How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position

by Tabish Khair

  Ajsa declined to stay for a cup of tea. It took us less than five minutes to cart her boxes and belongings, some stored in the basement that we shared with all the residents, to the old blue Peugeot that she had borrowed from someone.

  We had already been out as couples with Ms. Marx and Lena—once to a café and once to a French film in Øst for Paradis, the alternative theater in town. “You can tell it is alternative because you hardly ever see any Dane under fifty here,” Ravi had quipped.

  Now Ravi talked all of us into visiting Lena’s parents for a weekend. Lena’s parents lived in a village off Aalborg—very picture postcard, Ravi promised us—where they worked. It was just an hour’s drive.

  Ms. Marx had trouble fitting it into her schedule. Her son was going to his father only on Saturday afternoon. She could not leave before that. Finally, we decided to go first—Lena, Ravi and I—by bus. Ms. Marx would join us for dinner on Saturday night—she had a car—and I would return with her on Sunday afternoon. Ravi intended to stay on for a couple of days with Lena and explore, what he termed, her childhood shrubberies.

  As usual, we asked Karim Bhai to drop us at the bus stop. Like most of our neighbors, we had got used to hiring his cab in the black. He always refused to let us pay, but then finally accepted a sum that was, as a rule, a bit less than his usual fare would have been.

  That day, however, he refused to let us pay, perhaps because Lena was with us. Was it courtesy? Or was he just being careful with a Dane he did not know and who could inform on him?

  Allah-hafiz, said Karim Bhai to us at the bus stop. Go in the care of God.

  Allah-hafiz, Ravi responded.

  Waiting for the bus, I took him to task. Lena looked on, bemused.

  “Why the fuck do you have to say Allah-hafiz, Ravi?” I asked him.

  “Why not, bastard? I say namaste, I say goddag, I say Merry Christmas…”

  “It’s not that. I remember you used to say khuda-hafiz. I distinctly recall you khuda-hafizing my parents with a vengeance when they visited three years ago.”

  “That was before Karim Bhai. He says Allah-hafiz.”

  “That is my point, you wannabe fundu! It was always khuda-hafiz in India and Pakistan: go with God, go in the care of Khuda, the Persian word for God. Now these woolly Wahabbis are trying to get all Arabic, and they insist on using Allah, the Arabic word…”

  “Hardly an issue for me, bastard.”

  Lena did not know whether to smile or not. She never really understood the tone of our conversations around such issues: our disagreements and agreements were too uncertain and disorderly for her way of thinking.

  “Yes, it is, you ignorant kafir. See, Allah-hafiz already existed as a phrase in Urdu. If you said Allah-hafiz, it was a dismissive gesture. Like ‘Only God can put some sense in him now.’ So these fucking fundus are messing up my bloody language, their own bloody language. It is a matter of historical and linguistic accuracy: Allah-hafiz does not mean the same as khuda-hafiz in Urdu, whatever it might mean in fucking Arabic.”

  Ravi mulled over the problem.

  “Point noted,” he said. Lena looked just a bit relieved; she took our arguments more seriously than we did. In general, like all the Danes I had met, she hated conflict of any kind. Revolution was not the only thing Tivoli had subverted, or so Ravi might have quipped once upon a time.

  After this discussion, to be fair, Ravi went back to saying khuda-hafiz to Karim Bhai. But Karim Bhai either did not notice the switch or obdurately continued replacing the Persian “khuda” with the Arabic “Allah” in his responses.

  Lena’s parents had one of those flat-roofed, yellow-brick houses that appear to have been built in clusters all over Denmark during the 1970s. They are neither ugly nor attractive. They are convenient and nondescript. Like Denmark, Ravi would have snorted in the past. But flippancy was not on Ravi’s mind when we alighted from the large Ford that Lena’s “far”—dad—had driven to the bus stop to fetch us.

  Far was tall and lean, impeccably dressed, with grizzled blonde hair: he spoke—no matter what the language—with such precision that it was easy to locate the source of Lena’s drive for perfect poise and control. Apart from that, he did not resemble Lena. Mor—mum—was a broader and older version of Lena, but she exuded the kind of natural warmth that Lena lacked to my mind. No, Ravi would not agree with that. He always saw Lena as a person capable of more than she allowed herself.

