Babel

by Barry Maitland

  ‘What’ll happen to them?’ Briony demanded.

  ‘We’ll start with carrying an offensive weapon in a public place, and see where we go after that. It rather depends on you, and your other two friends.’

  ‘Yes, what about George!’ Fran cried. ‘What about George and Qasim!’

  ‘Qasim has a mobile phone,’ the pregnant girl said, and reeled off a number.

  Brock made her repeat it, dialling as she spoke. After several rings a hoarse voice said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is this Qasim Ali?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Who wants to know?’ This seemed to be Qasim’s habitual greeting.

  Brock offered the phone to the women in the back and Fran grabbed it. ‘Qasim? It’s Fran. Are you all right? Is George all right?’

  She listened anxiously for a moment, then said, ‘No, no, we’re safe. They were the police. We’re with them. We have to talk with them. We’re all fine. You’re sure about George?’

  Brock took back the phone and spoke to the café owner. It seemed that Qasim and George were only bruised from their fight, and were currently driving aimlessly through the South London streets trying to find the missing women. Brock told them to go home and wait for him to ring again, then turned and spoke quietly to Kathy. ‘Well, now, we’re almost in Dulwich. Where’s close, private and comfortable, where we can sit down with a nice cup of tea?’

  Kathy glanced over at him, eyebrow raised. ‘You’re not thinking . . . Warren Lane?’

  ‘It did cross my mind.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  Brock shrugged and checked his watch. ‘I’m sure it isn’t. But time may be short. And I very much want to hear what all this has to do with the deaths of Abu and Springer.’

  Kathy said nothing, but turned the car in the direction of Matcham High Street. Within ten minutes they were in the courtyard at Warren Lane. She parked under the horse chestnut tree near Brock’s house.

  Brock led the way to his front door, limping on his stick, and led the women inside.

  ‘Is this what they call a “safe house”?’ Briony asked. She seemed fascinated, scrutinising everything, the pile of mail waiting inside the front door, the titles on the spines of the books lining the upstairs landing, the computer in the living room.

  ‘Something like that,’ Brock grunted, lighting the gas fire and getting them seated in the armchairs around it.

  ‘Pretty classy,’ Briony said, studying the little Schwitters collage hanging in one corner. Her eyes were still red and puffy from the tears she had shed at the funeral, and her interest now seemed like a front.

  ‘Come and sit down, Briony,’ Brock told her. ‘You can make us some toast on the fire, OK?’

  He assembled food and tools, Kathy brought in a tray with the tea and they settled themselves, awkward at first, then gradually more relaxed and calm.

  ‘Well, let’s begin with your names,’ Brock suggested. ‘I know Briony. What about you two?’

  ‘I’m Fran Said, George is my husband.’

  ‘George Said,’ Brock said. ‘And he’s a friend of Qasim Ali’s, is he?’

  ‘They’re cousins. We live with them, in Chandler’s Yard. We’re all part of the same family, see?’ She took a bite of the slice of toast and honey that Briony handed her. She seemed hungry after all the drama.

  ‘I see.’ Brock frowned, tentative. ‘Forgive me for sounding personal, Fran, but you don’t look . . . well . . . Yemeni.’

  ‘My mum’s from Middlesex, and she says my dad was Irish, but I couldn’t say for sure.’ She said this with a note of defiance, then took another mouthful of toast.

  Brock didn’t pursue this, but turned to the pregnant girl. ‘And are you part of the Ali family too?’ he suggested gently, but from the way he said it Kathy guessed he already knew the answer.

  The girl lowered her eyes, and for a moment there was silence and her two friends paused in their chewing. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘My name is Nargis Manzoor.’

  ‘Ah yes. The missing daughter of the man who has the shop in Shadwell Road.’

  The girl nodded.

  Kathy said, ‘That was him, at the cemetery . . .’ but everyone else seemed perfectly aware of that.

  ‘How old are you, Nargis?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Seventeen,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ve heard a little of your story, but I’d like to hear it properly, from you.’

  Nargis took a deep breath, the oval of her face all that was visible of her in the black habit.

  ‘My dad is very old-fashioned,’ she began. ‘It’s not his fault. It’s just the way he is. He grew up in a place called Mirpur, in Kashmir, which is big on dust and religion and not much else. He followed his uncle out here in the seventies, and after a few years he went back and brought my mum out. She’s been here for twenty years, but she doesn’t speak any English. She doesn’t need to, ’cos she never goes outside. Dad takes care of everything. She might as well still be in Mirpur. What dad values more than anything is respect, from his family, and from the people he goes to mosque with and does business with.

