Zareen chose the flowers herself. Pink ones because her niece loved pink. And white Michaelmas daisies because in summer she and Amna had made daisy chains in the park. They had taken photos of each other wrapped in garlands and with daisies in their hair. Carefully she wrapped the flowers in a cerise ribbon and took them to the end of Magnolia Street. She felt heavy and sad, even sadder when she realised the ribbon was frayed and torn. The perfect bouquet was suddenly imperfect and she took the ribbon off and threw it on the ground. Then she arranged the flowers and laid them down in the shape of an A. She felt the breath of the wind and gasped. What if the wind took the flowers away? But the wind blew her hair and the flowers remained still. Zareen saw the turrets of the mosque towering over the houses and looked up. The rain was on its way.
She thought about her house. At number one Magnolia Street the kitchen was full of crying women and everyone except her sister Sajida was weeping and wailing. Sajida simply stared at nothing in particular. People said she was in shock and that losing a child could do that but Zareen understood. Sajida didn’t want to speak. Her grief was too impossible to describe. Zareen thought about it, about describing loss in Urdu, Punjabi and then English. But, no, it was impossible in any language.
It was his blue top that she saw first, bright cerulean blue with toggles and a hood. The man was reading the cards at the side of the road, only it was strange because he was reading the messages aloud in a strange foreign accent. He wore jeans and a denim jacket with badges on the arms. The jacket looked too small over the sweatshirt. She could see he was young and his cheeks were reddened from the cold. He saw her looking and stopped speaking.
She raised her hand as if to wave and then felt stupid and buried the same hand deep in her pocket.
‘You know girl?’ Nikolae blurted, advancing towards her. He hadn’t meant to say the words. They just tumbled out. ‘Girl,’ he repeated, suddenly conscious of his own voice and he felt disrespectful for even mentioning her. He couldn’t say the name and looked down at his dirty trainers.
‘My niece,’ the girl replied.
Nikolae didn’t understand and tilted his head as if he had missed the words.
‘My sister’s daughter.’
The girl seemed tearful and her voice broke away as she spoke.
‘Sorry,’ Nikolae mumbled, inspecting her face. ‘Sorry.’
‘So many people have brought flowers. Amna loved flowers.’ She tried not to cry and pulled a strand of black hair away from her face. He noticed the way her hair glinted red when she turned, how it waved and curled around her shoulders.
Nikolae bit his lip and looked down again. ‘Where you live?’ he asked. He saw she was wearing jeans and some kind of Asian top, or was it a dress, he couldn’t tell. It was turquoise, embroidered with pink flowers on the hem and she had no coat. He removed his denim jacket. ‘Here.Take. Cold.’
She shook her head and pointed. ‘No, thanks. I live down the road.’
‘Down the road,’ Nikolae repeated. He tucked the jacket under his arm. He wondered if she could read the guilt on his face. He wondered if he looked different. He hadn’t slept.
‘Yes. Number one.’
‘I live number one.’
For a moment she looked puzzled and then she smiled. ‘Where are you from?’
‘My name Nikolae. From Romania.’
‘My name IS Zareen.’
‘Ah, IS. I forget the English word.’ He hesitated. ‘Number One Henn-i-ker.’
They stood facing each other. ‘I live above the shop,’ Zareen said. ‘Magnolia Street Store. CORNER SHOP.’
Nikolae nodded. ‘Yes, yes, yes. I understand. You live in shop.’
‘I better go,’ she said and her eyes were watery with rain and tears.
‘Bye. Bye.’ Nikolae swayed a little, feeling uncomfortable. He watched her walk down the street. She was slim and she walked with an air of confidence, not with her head down like other women. Now that she had gone his mood darkened. He spotted the flowers beneath his feet. Next to the flowers was a card decorated with felt and a message written in gold foreign script. He checked no one was around and opened the card. Inside was a photo of Zareen with her arm around a small girl. Amna. Now he had seen the girl’s face that was it. He sat in the road and wept until his chest ached. He thought of the photo fading and curling in the rain, the face of Amna being washed away. And then there was Zareen smiling in the sun. He picked the glue at the photo corner and pulled it free. He couldn’t explain why he took it. It was instinct. Like a jackdaw is drawn to shiny silver, all he knew was that he had to have it.
Chapter Three
WHEN SHAHEEN AHMED announced that her washing machine had been stolen the bad news travelled fast. The theft had occurred on the same night Amna was killed. On hearing this news Bilal Khan clutched his chest and began to pray.
‘It’s the bastard Romanians,’ his son Mohammed said. ‘Selling metal’.
‘Stop this,’ Bilal said, tears streaming down his face.
‘These Romanians destroy this family,’ Mohammed called. ‘I know it. These people are scum. They did this. I know it. Stealing metal from us again.’
His father gestured for him to be quiet. ‘Don’t Mohammed. This family can’t take any more bad things. Sajida is in a state. We all are. For us, for the family’s sake, you must stop these words. I don’t want to hear this anger, this blame.’
Zareen stood in the doorway and observed her father’s tiny frame. The death of his grand-daughter had shrunk him, made his voice smaller. There were deep rings around his eyes and for the first time in twenty years the shop was closed.
