Brick Lane Page 13

  Raqib's room was being cleaned. She waited outside and watched out for Chanu. Chanu had been to work this morning. The first time in over a week. Here he was. Scuttling along, turning at a right angle to pass a trolley and moving sideways like a big, soft-shelled crab. He came next to her and leaned on the radiator. If there was a solid surface in sight, Chanu would rest against it. Mental toil, he said. That is the real exercise. No harder work than mental toil.

  'They're just cleaning,' she told him. 'Won't be long.'

  'Ah,' he said. He chewed on his lower lip, ejected it and began to tug with his bottom teeth on the top lip.

  She waited for him to speak again and grew uncomfortable when he did not. She had become used to his chatter filling up the space between them.

  'Mrs Islam,' she began, and drew a breath.

  'Sinking, sinking, drinking water.'

  So he knew.

  'Some things have to stop.'

  'If she truly repents . . .'

  'Enough is enough.' Chanu wound himself forward and faced her, straight as a plane tree. 'I will have to tell them.'

  'Who?'

  'My relatives. They will have to know. Come clean. Stop the hypocrisy.'

  'Your relatives? Why should they know?'

  Chanu smiled, his fat cheeks dimpled. His eyes darted here and there, looking for an escape route from this inappropriate face. He explained as if to a child. 'All this time they thought I was rich. Why should I stay here in this foreign land, if it did not make me rich? I let them think it. It suited them and it suited me. Actually, I told them some things that are not true, have never been true. Made myself a big man. Here I am only a small man, but there . . .' The smile vanished. 'I could be big. Big Man. That's how it happened.' He sighed and placed his hands atop his stomach. 'So when the begging letters come and I blame left and I blame right, what I should be blaming is this, right here.' He moved his hands up over his chest, to show how his heart, his pride, had betrayed him.

  Sinking, sinking, drinking water. When everyone in the village was fasting a long month, when not a grain, not a drop of water passed between the parched lips of any able-bodied man, woman or child over ten, when the sun was hotter than the cooking pot and dusk was just a febrile wish, the hypocrite went down to the pond to duck his head, to dive and sink, to drink and sink a little lower.

  'No,' she said. 'It is not a matter for blame.'

  'Action, then. It is a matter for action. All matters, in fact, are matters for action. Talking is finished. From now on, I act.' He cleared his throat, a little like the old, talking Chanu. 'Something else to tell you. I resigned today.'

  'What do you mean, resigned?'

  'What do I mean? Are you against it? Have I not warned you repeatedly of my intention? I warned Dalloway and I warned you also.'

  'So. You did it then.'

  'There were some surprised faces, I can tell you.' His own face looked ambushed, raided by dacoits. All this action was taking its toll. He chewed again on his lip and a split appeared, stained with a little red. 'I'm clearing my desk in the morning.'

  'They can spare you so soon?'

  He coughed and hawked, and Nazneen feared he would spit on the floor. He swallowed. 'Of course not. But when I decide to do something, it is done. That's the way I am. From now on.' He waggled his head and blinked slowly to show there was no turning back. 'If who repents?'

  'What are you saying?'

  'You said, "If she truly repents".'

  'I don't think so.' An orderly came by, pushing a bucket along with a mop. He whistled loudly, but not loudly enough to cover his dejection. 'I think they've finished his room. Let's go.' The cleaner raised one corner of his mouth as she passed and made a noise that said he really didn't know what the world was coming to, when he was the one to be standing there with a bucket and mop while everyone else enjoyed themselves. She turned to see Chanu marching after her, his head swivelling, eyes uselessly scanning, feet knocking over the bucket, and the cleaner – propped up by his mop – shaking his head in the dignified manner of a man deeply wronged.

  Raqib was awake. 'Bah,' he said. Enough of this nonsense. He lifted his hands in front of his face and regarded them sternly. He made pincers, tested them for strength and flexibility and was satisfied. They were released. He rolled his head to the side. Nazneen cooed as he looked at her. She stroked the back of his head where the hair matted together, soft as cashmere. With a little finger she rubbed at his swollen gums, was pleased to be bitten by his little pearl teeth. Soon they would be home and he would stagger around the sitting room like a ship's deck, clinging on, undaunted by the invisible storm that buffeted him from sofa to chair to table and back again.

