7 wasn't the one -1

But Samad wasn't listening, he was already reciting in his head, repeating two English phrases

that he tried hard to believe in, words he had learnt these past ten years in England, words he hoped

could protect him from the abominable heat in his trousers:

To the pure all things are pure. To the pure all things are pure. To the pure all things are pure.

Can't say fairer than that. Can't say fairer than that. Can't say fairer than that. But let's rewind a

little.

To the pure all things are pure

Sex, at least the temptation of sex, had long been a problem. When the fear of God first began

to creep into Samad's bones, circa 1976, just after his marriage to the small-palmed, weak wristed

and disinterested Alsana, he had inquired of an elderly alim in the mosque in Croydon whether it

was permitted that a man might.. . with his hand on his .. .

Before he had got halfway through this tentative mime, the old scholar had silently passed him

a leaflet from a pile on a table and drawn his wrinkled digit firmly underneath point number three.

There are nine acts which invalidate fast:

Eating and drinking Sexual intercourse

Masturbation (istimna), which means self-abuse, resulting in ejaculation

Ascribing false things to Almighty Allah, or his Prophet, or to the successors of the Holy Prophet

Swallowing thick dust

Immersing one's complete head in water

Remaining in Janabat or Haidh or Nifas till the Adhan for Fajr prayers (viii) Enema with

liquids Vomiting

"And what, Alim," Samad had inquired, dismayed, 'if he is not fasting?"

The old scholar looked grave. "Ibn "Umar was asked about it and is reported to have answered:

it is nothing except the rubbing of the male member until its water comes out. It is only a nerve that

one kneads."

Samad had taken heart at this, but the Alim continued. "However, he answered in another report:

it has been forbidden that one should have intercourse with oneself."

"But which is the correct belief? Is it hal al or hara am There are some who say ..." Samad had

begun sheepishly, "To the pure all things are pure. If one is truthful and firm in oneself, it can harm

nobody else, nor offend .. ."

But the Alim laughed at this. "And we know who they are. Allah have pity on the Anglicans!

Samad, when the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intellect go away," said the

Alim, shaking his head. "And one third of his religion. There is an hadith of the Prophet

Muhammad peace be upon Him! it is as follows: O Allah, I seek refuge in you from the evil of my

hearing, of my sight, of my tongue, of my heart, and of my private parts."

"But surely .. . surely if the man himself is pure, then ' "Show me the pure man, Samad! Show

me the pure act! Oh, Samad Miah .. . my advice to you is stay away from your right hand."

Of course. Samad, being Samad, had employed the best of his Western pragmatism, gone home

and vigorously tackled the job with his functional left hand, repeating To the pure all things are

pure. To the pure all things are pure, until orgasm finally arrived: sticky, sad, depressing. And that

ritual continued for some five years, in the little bedroom at the top of the house where he slept

alone (so as not to wake Alsana) after crawling back from the restaurant at three in the morning

each and every morning; secretly, silently; for he was, believe it or not, tortured by it, by this furtive

yanking and squeezing and spilling, by the fear that he was not pure, that his acts were not pure,

that he would never be pure, and always his God seemed to be sending him small signs, small

warnings, small curses (a urethra infection, 1976, castration dream, 1978, dirty, encrusted sheet

discovered but misunderstood by Alsana's great-aunt, 1979) until 1980 brought crisis point and

Samad heard Allah roaring in his ear like the waves in a conch-shell and it seemed time to make a deal.

Can't say fairer than that

The deal was this: on i January 1980, like a New Year dieter who gives up cheese on the

condition that they can have chocolate, Samad gave up masturbation so that he might drink. It was

a deal, a business proposition, that he had made with God: Samad being the party of the first part,

God being the sleeping partner. And since that day Samad had enjoyed relative spiritual peace and

many a frothy Guinness with Archibald Jones; he had even developed the habit of taking his last

gulp looking up at the sky like a Christian, thinking: I'm basically a good man. I don't slap

the salami. Give me a break. I have the odd drink. Can't say fairer than that.. .