  ‘At school I was good at maths, and at first dad was pleased, ’cos I could help him doing the books in the shop. I got good O levels, and I told him I wanted to become an accountant, or something like that in business. Maybe, if I was good enough at the maths, even an actuary. He didn’t like that. He told me that just wasn’t possible. I was a woman, so my future was to be someone’s wife. That above everything else. Meanwhile I was sixteen, and I wanted the same as all the other girls at school, a boyfriend and clothes and some fun. I was friends with one of the Ali girls from Chandler’s Yard, even though my dad said they were Shia rubbish, which I thought was stupid. Through her I met Qasim and their family, who I liked because they were Muslim but relaxed about it, and then George and Fran, who were at the university, and then Abu.

  ‘Abu and I became friends because of his computers and my maths. He helped me with my homework, and told me about what he did. He was very gentle and shy and I liked him a lot, although I knew he was too old for me—he was twenty-five then. Despite that, we fell in love. I was very innocent and knew nothing about sex really, and my ideas of love were very romantic and unrealistic.’

  Brock guessed she was repeating a phrase her father had used.

  ‘On my seventeenth birthday my dad told me he had something important to tell me. He said that someone had asked for my hand in marriage. I was surprised, but also thrilled. I thought Abu must have spoken to my father, and although the age difference might worry him, Abu was a devout Muslim boy, and I began to prepare what I would say to persuade him, like how we would wait until I was a bit older or something.

  ‘Only it wasn’t that at all. Apparently my dad was talking about one of my cousins in Mirpur, who I’d never heard of. He said that he was sending me and mum over there for a few months to meet our family there, and to prepare for my wedding. I tried to argue with him, but he wouldn’t listen. I asked him at least to delay the trip until I’d done my A levels, but he got angry then and told me I wouldn’t be doing any more exams, because there wasn’t any point.’

  Nargis paused to take a sip of tea. Although the youngest, it now seemed to Kathy that in some ways she appeared to be the most composed and perhaps the strongest of the three women. Briony had stopped toasting the bread slices in front of the hissing gas fire, their appetites gone as Nargis told her story.

  ‘So mum and I went to Kashmir. It was like going to the moon, honestly. After two months I was told to prepare myself for my wedding. I was given a present from my future husband, who I’d still not seen. This was a shalwar khameez and scarf embroidered with gold. It was very beautiful, but heavy and it scraped my skin. The wedding ceremony lasted all day, and throughout I had to keep my eyes on the floor and wasn’t allowed to look at my husband who sat beside me, and the heavy veil and jewellery stopped me when I tried. In the evening I was taken to my husband’s house, and when the last of the guests left th
e other women led me into the bedroom, where I put on pyjamas and sat and waited. Eventually this man came into the room. He had grey hair . . .’ she glanced apologetically at Brock, ‘. . . and was quite fat and old. He told me that he was my husband. When I said that I didn’t want to sleep with him he beat me up and forced himself on me.’

  Briony had folded her arms tight round her chest and sat forward, hunched, frowning angrily. Fran was expressionless.

  ‘Later, I told my mother, and she said that it was for a husband and wife to work out how they would live. She said that dad would often take his hand to her, and she accepted his punishment as just.

  ‘My husband now began to make preparations for us to return to the UK, which for him and my father was the main point of our marriage, and about three months after the wedding we travelled to Islamabad for him to get papers and travel documents. There we discovered a problem with my British passport, which had expired, and me and mum had to fly home immediately, before my husband had got clearance. He saw us off at the airport like a devoted husband, promising me a wonderful married life in London with no more beatings. He emphasised that it was essential that my father immediately take charge of the documents that he gave my mother, so that dad could finalise my husband’s British passport application. On the flight home, when my mother fell asleep, I stole the documents from the envelope he had entrusted to her and replaced them with the in-flight magazine. I was sorry to do this, because I knew my father would be very angry with her. He met us at Heathrow with a great welcome and drove us back to Shadwell Road, and that night I escaped from the house and ran down to Chandler’s Lane and begged Qasim and George and their family to take me in. They gave me a room next to Fran and George’s flat and I’ve been hiding there ever since.’

  All this time, Kathy thought, just fifty yards away from her father. Nargis lapsed into silence, head bowed. Eventually Brock prompted, ‘How long ago was it that you returned to London?’

  Kathy had been wanting to ask the same question, calculating the time when she must have become pregnant.

  ‘Last September,’ she said.

  ‘And your father has been searching for you ever since?’

  She nodded. ‘He was very angry of course. I had disgraced him in the eyes of the world and his family, and he felt humiliated. He searched for me everywhere, him and my uncles, and he went to the police. He even offered a reward for anyone who would betray me to him. Two thousand quid.’

  ‘And your husband,’ Brock asked, ‘is he over here now?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think things went wrong for him because I had the papers he needed. But I think he’ll get a second chance. I’ve heard that my father has announced that he is engaged to my sister Yasmin, who is fourteen.’

  ‘Do they know about your baby?’

