17 Crisis Talks and Eleventh-hour Tactics -2

He knew, in a way, this was worse, but he just couldn't help it. He kept a white handkerchief in

his top pocket, he always carried dice, even though he had no idea what a crap game actually was,

he loved long camel jackets and he could cook a killer seafood linguine, though a lamb curry was

completely beyond him. It was all hara am he knew that.

Worst of all was the anger inside him. Not the righteous anger of a man of God, but the seething,

violent anger of a gangster, a

juvenile delinquent, determined to prove himself, determined to run the clan, determined to beat

the rest. And if the game was God, if the game was a fight against the West, against the

presumptions of Western science, against his brother or Marcus Chalfen, he was determined to win

it. Millat stubbed his fag out against the bannister. It pissed him off that these were not pious

thoughts. But they were in the right ball park, weren't they? He had the fundamentals, didn't he?

Clean living, praying (five times a day without fail), fasting, working for the cause, spreading the

message? And that was enough, wasn't it? Maybe. Whatever. Either way, there was no going back

now. Yeah, he'd meet Magid, he'd meet him .. . they'd have a good face-off, he'd come out of it the

stronger; he'd call his brother a little cock-a-roach, and walk out of that tete-a-tete even more

determined to fulfill his destiny. Millat straightened his green bow-tie and slunk forward like Liotta

(all menace and charm) and pushed open the kitchen door (Ever since I can remember.. . ), waiting

for two pairs of eyes, like two of Scorsese's cameras, to pan on to his face and focus.

"Millat!"

"Amma."

"Millat!"

"Joyce."

(Great, supwoib, so we all know each other, went Millat's inner monologue in Paul Sorvino's

voice, Now let's get down to business.)

"All right, gentlemen. There is no reason to be alarmed. It is simply my son. Magid, Mickey.

Mickey, Magid."

O'ConnelTs once more. Because Alsana had eventually conceded Joyce's point, but did not care

to dirty her hands. Instead, she demanded Samad take Magid 'out somewhere' and spend an evening

persuading him into meeting with Millat. But the only 'out' Samad understood was O'Connell's and

the prospect of

taking his son there was repellent. He and his wife had a thorough wrestle in the garden to settle

the point, and he was confident of success until Alsana fooled him with a dummy trip, then an

armlock-knee-groin combination. So here he was: O'Connell's, and it was as bad a choice as he'd

suspected. When he, Archie and Magid walked in, trying to make a low-key entrance, there had

been widespread consternation amongst both staff and clientele. The last stranger anybody

remembered arriving with Arch and Sam was Samad's accountant, a small rat-faced man who tried

to talk to people about their savings (as if people in O'Connell's had savings!) and asked not once

but twice for blood pudding, though it had been explained to him that pig was unavailable. That

had been around 1987 and nobody had enjoyed it. And now what was this? A mere five years later

and here comes another one, this time all dressed in white insultingly clean for a Friday evening in

O'ConnelTs and way below the unspoken minimum age requirement (thirty-six). What was Samad

trying to do?

"Whattareya tryin' to do to us, Sammy?" asked Johnny, a mournful-looking stick of an

ex-Orangeman, who was leaning over the hot plate to collect some bubble and squeak. "Overrun us,

are ya or sum thing

"Oo 'im?" demanded Denzel, who had not yet died.

"Your batty bwoy?" inquired Clarence, who was also, by God's grace, hanging on in there.

"All right, gentlemen. There is no reason to be alarmed. It is simply my son. Magid, Mickey.

Mickey, Magid."

Mickey looked a little dumbfounded by this introduction, and just stood there for a minute, a

soggy fried egg hanging off his spatula.

"Magid Mahfooz Murshed Mubtasim Iqbal," said Magid serenely. "It is a great honour to meet

you, Michael. I have heard such a great deal about you."

Which was odd, because Samad had never told him a thing.

Mickey continued to look over Magid's shoulder to Samad for confirmation. "You what? You

mean the one you, er, sent back 'ome? This is Magid?"