But of course he was in the wrong religion for compromises, deals, pacts, weaknesses and can't

say fairer than that. He was supporting the wrong team if it was empathy and concessions he

wanted, if he wanted liberal exegesis, if he wanted to be given a break. His God was not like that

charming white-bearded bungler of the Anglican, Methodist or Catholic churches. His God was not

in the business of giving people breaks. The moment Samad set eyes on the pretty red-haired music

teacher Poppy Burt Jones that July of 1984, he knew finally the truth of this. He knew his God was

having his revenge, he knew the game was up, he saw that the contract had been broken, and the

sanity clause did not, after all, exist, that temptation had been deliberately and maliciously thrown

in his path. In short, all deals were off.

Masturbation recommenced in earnest. Those two months, between seeing the pretty red-haired

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 synaesthetic fixation with the woman: hearing the colour 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 meagre 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 chilli 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 drily. 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 Fuhrer-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 corn flour.

"Pardon me?"

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

"Animal, mainly."

"Female?"

Samad dropped on to 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 aubergine 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. Mid-life crisis."

"Mid-life? What does this mean?" snappedSamadirritably. "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 mid-life 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 Bagwhati 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 brought my sons here, so far from God. Willesden Green! Calling cards in

sweetshop windows, Judy Blume in the school, condom on the pavement, Harvest Festival,

teacher-temptresses!" roared Samad, picking items at random. "Shiva1 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 Deptfbrd. 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."

8.30 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 Me?"

"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."

Then blousand, poo bum dred 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 Me! Every morning they are growing up1 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."

Ah, Alsana's culinary nose for guilt, deceit and fear was without equal in the borough of Brent,

and Samad was useless in the face

of it. Did she know? Had she guessed? These anxieties Samad had slept on all night (when he

wasn't slapping the salami) and then brought to his car first thing so that he might take them out on

his children.

"Where in hell's name are they?"

"Hell's bells!"

"Millat!"

"You swore," said Millat, taking lap fourteen and getting a five-oh-oh bonus for causing the

combustion of Yellow Car. "You always do. So does M'ster Jones."

"Well, we have special swearing licences."

Headless Millat needed no face to express his outrage. "NO

SUCH THING AS-'

"OK, OK, OK," back-pedalled Samad, knowing there is no joy to be had in arguing ontology

with a nine-year-old, "I have been caught out. No such thing as a licence to swear. Millat, where's

your saxophone? You have orchestra today."

"In the boot," said Millat, his voice at once incredulous and disgusted: a man who didn't know

the saxophone went in the boot on Sunday night was some kind of a social retard. "Why're you

picking us up? M'ster Jones picks us up on Mondays. You don't know anything about picking us up.

Or taking us in."

"I'm sure somehow I will muddle through, thank you, Millat. It is hardly rocket science, after all.

Where are those two!" he shouted, beeping the horn, unhinged by his nine-year-old son's ability to

recognize the irregularity in his behaviour. "And will you please be taking that damn thing off!"

Samad made a grab for the Tomytronic and pulled it down around Millat's neck.

"YOU KILLED ME!" Millat looked back in the Tomytronic, horrified, and just in time to

witness his tiny red alter-ego swerving into the barriers and disappearing in a catastrophic light

show of showering yellow sparks. "YOU KILLED ME WHEN I

WAS WINNING!"

Samad closed his eyes and forced his eyeballs to roll up as far

as possible in his head, in the hope that his brain might impact upon them, a self-blinding, if he

could achieve it, on a par with that other victim of Western corruption, Oedipus. Think: I want

another woman. Think: I've killed my son. I swear. I eat bacon. I regularly slap the salami. I drink

Guinness. My best friend is a kaflfir non-believer. I tell myself if I rub up and down without using

hands it does not count. But oh it does count. It all counts on the great counting board of He who

counts. What will happen come Mahshar? How will I absolve myself when the Last Judgement

comes? . Click-slam. Click-slam. One Magid, one Irie. Samad opened his eyes and looked in the

rear-view mirror. In the back seat were the two children he had been waiting for: both with their

little glasses, Irie with her wilful Afro (not a pretty child: she had got her genes mixed up, Archie's

nose with Clara's awfully buck teeth), Magid with his thick black hair slicked into an unappealing

middle-parting. Magid carrying a recorder, Irie with violin. But beyond these basic details,

everything was not as it should be. Unless he was very much mistaken, something was rotten in this

Mini Metro something was afoot. Both children were dressed in black from head to toe. Both wore

white armbands on their left arms upon which were painted crude renditions of baskets of

vegetables. Both had pads of writing paper and a pen tied around their necks with string.

"Who did this to you?"

Silence.

