East of Wimbledon

by Nigel Williams

  ‘I will come into my kingdom on the Day of False Resurrection,’ Hasan used to say, when Robert was trying to get him to brush his teeth, ‘which is the eighth of August. The day when Hasan the Second betrayed The Law!’

  As Bernard Lewis had put it:

  On the 17th day of the month of Ramadan, the anniversary of the murder of Ali, in the year 559 (8th August 1164) under the ascendancy of Virgo and when the sun was in Cancer, Hasan ordered the erection of a pulpit in the courtyard of Alamut, facing towards the west, with four great banners of four colours, white, red, yellow and green, at the four corners. As the pulpit faced west, the congregation had their backs towards Mecca.

  He wished he didn’t know these things. He wished he’d stuck to Marwan Ibrahim Al-Kaysi. You knew where you were with Marwan. ‘ When putting on shoes they should be checked to make sure no harmful insect has hidden in them during the night.’ That was fair enough. But the true history of the Lord Hasan – Hasan the Second, on his name be peace – was mind-boggling stuff.

  If he had had any decency he would have talked to Mr Malik about what was going to happen. He would have warned him. He was the only one to know that today was the day when Hasan was going to wreak his revenge. He was the only one to know the whole story. But neither he nor Maisie, as far as he knew, had spoken of what had happened at Hasan’s Occultation.

  ‘Come along, Wilson!’ boomed Mr Malik’s voice from the next gallery – ‘you’ll miss the fun! Bring young Hasan along!’

  The headmaster stepped out of the gallery with a couple of the older boys. Beyond him, Robert could see Maisie and Rafiq. Rafiq! The man Malik trusted! The man he thought of as his oldest friend! Malik was simply too trusting. You simply could not afford to trust anyone – especially where religion was concerned.

  Robert had tried to open up the subject of Hasan several times, but Mr Malik seemed far less concerned about him than he had been. ‘What people believe,’ he had told Robert, ‘is their own affair. But I have ways of dealing with unbrotherly conduct!’

  He was whistling to keep up his spirits, that was all, Robert said to himself as the boys clattered after him. He had been nervous enough when the name of the Twenty-fourthers was first mentioned. Down below, in the gallery below him and Hasan, the Husayn twins and Khan were dancing round a case stuffed with priceless porcelain. ‘Shake de belly!’ called Khan in a mock African accent. ‘Break de glass and shake de belly!’ A man in a blue uniform was walking over towards them. Robert waved them on, and they scampered after the rest of the class.

  ‘Do you know why we destroyed Hasan the Second?’ said Hasan, in a conversational tone, as the two of them followed the headmaster and the rest of the school. Robert knew, but he wasn’t going to give Hasan the satisfaction of knowing that he knew. The trouble with this Islamic history was that, like the Western version, you got involved in it.

  ‘We destroyed him because he betrayed The Law!’ said Hasan, in the kind of voice that suggested Hasan the Second, the Twenty-third Imam of the Nizari Ismailis, had only just popped out of the room for a cup of coffee instead of being stabbed nearly a thousand years ago.

  The Twenty-fourther beliefs were not simply rumours from the dawn of time: they came, like the Dharjees themselves, out of real history. That was the frightening thing about them.

  Towards noon, the Lord Hasan 2nd, on whose name be peace, wearing a white garment and a white turban, came down from the castle, approached the pulpit from the right side and in the most perfect manner ascended it. Addressing himself to the inhabitants of the world, jinn, men and angels, he said, ‘The Imam of our time has sent you his blessing and his compassion and has called you to be his special, chosen servants. He has freed you from the burden of the rules of Holy Law.’

  They had had a banquet in the middle of the fast. In the middle of Ramadan. And they had drunk wine on the very steps of the pulpit and its precincts. They had flouted the shariah, the fundamental law of Islam. That was what this argument was about, even now in the 1990s in Wimbledon. How closely should one follow The Law?

  ‘Come and look at this!’ shouted Malik. ‘There’s a bloke in here with nine arms! Can you beat that?’ He indicated a large Hindu carving, and the boys swarmed round it. The headmaster was clearly about to give one of his informal talks.