Mohammed glared at her. ‘We have to do something. Not just sit here and take what they dish out.’ He held up a photo of Amna. ‘Look at her! What are we going to do? What! Nothing?’
‘We don’t know what happened. We don’t know it was the Romanians…’ Zareen’s voice was drowned out by the sound of her brother and father’s shouts. Mohammed pushed past her and slammed the door so hard it bounced open again.
‘Bad tempered,’ Zareen said. ‘He’s always so bad tempered. Acting like he’s ten. He’s nineteen. He shouldn’t be acting like this. He needs a job. Every night he’s hanging around with Hassan and those junkies.’ Her father slumped down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands. Defeated. That was the only word for it. The whole family had changed. Life had changed. All the time her mother sat in the corner of the room sewing a bedcover she had inherited from her grandmother.
‘Come and sew with me,’ she said, her voice calm as a stream. Zareen sat on a small velvet stool. ‘I am so bad at sewing.’ Her mother patted her head. ‘Just watch. One day when you are married and have children of your own, you will need to sew.’
Stitched from the clothes of her grandparents and ancestors whose names had long been forgotten, Zareen looked closely at the blanket. Little patches of fabric held together with gold thread. The blanket was a kaleidoscope of colour. Only the middle of the blanket was sewn in black. The story goes that one grandmother couldn’t afford the thread and sewed the blanket with her own hair instead.
Zareen saw her mother sewing a pink square. Her mother looked up and smiled. ‘Amna’s dress’, she whispered. Zareen knew how important the blanket was. It meant everyone was together forever. Her mother wrapped their knees in the memory blanket and continued to sew.
‘The blanket grows because life doesn’t stop,’ she said, pulling out another needle from a wooden sewing box that unfolded wide, revealing lots of compartments and draws you could take out. Inside was a treasure of thimbles and threads. Watching the rhythm of the needle effortlessly waving through the fabric was like watching water loop round and round, thread filling every gap. Zareen felt sleepy. She took a patch of red silk from the box. ‘Where’s this from?’
Her mother’s face was suddenly filled with life. ‘My si
ster’s wedding. It was a cushion, once. I remember that day so well. Such a fine wedding. I sewed so many sequins, my hands ached. Hundreds of sequins sparkling in the sun. Every little sequin knotted and tied. And so much gold. Auntie, Nazish. She wore so much gold. She looked a vision, so beautiful.’
For a moment her mother stopped sewing. She saw her husband was asleep. The row with Mohammed had exhausted him.
‘Your father tired.’ She hesitated, knowing that what she was about to say would not be welcomed by Zareen. Zareen noticed her gulp and swallow her words. Then she said it, the words Zareen never wanted to hear. These words were fired like bullets. ‘We have been thinking. It is time.’
Zareen shook her head. Instantly she knew what was meant. She spoke quietly so as not to wake her father and softly so as not to annoy her mother. ‘This is why you are telling me about weddings.’ She gently tugged the blanket from her knees. ‘Please, I’m not ready. I want to go to university. You both know I want to go to University. I have a uni place. I don’t want to be married.’
Marika Khan continued to sew the lives of her family together. ‘Listen to your father, Zareen. This will make him happy. Hasn’t this family had enough unhappiness?’
While her mother snapped thread with her teeth Zareen thought about a life of being married. It had happened already to some of her friends. Some had welcomed marriage and in the high street she saw them shopping with their husbands, pushing prams with smiling children. Others had not found a match made in heaven and it showed in their silence and their empty eyes. One had run away to Manchester, afraid for her life. Her friends had secretly given her the number of a charity. Her family told everyone she was dead. No one spoke of her again.
Zareen considered all these possibilities. ‘Can’t I wait until after university?’
‘No,’ her mother said. ‘It is best for everyone. This family needs some good news.’
She didn’t say it, but she wanted to. This was not good news. It was the end of her dreams and her life as she knew it. She stood up and looked around the room. Being married would mean leaving the house, leaving college, leaving her mother.
‘Please mum, please. Just let me wait three years. Just let me do my degree.’
Marika did not speak. She turned away because that was all that she could do.
Mohammed waited at the bus stop with his friend Hassan and a group of elderly women. Every now and then he kicked the plastic shelter until it shook and vibrated. Sensing the tension a woman who had been sitting on a flip down seat moved away
‘I know it has something to do with them fucking Romanians. My niece is dead because of them greedy bastards.’
Mohammed’s voice was frantic. Hassan agreed. The women looked at the two teenagers.
‘How much you got?’ Hassan looked down at Mohammed’s white trainers. ‘I just see a pair of white trainers coming, man. You are just one enormous pair of fucking trainers.’
‘I got twenty quid. That’s all. Stop trying to sound gangster.’
Hassan laughed. ‘Your legs look like sticks, man, like you gonna snap.’
‘Fuck off, loser. Your trainers is shite.’
Mohammed saw the women looking again and spoke loudly. ‘Oh Jeez. Manchester gonna be full of old women, innit.’
The bus turned into the station and one woman pulled a face as Mohammed took the only seat next to her.