"Was it Amma? And Mrs. Jones?"

Silence.

"Magid! Irie! Cat got your tongues?"

More silence; children's silence, so desperately desired by adults yet eerie when it finally

occurs.

"Millat, do you know what this is about?"

"Sboring," whined Millat. "They're just being clever, clever, snotty, dumb-bum, Lord Magoo

and Mrs. Ugly Poo."

Samad twisted in his car seat to face the two dissenters. "Am I meant to ask you what this is about?"

Magid grasped his pen and, in his neat, clinical hand, printed: if you want to, then ripped off the

piece of paper and handed it to Samad.

"A Vow of Silence. I see. You too, Me? I would have thought you were too sensible for such nonsense."

Me scribbled for a moment on her pad and passed the missive forward. we are pros testing

"Pros-testing? What are Pros and why are you testing them? Did your mother teach you this word?"

Me looked like she was going to burst with the sheer force of her explanation, but Magid

mimed the zipping up of her mouth, snatched back the piece of paper and crossed out the first s.

"Oh, I see. Protesting."

Magid and Me nodded maniacally.

"Well, that is indeed fascinating. And I suppose your mothers engineered this whole scenario?

The costumes? The notepads?"

Silence.

"You are quite the political prisoners .. . not giving a thing away. All right: may one ask what it

is that you are protesting about?"

Both children pointed urgently to their armbands.

"Vegetables? You are protesting for the rights of vegetables?"

Me held one hand over her mouth to stop herself screaming the answer, while Magid set about

his writing pad in a flurry. we

ARE PROTESTING ABOUT THE HARVEST FESTIVAL.

Samad growled, "I told you already. I don't want you participating in that nonsense. It has

nothing to do with us, Magid. Why are you always trying to be somebody you are not?"

There was a mutual, silent anger as each acknowledged the painful incident that was being

referred to. A few months earlier, on Magid's ninth birthday, a group of very nice-looking white

boys with meticulous manners had turned up on the doorstep and asked for Mark Smith.

"Mark? No Mark here," Alsana had said, bending down to their level with a genial smile. "Only

the family Iqbal in here. You have the wrong house."

But before she had finished the sentence, Magid had dashed to the door, ushering his mother

out of view.

"Hi, guys."

"Hi, Mark."

"Off to the chess club, Mum."

"Yes, M - M - Mark," said Alsana, close to tears at this final snub, the replacement of "Mum' for

"Amma'. "Do not be late, now."

"I GIVE YOU A GLORIOUS NAME LIKE MAG ID

MAHFOOZMURSHEDMUBTASIM IQBAL!"Samadhad yelled after Magid when he returned

home that evening and whipped up the stairs like a bullet to hide in his room. "AND

YOU WANT TO BE CALLED MARK SMITH!"

But this was just a symptom of a far deeper malaise. Magid really wanted to be in some other

family. He wanted to own cats and not cockroaches, he wanted his mother to make the music of the

cello, not the sound of the sewing machine; he wanted to have a trellis of flowers growing up one

side of the house instead of the ever growing pile of other people's rubbish; he wanted a piano in

the hallway in place of the broken door off cousin Kurshed's car; he wanted to go on biking

holidays to France, not day-trips to Blackpool to visit aunties; he wanted the floor of his room to be

shiny wood, not the orange and green swirled carpet left over from the restaurant; he wanted his

father to be a doctor, not a one-handed waiter; and this month Magid had converted all these desires

into a wish to join in with the Harvest Festival like Mark Smith would. Like everybody else would.

BUT WE WANT TO DO IT. OR WE'LL GET A DETENTION.

MRS OWENS SAID IT IS TRADITION.

Samad blew his top. "Whose tradition?" he bellowed, as a tearful Magid began to scribble

frantically once more. "Dammit, you are a Muslim, not a wood sprite! I told you, Magid, I told you

the condition upon which you would be allowed. You come with me on haj. If I am to touch that

black stone before I die I will do it with my eldest son by my side."

Magid broke the pencil halfway through his reply, scrawling the second half with blunt lead. it's

not fair! i can't go on

HAJI'VE GOT TO GO TO SCHOOL. I DON'T HAVE TIME TO

GO TO MECCA. ITS NOT FAIR!

"Welcome to the twentieth century. It's not fair. It's never fair."

