The Khan

by Saima Mir

  His mother banged the palm of her hand on her forehead and then raised it up to heaven. ‘Ya khuda! How is my son this stupid? Pakistan is not your homeland! This is your home. Your homeland is where I am! You listen to me, you! You lived in me before you lived anywhere else! I am your mother and your homeland! And I was born right here on Morley Street. You think I’m going to let you ruin your life for this? You are going home with me. And all your other friends are going to do the same!’ She turned to the boy’s grandmother. ‘If it wasn’t for Jia Khan, who knows what would have happened,’ she said, shaking her head. At the sound of Jia’s name, the colour drained from the boy’s face.

  The message had come through the grapevine: the women were to gather at the Pakistani Community Centre on White Abbey Road. They waited, eager to hear why Akbar Khan’s daughter had called them, voices of dissent rife among them. Rumours about her had been perpetrated and perpetuated in these circles for years. Was that why she had called them together? Despite misgivings, they came to listen, some out of loyalty, some out of curiosity, but mostly they came for the gup shup, chai and chaat.

  Jia stood before them, dressed in a chador much like their own. Her words were strong but her manner mild and what she said made sense. She told them rumours had reached her about men travelling from other cities to cause trouble, as they had once before. That time the community had done nothing. But this time they were being called to arms.

  ‘You must keep your boys safe,’ Jia said. ‘The menfolk will not do it. You and I know that while they talk a lot, it is us women who actually do the work.’ She would give them practical help, she said. And she offered them vehicles to do the task, and her voice gave them the courage and permission to do what needed to be done. And most of all she promised to stand by them in a way that no one had done before.

  ‘We experience the sort of pain that would kill a man in order to give birth and carry on his family name. I am a mother. I know your fears. If our sons get caught up in this, the police will not give us justice. We have already lost some of our children to this violence. My cousins Razi and Raza have just returned from paying a heavy price. We can’t allow others to do the same.’

  And so when the violence started, they were ready and waiting to take their sons home. It was a Friday afternoon when things began to simmer; Jumma prayers had just finished and people were returning to their places of business. It was contained at first, having started within a mile radius of where the two bouncers had been shot, but by midnight it had spread out past Valley Parade and into Burlington and Hanover, and on the other side from Bowling towards Leeds.

  It was 2.00P.M. when Elyas stepped out of the cafe and into the growing demonstration. In the time he’d had lunch, police in riot gear had moved into the centre of the city and were gathered around the edges of Centenary Square. Protesters with placards filled the place. ‘Education + Opportunity = Integration,’ read one; ‘Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour,’ said another, and ‘Why should we integrate with those who denigrate?’ A line of mounted officers hemmed them in, watching from the perimeter, their eyes hawk-like, waiting for trouble to kick off.

  Elyas’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and hit the green symbol. ‘Yeah. I’m right in the middle of it!’ he said. ‘I can’t see much…’ He turned to find a mob moving towards the steps of City Hall, their faces contorted in anger. The police circle began to tighten. Elyas broke into a run. ‘I’m on my way back.’

  On the other side of the city centre, Nowak and two of his henchmen were getting ready to hide their money. They walked into the travel agency that had been helping them launder and transfer their ill-gotten gains, each one of them carrying a black holdall. Previous monies had been small amounts, but this was the big one. Dressed in suits, they looked like three business reps about to sell generic paracetamol to a chemist. The owner of the establishment, Hajji Taj Mohammed Akram, ushered them in quickly before reaching up to the top of the turquoise door and turning the key in the heavy mortise lock. He repeated the procedure three times along the length of the door. No one could get in and no one could get out. He led the men into his back office and turned to face them. Each silently placed his holdall on the desk, unzipping it to reveal wad upon wad of neatly rolled banknotes. The travel agent looked up and grinned at Nowak.

  Jia waited patiently outside the back door of Café de Khan. The restaurant was housed in a terraced row. The backyards were open, without fences or walls between, and customers often parked across the invisible boundaries.

