The One Who Wrote Destiny

by Nikesh Shukla

  Smiley, you’re looking extra smiley today. I can see all of your teeth.

  Smiley, with that dark complexion, your teeth really shine.

  One day, you served Mr Landry the bill and as he took out his wallet to pay for it while you waited, counting out the money, you said, My name is Vijay. Not Smiley.

  I know. But you are very Smiley. It makes me happy to see.

  Not all Indian people are smiley, sir.

  Mr Landry stopped, looked at you and smiled. Then, glancing at the wedge of money he was holding, he put it in the metal plate on the table for change.

  It’s not like I called you a wog, is it? he said.

  You were asked to leave by the owner.

  We do not talk back in this country, he told you. It is important to be grateful.

  This comment stuck with you. You wanted to be accepted here, live here as a British man. This is why we came. But after you were let go, for speaking your mind, you told me you were going to change, because you could not do anything further to jeopardize us being here.

  Compliant, you told me. I shall be compliant.

  And so you became the worst kind of immigrant. You talked of the good old days. You compared the prices and outside temperatures of everything to Kenya. You cursed the influx of immigrants as my cousins and I flocked around you in a ready-made community. You would even go as far as to quote Margaret Thatcher. To think that you, an immigrant yourself who had been hard done by her and those who came before, used her to score points against the next wave. I loved you still but you became difficult to live with. You switched from drinking to chewing tobacco although you didn’t actually chew it. You would keep it in the front of your mouth and stare off at the wall. You held it there until dinner time at 11 p.m. and then you ate a piece of fruit or half an onion, anything other than the thing that had been cooked for you. You had none of your charm left. You talked in a mixture of Caine from Kung Fu, Sun Tzu and Bruce Lee. You had an attic shelf filled with books on martial arts and Zen, but though you threw the quotes about spirituality in our faces, you didn’t seem to understand them.

  When you lost your job, you spent hours with those books, reading up on meditation, stretches and fighting stances. You broke your leg in our garden at one of our world-famous barbecues, showing Mukesh and Chumchee how to execute a flying kick. You landed in the splits and shattered your shin bone. Apart from the critical landing, it was a smart-looking flying kick.

  I begged you to take me out. We have no money, you told me. I longed for us to have fun but you were adamant that we stay indoors. I was a brat, I know this now. I demanded that you treat me like somebody you loved and take me out. And then, with perfect timing, there was a new James Bond film.

  Nothing made you feel more English than watching a new James Bond film at a cinema in the West End. Nothing made you feel more like a part of society than Bond, James Bond, shaken not stirred. Silly bevakoofs, you and him.

  We left Nisha and Mukesh at home, with Chumchee as their chaperone, hoping he would help them plan their wedding. All they needed to do was set a date. That was the last thing. The only job they had was to look at the calendar and select a date.

  You were still on crutches but insisted we go.

  You leaned on my shoulder and I helped you to the street. Once there, you held on to me and used your crutch to shimmy yourself along towards the bus stop, which was only twenty feet from our front door – one of the reasons you had chosen the house in the first place. You were in such pain, I could feel you crying against me, making my saree damp. You looked at me and said sorry. Sorry for all the difficulties.

  At the bus stop there were three people waiting. When they saw us approach, they let you go to the front of the queue.

  You smiled at them and they smiled back. The bus arrived at the stop and you hobbled towards it to get on. It was busy with the post-work trudge home and there was standing room only.

  I’m sure someone will let you sit down, said a woman behind us in the queue. She said it slowly and loudly, a chasm between each word.

  I smiled at her. We boarded the bus, I paid the fares and we squeezed down as far as we could to let as many people on as possible.

  No one offered you a seat. They either shrugged or avoided eye contact. Even so, nothing could beat your buzz. The prospect of a new James Bond film had returned a joy and a charm to your life. Being without a seat would normally have made you intensely angry, but there was something quiet and unassuming about your happiness.

  I propped you up while you stood against a pole. The ticket conductor smiled at you as if to say, sorry mate, and you smiled back, holding on to the pole as the bus pulled away. You were shaken off balance and fell forward, putting your hand out to break your fall. This happened too quickly for me to reach out and steady you. Your crutch fell to the floor and I bent down to pick it up.

  Don’t push me, a man shouted.

  I’m sorry, you said. I’ve injured my leg and . . .

  Expect special treatment, do you? Just because you’ve hurt yourself?

  Mortified, you apologized once more. You could see the tips of his ears go red with anger.

  I’m so sorry, you said again.

  That’s enough, settle down, the ticket conductor said.

  The man stood up. He was shorter than you and me, pink-faced, greying at his temples. He was wearing a suit jacket and jeans with a white shirt buttoned up to the top even though he had no tie on. There was this intensity to him as though he was looking for a reason to stand up and shout.

  I’m sick of this, he announced to the bus.

  People shushed him but he continued, getting louder and hoarser.

  We are supposed to tread lightly around the likes of you. We’ve opened up our gates and look at you – you push me around the bus like you own it.