Magid ripped the next piece of paper from the pad and held it up in front of his father's face.

you told her dad not to LET HER GO.

Samad couldn't deny it. Last Tuesday he had asked Archie to show solidarity by keeping Me at

home the week of the festival. Archie had hedged and haggled, fearing Clara's wrath, but Samad

had reassured him: Take a leaf from my book, Archibald. Who wears the tro vers in my house?

Archie had thought about Alsana, so often found in those lovely silken trousers with the tapered

ankle, and of Samad, who regularly wore a long piece of embroidered grey cotton, a lungi, wrapped

round his waist, to all intents and purposes, a skirt. But he kept the thought to himself.

we won't speak if you don't let us go. we won't

SPEAK EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN. WHEN WE DIE

EVERYONE WILL SAY IT WAS YOU. YOU YOU YOU.

Great, thought Samad, more blood and sticky guilt on my one good hand.

Samad didn't know anything about conducting, but he knew what he liked. True, it probably

wasn't very complex, the way she did it, just a simple three four just a one-dimensional metro152

nome drawn in the air with her index finger but aaah, what a joy it was to watch her do it! Her

back to him; her bare feet lifting on every third beat out of her slip-on shoes; her backside

protruding ever so slightly, pressing up against the jeans each time she lunged forward for one of

the orchestra's ham-fisted crescendos what a joy it was! What a vision! It was all he could do to

stop himself rushing at her and carrying her off; it frightened him, the extent to which he could not

take his eyes off her. But he had to rationalize: the orchestra needed her God knows they were

never going to get through this adaptation of Swan Lake (more reminiscent of ducks waddling

through an oil slick) without her. Yet what a terrific waste it seemed akin to watching a toddler on a

bus mindlessly grabbing the breast of the stranger sitting next to him what a waste, that something

of such beauty should be at the disposal of those too young to know what to do with it. The second

he tasted this thought he brought it back up: Samad Miah , . , surely a man has reached his lowest

when he is jealous of the child at a woman's breast, when he is jealous of the young, of the future .. .

And then, not for the first time that afternoon, as Poppy Burt-Jones lifted out of her shoes once

more and the ducks finally succumbed to the environmental disaster, he asked himself: Why, in the

name of Allah, am I here? And the answer returned once more with the persistence of vomit:

Because I simply cannot be anywhere else.

Tic, tic, tic. Samad was thankful for the sound of baton hitting on music-stand, which

interrupted him from these thoughts, these thoughts that were something close to delirium.

"Now, kids, kids. Stop. Shhh, quieten down. Mouths away from instruments, bows down. Down,

Anita. That's it, yes, right on the floor. Thank you. Now: you've probably noticed we have a visitor

today." She turned to him and he tried hard to find some part of her on which to focus, some inch

that did not heat his troubled blood. This is Mr. Iqbal, Magid's and Millat's father."

Samad stood up as if he'd been called to attention, draped his

wide-lapel led overcoat carefully over his volatile crotch, waved rather lamely, sat back down.

"Say "Hello, Mr. Iqbal.""

"HELLO, MR ICK-BALL," came the resounding chorus from all but two of the musicians.

"Now: don't we want to play thrice as well because we have an audience?"

"YES, MISS BURT JONES

"And not only is Mr. Iqbal our audience for today, but he's a very special audience. It's because

of Mr. Iqbal that next week we won't be playing Swan Lake any more."

A great roar met this announcement, accompanied by a stray chorus of trumpet hoots, drum

rolls, a cymbal.

"All right, all right, enough. I didn't expect quite so much joyous approval."

Samad smiled. She had humour, then. There was wit there, a bit of sharpness but why think the

more reasons there were to sin, the smaller the sin was? He was thinking like a Christian again; he

was saying Can't say fairer than that to the Creator.

"Instruments down. Yes, you, Marvin. Thank you very much."

"What'll we be doin' instead, then, Miss?"

"Well.. ." began Poppy Burt-Jones, the same half-coy, half daring smile he had noticed before.

"Something very exciting. Next week I want to try to experiment with some Indian music."

