A Week in December (34 page)

'Work stuff.'

'Right,' said Gabriel. 'Stuff we still need to ... Shall I take your mobile number?'

'OK.'

She gave it to him. 'I'm on mid-morning till mid-afternoon tomorrow.'

'Cheers, then.'

He gave her a peck on the cheek, and it definitely seemed the right thing to do.

Knocker al-Rashid hurled a book across his son's bedroom. 'You cannot read this nonsense. You just can't.'

'How do you know it's nonsense? You've never read it.'

'Everyone knows. All these people you name. That Ghulam Sarwar. Maybe his book is taught in English schools, but they've been conned. He was a lousy business management consultant with his own agenda, not a proper Muslim. And Maududi. He wasn't a scholar. He was a journalist! A rabble-rouser! And as for this Qutb. Everyone knows he was a terrorist. He--'

'He was not a terrorist,' said Hassan quietly. 'On the contrary, he was imprisoned by Nasser and brutally tortured, then hanged. He never killed anyone. You should read
Milestones
. It's very good, it's very well reasoned.'

'I don't need to read any of these vicious men who've twisted things to their own ends. The only book I need is the Koran.'

'But you've never even read it.'

Father and son had never argued in this open way before and Knocker felt he was almost certain to lose, because Hassan had read more books than he had; but it enraged him that his beautiful religion had been perverted by modern demagogues for their political ends.

It had begun quite amicably, when Knocker called in on his way to an early bed to make sure Hassan was ready for their big outing to Buckingham Palace. He had found him with his nose once more in
Milestones
.

'Anyway,' said Knocker, 'Islam has never had a political home. It's a state of mind. The beautiful and perfect way of living. To fight for territory is to do what the Christians and Jews have done. We are better than that.'

'Once we had an empire,' said Hassan.

'Yes, but it was never governed from top to bottom. Sharia law has never been implemented. And anyway, listen, my dear Hass, we have our own little community, our own
ummah
, here, in our home. You, me and Mum. Every family can be a pure Islamic state. Of course it would be better if we had entire countries and--'

'They're the worst, the so-called "Islamic" ones. The dictatorships, the kingdoms and theocracies. Don't they make you feel ashamed?'

Knocker sat down on the edge of his son's bed. 'It is the sadness of my religion and the sadness of living. And since Islam is Life, the only life, then I accept that those are the same things. But I can't change that. I wish that at some stage in its story Islam had developed a practical society we could believe in and that followed the teachings of the Prophet. We don't have a church, like the Christians, we don't even have clerics like the Jewish rabbis. We are, I must admit, rather other-worldly.'

'But we don't need to be! We can be part of this world too. Why should we be excluded?'

'Well of course, my dear boy, of course I wish that there were countries in the world - either the so-called "Muslim" states or the Western countries - that were acceptable to a true Muslim. I wish that we didn't have to live like exiles inside the shell of the family to be righteous. It's a great sadness. But it may also be a little bit our fault. We've had possession of the truth for nearly 1,500 years, but we've never developed ways of living, you know, the practical aspects of state and church and politics and law to bring an Islamic society into being. It's a great sadness, but--'

'But it's not too late! Don't give me all this "great sadness", all this weary old man's resignation! You say you believe in every word of the Koran, then--'

'Of course I do.'

'Then study it more carefully. Follow the Prophet's example by taking the good news to the
jahili
world.'

'But I like America!' said Knocker. 'I like its movies and its TV. What was that one with the pretty girl from the TV series? Never mind. I admire its science and its ... Its friendliness! When I went there on my way to and from Mexico, the people were so kind to me. In New York and Colorado and Los Angeles. They were welcoming and generous to a stranger with brown skin and a funny accent. I don't have to get drunk or grow fat on their junk food or watch their pornography, but I do--'

'America is the enemy. Just as the Persians and Byzantines were to the Prophet. We should be liberating them.'

'And how will you liberate them?' said Knocker. 'Fly another plane into a building? Kill all their politicians, break their army, then say, "Now we will create God's true Islamic society from California to New York - though we haven't yet worked out how to do it in practice because we've never done it before"?'

'You're talking like a
kafir
.'