  I picked up your crutch as you straightened, placing myself between you and this man. He reached out and tried to clip your ear but I was in the way. I felt a churn in my stomach – of all the times we had not been accepted, of all the times I had been treated as a sub-human, of all the regret and disappointment and humiliation. We were finally happy and unified and we had our lives and this was pushing us to the edge. Know your place, it screamed. Know your place. I batted his hand away.

  He started shouting at me. Calling me names. Wog. Paki. Wog. Paki. Again, and again. Like a barrage of punches.

  There were gasps and complaints. He stepped forward, this man. You were flailing, trying to stay upright, wincing in pain as you were forced to put weight on your hurt leg.

  You were yelling at him to stop, and the bus was eerily quiet except for the conductor shouting for us to calm down. The bus came to a halt. I fell backwards.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was you, standing there.

  Stop shouting, you begged. Please stop. What will the Angrezi think of you? Please be quiet.

  We belong here, I sobbed.

  The people in the gangway had parted and the conductor stood by the door.

  Off, he said. Get off my bus.

  Exactly, the man said. And take your peg leg with you.

  You too, Barry, the conductor said. I can’t have that kind of language on my bus. It’s your stop anyway. Go home, sleep it off.

  I helped you towards the door and you hopped behind me while Barry argued with the conductor. I could feel the stares of disappointment and admonishment around me, and I could tell that you felt all eyes were on us, not Barry. That we were in the wrong. I didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone because I knew you wanted not to be seen. I jumped down from the bus and eased you off with me.

  I belong here, I thought.

  Barry followed us.

  Fucking pakis, he was muttering under his breath.

  It was a time when using this word was like second nature.

  People used it so casually. To refer to the paki shop where they bought milk. To call the place where they bought the curries modelled to their tastes rather t
han our own the paki kitchen.

  People did not care about keeping these words under their breath. So Barry said them. And you were acting calm. For once I was the angry one, the one with the fire inside me.

  We stood at the bus stop. Barry was ready to walk away from our confrontation and head home for the evening but I could not let it go. I could not be the bigger person, so I turned around and said to him, we are people too, sir. Please treat us with respect.

  Sorry, I don’t speak paki, he replied.

  How dare, I mean, how dare you . . . how can you say that?

  Barry started to walk away from me and I did the worst thing possible. I touched his arm as he turned his back on me, to stop him, make him face me while I spoke to him. Why did I do that? I run this scenario through my head every time I have two or three lagers now; before, it used to be every single night and I think to myself, why did I touch his arm? Why did I not just walk away? Leave it. Because that is what I should have done.

  He started screaming at me.

  How dare you touch me? Who do you think you are?

  As he shouted all these things a crowd started to form around us, wanting to see what I was doing to him. People mistook me for the problem, thinking that I was the person causing all the trouble. I got annoyed. I don’t lose my temper – I have never lost my temper since. Because of what happened next I am a changed person.

  I hit him.

  I hit him in the mouth with the flat of my palm. He was so shocked he fell backwards into a rubbish bin, and people rushed to help him. I was shouting, no! and you were holding my shoulders to steady me and calm me down.

  Shaanti, shaanti, you kept saying.

  I was screaming, who do you think you are? Eh? You think you are somebody but you are not. You are nobody. You think you are better than me but you are nobody. I am a person. I am a person, I kept shouting that. I am a person.

  I remember those words, how they rolled off the tongue, how they felt around my lips. I remember the rush of wind, the slight breeze against my teeth. Everything appears in slow motion and when I see myself say all these things, it does not feel like me. It no longer feels like my mouth or my teeth or the sound of my voice. It sounds and feels and looks like a film, as though I am watching myself make the biggest mistake I have made in my life, and now knowing what it cost me, what it cost your mummy, what it costs you to this day.

  I heard you scream and I turned as glass shattered over my shirt and hair.

  I remember the night in the church hall, when you gave Mukesh your shoes and we ran to safety as that racist group gathered to beat our bodies.

  I remember them yelling for us to go home. I remember you shouting, this is my home, benchods.

  I remember the night we had duttee shoved through our letter-box.

  I remember you crying and telling me, this is our home. You were so desperate for this to be our home.

  You fell against me, dropping your crutch. Someone had smashed a bottle over your head. I could hear the fizz of the soda as the little bubbles bounced off your skull. You had been smiling a calming smile when you were struck and your face contorted into a horrified look of pain. You were too shocked to cry out. I looked at the face of the man who had done this. I caught his eye and he grinned at me. One of his front teeth was missing; he had thin lips, eyes filled with wrinkled rage and laughter. It was a type of hysteria that only came with his brand of craziness.

  I retell us these moments so we do not forget.

  As I caught you in my arms, the man aimed his booted foot at your back, cracking something, because I heard it splitting, like a haroomph, all over your body. The weight of that kick. The way he smiled as he split you.

  It was like a tear in space.

  It was like a coffee cup falling off a table.

  It was like a bullet through a windscreen.

  It was like a chair in a Western, broken over a cowboy’s back.

  I could see all the splinters and all that remained was you. Helpless. You fell on to me. I turned to Barry to intervene but he was no longer there. I looked in the eyes of those gathered around us and I knew.

