White Teeth (52 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Crisis Talks and Eleventh-Hour Tactics

“Mrs. Iqbal? It's Joyce Chalfen. Mrs. Iqbal? I can see you quite clearly. It's Joyce. I really think we should talk. Could you . . . umm . . . open the door?”

Yes, she could.
Theoretically,
she could. But in this atmosphere of extremity, with warring sons and disparate factions, Alsana needed a tactic of her own. She'd done silence, and word strikes, and food consumption (the opposite of a hunger strike; one gets bigger in order to intimidate the enemy), and now she was attempting a sit-down protest.

“Mrs. Iqbal . . . just five minutes of your time. Magid's really very upset about all of this. He's worried about Millat and so am I. Just five minutes, Mrs. Iqbal, please.”

Alsana didn't rise from her seat. She simply continued along the hem, keeping her eye on the black thread as it shuttled from one cog to the next and down into the PVC, pressing the pedal of the Singer furiously, as if kicking the flank of a horse she wished to ride into the sunset.

“Well, you may as well let her in,” said Samad wearily, emerging from the living room, where Joyce's persistence had disturbed his appreciation of
The Antiques Roadshow.
(Aside from
The Equalizer,
starring that great moral arbiter Edward Woodward, it was Samad's favorite program. He had spent fifteen long televisual years waiting for some Cockney housewife to pull a trinket of Mangal Pande's out of her handbag.
Oh, Mrs. Winterbottom, now this is
very
exciting. What we have here is the barrel of the musket belonging to . . .
He sat with the phone under his right hand so that in the event of such a scenario he could phone the BBC and demand the said Winterbottom's address and asking price. So far only Mutiny medals and a pocket watch belonging to Havelock, but still he watched.)

He peered down the hallway at the shadowy form of Joyce through the glass and scratched his testicles, sadly. Samad was in his television mode: garish V-neck, stomach swelling like a tight hot-water bottle beneath it, long moth-eaten dressing gown, and a pair of paisley boxer shorts from which two stick legs, the legacy of his youth, protruded. In his television mode, action escaped him. The box in the corner of the room (which he liked to think of as an antique of its kind, encased in wood and on four legs like some Victorian robot) sucked him in and sapped all energy.

“Well, why don't you
do
something, Mr. Iqbal? Make her go away. Instead of standing there with your flabby gut and your tiny willy on display.”

Samad grunted and tucked the cause of all his troubles, two huge hairy balls and a defeated-looking limp prick, back into the inner lining of his shorts.

“She won't go away,” he murmured. “And if she does, she will only return with reinforcements.”

“But why? Hasn't she caused enough trouble?” said Alsana loudly, loud enough for Joyce. “She has her own family, no? Why does she not go and for a change mess them up? She has boys, four boys? How many boys does she want? How bloody many?”

Samad shrugged, went into the kitchen drawer, and fished out the earphones that could be plugged into the television and thus short-circuit the outside world. He, like Marcus, had disengaged.
Leave them,
was his feeling. Leave them to their battles.

“Oh
thank
you,” said Alsana caustically, as her husband retreated to his pots and guns. “Thank you, Samad Miah, for your oh so valuable contribution. This is what the men do. They make the mess, the century ends, and they leave the women to clear up the shit. Thank you, husband!”

She increased the speed of her sewing, dashing out the seam, progressing down the inner leg, while the Sphinx of the mailbox continued to ask unanswerable questions.

“Mrs. Iqbal . . . please, can we talk? Is there any reason why we shouldn't talk? Do we
have
to behave like children?”

Alsana began to sing.

“Mrs. Iqbal?
Please.
What can this possibly achieve?”

Alsana sang louder.

