Brick Lane (44 page)

Nazneen, seeking cover, rushed to follow. Sunlight lit up the entrance but inside the hall was gloomy. The girls had gone straight to the front and were arranging themselves on chairs. Nazneen hesitated; she considered turning round. Nobody had seen her.

'Get on the train of repentance, sister, before it passes your station.'

Her mouth was full of saliva and she could not swallow.

A small young man with a scabrous-looking beard grinned at her. He was drowning in white panjabi-pyjama and he had a skullcap in his hands. He waved the skullcap at her. 'Welcome. You are welcome, sister. Go and sit down.'

She walked uncertainly past empty folding chairs. Four rows at the front were at best half full. Where to sit? Next to someone. Not a man. Not next to someone. Leave a seat between. It will look rude. No, it will look as though I am expecting someone to join me. My husband. But he won't come and then they will wonder about me. Talk. Even before I have left they will talk. She held on to the edge of a chair. She saw people indistinctly and she heard voices without hearing words.

He put his face in front of hers. He was saying something. Now he was pointing. 'Sit there,' Karim said. She sat down hard.

He walked to the front and jumped up on the small stage. He clapped his hands.

'Right,' he said. 'Thank you all for coming.'

She heard the door open. Now the same voice that had greeted her at the entrance. 'Get on the train of repentance, brother, before it passes your station.'

She allowed herself to look around. Mostly young men, jeans and trainers, a few kurtas, a handful of girls in hijab. Maybe twenty people.

'Right,' Karim said again. 'I shall ask our Secretary to read out the business for today. Anyone wants to add anything, please raise your hand.'

The small man with the ineffectual beard ran up from the back. 'Business of the day. Number one, name selection. Number two, mission statement. Number three, election of Board.'

Immediately a hand went up. The Secretary pointed to it. 'Yes?'

'Why don't we do this all in our own language?'

The Secretary grinned. He looked at Karim. 'Question from the floor. Do I allow it?'

Karim stood with his arms folded. 'I will answer. This meeting is open to all Muslims. I'm talking about the ummah here. Every brother and every sister, wherever they come from.'

The Questioner stood up and looked elaborately around the hall, even at the empty chairs.
'Ekhane amra shobai Bangali?
Anyone here not speak Bengali?'

There was a moment's silence before a chair scraped back and a black man in a wide-sleeved swirly-print shirt stood up. 'Do I look like a Bengali to you, brother?'

The Questioner showed his palms as if the game was up, and they both sat back down.

'OK,' said the Secretary. 'Name selection. Item one. I open it to the floor.'

'Muslim League!'

'United Muslim Action.'

'Muslim Front.'

The two girls whom Nazneen had seen coming in whispered behind their hands. Eventually one called out, 'Society of Muslim Youth, Tower Hamlets.'

The Secretary waved his arms. He dropped his skullcap, picked it up and thrust it in his pocket. 'Enough suggestions. We'll take a vote. What was the first one? Who made the first suggestion? Speak up.'

The Questioner jumped to his feet. 'This man is Secretary, but he takes no notes. It is totally un-Islamic'

The Secretary drew himself up to his full height. His small face bulged with indignation. 'Where does it say in the Qur'an anything about taking notes?'

'It is clear in the hadith and the sunnah that a man must take his responsibilities seriously.'

The Secretary wound himself up to reply. His beard quivered. The turn-up of one pyjama leg had come down and covered one foot entirely. Nazneen worked it out. His beard was too young to grow full.

Karim put a hand on the boy's shoulder. 'Get a pen and a pad. You will be in charge of keeping the record.'

There was some discussion then about whether the name of the group could be chosen without the purpose of the group being voted on first. The Secretary grew excited. As his excitement grew, so his pyjamas seemed also to grow until he became a thin voice squeaking inside a tent. 'It's the Agenda, man. We got to stick to the Agenda.'

Karim settled it. 'We'll take the name first. We all know what we are here for.'

There was a general, murmured agreement. Nazneen found herself joining in although she was only there because there was no sewing and no housework to be done.

He walked about the stage and she saw that it was a show of command. He stood at the edge of the stage and said, 'The Secretary has noted all your suggestions. I have another to add. The Bengal Tigers.'

There was a collective gasp, and the hijab girls raised their hands to their mouths for some more intensive whispering.

'Ben-gal Ti-gers,' shouted a young man in the front row. He punched the air with his fist in time to the syllables. 'Can I have that name for my band?'

The Questioner was on his feet again. 'Are we forgetting our non-Bengali brother here?'

Karim walked across the stage to stand in front of the swirly-shirt man. The Secretary followed, pad at the ready. 'I ain't meaning,' said Karim, 'to alienate you, man.'

The black man stood up and bowed deeply. 'Man, I think it is a
powerful
name. I gonna be proud to be a Bengal Tiger.'

The vote was taken and the motion carried (unanimously, said the Secretary, with one ununanimous vote against) and the meeting moved on to item two: mission statement.

Suggestions were shouted up from the floor while the Secretary scribbled on his pad. He sat on the edge of the stage now with his legs dangling and he chewed the end of his pen, just like Bibi. Karim remained standing, though every so often he moved about so that when he became still again he could plant his legs and fold his arms and show his strength anew. The girls in hijab had grown more relaxed. They no longer whispered but talked to each other without raising their hands. And they shouted out suggestions freely. 'Women's rights,' called one. 'Sex education for girls,' called the other. 'Got to put that in.' But she lowered her head immediately she had spoken, ducking out of it.

Karim called for a break and from somewhere a trolley was found, decked with white plastic cups. The girls placed themselves behind it and served. The young men took out their packets of Marlboros.

Directly in front of Nazneen, some lads had broken the line of chairs to form a sub-committee.

'They take down one of ours, right, we'll take down ten of theirs. Simple as that.'

'Burn their office. What we waiting for?'

'We don't know where it is.'

'They shouldn't come round here. What they doin' round here if they don't like it?'

'We don't want no trouble. But if they come asking, yeah, we'll give them what they want.'

'Few years ago – think about it – they'd never dare.'

'We was better organized.'

'Now we's too busy fighting each other.'

'Brick Lane Massive 'gainst the Stepney Green Posse.'