8 Mitosis-2

In their defence, one thing should be made clear. At no point was the word kidnap mentioned.

In fact had this been offered as terminology for what he was about to do, Samad would have been

appalled and astounded, would have dropped the whole thing like the somnambulist who wakes up

to find himself in the master bedroom with a bread knife in his hand. He understood that he had not

yet informed Abana. He understood that he had booked a3 a.m. flight. But it was in no way

self-evident to him that these two facts were related or would combine to spell out kidnap. So it

was with surprise that Samad greeted the vision of a violently weeping Alsana, at 2 a.m. on 31

October, hunched over the kitchen table. He did not think, Ah, she has discovered what I am to do

with Magid (it was finally and for ever Magid), because he was not a moustachioed villain in a

Victorian crime novel and besides which he was not conscious of plotting any crime. Rather his

first thought was, So she knows about Poppy, and in response to this situation he did what every

adulterous man does out of instinct: attack first.

"So I must come home to this, must I?" slam down bag for effect "I spend all night in that

infernal restaurant and then I am having to come back to your melodramatics?"

Alsana convulsed with tears. Samad noticed too that a gurgle sound was emanating from her

pleasant fat which vibrated in the gap between her said; she waved her hands at him and then put

them over her ears.

"Is this really necessary?" asked Samad, trying to disguise his fear (he had expected anger, he

didn't know how to deal with tears). "Please, Alsana: surely this is an overreaction."

She waved her hand at him once more as if to dismiss him and then lifted her body a little and

Samad saw that the gurgling had not been organic, that she had been hunched over something. A radio.

"What on earth'

Alsana pushed the radio from her body into the middle of the table and motioned for Samad to

turn it up. Four familiar beeps, the beeps that follow the English into whatever land they conquer,

rang round the kitchen, and then in Received Pronunciation Samad heard the following:

This is the BBC World Service at 03.00 hours. Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, was

assassinated today, shot down by her Sikh bodyguards in an act of open mutiny as she walked in

the garden of her New Delhi home. There is no doubt that her murder was an act of revenge for

"Operation Blue Star', the storming of the Sikhs' holiest shrine at Amritsar last June. The Sikh

community, who feel their culture is being attacked by "Enough," said Samad, switching it off.

"She was no bloody good anyway. None of them is any bloody good. And who cares what happens

in that cesspit, India. Dear me ..." And even before he said it, he wondered why he had to, why he

felt so malevolent this evening. "You really are genuinely pathetic. I wonder: where

would those tears be if / died? Nowhere you care more about some corrupt politician you never

met. Do you know you are the perfect example of the ignorance of the masses, Alsi? Do you know

that?" he said, talking as if to a child and holding her chin up. "Crying for the rich and mighty who

would disdain to piss upon you. Doubtless next week you will be bawling because Princess Diana

broke a fingernail."

Alsana gathered all the spit her mouth could accommodate and launched it at him.

"Bhainchute! I am not crying for her, you idiot, I am crying for my friends. There will be blood

on the streets back home because of this, India and Bangladesh. There will be riots knives, guns.

Public death, I have seen it. It will be like Mahshar, Judgement Day people will die in the streets,

Samad. You know and I know. And Delhi will be the worst of it, is always the worst of it. I have

some family in Delhi, I have friends, old lovers '

And here Samad slapped her, partly for the old lovers and partly because it was many years

since he had been referred to as a bhainchute (translation: someone who, to put it simply, fucks

their sisters).

Alsana held her face, and spoke quietly. "I am crying with misery for those poor families and

out of relief for my own children! Their father ignores them and bullies them, yes, but at least they

will not die on the streets like rats."

So this was going to be one of those rows: the same positions, the same lines, same

recriminations, same right hooks. Bare fists. The bell rings. Samad comes out of his corner.

"No, they will suffer something worse, much worse: sitting in a morally bankrupt country with

a mother who is going mad. Utterly cuckoo. Many raisins short of the fruitcake. Look at you, look

at the state of you! Look how fat you are!" He grabbed a piece of her, and then released it as if it

would infect him. "Look how you dress. Running shoes and a said? And what is that?"

