by Tim Pears
The others – his niece Yasmin included, his brother’s child they’d brought up with their own – had all gone to university, and maybe after all it didn’t matter if the last one were to choose not to. Abdul had made sure they had the opportunity: that was it.
He’d done it through hard work, pure and simple. Anyone of his intelligence and ability could have done it, but he actually had and that was what counted. He was fifty-four years old now, he’d brought up three sons and two daughters and a niece and was seeing them through college to careers and marriages of their own. And if they were more English than Bangladeshi, well, that was the future, and he hoped – he had decided – for good things from it. If they went to the mosque even less often than he did – except for Yusuf, who went much more – well, that was their choice, too, and not a bad one, despite their mother’s disappointment.
‘Enough blood,’ he’d argued with Yusuf just a week or so ago. ‘Tell them, your friends, to work. That all what I’m saying.’
And the girls, well, it was incredible what different lives from their mother’s lay ahead. Abdul thought back to the young man that he was when he first came to England, the assumptions he brought with him, and he shook his head with incredulity.
And all this was due to his, Abdul Azam’s, hard work, that was the only secret. It was like that. No secret at all, really, but to earn the fruits of a life’s work took, well, a lifetime.
The reason why work mattered – and he must remember to tell Akhmed this tomorrow – was because it was work that paved the road to the future. It was that simple. That was what it was. The clever people who came to the restaurant were right. There was no Allah who created the world, no God waiting to judge mankind when the last days came. The world is here. There is nothing behind it or above it, no absolute to transcend to. There is only nature around us and ourselves, living our lives together. What is, is, and becomes, and will one day die. And if you didn’t work hard, applying every second, every brain cell, every muscle at your mortal disposal, you laid no path forwards. In fact, you slipped back, because the future would carry on without you. You would slip into the past while you were still alive, and then you might as well be dead.
And now, Abdul thought, here was Akhmed eager to learn. It warmed Abdul Azam’s heart. Perhaps, he thought, this means that soon I’ll be able to renovate the Banbury restaurant, even a little ahead of schedule. The time is coming. I’ve waited all these years.
Some of the tables had emptied over the last half an hour, but here came a late-night influx. It was almost eleven, and the final screenings of the night were ending over at the Phoenix cinema. In came a group of students, one or two couples, eager to discuss what they’d seen as they ate their kormas and tikka masalas, their bhajis and peshwaris and pilau rice.
And look, here was a single customer. Sometimes they came in, men or very occasionally women who’d watched a film alone. But this one in particular, he came to the restaurant at least once a week. Film Fan, Abdul called him. A tall, earnest young man with round glasses and a thatch of unbrushed hair that once he sat down, always at the takeaway table next to Abdul, you wanted to pat. To reassure him.
Abdul had spotted Film Fan as soon as he entered, and while the young man waited, politely, inside the door, Abdul poured a cold Singha beer. He leaned over his counter, stretched, and placed the glass on the takeaway table just as Sanna escorted Film Fan over. When he reached the table, the young man saw the cool beer waiting for him, and he felt welcomed. He looked at Abdul and he grinned in gratitude, his mouth forming a slightly lopsided shape. That made Abdul smile.
Film Fan took a slow sip of beer, put the glass back down on its mat, and then he began to tell Abdul – who continued pouring other people’s drinks and writing prices on bills – about the film he’d seen. Some nonsense concerning a motorbike.
‘It’s about Che Guevara when he was young,’ Film Fan said. He took off his glasses, and wiped them on his shirt. ‘It’s about the growth of conscience, I suppose,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘It’s really very good, Abdul,’ he said, putting his glasses back on. He took another sip of beer, and nodded.
Film Fan would go on to tell Abdul the story, in due course. Also which country it was made in, the names of the actors, and of the director, and how the film compared to his or her earlier work. Abdul had learned a little about the movies from Film Fan, even though he had never in his life stepped inside a cinema. They all came to Abdul, and he listened – though if they asked for advice he was prepared to pass some on. It was only fair. It was a two-way thing. He had so many very clever customers, did Abdul Azam.
Acknowledgements
To The Gregor von Rezzori and Beatrice Monti della Corte Retreat for Writers and Botanists, for a residency in the autumn of 2003, and to Ledig House International Writers’ Colony, for a residency in the spring of 2004, boundless gratitude. Grazie mille, Beatrice. Ben, Dorothy and Josie: thank you so much.
Amongst the many books that lie behind this one, I should like to record its special debt to Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians by Pierre Clastres, translated by Paul Auster.
Thank you Jan Jones, John Banville, Toby Pragasam, Ali Rojob and Dildar Rojob, for information and ideas. Sean Hand for sound advice. The Oxford Times, Christopher Gray’s columns in particular. Tom Sherry, Co-ordinator and Tutor in English and Creative writing at Ruskin College, Oxford, for employment as well as the example of a tireless, inspiring teacher. Victoria Hobbs and Sara Fisher, at A.M. Heath. Sarah-Jane Forder, and all at Bloomsbury, including Chiki Sarkar, Arzu Tahsin, Mary Morris and Mary Tomlinson; especially, as always, Alexandra Pringle. And Hania, for being here.
A Note on the Author
Tim Pears is the author of four previous novels: In the Place of Fallen Leaves (which won the Hawthornden Prize and the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award), In a Land of Plenty, A Revolution of the Sun and Wake Up. In a Land of Plenty was made into a ten-part BBC TV series. Tim Pears also received the Lannan Award in the USA. He lives in Oxford with his wife and children.
By the Same Author
In the Place of Fallen Leaves
In a Land of Plenty
A Revolution of the Sun
Wake Up
First published 2007
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2007 by Tim Pears
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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