Moses Ascending

by Sam Selvon

  ‘I haven’t agreed to the killing yet.’

  ‘I am giving you the choice cuts.’

  ‘What I really want is your views on current affairs. How does the Pakistan community react to Black Power? What trials and tribulations do they have to overcome? What about that story I read about, how chaps who ride motorbikes got to take off their turbans and wear crash helmets?’

  ‘That’s the Sikhs.’

  ‘Well, whatever you call them.’ I wave it aside. I wasn’t going to divide up the Asian races, research or no research. Besides, I know that English people so stupid that the whole lot of Orientals and Blacks is the same kettle of fish as far as they are concerned.

  ‘I told you already,’ Faizull say. ‘Farouk is the one who can help you with all those answers.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to clap eyes on him.’

  ‘I gave him the message. I will tell him again to come and see you.’

  I went back upstairs, full of eastern promise.

  ‘Did you reprimand him?’ Bob ask.

  ‘He’s going to get shot of it,’ I say.

  ‘It’s a good thing.’ He seem relieved. ‘I had a pet once.’

  ‘A little lamb?’

  ‘No. It was a joble.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s like a big rat,’ he explain.

  ‘When I was small,’ I tell him, ‘we used to catch rats and take it to the Sanitary Inspector in the town hall, and get a few pence for it.’

  I couldn’t wait for Sunday to come, so I could observe the whole ceremony and take notes. I wish I did have a camera, to take out some photos, just to reinforce the chapter I was hoping to write. Meantime, I wait for Master Farouk to visit me, but he didn’t turn up. I went to the room, but neither he nor Faizull was there. The Saturday, I went into a Indian shop in the market, as part of my research. As how yam and saltfish become part of the English scene with the coming of the blacks, so hundreds of little Indian shops have opened up all over the metropolis, and the Englishman no longer has to risk a perilous voyage to obtain the spices of the East; they are right here in the high street.

  Sometimes in these shops you come across an Englisher who spend a day in India and feel he know all about massala and papadum. You could always tell the type – he have a shopping bag to hide the things he buy, lest he meet a friend and have to explain the quaint items. And he examining everything in the shop, even making bold to sniff the curry powder or feel the mangoes to see which one ripe, as he observe the natives do in India. And he eager to show off his knowledge, you see.

  ‘Have you got tandoori paste and basmati rice?’

  ‘Have you got ghee and iglee and fresh coriander?’

  ‘Do you stock vindaloo and chapatee and basan flour?’

  Like if he want to show he know more about Indian food than the shopkeeper himself. And he would start to sing the song of India, about the Taj Mahal, and the Ganges, and how he went to the palace of a Maharaja and how he cross the North-West Frontier, and want to know if the shopkeeper come from Madras or Calcutta. To all of which the shopkeeper with that servile manner which Clive of India bestow on him, would rub his hand and beam and say yes and no and sometimes acha for authenticity, and follow the white man about the shop as he make his various purchases. And as he go out of the shop, you could see him peep up and down the road to make sure none of his acquaintances spot him load up with all these oriental products.

  I head for the butchery at the bottom of the shop, that had a sign saying HALAL MEAT. A Jamaican customer was in front of me.

  ‘You got any pork?’ he ask the butcher.

  Consternation. It was as if a chap knock on the door of Buckingham Palace and ask if he could go inside to pee.

  ‘Pork!’ the butcher say, horrified.

  ‘Yes, pork,’ JA say.

  ‘You don’t see the sign? We only sell Halal meat here.’ And when the Jamaican gone, you could see as if he want to spray the shop to get rid of the contaminated word.

  I decided to stoke the fire. ‘Nothing like a bit of pork, though, with some nice crispy crackling.’

  ‘You too!’ the butcher wave his chopper at me like he want to cleft my head. ‘Don’t you see the notice?’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Give me a pound.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Halal meat.’