  'Going to buy an encyclopaedia for you.' Chanu leaned over his son and touched his leg. 'Going to buy it for myself before you start asking too many difficult questions.'

  'I'll go home tomorrow. Make everything ready.'

  'Damn clever, this boy. See it in the size of the head.'

  'Encyclopaedias are expensive.'

  'Not too expensive for this boy. Let's call it an investment. All books are investments. Can't you see what a good student he's going to be?' He began to hum, then broke into song.

  'We are the strength, we are the force The Band of Students that we are! Under the pitch dark night, we stir out Barefooted across the road With obstacles strewn. The soil stiff We render red with our crimson blood . . .'

  He broke off. 'All right. All right. No need for faces. We used to sing that at Dhaka University. It's a respectable song.' He continued the tune, humming this time.

  The baby slept. Nazneen directed her energy towards him and sat perfectly still. Chanu sat with his book. Nazneen thought of asking what they would do for money. What job he would get now. She watched him take off his shoe and his sock. He bent down to examine his corns, squeezed each one in turn and said ish under his breath. For a few moments, the book caught his attention again, then he hummed for a while, drummed his fingers, sat looking at the air, the shoe and sock abandoned and forgotten.

  She put her hand on Raqib's forehead. Just for the feel of him. To give him strength. Although, of course, only God gave strength. Whatever she did, only God decided. God knows everything. He knows the number of hairs on your head. Don't forget. Amma said that when they went off to school. She called after them, shouting in her strangled voice. 'He sees you. Don't forget. He knows the number of hairs on your head.' She thought about it. No, all that she had done for Raqib was nothing. God decided. She thought about How You Were Left To Your Fate. See! It made no difference. Amma did nothing to save her. And she lived. It was in God's hands. Raqib's chest rose and fell. He stirred and passed wind, which moved her deeply.

  At once she was enraged. A mother who did nothing to save her own child! If Nazneen (her husband's part she did not consider) had not brought the baby to hospital at once, he would have died. The doctors said it. It was no lie. Did she kick about at home wailing and wringing her hands? Did she draw attention to her plight with long sighs and ostentatiously hidden weeping? Did she call piously for God to take what he would and leave her with nothing? Did she act, in short, like her mother? A saint?

  And something else Amma was wrong about. Childbirth is like indigestion! Yes, if a snake bites like an ant. Exactly the same. Nothing different.

  No wonder, she thought and shocked herself by it, no wonder Abba went off for days. The tears flooded him out. They made him angry. Even at the burial he was angry. When he lowered her, legs first, the white winding sheet already spattered with mud while the rain raced to fill the hole, he let her go too soon. Uncle held on and stopped her rolling on her back. Abba smacked his hands together. Blue lightning ripped open the stone sky as the prayer began, thunder took the words from the imam's lips, and the rain filled all their ears and eyes and mouths.

  'Go and play,' Mumtaz had said. 'I'll bring you in to see her when I've finished.' Hasina ran off, but Nazneen stayed. 'All right then,' said Mumtaz. 'Make
yourself useful. You are a woman now, after all.' She gave Nazneen the brass dish to hold, while she dipped in a cloth and squeezed it damp. She lowered the sheet and washed Amma's face. Forehead, temples, cheeks, chin, over the eyelids, inside the ears, inside the nostrils. Her hand knocked against the top lip and the lip stayed curled and raised, revealing for ever two of the melon-seed teeth that Amma, all her life, was so keen to hide. Sheet raised, she turned to her niece. 'I don't know what your mother would say about it.'

  'Fate!' said Nazneen, and pinched the back of her neck.

  Mumtaz looked at her. 'About you being here.'

  The back of her neck was on fire. 'Oh.'

  'Anyway. You are a woman now.' Beneath the sheet she began to wash the right side of the upper body. She pulled out the arm and ran the cloth along it. 'You mustn't think she died alone.'