It was one of Clara's African head scarfs a long, beautiful piece

of orange Kenti cloth in which Alsana had taken to wrapping her substantial mane. Samad

pulled it off and threw it across the room, leaving Alsana's hair to crash down her back.

"You do not even know what you are, where you come from. We never see family any more I

am ashamed to show you to them. Why did you go all the way to Bengal for a wife, that's what they

ask. Why didn't you just go to Putney?"

Alsana smiled ruefully, shook her head, while Samad made a pretence of calm, filling their

metal kettle with water and slamming it down on the stove.

"And that is a beautiful lungi you have on, Samad Miah," she said bitterly, nodding in the

direction of his blue-to welling jogging suit topped off with Poppy's LA Raiders baseball cap.

Samad said, "The difference is what is in here," not looking at her, thumping just below his left

breast bone. "You say you are thankful we are in England, that's because you have swallowed it

whole. I can tell you those boys would have a better life back home than they ever'

"Samad Miah! Don't even begin! It will be over my dead body that this family moves back to a

place where our lives are in danger! Clara tells me about you, she tells me. How you have asked her

strange things. What are you plotting, Samad? I hear from Zinat all this about life insurance .. . who

is dying? What can I smell? I tell you, it will be over my dead body '

"But if you are already dead, Alsi '

"Shut up! Shut up! I am not mad. You are trying to drive me mad! I phoned Ardashir, Samad.

He is telling me you have been leaving work at eleven thirty. It is two in the morning. I am not

mad!"

"No, it is worse. Your mind is diseased. You call yourself a Muslim'

Alsana whipped round to face Samad, who was trying to concentrate his attention on the

whistling steam emerging from the kettle.

"No, Samad. Oh no. Oh no. I don't call myself anything. I 'just don't make claims. You call

yourself a Muslim. You make them| deals with Allah. You are the one he will be talking to, come

am Mahshar. You, Samad Miah. You, you, you." *1

Second round. Samad slapped Alsana. Alsana right hooked him in the stomach and then

followed up with a blow to the left cheekbone. She then made a dash to the back door, but Samad

caught her by the waist, rugby-tackled her, dragged her down and elbowed her in the coccyx.

Alsana, being heavier than Samad, knelt up, lifting him; flipped him over and dragged him out into

the garden, where she kicked him twice as he lay on the floor two short, fierce jabs to the forehead

but the rubber-cushioned sole did little damage and in a moment he was on his knees again. They

made a grab for each other's hair, Samad determined to pull until he saw blood. But this left

Alsana's knee free and it connected swiftly with Samad's crotch, forcing him to release the hair and

swing a blind flier meant for her mouth but catching her ear. Around this time, the twins emerged

half awake from their beds and stood at the long glass kitchen window to watch the fight, while the

neighbours' security lights came on, illuminating the Iqbal garden like a stadium.

"Abba," said Magid, after surveying the state of play for a moment. "Definitely Abba."

"Cha, man. No way," said Millat, blinking in the light. "I bet you two orange lollies Amma's

going to kick the shit out of him."

"Ooooooo!" cried the twins in unison, as if it were a firework display, and then, "Aaaaaah!"

Alsana had just ended the fight with a little help from the garden rake.

"Now maybe some of us, who have to work in the morning, can get a decent night's kip\ Bloody

Pakis," shouted a neighbour.

A few minutes later (because they always held each other after these fights, a hug somewhere

between affection and collapse)

Samad came in from the garden, still mildly concussed and said, "Go to bed," before brushing a

hand through each son's thick black hair.

As he reached the door, he stopped. "You'll thank me," he said, turning to Magid, who smiled

faintly, thinking maybe Abba was going to get him that chemistry set after all. "You'll thank me in

the end. This country's no good. We tear each other apart in this country."

