Brick Lane (68 page)

Razia moaned. She pulled at the sweatshirt where it was sticking to her chest. 'He took it last month to be mended, and the video as well. All gone.'

'Where is he now?'

They both looked at Shefali, who became indignant. 'I am not hiding him.' She had inherited Razia's long nose, and she cocked her head back now and looked down it.

Razia lit a Silk Cut and sucked it hard. 'I should have whipped him first and asked questions later. Now he has run away.'

'Don't worry,' said Shefali. 'He'll come back. He'll be back when he needs more money. He knows you'll give it.'

Razia ran at her daughter but pulled herself up short and turned away. Ash fell from the end of her cigarette and she ground it into the carpet with her heel.

'Your precious son,' said Shefali.

'What did I do?' said Razia.

Nazneen forced herself to get up. She went to Razia and held her friend. They stood together for a long time and then Nazneen released her grip slowly, bit by bit, as if Razia might fall literally to pieces.

The story came out. Shefali filled in what Razia could not bring herself to name. It had been going on for nearly two years. Razia cursed her eyes for not seeing. There was a showdown with Tariq and he confessed everything, one moment bent with shame, defiant the next. He had been selling a little bit here and there, just a little bit of selling, enough to pay for his own. He made it sound good. He was supporting himself. Her own son, selling drugs. And she was happy that he had started going out.

But then something happened. Boys came from another estate. They said, you can't sell here, we're taking over. They wanted taxes on what he'd already sold.
Taxing him, as if they were the Government.
Tariq didn't want any trouble. 'After all of this, now he says he doesn't want trouble. So he took the television, and the furniture.'

Razia rubbed her hands, turned them over and over, as if trying to wash something away. 'I don't know what to do now. I don't know what to do.'

Nazneen went with her to the doctor's surgery. On the way she said, 'About Karim . . .'

Razia kept quiet.

'It's true,' said Nazneen. 'It's what you think.'

Razia looked away. They walked past a car with the windows down. Three young Bengali boys listening to some vicious music, heads rocking back and forth.

'They're too young to drive,' said Razia. 'Why are they always sitting in cars? Why don't they just go home?'

'You are the only friend I have.'

Razia looked at her. 'You don't have to tell me. Just because I am in trouble, you don't have to make trouble for yourself as well.'

They walked together in silence.

Dr Azad had a way of making chairs look uncomfortable. He sat with a rigid back, in a manner that suggested an equation between physical and moral rectitude. As a result, even his padded leather swivel chair appeared to be specifically designed to mortify the flesh. He turned now and wrote something in the file on his desk, then he turned back to face them.

'Does he want to come off?' He had expressed no surprise. He seemed to be expecting it.

'Want?' said Razia. 'How should he know what he wants? How can he know anything now?'

'If he wants to come off the drugs I can help him.' Dr Azad looked down at his feet. He made a small adjustment so that the ends of his shoes lined up precisely.

'I have come to you for help,' said Razia. 'And the other thing is, nobody can know about it.'

'You have my assurance – they will not hear it from me.'

Razia jumped up. She paced the office as though she had been locked inside it for days and was looking for an escape route. 'But they know already. Everybody is talking. I can feel it.'

'Take a seat, Mrs Iqbal. Do take a seat.'

Nazneen thought, he is tidying up. She makes the room look messy.

Razia stayed on her feet. The sweat had dried on her clothes leaving faint white salty lines around the sleeves. 'What do they say about me?' she asked Nazneen.

'Let them talk if they have the time,' said Nazneen. She could imagine what Nazma would say. Sorupa, of course, would say whatever Nazma said.

Razia hooted, a strange sound that came down her nose. 'Oh yes, I don't need anyone. I live like the English.'

'I'll make an appointment for him. He can come on his own, or with you.' Dr Azad pressed his palms flat against the sides of his thighs. Every inch of him was tidy.

'Will you cure him, doctor?' Razia approached and touched his feet. The doctor regarded the tips of his shoes, concerned perhaps about fingerprints.

Nazneen was surprised to see her friend bow. Plenty of children came home from school every day and touched their father's feet. Chanu said it was Hindu mumbo-jumbos. 'Muslims bow to no one. Remember that, Shahana. It's only this peasant type – mostly they are illiterate – that mixes up all this Hindu mumbo-jumbos.' But Razia was just not the bowing type.

'He has to want to be cured,' said the doctor.

'Want?' cried Razia. 'What is all this "want"? What if he wants to take drugs until the day of his death? What if he wants to kill himself with these drugs?'

'Go and talk to him. You are wasting time here.'

Razia rolled her head around to release a crick in her neck. She looked at the doctor but there was nothing more to say.

Preparations for the mela were under way. Shahana and Bibi collaborated on a giant mosaic made out of numerous dissected cereal boxes. It was to be a backdrop for the crafts stand. Bibi used a pair of blunt-ended scissors, the same shape as the tip of her tongue which came out every time she did some cutting. Shahana worked with the glue and her artistic temperament, sighing and blowing and even screaming sometimes when the design threatened to go wrong. They didn't know what would go
on
the stand. 'That does not fall within our remit,' said Shahana, sounding like her father.

'Craft
things,'
said Bibi, to be obliging.

Chanu fiddled with the radio-cassette player. He managed to trap his finger. 'Ish,' he said. 'That's the one I use for the windscreen wipers. Let us hope it does not rain.'

He was on the Classical Music Committee. He listened to Ustad Alauddin Khan and Ustad Ayet Ali Khan, waggling his head and playing his stomach like a duggi.

Shahana put her fingers in her ears and screwed up her face.

'How did you come to be such a little memsahib?' said Chanu.

'I didn't ask to be born here,' she said. They both spoke quickly and quietly, and glanced at Nazneen, afraid she would catch them bickering.

Chanu switched off the music. 'You see, what I would really like is the Poetry Committee. What do those young boys know about it? Perhaps they will get hold of a few books, but they won't have the background. Poetry is something different. You have to drink it with your mother's milk.' He embarked on a round of throat clearing.

'Clouds rumbling in the sky; teeming rain.
I sit on the river-bank, sad and alone.
The sheaves lie gathered, harvest has ended, The river is swollen and fierce in its flow. As we cut the paddy it started to rain.

One small paddy-field, no one but me – Flood-waters twisting and swirling everywhere. Trees on the far bank smear shadows like ink On a village painted in deep morning grey. On this side a paddy-field, no one but me.'