Authors: Monica Ali
Nobody said anything. The air hummed with the sound of distant water pipes, filling or disgorging. Bibi's jaw clicked as she worked it from side to side. Nazneen looked at her elder daughter. For the first time she saw that Shahana had Hasina's mouth, the same impossibly pink lips, full at the top and straight and wide along the bottom. But Shahana's lips were so often pinched together that it was not easy to notice. The girl reached across the television screen and pressed the button.
'How many heads on your shoulder?' Chanu screamed it, but then he was telling her to get out of the way and he stood close to the television and the leaflet fell unnoticed from his hand.
There were pictures of hooded young men, scarves wrapped Intifada-style around their faces, hurling stones, furious with the cars that they set alight. Between the scarves and the hoods it was possible to catch glimpses of brown skin. There were pictures of police too, but they were hiding behind sheets of clear plastic, sometimes shuffling forward and sometimes shuffling back. Nazneen wondered why they did not simply take their lathis and charge. They would not have to beat all. Just a few would set the example.
'You see,' said Chanu. 'You see.' He appeared satisfied.
The riot was in a place called Oldham. The pictures changed to daylight and the camera swept across tedious deserted streets, enlivened now and then by the presence of the blackened carcass of a car. In Oldham the roads were pocked with holes and the houses packed together, tight as teeth.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was no reason to wear it but she wore her red and gold silk sari. All morning, the little gold leaves distracted her from work. They demanded to be looked at. She moved her legs beneath the table to make them dance in her lap. She pulled the free end of the sari over her face and moved her neck from side to side like a jatra girl. The next instant she was seized by panic and clawed the silk away as if it were strangling her. She could not breathe. The table trapped her legs. The sari, which seconds ago had felt light as air, became heavy chains. Gasping, she struggled from the chair and went to the kitchen. She drank water straight from the tap. It hurt her chest and the last mouthful made her cough.
When the coughing subsided she went to the bedroom and climbed on the bed. If she stood at the back, next to the pillows, she could see herself in the dressing-table mirror. Suddenly, she was gripped by the idea that if she changed her clothes her entire life would change as well. If she wore a skirt and a jacket and a pair of high heels then what else would she do but walk around the glass palaces on Bishopsgate, and talk into a slim phone and eat lunch out of a paper bag? If she wore trousers and underwear, like the girl with the big camera on Brick Lane, then she would roam the streets fearless and proud. And if she had a tiny tiny skirt with knickers to match and a tight bright top, then she would – how could she not? – skate through life with a sparkling smile and a handsome man who took her hand and made her spin, spin, spin.
For a glorious moment it was clear that clothes, not fate, made her life. And if the moment had lasted she would have ripped the sari off and torn it to shreds. When it had passed she got down and sat on the end of the bed with her knees against the drawer of the dresser. She picked up her brush, pulled two pins from her hair so that it fell around her waist and brushed it so hard that it hurt.
In the afternoon she needed more thread. She walked around the back of the estate, past the cycle racks which no one was foolhardy enough to use, past the car park, the Nissans and Datsuns lightly frying in the noon sun, each with a yellow crook lock braced against the steering wheel, past the stunned clumps of rosemary and lavender that the council had put in a raised bed and left, defenceless against the onslaught of dogs and takeaway wrappers and small children. She crossed the rasp of land that had once sprouted a playground, a swing and a slide and a roundabout. Now the tarmac was rotten and split, it seemed, by the blades of grass which sucked huge strength from this black grot but wilted on the lawns. Only the roundabout remained. It was fenced around with two layers of grey metal barriers, blocking its chance of escape.
To come to the street she had to pass the hall, the low brick shed with the metal shutters, set in a concrete valley at the edge of Dogwood. Skateboarders used the smooth planes, for exercise and for spraying their messages to the world. As she descended the steps into the low basin, Nazneen saw that the graffiti on the shed walls had kaleidoscoped to a dense pattern of silver and green and peacock blue, wounded here and there with vermilion, the colour of mehindi on a bride's feet. She took the last step and adjusted the end of her sari across her shoulder.