"Yes, yes, this is Magid," replied Samad rapidly, pissed off by all the attention the boy was

getting. "Now, Archibald and I will have our usuals and'

"Magid Iqbal," repeated Mickey slowly. "Well, I bloody never. You know you'd never guess

you was an Iqbal. You've got a very trusting, well, kind of sympathetic face, if you get me."

"And yet I am an Iqbal, Michael," said Magid, laying that look of total empathy on Mickey and

the other dregs of humanity huddled around the hot counter, 'though I have been gone a long time."

"Say that again. Well, this is a turn-up for the books. I've got your .. . wait a minute, let me get

this right .. . your great-great-grandfather up there, see?"

"I noticed it the moment I came in, and I can assure you, Michael, my soul is very grateful for

it," said Magid, beaming like an angel. "It makes me feel at home, and, as this place is dear to my

father and his friend Archibald Jones I feel certain it shall also be dear to me. They have brought

me here, I think, to discuss important matters, and I for one can think of no better place for them,

despite your clearly debilitating skin condition."

Mickey was simply bowled over by that, and could not conceal his pleasure, addressing his

reply both to Magid and the rest of O'Connell's.

"Speaks fuckin' nice, don't he? Sounds like a right fuckin' Olivier. Queen's fucking English and

no mistake. What a nice fella. You're the kind of clientele I could do wiv in here, Magid, let me tell

you. Civilized and that. And don't you worry about my skin, it don't get anywhere near the food and

it don't give me much trouble. Cor, what a gentleman. You do feel like you should watch your

mouth around him, dontcha?"

"Mine and Archibald's usual, then, please, Mickey," said Samad.

Till leave my son to make up his mind. We will be over by the pinball." J|

"Yeah, yeah," said Mickey, not bothering or able to tun his *5i gaze from Magid's dark eyes. IB

"Dat a lovely suit you gat dere," murmured Denzel, stroking "IH the white linen wistfully.

"Dat's what de Englishmen use taw ear back home in Jamaica, remember dat, Clarence:1'

Clarence nodded slowly, dribbling a little, struck by the beatific.

"Go on, get out of it, the pair of you," grumbled Mickey, shooing them away, Till bring it over,

all right? I want to talk to Magid here. Growing boy, he's got to eat. So: what is it I can get you,

Magid?" Mickey leant over the counter, all concern, lite an over-attentive shop girl "Eggs?

Mushrooms? Beans? Fried sice?"

"I think," replied Magid, slowly surveying the dusty chalkboard menus on the wall, and then

turning back to Mickey, his face illumined, "I should like a bacon sandwich. Yes, that is it. I would

love a juicy, yet well-done, tomato ketchup-ed bacon sandwich. On brown."

Oh, the struggle that could be seen on Mickey's kisser at that moment! Oh, the gargoylian

contortions! It was a battle between the favour of the most refined customer he had ever had and

the most hallowed, sacred rule of O'Connell's Pool House. no pork.

Mickey's left eye twitched.

"Don't want a nice plate of scrambled? I do a lovely scrambled eggs, don't I, Johnny?"

"I'd be a liar if I said ya didn't," said Johnny loyally from his table, even though Mickey's eggs

were famously grey and stiff, I'd be a terrible liar, on my mother's life, I would."

Magid wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

"All right what about mushrooms and beans? Omelette and chips? No better chips in the

Finchley Road. Come on, son," he pleaded, desperate. "You're a Muslim, int ya? You don't want to

break your father's heart with a bacon sandwich."

"My father's heart will not be broken by a bacon sandwich. It

is far more likely that my father's heart will break from the result of a build-up of saturated fat

which is in turn a result of eating in your establishment for fifteen years. One wonders," said Magid

evenly, 'if a case could be made, a legal case, you understand, against individuals in the food

service industry who fail to label their meals with a clear fat content or general health warning. One

wonders."

All this was delivered in the sweetest, most melodious voice, and with no hint of threat. Poor

Mickey didn't know what to make of it.

"Well, of course," said Mickey nervously, 'hypothetically that is an interesting question. Very

interesting."

"Yes, I think so."

"Yeah, definitely."

