In Our Mad and Furious City

by Guy Gunaratne

  * * *

  Lord, where the time go? How we get so old and dusty? Yesterday Maisie took me to sit by the bench in the Gladstone Park. We used to sit for long hours just like that back when we first arrive together, before Selvon was born, we just look out at the city. Yesterday I seen many more buildings now than before, many so tall they touch the clouds. There is the long white arch of Wembley Stadium now, like a arm reaching out to escape, barred windows and roofs of houses, them four tower block of Stones Estate. We both used to think we could wait out the madness. The tremor and cold sweep what discolor the minds of the rest in the city. Together we can defy it, we say. But there was enough truth to what I hear in them angered speeches in Chapman’s that I never took the city for what it was not. London not no haven or a tender place for love. This violent air, gray thick with thunder, it split a man in two. I make sure that Maisie know this when she come. People are blind to the world’s own pace, that’s the matter. Is a kind of blindness to natural rhythm I see in London still. I used to remind myself how Chances Peak and Gages Mountain stand in the distance of the small town where I grow up. Them hills was immune to all that rushing about. Resolute, holding on to its own sense of natural cycle. Is a better way to be. In London people pay no mind to that sorta time. Streets fill up with moving muscles governed like puppets set to timetable. Everything fast, everything mad. No, this country lack the joy of island life. And it make we who come here drab and forgetful of natural feeling. We come to the cold country and shed them smiles and grit them teeth. Feeling as if the bad air of the place, the hostile nerve give us cause to arch we backs, haunted in later life as memories come.

  It all make me think of how Selvon will survive today. He is out there now learning him ownself, a young man against another tide. I ask if I did enough during my youth. Maybe London would be less of a burden for Selvon if I had helped fight for it. Maybe life would be easier climb for my son.

  Jimbroad’s words rattle whenever I think like that. It make me feel like a coward to have run. But then again, I think about cowardice and what it mean for a old man like I. All these years alive despite the ugly current. Facing down, time and time again. Not allowing the city to seize my mind the way it done others. And now I know. I know that on the night of the riot, when the fury blind the way, I ran not for cowardice but for love. And doing anything for love in a city that deny it, is a rebellion.

  CAROLINE

  The water’s rising. I watch it rise over the round of my belly and let myself sink so my ears are under. The sound my elbows make against the bottom of the bath sounds like whales do, I’d imagine. I’ve heard whales do sing. They sing underwater to tell each other they’re there. Is that right? Oh I don’t know. My head’s a fog. I sit up and run a hand over my head to smooth my hair. With the other I reach over and turn the tap off. The water stops. The steam is allowed to settle.

  There. I’ll soak for a bit.

  I have a sniff at the hair caught in my fingers. Still smells of it. I must have passed out with the glass in my hand. There’ll be a stain on the sofa now, another thing. I sink back down again and let my ears dip under. I listen to the underwater and close my eyes. Sure it’s peaceful here, isn’t it? Under here. And quiet again.

  How many’s it been, years and years? Still feel the tremors, mind you. Every time I hold anything, a cigarette, a glass, a hand. I remember once I was taking the boy to school. I was holding his hand and he asked why I was trembling. I shook his hand away and told him to go on without me. Maybe that’s what happens as you go on living. You go on living and all that’s left is memories that come up from your past and seize you.

  After my brothers found me covered in dirt and crying, they wrapped me up and took me back home to Ma. She wouldn’t look to me. I heard shouting that night, Damian and Ma screaming at each other about what I had done. Or refused to do. I wouldn’t speak to any of them, I couldn’t. I spent nearly the whole night in the bath trying to scrub away the dirt from under my fingernails, the blood from my clothes, and the memory. Everything happened so fast after that. It was a matter of weeks when Damian told me I was to go. They’d get what they wanted in the end, to pack me off to London.