  He had to get out, Robert thought. There was nothing else for it. He had to make a dignified and orderly retreat. Put himself out of the reach of Dr Ali, the Twenty-fourthers and everything else in the school. He was simply going to have to leave Islam, the way his father had left the Rotary club. You were allowed to leave, weren’t you? It wasn’t the British Army. He was going to ask nicely.

  ‘And so,’ Mr Malik was saying, ‘we observe the accumulation of gods, very much as one saw in pre-Islamic Medina. The process of monotheistic religions can be seen as the beginning of the rational approach to the world!’

  It wasn’t going to be easy. He had already offered his resignation, twice, and Mr Malik had simply ignored it. When he had tried a third time, the headmaster had made some slightly menacing remarks about brotherhood and commitment.

  ‘And yet,’ went on Malik, ‘the holistic nature of the Hindu world-picture still has much to teach us. Religions, like arts and sciences, must learn from each other, and toleration, which is an essential part of Islam, must be studied, worked at, not simply mentioned as a piety.’

  This was well over the heads of his audience. Khan and the Husayn twins were making offensive gargling noises while dancing round a statue that looked to Robert as if it might be the Lord Vishnu; behind them, Mahmud did his Native American impression.

  To his relief, the headmaster walked on. Maisie walked ahead, a little behind Rafiq. There was now almost nothing flagrantly alien about her, apart from her headscarf. And yet, paradoxically, she was, to Robert, more and more remote, more and more genuinely Islamic. Mr Malik had got to her in her most vulnerable area – the brain.

  ‘I have a problem, Headmaster!’ Robert said, as they walked through the gallery.

  Malik clapped him on the back. Rafiq took Hasan by the hand, and, with a sly look at Robert, joined Maisie.

  ‘You want money, my dear Wilson?’ Malik said.

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Robert. ‘I don’t think I . . . belong at the school any more.’

  The headmaster stopped. He seemed distressed.

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘I’m having . . . doubts!’ said Robert.

  Boys flowed past them and on into the next gallery. Malik seemed puzzled now, rather than distressed.

  ‘Doubts about what, Wilson?’

  ‘Doubts about . . . you know . . . Allah.’

  Mr Malik chewed reflectively.

  ‘What kind of doubts?’

  ‘Well,’ said Robert, ‘I’m not sure if he’s there.’

  The headmaster started to move again. They were some way behind the rest of the school, but he did not seem in any hurry to catch them up. ‘I think, Wilson,’ he said at last, ‘that you may rest assured that he is there. I don’t think there is any doubt about that.’

  ‘For you perhaps, headmaster,’ said Robert, ‘but, you see, while I’m sure he may be there, I’m not absolutely sure he is, if you see what I mean.’

  They had somehow come into a gallery full of erotic Indian sculptures. In the far corner, the Husayn twins appeared to be trying to lift one of them off its pedestal. Mr Malik walked swiftly over to them and aimed a shrewd blow at their ears. They scuttled off after the other boys.

  ‘You must simply ignore these doubts, Wilson!’ said Malik.

  ‘But I’m getting doubts about more and more things,’ replied his junior master. ‘I’m having doubts about Muhammad, for example.’

  Mr Malik’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘What kind of doubts?’

  ‘You know,’ said Robert – ‘did he exist?’

  This seemed to puzzle the headmaster. ‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about that,’ said Mr Malik
– ‘the man conquered half the Near East!’

  ‘Did he?’ said Robert.

  If the headmaster was surprised by Robert’s vagueness on the most basic details of Islamic history, he did not show it.

  ‘I mean,’ went on Robert, ‘we can’t be sure, can we? I mean, we only have his word for it, don’t we? And other people who were all friends of his. It could be a sort of . . . conspiracy.’

  Mr Malik was giving him some very odd looks. He clasped both hands behind his back and wandered over to a bench. In the next gallery, Maisie was gathering the boys around her. Rafiq was nowhere to be seen. Robert was fairly sure he was making headway.

  ‘And even if he did exist,’ he went on, ‘I’m not sure he was a terribly nice person.’

  ‘What,’ said Malik, ‘has being nice got to do with anything? Who said Jesus was a nice person?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Robert, deciding to get to the point, ‘that I am a Muslim. I may be a Catholic.’

  Mr Malik put his arm round Robert, as the two sat together on the bench. Was this the treatment he gave Maisie in the La Paesana restaurant, Mitcham?