Mickey fell silent and spent a minute elaborately polishing the top of the hot plate, an activity

he indulged in about once every ten years.

"There. See your face in that. Now. Where were we?"

"A bacon sandwich."

At the sound of the word 'bacon', a few ears began to twitch at the front tables.

"If you could keep your voice down a little

"A bacon sandwich," whispered Magid.

"Bacon. Right. Well, I'll have to nip next door, 'cos I ain't got none at present .. . but you just sit

down wiv your dad and I'll bring it over. It'll cost a bit more, like. What wiv the extra effort, you

know. But don't worry, I'll bring it over. And tell Archie not to worry if he ain't got the cash. A

Luncheon Voucher will do."

"You are very kind, Michael. Take one of these." Magid reached into his pocket and pulled out

a piece of folded paper.

"Oh, fuck me, another leaflet? You can't fucking move pardon my French but you can't move

for leaflets in Norf London these days. My brother Abdul-Colin's always loading me wiv 'em an' all.

But seem' as it's you ... go on, hand it over."

"It's not a leaflet," said Magid, collecting his knife and fork from the tray. "It is an invitation to

a launch."

"You what?" said Mickey excitedly (in the grammar of his daily tabloid, launch meant lots of

cameras, expensive-looking birds with huge tits, red carpets). "Really?"

Millat passed him the invite. "Incredible things are to be seen and heard there."

"Oh," said Mickey, disappointed, eyeing the expensive piece of card. "I've heard about this

bloke and his mouse." He had heard about this bloke and his mouse in this same tabloid; it was a

kind of filler between the tits and the more tits and it was underneath the byline: one bloke and his

mouse.

"Seems a bit dodgy to me, messing wiv God an' all that. "Sides I ain't that scientifically minded,

you see. Go right over my head."

"Oh, I don't think so. One just has to look at the thing from a perspective that interests you

personally. Take your skin, for example."

"I wish somebody would fuckin' take it," joked Mickey amiably. "I've 'ad a-fucking-nuff of it."

Magid did not smile.

"You suffer from a serious endocrine disorder. By which I mean, it is not simply adolescent

acne caused by the over-excretion of sebum, but a condition that comes from a hormonal defect. I

presume your family share it?"

"Er .. . yeah, as it happens. All my brothers. And my son, Abdul-Jimmy. All spotty bastards."

"But you would not like it if your son were to pass on the condition to his sons."

"Obviously, no. I 'ad terrible trouble in school. I carry a knife to this day, Magid. But I can't see

how that can be avoided, to be honest with you. Been goin' on for decades."

"But you see," said Magid (and what an expert he was at the personal interest angle!), 'it can

certainly be avoided. It would be

perfectly simple and much misery would be saved. That is the kind of thing we will be

discussing at the launch."

"Oh, well, if that's the case, you know, count me in. I thought it was just some bloody

mutant-mouse or som mink you see. But if that's the case .. ."

"Thirty-first of December," said Magid, before walking down the aisle to his father. "It will be

wonderful to see you there

"You took your time," said Archie, as Magid approached their table.

"Did you come by way of the Ganges?" inquired Samad irritably, shifting up to make space for

him.

"Pardon me, please. I was just speaking with your friend, Michael. A very decent chap. Oh,

before I forget, Archibald, he said that it would be perfectly acceptable to pay in Luncheon

Vouchers this evening."

Archie almost choked on a little toothpick he was chewing on. "He said what"? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. Now, Abba, shall we begin?"

"There's nothing to begin," growled Samad, refusing to look him in the eye. "I am afraid we are

already far into whatever diabolic plot fate has in store for me. And I want you to know, that I am

not here of my own volition but because your mother begged me to do this and because I have

more respect for that poor woman than either you or your brother ever had."

Magid released a wry, gentle smile. "I thought you were here because Amma beat you in the

wrestling."

Samad scowled. "Oh yes, ridicule me. My own son. Do you never read the Qur'an? Do you not

know the duties a son owes to his father? You sicken me, Magid Mubtasim."

"Oi, Sammy, old man," said Archie, playing with the ketchup, trying to keep things light.

"Steady on."