  It was some time before it opened, but it gave her the opportunity to put her car keys in her purse and look through the bag just long enough for the CCTV camera on the corner of the building to get a clear shot, and allow her entry. The game was officially in play.

  On the worn stone steps of the Inner City Gym, in a dingy doorway, Razi Khan waited with his brother. Their eyes on the road, they watched as the ranks of men surrounding the English Defence League began to swell and turn nasty. A scuffle broke out between a skinhead and an Asian boy with a Scouse accent. Tempers flared and language became more and more colourful; others stepped forward and fell into the fight. Fists flew and heads were cracked; bottles of Newcastle Brown were smashed before being held out as assault weapons. Some cuts and bruises later, a group of policeman stepped in, pulling the men apart.

  Back in the newsroom, Elyas and John tried to figure out what was happening. ‘What have we got?’ said Elyas. ‘I don’t understand how this happened without warning. And in the middle of winter!’ He was staring over John’s shoulder at his screen. The building buzzed with ringing phones and staff arriving, dropping their bags and switching on their computers; the quiet hum of a weekend newsroom had turned to a roar.

  ‘We’ve got several snappers and a couple of reporters on the scene,’ said John. ‘Guys in here are making calls and I’m on your social-networking sites.’ He was staring at the screen, scrolling down the list of tweets, Facebook messages, Instagram and Snapchat posts.

  Elyas glanced around the room. Almost every journalist on the payroll was there. ‘Who called these guys in?’ he asked.

  ‘No one. They’re hungry for a story. Like you. Only younger,’ John said.

  ‘Thanks! You got anything?’ asked Elyas.

  ‘Nothing yet. But look at this guy. I don’t even know what he’s saying here,’ John said, pointing to a message full of acronyms.

  One of the junior reporters shouted over to the Elyas, ‘Police have advised people to shut up shop and go home!’

  John turned to him. ‘Something is not right here, Ely,’ he said. ‘It’s like this EDL march just happened, without any visible planning. Since when did these people get so bloody spontaneous? And so organised at such short notice?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Elyas. ‘I’ve just walked through a crowd of young Asian guys, and not one of them sounded like he was from this city. Newcastle, Liverpool and London, yes, but not here. Something is definitely not right.’

  ‘Do you think Jia knows anyone who can shed light?’ asked John.

  ‘I just spoke to her. She’s having dinner with her cousin at Café de Khan. Didn’t seem to know any of this was happening.’

  In the middle of town, Basharat Bashir began pulling down the shutters to his halal meat shop. Across the road, James Davis was doing the same for his butcher’s shop. ‘Didn’t expect this so soon. Did you hear owt?’ James said, his voice carrying across the road.

  ‘No,’ said Basharat. ‘I would have told you straight away if I had. Will you be OK getting home? You can come and stay at ours till it’s over if not.’

  James lived on the other side of the city. To get home he would have to drive through Hanover. The last time the police had asked local businesses to shut up shop, his drive home had been blocked by rioters. He had no idea what was going to happen today. ‘We can’t go to yours – it’s right near where all the trouble was last time. Come with me, I know
where we can go. I’ll call Julie and let her know. You give Shagufta a ring and tell her you’re with me.’

  The two men finished closing up and got into James’s car. Basharat’s son Bilal had dropped him at work that morning before heading in to buy last-minute things for the new baby. Basharat prayed Bilal had got home before the trouble kicked off.

  Jia entered the private room at the back of the restaurant. It had seen off the last of its lunchtime customers and was closing due to the streets protests; the staff were starting to leave. Sitting cross-legged on thick red carpets, as Pukhtuns had done for generations, Idris, Nadeem and Malik were waiting with the owner, Samad Khan. The men stood up as she entered. Idris stepped forward and pulled the runner from what looked like a small coffee table. Underneath was a large black trunk with a heavy padlock. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. Nadeem pulled up the lid and let it rest on the floor. The men stepped back as Idris reached into the trunk.

  He took out a pair of brown leather gloves and a mask for each of them.

  Nadeem looked at him. ‘What the fuck is this?’ he said, holding up the rubber face he’d been given.