  ‘All is Halal meat.’ He wave his hands at the various cuts of mutton and beef and chicken. It had a lot of meat there, and it all cut up different than you would get at an English butcher. Or if not, by the time you get it it will be, for these Indians does cut up everything to make curry. If you ask for a leg of mutton, he hardly finish weighing it before he got it on the chopping block cutting it up in little pieces. I notice that some of them English butchers have the same habit too: from the time they see that you are black, they start mutilating your leg of pork or joint of beef without so much as a by-your-leave.

  I decided to play ignorant. ‘Oh, I thought Halal meat was something else.’

  ‘Are you a Mohammedan?’ he ask.

  ‘Not exactly,’ I say.

  ‘I have no time to explain,’ he say. ‘Make up your mind.’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ I say, ‘I was really after a nice piece of pork.’

  He turn his back on me, and start to eviscerate a chicken. When I was coming back home I meet Faizull in the road.

  ‘What happen to Farouk?’ I ask.

  ‘Didn’t he come to see you?’ Faizull say.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I told him it was important.’

  We went into the house together. ‘I’ll see if he’s there now,’ Faizull open his door and look inside and shake his head. ‘He’s out.’

  ‘It’s been weeks since I told you,’ I say. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if he exists?’

  Faizull laughed uneasily. ‘Whatever time he returns, I’ll tell him to come.’

  ‘Okay. Everything set for tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time do you plan the execution?’

  ‘Daybreak.’

  ‘You mean in the morning?’

  ‘Daybreak. Dawn. Just before sunrise.’

  ‘You never see the sun rise in London,’ I say.

  ‘It’s the propitious time,’ Faizull say.

  I set my alarm to go off at five o’clock, wondering if I would be lucky to see the sun; sometimes you don’t see it for a whole year in this country. I was restless, thinking about all the material I had to gather, and find it hard to fall asleep. I start to count sheep and by the time I reach the one in the backyard the alarm went.

  Usually I had Bob bring me a cup of tea on awakening, but I did not want to incorporate him, though I thought it would be kicks to see him grow pale when blood start to spill.

  It might of been a good idea to get an English aspect of the proceedings, too, but I felt he might become excited and overwrought and create a disturbance.

  I went downstairs and met Faizull and another chap.

  ‘Ah,’ I say, ‘this is Farouk?’

  ‘Well,’ Faizull say, ‘that is his name. We have no time to talk.’

  ‘When will we have a chat?’ I ask this Farouk.

  ‘What for?’ he say. ‘I am a very busy man. My services are in great demand.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Faizull say.

  We went out into the yard with all the necessary paraphernalia, tripping over all kinds of rusty junk and battling through the undergrowth. Now and then Farouk, in the lead with his butcher’s knife, would slash at a branch or a bramble or a liana that impeded our progress. I put my foot in a set of stinging nettles that sting me even through my trousers.

  At last, panting and exhausted, we reach the small clearing. The sheep was laying down, but the eyes was open watching we.

  ‘Try and keep out of the way,’ Faizull tell me.

  ‘I want to see every single thing,’ I say, looking around for a place to rest my notebook so I could write in it. I ha
d was to buy one to take notes in my research, but how them reporters does just hold it in their hands and write? In the end I had to pick up a piece of rotting hardboard and prop it at the back of the notebook: I made a mental note to purchase one of them square pieces of wood what have a big spring clip at the top, like what you see those chaps have when voting time come and they come to survey you.

  Whilst I was getting poised, Messrs Farouk and Faizull was getting ready for the dark deed. Farouk was kneeling down, facing the pearly light of dawn in the East, and with the weapon in his hands as if he proffering it to the sun to make the coop de grace. Faizull was tying the sheep foots together, two in front and two behind. Farouk start up a oriental chant in one of them strange tongues, Urdu or Punjabi or something.

  ‘What is he saying?’ I ask Faizull.

  ‘Shh,’ he say. ‘It is a prayer. Try not to make noise. If the sheep becomes excited and nervous, the muscles will get tense and stiff, and the meat will be tough.’

  ‘It’s the sheep that should be praying,’ I say.