  We entered the house through the kitchen. It was large and comfortably furnished. The sitting room was big enough to contain two sets of sofas. There was a piano. There was art on the walls: mostly lithographs and watercolors. It was tasteful but not the sort of serious stuff that hung in Claus’s flat: one had to be an art fanatic to have dinner under a painting by Michael Kvium, Ravi had once observed, and I agreed. A white PH artichoke lamp hung in the dining room.

  It was the kind of house—comfortable, polished and predictably domestic—that would have elicited scathing comments from Ravi in the past. But he was on his best behavior now. He could not refrain from indulging in the occasional quibble, but he consciously avoided commenting on Danes or Denmark. I had never imagined him capable of such restraint.

  After tea, we went for a walk in a neighboring forest—the trees had been planted in straight lines, crisscross, and Ravi could not help quipping that Danish forests were remarkably well-behaved. When we returned to the house, Ms. Marx had arrived. She was sitting in her station wagon, listening to the radio and waiting for us.

  Ms. Marx and I were given the main guestroom, in the basement, while Lena and Ravi put their bags in the other guestroom, which had once been a sauna and still had florid yellow wood paneling everywhere. Ravi and Lena disappeared into the sauna-bedroom for a short while: they had not been alone for hours. All through the walk, I had noticed their hands fluttering like butterflies over each other, restrained only by the fact that Lena’s parents were walking with us. In this, both Lena and Ravi were surprisingly conservative. They seldom kissed and never fumbled in public. But it was difficult not to notice how they automatically drew together as they walked, how their eyes swept each other relentlessly, caressing the sight of the other.

  Dinner was cooked by Lena’s parents. It was roasted duck in brun sauce, a Christmas specialty, which was the only meat dish Lena allowed herself. Ravi had offered to make something Indian—he had brought some of his powders and curries along—but Lena’s parents would not hear of it. He was to cook tomorrow night instead.

  “Why don’t you two stay on, ba…?” he said to me, managing to stifle the customary “bastard” out of consideration for the sensibilities of Lena’s parents. But both Ms. Marx and I had classes on Monday morning, and we needed to get back and prepare the next day.

  What do I recall of the dinner?

  Not much. It was a brilliant evening, probably: Lena and Ravi kept the conversation going, and Lena’s parents were unusually well-informed and articulate. Ms. Marx, like me, is a quieter person; we needed to add only the odd bit of response or query. The food was good, the conversation was pleasant; the wine flowed. Ravi made a rare exception to one of his unspoken rules and played the piano—some lively Mozart, I assumed, though I have little knowledge of European classical music—with bravado and aplomb.

  But what I really recall from that evening is something different. It took place after dinner. We had retired to the more comfortable set of sofas for coffee. Ravi, or was it I, brought up some reference to Baudelaire. Lena, whose French was as good as Ravi’s, quoted a line in the original. Lena’s father was uncertain about the pronunciation of a word. I do not recall the word; my French is not good enough to enable me to remember conversations in that language. But I recall Lena’s father correcting her pronunciation and then, to be certain, consulting two heavy dictionaries.

  It was a minor matter and it was done kindly, if much too efficiently, by her father. But for an instant, Lena looked panic-stricken. Her green eyes sought refuge in different corn
ers of the room. There was only one other time when I saw her mask of confident poise slip—it was back up in an instant on both occasions—and that was to come much later, under circumstances easier to read. At that moment, though, as her father looked up the correct pronunciation of the French word, Lena glanced with something like fear at Ravi. It was as if she was afraid of falling in his esteem.

  The next morning was Sunday and Ravi did something uncharacteristic. Despite his strictures against walks in nature on Sundays, he went out for a walk after breakfast with Lena and her parents. I tried not to smile.

  “That was a very pleasant stay,” said Ms. Marx, driving us back in her station wagon, after an early lunch. I agreed. I was too busy watching her steer to disagree with anything she might have said; I have always found it incredibly sexy to watch a small woman drive a large car. But I remember thinking that it was good Ravi was not with us: the word “pleasant” would have made him squirm. Or at least, it would have in the past, before he fell in love with Lena.