  ‘You cannot be a Muslim and a Catholic at the same time,’ said the headmaster. ‘It is just not possible. Although the principle of taqiyah – dissimulation – does make it perfectly possible for a Muslim to pretend to assume a religion to which he does not really belong. When faced by a Mongol horde, for example.’

  This sounded promising. Was the converse also possible? Did it apply to agnostics faced by Islamic hordes? Robert was almost on the edge of confessing everything, when the headmaster gave him a brotherly squeeze.

  ‘Hasan the Second,’ said Robert, ‘was a strange leader of the Nizari Ismailis in the twelfth century. And he was stabbed by his brother-in-law, Hasan b. Namawar, because he had said the Ismailis were no longer bound by Islamic law!’

  Mr Malik grinned. ‘And the Twenty-fourthers believe,’ he said, ‘that Hasan b. Namawar’s son was hidden and is the true Twenty-fourth Imam of the Nizari Ismailis. And that he will return with hell-fire on the appointed day.’

  ‘Which is,’ said Robert, ‘as it happens, today!’

  ‘Indeed!’ said Mr Malik, grinning.

  He seemed positively cheerful about this. Perhaps the school was not the financial success that everyone seemed to think. It seemed impossible to convince him that anyone was in any danger. Robert would have to hit him with something a bit more serious than doubts. This situation called for a full-scale nervous breakdown.

  ‘Actually, Headmaster,’ he said, ‘it’s not just about Allah and Muhammad. I’m having doubts about everything. I’m having doubts about you.’

  Malik grinned. ‘I’m afraid I do exist,’ he said, clapping Robert on the back. ‘I am too, too solid flesh, my friend. There is a whole department of the Inland Revenue dedicated to proving that I exist.’

  ‘What I mean,’ said Robert, feeling a direct approach was required, ‘is that I think I am having a nervous breakdown.’

  The headmaster got up and started towards the next gallery. He did not seem very worried by this. ‘I know,’ he said, waving his arms expansively. ‘I get nervous breakdowns. I get them all the time. All the damn time! I have nervous breakdowns every time I see the Husayn twins!’

  They had come into a gallery at the centre of which was a large glass case, round which the boys – apart from Khan and the Husayns – were crowded. The Husayns seemed to have got hold of a piece of pottery and were trying to stuff it under Khan’s coat. Malik ignored them.

  ‘I mean,’ said Robert, feeling he was not making the impression required, ‘I think I may be Napoleon!’

  19

  Maisie overheard this remark. ‘What do you mean,’ she said, ‘you think you’re Napoleon?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Robert, ‘I may be Napoleon.’

  Rafiq grinned. He was standing a little away from the rest of the group, holding Hasan’s hand in his. ‘As opposed to Yusuf Khan!’ he said. He was always being satirical about Robert’s name.

  ‘I don’t know who I am,’ said Robert – ‘that’s the point I’m making. Am I Robert Wilson? Am I Yusuf Khan? Am I Seamus O’Reilly? Am I Napoleon? You know?’

  Rafiq folded his arms. He turned to Malik with a satisfied expression, as if to say this is what comes of hiring infidels – even reformed ones. ‘And who are you now, Yusuf?’ he said.

  Robert looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I really don’t know who I am or what I’m doing here,’ he said.

  He managed to put a lot of conviction into this. It was probably the truest thing he had said so far that morning. Now might be the time to follow it up with a few troop directions in fluent French. He could dribble a bit. Even roll around on the floor. There was, he found, a tremendous sense of relief in being able to talk like this. Perhaps he could give them a bit of something Shakespearian. ‘Faith my lords – how many crows may nest in a grocer’s jerkin?’ And then, soon, an ambulance would come. It would take him away to a nice, warm mental hospital, where nice men would inject large quantities of Largactil up his bum. That was absolutely what he needed.

  ‘Take it from me, Wilson,’ said the headmaster, ‘you are nothing like Napoleon. I have never met anyone less like Napoleon. You are Robert Wilson, a.k.a. Yusuf Khan, and you are a vital part of the creative team helming the Wimbledon Boys’ Day Independent Islamic School.’

  It was hopeless. The man would simply not take no for an answer. He was clearly prepared to continue employing Robert under almost any circumstances. What did he have to do to escape?

