the board beneath; two slim bracelets on Aneeka’s wrist clinking together as she measured out ingredients; low hum from the refrigerator; a train pulling into Preston Road station almost precisely at the same moment another train pulled out; the banter of twins. Tonight’s version centered around Aneeka pretending to craft Parvaiz’s profile for an Asian marriage site: Handsome Londoner who loves his sister that sounds incestuous ugly Londoner who loves his sister that sounds desperate handsome Londoner with strong family ties why do you have to be in the first sentence how about broodingly handsome Londoner with no, broodingly handsome is a euphemism for dark-skinned how is it that Heathcliff he was also violent and a bit mad yes but know your audience, dark-skinned is the real problem.
Isma walked into all this, preceded by the smell of dry-cleaning solvent, and said, “A total lack of career prospects is the real problem.” Parvaiz pushed the chopping board to a side, took off the goggles, and picked up his phone, its screen without message notifications from Preston Road friends, now scattered emotionally and geographically by the demands of post-school life. “Turn the volume down and listen to me,” Isma said. She had a serious look about her that made him do as she asked even though ordinarily he would have turned the volume up in response. Aneeka saw it too, and reached out to put a hand on their sister’s wrist: “Tell us,” she said.
Isma had been issued her visa for America. She would leave for Massachusetts in mid-January. She announced all this in the way another woman would have announced an engagement—proud, shy, worried about her family’s reaction to news no one had anticipated.
Aneeka stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. “We’ll miss you, but we’re so pleased for you. And proud of you. Isn’t that right, P?”
“America,” Parvaiz said. The word felt strange in his mouth. “They really gave you the visa?”
“I know, I didn’t think they would either.”
When she’d first come to the twins to discuss the letter Dr. Shah had written to her, with its suggestion—almost a command—that she apply for the PhD program, Parvaiz had said, “What’s the point?” And Isma had immediately agreed yes, he was right. Neither Parvaiz nor Isma had come right out and actually said it was the unlikelihood of a visa that made the whole thing futile, but they all recognized well enough when their father was subtext to a conversation. Still, Aneeka was adamant that she apply. “Sometimes the world surprises you,” she said, “and more to the point, if you don’t even try, you’ll always wonder what might have happened.” After enough of Aneeka’s badgering, Isma finally said that it would seem ungrateful to Dr. Shah if she didn’t at least try. She clearly had a greater capacity for hurling herself at disappointment than he’d known, Parvaiz had thought at the time with both irritation and regret.
“So,” Aneeka said. “What are we going to do about the house?”
Parvaiz shoved his twin’s shoulder. “I’m getting her bedroom. I need a studio, and you’re not around nearly as much as I am anymore.”
The sisters looked a
t each other and back at him. Isma said a number. It was the household’s monthly expenditure. She invoked this number every time she wanted to remind Parvaiz that his earnings as a greengrocer’s assistant were insufficient, that the time he spent building up his sound reel rather than chasing after job postings was wasteful. She didn’t believe he was good enough to find work doing what he loved, didn’t see that his sound reel was as much an investment in the future as Aneeka’s law degree was. She doesn’t think our lives allow for dreaming, Aneeka had said, in a way that rang as both indictment of and justification for Isma’s position.
They’d been all right so far, Isma continued. But in America she would have only enough from the university to sustain herself, just as Aneeka had only enough from her scholarship for the most basic living expenses. The mortgage alone would become impossible.
“Don’t go, then,” he said. Aneeka threw a cube of potato at him, and he head-butted it back at her—reflex rather than play.
Isma opened the crockery cupboard and started unloading plates and glasses for dinner. She’d just stopped in across the road, she said; Aunty Naseem was getting older, she needed help around the house, and even though her daughters and grandchildren were often around to help out, she was struggling to keep up. Some extra hands about the place would be a huge assistance. That’s how Aunty Naseem had presented the option.
“What option?” said Parvaiz.
“We’ll move in with Aunty Naseem, and sell the house.” Aneeka said this as if it were a matter as small as buying a new set of towels. Now it was Isma who looked stricken; she said she was only thinking they’d rent it out. With the new French school opening in Wembley the following year, property values were going to go up and up, so it would be foolish to sell now. And anyway, in a few years, when she had her PhD and Aneeka was a lawyer, they’d be able to move back in. Ordinarily, Parvaiz would have felt the blade of being omitted from the conversation. But just then Aneeka shrugged in response, and he experienced one of those terrifying moments in which a person you thought you knew reveals a new aspect of their character that has taken hold while you weren’t looking.
Home Fire Page 10