Then he walked up the stairs and phoned Poppy BuitJones, waking her up to tell her there

would be no more kisses in the afternoon, no more guilty walks, no more furtive taxis. End of

affair.

Maybe all the Iqbals were prophets because Alsana's nose for trouble was more right than it had

ever been. Public decapitations, families cremated in their sleep, hanging bodies outside the

Kashmir gate, people stumbling around dazed missing pieces of themselves; body parts taken from

Muslim by Sikh, from Sikh by Hindu; legs, fingers, noses, toes and teeth, teeth everywhere,

scattered throughout the land, mingling with the dust. A thousand people had died by 4 November

when Alsana emerged from under the bathwater to hear the crackling voice of Our Man in Delhi

telling her about it from the top of the medicine cabinet.

Terrible business. But, as Samad saw it, some of us have the luxury of sitting in the bath and

listening to the foreign news while some of us have a living to make, and an affair to forget, and a

child to abduct. He squeezed into the white flares, checked the air ticket, phoned Archie to go over

the plan, and left for work.

On the tube there was a youngish, prettyish girl, dark, Spanish looking, mono-browed, crying.

Just sitting opposite him, in a pair of big, pink leg-warmers, crying quite openly. Nobody said

anything. Nobody did anything. Everybody hoped she was getting off at Kilburn. But she kept on

like that, just sitting, crying;

West Hampstead, Finchley Road, Swiss Cottage, St. John's Wood. Then at Bond Street she

pulled a photo of an unpromising-looking young man out of her rucksack, showed it to Samad and

some of the other passengers.

"Why he leave? He break my heart.. . Neil, he say his name, Neil. Neil, Neil."

At Charing Cross, end of the line, Samad watched her cross the platform and get the train going

straight back to Willesden Green. Romantic, in a way. The way she said "Neil' as if it were a word

bursting at the seams with past passion, with loss. That kind of flowing, feminine misery. He had

expected something similar of Poppy, somehow; he had picked up the phone expecting gentle,

rhythmic tears and later on letters, maybe, scented and stained. And in her grief he would have

grown, as Neil was probably doing at this moment; her grief would have been an epiphany bringing

him one step closer to his own redemption. But instead he had got only, "Fuck you, you fucking

fuck."

"Told you," said Shiva, shaking his head and passing Samad a basket of yellow napkins to be

shaped like castles. "I told you not to fuck with that business, didn't I? Too much history there, man.

You see: it ain't just you she's angry with, is it?"

Samad shrugged and began on the turrets.

"No, man, history, history. It's all brown man leaving English woman, it's all Nehru saying

See-Ya to Madam Britannia." Shiva, in an effort to improve himself, had joined the Open

University. "It's all complicated, complicated shit, it's all about pride. Ten quid says she wanted you

as a servant boy, as a wallah peeling the grapes."

"No," protested Samad. "It wasn't that way. This is not the dark ages, Shiva, this is 1984."

"Show's how much you know. From what you've told me, she's a classic case, mate, classic."

"Well, I have other concerns now," muttered Samad (privately

calculating that his children would by now be safely tucked in at the Joneses' sleepover, that it

was two more hours before Archie would need to wake Magid, leaving Millat to sleep on). "Family

concerns."

"No time!" cried Ardashir, who had crept up from behind, imperceptibly as ever, to examine the

battlements of Samad's castles. "No time for family concerns, cousin. Everyone's concerned,

everybody's trying to get their family out of that mess back home I myself am forking out one

thousand big ones for a ticket for my big-mouth sister but I still have to come to work, I still have

to get on with things. Busy night tonight, cousin," called Ardashir, as he exited the kitchen to pace

around the restaurant floor in a black tuxedo. "Don't let me down."

http://www.en8848.com.cn/『原版英语』

It was the busiest night in the week, Saturday, the night when the crowds come in waves:

pre-theatre, post-theatre, post-pub, post-club; the first polite and conversational, the second

humming show-tunes, the third rowdy, the fourth wide-eyed and abusive. The theatre crowds were

naturally the favourite of the waiters; they were even tempered and tipped big and inquired after the

geography of the food its Eastern origin, its history all of which would be happily fabricated by the

younger waiters (whose furthest expedition East was the one they made daily, back home to

Whitechapel, Smithfield's, the Isle of Dogs) or rendered faithfully and proudly by the elders in

black biro on the back of a pink napkin.

