Brick Lane (61 page)

'He did
Right to Buy,'
said Shahana. 'Fifteen years ago. Paid five thousand pounds in cash.'

'So that's why your mother and I have decided . . .'

'You should have bought this flat.'

'. . . to go back home.' Chanu explored his stomach, checking the texture, the density. He appeared satisfied. 'Good,' he said, and he beamed at Shahana. 'I'm glad we talked like this, father-daughter. Now you understand. That's the main thing – understanding. Good. Go and brush your teeth, and get ready for bed.'

Nazneen could not sleep. She looked in on the girls and stroked the hair out of their eyes. She was tempted to wake them, as she had when they were babies to make sure they could be woken, and to have the comfort of comforting them to sleep again. She picked up a few stray clothes and went to the kitchen. She washed them beneath the kitchen tap, rubbing them with soap and kneading them on the draining board. Then she rinsed them until the cold water made ridges on her fingertips. Her mind boiled with indistinct thoughts, like a room full of people all shouting at once. She let the clothes fall into the sink and pressed her hands to her temples.

She massaged her face and jaw and began again at her temples. Only a short time ago it had seemed that she worried unnecessarily about everything. Now it was clear that she had not worried enough. She was back on the tightrope that stretched between her husband and her children, and this time the wind was high and tormenting.

And there was Karim.

The horror came to her now. She vomited over the clothes she had washed. She was stunned. As if she had just now gained consciousness and discovered a corpse on the floor, a bloody dagger in her hand.

She wiped her face and rinsed her mouth.

'God sees everything. He knows every hair on your head.' Amma squatted on her haunches in the corner, just by the cupboard with the dustpan and brush, bleach and spare toilet rolls.

Nazneen turned the tap on full. Water splashed off the sink and over her arms.

'When you were a little girl, you used to ask me, "Amma, why do you cry?" My baby, do you know now?' She began to weep, and blew her nose on the end of her sari. 'This is what women have to bear. Once, when you were a little girl, you could hardly wait to find out.' She set up a keening that tore Nazneen's ears. Nazneen cleared vomit from the plughole to allow the water to drain.

Amma shuffled closer, still on her haunches so that her bottom swept the floor. 'Listen to me, baby. Don't turn away. I don't have long here.' Nazneen turned and looked at her and Amma smiled, showing her curved yellow teeth. 'God tests us,' she said. 'Don't you know this life is a test? Some He tests with riches and good fortune. Many men have failed such a test. And they will be Judged. Others He tests with illness or poverty, or with jinn who come in the shape of men – or of husbands.' She took hold of the hem of Nazneen's nightdress and began to tug at it. 'Come down here to me and I will tell you how to pass the test.'

'No, Amma,' said Nazneen. She tried to pull her nightdress free. 'You come up here.'

'No, baby, come to me.' She pulled harder, so hard that Nazneen gave way and slid down to the floor. 'It's easy.' Amma began to cackle, and she did not cover her teeth and her mouth became wider and wider and the teeth became longer and sharper and Nazneen put up her hands to cover her face.

'It's easy. You just have to endure.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Chanu woke in the night and, he told her later, missed her heartbeat. He found her on the kitchen floor, vomit dried on the corners of her mouth, eyes open and unseeing. He had turned on the light, but she did not blink. He carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed. It was the only time he had carried her, and she wished that she remembered it.

For several days she stayed in bed and clung to her collapse. She pushed down into it like a diver, struggling against buoyancy, fighting her way into the depths. Where the water clouded with mud, where the light could not reach, where sound died and beyond the body there was nothing: that was where she wanted to be. At times she found this dead space and rested within it. But then she was caught in a net of dreams and dragged up to the surface, and the sun hit the water and sliced her eyes and she saw everything in pieces as if in a smashed mirror, and she heard everything at once – the girls laughing, her son crying, Chanu humming, Dr Azad talking, Karim groaning, Amma wailing – each sound as clear as a lone sitar string on a hot and drowsy afternoon.