  Malik walked over to the glass case. The boys parted, and Robert saw that it contained a villainous-looking man of about four foot in height. He was preserved in some kind of fluid, like an olive or a pickled onion, and had a baffled look about him. He looked more like an ape than a human.

  ‘He was preserved in a bog, sir,’ Sheikh was saying. ‘Apparently he’s a Druid!’

  ‘He can’t help that,’ said Malik. ‘We shall take lunch now. If an official representative of the Museum approaches, stuff your lunch under your jumper!’

  Mahmud could be heard wondering whether they were going to have the Druid instead of packed lunch. Then, as one man, the boys produced plastic boxes, tinfoil and greaseproof paper, and the sound of small teeth munching bread, meat and fruit could be heard.

  ‘This Druid,’ said Malik, ‘was ceremonially strangled many many years ago – which is what will happen to you, Husayn, unless you let go of Akhtar’s ear.’

  Robert wondered whether he should stage a more spectacular form of nervous breakdown. Thinking you were Napoleon was clearly not enough to get you out of the Wimbledon Islamic Boys’ Independent Day School. Perhaps he could run back into the Romano-British Collection, gibbering.

  ‘What does it all mean?’ he said, in a loud, theatrical voice. ‘What is it all for?’

  Malik gave him a rapid glance, and then continued his lecture. ‘He was strangled,’ he said, ‘because the Druids believed his death might avert a Roman victory. But the Romans, too, sacrificed. And irrationality is, I would argue, more firmly at the centre of Western, Christian, culture than it is at the centre of Islam. Consensus is at the heart of the social contract the Faith makes.’

  This, thought Robert, sounded like his cue. ‘I am not a good Muslim, Headmaster!’ he said. ‘You must cast me out!’

  Maisie grabbed his arm and steered him towards the next gallery. Behind him he could hear one of the boys mutter that Mr Wilson had gone mad, and another reply that he always had been. ‘You are being embarrassing!’ she hissed.

  She was very big on Islamic esprit de corps these days. She talked of entering the Birmingham Islamic Women’s Games. She had almost given up drink. Her manner had changed. She cultivated the kind of aloofness that Robert had observed in certain classes of minor official – he had the constant impression she was about to refuse him a visa. Her face had changed too. She had lost weight, giving her nose an alert, intelligent
quality. She spent a lot of time looking at the floor, but her shoulders had become demonstrably assertive. She was a fully fledged Islamic woman.

  She turned back to Mr Malik. ‘I’ll take him back to the school, Headmaster,’ she said. ‘He’ll be all right for the pageant, I promise you.’

  At the beginning of the summer term, shortly after the Koran Study Week at Lower Slaughter Manor, Gloucestershire, she had been made school secretary. She was now to be seen in a small cubby-hole next to Mr Malik’s office, typing furiously, or on the phone to an organization called the Islamic World Unity Fund, which was said to be about to offer Mr Malik and Mr Shah a large sum in US dollars.

  Malik grinned at her. Maisie pushed Robert towards the stairs, and the two of them moved down towards the crowded entrance hall. Outside, unbelievably, it was high summer.

  Halfway down the steps, Robert sat down and put his head in his hands. Maisie sat next to him.

  ‘Are you any closer to it?’ she said.

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To whatever it is you want.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want,’ said Robert. ‘Do you?’

  Another crowd of schoolchildren climbed the stairs towards them. Robert could see the brilliant light flooding the Bloomsbury street outside. Maisie put her hand on his.

  ‘Are you having an affair with Malik?’ he said.

  ‘How do you mean “an affair”?’ said Maisie.

  ‘You know,’ said Robert – ‘you go out to the cinema, and he sticks his tongue down your throat, and then—’

  Maisie sniffed. ‘Please don’t, Bobkins,’ she said. ‘Please don’t. Don’t be crude – I can’t bear it.’

  She patted his hand absently. ‘We have slept together a few times,’ she said, ‘but we’ve never done it during school hours. You mustn’t be jealous, darling. We’re Muslims.’

  Robert found he was snarling. ‘What difference does that make?’

  Maisie looked at him pityingly. ‘The Prophet made it clear that you can have up to four wives,’ she said.