White Teeth (17 page)

Masturbation recommenced in earnest. Those two months, between seeing the pretty redhaired music teacher once and seeing her again, were the longest, stickiest, smelliest, guiltiest fifty-six days of Samad's life. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he found himself suddenly accosted by some kind of synesthetic fixation with the woman: hearing the color of her hair in the mosque, smelling the touch of her hand on the tube, tasting her smile while innocently walking the streets on his way to work; and this in turn led to a knowledge of every public convenience in London, led to the kind of masturbation that even a fifteen-year-old boy living in the Shetlands might find excessive. His only comfort was that he, like Roosevelt, had made a New Deal: he was going to beat but he wasn't going to
eat.
He meant somehow to purge himself of the sights and smells of Poppy Burt-Jones, of the sin of
istimna,
and, though it wasn't fasting season and these were the longest days of the year, still no substance passed Samad's lips between sunrise and sunset, not even, thanks to a little china spitoon, his own saliva. And because there was no food going in the one end, what came out of the other end was so thin and so negligible, so meager and translucent, that Samad could almost convince himself that the sin was lessened, that one wonderful day he would be able to massage one-eyed Jack as vigorously as he liked and nothing would come out but air.

But despite the intensity of the hunger—spiritual, physical, sexual—Samad still did his twelve hours daily in the restaurant. Frankly, he found the restaurant about the only place he could bear to be. He couldn't bear to see his family, he couldn't bear to go to O'Connell's, he couldn't bear to give Archie the satisfaction of seeing him in such a state. By mid-August he had upped his working hours to fourteen a day; something in the ritual of it—picking up his basket of pink swan-shaped napkins and following the trail of Shiva's plastic carnations, correcting the order of a knife or fork, polishing a glass, removing the smear of a finger from the china plates—soothed him. No matter how bad a Muslim he might be, no one could say Samad wasn't a consummate waiter. He had taken one tedious skill and honed it to perfection. Here at least he could show others the right path: how to disguise a stale onion bhaji, how to make fewer prawns look like more, how to explain to an Australian that he doesn't want the amount of chili he thinks he wants. Outside the doors of the Palace he was a masturbator, a bad husband, an indifferent father, with all the morals of an Anglican. But inside here, within these four green and yellow paisley walls, he was a one-handed genius.

“Shiva! Flower missing. Here.”

It was two weeks into Samad's New Deal and an average Friday afternoon at the Palace, setting up.

“You've missed this vase, Shiva!”

Shiva wandered over to examine the empty, pencil-thin, aquamarine vase on table nineteen.

“And there is some lime pickle afloat in the mango chutney in the sauce carousel on table fifteen.”

“Really?” said Shiva dryly. Poor Shiva; nearly thirty now; not so pretty; still here. It had never happened for him, whatever he thought was going to happen for him. He did leave the restaurant, Samad remembered vaguely, for a short time in 1979 to start up a security firm, but “nobody wanted to hire Paki bouncers” and he had come back, a little less aggressive, a little more despairing, like a broken horse.

“Yes, Shiva. Really and truly.”

“And that's what's driving you crazy, is it?”

“I wouldn't go as far as to say crazy, no . . . it is
troubling
me.”

“Because something,” interrupted Shiva, “has got right up your arse recently. We've all noticed it.”

“We?”

“Us. The boys. Yesterday it was a grain of salt in a napkin. The day before Gandhi wasn't hung straight on the wall. The past week you've been acting like Führer-gee,” said Shiva, nodding in Ardashir's direction. “Like a crazy man. You don't smile. You don't eat. You're constantly on everybody's case. And when the head waiter's not all there it puts everybody off. Like a football captain.”

“I am certain I do not know to what you are referring,” said Samad, tight-lipped, passing him the vase.

“And I'm certain you do,” said Shiva provocatively, placing the empty vase back on the table.

“If I am concerned about something, there is no reason why it should disrupt my work here,” said Samad, becoming panicked, passing him back the vase. “I do not wish to inconvenience others.”

Shiva returned the vase to the table once more. “So there
is
something. Come on, man . . . I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but we've got to stick together in this place. How long have we worked together? Samad Miah?”