Knocker had regained his calm after throwing
Milestones
across the room. He knew that what he said to Hassan now could be important, and he was careful not to raise his voice. 'I've read very little, it's true, but one thing I know is that whenever Islam has meddled in politics, it's made a fool of itself. Those Muslim states who took sides backed the Germans in the First World War and the Nazis in the Second. Afterwards they allied themselves to the Soviet atheists. We're not good at national politics.'

'That's bullshit, and you know it. In Afghanistan we defeated the Soviets. We won the Cold War! America claims it won, but it didn't. The Afghans won. That was the hard part. Now taking on America is easier. Look at their cretinous leader.'

'But I repeat, my dear Hassan. How will you do it? Even if someone could conquer America, which they can't, what would you do with it? You don't even have a blueprint for a modern country. The idea that we can set up a perfect state is ridiculous. That time has gone. Be gentle, be accepting. Say your prayers. We are going to heaven, but we must be patient on this earth. That's why I called you Hassan, not Hussein - after the quiet one of the Prophet's grandsons, not the troublemaker.'

Hassan stood up and walked round the room. 'Listen, Dad, I don't think either of us must say things we regret tomorrow. But the fact is that almost the entire Muslim world lives in poverty and tyranny. And that is simply because America through what it calls "globalisation" oppresses us and supports the awful governments in the "Muslim" states. We just can't allow our own people to be treated as the wretched of the earth.'

Knocker sighed. 'I'm sure it's true that people in the Middle East are repressed by their governments - and I've always supported the Palestinians. But that wasn't an Islamic war, a jihad or anything. It was a battle for the land that had been taken from them. And quite a lot of the PLO leaders were Christians anyway.'

'You really haven't understood at all, have you?' said Hassan, his voice rising again. 'All your wittering about politics. I'm not interested in British politics or any other nationalist politics. We have on offer a politics that is made by God. It's staring us in the face.'

'I don't want to talk any more,' said Knocker and got up stiffly from the bed. 'Tomorrow is the biggest day of my life. Please don't spoil it for me.'

Hassan looked for a moment at the closed door. He had been on the verge of saying things he would have regretted. Thank God the old fool had gone to bed. As so often, he felt the need for purer air, and he went downstairs. His mother was reading in the sitting room.

'Can I borrow your car, Mum?'

'Of course. You won't be back late, will you? It's a--'

'Big day tomorrow. I know.'

As he drove, Hassan pulled out his mobile phone and, on a whim, called Shahla. Although he disapproved of her and thought that her punishment for apostasy would be eternal, he admitted to himself that she could think clearly. And he enjoyed her company, he thought, at an intellectual level.

He knew there was hypocrisy in his attitude: Ali in Bradford would have been appalled to see him calling up this atheist girl. But he felt she might clear his mind; she might help him bring certain things into focus.

'Well, it's a bit unexpected,' Shahla said, 'but I wasn't planning much. Just reading. I thought I might watch a movie on my new little DVD thing later.'

Hassan held the phone well concealed in his hand, leaning his head against the cold car window as though in fatigue and resignation.

It had been a long day for him already. In the morning he had delivered, as he had been instructed, all the components for the making of the bombs to 'the pub' at Manor House so that Seth and Elton could assemble them. Salim had told him to return the next day, when they'd receive their final briefing from a member of Husam Nar. It would give him time to go to the palace.

He went round the South Circular, steering with one hand, through Catford and West Norwood. It was late and inhospitable enough for the traffic to be light, and in only half an hour he was pulling into the terrace of railwaymen's cottages in Clapham.

'Come in. Use me like a hotel. See if I care.' Shahla's smile took the sting from her words. She gave Hassan a chaste peck on the cheek and stood aside for him.

'Would you like a drink?' They went up to the first floor and into her flat. 'I'm going to have wine, but you can have something punitive if you prefer. Black tea? Wheatgrass? Jojoba juice?'

Hassan smiled. 'Ordinary tea's fine. Thanks.'

They settled either side of the coffee table. The room was small but not cramped. Shahla swung her long legs over the side of the armchair. She was wearing a red dress, woollen tights and leather boots with a kind of sleeveless Afghan sheepskin on top.

'Are you warm enough, Hass?'