  Great Claus was leaving Karim’s flat when I got back. He looked irritated and almost forgot to respond to my greeting. Inside, Karim was obviously irritated too. I knew that Claus and Pernille often confided in Karim. I assumed they had disagreed about something. But I did not want to ask. I had a novel to re-read in time for my class on Monday. It was not a novel I wanted to re-read.

  Sometimes I feel that there is a strict rationing of happiness by nature or providence or whatever you decide to call it. Some dark-coated bureaucrats sit there, dour and rule-bound, and flick the switch when light gets too abundant: let’s cut the power, they grumble; let’s ration the water, they whisper; time to switch off the happiness, they chuckle grimly. With Ravi’s cup brimming over and mine around the halfway mark, which is all I have ever expected, a scarcity of happiness was to be expected in other quarters. The quarters where providence cut corners, for the sake of good governance, were those of Karim and Great Claus.

  It strikes me that I am probably letting my current state of knowledge influence my narrative of those weeks to some extent.

  But not entirely, let me assure you. I might not have noticed that Karim was going through a period of anxiety and restlessness, perhaps linked to those mysterious phone calls and disappearances. It might be that I noticed this about Karim only a bit later, perhaps as late as the Friday Quran session in which I had to intervene. But the unhappiness of Claus was quite obvious to all of us even then. He had lost his bounce. He dragged his feet up and down the stairs. He even forgot to greet us with his trademark “sob kuch teek-taak, na?”

  It all came to a head a few days after Ravi got back. I could have ignored Karim’s obvious irritation at Claus—he frowned every time the name cropped up in our conversations—but the aunties in Ravi would not be silenced. The glory of Lena’s love had dazzled them for a while, but nothing could muzzle them for good. Soon they were busy working on Karim, mining for information. Karim was rocky territory. He was difficult to penetrate. But the aunties in Ravi had various tricks up their sleeves. Just when, after a few sallies, I thought they had given up, Ravi came up with the right approach. I am sure he still had belief in words as the key to all locks in those days: he must have been dying of curiosity by then, for it was a wild gambit.

  Over dinner one night, as Ravi ladled out the shahi daal and matar paneer that he had painstakingly cooked, he said to Karim,

  “You see, Karim Bhai, there might be rumors.”

  Karim was too busy relishing the food to fully comprehend; he loved Ravi’s cooking. He nodded, half-comprehending.

  Ravi continued, matter-of-fact, as if he was discussing the weather, “Rumors, Karim Bhai. You see, people might think that Claus is unhappy because you and Pernille are having an affair, and that this is the reason why you and Claus do not get along any longer.”

  Karim dropped his spoon with a clatter. He always ate rice with a spoon.

  “That is not true, Ravi Bhai!” he exclaimed. “How can you believe it?”

  “Well, Karim Bhai,” said Ravi, still as casual as ever, “you know people want answers and explanations, and you do not give them even to your friends…”

  Karim Bhai slapped himself on his cheeks. This was the second time that I witnessed this traditional and theatrical act of contrition. Both times, I was surprised by the loud gesture; Karim was not a dramatic person, ordinarily.

  “How can you say that, Ravi Bhai!” he muttered, his face a flaming red. I felt sorry for the guy; Ravi had been crueler than he was aware. Karim’s Allah was not a very forgiving one. Surely Karim was wondering if Allah’s angels trafficked in rumors too.

  Karim turned to me and appealed to my estimate of his good character.

  “You would not believe something like that?” he asked me. “Pernille is like a sister to me.”

  I shrugged. There were times when Karim’s rigid morality, his conviction that Allah had personally penciled the flowchart of his life, made me feel cruel towards him. On such occasions, I wanted to shake him up as badly as Ravi claimed that he wanted to shake up the ordinary Dane.

  Karim turned back to address Ravi, who was tucking innocently into the repast. Ravi ate Indian food only with his fingers.

  “The Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, warned against talking behind people’s backs. I do not like to gossip, Ravi Bhai,” said Karim.

  “Sure,” replied Ravi, munching. “Sure. But others do.”

  “Not that it is something I cannot tell you,” Karim continued, after a moment of hesitation. “Pernille and Claus have spoken about it to their friends and family.”