I'll Bet She Is! was the show at the National these past few months, a rediscovered mid fifties

musical set in the thirties. It was about a rich girl who runs away from her family and meets a poor

boy on the road, who is himself off to fight the Civil War in Spain. They fall in love. Even Samad,

who had no particular ear for a tune, picked up enough discarded programmes and heard enough

tables burst into song to know most of the songs; he liked them, in fact they took his mind off the

drudgery (even better tonight they were sweet relief from worrying whether

Archie would manage to get Magid outside the Palace at i a.m. on the dot); he murmured them

along with the rest of the kitchen in a kind of working rhythm as they chopped and marinaded,

sliced and crushed.

I've seen the Paris opra and the wonders of the East

"Samad Miah, I'm looking for the Rajah mustard seeds."

Spent my summers by the Nile and my winters on the pi ste

"Mustard seeds ... I think I saw Muhammed with them."

I've had diamonds, rubies, furs and velvet capes

"Accusations, accusations ... I have seen no mustard seeds."

I've had Howard Hughes peel me a grape

"I'm sorry, Shiva, if the old man doesn't have them, then I haven't seen them."

But what does it mean without love?

"Then what are these?" Shiva walked over from his place next to chef and picked up a packet of

mustard seeds by Samad's right elbow. "Come on, Sam get it together. Head in the clouds this evening."

"I'm sorry ... I have a lot on my mind

"That lady friend of yours, eh?"

"Keep your voice down, Shiva."

"They tell me I'm spoilt, a rich broad who means trouble," sang Shiva in the strangest of

Hindified transatlantic accents. "Oioi, my chorus. But whatever love I'm given I pay it back double."

Shiva grabbed a small aquamarine vase and sang his big finale into its upturned end. "But no

amount of money, will make my honey mine .. . You should take that advice, Samad Miah," said

Shiva, who was convinced Samad's recent remortgage was funding his illicit affair, 'it's good advice."

A few hours later Ardashir appeared once more through the swing doors, breaking up the

singing to deliver his second-phase pep-talk. "Gentlemen, gentlemen! That is more than enough of

that. Now, listen up: it's ten-thirty. They've seen the show.

They're hungry. They got only one pitiful tub of ice-cream in the interval and plenty of Bombay

gin, which, as we all know, brings on the need for curry and that, gentlemen, is where we come in.

Two tables of fifteen just came in and sat at the back. Now: when they ask for water what do you

do? What do you do, Ravind?"

Ravind was brand new, nephew of the chef, sixteen, nervy. "You tell them '

"No, Ravind, even before you speak, what do you do?"

Ravind bit his lip. "I don't know, Ardashir."

"You shake your head," said Ardashir, shaking his head. "Simultaneous with a look of concern

and fear for their well-being." Ardashir demonstrated the look. "And then you say?"

'"Water does not help the heat, sir."

"But what helps the heat, Ravind? What will aid the gentleman with the burning sensation he is

presently feeling?"

"More rice, Ardashir/

"And? And?"

Ravind looked stumped and began to sweat. Samad, who had been belittled by Ardashir too

many times to enjoy watching someone else play the victim, leant over to whisper the answer in

Ravind's clammy ear.

Ravind's face lit up in gratitude. "More naan bread, Ardashir!"

