by Jacob Ross
Now Katula walked along the walkway until she came to the end of the last block of the Victorian semi-detached houses and crossed the road. She came to the local pub, The Vulcan, with its Tudor façade. The blacksmith god, the pub’s insignia, swung on the sign. Men and women stood outside smoking, despite the cold. From there she could see the red postbox across the road from the local primary school. Just as she prepared to cross Manchester Road, a gritting truck rolled past, dropping grains of sand – or maybe it was salt – on the road. The grains disappeared in the snow slush without effect. Katula made a mental note to pick up salt from the corner shop on her way back. There had been no salt in Tesco the previous weekend because of panic buying – people were using it on the snow on their driveways.
As a devout Muslim, Malik could not be alone with a woman without a third person in the room. Hence, they met in halal restaurants in Rusholme. Even then, Malik never sat too close to her. As their relationship grew, he told Katula that he was not born a Muslim. His name had been Malachi until, sometime in his twenties, he went astray. “I got into some bad-bad, real crazy stuff,” he said, without going into details.
To keep away from the bad stuff, he turned to God. However, he had found the Christian God too lazy and laid back. “I went to all sorts of churches but nothing worked for me. I needed a God with a strong grip to put me straight.” Then he found Islam and changed his name from Malachi to Malik. Apparently, Islam’s God had a tight grip: the five prayers a day kept a rein on him.
They talked about the future: could Katula commit to wearing the hijab? Sure. Could she take a Muslim name? Of course, Hadija. Could she embrace Islam? She took a deep breath but then visualised the British passport. Yes of course! To demonstrate her commitment, Katula’s dresses started to grow longer and wider, even though Malik had not pressed her to dress differently. Eventually, he found a third person to be with them and invited Katula to his house.
That day Katula wore kitenge wrappers, including one on her head, because Malik liked it when she dressed “African”. Malik’s house was a two-bedroomed semi-detached in Oldham. It had a very high ceiling and the rooms were spacious. But it was slummy. Malik had covered the floorboards with cardboard. He had hung bed sheets against the windows. The kitchen was rotting; the house was dark and cold.
Katula surveyed the squalor with satisfaction. Here was a job for a proper wife. Three months in this place and all would be transformed. Malik would not miss his bachelor days.
The living room doubled as Malik’s bedroom, even though the house had two other bedrooms. As she walked in, she saw an African youth, not older than twenty-one, sitting on a settee close to the door. He was so good looking that Katula hesitated – when African men chose to be beautiful they overdid it! The lad wore a white Arabic gown with a white patterned taqiyah on his head. The whiteness of his gown stood out in the grubby surroundings. He looked up as she entered and quickly looked away. Then he remembered to say hello and flung the word over his shoulder. Katula dismissed his rudeness. From his accent, he was evidently one of those “my-parents-are-originally-from-Africa-but-I-was-born-in-Britain” types who tended to keep away from “home grown” Africans, as if they would catch being native African again. Katula wrinkled her nose at the youth. His name was Chedi.
She walked past him and sat on another settee; Malik sat on his bed facing Chedi. Apart from the few times Malik asked Katula whether she wanted a drink, the two men were engrossed in conversation. Katula noted that Malik’s eyes shone as he listened to Chedi, even though he was only talking about a certain sheikh’s views on food, especially meats, from supermarkets. Apparently, for a proper Muslim, not even tomatoes were safe to eat because they were genetically tampered with. Chedi promised to lend Malik the sheikh’s CD. Even though she had grown up in a culture where men, in the company of other men, ignored their wives, Katula was uneasy about the way she was not invited into their conversation. They probably did so because she was non-Muslim; maybe Islam did not allow women to join in men’s conversation. Katula decided it was best to play dumb; she was on a mission.
The next time Malik invited her over to his house, she was surprised to find him on his own, but she did not ask why. She sat on the sofa; he sat next to her and held her hand as they talked. She was tempted to kiss him. When she stood up to leave, he hugged her and Katula held on. Malik went rigid. She relaxed and let her body melt slowly in his arms to encourage him a little. Malik could have been hugging his mother. When Katula reached up to kiss him on the neck, he tore away.
“In Islam,” he said breathlessly, “a man must guard his neck at all times. It is at the neck you lose your life.”
Katula crept out of Malik’s house, shrinking with shame. On the way home, she chastised herself for pushing too hard. Slow down! Malik falling in love with you and giving you children are just the toppings – focus on the passport. She had never dated a British man before; maybe that was the way they were. You know what they say about Africans – oversexed. The British are no doubt restrained. Katula’s stomach chewed itself all the way home.
The following day, Malik came to see her at the hospital. He was waiting outside the gate when she finished her shift. Pleasant surprise broke through her mortification, and her hope rekindled. He seemed worried and invited her to come to his house the following weekend. She overcame her embarrassment and smiled.
