White Teeth (25 page)

Archie smiled serenely and stole another chip. ‘Problem solved, Samad, mate.’

‘Problem solved?’

‘Problem solved. Now, the way I see it, you have two options . . .’

Around the beginning of this century, the Queen of Thailand was aboard a boat, floating along with her many courtiers, manservants, maids, feet-bathers and food tasters, when suddenly the stern hit a wave and the Queen was thrown overboard into the turquoise waters of the Nippon-Kai where, despite her pleas for help, she drowned, for not one person on that boat went to her aid. Mysterious to the outside world, to the Thai the explanation was immediately clear: tradition demanded, as it does to this day, that no man or woman may touch the Queen.

If religion is the opium of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic, simply because it rarely appears sinister. If religion is a tight band, a throbbing vein and a needle, tradition is a far homelier concoction: poppy seeds ground into tea; a sweet cocoa drink laced with cocaine; the kind of thing your grandmother might have made. To Samad, as to the people of Thailand, tradition was culture, and culture led to roots, and these were good, these were untainted principles. That didn’t mean he could live by them, abide by them or grow in the manner they demanded, but roots were roots and roots were good. You would get nowhere telling him that weeds too have tubers, or that the first sign of loose teeth is something rotten, something degenerate, deep within the gums. Roots were what saved, the ropes one throws out to rescue drowning men, to Save Their Souls. And the further Samad himself floated out to sea, pulled down to the depths by a siren named Poppy Burt-Jones, the more determined he became to create for his boys roots on shore, deep roots that no storm or gale could displace. Easier said than done. He was in Poppy’s poky little flat, going through his own household accounts, when it became obvious to him that he had more sons than money. If he was to send them back, he would need two dowries for the grandparents, two amounts for the schooling, two amounts for the clothes. As it was he could barely cover both air fares. Poppy had said: ‘What about your wife? She’s from a rich family isn’t she?’ But Samad had not yet revealed his plan to Alsana. He had only tested the water, mentioning it in a passing, hypothetical way to Clara while she did her gardening. How would she react if someone, acting in Irie’s best interest, took the child away to a better life? Clara rose from her flower bed and stared at him in silent concern, and then laughed long and loud.
The man who did that
, she said finally, brandishing a large pair of garden shears inches from his crotch,
chop, chop
. Chop, chop, thought Samad; and it became clear to him what he was going to do.

‘
One
of them?’

O’Connell’s again. 6.25. One chips, beans, egg and mushroom. And one omelette and mushrooms
with peas
(seasonal variation).

‘Just
one
of them?’

‘Archibald, please keep your voice down.’

‘But — just
one
of them?’

‘That is what I said. Chop, chop.’ He divided the fried egg on his plate down the middle. ‘There is no other way.’

‘But—’

Archie was thinking again, as best he could. The same old stuff. You know, why couldn’t people just get on with things, just live together, you know, in peace or harmony or something. But he didn’t say any of that. He just said, ‘But — ’ And then, ‘But—’

And then finally, ‘But which
one
?’

And that (if you’re counting air fare, dowry, initial schooling fee) was the three thousand, two hundred and forty-five quid question. Once the money was sorted — yes, he remortgaged the house, he risked his land, the greatest mistake an immigrant can make — it was simply a matter of choosing the child. For the first week it was going to be Magid, definitely Magid. Magid had the brains, Magid would settle down quicker, learn the language quicker, and Archie had a vested interest in keeping Millat in the country because he was the best striker Willesden Athletic FC (under fifteens) had seen in decades. So Samad began stealing Magid’s clothes away for surreptitious packing, arranged a separate passport (he would be travelling with auntie Zinat on 4 November) and had a word in the ear of the school (long holiday, could he be given some homework to take with him, etc.).

But then the next week there was a change of heart and it was Millat, because Magid was really Samad’s favourite, and he wanted to watch him grow older, and Millat was the one more in need of moral direction anyway. So
his
clothes were pilfered,
his
passport arranged,
his
name whispered into the right ears.