  You bounced off me and fell to the ground. I felt something behind me, arms locking around my stomach and then curling around my armpits. I felt the savage wrench of something bigger than me hold me tight against its taut body. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. There was only you, with a shower raining down on him. A shower of black boots. No sound.

  I left Great Britain because I was afraid of white men.

  The way they assembled over our beaten bodies and struck us more, with no remorse. I could not live side by side with these men and call them my neighbours.

  They kept kicking and finally I found my voice. I screamed for help. There were three of them. My eyes pulled into focus. Three men. As blue lights flickered across their white T-shirts and I saw people arrive on the scene, my eardrums burst with the sound of their sirens. The men stopped what they were doing and whoever held me let me go so that I fell to the ground.

  As they ran off I shouted at others to help.

  I couldn’t see your chest moving. All I could see was that smile on your face. You were scarred with it.

  You were gone.

  I retell you these stories again and again, staring into the darkness of my home, because I have to remember everything. I want to feel that pain. I need to feel something.

  I want you to remember.

  I will never forget.

  My grandchildren live amongst these white men now, and I worry that nothing has changed and their bodies are close to a similar fate.

  I am lost in these memories as we walk through the museum, looking at dolls representing different countries, different cultures. The museum is empty. The only sound is the flap of the chappal against the heel of my foot. I look at these two grandchildren now, walking in front of me, holding each other’s hands just as my own two children used to, and I do not know why I am here.

  Why is history repeating itself?

  I cannot look anywhere else. I cannot look at these children. They are ghosts.

  Neha turns to me and asks for a drink. I give her the water bottle I have packed for the three of us.

  I can see her mouth grimace, so I shake my head at her and wipe the nozzle with my fingers.

  She does the same.

  She looks like her mum so much as she makes that face.

  Patterns.

  So many patterns.

  We look at dolls sent from around the African continent. By white people, surely. These dolls, dressed up to represent our world, are viewed through the lens of the aggressor. I stare at the tribal masks framing black bodies dancing with one leg up, lifting spears. I try to remember when I have seen such things.

  I have not.

  Neha and Rakesh have stopped walking. They are staring into a cabinet labelled Kenya.

  I look to see how my country has decided to remember itself.

  British soldiers stand in a circle, holding rifles pointed at black boys, in rags, on their knees, their spears on the ground. The title of the cabinet is British Quell Mau Mau Rebels.

  The British still paint themselves as the victors, despite the bloodshed they caused.

  The British think they saved black Kenyans with railways and religion. They think that colonialism was positive. Benevolent enslavement, that is what they thought. And when they needed people to build things, they looked outside Kenya. Every day we must be thankful for railways and religion. My family were brought over as indentured labourers to help build the Uganda railway. We stayed and eventually I was born. I am a stranger in my own country because I left and tried to be British. I could not be a double immigrant. When that failed, I came back here – it was always home, here. Alas, I cannot escape the things I ran away from in England, so wherever I lay my head, that is my purgatory.

  Who are these people? Neha asks. Why are they on their knees?

  Because they spoke up, I tell her. They wa
nted their freedom but they paid with their lives. It was not enough.

  You know, I tell my grandchildren, I know these brave men and women.

  One night, back in 1953 during the state of emergency, when your mother was two, I tell them, three Mau Mau soldiers came in the darkness, asking us to give them food and a bed for the night in the factory that belonged to your grandfather and his brothers. They were being hunted by the British, who were close. Our factory was on the outskirts of Nairobi, and your grandfather, the youngest, knew that his brothers would say no. So he waited, and when they all left for the day, he gave these three soldiers beds in the factory, and a bag of maize, and I cooked for them.

  One of them joked with your mummy and teased her. She was very shy back then. It was a quiet night. We heard shots in the distance and trees rustling. We heard the lives of others. Every single noise made us think it would be the end.

  One of the men told us, you will not die tonight. At worst, you will be imprisoned. Only people fighting for a cause should die for a cause. You are not.

  But we support you, your grandfather told the man.

  Support is all you can give and that’s all that we want. This one – he pointed to your mother. Is she healthy?

  I nodded. Why? I asked.

  There are small black spots on her fingernails. Get them checked immediately.

  That is how we knew. It was in our blood. Some things we cannot chase and some things we cannot escape.

  Before we leave the museum, I watch Neha approach the table where a visitors’ book sits. She picks up a pencil, stares upwards at the wall for a few seconds and then writes, her tongue between her lips as she presses the pencil to the page. It reminds me of our daughter.

  Rakesh slips his hand into mine because Neha has let go. So needy, this one.

  He looks up at me, imploringly. He is hungry, wants his sugar rotli. I smile and rub at the back of his neck lightly, watching my granddaughter write something.

  I can see Nisha in her so much. She is singularly our daughter. Rakesh feels like an amalgamation. He is sometimes Nisha, sometimes Chumchee, sometimes separately, sometimes simultaneously. Other times he is just like his bevakoof father. But mostly, Neha reminds me of her mother, in that she is stubborn and headstrong and never happy about anything. And Rakesh is just like Mukesh, in that he is always doing something to make you look at him. He wants everyone to laugh at him, but he does not know what to do with the attention when he has it.