  Do I even remember how it went? They’d fixed me room and board, they said, and after they got all my papers together, I went. I was to leave Ireland. I didn’t even say my goodbyes. I barely said a word to anyone. Ma didn’t even hug me, she just straightened the pins in my hair and told me write to her. It was my brothers who drove me to the port to let me go. I couldn’t help weeping into their arms. For all I now knew about them, I’d miss them the most. Wee Brian was too small to know what was going on. But I left. And I didn’t look back as I boarded.

  Aye, Cricklewood it was then for the rest of my life. I’ve not been back to Ireland since. When Father Orman collected me from the station and took me to the room he’d found for me, I hadn’t a clue, had I? That I’d be here this long. I’d have to get to know the slopes like I had back home. London and its merry discomfort, rat-pocketed buildings and grubby corners, plastic bags ripped in long lines across branches. And the cold wind that’d freeze my ears come January.

  You forget after a while, don’t you? The mundane sort of bores you over so you needn’t be too scared, or too worried, that some terrible rupture will throw everything up into the sky again. You begin to think you can escape the numbness in time. You even begin to think you can be touched again, held even, be loved.

  I’d met John after two year or so. I started giving a hand at the Crown now and then like. To earn my keep for the room. After that I shared a flat with another girl and made my way somehow. John was one of the burly men who waited out on the High Road for the laborers’ van. He’d come in and chat me up as I was cleaning the spouts. God, I remember him reaching over the bar and giving a flick to my ear with a finger.

  Now, you’re a long way from home lassie, he said. Fellar over there says you’re from Belfast are you?

  And what’s it to you?

  Donegal he was from, he said. He’d been in London five and half year and settled in Cricklewood. He said it was because that’s how far youse could carry two suitcases from Kilburn station, and Kilburn was full. He’d always joke like that. I thought he was charming enough. He took me to the Galtymore the first night. We danced and he tried to teach me snooker, the cur. He said I’d sad eyes. I says no wonder, because I’m sober. I told him I’d never met anyone from Donegal until I came to London. He said things weren’t as rationed here as they were back there. Less God, he said, more living. And I said I liked that. John hated God as much as me.

  I could see he had a temper on him. He could drink back to beyond. That didn’t much matter to me either at the time. I was lonely. I remember Gemma who worked behind the bar with me, she warned me off him, saying he’s got the mark of the devil about him. I just laughed at her and said so did I, in my blood I said, so watch me. To me John was just one these men who had a hundred and one friends but no one to look after him.

  I’d always know when he was going to give out because he’d tell me. I remember he’d whisper in my ear in front of the others at the Crown. His friends must have thought he was whispering sweet nothings to me, but I’d be fucken terrified. He’d leave off my face for most of it like. But I’d have to hide my arms and legs for the bruises. I gave as good as I got, mind you. When he would start on me I’d use my forehead, just keep banging my forehead against his chest, hard. God, like a fucken goat. How ridiculous when I think back, what a nightmare. But no use playing the victim. Not when I was young and alone anyway and all my friends were his friends really. I wouldn’t have known where to turn if I didn’t have John. He was no angel. But who’d want an angel? So it was love. Even if it hurt, I’d call it love.

  He did clean up after Ardan was born, didn’t he? Aye, he got a job, was around for the first few years, in and out. But then he started giving out again and worse than before. And then he just left. I wish I could say I threw hi
m out, you know. But I didn’t. I wish I could say I don’t miss the bastard, but I do. He’s the only one I ever told about Ma and my brothers.

  The only one I’d ever said anything to about that night in the woods. God, it’s not even John I miss so much but as having someone there, you know. And truth is, I can’t be sure. If he beat the boy as well as me I wouldn’t have seen. I rather not think on it longer than I have to. But I can’t be sure of anything, the state I was in. He’d be too young to remember most likely, anyway. Sure it gives me a terrible guilt, but there’s the world for you. I might not have been the best mother but I was there, and I still am.

