Brick Lane (34 page)

'Some of the women are doing sewing at home,' said Nazneen. 'Razia can get work for me.'

'Raz-i-a,' said Chanu. 'Always this Razia. How many times do I tell you to mix with respectable-type people?' He lay on the sofa in lungi and vest. He no longer wore pyjamas, a sign of imminent return to home, and he often spent the day prostrate on the sofa without dressing, or pinned to the floor beneath his books.

For a while he ruminated and explored the folds of his stomach. 'Some of these uneducated ones, they say that if the wife is working it is only because the husband cannot feed them. Lucky for you I am an educated man.' She waited for more, but he fell into a deep reverie and said nothing further.

These days, with the children at school and Chanu littering the sitting room, Nazneen often retreated to the kitchen, or sat in the bedroom until the wardrobe drove her out to wander around the flat with a damp cloth, wiping and straightening. He showed no sign of getting a job. The small edifice of their savings was reduced to dust. In a final bout of activity he had put on a suit and gone out to lobby the council for a transfer. The new flat was in Rosemead block, one floor from the top, two floors above Razia, and it had a second bedroom. 'Playing the old contacts game,' said Chanu. 'Yes, they jumped up pretty sharpish when they saw me. Old Dalloway shook my hand. Sorry he lost a good man. That's what he said.' The toilet blocked persistently and the plaster had come off in the hallway. 'Got to get on to my contacts,' said Chanu, but he made no move.

Nazneen sat down and looked at her hands. Chanu read his book. He no longer took courses. The number of certificates had stabilized, and they were waiting in the bottom of the wardrobe until someone had the energy to hang them. Now he was more teaching than taught and the chief beneficiaries were the girls. Nazneen also benefited.

'You see,' said Chanu, still supine, holding his book above his face, 'all these people here who look down at us as peasants know nothing of history.' He sat up a little and cleared his throat. 'In the sixteenth century, Bengal was called the Paradise of Nations. These are our roots. Do they teach these things in the school here? Does Shahana know about the Paradise of Nations? All she knows about is flood and famine. Whole bloody country is just a bloody basket case to her.' He examined his text further and made little approving, purring noises.

'If you have a history, you see, you have a pride. The whole world was going to Bengal to do trade. Sixteenth century and seventeenth century. Dhaka was the home of textiles. Who invented all this muslin and damask and every damn thing? It was us. All the Dutch and Portuguese and French and British queuing up to buy.'

He got up now and retied his lungi. Nazneen watched him stride around the sofa and knew he was rehearsing for this evening's lesson with the girls. Bibi would sit on his lap and attempt through her stillness to reassure him that the lesson was being learned. Shahana would alternately hop about and lounge sullenly across an armchair. As soon as he stopped speaking she would rush to the television and switch it on, and he would either smile an indulgence or pump out a stream of invective that sent both girls to the safe shoreline of their beds.

'A sense of history,' he said. 'That is what they are missing. And do not forget – the Bangladeshis they are mixing with are Sylhetis, no more, no less. They do not see the best face of our nation.'

'Colonel Osmany,' said Nazneen quietly. 'Shah Jalal.'

'What?' said Chanu. 'What?'

'Our great national hero and—'

'I know who they are!'

Nazneen apologized with a smile, and then added, 'And that they both come from Sylhet.'

'But that is the point I am making. These people here simply do not show our nation in its true light.' He pounced on the book and began riffling pages. 'Do you know what Warren Hastings said about our people?' He purred and exercised his face as he prepared the quotation. '"They are gentle, benevolent . . ." So many good qualities he finds. In short, he finds us "as exempt from the worst properties of human passion as any people on the face of the earth".' He waved the book in triumph. 'Do you think they teach this in the English schools?'

'I don't know,' said Nazneen. 'Is that an English book?' She wondered who this Warren Hastings might be.

Chanu ignored her and played to the gallery. 'No. This is not what they teach. All flood here and famine there and taking up collection tins.' He used the book to scratch inside his ear.