When the dreams would not let her go, would not let her go back under, she began to come out of her delirium. For several days, awake or asleep, she had kept her eyes closed. Now she opened them. Dr Azad stood over her in his dark suit and white shirt. She took in the disorder of the bedroom, trays and plates stacked on the dressing table, clothes hanging over the wardrobe door, tissues, books and newspapers coating the floor and bedside table, and she looked back at the doctor. He bowed slightly, as if greeting a dignitary.

'Are you feeling a little better?'

'Yes.'

'Shall I call your husband?'

Nazneen considered it. She thought she had better tidy up first. Then she closed her eyes.

'We are glad to have you back.'

Nazneen wondered why the doctor was shouting. She had never heard him shout before. She was forced to open her eyes again and look at him.

'He has been concerned.' Dr Azad smiled his special anti-smile, with the corners of his mouth turning down. 'No. I don't think that is the correct word. It's not an adequate word.' His hair was glossy, black and improbable, like a mistake made in his youth and carried with him for the rest of his life. Nazneen realized there was something she ought to be worrying about. She could not think of it.

'Your husband is an excellent cook. He made many special dishes for you.' He indicated the trays stacked on the dressing table, his gesture as formal as a policeman directing traffic. 'I'm afraid I have been the chief beneficiary.'

Chanu came in and saw Nazneen sitting up. He became wreathed in smiles, bright and gay as the garlands that cover a groom's face.

'She is sitting up. Why did you not call me? Look, she's sitting up. Is the nervous exhaustion finished? Does she speak? Is it as before when she would go to the bathroom and barely keep her eyes open for long enough? Will she take some soup now? A little rice perhaps? Does she speak? But why did you not call me?' Chanu hovered by the bed, and though he did not move he gave the impression of perpetual motion.

'I prescribe some more bed rest,' said the doctor, 'and not too much excitement.'

Chanu put his finger on his lips, as though to quiet the excited doctor. 'Yes, yes, we must take it very gently. When will she eat?'

'Why don't you ask her?'

'Of course,' said Chanu. It was the very thing he had in mind. He coughed, but very softly. 'Will you take a bit of food now? Some rice? An egg?'

Nazneen drew up her knees under the covers. They protested at this unwarranted abuse and she massaged them. 'Just rice.'

Chanu clapped and rubbed his hands together. 'Oh, rice! Did you hear her, doctor? Keep your hospital beds and fancy medicines. It is rice that will do her good.'

Dr Azad had, from somewhere, produced a yellow paper file. He began to write in it, still standing, and he spoke to the top of his pen. 'I'm delighted to see that you've come round to my perspective. In cases like this, what is needed is a rest cure.'

'I always respect a professional opinion,' Chanu declared, as though this in itself were an achievement.

'Yes,' said the doctor, so quietly now that Nazneen doubted if Chanu could hear, 'unless, of course, you disagree with it.'

Chanu peeped at Nazneen over his cheeks, so inflated with happiness that they almost hid his eyes. He rubbed his hands some more and then began to crack his knuckles.

'I would like some rice,' said Nazneen. She bent forward, as if to get up.

Chanu at once grew busy. He stacked a few plates on the dressing table. 'Doctor's orders,' he said, waving an arm. 'You stay there and follow the orders. I will fetch and carry.' He bustled out of the room, forgetting the dirty plates.

The girls came in as Chanu left. In a loud whisper, he forbade them to disturb their mother. Bibi and Shahana climbed on the bed and hugged her without saying a word. Bibi began to brush her mother's hair, working the plastic teeth into her scalp to stimulate it and fussing over every knot. Shahana stretched out on the pink bedspread, her hair full of static from the nylon. She had, noted Nazneen, taken sufficient advantage of Chanu's distraction to be wearing her tight jeans. Dr Azad finished writing, took Nazneen's blood pressure and began writing again.