“I must tell you,” said Joyce, strident as ever, even through three panels of wood and glass, “I'm not here for my health. Whether you want me to be
involved
or not, I
am,
you see? I
am.
”

Involved. At least that was the right word, Alsana reflected, as she lifted her foot off the pedal, and let the wheel spin a few times alone before coming to a squeaky halt. Sometimes, here in England, especially at bus stops and on the daytime soaps, you heard people say “We're
involved
with each other,” as if this were a most wonderful state to be in, as if one chose it and enjoyed it. Alsana never thought of it that way.
Involved
happened over a long period of time, pulling you in like quicksand.
Involved
is what befell the moon-faced Alsana Begum and the handsome Samad Miah one week after they'd been pushed into a Delhi breakfast room together and informed they were to marry.
Involved
was the result when Clara Bowden met Archie Jones at the bottom of some stairs.
Involved
swallowed up a girl called Ambrosia and a boy called Charlie (yes, Clara had told her
that
sorry tale) the second they kissed in the pantry of a guest house. Involved is neither good nor bad. It is just a consequence of living, a consequence of occupation and immigration, of empires and expansion, of living in each other's pockets . . . one becomes involved and it is a long trek back to being uninvolved. And the woman was right, one didn't do it for one's
health.
Nothing this late in the century was done with
health
in mind. Alsana was no dummy when it came to the Modern Condition. She watched the talk shows, all day long she watched the talk shows
—My wife slept with my brother. My mother won't stay out of my boyfriend's life—
and the microphone holder, whether it be Tanned Man with White Teeth or Scary Married Couple, always asked the same damn silly question:
But why do you feel the need . . . ?
Wrong! Alsana had to explain it to them through the screen. You blockhead; they are not
wanting
this, they are not
willing
it—they are just involved, see? They walk IN and they get trapped between the revolving doors of those two
v
's.
Involved.
The years pass, and the mess accumulates and here we are. Your brother's sleeping with my ex-wife's niece's second cousin.
Involved.
Just a tired, inevitable fact. Something in the way Joyce said it,
involved—
wearied, slightly acid—suggested to Alsana that the word meant the same thing to her. An enormous web you spin to catch yourself.

“OK, OK, lady, five minutes, only. I have three jumpsuits to do this morning come hell or high water.”

Alsana opened the door and Joyce walked into the hallway, and for a moment they surveyed their opposite number, guessing each other's weight like nervous prizefighters prior to mounting the scales. They were definitely a match for each other. What Joyce lacked in chest, she made up in bottom. Where Alsana revealed a weakness in delicate features—a thin and pretty nose, light eyebrows—she compensated with the huge pudge of her arms, the dimples of maternal power. For, after all, she was the mother here. The mother of the boys in question. She held the trump card, should she be forced to play it.

“Okey-dokey, then,” said Alsana, squeezing through the narrow kitchen door, beckoning Joyce to follow. “Is it tea or is it coffee?”

“Tea,” said Joyce firmly. “Fruit if possible.”

“Fruit not possible. Not even Earl Grey is possible. I come from the land of tea to this godawful country and then I can't afford a proper cup of it. P.G. Tips is possible and nothing else.”

Joyce winced. “P.G. Tips, please, then.”

“As you wish.”

The mug of tea plonked in front of Joyce a few minutes later was gray with a rim of scum and thousands of little microbes flitting through it, less micro than one would have hoped. Alsana gave Joyce a moment to consider it.

“Just leave it for a while,” she explained gaily. “My husband hit a water pipe when digging a trench for some onions. Our water is a little funny ever since. It may give you the running shits or it may not. But give it a minute and it clears. See?” Alsana gave it an unconvincing stir, sending yet larger chunks of unidentified matter bubbling up to the surface. “You see? Fit for Shah Jaha¯n himself!”

Joyce took a tentative sip and then pushed it to one side.

“Mrs. Iqbal, I know we haven't been on the best of terms in the past, but—”

“Mrs. Chalfen,” said Alsana, putting up her long forefinger to stop Joyce speaking. “There are two rules that everybody knows, from PM to jinricksha-wallah. The first is, never let your country become a trading post. Very important. If my ancestors had followed this advice, my situation presently would be very different, but such is life. The second is, don't interfere in other people's family business. Milk?”

“No, no, thank you. A little sugar . . .”

Alsana dumped a huge heaped tablespoon into Joyce's cup.

“You think I am interfering?”

“I think you have interfered.”