  ‘It was all they had at the pound shop,’ said Malik. ‘I thought it was kind of funny and appropriate, considering they’re homeboys.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Jia.

  ‘I’ll tell you what the problem is,’ replied Nadeem, pulling on the mask. ‘It’s bloody One Direction, that’s what! The masks are all of Zayn Malik!’

  ‘Actually, this one is Dynamo,’ said Malik, handing the rubber face to Jia.

  She took it. ‘Thanks. Now stop messing around,’ she said as she pulled the gloves over her slim fingers and took a semi-automatic pistol from her bag. ‘Looks like that summer we spent hunting in Pakistan is finally going to pay off.’

  Malik picked up his weapon tentatively. ‘I can’t say I’m looking forward to this,’ he said.

  Nadeem laughed nervously. ‘Really? Because the rest of us are so thrilled to be here, right?’

  ‘You can back out now,’ Jia told Malik gently. Then she turned to Nadeem, her voice harder this time. ‘And so can you,’ she added. ‘There’s no room for nerves on this. We will understand. None of us are looking forward to putting a bullet between a man’s eyes. I need to know you’re in this for the long haul. Once we step through that door there’s no going back.’ She waited for their answer.

  Nadeem nodded. Malik straightened up. ‘I’m coming,’ he said. ‘There’s no way I wouldn’t. We’re family and loyalty is all we have.’

  Each man took his weapon from the arsenal in the trunk. Samad Khan watched from the sidelines, stepping forward only when the guns were dealt out. He took out a cloth bag.

  ‘I have a gift for you,’ he said. He gave them each a cloth cap. They recognised it as the kind worn in the North-West Frontier Province and across Pakistan and Afghanistan. ‘These pakol were given to me by my wife,’ he said. ‘Each time she visited her family she brought one back…to remind me where we come from, she said. She had planned to give them to our children, but as you know we were never blessed that way. But I think she would have wanted me to pass them on to you. She believed it important to remember our history. The leaves from an oak tree fade, fall and are replaced, but the roots remain. No one sees what detritus the roots feed on, all they remember is the beauty of the branches and the colour of the leaves. This is a symbol of those roots. Guard its honour well,’ he said. ‘Jia Khan, you must take the red one. It has been waiting for you for quite some time.’

  Jia thanked him for the hat. It resembled a small woollen bag with a round base. Rolling up the sides, she placed it on her head as she had seen her father do many times throughout his life. The brown of her eyes deepened. They were better suited to the cover of a magazine, the kind found on the bedside tables of aspirational Pakistanis, than the back of a curry house in a rundown northern city.

  Samad Khan knelt on the floor and lifted the Bokhara rug on which the men had been sitting before Jia arrived. He folded it once, twice, and from the middle to the side, affording it the respect a worshipper gives his prayer mat. Beneath it, hidden away, was a door. He took a small key from his pocket and placed it in the lock. It clicked open with ease and lifted like a lid to reveal a set of stairs. ‘There is no light down there, but your eyes will soon adjust,’ he told them.

  Jia moved forward to step down into the darkness, but Samad Khan stopped her. ‘We must pray first,’ he said. ‘As with everything in life, it is our way.’ And with that he raised his hands, uttering the Bismillah loud enough for them to know he had begun calling on his Lord. They followed, some not knowing if this was the time to pray, and others saying the protection prayers they had learnt in childhood, until they heard his ‘ameen’. They were ready.

  Back in the travel agency, Mohammed Akram counted the money carefully, each pile neatly laid out on the table, and growing steadily. Nowak stood back and watched. He could see Akram’s greed growing, and he liked it. It was the travel agent who had approached him to offer his services. He had been removed from the Khan’s inner circle and all because of a small matter. His ego had not recovered, and his izzat was blemished. He swore blind he had thought the girl was older, but the Khan had ignored his pleas. Mohammed Akram was bitter, and angry enough to agree to finance Nowak’s operation and help clean the cash using his transfer contacts. But all of that was an excuse; the truth was, his business was dying, killed by the internet. Even the older generation were getting their kids to buy Umrah and Hajj packages for them online.

