Brick Lane (23 page)

'Then how will you know who has won?'

'That son-of-a-bitch!'

'Razia—'

'He works all day and night. He keeps me locked up inside.'

'You go out. You came here, to the hospital.'

'If I get a job, he will kill me. He will kill me kindly, just one slit across here. That's the sort of man he is. For hours, for days, he says nothing at all, and when he speaks that's the kind of talk I get.' She held on to her foot, restraining it from further bouncing.

'But you go out. You go to the college.'

'The children are at school. What am I supposed to do all day? Gossip and more gossip. The children ask for things. Everything they see, they want. And I don't have money. Jorina can get me a sewing job, but my husband will come to the factory and slaughter me like a lamb.'

'Talk to him.' Nazneen watched the door open. She hoped it would be Chanu with more food from home. A nurse came in and touched the old couple lightly on their shoulders. They looked up at her with guilty faces. Enclosed in their sorrows, they had forgotten why they were here.

Razia pointed to the doll. 'I might as well talk to him. My husband is so miserly he will not waste even words on me. Now he has the night job, driving around with animal carcasses. If he has anything to say, he says it to them.' Razia blew hard out of her long nose, exhaling her anger. She uncrossed her legs and laced her fingers together. 'Anyway, you don't want to hear my troubles. You have enough of your own.'

'Raqib is getting stronger. I can feel it.' It was possible now to leave him alone for a while. She had tamed the machines that stood guard by talking to them softly, like a mahout calms an angry elephant.
This is my son. This is my son. Take good care of him.
The machines no longer frightened her. In the night they purred like civets and their bellies lit up like fireflies. By day they droned with efficiency and the flat screens made lines and curves in modest shades of green.

'The next time I come I will be allowed to pick him up,' said Razia. She smiled but she could not recover her temper. 'I found out where the money goes. Shall I tell you? It goes to the imam. He is going to build a new mosque in the village.'

'God will bless you.'

'If he was God-conscious, I would not mind. But my husband is not God-conscious. Listen, is this how a God-conscious man acts?' Her husband was mean. It was getting worse. After much brooding in the kitchen, sorting through the shelves and cupboards, he denounced his wife as a wanton housekeeper. Too many jars, too many packets, too many tins. All shouting abundance, luxury, waste. There would be no more money until every last thing on the shelves was eaten. Now they were down to Sun Maid raisins and Sainsbury's Wheat Bisks. For three days the children had eaten only Wheat Bisks in water and handfuls of raisins. This will teach you, said the husband. Will teach you to buy Sun Maid, fancy packets, penny-waste here, penny-waste there. Tariq came home from school. Ma, Shefali going to the toilet nine times every day. She is getting ashamed to put her hand up.

Razia tackled him. Building mosques and killing your own children. Holy man.

He did not flinch. What you want me to do? Kill my own self, working and working, for you to spend it all on penny-thing here, penny-thing there and nothing to show at the end? I am working for bricks. When I am gone to dust, they will be standing.

Ha, she said, and whenever they crossed paths, the brick man!

Ask your father, she had told Shefali, ask him how many bricks he earn today. Shefali, twisting her hair, said, Abba, how many bricks you earn today? And landed on her back, and cried quietly into her mother's lap.

'Make it up with him,' said Nazneen. 'For the children's sake.'

Razia paced the width of the room. A little bit of shin showed above her sock where her tracksuit leg had ridden up. Chanu would have no chance in a fight with Razia. But Razia's husband was big: broad with short, thick butcher's arms and his temples indented with fury. Nazneen had seen him only a few times. He was as silent as Razia said, but it was a silence charged with thunder that made the children creep away and muffled even Razia.

Razia did not answer. She swivelled and paced the long side of the wall, knocking down some leaflets from a shelf.

'Would you really work with Jorina? She has had problems. Everyone talked. Her children got into difficulties.' Hasina was working, but Hasina had no choice. If she had a husband, or a father . . .

'We gossiped, of course,' said Razia. She stood still, and for a moment the old glint reappeared in her narrow eyes. 'We love to gossip. This is the Bangla sport.' She came and sat next to Nazneen. 'Listen, Jorina's children are no better or worse than the rest. Whatever trouble they're in, they're not the only ones. When I walked across the estate today, I saw a gang of boys – fifteen, sixteen years old – fighting. I called to them but they shouted abuse at me. Only a few years ago they would never speak like that to their elders. It's the way things are going.'

'And they play their music so loud.'

Razia began to smile. 'You know, my husband has sent radios to all of his nephews and nieces. When he goes back home, he might get stones instead of praise.'

'So he's not always a miser, then?' said Nazneen, anxious to draw some good out of the man.

'We only get what others don't want. There's a man at the doll factory – every few months he comes around with more junk and I faint with joy. When he comes, really, I'm just falling on my knees.'

'You're saving him a trip to the dump,' said Nazneen. 'It's your good deed.'

'Maybe I start charging him for each load, see how he likes that.'

'Think what you're saving him on petrol.'

'Another stepladder, tins of paint, two planks of wood. I should start a house–painting business.'

'Keep you busy.' Nazneen fought with a spasm of laughter. This was not the place for belly laughs.

'Keep my husband stubbing his toe when he gets up in the dark.' She held her knees and inhaled loudly. 'Honestly, sister, for myself I don't need anything. Have you heard me complain before? But the children suffer.'

'What will you do?'

Razia looked serious. She spread her hands and examined them as if they might spontaneously volunteer what they intended to do. 'I tell you—'

Chanu came in carrying bags and the complicated smell of a high feast. He paused when he saw Razia then offered a salaam that appeared to include her only by accident.

'Next time,' said Razia, gathering her things.

'Eat with me,' said Nazneen. She took the bags from Chanu and willed him to go away.

He cleared his throat and with great formality enquired about Mrs Islam, her health in general, her hip in particular, and the continuing good fortune of her sons. Razia made brief, polite replies but sprawled over her chair in a manner unbecoming to a Bengali wife. His enquiries exhausted, Chanu stood ill at ease as if waiting on an invitation to be seated.

'Raqib,' said Nazneen.

Chanu startled. He seemed about to run. 'What?'

'Go and check on him,' said Nazneen gently.

'Why don't I check on him?' He spoke with relief, and hurried away. One heel flapped loose where it had become unstuck. His trousers were so deeply creased at the knee-backs that the concertina effect was almost a style. She followed him to the door and whispered in his ear.

The rice was perfect. Fluffy white grains, each one separate from its neighbour. In the rainy season, back home, when the land had given way to water and the buffaloes grew webbed feet, when the hens took to the roofs, when marooned goats teetered on minuscule islands, when the women splashed across on the raised walkway to the cooking hut and found they could no longer kindle a dung-and-husk fire and looked to their reserves, when the rain rang louder than cow bells, rice was the means, the giver of life. Precooked, it congealed and made itself glue. Or fashioned itself into hard lumps that only worked loose inside the stomach, the better to bloat the innards and make even the children lie down and groan with satisfaction. Even then it was good. This rice was superb. Just the rice would be enough for her. But fresh coriander made her swoon for the chicken. The deeply oily aubergine beckoned lasciviously. She wanted to stick her tongue in the velvety dal. Chanu could cook. It had not occurred to her that, in all those years before he married, he must have cooked. And since, he had only leaned on the cupboards and rested his belly on the kitchen surfaces while she chopped and fried and wiped around him. It did not irritate her that he had not helped. She felt, instead, a touch of guilt for finding him useless, for not crediting him with this surprising ability.