Nazneen thought about Shahana, how her long thin face would group all its small features as if trying to make them vanish, closing down its operations. She had a way of glazing over that seemed accomplished, mature beyond her years. I'm going inside now, it said, and I may not come out again. But when it was over it was only a sulk, and the sulk was made clear in the tantrum that followed. Then her mouth became a round angry hole and she began to kick. She kicked the furniture, she kicked her sister and most of all she kicked her mother.

'Four European countries fought over the place. And when the British took control, this is what gave them strength to take all India.' There was sweat on his brow although the room was not too warm. He wiped it with a forearm. 'During the eighteenth century' – he looked down from behind the sofa into the soft well that his backside had left on the cushion – 'this part of the country was wealthy. It was stable. It was educated. It provided – we provided – one third of the revenues of Britain's Indian Empire.' The book slid from his hand and he bent for it. He rubbed the edge of the cushions and he looked at the far wall, at the place where his certificates had hung in the old flat. He smiled and his cheeks pushed up into his eyes.

'A loss of pride,' he said, talking to the wall, 'is a terrible thing.'

Nazneen got up in the night and went to the kitchen. She took a Tupperware container from the fridge and ate the curry cold, standing up against the sink. If she had a job, she would be able to save. And if she saved then they would have enough money to go to Dhaka. Or if they didn't go to Dhaka, she would save enough to send money to Hasina. Chanu would not know how many linings she had sewn or how many jackets she had button-holed. He would not know how much money there should be, and she would be able to put some aside.

The moon was uncertain tonight. Pock-marked, it lurked behind a purple ink cloud and tried to drown itself in a too-shallow sky. Hasina wrote once that she watched the moon and thought of her, watching the same moon. But the sky here was so low, so thin, that it was hard to believe it was the same high heaven that soared over Hasina; and the moon would not be out in Dhaka and maybe it was a different moon after all.

She put her face beneath the tap and turned on the cold water.

'Amma.'

Bibi stood in the doorway. She watched as Nazneen dried her face with a tea towel. Her brow was made broad to carry all her worries.

'Hungry?' said Nazneen.

Bibi nodded. She came and leaned up against the sink and shivered. Nazneen reached for the biscuit tin but Bibi pointed to the Tupperware. She ate with Nazneen's spoon, but only managed a mouthful. They spent this time together and they did not waste it by talking. They watched each other and Nazneen pretended to look out of the window while Bibi, who was too short to see out, pretended to look at the cracked tiles behind the taps.

Razia pressed her palms into the small of her back. 'You know what they say in the village – a woman is elderly at twenty — well, you are looking at an old, old woman now.'

Her hair was thick with grey. She wore glasses with wide black rims that shortened her nose but amplified the deep lines around her eyes. Since gaining her British passport she had acquired a sweatshirt with a large Union Jack printed on the front, and in a favourite combination paired it with brown elastic– waisted trousers. The trousers had a thick seam down the front, designed to look like a sharp crease. She held out her hands to Nazneen. 'See the joints. Arthritis.' She returned the hands to press against the ache. 'And my back is killing. Sewing all day and all day. Children take the money, I get the arthritis.'

'Everyone gets a little creak in their bones,' said Nazneen. She circled her shoulders to show she was not exempt. 'You are not so old.'

'Eh-hrerm,' said Razia, pretending to clear her throat.
'Eh-eh-hrerm.'
She waggled her head and rolled her lips up and around. 'Azraeel is at the door. How can you deny it? This woman is old. This is an old woman.'

Nazneen laughed. 'My husband, you are always right.'

Razia laughed her metallic laugh. No matter how often she heard it, the sudden clang always startled Nazneen. She looked round now to see if the door was closed. The girls were in their bedroom attending to homework, and she did not want them to hear Razia poking fun at their father.

'A serious thing, though, the business with the machine work. Ruins the hands, the back, the eyes.' Razia shrugged. The Union Jack rippled. 'I don't care. What else is this body for? I'm just using it up now for my children. Only thing I care about is they don't have to do this same thing as me. Making a nice home as well. New chairs, new sofa, no more second-hand toothbrush for my kids. This is what I'm working for.'

'Tariq is enjoying his J77'

'It's OK-Ma,' said Razia, in English. 'Everything, all the time "OK-Ma". Boy thinks I'm called "OK-Ma".'