  Ravi continued eating nonchalantly, though I could sense the aunts in him straining at their leashes.

  Karim hesitated for a few seconds more, drawing whorls in his rice with his spoon. Then he put the spoon aside, carefully this time. He lowered his eyes to his plate and disclosed the secret.

  “You see,” he said, gazing intently at his plate, for he was too embarrassed to talk about such matters while looking at us. Perhaps his Allah had injunctions about that too: an ayat or surah announcing that the correct way to gossip is to look intently into a plate of whorled rice and curry. “You see,” he continued, “Claus has told Pernille that he wants a divorce. Pernille thinks he is having an affair, that he wants to leave her for another woman. She says she will never forgive him for that. Claus denies it; he says there is no other woman in his life.”

  “What do you think, Karim Bhai?” Ravi asked him.

  “I think Claus is lying. I do not understand how he can do such a thing. I thought he was a decent man,” replied Karim, shaking his head.

  The matter took a further turn on a night when Karim had been called away by one of his mysterious phone calls. I recall it was a phone call, not one of his usual night shifts. I had picked up the phone. There had been a woman at the other end. The same voice. She had asked for Karim. As I knew she had trouble understanding my Danish, I had simply beckoned to Karim and handed him the receiver. He had spoken into it in monosyllables and muffled tones. He had left almost immediately, telling us that he was being called away on urgent business and would not be home the next two or three nights.

  It was on the second night that Great Claus rang the bell of our flat. It was late. I had already put on my night clothes, and Ravi was lounging in the kitchen, TV switched on. He was probably whispering sweet nothings and translated poetry to Lena on his mobile, his almost-complete thesis languishing on the screen of his laptop.

  We should have known that something was wrong, because Claus rang the bell. He was obviously too perturbed to knock, as he always did.

  Ravi shouted to me to ignore the bell; we did not expect it would be Claus. But I went to the door anyway. Ravi was perhaps the only person in the world who could imagine that a shouted injunction not to answer the door, clearly audible on the other side, would serve its purpose. I was surprised to find Claus standing outside, in his slippers.

  “Can I come in?” he ask
ed sheepishly. “I need to borrow your phone.”

  Great Claus went directly to the phone in the lobby and pressed the numbers. He called Little Claus. It was difficult not to overhear or get the gist of the conversation between them; it lasted for at least ten minutes. It turned out that Pernille had kicked Great Claus out of their flat. She had done it with such determination that he had not had the time to put on his shoes or pick up his mobile or car keys. He was afraid of making her angrier by going back and asking for them. Instead, he phoned Little Claus from our flat to ask if he could sleep over. Little Claus agreed to pick him up.

  Ravi had already brewed coffee in the kitchen by the time Claus finished his phone conversation and joined us.

  Claus looked at us and shrugged, slumping into a chair. He knew we had overheard. He did not have to explain the situation. Perhaps he was even under the impression that Karim had told us more than he had.

  Ravi brought him a mug.

  “Shit happens,” Claus said. He must have felt he had to say something.

  Ravi turned a chair around and straddled it, joining us at the kitchen table.

  “Shit happens,” he agreed, “but sometimes we make it happen, Claus.”

  I was surprised that Ravi had decided to involve himself in the matter. He seldom took a stand on personal issues. Perhaps it was his relationship with Lena that made him care more about such stuff.

  Claus did not say anything.

  Ravi continued. “I think you should tell her, Claus,” he said.

  “Tell whom?” Claus either pretended not to understand, or he was too confused to focus.

  “Your wife, Pernille.” Ravi added, “You should give her a reason.”

  When Claus did not respond, Ravi continued: “You know your culture, Claus; it is a reasonable society we live in here in Denmark. How can you leave Pernille without giving her a reason?”

  I looked at Ravi. In the past, a statement like this from him would have dripped with irony and sarcasm. But he was sincere that night. He meant it. Ravi was never flippant when faced with genuine confusion or pain—unless it was his own. He leaned on the back rest of the chair, facing Claus. “You have to see it from Pernille’s perspective, Claus. You two have been together for years; you seem to share so much. Dammit, man, how many couples do you know who would agree to eat dinner under a Michael Kvium painting?”