  'Angels.' She wished she had a way with tears. It seemed wrong. No one was crying. The village had lost its best mourner.

  'They were with her, and God. The sari is ruined, of course. Her best one. The rest you can share out with Hasina.' She washed the torso. As the sheet lifted, Nazneen saw her mother's breast lolling against her armpit. A rag, brown with blood, plugged the hole just to the left.

  When Mumtaz dipped the cloth in the bowl, little blood crusts floated free and congregated round the edges.

  Nazneen went to change the water. When she tipped out the bowl she couldn't help thinking it was a shame to be pouring a bit of her mother away.

  'She always said,' Mumtaz reflected, 'that everything can be changed, like this.' She snapped her fingers. 'God has made His plans. I told her, "Sister, but until He reveals them we have to get on by ourselves." Well. . .' She sucked her teeth. 'Now the plan is clear. It's come and gone. Puff!'

  She was displeased with something. Nazneen stood up straight, hoping she looked as solemn as she was trying to feel. In truth, she felt bored by now and squeamish at seeing the body.

  Mumtaz finished with the left foot (how yellow the toenails!) and began on the winding. She uncovered Amma's lower half, and Nazneen in spite of herself stared at this unprecedented nakedness. A loincloth went around her upper thighs and hips. Another cloth tied the first at the waist. A third sheet made a kind of short, straight dress and the next became a veil. 'Oh,' said Mumtaz. 'The hair.' She removed the veil and began to plait the hair, squatting behind the choki and sticking out her tongue in concentration. It was then that the rain started. Heralded the past few weeks by electric skies and air so hot it shimmered just out of reach and scorched the nostrils of those foolhardy enough to breathe, the rain was greeted with joy. It beat down on the tin roof, it hit the ground and bounced jubilantly up, it hurled great fat globs through the doorway. Nazneen, holding her bowl, watched as children ran outside for a shower. Squeaking, they flapped each other's wet shirts, rubbed at their hair. The adults came more slowly, feigning lack of interest, as if the allotted hour of their regular walk around the compound had arrived. Abba walked across the yard and the children scattered, holding each other back before this mighty and unpredictable presence. He reached out and patted a sodden-headed small boy. He smiled and the children began to move once more. Nazneen at last found her tears, and spilled them over the final, all-encasing winding sheet that it was Amma's Fate to wear.

  She woke with a stiff neck. The hospital was quiet. The room was dark except for the glow of the machines. Chanu was not in his chair and Razia was standing on the other side of the cot. Hair disarrayed, eyes the narrowest slits. Bony hands to her face, chewing on the knuckles.

  'What is it?' cried Nazneen.

  Razia put a finger over her lips. 'Shush. Don't wake him.'

  'What is it?' This time in a whisper.

  'Very beautiful,' said Razia, leaning into the cot. 'Much better at that age, when they don't answer back. My two, they need a good whipping.' Her voice was breaking, but her eyes, as far as could be seen, stayed dry.

  'Do you want tea?'

  'Tea? No. I'm not having any more tea. All day there has been tea drinking.' She shook herself to get rid of the thought.

  'Come and sit with me.'

  Razia came round and sat. Her shoulders heaved. She pressed on her chest and pulled at her long nose. Her shoes knocked together. Finally, she said, 'He is dead.'

  'What do you mean?' said Nazneen senselessly.

  'My husband is dead. The work has killed him.'

  The rage, thought Nazneen. It killed him.

  'At the slaughter place. They were going to load up, but there was an accident.'

  Nazneen tried to find words.

  'Killed by falling cows. He was only alone a few moments and when they went back in he was underneath the cows. Seventeen frozen cows. All on top of him.' She looked at Nazneen. Her mouth twitched. 'This is how it ended,' she added. 'And the mosque not even built.'

  'The children

  'At Mrs Islam's.' She shrugged slightly. 'People came. Made tea, made wailing and that sort of thing. I told them I wanted to be on my own. But when they had gone, I didn't want to be on my own with . . . you know. I kept thinking about those cows. So I came here.'