'I'm fine, thanks. Did I stop you ... Er, you look as though you might be going out?'

Shahla looked down at herself. 'What? No, no. I just like to keep up standards. You never know who might call. What's new from the madrasa? All the girls still in hijab there?'

'Yeah, yeah. I know. Mock if you like.'

'Will I burn, Hass? Will it be bad?'

'I'm going to Buckingham Palace tomorrow. With my dad.'

'Oh, I love your dad. Do you remember, we met at graduation? Such a nice man. Rather a sexy smile, too, if I remember.'

Hassan laughed. 'I'm dreading it. I've managed to get out of the lunch, though.'

'Have you got the right clothes?'

'I have a suit. My dad's got the full penguin thing and my mum's bought at least three new dresses. Bags, shoes, everything.'

'It'll be fun. You should be proud of him. Do they give you lunch afterwards in, like, a big garden party?'

'No, no, we all go our different ways. They're going to lunch in some Lebanese place in Knightsbridge. I'm going ... I've got other fish to fry.'

There was a pause. Hassan drank some tea.

'Are you all right, Hass? You seem a bit tense.'

'I'm fine.' He wondered how she'd noticed. 'I had a bit of a row with my dad before I came. Nothing much.'

'What about?'

'Religion.'

'Well, there's a surprise.'

She swung her legs from one side of the armchair, then placed them over the other side. He wished she wouldn't do that.

'Hass, we're all a bit concerned that you spend so much time at that mosque. Some of the people there are not very nice.'

'How do you know? You've never been there.'

'It has a reputation.'

'Oh yes. And what's that, its "reputation"?'

'For being Wahhabi.'

'And what's wrong with that?'

"'What's wrong with that?" That's like saying "What's wrong with Nazism?"!'

'The Wahhabis were hardly Nazis, they were--'

'They executed a lot of people who didn't agree with them, they burned a lot of books. They were a nineteenth-century throwback to the Middle Ages who wanted to pretend scientific advance had never taken place.'

'Well, I suppose you could compare them to the Puritans in Christianity, or the Amish, or--'

'The Amish in jackboots,' said Shahla. 'Can we agree on that?'

'It's hardly a tiny sect, though,' said Hassan. 'It's the mainstream religious denomination of the richest and most powerful Islamic country in the world, Saudi Arabia.'

'But that's exactly the problem, you great twit!' said Shahla. 'Tyrannical Saudi kings and the American billions from drilling Saudi oil are sustaining a violent Flat Earth religion from the Stone Age.'

'But they have Mecca and Medina in their country, and--'

'I know,' said Shahla. 'They have the two holy places and they have the oil money. In some Muslim countries, the Wahhabis are the only people with money to set up schools. Islam
is
Wahabbism to those children. That's as though all Christian kids went to schools run by the IRA or the Ku Klux Klan - because there was nothing else.'

Hassan was taken aback by her vehemence. 'I think you're exaggerating.'

'Quite the opposite. It's actually more bizarre than that. Because the money behind the Saudis and Wahhabism is American. It's as though the British government had
paid
the IRA to educate British children.'

Hassan stood up. 'My mosque is perfectly respectable.'

Shahla also got to her feet, where she was a little taller than Hassan. 'I'm sorry, Hass. Don't go. Sit down. I'll make some more tea. It's just that your friends are worried. Did you know that?'

Part angry, part wanting to stay, Hassan sat slowly down again. He heard Shahla in the small kitchen, moving swiftly, as though she wanted to be back before he changed his mind. He had almost forgotten how irritatingly knowledgeable she was, even on 'his' subject. She came back with more tea for him and sat down opposite, this time with her feet on the floor.

'Shall we watch that movie I mentioned?' she said. 'I've bought this tiny DVD player for only PS25. It's like a CD thing. Look. You just stick it on the back of the telly.'

'OK,' said Hassan.

'But promise me you're not getting in above your head,' said Shahla.

'Aye.'

'I know how much it hurts,' said Shahla. 'But I'm sure there is a future for true Islam, but in a quiet, religious way. Modernisation will come. People will have more choice and will live more individual lives and that will secularise them. They can still be devout in private, but they'll live their lives in smaller units. Fragmented. Atomised.'