  The travel agent had long known the havala method would be the perfect way to move black money, and now he would prove it. With no paper trail, and no actual movement of goods, there was no way for the police to prove anything. He had tried to explain the system to Nowak when they had met the year before. ‘We use my havaladar in Rawalpindi. He is a trustworthy man. He inherited the broker job from his family, and they’ve been doing this for generations. You give me the money to be transferred to his country. I contact him by phone and ask him to pass on an equivalent sum of money to your man in Pakistan. Your man can then transfer it to the Isle of Man. We move thousands of pounds in a matter of minutes, with no questions asked and no record of any kind. Between us – the brokers in Rawalpindi and myself – we balance our books through a reverse transaction…when someone on his side wants to send money here. But, and this is the clever part, because the system is based on our long-standing relationship and trust among the havaladar, there is no need to balance accounts at the end of the day, or even at the end of each month. We don’t keep records for long and it’s all perfectly legal.’

  ‘What does that mean to me?’ Nowak had asked.

  ‘It means that the transactions are difficult to track,’ Akram had said. ‘It means we balance our books on both sides and no one ever really knows what money is where or how it got there. It means your money gets to your tax haven safely.’

  Nowak was sold. It sounded complicated and risky, but he’d liked that.

  As Akram counted the cash and calculated his share, he was thinking all the while about ‘the great Akbar Khan’ and what a shame it was that he hadn’t lived to witness his rise and Jia Khan’s failed attempts to take the city. He had once craved the Khan’s respect – what a fool he had been. He looked at Nowak. The man was ambitious but impatient. He was here for the game and the money but not for the people. It would be a shame to see him take over Yorkshire operations, but not that much of a shame. Akram carried on counting. A loud noise made him glance up at the CCTV screen across the room.

  He watched as Nowak sprang into action, moving quickly towards the doorway to see what was happening outside. The sounds of the riot hit before the CCTV images registered what was going on. Loud and angry, it was hulking closer.

  Nowak came back shouting at his men in his mother tongue. ‘Let’s go! Now! Put the cash back in the bags! Move, move, MOVE!’ They dropped the bags on the floor and
began sweeping the cash into them. Nowak looked afraid, almost as if he knew what was to come.

  Razi Khan watched the violence unfold as he stood outside the travel agency, his brother beside him. They waited in silence, their holdall bags in their hands, as Asian men swarmed up the street. Row upon row of faces advanced, hidden under scarves or cloaked with hoods, filling the usually quiet street with the roar of angry men. Police vehicles were parked bumper to bumper across the road, closing it and signalling where the stand-off would be. The officers remained ready behind sheets of riot gear.

  As the roar grew louder Raza flinched, but Razi Khan put his hand on his brother’s shoulder to calm him. They had come too far to lose their nerve. The crowd surged ahead of them and stopped, unable to move past the police and unwilling to move back. Pushing the men aside like a Spartan on a battlefield, Razi Khan moved to the middle of the crowd. He looked around at the men and waited. He placed his gym bag on the ground next to him, then dropped to his knees as if tying his shoelaces. Once there, he unzipped the bag and pulled it wide open. On the other side of the road, his brother had done exactly the same. Their eyes met and they calmly walked away, moving seamlessly back through the crowd.

  Idris tried to push open the trapdoor, but it felt jammed, as if something heavy was on it. He turned to look at Jia. ‘It’s a rug. Push harder and it will budge,’ she said. Idris did as she asked, using his shoulder to force the door up – she was right. When he managed to wedge it up, he could see the rug hanging over its edge. He pushed it aside and climbed out into the light. He squinted through his mask, his eyes reacclimatising, before reaching down and helping Jia up. Nadeem and Malik followed. Jia put her finger to her lips and they listened. To the backdrop of the angry crowd in the street outside, came Nowak’s voice from an office across the room; he was shouting in a language they didn’t understand. The door was slightly ajar and they could see the men packing the cash into bags, an urgency in their movements.