"No, I will not steady on! This boy is a thorn in my foot."

"Surely "side"?"

"Archibald, stay out of this."

Archie returned his attention to the pepper and salt cellars, IB

trying to pour the former into the latter. tj|j

"Right you are, Sam." 3

"I have a message to deliver and I will deliver it and no more. *B

Magid, your mother wants you to meet with Millat. The woman Chalfen will arrange it. It is

their opinion that the two of you must talk

"And what is your opinion, Abba?"

"You don't want to hear my opinion."

"On the contrary, Abba, I would very much like to hear it."

"Simply, I think it is a mistake. I think you two can do no possible good for each other. I think

you should go to opposite corners of the earth. I think I have been cursed with two sons more

dysfunctional than Mr. Cain and Mr. Abel."

"I am perfectly willing to meet with him, Abba. If he will meet with me."

"Apparently he is willing, this is what I am told. I don't know. I don't talk with him any more

than I talk with you. I am too busy at the moment trying to make my peace with God."

"Er.. ." said Archibald, crunching on his toothpick out of hunger and nerves, and because Magid

gave him the heebiejeebies, Till go and see if the food is ready, shall I? Yes. I'll do that. What am I

picking up for you, Madge?"

"A bacon sandwich, please, Archibald."

"Bac -? Er .. . right. Right you are."

Samad's face blew up like one of Mickey's fried tomatoes. "So you mean to mock me, is that it?

In front of my face you wish to show me the kaffir that you are. Go on, then! Munch on your pig in

front of me! You are so bloody clever, aren't you? Mr. Smarty-pants. Mr. white-trousered

Englishman with his stiff upper-lip and his big white teeth. You know everything, even enough to

escape your own judgement day."

"I am not so clever, Abba."

"No, no, you are not. You are not half as clever as you think. I

don't know why I bother to warn you, but I do: you are on a direct collision course with your

brother, Magid. I keep my ear to the ground, I hear Shiva talking in the restaurant. And there are

others: Mo Hussein-Ishmael, Mickey's brother, Abdul-Colin, and his son, Abdul-Jimmy these are

only a few, there are many more, and they are organizing against you. Millat is with them. Your

Marcus Chalfen has stirred a great deal of anger and there are some, these green-ties, who are

willing to act. Who are crazy enough to do what they believe is right. Crazy enough to start a war.

There aren't many people like that. Most of us just follow along once war has been announced. But

some people wish to bring things to a head. Some people march on to the parade ground and fire

the first shot. Your brother is one of them."

All through this, as Samad's face contorted from anger, to despair, to near-hysterical grins,

Magid had remained blank, his face an unwritten page.

"You have nothing to say? This news does not surprise you?"

"Why don't you reason with them, Abba," said Magid after a pause. "Many of them respect you.

You are respected in the community. Reason with them."

"Because I disapprove as strongly as they do, for all their lunacies. Marcus Chalfen has no right.

No right to do as he does. It is not his business. It is God's business. If you meddle with a creature,

the very nature of a creature, even if it is a mouse, you walk into the arena that is God's: creation.

You infer that the wonder of God's creation can be improved upon. It cannot. Marcus Chalfen

presumes. He expects to be worshipped when the only thing in the universe that warrants worship

is Allah. And you are wrong to help him. Even his own son has disowned him. And so," said Samad,

unable to suppress the drama queen deep within his soul, "I must disown you."

"Ah, now, one chips, beans, egg and mushroom for you, Sammy-my-good-man," said Archibald,

approaching the table and passing the plate. "And one omelette and mushrooms for me .. ."

"And one bacon sandwich," said Mickey, who had insisted on breaking fifteen years of tradition

in bringing this one dish over himself, 'for the young professor."

"He will not eat that at my table."

"Oh, come on, Sam," began Archie gingerly. "Give the lad a break."

"I say he will not eat that at my table!"

Mickey scratched his forehead. "Stone me, we're getting a bit fundamentalist in our old age,

ain't we?"

"I said '

"As you wish, Abba," said Magid, with that same infuriating smile of total forgiveness. He took

his plate from Mickey, and sat down at the adjacent table with Clarence and Denzel.

