Brick Lane (34 page)

'Mr Iqbal just sold his flat,' said Shahana.

'It's these things that make me sad,' continued Chanu, captivated by his own oration.

'For one hundred and sixty thousand pounds.'

'Living in little rat holes.' Chanu waggled his head, and his cheeks were filled with sorrow.

'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.'

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.

Chanu returned balancing a tray across his stomach. 'Make way,' he cried, though nothing but the furniture blocked him. 'I have rice and some potato.' He put the tray on the bottom of the bed. 'Very little spice with the potato,' he told the doctor, as if issuing a warning. 'And a small dish of shon-papri. For energy.'

'Good, good,' said the doctor. He collected his belongings. 'You will be able to get back to work,' he told Chanu. 'The London transport system is breaking down without you.'

Chanu waggled his head. 'Let them go to hell while I look after my wife.' He began to eat the crumbly sweetmeat, but with the first mouthful Nazneen could see that he had remembered it was for her. He put the bowl of shon-papri down again. 'How is your wife?' he asked cheerfully.

'Couldn't be better,' returned the doctor, with equally determined good cheer. 'Any word from the council?'

'Council?'

'About the—'

'Library. Thank you for asking, but as you observe' – he beamed at his girls and his wife – 'I am too busy with my family. Let them go to hell too – ignorant types, readers and illiterates, council as well. Let them all go together.' He sighed with tremendous satisfaction.

'Stay in bed,' Dr Azad told Nazneen. 'As long as you can manage. Call me if you start to feel bad again; I can prescribe something to calm you.'

'Nonsense,' sang Chanu. 'My wife is very, very calm. No one is more calm than my wife. She has nothing to get excited about,' he said, with pride.

'Good, good. I must go. I have rounds to make. For some of us, work will not wait.'

'Yes, you must go,' agreed Chanu. 'Go and heal the sick. And give my regards to your family.'

Nazneen rolled a modest ball of rice between her first two fingers and thumb. She remembered the night, many years ago, when she had first wondered what brought these two men together. Now, what kept them together was clear. The doctor had status and respect and money, the lack of which caused Chanu to suffer. But the doctor had no family; none he could speak of without suffering. Chanu had a proper wife, daughters who behaved themselves. But this clever man, for all his books, was nothing better than a rickshaw wallah. And so they entwined their lives to drink from the pools of each other's sadness. From these special watering holes, each man drew strength.

It was late afternoon when she had decided to open her eyes and participate in her life once again. By way of celebration the girls stayed up long after bedtime, and Chanu became a clown. He gave an account of his mishaps in the kitchen and, in a re-enactment of a slip of the knife, hopped around holding his thumb. At night he had been sleeping on the very edge of the bed to give her 'room to breathe'. He demonstrated just how he had rolled onto the floor on the first night, and his acting out of befuddlement was gifted. Shahana rolled her eyes but she smiled despite herself. Bibi, more formal, applauded. Nazneen smiled and wound her hair into a knot. Her arms felt heavy as she lifted them, and her legs ached. Resting, it seemed, had made her unbearably tired. The feeling returned to her that there was something she ought to be thinking about.

'I'll get up for a while.'

Chanu shook a finger at her. 'Did she not hear the doctor? Bed rest. That's the prescription.'

'But I've been in bed so long. I want to get up.'

'She is disobeying the doctor. What a lot of trouble she will be in.' Chanu smiled so hard that his cheeks were in danger of popping.

Nazneen wondered why her husband spoke of her as 'she'. If she had more energy, she decided, she would find this irritating. She marshalled her resources for getting up, and ignoring Chanu's continued admonishments.

The sitting room crawled with toys, clothes, books and abandoned kitchen utensils. A pack of toilet rolls stood on the table; five tins of baked beans nested on the sofa. Attempts had been made to unpack shopping bags, but at some stage between bag and cupboard each attempt had foundered. If a bag had been emptied, it lay on the floor and gaped at the mess. Emergency rations of food marked the path from door to sofa to table. Nazneen picked her way across the room without comment. It gave her some satisfaction. For years she had felt she must not relax. If she relaxed, things would fall apart. Only the constant vigilance and planning, the low-level, unremarked and unrewarded activity of a woman, kept the household from crumbling.