  Then, without further ado, Farouk swivel round on his knees, and before you could say Jack Robinson he lift up the sheep head and administer the death stroke in one clean movement, slitting the throat from ear to ear. It seem to me that he could of gone down an inch more from the head, but that might of meant one inch less neck to share out. Faizull jam up the plastic bucket under the gash to collect the blood, and he straddle the sheep with his hands and foot to still the death throes.

  A solitary shriek of horror rent the atmosphere. It was so unexpected and piercing that Faizull lose his grip and slip off the sheep, and Farouk brandish the butcher knife and looking to see where it come from.

  I was the onlyest one to keep my cool: I look up to the penthouse and see Bob leaning out of the window as if he vomiting.

  ‘I will get the RSPCA to arrest you!’ he shout. ‘You too, Moses!’

  Everything was going nice and smooth until this white man run amok: that’s why I didn’t want him in the first place.

  ‘Shut up,’ I shout. ‘Another word from you and I will have you arrested for disturbing the peace. Shut that window, Bob, this very instant!’

  I put a lot of sternness and authority in my voice, for I did not want any further noise to waken the whole neighbourhood. Bob slam down the window, but he stay behind the glass watching.

  ‘Will he cause trouble?’ Faizull ask.

  ‘I can take care of Bob,’ I say. ‘Proceed.’

  Farouk stick the knife in his belt like a pirate. He and Faizull haul the sheep to one of the smaller trees. They tie up the sheep foot one by one, then they spreadeagle it up on a branch upsided down with the head still hanging by a piece of skin, and Faizull put the plastic bucket to catch the blood. Then Farouk take off the head and wrap it up, like that Greek hero do with a woman head, I forget the whole story at the moment, but you know the one I mean, about the chap who had wings on his foot, and he slash off this woman head: she was so ugly he had was to look in a mirror to do it, else she turn him into stone –you remember? Farouk say that the head is a great delicacy, especially the eyes, and that he want it for himself. He say that every time he kill a sheep, he claim the head as a sort of trophy. It appear he was some sort of official slaughterer, and I wanted to ask him some questions, but he was busy now skinning and dissecting the carcase.

  I never see a knife so sharp in my life. As if it only whispering, as if it just making some light, gossamer strokes and the blade flashing in and out of the sheep anatomy.

  ‘I think I’ll have some liver too,’ I tell Faizull.

  ‘We did not bargain for that,’ he say. ‘You should keep to your word.’

  ‘I may have some trouble with the police over this business,’ I point out.

  ‘No,’ he say, ‘we have not broken the law.’ And he went on to explain the legal angles.

  By and by Farouk was down to the finishing touches.

  ‘What about the golden fleece?’ I ask, imagining that in due course it would make a handsome rug for me to put my foot down on when I get out of bed.

  ‘We will have to leave it out here to dry out,’ Faizull say. I wasn’t sure that was safe, remembering again some other Greek and a gang of argonauts who went and thief a fleece from some king garden – you know the one I mean.

  ‘It’s all finished now,’ Faizull say. ‘There’s nothing more to see. You can take a piece of liver now. I’ll bring you the rest later.’

  ‘Is that all?’ I was disappointed. ‘What about all them rites and rituals?’

  ‘Farouk has another job this morning,’ Faizull say. ‘We can’t go through all that rigmarole.’

  So I went back upstairs to face the melodrama. Sure enough, Bob waiting for me. Tears wasn’t streaming down his face, but he certainly look distraught and woebegone.

  ‘How could you, how could you?’ he greet me.

  ‘Have you made coffee?’ I ask.

  ‘I could try and understand those Pakis,’ he say, ‘but you took a hand in the proceedings. You are just as guilty as they are. Do you realize what you have been a party to? This is a civilized country, we don’t do things that way. If they want to kill a sheep, they should go to a proper slaughter-house.’

  ‘They haven’t broken the law,’ I say. ‘It’s for their own use, they are not selling it, and they are going to clean up and don’t cause a hazard to public health.’

  ‘I see,’ Bob say, tight-lipped. ‘You have even acquainted yourself with the by-laws, conniving with the Pakis. But what will the neighbours think?’