"Yes; because it soaks up the chilli and more importantly water is free and naan bread is one

pound twenty. Now cousin," said Ardashir, turning to Samad and waggling a bony finger, 'how will

the boy learn? Let the boy answer for himself next time. You have your own business: a couple of

ladies on table twelve requested the head waiter specifically, to be served only by him, so-'

"Requested me? But I thought I might stay in the kitchen this evening. Besides, I cannot be

requested like some personal butler, there is too much to do that is not policy, cousin

And at this moment Samad feels panicky. His thoughts are so

taken up with the i a.m. abduction, with the prospect of splitting his twins, that he does not trust

himself with hot plates and steaming bowls of dal, with the spitting fat of clay-oven chicken, with

all the dangers that accost a one-handed waiter. His head is full of his sons. He is half in dream this

evening. He has once again bitten every nail beyond the cuticle and is fast approaching the

translucent high-moons, the bleeding hubs.

He is saying, he hears himself saying, "Ardashir, I have a million things to do here in the

kitchens. And why should '

And the answer comes, "Because the head waiter is the best waiter and naturally they tipped me

us for the privilege. No quibbling, please, cousin. Table twelve, Samad Miah/

And perspiring lightly, throwing a white towel over his left arm, Samad begins tunelessly to

hum the show-stopper as he pushes through the doors.

What won't a guy do for a girl? How sweet the scent, how huge the pearl?

It is a long walk to table twelve. Not in distance, it is only twenty metres in distance, but it is a

long walk through the thick smells and the loud voices and the demands; through the cries of

Englishmen; past table two, where the ashtray is full and must be cupped by another ashtray, lifted

silently and switched for the new ashtray with perfect insouciance; stopping at table four, where

there is an unidentifiable dish that was not ordered; debating with table five, who wish to be joined

with table six, no matter the inconvenience; and table seven wants egg fried rice whether or not it is

a Chinese dish; and table eight wobbles and more wine! More beer! It is a long walk if you are to

negotiate the jungle; attending to the endless needs and needless ends, the desires, the demands of

the pink faces that strike Samad now as pith-helmet-wearing gentlemen, feet up on the table with

guns across their laps; as tea-slurping ladies on verandas cooling themselves under the breeze of the

brown boys who beat the ostrich feathers

What lengths won't he travel, how many hits of the gavel

By Allah, how thankful he is (yes, madam, one moment, madam), how gladdened by the

thought that Magid, Magid at least, will, in a matter of four hours, be flying east from this place and

its demands, its constant cravings, this place where there exists neither patience nor pity, where the

people want what they want now, right now (We've been waiting twenty minutes for the vegetables),

expecting their lovers, their children, their friends and even their gods to arrive at little cost and in

little time, just as table ten expect their tandoori prawns .. .

At the auction of her choosing, how many Rembrandts, Kiimts, De Koonings?

These people who would exchange all faith for sex and all sex for power, who would exchange

fear of God for self-pride, knowledge for irony, a covered, respectful head for a long, strident shock

of orange hair It is Poppy at table twelve. It is Poppy Burt-Jones. And just the name would be

enough right now (for he is at his most volatile, Samad; he is about to split his own sons in two like

that first nervous surgeon wielding his clumsy spit-wet knife over the clodded skin of the twins of

Siam), just the name would be enough to explode his mind. The name alone is a torpedo heading

for a tiny fishing boat, blowing his thoughts out of the water. But it is more than the name, the echo

of a name spoken by some thoughtless fool or found at the bottom of an old letter, it is Poppy

Burt-Jones herself in the freckled flesh. Sitting cold and determined with her sister, who seems, like

all siblings of those we have desired, an uglier, mis-featured version.

"Say something, then," says Poppy abruptly, fiddling with a Marlboro packet. "No witty

rejoinder? No crap about camels or coconuts? Nothing to say?"

Samad doesn't have anything to say. He merely stops humming his tune, inclines his head at

exactly the correct deferential angle, and puts the nib of his pen preparedly to paper. It is like a

dream.

"All right, then," Poppy is saying tartly, looking Samad up and down, lighting up a fag. "Have it

your way. Right. To start with we'll have lamb samos as and the yoghurt whatdyamacallit/

"And for the main," the shorter, plainer, or anger snub-nosed sister is saying, "Two Lamb Dawn

Sock and rice, with chips, please, waiter."

