Brick Lane (86 page)

'Now, if we had money,' she went on, 'then you would see the difference. The block off Adler Street, the council sold it off. Do you know how many flats inside there now? Eight! Each one the size of a cricket pitch. Only one or two people living in each flat. How are they going to respect us, living ten to one room? They will not march. It is too much trouble. If they want us out of here, they can buy us out.'

Son Number One said, 'Not us though, eh? We'll buy them out first.'

Mrs Islam pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and spat into it.

Son Number Two said, 'Didn't she tell you to keep quiet?'

Nazneen looked at the brothers. There was a rumour that they owned a pub in Stepney. There was another rumour that on Sunday mornings a woman danced in the pub and took all her clothes off. It was said that this was an English tradition. That the men went to the pub on Sunday morning, sent by wives who wanted to cook and clean while the husbands were out of the way, looking at another woman's breasts. Son Number One pushed his lips further up his face, working really hard on an insult. There was a rumour that Son Number One had a white girlfriend and two buttermilk children. There was a rumour that Son Number Two had been in prison for assault, or fraud, or both.

Rumour surrounded them but it did not touch them.

'Two hundred pounds, to settle the debt,' said Mrs Islam, still talking to the ceiling.

Footsteps traced the length of the room above.

The only thing that people did not talk about was this: the moneylending.

Son Number Two came out from behind the sofa. He stood by the showcase with his hands behind his back.

'How much did my husband borrow?'

'What?' said Mrs Islam as faintly as she could. 'Oh, two hundred will settle it.'

Nazneen looked down at her hands. 'Because I worked it out. And unless I made a mistake, then we've paid it all back.'

Mrs Islam's breath rattled the windowpanes. She coughed so much that her shoulders and her feet lifted and she sort of folded in the middle. 'Whenever God decides, I am ready,' she rasped.

'We paid it all back, and some more as well.'

'I am an old woman now. Do as you like. The money is for the madrassa, but what does it matter to you? I am an old woman now.' Mrs Islam took a spotted handkerchief from her stores and dabbed it over her face.

The sound of breaking glass shot like iced water down Nazneen's spine. She looked up.

'You're upsetting my mother,' said Son Number Two. 'When she gets upset, I get upset. Sometimes I break things.'

The top of the showcase was caved in. A little cloud of glass dust showered the pottery figures.

'Sometimes I break things as well,' said Son Number One.

Mrs Islam panted. She motioned to Nazneen to get moving. 'Quick. Two hundred pounds and settle it.'

Nazneen's blood thickened. Her heart strained to push it round her body. 'No.'

Son Number Two had conjured a cricket bat from somewhere. As he lifted it over his head, Nazneen wondered if it had been inside the black bag.

The bat came down on the showcase and smashed through two shelves. The noise was terrific. Son Number Two turned round. He had flecks of blood on his cheek, glassed by splinters. His expression was both analytical and concerned, and entirely pleasant.

'Wooo!' said Son Number One. He tickled his chest hairs and tried to tuck them down his jumper.

'We paid what we owed,' said Nazneen. Her voice clogged up her ears. 'We paid at least three hundred pounds on top of that. I am not going to pay any more . . .' She hesitated. 'Any more riba.'

'You bitch,' said Son Number One. 'Should I make her pay?' He looked at his mother with great hope in his little eyes.

'Riba,' whispered Mrs Islam. 'Riba, she says.' Her head lolled around as if the word had given her fever. 'Do you think, before God, that I would charge interest? Am I a moneylender? A usurer? Is this how I am repaid for helping a friend in need?'

'No?' said Nazneen. She thought she might be shouting, but she really could not help it. 'Not interest? Not a usurer? Let's see then. Swear it.' She ran across to where the Book was kept. Glass crunched beneath her sandals. 'Swear on the Qur'an. And I'll give you the two hundred.'

Mrs Islam was perfectly still. Nazneen listened for her breath, but all she could hear was her own.

Son Number One stirred. 'I'm going to break . . .'

'My arm,' shouted Nazneen. 'Break my arm. Break them both.' She held her arms out, until she began to feel foolish.

Slowly, Mrs Islam swung her feet down and sat up on the sofa. Her hair had been dragged apart and it hung in thick swathes around her neck. She glared at Nazneen with her hot-coal eyes. Nazneen took it and she turned it round. A minute passed. The television crowd applauded with muffled enthusiasm. Music came and went, and the lunatic scramble of advertisements. Mrs Islam stood up.

'There are some things a wife does not want a husband to know.'

Nazneen burned. She did not look away.

'Fresh start,' said Mrs Islam. 'New life, back home. You don't want anything to spoil it.'

'My husband,' said Nazneen slowly, 'knows everything. He'll come soon. Why don't you ask him?'

The impossible happened. Mrs Islam looked surprised.

Nazneen, strengthened, said, 'Swear on the Qur'an. That's all you have to do.'

Mrs Islam picked up the ankle bells from the back of the sofa. She placed them on the coffee table. 'For the girls,' she said.

She walked over to Son Number Two and picked up her bag.

Son Number Two nodded, as if everything had happened just as he expected.

'Let's go,' he said. 'They paid too much anyway.' He gave a good-natured laugh.

Mrs Islam let out a cry, a low animal noise of despair. With both hands she raised her medicine bag and swung it at her son's shoulder. It bounced off. She swung at his head and missed. She made another cry; shrill this time, as if she had been cut. Son Number Two moved leisurely towards the door. He put his hands up to shield his head. Mrs Islam followed. As she passed, Nazneen saw the tears flood her eyes and pour down her cheeks. She wielded the bag once more and struck Son Number Two on the back. She made a sound in the back of her throat that Nazneen remembered for days.

Son Number One was still at his station behind the sofa. He looked around, trying to decide something. Then he walked over to the ruins of the showcase and levelled a kick at the one remaining door. The door twanged and vibrated and came to rest intact. Son Number One shrugged. With the tip of his shoe he toppled a few boxes, and then he left.

Nazneen fetched the dustpan and brush. She wrapped the large pieces of glass in newspaper and began to sweep up the rest. Nothing at all came to her mind. As she squatted in the debris, everything inside was peaceful. She stopped working and slipped into the moment like a hot bath. Gradually, a thought began to form. God provided a way. Nazneen smiled. God provided a way, and I found it.

She walked down Brick Lane to get to the tube station at Whitechapel. Days of the Raj restaurant had a new statue in the window: Ganesh seated against a rising sun, his trunk curling playfully on his breast. The Lancer already displayed Radha-Krishna; Popadum went with Saraswati; and Sweet Lassi covered all the options with a black-tongued, evil-eyed Kali and a torpid soapstone Buddha. 'Hindus?' said Nazneen when the trend first started. 'Here?' Chanu patted his stomach. 'Not Hindus. Marketing. Biggest god of all.' The white people liked to see the gods. 'For authenticity,' said Chanu.

Outside the station a little lad, maybe ten or twelve years old, walked back and forth across the entrance. He had headphones round his neck and springs in his heels. A boy came galloping up the steps and banged into him.