Brick Lane (6 page)

'Eat! Eat!' said Chanu. 'Water is good for cleansing the system, but food is also essential.' He scooped up lamb and rice with his fingers and chewed. He put too much in his mouth at once, and he made sloppy noises as he ate. When he could speak again, he said, 'I agree with you. Our community is not educated about this, and much else besides. But for my part, I don't plan to risk these things happening to my children. We will go back before they get spoiled.'

'This is another disease that afflicts us,' said the doctor. 'I call it Going Home Syndrome. Do you know what that means?' He addressed himself to Nazneen.

She felt a heat on the back of her neck and formed words that did not leave her mouth.

'It is natural,' said Chanu. 'These people are basically peasants and they miss the land. The pull of the land is stronger even than the pull of blood.'

'And when they have saved enough they will get on an aeroplane and go?'

'They don't ever really leave home. Their bodies are here but their hearts are back there. And anyway, look how they live: just recreating the villages here.'

'But they will never save enough to go back.' Dr Azad helped himself to vegetables. His shirt was spotless white, and his collar and tie so high under his chin that he seemed to be missing a neck. Nazneen saw an oily yellow stain on her husband's shirt where he had dripped food.

Dr Azad continued, 'Every year they think, just one more year. But whatever they save, it's never enough.'

'We would not need very much,' said Nazneen. Both men looked at her. She spoke to her plate. 'I mean, we could live very cheaply.' The back of her neck burned.

Chanu filled the silence with his laugh. 'My wife is just settling in here.' He coughed and shuffled in his chair. 'The thing is, with the promotion coming up, things are beginning to go well for me now. If I just get the promotion confirmed then many things are possible.'

'I used to think all the time of going back,' said Dr Azad. He spoke so quietly that Nazneen was forced to look directly at him, because to catch all the words she had to follow his lips. 'Every year I thought, "Maybe this year." And I'd go for a visit, buy some more land, see relatives and friends and make up my mind to return for good. But something would always happen. A flood, a tornado that just missed the building, a power cut, some mind-numbing piece of petty bureaucracy, bribes to be paid out to get anything done. And I'd think, "Well, maybe not this year." And now, I don't know. I just don't know.'

Chanu cleared his throat. 'Of course, it's not been announced yet. Other people have applied. But after my years of service . . . Do you know, in six years I have not been late on one single day! And only three sick days, even with the ulcer. Some of my colleagues are very unhealthy, always going off sick with this or that. It's not something I could bring to Mr Dalloway's attention. Even so, I feel he ought to be aware of it.'

'I wish you luck,' said Dr Azad.

'Then there's the academic perspective. Within months I will be a fully fledged academic with two degrees. One from a British university. Bachelor of Arts degree. With honours.'

'I'm sure you have a good chance.'

'Did Mr Dalloway tell you that?'

'Who's that?'

'Mr Dalloway.'

The doctor shrugged his neat shoulders.

'My superior. Mr Dalloway. He told you I have a good chance?'

'No.'

'He said I didn't have a good chance?'

'He didn't say anything at all. I don't know the gentleman in question.'

'He's one of your patients. His secretary made an appointment for him to see you about his shoulder sprain. He's a squash player. Very active man. Average build, I'd say. Red hair. Wears contact lenses – perhaps you test his eyes as well.'

'It's possible he's a patient. There are several thousand on the list for my practice.'

'What I should have told you straight away – he has a harelip. Well, it's been put right, reconstructive surgery and all that, but you can always tell. That should put you on to him.'

The guest remained quiet. Nazneen heard Chanu suppress a belch. She wanted to go to him and stroke his forehead. She wanted to get up from the table and walk out of the door and never see him again.

'He might be a patient. I do not know him.' It was nearly a whisper.

'No,' said Chanu. 'I see.'

'But I wish you luck.'

'I am forty years old,' said Chanu. He spoke quietly like the doctor, with none of his assurance. 'I have been in this country for sixteen years. Nearly half my life.' He gave a dry-throated gargle. 'When I came I was a young man. I had ambitions. Big dreams. When I got off the aeroplane I had my degree certificate in my suitcase and a few pounds in my pocket. I thought there would be a red carpet laid out for me. I was going to join the Civil Service and become Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.' As he told his story, his voice grew. It filled the room. 'That was my plan. And then I found things were a bit different. These people here didn't know the difference between me, who stepped off an aeroplane with a degree certificate, and the peasants who jumped off the boat possessing only the lice on their heads. What can you do?' He rolled a ball of rice and meat in his fingers and teased it around his plate.

'I did this and that. Whatever I could. So much hard work, so little reward. More or less it is true to say I have been chasing wild buffaloes and eating my own rice. You know that saying? All the begging letters from home I burned. And I made two promises to myself. I will be a success, come what may. That's promise number one. Number two, I will go back home. When I am a success. And I will honour these promises.' Chanu, who had grown taller and taller in his chair, sank back down.

'Very good, very good,' said Dr Azad. He checked his watch.

'The begging letters still come,' said Chanu. 'From old servants, from the children of servants. Even from my own family, although they are not in need. All they can think of is money. They think there is gold lying about in the streets here and I am just hoarding it all in my palace. But I did not come here for money. Was I starving in Dhaka? I was not. Do they enquire about my diplomas?' He gestured to the wall, where various framed certificates were displayed. 'They do not. What is more . . .' He cleared his throat, although it was already clear. Dr Azad looked at Nazneen and, without meaning to, she returned his gaze so that she was caught in a complicity of looks, given and returned, which said something about her husband that she ought not to be saying.

Chanu talked on. Dr Azad finished the food on his plate while Chanu's food grew cold. Nazneen picked at the cauliflower curry. The doctor declined with a waggle of the head either a further helping or any dessert. He sat with his hands folded on the table while Chanu, his oration at an end, ate noisily and quickly. Twice more he checked his watch.

At half past nine Dr Azad said, 'Well, Chanu. I thank you and your wife for a most pleasant evening and a delicious meal.'

Chanu protested that it was still early. The doctor was adamant. 'I always retire at ten thirty and I always read for half an hour in bed before that.'

'We intellectuals must stick together,' said Chanu, and he walked with his guest to the door.

'If you take my advice, one intellectual to another, you will eat more slowly, chew more thoroughly and take only a small portion of meat. Otherwise I'll see you back at the clinic again with another ulcer.'

'Just think,' said Chanu, 'if I did not have the ulcer in the first place, then we would not have met and we would not have had this dinner together.'

'Just think,' said the doctor. He waved stiffly and disappeared behind the door.

The television was on. Chanu liked to keep it glowing in the evenings, like a fire in the corner of the room. Sometimes he went over and stirred it by pressing the buttons so that the light flared and changed colours. Mostly he ignored it. Nazneen held a pile of the last dirty dishes to take to the kitchen, but the screen held her. A man in a very tight suit (so tight that it made his private parts stand out on display) and a woman in a skirt that did not even cover her bottom gripped each other as an invisible force hurtled them across an oval arena. The people in the audience clapped their hands together and then stopped. By some magic they all stopped at exactly the same time. The couple broke apart. They fled from each other and no sooner had they fled than they sought each other out. Every move they made was urgent, intense, a declaration. The woman raised one leg and rested her boot (Nazneen saw the thin blade for the first time) on the other thigh, making a triangular flag of her legs, and spun around until she would surely fall but didn't. She did not slow down. She stopped dead and flung her arms above her head with a look so triumphant that you knew she had conquered everything: her body, the laws of nature, and the heart of the tight-suited man who slid over on his knees, vowing to lay down his life for her.