The Secretary jumped out in front of her. His skullcap was on his head this time, a whitish lacy thing that looked as though it had much handling. He beamed at her and showed his small teeth. 'Get on the train of repentance, sister, before it leaves your station. Have you come for the meeting?'
Before she had time to react he ushered her inside. When she paused, he shooed her down the aisle as if she were a baby goat. She let her hand trail over the backs of the folding metal chairs, all the time thinking she would turn around and push past him. Instead, she sat down in the front row where he pointed. One seat away from her was the Questioner. He was busy with a bundle of papers which he shuffled and straightened, shuffled and straightened. Across the aisle, Nazneen saw the musician. Next to him were two small black tents. She recognized the voices. The girls who attended the last meeting, who wore hijab, had upgraded to burkhas.
From behind she recognized another voice, and half turned. The black man was standing at the centre of a group. He wore a grey felt cap and baggy white robe. 'I tried Pentecostal, Baptist, Churcha Englan', Cat'olic, Seventh Day, Churcha Christ, Healin' Churcha Christ, Jehovah Witness, Evangelical, Angelical, and the Miracle Church of our Saviour.' He sucked his teeth and shook his head. 'All loose'n' lax like anything. Loose
and
lax.'
The hall was beginning to fill. Dozens of voices peppered the air with Bengali and English. In spite of everything, Nazneen began to catch their excitement.
She imagined Karim walking in and seeing her there, right beneath him, by the stage. She thought of him standing with his arms folded and his legs wide, and everything he said (though only she would know it) would be for her benefit. In the gloom of the hall, with its bare bulbs and eczema-ridden walls, she became dizzy with relief that she had worn her red and gold sari.
* * *
The doors were closed and the Questioner and the Secretary on stage. Karim had not come.
'We can't wait any longer,' said the Questioner, assuming a tone of command.
The Secretary stood on tiptoes. 'I open the meetings,' he squeaked. 'I open the meetings.'
'Open this one then.'
The Secretary consulted his clipboard. His pen slipped from his hand and slid down the sleeve of his kurta. There was snickering in the row behind Nazneen.
'While you are fiddling with your stationery, Oldham is burning. Let's take a vote – all those in favour of opening the meeting . . .'
'Stop, stop.' The Secretary waved his arms about and the pen flew out of its mooring and landed somewhere in the audience. 'No votes to be taken before the meeting is open.'
Nazneen put her hand over her mouth to hide a smile. She wiped it away.
Just then the room grew lighter as the door opened and Karim strode to the front of the hall. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled neatly up to the elbows. His jeans were new and dark and the belt superfluous. In one seamless movement he mounted the stage and turned round.
'OK,' he said, 'let's get started.' He pulled a piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans. It was printed in green and red. 'First item' – he gave it to the Secretary, who pretended to study it – 'first item is this leaflet about Chechnya. Who wrote it? Who authorized it? Who distributed it?'
He made a show of looking around the hall, being careful not to look at the Questioner.
'I shall ask the Secretary. Is this a Bengal Tigers leaflet?'
The Secretary assented, and he held it out as an exhibit for the audience.
'And was it authorized by the Publications Committee?'
The Secretary held the leaflet very close to his face, as if searching for some secret stamp or watermark of authority.
'And was it passed for distribution by the Publications Committee?'
At this the Questioner, who had been pressing his knuckles together, could no longer contain himself. 'Committee? This ain't no time for committee. This is time for jihad.' His nose swelled with enthusiasm and his eyes were slits of intensity.
'Don't teach me, brother, about jihad. I'm talking about discipline.'
'Discipline,' spat the Questioner. 'By committee? Only you is the committee and the committee is you.'
Karim fingered his telephone which he had strapped on his belt. He looked down from the stage and saw Nazneen for the first time. He folded his arms and pulsated his right leg.