The following week it was Magid until Wednesday and then Millat because Archie’s old penpal Horst Ibelgaufts wrote the following letter, which Archie, familiar now with the strangely prophetic nature of Horst’s correspondence, brought to Samad’s attention:

15 September 1984
Dearest Archibald,
It is some time since my last letter, but I felt compelled to write to you about a wonderful development in my garden which has brought me no little pleasure these past few months. To make a long story shorter and sweeter, I have finally gone for the chop and removed that old oak tree from the far corner and I cannot begin to describe to you the difference it has made! Now the weaker seeds are receiving so much more sun and are so healthy I am able even to make cuttings from them — for the first year in my memory each of my children has a vase of peonies on their windowsill. I had been suffering under the misapprehension all these years that I was simply an indifferent gardener — when all the time it was that grand old tree, taking up half the garden with its roots and not allowing anything else to grow.

The letter went on, but Samad stopped there. Irritably he said, ‘And I am meant to divine from this precisely . . . what?’

Archie tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘Chop, chop. It’s got to be Millat. An omen, mate. You can trust Ibelgaufts.’

And Samad, who usually had no time for omens or nose tapping, was nervous enough to take the advice. But then Poppy (who was acutely aware that she was fading from Samad’s mind in comparison with the question of the boys) suddenly took an interest, claiming to have
just sensed
in a dream that it should be Magid and so it was Magid once more. Samad, in his desperation, even allowed Archie to flip a coin, but the decision was hard to stick by — best out of three, best out of five — Samad couldn’t trust it. And this, if you can believe it, was the manner in which Archie and Samad went about playing lottery with two boys, bouncing the issue off the walls of O’Connell’s, flipping souls to see which side came up.

In their defence, one thing should be made clear. At no point was the word
kidnap
mentioned. In fact had this been offered as terminology for what he was about to do, Samad would have been appalled and astounded, would have dropped the whole thing like the somnambulist who wakes up to find himself in the master bedroom with a breadknife in his hand. He understood that he had
not yet informed Alsana
. He understood that he had
booked a 3 a.m. flight
. But it was in no way self-evident to him that these two facts were related or would combine to spell out
kidnap
. So it was with surprise that Samad greeted the vision of a violently weeping Alsana, at 2 a.m. on 31 October, hunched over the kitchen table. He did not think,
Ah, she has discovered what I am to do with Magid
(it was finally and for ever Magid), because he was not a moustachioed villain in a Victorian crime novel and besides which he was not conscious of plotting any crime. Rather his first thought was,
So she knows about Poppy
, and in response to this situation he did what every adulterous man does out of instinct: attack first.

‘So I must come home to this, must I?’ — slam down bag for effect — ‘I spend all night in that infernal restaurant and then I am having to come back to your melodramatics?’

Alsana convulsed with tears. Samad noticed too that a gurgle sound was emanating from her pleasant fat which vibrated in the gap between her sari; she waved her hands at him and then put them over her ears.

‘Is this really necessary?’ asked Samad, trying to disguise his fear (he had expected anger, he didn’t know how to deal with tears). ‘Please, Alsana: surely this is an overreaction.’

She waved her hand at him once more as if to dismiss him and then lifted her body a little and Samad saw that the gurgling had not been organic, that she had been hunched
over
something. A radio.

‘What on earth—’

Alsana pushed the radio from her body into the middle of the table and motioned for Samad to turn it up. Four familiar beeps, the beeps that follow the English into whatever land they conquer, rang round the kitchen, and then in Received Pronunciation Samad heard the following:

This is the BBC World Service at 03.00 hours. Mrs Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, was assassinated today, shot down by her Sikh bodyguards in an act of open mutiny as she walked in the garden of her New Delhi home. There is no doubt that her murder was an act of revenge for ‘Operation Blue Star’, the storming of the Sikhs’ holiest shrine at Amritsar last June. The Sikh community, who feel their culture is being attacked by —