Chanu picked up a shoe and a packet of felt-tip pens. He put them on the arm of the chair. 'The girls are on school holiday. What can you do?' He shrugged and shook his head, helpless in the face of this natural disaster.

Nazneen went to the window and looked out at the orange glow of the lamp-posts. The light was sickly; poisonous. She felt a memory gather like a lump in her throat, a thing without substance but with an undeniable presence.

Shahana looked out of the window with her. A group of children, ten or twelve years old, came round the corner and lined up along the wall as if they had taken themselves prisoner.

'There's Aktar,' said Shahana, 'and Ali.'

'What time is it?' said Nazneen.

'Almost eleven o'clock,' Chanu told her. He came up to the window and worked his lips and eyebrows into expressions of disapproval. 'Why do they let their little children roam around like goats?'

'They're not little children,' said Shahana. 'And Ali's got ten brothers and sisters. His parents don't want them all inside all the time.' She tossed her head to get her fringe out of her eyes. 'They'd only get on each other's nerves,' she added, with feeling.

'Ah, it's
Overcrowding,'
said Chanu, dropping in the word in English.
'Overcrowding
is one of the worst problems in our community. Four or five Bangladeshis to one room. That's an official council statistic.'

'Anyway,' said Shahana, 'it's not that late. Most people are allowed to stay up later than this.'

'What? Later than this? Going around in gangs, late at night and not one book between them. What do you think these goats are studying? What are they learning?'

Shahana's face began to shut down. She turned away from the window.

Chanu recalled that this evening was special. He put his arm around his daughter.

'Calm, calm,' he said. 'Doctor's orders. Don't let your mother get excited.'

Eventually, Bibi began to yawn. Chanu sent the girls to bed and lay down on the sofa nursing his belly. Nazneen regarded the room and fought the impulse to tidy up. She sat very still to allow the memory to form.

'I have to go back to work,' said Chanu. 'Does she think she could cope without me?'

Nazneen saw her sewing machine. It was pushed to the back of the table, half hidden behind a pile of books and a cardboard box.

'Oh, work,' she said and jumped up. She looked in the box. A nest of zips, still waiting to be sewn into some jackets.

'She can't work,' cried Chanu, twisting his head round. 'The patient can't work.'

'I was supposed to finish these last week.'

'They'll have to wait.'

Nazneen leaned against the table. She felt dizzy and sick, the same way she felt when she once tried to smoke a cigarette with Razia.

'That's it,' declared Chanu. 'She's going back to bed.'

But it was Chanu who, after further third-person remonstrations, removed himself to bed. Nazneen could not be budged. Memory returned to her like a tidal wave and she had to stay on her feet or else drown. She walked around the room picking up any object, without knowing what it was or where she put it. When the floor was clear she began rearranging the things she had moved, grouping them promiscuously, deranging as she arranged. Karim had been here. He had come and come again until Chanu was suspicious. And the girls. The girls knew. Or Karim had not been. Worse. He had come and
he
had been suspicious. Why would she not see him? He would not come again. This was good. No. It was bad. At least it was an end. But how could it end like that, without her there? And if it had ended, why did it ever begin? If that was all that would happen, then why did it happen at all? He would come again, and she would explain. Or perhaps, she would not explain, and that –
that –
would be the end. She would end it. But she could not. When she saw him, she would not be able. She was not strong enough. And, anyway, it was not for her to choose. When would he come? Would he come?

Exhausted, she collapsed in the cow-dung armchair and picked the stuffing out of a hole. She made herself think more slowly. For each five breaths, she said to herself, you are allowed one thought. She counted them out. Karim was supposed to come on Tuesday, when the girls were going to a friend's house for the afternoon. She blew out each breath as hard as possible. He would have come straight up, because he had another batch of sewing for her. On the in-breaths she filled up her lungs from the bottom until she felt the pressure beneath her collarbone. Or he looked for her in the window, and walked straight past. She raced through her next set, shallow intakes through her nostrils. What did it matter, anyway, what had happened? The important thing was what would happen now. The importance of it stole her breath altogether and she gasped and gulped at the air.