Brick Lane (43 page)

She had been the day before. She came with her sons and Chanu jumped around the room as though it were scattered with nails. He counted out the money loudly, and had got to seventy-five when Mrs Islam raised a spotted handkerchief and let it float onto the mighty ruin of her chest. One son undid the bag. The other said, 'Put it in.' Chanu put the rest of the notes back inside the showcase. The sons helped her to the door. One of them was trusted sufficiently to carry the Ralgex.

'How much are we paying?' said Nazneen.

'It's between friends,' said Chanu. 'She is doing me a favour. I knew her husband.'

Karim came the next morning to collect the vests. Before they had exchanged two words his telephone started up. He parked himself in the hallway. Nazneen saw him lean against the wall with one trainer pressed flat against the skirting board. She returned to the sitting room but did not know whether to stand or to sit. When he came in she made herself busy with folding.

'My father,' he said. He snapped the phone shut and holstered it.

She glanced at him. His hair stood up at the front, tiny short black feathers.

'He's always calling the mobile. I tell him not to waste money like that. He doesn't listen.' He flexed his leg, testing that it still worked. 'And what's he ringing up for anyway? Hasn't got anything to say to me, man.'

'He is worrying. Perhaps.'

'Yeah, man. Worrying and nerves. Out of his mind with worrying and nerves.'

Nazneen sat. She folded her hands in her lap. She smoothed the soft blue fabric of her sari and folded her hands again. She had once more forgotten to cover her hair.

Karim sat on the arm of the sofa. She did not know what she could say so she said nothing. Karim sat on the place where Chanu rested his head. The plastic sheaths had long gone and hair oil made the fabric shiny. She had thought the phone calls were about work, or other things – that she could not imagine – that belonged to the world out there and which she would never understand. They were from his father and that brought him a little step nearer her world. Still, she could think of nothing to say.

'He had to retire because of the nerves. Couldn't hang on any longer. Twenty-five years as a bus conductor, and now he can't even leave the flat. That's what you get, man. That's what you get.'

'Yes. Is what you get.'

He nodded with great vigour as if he had heard a new idea, one that would change his life for ever.

'I know what you're saying. That's what you get. All those years on the bus, getting called all the names, taking all the cheek. Kids giving him cheek. Men giving aggro. Got a tooth knocked out. Someone was sick on his shoes, man.' He looked at his trainers. They were clean.

'I make tea.'

She went to the kitchen and he followed. He leaned with his back to the cupboards. When Chanu was in the kitchen he leaned as well, but facing the other way, with his stomach resting on the worktop.

'He had to take early retirement and now he's just sitting at home biting his nails and calling the mobile. "Don't make trouble." He never made any trouble for anyone. Only trouble he made is for himself.'

Nazneen moved past him to get the milk. He smelled of detergent. A crisp, citrus smell of clean clothes.

He shook his head. ' "Don't make trouble."'

The tea was ready. But he showed no sign of moving. Would they drink standing up in the kitchen? Would she invite him to sit down with her in the other room? How would that seem? Would it be better to have him sit, while she continued to work? She decided that was the best plan.

'He thinks he is Mahatma Gandhi. He thinks he is Jesus Christ. Turn the cheek, man. Turn the cheek.'

She picked up the cups.

'What about Muhammad? Peace be upon him, he was a warrior.'

'Yes,' said Nazneen.

He looked at her as if he needed more time to absorb the impact of what she had said. He squeezed the back of his neck.

She was still holding hoth cups when his phone began to bleep. He flipped it open.

'Salaat alert,' he said.

'What do you mean?' She was so surprised she slipped into Bengali.

'On th-th-the phone. It's a service you can get. To warn you of prayer time.'

'Will you do namaz here?' She said it without thinking, in the same way that another time she had switched instinctively to English.

He rolled his shoulders. He stopped leaning. 'Yes. I will.'

He went to the bathroom to wash. In the sitting room, in the small space behind the sofa and in front of the door, she rolled out her prayer mat. 'I'll pray a little later,' she said. There was nothing wrong with it. No reason why he should not pray here; it only delayed her a short while.

'Allahu Akbar.'

He stood to attention, with hands raised to shoulder level.

He put his right hand over his left on his chest. She tried to stop the prayer words forming on her lips. To pray with an unrelated man, it was not permitted. She would pray later.

'Glory and praise be to You, O God; blessed is Your name and exalted is Your majesty. There is no God other than You. I come, seeking shelter from Satan, the rejected one.'

She heard the blood pound in her heart and she trembled because he would surely hear it. She closed her eyes. At once Amma came to her, shedding her famous tears, wailing with her hand over her mouth.

'He is God the One; He is the Eternal Absolute,'
said Karim. His voice did not falter.

In prayer he does not falter, thought Nazneen. And she pleaded with herself to keep fast to the words.

'None is born of Him and neither is He born. There is none like unto Him.'

He bowed, hands on knees, straight back. She saw how well he moved. Twice more. It was he who moved, but she who felt dizzy.

Nazneen rolled up the mat and put it in the wardrobe. She would need it again soon but this setting straight was necessary. Later, when she changed the sheets after he had been, she remembered this action. She remembered it perfectly. In the only way that pain can be truly remembered, through a new pain.

He had packed the vests himself and he was waiting to go. He fiddled with the strap across his shoulder and he fingered the mobile. He began to leave and then he adjusted his bag again and he said, 'I want to ask you to come to something. A meeting.' He ran a hand over his hair. 'Please ask your husband. It's for all Muslims. We want everyone to be represented. And we don't have any older women.'

It was only after he had gone that she realized. He meant her as an older woman.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Of course she would not go. It was out of the question. she did not mention it to Chanu because there was no question of her going. There was no point in raising it.

On the day, she had little to do. She had finished her sewing in the night, moving between the kitchen to eat and the sitting room to work. She had gone into the bedroom and taken Chanu's book from the pillow. She had gone again and pulled up the bedclothes to hide his shoulders. A third time, she watched him from the door, and stepped out of the way when he stirred.

She was tired today but she was restless. The fridge was stacked with Tupperware and there was no real excuse to cook. She washed a few socks in the kitchen sink, and then she went out.

The meeting was in a low building at the edge of the estate. It had been built without concession to beauty and with the expectation of defilement. The windows were fixed with thick metal grilles that had never been opened and notices were screwed to the brickwork that read in English and Bengali:
Vandals will be Prosecuted.
This was pure rhetoric. The notices were scrawled over in red and black ink. One dangled by a single remaining screw. Someone had written in careful flowing silver spray over the wall,
Pakis.
And someone else, in less beautiful but confident black letters, had added,
Rule.
The doors were open and two girls in hijab went inside.