Denzel welcomed him with a grin, "Clarence, look see! It de young prince in white. "Im come

to play domino. I jus' look in his eye and I and I knew 'im play domino. "Im an hex pert

"Can I ask you a question?" said Magid.

"Def-net-lee. Gwan."

"Do you think I should meet with my brother?"

"Hmm. I don' tink me can say," replied Denzel, after a spell of thought in which he laid down a

five-domino set.

"I would say you look like a young fellow oo can make up 'im own mind," said Clarence

cautiously.

"Do I?"

Magid turned back to his previous table, where his father was trying studiously to ignore him,

and Archie was toying with his omelette.

"Archibald! Shall I meet with my brother or not?"

Archie looked guiltily at Samad and then back at his plate.

"Archibald! This is a very significant question for me. Should I or not?"

"Go on," said Samad sourly. "Answer him. If he'd rather advice from two old fools and a man

he barely knows than from his own father, then let him have it. Well? Should he?"

Archie squirmed. "Well... I can't... I mean, it's not for me to say ... I suppose, if he wants .. . but

then again, if you don't think

Samad thrust his fist into Archie's mushrooms so hard the omelette slithered off the plate

altogether and slipped to the floor.

"Make a decision, Archibald. For once in your pathetic little life, make a decision."

"Urn .. . heads, yes," gasped Archie, reaching into his pocket for a twenty pence piece. "Tails,

no. Ready?"

The coin rose and flipped as a coin would rise and flip every time in a perfect world, flashing its

light and then revealing its dark enough times to mesmerize a man. Then, at some point in its

triumphant ascension, it began to arc, and the arc went wrong, and Archibald realized that it was

not coming back to him at all but going behind him, a fair way behind him, and he turned with the

others to watch it complete an elegant swoop towards the pinball machine and somersault straight

into the slot. Immediately the huge old beast lit up; the ball shot off and began its chaotic, noisy

course around a labyrinth of swinging doors, automatic bats, tubes and ringing bells, until, with no

one to assist it, no one to direct it, it gave up the ghost and dropped back into the swallowing hole.

"Bloody hell said Archibald, visibly chuffed. "What are the chances of that, eh?"

A neutral place. The chances of finding one these days are slim, maybe even slimmer than

Archie's pinball trick. The sheer quantity of shit that must be wiped off the slate if we are to start

again as new. Race. Land. Ownership. Faith. Theft. Blood. And more blood. And more. And not

only must the place be neutral, but the messenger who takes you to the place, and the messenger

who sends the messenger. There are no people or places like that

left in North London. But Joyce did her best with what she had. First she went to Clara. In

Clara's present seat of learning, a red-brick university, South-West by the Thames, there was a room

she used for study on Friday afternoons. A thoughtful teacher had loaned her the key. Always empty

between three and six. Contents: one blackboard, several tables, some chairs, two angle poise lamps,

an overhead projector, a filing cabinet, a computer. Nothing older than twelve years, Clara could

guarantee that. The university itself was only twelve years old. Built on empty waste land no Indian

burial grounds, no Roman viaducts, no interred alien spacecraft, no foundations of a long-gone

church. Just earth. As neutral a place as anywhere. Clara gave Joyce the key and Joyce gave it to

Me.

"But why me? I'm not involved."

"Exactly, dear. And I'm too involved. But you are perfect. Because you know him but you don't

know him," said Joyce cryptically. She passed Irie her long winter coat, some gloves and a hat of

Marcus's with a ludicrous bobble on the top. "And because you love him, though he doesn't love

you."

"Yeah, thanks, Joyce. Thanks for reminding me."

"Love is the reason, Me." "No, Joyce, Love's not the fucking reason." Irie was standing on the

Chalfen doorstep, watching her own substantial breath in the freezing night air. It's a four-letter

word that sells life insurance and hair conditioner. It's fucking cold out here. You owe me one."

"Everybody owes everybody," agreed Joyce and closed the door.