‘Hassan!’ he called. ‘She thinks I’m a terrorist.’ Hassan giggled.
‘Don’t worry. love,’ Mohammed said, leaning in towards the woman’s shoulder. ‘Just because I’m called Mohammed don’t mean I’m a suicide bomber, either.’
The woman looked out the window.
Mohammed was clearly amused. ‘Hassan, she likes younger men. I can tell.’
The bus driver walked down the bus aisle, his eyes wide and bulging. ‘You two off!’
‘Oh, shit!’ Mohammed nearly choked.
‘I know your mother and father,’ the driver said. ‘They have enough trouble going on. What you doing?’
‘Going to kick some shit out of some Romanians,’ Hassan said.
‘I call the police,’ the driver said, or your father. ‘Off, now, the pair of you!’
‘It’s a joke!’ Mohammed protested. ‘It was a joke.’
‘Not on my bus. Now piss off!’
The two boys made their way to the park and tossed a split football in the air.
‘Henniker Road,’ Hassan suddenly announced.
‘That’s where them Romanians all live.’
Chapter Four
NIKOLAE SAT IN the house in Henniker Road looking at the photo of Zareen and the girl Amna. The others were out. He wasn’t sure how many hours he had been studying the picture, he had lost track of time. He tucked the photo under the mattress and cursed in Romanian. How had he not seen the girl that night? How had he not heard her? Surely she must have screamed. Dragos was still out chasing metal and childrens’ bikes. Nikolae thought of the children coming out into their yards to find their bikes gone. It was wrong. He laughed at himself, at the irony of him judging Dragos, after what he’d done to the girl. He thought of going to the police. Confess was the English word. Nikolae found it in his dictionary and repeated the word over and over. Confessing sounded like a religious word. ‘Confess to God,’ Dragos said that morning. ‘If you must confess, confess to God. Not the police.’ Dragos looked grey with worry. ‘Confess and you will be in jail.’
‘Better to be in jail than hell, Nikolae had replied.’ Sleep was a distant memory. Instead his nights were full of terrible visions. Just last night he swore he saw the dead girl at the end of his bed. Then again, she appeared in the bathroom mirror.
He told Dragos about these sightings, the terrible dreams. ‘Do you believe in ghosts? This girl is haunting me.’
Dragos was flippant about such things. ‘People who are strong don’t see ghosts of the past.’
‘You never saw my mother?’ Nikolae reminded him. ‘Not in those days after she died, because I did. Every day I saw her. Even now I see her. How can you forget so easily?’
‘Grief is for the weak,’ Dragos said, blocking out his wife’s face. ‘This is not a movie. This is real life. You been watching too many horror films.’
Even getting in the truck caused Nikolae to sweat and tremble. He was suddenly aware of the size of the wheels. When he saw a child in the street he wondered about their age. How tall was a six-year-old? How much did an average six-year-old weigh? How much did the truck weigh? Dragos was more concerned with the weight of the metal in the back of the truck.
The next day Dragos convinced Nikolae to go on the metal rounds. They stopped at a nearby shop for drinks and food. The shop was on the corner and was fronted by a large green canopy that billowed out like a lady’s skirt. There were posters and leaflets in the glass door, adverts for old cars and a guitar. In Romania Nikolae played the guitar and sang with his cousins in the streets. He wondered about buying the instrument and tapped the number into his phone. Inside, the shop was cramped and he headed to the fridge at the far end, past bulging shelves with bread and rice, plastic packets stacked high. In the distance he could hear Asian music, the sound of a woman singing a sentimental song. The shop was filled with the smell of cooking and spices and he was reminded of the time his grandmother had made him bread with cinnamon. For a moment he was in his grandmother’s kitchen, kneading dough, chasing chickens from under the table. He saw himself as a small boy, curly blonde hair, running through the door of the wooden house outside Bucharest. And then he thought of a small girl, her plait swinging and her eyes fixed on a red ball. She was skipping down the street like children do and the ball was spinning in the air. She reached out to touch it. She was almost there.
‘Nikolae.’
He turned to find Zareen smiling at him from behind the counter. Today her hair was tied
back and he could see her face clearly. He stood with a bottle of water in his hand and fumbled in his pocket for change.
‘How are you?’ Zareen was asking. He pushed his hair back from his face. It was lighter than Zareen remembered. Under the flickering shop light she inspected his face. She couldn’t decide if his eyes were grey or blue.
‘I need choclat for my father. Outside. What time you finish?’
Zareen laughed at his abrupt manner. ‘Shush.’ She pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Quiet. I don’t want my father to hear.’ She looked towards the door at the back of the shop. ‘Meet me in the park in twenty minutes.’
Nikolae looked at his watch. He returned to the truck, handed over the chocolate and told Dragos he felt sick. It was true. Ever since that night in Magnolia Street he had felt ill. He made excuses, said he’d walk home. Outside on the path it occurred to him that he didn’t know the park. And so he waited on the street corner and when Zareen came out he chased after her. ‘Where the park?’ he said his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets. Zareen laughed. ‘Follow me,’ she said, wondering if the Romanian was playing with her.
Precious Metal Page 2