  When the boy was five or six, Ma turned up in London out of the blue. She came out from her shadows demanding we move back to Belfast. She’d heard from Brian how I was getting on. Shaming me, telling me to remember God, that I was her daughter and that she had a claim on Ardan just as much as I.

  I won’t have any grandson of mine growing up around drunks! she said.

  I wouldn’t have it, I’d been sober three years by then. And here she comes after nothing but a few letters over so many years. I let Ma see the boy but that was all. She could spend the week, I said, but then we’d pack her off. I never spoke to her again after that. She’d use my brothers to get word to me but I never replied. I was done with the lot of them.

  And then she died. It wasn’t long after Damian. He’d turned over on a bend in the rain. I knew the spot. I never went back for his funeral either. I thought, well that was it. I was alone again. Alone with the boy. And then in came the numbness and the tremors again. The anger, the crying. The fucken sick feeling inside whenever I feel my nerves give out. Back to having a drop every so often to calm it. After all these years I can still remember how it felt to dig my nails into the dirt as I did. And it never will go, will it? I’ll join Ma, and Damian and Da, and everyone else whose violence follows them.

  * * *

  I burst out the water with an open mouth. I run my hands over my face and blow out. I see the green tiles and plastic wall hooks, bottles of shampoo, and shining soap on the side. I wait still a moment. Put my arms around my knees letting the ripples of droplets fall into the bathwater. I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My shoulders and hair and my face cut from the rest of me by the white box of the bath. I hear Ardan rattling on something in the kitchen. Something smells like it’s burning. I get up now letting the swell of water fall around my knees and I reach for the towel.

  YUSUF

  The morning light from the window made me sit up. I rubbed my face, stepped out of my thin duvet, and walked into the bathroom quiet. The light made me squint at first and my legs were aching from football and the night spent searching for my brother. I looked into the mirror at the face staring back at me. My eyes looked like coal. My lips were split and I tasted bleeding. I pressed down on the cut and felt a sharp pain. I splashed some water onto my face, buried myself into the towel, and turned. The way back to my bedroom I glanced into Amma’s room. I saw the shape of my mother’s oval shoulders, her tousled hair spread out on the pillow. I wanted to wake her. But I couldn’t bring myself to step forward. The only thing I knew that would rouse her was to bring Irfan home. It was all that mattered now.

  I went back into my bedroom and searched for my phone nestled under the pillow. I picked it up and it bleated low battery. All night I had thumbed for his number, ignoring all the other missed calls I’d received that night. Instead I had listened to Irfan’s recorded message, repeated it over and over, his months-old voice giving no sign of his sickness, reminding me that he was still there inside.

  I pocketed the phone and left.

  The sky was gray clouds. I wondered where I could search for him, where he’d slept overnight. There was a pair of Muhajiroun standing at the end of the balcony huddled together in some low conversation. With nowhere else to turn, I walked toward them. It was Yassin Muhammad and Abdullah standing by the end of the stairs.

  As-salaamu alaykum, I said to them. They looked at me and said salaam. They both had worried expressions. As if the day had brought with it some other bitterness.

  Brother you haven’t heard? said Yassin with his hands in his pockets.

  I shook my head no, glancing at both their faces.

  It’s our mosque, brother, by Allah’s grace. The bastards burned it to the ground. Police all over the place.

  What you mean burned?

  Our hall. Our holy books. Everything is gone.

  I immediately turned and ran down the stairs, out of the East Gate and toward August Road, my mind reeling. I ran all the way there thinking of my brother, seeing the faint wisps of smoke in the air, thinking of my father, my father’s mosque. Could it be?

  The noise was unbearable, the air was filled with shouts and swirling movement. The mosque was a blackened skeleton. Where a dome had once shone, a wasted mound of charred black splinters and collapsed vaults now stood. I tried to get as close as I could but I was part of a larger crowd gathering around the ruin.