Malik wore a towel when she arrived. Katula stared. If she had thought that Malik was good looking before, undressed he was magnificent. This time he had even made an effort to clean the house. He had the air of an expectant lover about him. He told her to make herself a cup of tea while he took a bath. As she had tea, Malik came out of the bathroom grinning.
“You know, the other day a man followed me all the way from Asda,” he said as he dried his hair with a towel. “The man said I have the cutest legs, no?” He turned his legs to her.
Apart from the hairs, Katula wished Malik’s legs were hers. “As far as I am concerned, everything on you is close to perfect.”
Malik turned around. His eyes shone. He walked towards her and held her. Then he kissed her on the lips but Katula was not sure that he liked it.
“Do you like my body?” He smiled into her eyes.
“You’re stunning.”
“Then I am all yours if you’ll marry me.”
The earnestness in his eyes prompted Katula to tell him that she could not marry him because of her visa troubles. But instead of getting suspicious, Malik got angry. “They make my blood boil.”
To protect her, and to help her save on rent, Malik asked Katula to move in with him. However, he said, they could not share a bedroom until they were married. She moved in the following day. To make herself useful, Katula started to clean the house. The nagging fear that things were moving too quickly, that Malik would change his mind, that it was all too good to be true, was dispelled when he said that he wanted to fix the wedding date as soon as possible.
First, he gave her money to return to Uganda to renew her student visa. She returned to Britain a month later, and applied for a Certificate of Approval, the first step in obtaining permission to marry and live in the UK. When it was granted, Malik asked for her shift roster.
The day they got married, Katula was due to work the nightshift. Malik had suddenly informed her that they were getting married because a couple had cancelled at the last minute and the imam had slotted them in.
“But I am working tonight. Should I call in sick?”
“No, you don’t have to. We’re getting married at midday.”
There was no time to dwell on the fact that Malik evidently expected her to work on their wedding night and must have already notified the registrar in advance.
Also unknown to Katula, Malik had already bought the clothes she would wear for the nikah. “I got them yesterday,” he said, as he handed her an Indian gown, similar to those she had seen in Asian boutiques in Rusholme. Turquoise, it had glittering sequins and beads.
It had a scarf that she wore on her head. The gown fitted.
At the wedding, Katula did not know any of the guests, not even her witness. Chedi, Malik’s friend, did not turn up; Katula had expected him to be their witness. Malik’s mother was not at the wedding either; she could not make it at such short notice. Afterwards, they went to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch. When they returned home, Malik offered to drop her off at work. As she stepped out of the car at the hospital, he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “See you tomorrow, wifie.”
Malik did not come to pick her up in the morning. Somehow, she had expected him to, even though he had not promised. When she arrived home he was in his bedroom but the door was locked. His greeting from behind the door was curt. When he stepped out of his room, his expression said, “Don’t you dare come near me!” He rushed about the house as if worried that Katula would pounce on him. He ate in his bedroom and left money for the house on the kitchen table.
That first week after the wedding, silence spread throughout the house like ivy. Katula cried. This had nothing to do with British reserve, or with Islam; this was rejection.
She spent the early months of their marriage in her bedroom. She did not watch TV. She did not go into any other room other than the kitchen and bathroom. She did a lot of overtime. Two years lay ahead of her before she could change her visa to permanent residence, then another year to get her citizenship. She would do it. In the meantime, she continued to refurbish and cook. After cooking she would call out, “Food is ready,” at Malik’s door. Then she would leave the kitchen so that he could come and get his food.
One day Katula came home from work and found Malik waiting in the corridor. He told her that they were eating out because it was their six months’ anniversary. She went along with the plans suspiciously. When they came back home from the restaurant, Malik told her about mahr. He said it was a dowry normally in gold, given to a bride in Islam. He gave her a satchel. Inside were a three-colour herringbone gold necklace with gold earrings, an engagement ring, a wedding ring and a gold watch with a matching bracelet. He had also bought himself a similar wedding band and a watch like hers, only his were larger.
“They are twenty-one carats; I bought them at a His & Hers promotion.”
Katula blinked, then sighed. When she accepted the dowry, Malik held her tight for a long time. Then he buried his head in her shoulder and his body started to shake.
“I am not a bad person, Kat,” he wept. “I am not.”
“I know.”
“I’ll look after you, Kat. You trust me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
He let go of her suddenly, walked to his bedroom and locked the door. Katula went to her bedroom and she too cried. She knew. Of course she now knew. But she could not think of a way to say, I understand, or, Let’s talk about it.
She wasn’t trapped, Malik was. And if sometimes she felt she was, at least the door to her cell was open; she could walk out of the marriage. He could not walk out of himself.
One day, out of the blue, Malik told Katula that they should start sending money to her mother, that he knew how hard life was in the Third World. She knew Malik had never sent money to his dad in Tobago. In fact, his face clamped shut whenever Katula asked about his dad.
“My father is a brute. He thinks that to be a man everyone must be like him,” he once said.