“But I just want the twins to see each other.”

“You are the reason they are apart.”

“But Magid is only living with us because Millat won't live with him here. And Magid tells me your husband can hardly stand the sight of him.”

Alsana, little pressure cooker that she was, blew. “And
why
can't he? Because
you,
you and your husband, have involved Magid in something so contrary to our culture, to our beliefs, that we barely recognize him! You have done that! He is at odds with his brother now. Impossible conflict! Those green bow-tied bastards: Millat is high up with them now. Very involved. He doesn't tell me, but I hear. They call themselves followers of Islam, but they are nothing but thugs in a gang roaming Kilburn like all the other lunatics. And now they are sending out the—what are they called—folded-paper trouble.”

“Leaflets?”

“
Leaflets.
Leaflets about your husband and his ungodly mouse. Trouble brewing, yes sir. I found them, hundreds of them, under his bed.” Alsana stood up, drew a key out of her apron pocket, and opened a kitchen cupboard stacked full of green leaflets, which cascaded onto the floor. “He's disappeared again, three days. I have to put them back before he finds out they are gone. Take some, go on, lady, take them, go and read them to Magid. Show
him
what you have done. Two boys driven to different ends of the world.
You
have made a war between my sons.
You
are splitting them apart!”

A minute earlier Millat had turned the key ever so softly in the front door. Since then he had been standing in the hallway, listening to the conversation and smoking a fag. It was great! It was like listening to two big Italian matriarchs from opposing clans battle it out. Millat loved clans. He had joined KEVIN because he loved clans (and the outfit and the bow tie), and he loved clans at war. Marjorie the analyst had suggested that this desire to be part of a clan was a result of being, effectively, half a twin. Marjorie the analyst suggested that Millat's religious conversion was more likely born out of a need for sameness within a group than out of any intellectually formulated belief in the existence of an all-powerful creator. Maybe. What
ever.
As far as he was concerned, you could analyze it until the cows came home, but nothing beat being all dressed in black, smoking a fag, listening to two mammas battle it out over you in operatic style:

“You claim to want to help my boys, but you have done nothing but drive a wedge between them. It is too late now. I have lost my family. Why don't you go back to yours and leave us alone?”

“You think it's paradise over at my house? My family has been split by this too. Joshua isn't speaking to Marcus. Did you know that? And those two were so close . . .” Joyce looked a bit weepy, and Alsana reluctantly passed her the kitchen towel. “I'm trying to help
all
of us. And the best way to start is to get Magid and Millat talking before this escalates any further than it has. I think we can both agree on that. If we could find some neutral place, some ground where they both felt no pressures or outside influence . . .”

“But there are no neutral places anymore! I agree they should meet, but where and how? You and your husband have made everything impossible.”

“Mrs. Iqbal, with all due respect, the problems in your family began long before either my husband or I had any involvement.”

“Maybe, maybe, Mrs. Chalfen, but you are the salt in the wound, yes? You are the one extra chili pepper in the hot sauce.”

Millat heard Joyce draw her breath in sharply.

“Again, with respect, I can't believe that it is the case. I think this has been going on for a very long time. Millat told me that some years ago you burned all his things. I mean, it's just an example, but I don't think you understand the
trauma
that kind of thing has inflicted on Millat. He's very
damaged.
”

“Oh, we are going to play the tit for the tat. I see. And I am to be the tit. Not that it is any of your big-nose business, but I burned those things to teach him a lesson—to respect other people's lives!”

“A strange way of showing it, if you don't mind me saying.”

“I do mind! I do mind! What do you know of it?”

“Only what I see. And I see that Millat has a lot of mental scars. You may not be aware, but I've been funding sessions for Millat with my analyst. And I can tell you, Millat's inner life—his karma, I suppose you might call it in Bengali—the whole
world
of his subconscious shows serious illness.”

In fact, the problem with Millat's subconscious (and he didn't need Marjorie to tell him this) was that it was basically split-level. On the one hand he was trying real hard to live as Hifan and the others suggested. This involved getting his head around four main criteria.