  I walked past them all toward the white vans parked by the road. There were local news crews standing around the police barricades, speaking into microphones and staring into cameras. In the back of a television van I saw an image of Abu Farouk himself, dressed in his robes. He’d been on the news earlier it seemed, denouncing the protests and their leader, a man named Kemp. He was bellowing into the camera, I couldn’t make out his words. I could only watch, my heart pounding hard. Police were busy looking over the charred remains and a police ribbon kept the crowds at a safe distance. The Muhaji were making a wall around the site, praying and amplifying the confused anger. I walked past the Muhaji faces as if drawn into a trance. People from around Estate were sat praying near the curb. I sat down and linked arms with them. Swept in now, the sadness and outrage touching me also.

  As the embers flew thin smoke, the heat of the dying fire seemed to spread among the crowd. The Umma, these reddened faces. In small huddled groups we sat and raised voices about an eye for an eye. I listened to everyone speak in turns. Elders would call at the crowds here, immovable and resolute. Inside our elbow shells, the white mob were the menace. This evil must be torn down to the pits, they said. The white man’s police could not be trusted to do it themselves. I listened to the sermons, feeling the anger deep inside me, angry at the ashes. I saw the faces of bearded men, a hundred more imams, rallying around, urging us to confront the racists ourselves. I listened and nodded my head in approval. They claimed that the police were complicit, allowing the enemy free rein on the streets. Another elder, named Salah, began to tell me how glad he was that the true face of hatred had shown itself. At least we had a man like Abu Farouk, he said, to lead us against it.

  I got up then and wandered through figures with phones to their ears, speaking into them in a mix of Urdu and English, pacing around, comforting others and grouped in bundles of hijabs and hoodies.

  Yoos!

  I spun around then hoping to see my brother. It was Riaf. He was holding a Red Bull and a plastic bag filled with a familiar cloth. He walked up to me, said salaam, and gave me a half hug and arms.

  Yoos, where’s Irfan?

  I don’t know. He never came home.

  My voice felt as if it were far away. Riaf looked at me as if to say that he had no time for me or my brother, not now there were more important things to attend to.

  We need you now Yusuf yeah? he said. Here, take this. He handed me a bag. I opened it and saw shalwar kameez.

  It was the same cloth that Abu Farouk had given Irfan and me at mosque just the day before. I stared at the red-brown fabric, the Muhaji uniform. I felt my gut move with hunger. Evil breeds in a nest that has no discipline. I pulled it out and held it in front of me.

  Yoos, you need to get in line fam, we need bodies, yeah? Make a line around the crowd like the rest.

  He motioned over to the row of Muhaji standing at the edge of the crowd dividing the police, the cameras, and us, the Umma, from the ruins.
I looked down and brushed the kameez with my palm. Virtue and goodness come only from Allah.

  Riaf turned and walked into the crowd.

  I felt a great weight give way.

  I placed the kameez over my head. I extended my arms, my body, my palms into it. There was not a thought in my mind in that moment. It was as if I were performing some rite. I wandered into the row of Muhajiroun then and took my place next to the others. My sleeves were uneven and I felt the back of my neck itching against the coarse fabric. Nevertheless I stood solid still like the rest of my brothers. His blood is your blood.

  When the imam emerged I was at the far end of the crowd. The other Muhaji turned to face him. As he neared, journalists began fussing around with cables and paper and microphones. A crowd of his followers began pushing forward, swarming around him. I watched as he stepped onto a hastily constructed platform that’d just been set up. He was carrying the Qur’an my father used to hold. I felt myself being jostled on either side, hands reaching out, gripping at me as they tried to force their way through. I was moving with them, their tense limbs and swarming bodies. I looked up at Abu Farouk as he began to speak. He seemed to be soaking it up, standing on his wooden box dressed in a white robe which was swept over his shoulder. To me he still looked a shadow of my father. But in the eyes of the others, he was the locus, the tip of a spilling crowd with our anger like a tide at his feet.