Irie stepped out into streets she'd known her whole life, along a route she'd walked a million

times over. If someone asked her just then what memory was, what the purest definition of memory

was, she would say this: the street you were on when you first jumped in a pile of dead leaves. She

was walking it right now. With every fresh crunch came the memory of previous crunches.

She was permeated by familiar smells: wet wood chip and gravel around the base of the tree,

newly laid turd underneath the cover of soggy leaves. She was moved by these sensations. Despite

opting for a life of dentistry, she had not yet lost all of the poetry in her soul, that is, she could still

have the odd Proustian moment, note layers upon layers, though she often experienced them in

periodontal terms. She got a twinge as happens with a sensitive tooth, or in a 'phantom tooth', when

the nerve is exposed she felt a twinge walking past the garage, where she and Millat, aged thirteen,



had passed one hundred and fifty pennies over the counter, stolen from an Iqbal jam-jar, in a

desperate attempt to buy a packet of fags. She felt an ache (like a severe malocclusion, the pressure

of one tooth upon another) when she passed the park where they had cycled as children, where they

smoked their first joint, where he had kissed her once in the middle of a storm. Me wished she

could give herself over to these past-present fictions: wallow in them, make them sweeter, longer,

particularly the kiss. But she had in her hand a cold key, and surrounding her lives that were

stranger than fiction, funnier than fiction, crueller than fiction, and with consequences fiction can

never have. She didn't want to be involved in the long story of those lives, but she was, and she

found herself dragged forward by the hair to their denouement, through the high road Mali's

Kebabs, Mr. Cheungs, Raj's, Malkovich Bakeries she could reel them off blindfold; and then down

under pigeon-shit bridge and that long wide road that drops into Gladstone Park as if it's falling into

a green ocean. You could drown in memories like these, but she tried to swim free of them. She

jumped over the small wall that fringed the Iqbal house, as she had a million times over, and rang

the doorbell. Past tense, future imperfect.

Upstairs, in his bedroom, Millat had spent the past fifteen minutes trying to get his head around

Brother Hifan's written instructions concerning the act of prostration (leaflet: Correct Worship):

SAJDA: prostration. In the sajda, fingers must be closed, pointing towards the qibla in line with

the ears, and the head must be between hands. It is hard to put the forehead on something clean,

such as a stone, some earth, wood, cloth, and it is said (by savants) that it is wa jib to put the nose

down, too. It is not permissible to put only the nose on the ground without a good excuse. It is

makruh to put only the forehead on the ground. In the sajda you must say Subhana rabbiyal-ala at

least thrice. The Shiis say that it is better to make the sajda on a brick made from the clay of

Karbala. It is either fard or wa jib to put two feet or at least one toe of each foot on the ground.

There are also some savants who say that it is sun That That is, if two feet are not put on the ground,

nam az will either not be accepted or it will become makruh. If, during the sajda, the forehead, nose

or feet are raised from the ground for a short while, it will cause no harm. In the sajda, it is sun That

to bend the toes and turn them towards the qibla. It is written in Raddulmukhtar that those who say

That's as far as he got, and there were three more pages. He was in a cold sweat from trying to

recall all that was hal al or hara am fard or sun That makruh-tahrima (prohibited with much stress)

or makruh-tanzihi (prohibited, but to a lesser degree). At a loss, he had ripped off his t-shirt, tied a

series of belts at angles over his spectacular upper body, stood in the mirror and practised a

different, easier routine, one he knew in intimate detail:

You lookin' at me? You lookin' at me?

Well, who the fuck else are you looking at, huh?

I can't see anybody else in here.

You lookin' at me?

He was in the swing of it, revealing his invisible sliding guns and knives to the wardrobe door,

when Me walked in.

"Yes/ said Me, as he stood there sheepish. Tm looking at you." Quickly and quietly she

explained to him about the neutral

place, about the room, about the date, about the time. She made her own personal plea for

compromise, peace and caution (everybody was doing it) and then she came up close and put the

cold key in his warm hand. Almost without meaning to, she touched his chest. Just at the point

between two belts where his heart, constricted by the leather, beat so hard she felt it in her ear.