  Nazneen took hold of her hand and massaged it inch by inch, to rub away a little of the pain, to absorb some for herself. The machines purred with satisfaction and the screens played out their endless dance. Somewhere, behind walls, a woman shouted in indistinct anguish. The disinfected floor shone dully beneath their feet and gave off its smell of neutered grief.

  Razia groaned. 'I can get that job now. No slaughter man to slaughter me now.'

  She walked into a lunatic's room. Signs of madness everywhere. The crushing furniture stacked high, spread out, jumbled up. Papers and books strewn liberally – lewdly! – over windowsills, tables, floor. Alarming rugs of every colour, deviously designed to confuse the eye and arrest the heart. Corner cabinet and glass showcase panting with knick-knacks. Yellow wallpaper lined up and down with squares and circles. The clutter of frames that fought for space on the walls. Someone, delirious, had wired plates to those same walls so that it appeared that the crockery was trying to escape.

  How quickly she had grown used to the hospital. With a sigh, she realized how quickly she would grow used to this room again. She examined the nearest chair. She did not remember it. To get to the far end of the room she had to climb over the glass-topped, orange-legged coffee table. The cane-backed chair had had its bottom removed. Two lone hairy strings were rigged loosely across the hole. To the side lay a ball of twine and a pair of pliers. So the chair-restoring business had begun. She picked up the pliers, thinking they were dangerous to leave around with Raqib coming home so soon. She picked up three pens, a notebook and a mug, then put them all down again to gather up a stray nappy, half a biscuit and an empty cocoa tin that Raqib had used as a drum. Let's be systematic, she thought, and set everything on the floor. Have a bath first, then make space in the kitchen drawers, then tidy things away. If she was quick, there would be time to call on Razia. (This is the tragedy, Chanu had said. Man works like a donkey. Working like a donkey here, but never made a go. In his heart, he never left the village. Here, Chanu began to project his voice. What can you do? An uneducated man like that. This is the immigrant tragedy.)

  Hanufa came to the door before Nazneen got to the bathroom. 'I've been watching for you,' she said. 'I've brought some food.'

  Nazneen took the containers. 'My husband has been cooking.'

  'I know,' said Hanufa. 'But I didn't know what else to bring.'

  Nazneen soaped herself with a bar of Pears, washed her hair with Fairy Liquid and, when she had finished, dusted between her toes with baby talc. In the bedroom, she stood in her underskirt and choli and looked through her saris. The wardrobe doors touched the side of the bed, making another black-walled room inside a room. A pair of Chanu's trousers lay on the floor of the wardrobe. Another pair draped over a chair that was wedged beneath the hanging clothes. She picked them up, stepped out of her underskirt and put them on. To see
herself she had to stand on the bed and look in the curly-edged dressing-table mirror. Then she could see only her legs, and ducked and twisted to try to gain an impression of the whole. She took the trousers off, put her underskirt back on and hitched it up so that it stopped at the knees. Walking over the bedspread, she imagined herself swinging a handbag like the white girls. She pulled the skirt higher, and examined her legs in the mirror. She walked towards the headboard, turning her trunk to catch the rear view, a flash of pants. Close to the wall, eyes to the mirror, she raised one leg as high as she could. She closed her eyes and skated off. Ridiculous. Her leg wobbled. She opened her eyes and was thrilled by her slim brown legs. Slowly, she drew the left leg up and rested the heel on the inside of her right thigh. She tried to spin and got caught up in the bedspread, and fell on the mattress, giggling.

  Now, she thought, where's the harm? She rolled over to wrap herself up in the bed covers and decided to float free for a while. Nothing came to her mind. She stared at the ceiling. Remember to pack his hat, she thought. He'll need that for the journey home. Then nothing. The fridge needs cleaning. More toilet roll. She slapped the bed. Write to Hasina. That was better. Wash a few clothes out, before too much piles up. No, no, no. She pulled the cover over her head. Ice e-skating, she said aloud. Torvill and Dean. Still nothing. She got out of bed and dressed quickly. Then she found pen and paper and a book to rest on and sat down on the edge of the mattress.