When Katula rang home and told her mother about Malik’s generosity, she said, “God has remembered us.” The last time Katula rang, her mother had begged, “If doctors over there have failed, come home and see a traditional healer. Sometimes, it is something small that hinders conception, Katula. You can’t risk losing him: he is such a good man.”
“Malik is British, mother; they don’t leave their wives just because they are barren.”
“Listen child, a man is a man; sooner or later he’ll want a child.”
To get rid of her mother’s nagging, Katula said that she would discuss it with Malik and she would let her know.
On pay days, Malik transferred half his salary into Katula’s account for their upkeep. Katula wanted to contribute but he said, “In Islam, a man must meet all his wife’s needs. Your earnings are your own.” Sometimes, however, Katula was overcome by irrational fury, especially when Malik gave her money and said, “Why don’t you go and buy yourself some shoes or handbags? Women love shopping.” In such moments she wanted to scream, Stop apologising!
Sometimes Malik’s strict adherence to the five prayers a day seemed slavish to her, as if he was begging God to change him. She would clench her fists to stop herself from screaming, “How could God create you the way you are and then say, Hmm, if you pray hard to me and I feel like it I can change you?” Instead she would glower, avoid him and bang her bedroom door. At such times, silence came to the house for days, but Malik would coax her out of her dark moods with generosity. She knew that a lot of women in Uganda would consider her extremely lucky.
As she reached to slip the envelopes into the letter box, she looked up. Near the school gate, a lollipop lady was walking to the middle of the road. She stopped, planted the lollipop on the road, blew her whistle and held her hand out. The cars stopped. Parents with little ones crossed the road. Katula looked beyond them at the barren park covered in snow.
This time, when he gets back home, she promised herself, I’m going to say, How do you propose we’re going to have children? Or maybe I’ll be direct and say, When do we go for artificial insemination? Kdto, they call it IVF in Britain.
She let the envelopes fall through the mouth of the post box and turned to walk back to the house she shared with a husband who played at marriage the way children play at having tea.
TARIQ MEHMOOD
THE HOUSE
I was waiting for a fare close to the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, watching a couple of bored policemen sitting under the shade of a tree, twiddling with the barrels of their guns, when a bellboy from the hotel, followed by a tall thin woman, came towards me. The woman stopped, looked around at something and then followed the boy who was already by my car.
“Your lucky day, sir,” the boy said to me.
I handed him a fifty rupee note. He brushed it away saying, “It’s a big booking. Hundred.”
“She’s a Pakistani madam,” I said, pushing the note back towards him.
“Foreigner,” he said quickly, snatching the note whilst insisting with the index finger of his other hand that I give him more money. I swore at him under my breath and handed him another fifty. He turned to the woman and opened the back door.
“Yes, madam.” I said in Urdu, “Where would you like to go?”
She took a deep breath and replied in Pothohari. “There is so much I would like to see, but can’t.”
I touched the key, my lucky charm, which dangled off the rear view mirror and looked at her face in the mirror. She had long grey hair, with streaks of silver that fell over her shoulders. The way she held her head was just like the madams of Islamabad. By the way she talked and looked she could have been someone from my village, but the black kameez jacket, her top, with its embroidery of gold running down her front and the edges of the arms meant she was not short of money.
I cursed the bellboy inside my head, You son of a donkey. I waited for over two hours for a fare and you dump me with this one.
“Where can I take you?” I asked in Urdu.
“Do you not speak Pothohari?” she asked, looking for something in her handbag.
“Yes. Yes, madamjee,” I said in Urdu with a taxi-driver laugh. “It just doesn’t feel right talking in that language with a madam, especially someone from round here.”
“I’m Indian,” she said. “Talk to me in Pothohari.”
Thank you, Allah, I thought inside my head.
“As you would wish, madam,” I said in Pothohari. “I can take you anywhere. And get you whatever it is you desire,” I added quickly.
She flicked her eyebrows disapprovingly and re
peated, “There is so much I would like to see but I can’t.”
Oh yes, I thought, I know what your type wants.
I was just getting ready for the long game that would eventually mean me getting her what someone like her was really after but was finding difficult to say, when she took a cigarette from her bag and lit it.
“Do you mind if I smoke in your car?” she asked, blowing smoke out of the window.
“This car is at your service, madam,” I said, thinking over what sort of a boy she was likely to be after.
“Do you smoke?” she asked, offering me a cigarette.
“Which taxi driver doesn’t?” I looked at her pack. It was one of the expensive foreign ones.
“Keep it,” she said. “I have more.”
I took it from her. As I did this, she said, “Drive.”
“Where to, madam?”
“Just drive.”
I put the cigarettes in the glove compartment, touched the dangling key and started the car. As I drove past the policemen, they looked at me and then chuckled to themselves, nodding towards the woman in the back of my car.
I turned left on the road and decided that she was the sort who would like to go to Taxila. Indians loved that and they were good tippers. If I was lucky she might want to go to the ancient ruins of Katas. Then I thought, maybe she is a Sikh. She would no doubt want to see Panja Sahib in Hasan Abdal.