Lacking experience in this field, it was natural that Irie should mistake the palpitations that come

with blood restriction for smouldering passion. As for Millat, it had been a very long time since

anybody touched him or he touched anybody. Add to that the touch of memory, the touch often

years of love unreturned, the touch of a long, long history the result was inevitable.

Before long their arms were involved, their legs were involved, their lips were involved, and

they were tumbling on to the floor, involved at the groin (hard to get more involved than that),

making love on a prayer mat. But then as suddenly and feverishly as it had begun it was over; they

released each other in horror for different reasons, Irie springing back into a naked huddle by the

door, embarrassed and ashamed because she could see how much he regretted it; and Millat

grabbing his prayer mat and pointing it towards the Kaba, ensuring the mat was no higher than

floor level, resting on no books or shoes, his fingers closed and pointing to the quibla in line with

his ears, ensuring both forehead and nose touched the floor, with two feet firmly on the ground but

ensuring the toes were not bent, prostrating himself in the direction of the Kaba, but not for the

Kaba, but for Allahu ta'ala alone. He made sure he did all these things perfectly, while Irie wept and

dressed and left. He made sure he did all these things perfectly because he believed he was being

watched by the great camera in the sky. He made sure he did all these things perfectly because they

were fard and 'he who wants to change worships becomes a disbeliever' (leaflet: The Straight Path).

Hell hath no fury et cetera, et cetera. Irie walked hot-faced from the Iqbal house and headed

straight for the Chalfens with revenge on her mind. But not against Millat. Rather in defence of

Millat,

for she had always been his defender, his blacky-white knight. -=j

You see, Millat did not love her. And she thought Millat didn't --'

love her because he couldn't. She thought he was so damaged,

he couldn't love anybody any more. She wanted to find whoever had damaged him like this,

damaged him so terribly; she wanted to find whoever had made him unabk to love her.

It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah,

he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up

to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that

convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made

us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And

particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta

roll then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of

ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something

more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greetings cards routinely tell us everybody

deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

Millat didn't love Irie, and Irie was sure there must be somebody she could blame for that. Her

brain started ticking over. What was the root cause? Millat's feelings of inadequacy. What was the

root cause of Millat's feelings of inadequacy? Magid. He had been born second because of Magid.

He was the lesser son because of Magid.

Joyce opened the door to her and Irie marched straight upstairs, maliciously determined to

make Magid the second-son for once, this time by twenty-five minutes. She grabbed him, kissed

him

and made love to him angrily and furiously, without conversation or affection. She rolled him

around, tugged at his hair, dug what fingernails she had into his back and when he came she was

gratified to note it was with a little sigh as if something had been taken from him. But she was

wrong to think this a victory. It was simply because he knew immediately where she had been, why

she was here, and it saddened him. For a long time they lay in silence together, naked, the autumn

light disappearing from the room with every minute that passed.

"It seems to me," said Magid finally, as the moon became clearer than the sun, 'that you have

tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land

with an X. It seems to me it is too late in the day for all that."

Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.

3 p.m." 5 November 1992. The brothers meet (at last) in a blank room after a gap of eight years

and find that their genes, those prophets of the future, have reached different conclusions. Millat is

astounded by the differences. The nose, the line of the jaw, the eyes, the hair. His brother is a

stranger to him and he tells him so.

"Only because you wish me to be," says Magid with a crafty look.

But Millat is blunt, not interested in riddles, and in a single shot asks and answers his own

question. "So you're going through with it, yeah?"

Magid shrugs. "It is not mine to stop or start, brother, but yes, I intend to help where I can. It is

a great project."

"It is an abomination." (leaflet: The Sanctity of Creation)

Millat pulls out a chair from one of the desks and sits on it backwards, like a crab in a trap, legs

and arms splayed either side.

"I see it rather as correcting the Creator's mistakes."

"The Creator doesn't make mistakes."

"So you mean to continue?"

"You're damn right."

"And so do I."

"Well, that's it, then, isn't it? It's already been decided. KEVIN will do whatever is necessary to

stop you and your kind. And that's the fucking end of it."