Samad looked up suddenly at Shiva, and Shiva saw he was sweating, that he seemed almost dazed. “Yes, yes . . . there is . . . something.”

Shiva put his hand on Samad's shoulder. “So why don't we sod the fucking carnation and go and cook you a curry—sun'll be down in twenty minutes. Come on, you can tell Shiva all about it. Not because I give a fuck, you understand, but I have to work here too and you're driving me mad, mate.”

Samad, oddly touched by this inelegant offer of a listening ear, laid down his pink swans and followed Shiva into the kitchens.

“Animal, vegetable, mineral?”

Shiva stood at a work surface and began chopping a breast of chicken into perfect cubes and dousing them in cornstarch.

“Pardon me?”

“Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?” repeated Shiva impatiently. “The thing that's bothering you.”

“Animal, mainly.”

“Female?”

Samad dropped onto a nearby stool and hung his head.

“Female,” Shiva concluded. “Wife?”

“The shame of it, the pain of it will come to my wife, but no . . . she is not the cause.”

“Another bird. My specialist subject.” Shiva performed the action of rolling a camera, sang the theme to
Mastermind,
and jumped into shot. “Shiva Bhagwati, you have thirty seconds on shagging women other than your wife. First question: is it right? Answer: depends. Second question: shall I go to hell?—”

Samad cut in, disgusted. “I am not . . . making love to her.”

“I've started so I'll finish: shall I go to hell? Answer—”

“Enough. Forget it. Please, forget that I mentioned anything of this.”

“Do you want eggplant in this?”

“No . . . green peppers are sufficient.”

“Alrighty,” said Shiva, throwing a green pepper up in the air and catching it on the tip of his knife. “One Chicken Bhuna coming up. How long's it been going on, then?”

“Nothing is going on. I met her only once. I barely know her.”

“So: what's the damage? A grope? A snog?”

“A handshake, only. She is my sons' teacher.”

Shiva tossed the onions and peppers into hot oil. “You've had the odd stray thought. So what?”

Samad stood up. “It is more than stray thoughts, Shiva. My whole body is mutinous, nothing will do what I tell it. Never before have I been subjected to such physical indignities. For example: I am constantly—”

“Yeah,” said Shiva, indicating Samad's crotch. “We noticed that too. Why don't you do the five-knuckle-shuffle before you get to work?”

“I do . . . I am . . . but it makes no difference. Besides, Allah forbids it.”

“Oh, you should never have got religious, Samad. It don't suit you.” Shiva wiped an onion-tear away. “All that guilt's not healthy.”

“It is not guilt. It is fear. I am fifty-seven, Shiva. When you get to my age, you become . . . concerned about your faith, you don't want to leave things too late. I have been corrupted by England, I see that now—my children, my wife, they too have been corrupted. I think maybe I have made the wrong friends. Maybe I have been frivolous. Maybe I have thought intellect more important than faith. And now it seems this final temptation has been put in front of me. To punish me, you understand. Shiva, you know about women. Help me. How can this feeling be possible? I have known of the woman's existence for no more than a few months, I have spoken to her only once.”

“As you said: you're fifty-seven. Midlife crisis.”

“Midlife? What does this mean?” snapped Samad irritably. “Dammit, Shiva, I don't plan to live for one hundred and fourteen years.”

“It's a
manner of speaking.
You read about it in the magazines these days. It's when a man gets to a certain point in life, he starts feeling he's over the hill . . . and you're as young as the girl you feel, if you get my meaning.”

“I am at a moral crossroads in my life and you are talking nonsense to me.”

“You've got to learn this stuff, mate,” said Shiva, speaking slowly, patiently. “Female organism, gee-spot, testicle cancer, the menstropause—midlife crisis is one of them. Information the modern man needs at his fingertips.”

“But I don't wish for such information!” cried Samad, standing up and pacing the kitchen. “That is precisely the point! I don't wish to be a modern man! I wish to live as I was always meant to! I wish to return to the East!”