The cymbal player, dubious of what place he would occupy in such a radical change of genre,

took it upon himself to be the first to ridicule the scheme. "What, you mean that Eeeee EEEAAaaaa

EEEeeee AAOoooo music?" he said, doing a creditable impression of the strains to be found at the

beginning of a Hindi musical, or in the back-room of an "Indian' restaurant, along with attendant

head movements. The class let out a blast of laughter as loud as the brass section and echoed the

gag en masse: Eeee Eaaaoo OOOAaaah Eeee OOOiiiiiiii .. . This, along

with screeching parodic violins, penetrated Samad's deep, erotic half-slumber and sent his

imagination into a garden, a garden encased in marble where he found himself dressed in white and

hiding behind a large tree, spying on a be-saried, bindi-wearing Poppy Butt-Jones, as she wound

flirtatiously in and out of some fountains; sometimes visible, sometimes not.

"I don't think-' began Poppy Burt-Jones, trying to force her voice above the hoo-hah, then,

raising it several decibels, "I DON'T THINK IT IS VERY NICE TO' and here her voice slipped

back to normal as the class registered the angry tone and quietened down. "I don't think it is very

nice to make fan of somebody else's culture."

The orchestra, unaware that this is what they had been doing, but aware that this was the most

heinous crime in the Manor School rule book, looked to their collective feet.

"Do you? Do you? How would you like it, Sophie, if someone made fan of Queen?"

Sophie, a vaguely retarded twelve-year-old covered from head to toe in that particular rock

band's paraphernalia, glared over a pair of bottle-top spectacles.

"Wouldn't like it, Miss."

"No, you wouldn't, would you?"

"No, Miss."

"Because Freddie Mercury is from your culture."

Samad had heard the rumours that ran through the rank and file of the Palace waiters to the

effect that this Mercury character was in actual fact a very light-skin Persian called Farookh, whom

the head chef remembered from school in Panchgani, near Bombay. But who wished to split hairs?

Not wanting to stop the lovely Burt-Jones while she was in something of a flow, Samad kept the

information to himself.

"Sometimes we find other people's music strange because their culture is different from ours,"

said Miss Burt-Jones solemnly. "But that doesn't mean it isn't equally good, now does it?"

"NO, MISS

"And we can learn about each other through each other's culture, can't we?"

"YES, MISS."

For example, what music do you like, Millat?"

Millat thought for a moment, swung his saxophone to his side and began fingering it like a

guitar. "Bo-orn to ruuun! Da da da da daaa! Bruce Springsteen, Miss! Da da da da daaa! Baby, we

were bo-orn '

"Umm, nothing nothing else? Something you listen to at home, maybe?"

Millat's face fell, troubled that his answer did not seem to be the right one. He looked over at

his father, who was gesticulating wildly behind the teacher, trying to convey the jerky head and

hand movements of bharata That yarn the form of dance Alsana had once enjoyed before sadness

weighted her heart, and babies tied down her hands and feet.

"Thriiiii-ller!" sang Millat, full throated, believing he had caught his father's gist. "Thriii-ller

night! Michael Jackson, Miss! Michael Jackson!"

Samad put his head in his hands. Miss Burt-Jones looked queerly at the small child standing on

a chair, gyrating and grabbing his crotch before her. "OK, thank you, Millat. Thank you for

sharing .. . that."

Millat grinned. "No problem, Miss."

While the children queued up to exchange twenty pence for two dry digestives and a cup of

tasteless squash, Samad followed the light foot of Poppy Burt-Jones like a predator into the music

cupboard, a tiny room, windowless, with no means of escape, and full of instruments, filing

cabinets over brimming with sheet music, and a scent Samad had thought hers but now identified as

the maturing leather of violin cases mixed with the mellowing odour of catgut.

"This," said Samad, spotting a desk beneath a mountain of paper, 'is where you work?"

Poppy blushed. "Tiny, isn't it? Music budgets get cut every year until this year there was

nothing left to cut from. It's got to the point where they're putting desks in cupboards and calling

them offices. If it wasn't for the GLC, there wouldn't even be a desk."

"It is certainly small," said Samad, scanning the room desperately for some spot where he might

stand that would put her out of arm's reach. "One might almost say, claustrophobic."

"I know, it's awful but won't you sit down?"

Samad looked for the chair she might be referring to.

"Oh God! I'm sorry! It's here." She swept paper, books and rubbish on to the floor with one

hand, revealing a perilous looking stool. "I made it but it's pretty safe."

"You excel in carpentry?" inquired Samad, searching once again for more good reasons to

commit a bad sin. "An artisan as well as a musician?"