  ‘Even if they peep over the wall they can’t see anything in that dense foliage,’ I say. ‘Here.’ I show him the liver. ‘When last have you had a piece of fresh liver for breakfast? Feel it, it’s still warm.’

  Bob look as if he want to throw up.

  ‘It’s good for you,’ I say. ‘It will make your cock stand up.’

  He begin to look interested now. ‘Yeah?’ he say.

  ‘It’s packed with vitamin E,’ I say. ‘Look.’ And I squeeze the liver and let a few drops drop.

  ‘Don’t be filthy,’ he say. ‘You’re messing up the table and I will have to clean it.’

  ‘Season it with a little salt,’ I instructed, ‘and fresh black pepper from the mill. Sauté it gently in butter. As soon as the blood starts to ooze it’s finished.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can eat breakfast after what I’ve just seen,’ he say. But you could see that the prospect of aiding the elevation of his penis had him curious. You could fool a white man with any shit if he believe it will prolong the sexual act.

  He took the liver, albeit gingerly, and went into the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later we was polishing off the liver with some onion rings that Bob fry golden. He tackled the meal with gusto, but still kept up a tirade.

  ‘It’s the principle of the thing, Moses,’ he say, with his mouth full of liver. ‘It’s not that I’m not partial to a bit of fresh meat.’

  For spite I try to put him off eating. ‘Did you see how the blood spurt out of the sheep neck when Farouk make the slice?’

  He stop chewing for a few seconds, but start to masticate enthusiastically again.

  ‘That wasn’t Farouk,’ he say.

  ‘How you mean it wasn’t Farouk?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s not the Farouk who came to see the room with Faizull.’

  It was me who stop chewing now. ‘Who was it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Something funny was going on here. ‘When last have you seen Farouk, then?’

  ‘Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since the first time they came looking for a room. Faizull always brings the rent. But letters come for Farouk.’

  ‘Well, he must collect them?’

  ‘I never saw him. But the letters are always taken away.’

  After breakfast, while Bob was washing up in the kitchen, Faizull come up with my share.

  ‘Where’s Farouk?’ I demand.


  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘When is he coming back?’

  ‘I don’t know. He lives in Southall.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So he isn’t Farouk, the one who shares the room with you?’

  ‘Oh!’ Faizull smile for the first time since I know him. ‘Did you think he was my friend Farouk?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘I only said his name was Farouk.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I wasn’t going to let no bloody Paki get the better of me. ‘Let’s start again. Where is the Farouk who resides in your room in this house?’

  ‘He has gone to spend the day with some relatives. I told you we were celebrating a religious festival.’

  ‘How is it, that I can never set eyes on Farouk?’

  Faizull shrug. ‘At the moment he is working a double shift. He comes and goes at odd hours. But I have told him several times that you want to see him. Maybe he is not interested.’

  ‘It’s funny I don’t see him around at all.’

  ‘He was here last night. What more can I do?’

  Bob come in, and as I was telling him to take the meat into the kitchen, Faizull slip away, so quietly I didn’t know when he left.

  I make up my mind to find this Farouk by hook or by crook. I wasn’t annoyed any more, I was just intrigued by the mystery.

  I left a note in the hallway: ‘Mr Farouk, I have been trying to get in touch with you on a matter of the greatest urgency. Come up to my flat, whatever the hour, when you get this message.’

  The next morning the note wasn’t there and I ask Faizull about it.

  ‘He got your note, Mr Moses. Didn’t he come to see you?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a long pause. Then Faizull say, ‘I have a confession to make.’

  Ah, I thought triumphantly, we are getting some place at last. ‘Yes?’ I try to keep the eagerness out of my tone.

  ‘It’s about Farouk.’

  My hopes soared. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Farouk doesn’t speak English.’

  ‘Then how did he read my note?’

  ‘I read it for him. Some of us are not like you and me, who have lived here for a long time and know the ropes.’

  ‘What’s this all about then?’ I say sternly. ‘Why are you sending him to me if we cannot converse?’