Brick Lane (90 page)

'Too many boxes on the floor. Just tidying up.'

Chanu twinkled at her. 'My wife, tidying up! And making more trouble for herself. Never mind, it doesn't matter. But next time there's a big job to be done – leave it to me.'

He went to attend to samosas, administration and other matters pertaining.

Nazneen finished with the rugs. She took stock of the sitting room. She did a circuit. The boxes of Chanu's papers were labelled
Ship.
The coffee table had been tagged
Auction.
On the back of the sofa was another label:
Charitable Foundation.

Only the sewing machine remained to be packed. She sat in front of it for a while. The letter was still beneath the machine. She left it and moved to the window.

A rudimentary stage had been erected out of wooden pallets in the courtyard. Around the stage a handful of youths talked into mobile phones. A steady stream of young men filed into the courtyard from both sides of the estate. They too gathered around the stage. Everyone checked what was happening. Nothing was happening. Everyone checked again. One or two ran on the spot and jumped up and down. A boy with a red and green scarf knotted around his forehead carried what looked like a bundled-up old sheet. He put it on the ground and spread it out. It was a Bengal Tigers banner, hand-painted.

'Amma,' said Bibi from the doorway.

'Bibi,' said Nazneen, without turning. 'Bibi?' She looked round.

Bibi chewed on the end of her plait.

'Are you hungry? Do you want lunch?'

'No.'

'What is it?'

'Nothing. I was just coming to see you.'

Nazneen held out her arm. 'Come.'

'It's OK,' said Bibi, backing out. 'I've seen you.'

People were pouring into the courtyard now. They came thick and fast. It was as if a couple of blocks of flats had been tipped on their side and all the people came helter-skelter out into the street and landed up in the middle of Dogwood. There were women among the crowd, and girls. A white banner with black and gold letters proclaimed
Bethnal Green Islamic Girls' Group.

Nazneen saw Sorupa, Jorina, Nazma and Hanufa. Hanufa was back in favour. She looked for Karim.

The boys outnumbered the girls and the women, but they were all outnumbered by the older men. They came with their green and brown herringbone overcoats buttoned over baggy trousers. They walked in knots of three or four, and ignored those they walked with and shouted across to others. White beards tinged with nicotine, skullcaps and missing teeth. Dark polished faces and watchful eyes. A few wore lungis; others carried walking sticks. They came with plastic Iceland bags and moved along like hospital patients. Nazneen wondered if Karim's father was among them.

There was another group: white people. They were the smallest of the clans but they were the most active. They buzzed around the older men, giving out cardboard signs mounted on wooden poles. The white people wore trousers with pockets all over them. They had pockets at the thigh, the knee, down on their shins. All their clothes had little tabs and toggles, zips and flaps and fasteners. It was as if they had dressed themselves in tents and to settle for the night they would simply insert a few poles and lie down. They moved among the crowd and began to hand out something (badges? stickers? sweets?) to the lads. Finding themselves rebuffed, they retrenched a generation or two. The Bangladeshi patriarchs dangled their placards along with the Iceland bags. A white girl with tiny silver-framed glasses held up her placard and jabbed it in the air. She wedged it between her knees and began a little mime. Clasped her hands together. Pointed to the sky. Palms out to the patriarchs. Rub and a pat on the cardboard sign. HOLD. UP. YOUR. PLACARDS.

The patriarchs 'listened' politely. Then they discussed it among themselves.

Nazneen examined the faces near the stage. Karim would be there. He would stand up on the stage and speak. It was his big day.

It was her big day as well.

Somewhere, down there, he was preparing his speech. Adding the finishing touches.

She had not yet made a start on hers.

A chant was setting up among the demonstrators. Nazneen could not make out the words. She opened the window. The white people moved among the patriarchs. They were the chanters, these two groups. The bespectacled girl and her friends made pistons of their arms:
go, go, go.
The patriarchs stowed their Iceland bags on top of their feet, turned up their collars and buttoned their coats beneath their chins. They chanted along with their new friends.

'What fresh hell is this?'

She had not noticed Chanu come in.

'It's a massacre out there. Three hundred and five people have stood on my toes. "Mind out," I said. "Man with corns coming through. Man with chilblains." Nobody listened.'

He came to the window.

'What are they saying?' asked Nazneen. 'Something about Gurkhas? Or burkhas?'

'Workers. That is the cry which they have taken up. "Workers! United!" It's a myth, of course. Those white people are from the Workers United Front. When I was passing through, they were attempting to get a longer chant going.
"Workers. United. Will never be defeated."
They gave it up for a bad job.'

Chanu eased his shoes off. He lifted a foot, rested it on his knee and began to massage it through the sock.

He cleared his throat. 'Ahem. Hem. What they are doing, you see, is co-opting these immigrants into their grand political schemata in which all oppressed minorities combine in the overthrow of the state and live happily ever after in a communal paradise. This theory fails to take account of culture clash, bourgeois immigrant aspirations, the hatred of the Hindu for the Muslim, the Bangladeshi for the Pakistani, and so on and so forth. In all reality, it is doomed to failure.'

He switched feet.

'See those people down there, chanting? All aged about – what? – forty-five to sixty-five. Workers united? They are not even workers! Ninety-nine per cent, they are unemployed.'

'What about the other march?'

'Lion Hearts? I didn't see anything. Maybe they cancelled.'

Nazneen remembered Mrs Islam's words.
Not more than ten will come.

Karim mounted the stage. He held a megaphone to his lips.

Chanu closed the window. 'What is going to happen to our people here?' He took her hand and led her away. Karim's voice was indistinct, a radio playing out of tune in the background.

'The young ones,' said Chanu, 'they'll be the ones to decide. Do you know how many immigrant populations have been here before us? In the eighteenth century the French Protestants fled here, escaping Catholic persecution. They were silk weavers. They made good. One hundred years later, the Jews came. They thrived. At the same time, the Chinese came as merchants. The Chinese are doing very well.' Chanu still had hold of her hand. 'Which way is it going to go?'

'Shefali is going to university. Sorupa's nephew is going to Oxford.'

'And Tariq? What is he doing?'

Nazneen reclaimed her hand.

Chanu motioned with his head towards the window. 'What are they doing out there? What are they marching for?'

'Because the others, who have a wrong idea about our religion, are going to march against Islam.'

'Islam,' said Chanu, turning the word over carefully. 'It could be about Islam. But I don't think so. I don't think it is.' He entered his own private world of theory and refutation, striving and puzzlement.

Then he plumped up his cheeks and his hopes. 'But when we're back home, we won't need to think about these things. Back home we'll really know what's what.'