‘Enough,’ said Samad, switching it off. ‘She was no bloody good anyway. None of them is any bloody good. And who cares what happens in that cesspit, India. Dear me . . .’ And even before he said it, he wondered why he had to, why he felt so
malevolent
this evening. ‘You really are genuinely
pathetic
. I wonder: where would those tears be if
I
died? Nowhere — you care more about some corrupt politician you never met. Do you know you are the perfect example of the ignorance of the masses, Alsi? Do you know that?’ he said, talking as if to a child and holding her chin up. ‘Crying for the rich and mighty who would disdain to piss upon you. Doubtless next week you will be bawling because Princess Diana broke a fingernail.’

Alsana gathered all the spit her mouth could accommodate and launched it at him.

‘
Bhainchute
! I am not crying for her, you
idiot
, I am crying for my
friends
. There will be blood on the streets back home because of this, India
and
Bangladesh. There will be riots — knives, guns. Public death, I have seen it. It will be like Mahshar, Judgement Day — people will die in the streets, Samad. You know and I know. And Delhi will be the worst of it, is always the worst of it. I have some family in Delhi, I have friends,
old lovers
—’

And here Samad slapped her, partly for the old lovers and partly because it was many years since he had been referred to as a
bhainchute
(translation: someone who, to put it simply, fucks their sisters).

Alsana held her face, and spoke quietly. ‘I am crying with misery for those poor families and out of
relief
for my own children! Their father ignores them and bullies them, yes, but at least they will not die on the streets like rats.’

So this was going to be one of those rows: the same positions, the same lines, same recriminations, same right hooks. Bare fists. The bell rings. Samad comes out of his corner.

‘No, they will suffer something worse, much worse: sitting in a morally bankrupt country with a mother who is going mad. Utterly cuckoo. Many raisins short of the fruitcake. Look at you, look at the state of you! Look how
fat
you are!’ He grabbed a piece of her, and then released it as if it would infect him. ‘Look how you dress. Running shoes and a sari? And what is that?’

It was one of Clara’s African headscarfs, a long, beautiful piece of orange Kenti cloth in which Alsana had taken to wrapping her substantial mane. Samad pulled it off and threw it across the room, leaving Alsana’s hair to crash down her back.

‘You do not even know what you are, where you come from. We never see family any more — I am ashamed to show you to them.
Why did you go all the way to Bengal for a wife
, that’s what they ask.
Why didn’t you just go to Putney
?’

Alsana smiled ruefully, shook her head, while Samad made a pretence of calm, filling their metal kettle with water and slamming it down on the stove.

‘And that is a beautiful lungi you have on, Samad Miah,’ she said bitterly, nodding in the direction of his blue-towelling jogging suit topped off with Poppy’s LA Raiders baseball cap.

Samad said, ‘The difference is what is in here,’ not looking at her, thumping just below his left breast bone. ‘You say you are thankful we are in England, that’s because you have swallowed it whole. I can tell you those boys would have a better life back home than they ever—’

‘Samad Miah! Don’t even begin! It will be over my dead body that this family moves back to a place where our lives are in danger! Clara tells me about you, she tells me. How you have asked her strange things. What are you plotting, Samad? I hear from Zinat all this about life insurance . . . who is dying? What can I smell? I tell you, it will be over my dead body—’

‘But if you are already dead, Alsi—’

‘Shut up! Shut up! I am not mad. You are trying to drive me mad! I phoned Ardashir, Samad. He is telling me you have been leaving work at eleven thirty.
It is two in the morning
. I am not mad!’

‘No, it is worse. Your mind is diseased. You call yourself a Muslim—’

Alsana whipped round to face Samad, who was trying to concentrate his attention on the whistling steam emerging from the kettle.

‘No, Samad. Oh no. Oh no. I don’t call myself anything. I don’t make claims.
You
call yourself a Muslim.
You
make the deals with Allah.
You
are the one he will be talking to, come Mahshar.
You
, Samad Miah. You, you,
you
.’