But contrary to Millat's understanding, this is no movie and there is no fucking end to it, just as

there is no fucking beginning to it. The brothers begin to argue. It escalates in moments, and they

make a mockery of that idea, a neutral place; instead they cover the room with history past, present

and future history (for there is such a thing) they take what was blank and smear it with the stinking

shit of the past like excitable, excremental children. They cover this neutral room in themselves.

Every gripe, the earliest memories, every debated principle, every contested belief.

Millat arranges the chairs to demonstrate the vision of the solar system which is so clearly and

remarkably described in the Qur'an, centuries before Western science (leaflet: The Qur'an and the

Cosmos); Magid draws Pande's parade ground on one blackboard with a detailed reconstruction of

the possible path of bullets, and on the other board a diagram depicting a restriction enzyme cutting

neatly through a sequence of nucleotides; Millat uses the computer as television, a chalk rubber as

the picture of Magid-and-goat, then single-handedly impersonates every dribbling babba, great aunt

and cousin's accountant who came that year for the blasphemous business of worshipping an icon;

Magid utilizes the overhead projector to illuminate an article he has written, taking his brother

point-by-point through his argument, defending the patents of genetically altered organisms; Millat

uses the filing cabinet as a substitute for another one he despised, fills it with imaginary letters

between a scientist Jew and an

unbelieving Muslim; Magid puts three chairs together and shines two angle poise lamps and

now there are two brothers in a car, shivering and huddled together until a few minutes later they

are separated for ever and a paper plane takes off.

It goes on and on and on.

And it goes to prove what has been said of immigrants many times before now; they are

resourceful; they make do. They use what they can when they can.

Because we often imagine that immigrants are constantly on the move, footloose, able to

change course at any moment, able to employ their legendary resourcefulness at every turn. We

have been told of the resourcefulness of Mr. Schmutters, or the foot loosity of Mr. Banajii, who sail

into Ellis Island or Dover or Calais and step into their foreign lands as blank people, free of any

kind of baggage, happy and willing to leave their difference at the docks and take their chances in

this new place, merging with the oneness of this greenandpleasantlibertarianlandofthefree.

Whatever road presents itself, they will take, and if it happens to lead to a dead end, well then,

Mr. Schmutters and Mr. Banajii will merrily set upon another, weaving their way through Happy

Multicultural Land. Well, good for them. But Magid and Millat couldn't manage it. They left that

neutral room as they had entered it: weighed down, burdened, unable to waver from their course or

in any way change their separate, dangerous trajectories. They seem to make no progress. The

cynical might say they don't even move at all that Magid and Millat are two of Zeno's head fuck

arrows, occupying a space equal to themselves and, what is scarier, equal to Mangal Pande's, equal

to Samad Iqbal's. Two brothers trapped in the temporal instant. Two brothers who pervert all

attempts to put dates to this story, to track these guys, to offer times and days, because there isn't,

wasn't and never will be any duration. In fact, nothing moves.

Nothing changes. They are running at a standstill. Zeno's Paradox.

But what was Zeno's deal here (everybody's got a deal), what was his angle"? There is a body of

opinion that argues his paradoxes are part of a more general spiritual programme. To

(a) first establish multiplicity, the Many, as an illusion, and (b) thus prove reality a seamless,

flowing whole. A single, indivisible One.

Because if you can divide reality inexhaustibly into parts, as the brothers did that day in that

room, the result is insupportable paradox. You are always still, you move nowhere, there is no

progress.

But multiplicity is no illusion. Nor is the speed with which those-in-the-simmering-melting-pot

are dashing towards it. Paradoxes aside, they are running, just as Achilles was running. And they

will lap those who are in denial just as surely as Achilles would have made that tortoise eat his dust.

Yeah, Zeno had an angle. He wanted the One, but the world is Many. And yet still that paradox is

alluring. The harder Achilles tries to catch the tortoise, the more eloquently the tortoise expresses

its advantage. Likewise, the brothers will race towards the future only to find they more and more

eloquently express their past, that place where they have just been. Because this is the other thing

about immigrants ('fugees, emigres, travellers): they cannot escape their history any more than you

yourself can lose your shadow.

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