"No, no, no I went to a few night classes nothing special. I made that and a foot stool, and the

foot stool broke. I'm no do you know I can't think of a single carpenter!"

"There is always Jesus."

"But I can't very well say "I'm no Jesus" ... I mean, obviously I'm not, but for other reasons."

Samad took his wobbly seat as Poppy Burt-Jones went to sit behind her desk. "Meaning you are

not a good person?"

Samad saw that he had flustered her with the accidental solemnity of the question; she drew her

fingers through her fringe, fiddled with a small tortoiseshell button on her blouse, laughed shakily.

"I like to think I'm not all bad."

"And that is enough?"

"Well.. . I.. ."

"Oh my dear, I apologize .. ." began Samad. "I was not being serious, Miss Burt Jones

"Well.. . Let's say I'm no Mr. Chippendale that'll do."

"Yes," said Samad kindly, thinking to himself that she had far better legs than a Queen Anne

chair, 'that will do."

"Now: where were we?"

Samad leant a little over the desk, to face her. "Were we somewhere, Miss Burt Jones

(He used his eyes; he remembered people used to say that it was his eyes that new boy in Delhi,

Samad Miah, they said, he has eyes to die for.)

"I was looking looking1 was looking for my notes where are my notes?"

She began rifling through the catastrophe of her desk, and Samad leant back once more on his

stool, taking what little satisfaction he could from the fact that her fingers, if he was not mistaken,

appeared to be trembling. Had there been a moment, just then? He was fifty-seven it was a good ten

years since he'd had a moment he was not at all sure he would recognize a moment if one came

along. You old man, he told himself as he dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, you old fool.

Leave now leave before you drown in your own guilty excrescence (for he was sweating like a pig),

leave before you make it worse. But was it possible? Was it possible that this past month the month

that he had been squeezing and spilling, praying and begging, making deals and thinking, thinking

always about her that she had been thinking of him?

"Oh! While I'm looking ... I remember there was something I wanted to ask you

Yes! said the anthropomorphized voice that had taken up residence in Samad's right testicle.

Whatever the question the answer is yes yes yes. Yes, we will make love upon this very table, yes,

we will burn for it, and yes, Miss Burt-Jones, yes, the answer is inevitably, inescapably, YES. Yet

somehow, out there where conversation continued, in the rational world four feet above his ball-bag,

the answer turned out to be "Wednesday."

Poppy laughed. "No, I don't mean what day it is1 don't look that ditsy do I? No, I meant what

day is it; I mean, for Muslims. Only I saw Magid was in some kind of costume, and when I asked

him what it was for he wouldn't speak. I was terribly worried that I'd offended him somehow."

Samad frowned. It is odious to be reminded of one's children when one is calculating the exact

shade and rigidity of a nipple that could so assert itself through bra and shirt.

"Magid? Please do not worry yourself about Magid. I am sure he was not offended."

"So I was right," said Poppy gleefully. "Is it like a type of, I don't know, vocal fasting?"

"Er .. . yes, yes," stumbled Samad, not wishing to divulge his family dilemma, 'it is a symbol of

the Qur'an's .. . assertion that the day of reckoning would first strike us all unconscious. Silent, you

see. So, so, so the eldest son of the family dresses in black and, umm, disdains speech for a ... a

period of... of time as a process of- of purification."

Dear God.

"I see. That's just fascinating. And Magid is the elder?"

"By two minutes."

Poppy smiled. "Only just, then."

"Two minutes," said Samad patiently, because he was speaking to one with no knowledge of the

impact such small periods of time had amounted to throughout the history of the Iqbal family,

'made all the difference."

"And does the process have a name?"

"Amar durbol lagche."

"What does it mean?"

Literal translation: 7 feel weak. It means, Miss Butt-Jones, that every strand of me feels

weakened by the desire to kiss you.

"It means," said Samad aloud, without missing a beat, 'closed mouth worship of the Creator."

"Amar durbol lagche. Wow," said Poppy Burt Jones

"Indeed," said Samad Miah.

Poppy Burt-Jones leant forward in her chair. "I don't know .. . To me, it's just like this incredible

act of self-control. We just don't have that in the West that sense of sacrifice I just have so much

admiration for the sense your people have of abstinence, of self-restraint."

At which point Samad kicked the stool from under him like a man hanging himself, and met the

loquacious lips of Poppy Burt-Jones with his own feverish pair.

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