“Ah, well . . . we all do, don't we?” murmured Shiva, pushing the peppers and onion around the pan. “I left when I was three. Fuck knows I haven't made anything of this country. But who's got the money for the air fare? And who wants to live in a shack with fourteen servants on the payroll? Who knows what Shiva Bhagwati would have turned out like back in Calcutta? Prince or pauper? And who,” said Shiva, some of his old beauty returning to his face, “can pull the West out of 'em once it's in?”

Samad continued to pace. “I should never have come here—that's where every problem has come from. Never should have had my sons here, so far from God. Willesden Green! Visiting cards in sweetshop windows, Judy Blume in the school, condom on the pavement, Harvest Festival, teacher-temptresses!” roared Samad, picking items at random. “Shiva—I tell you, in confidence: my dearest friend, Archibald Jones, is an unbeliever! Now: what kind of a model am I for my children?”

“Iqbal, sit down. Be calm. Listen: you just want somebody. People want people. It happens from Delhi to Deptford. And it's not the end of the world.”

“Of this, I wish I could be certain.”

“When are you next seeing her?”

“We are meeting for school-related business . . . the first Wednesday of September.”

“I see. Is she Hindu? Muslim? She ain't Sikh, is she?”

“That is the worst of it,” said Samad, his voice breaking. “English. White. English.”

Shiva shook his head. “I been out with a lot of white birds, Samad. A lot. Sometimes it's worked, sometimes it ain't. Two lovely American girls. Fell head over heels for a Parisian stunner. Even spent a year with a Romanian. But never an English girl. Never works. Never.”

“Why?” asked Samad, attacking his thumbnail with his teeth and awaiting some fearful answer, some edict from on high. “Why not, Shiva Bhagwati?”

“Too much history” was Shiva's enigmatic answer, as he dished up the Chicken Bhuna. “Too much bloody history.”

Eight-thirty a.m., the first Wednesday of September, 1984. Samad, lost in thought somewhat, heard the passenger door of his Austin Mini Metro open and close—far away in the real world—and turned to his left to find Millat climbing in next to him. Or at least a Millat-shaped thing from the neck down: the head replaced by a
Tomytronic—
a basic computer game that looked like a large pair of binoculars. Within it, Samad knew from experience, a little red car that represented his son was racing a green car and a yellow car along a three-dimensional road of l.e.d.'s.

Millat parked his tiny backside on the brown plastic seat. “Ooh! Cold seat! Cold seat! Frozen bum!”

“Millat, where are Magid and Irie?”

“Coming.”

“Coming with the speed of a train or coming with the speed of a snail?”

“Eeek!” squealed Millat, in response to a virtual blockade that threatened to send his red car spinning off into oblivion.

“Please, Millat. Take this off.”

“Can't. Need one, oh, two, seven, three points.”

“Millat, you need to begin to understand numbers. Repeat: ten thousand, two hundred and seventy-three.”

“Men blousand, poo bumdred and weventy-wee.”

“Take it off, Millat.”

“Can't. I'll die. Do you want me to die, Abba?”

Samad wasn't listening. It was imperative that he be at school before nine if this trip were going to have any purpose whatsoever. By nine, she'd be in class. By nine-oh-two, she'd be opening the register with those long fingers, by nine-oh-three she'd be tapping her high-mooned nails on a wooden desk somewhere out of sight.

“Where are they? Do they want to be late for school?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are they always this late?” asked Samad, for this was not his regular routine—the school run was usually Alsana's or Clara's assignment. It was for a glimpse of Burt-Jones (though their meeting was only seven hours and fifty-seven minutes away, seven hours and fifty-six minutes away, seven hours . . .) that he had undertaken the most odious parental responsibility in the book. And he'd had a hard time convincing Alsana there was nothing peculiar in this sudden desire to participate fully in the educational transportation of his and Archie's offspring:

“But Samad, you don't get in the house 'til three in the morning. Are you going peculiar?”

“I want to see my boys! I want to see Irie! Every morning they are growing up—I never see it! Two inches Millat has grown.”

“But not at eight-thirty in the morning. It is very funnily enough that he grows all the time—praise Allah! It must be some kind of a miracle. What is this about, hmm?” She dug her fingernail into the overhang of his belly. “Some hokery-pokery. I can smell it—like goat's tongue gone off.”