At least Archie is right on time; right year, right date, right hour; 1984, 5 November, i a.m.

Outside the restaurant, dressed in a long trench-coat, standing in front of his Vauxhall, one hand

tickling some spanking new Pirelli tyres, the other pulling hard on a fag like Bogart or a chauffeur

or Bogart's chauffeur. Samad arrives, clasps Archie's right hand in his own and feels the coldness of

his friend's fingers, feels the great debt he owes him. Involuntarily, he blows a cloud of frozen

breath into his face. "I won't forget this, Archibald," he is saying, "I won't forget what you do for

me tonight, my friend."

Archie shuffles about awkwardly. "Sam, before you there's something I have to'

But Samad is already reaching for the door, and Archie's explanation must follow the sight of

three shivering children in the back seat like a limp punchline.

"They woke up, Sam. They were all sleeping in the same room - a sleepover, like. Nothing I

could do. I just put coats over their pyjamas1 couldn't risk Clara hearing I had to bring them."

Irie asleep; curled up with her head on the ashtray and her feet resting on the gearbox, but

Millat and Magid reaching out for their father gleefully, pulling at his flares, chucking him on the chin.

"Hey, Abba! Where we going, Abba? To a secret disco party? Are we really?"

Samad looks severely at Archie; Archie shrugs.

"We're going on a trip to an airport. To Heathrow."

"Wow!"

"And then when we get there, Magid - Magid ' It is like a dream. Samad feels the tears before

he can stop them; he reaches out to his eldest-son-by-two-minutes and holds him so tight to his

chest that he snaps the arm of his glasses. "And then Magid is going on a trip with auntie Zinat."

"Will he come back?" It is Millat. "It would be cool if he didn't come back!"

Magid prises himself from his father's headlock. "Is it far? Will I be back in time for Monday

only I've got to see how my photosynthesis is for science I took two plants: put one in the cupboard

and one in the sunlight and I've got to see, Abba, I've got to see which one '

Years from now, even hours after that plane leaves, this will be history that Samad tries not to

remember. That his memory makes no effort to retain. A sudden stone submerged. False teeth

floating silently to the bottom of a glass.

"Will I get back for school, Abba?"

"Come on," says Archie, solemnly from the front seat. "We've got to get cracking if we're going

to make it."

"You'll be in a school on Monday, Magid. I promise. Now sit back in your seats, go on. For

Abba, please."

Samad closes the car door and crouches to watch his twin sons blow their hot breath on to the

window. He puts his one hand up, applying a false touch to their lips, raw pink against the glass,

their saliva mingling in the grimy condensation.

To Alsana's mind the real difference between people was not colour. Nor did it lie in gender,

faith, their relative ability to dance to a syncopated rhythm or open their fists to reveal a handful of

gold coins. The real difference was far more fundamental. It was in the earth. It was in the sky. You

could divide the whole of humanity into two distinct camps, as far as she was concerned, simply by

asking them to complete a very simple questionnaire, of the kind you find in Woman's Own on a Tuesday:

(a) Are the skies you sleep under likely to open up for week son end?

(b) Is the ground you walk on likely to tremble and split? (c) Is there a chance (and please tick

the box, no matter how small that chance seems) that the ominous mountain casting a midday

shadow over your home might one day erupt with no rhyme or reason?

Because if the answer is yes to one or all of these questions, then the life you lead is a midnight

thing, always a hair's breadth from the witching hour; it is volatile, it is threadbare; it is carefree in

the true sense of that term; it is light, lo sable like a keyring or a hair clip And it is lethargy: why

not sit all morning, all day, all year, under the same cypress tree drawing the figure of eight in the

dust? More than that, it is disaster, it is chaos: why not overthrow a government on a whim, why

not blind the man you hated, why not go mad, go gibbering through the town like a loon, waving

your hands, tearing your hair? There's nothing to stop you or rather anything could stop you, any

hour, any minute. That feeling. That's the real difference in a life. People

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