  Nargis shook her head, folding her arms across her tummy. ‘You want to know about Abu?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It wasn’t long before I met him again in Chandler’s Yard. He would often come to the Horria to eat, and he was almost like part of their family. At first it felt very awkward seeing him again after what had happened, and me being pregnant, but he didn’t seem to mind. After I’d been there a little while I decided to try to finish my A levels and he encouraged me. I started a correspondence course, and he became sort of my tutor.’

  Kathy remembered the unlived-in atmosphere of Abu’s spartan room at the university, and her feeling that he had really lived somewhere else.

  Brock said, ‘I understand that your father told the police that you had been abducted by a man.’

  ‘Yes. He had to say that so the magistrate would issue a warrant.’

  ‘But did he believe it himself?’

  ‘Yes, he did. People told him that I had had a boyfriend before I went to Mirpur, an older man, and he became convinced that this man must have helped me to run away and stay hidden. He and my uncle asked questions everywhere about this man, but nobody outside of Chandler’s Yard knew about me and Abu.’

  ‘Then how did he know to come to Abu’s funeral today?’

  Nargis shook her head in despair. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Someone must have told him,’ Brock insisted. ‘Someone must have decided that they’d collect the two thousand.’

  Nargis bowed her head and began to weep. Brock looked in turn at the other women, but each seemed lost in her own thoughts. He glanced at Kathy, then got to his feet with a grunt and limped over to the long bench that ran along one wall of the room and reached to a row of reference books on a shelf above. Kathy gathered the plates onto the tray and carried it out to the kitchen.

  After a few minutes she heard someone pad in behind her. Fran had brought in the jar of honey and packet of sliced bread. She was the enigmatic one, Kathy thought, and was pleased that it was her.

  ‘Thanks.’ Kathy wiped off some plates in the sink. ‘Poor Nargis. She’s very lucky to have friends like you. It makes all the difference.’

  ‘They’re not all like her dad,’ Fran said defensively. ‘Muslims I mean.’

  ‘No, of course not . . .’

  ‘He’s just very traditional, from a place where life is hard. He can’t help it.’

  ‘So you married a Muslim too, Fran?’

  She didn’t reply and Kathy thought she’d been too direct. Then the woman said, ‘Yeah. I suppose I’ve done the opposite of Nargis, and we’ve both ended up in the same place. Funny, init?’

  Fran got a drying cloth and began to take the plates Kathy was stacking on the draining board. Leaving home and coming to UCLE had been traumatic for her, she explained. An eldest daughter, like Nargis, she had helped her mother, a single parent, raise her three brothers. At university she couldn’t identify with the other girls who just wanted to party and have a good time with boys, and the boys who were only interested in getting pissed and screwing the girls. She became friends with a Muslim girl from the East End and their family, and began to go to classes in the Qur’an. Before the end of her first year she went home and told her mother that she wanted to convert to Islam. Her mum was horrified, and threw her out when she insisted on wearing the chador to go out to the shops. When she returned to London her Muslim girlfriend said that her family would like Fran to meet her cousin George. She realised that they were arranging a marriage, but she didn’t mind. George turned out to be a very nice young man, very hard working and serious. Fran felt very secure in her marriage, because she knew George was devout and wouldn’t drink alcohol or gamble or look at another woman.

  ‘I suppose,’ she added, still defensive, ‘you’d say I was just reacting to the way I was brought up, with a new “uncle” in the house every six months, and Mum getting pissed and slapped around.’

  Kathy thought about that, then said, ‘It sounds to me as if George and his family are good people, Fran. I think it sounds as if both you and Nargis have been lucky to find them.’

  Fran nodded. ‘Yeah. And I reckon it would have worked out for Nargis and Abu too, even with the baby, if people had left them alone. I still can’t believe that Abu hurt anybody. He just wasn’t like that. Qasim used to say he was too gentle for his own good. If he really did do it, then someone else must have made him.’

  ‘How could they do that? And who would want to?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he was conned. Maybe they told him the gun was loaded with blanks.’

  In the living room, Brock was thumbing through an old, well-used copy of Butterworth’s Police Law when Briony sidled up alongside, scanning his reference shelf.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he muttered, ‘but without offence to our Muslim friends, I always took it to be an absolute tradition to have at least one stiff drink after a funeral, and today I’ve been to two. Where do you stand on that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink,’ she said.

  ‘Fine.’ He reached under the bench, producing a couple of glasses and a bottle of whisky. ‘I notic
ed that Professor Springer favoured Scotch. With water?’

  ‘He drank it neat, but I like mine with water.’

  ‘I’ll get some.’

  He heard Kathy deep in conversation with Fran in the kitchen and went instead to the bathroom, returning with a small jug of water that he splashed into each glass. ‘Cheers.’

  She gulped, giving no reply, then pointed at one of the books on the shelf. It was one of Springer’s books that Kathy had got for him.

  ‘You’re reading Max?’

  ‘Trying to. Haven’t got to that one yet. I’m afraid I’m finding them tough going.’

  ‘Try it,’ she said peremptorily, jutting her chin at the book.

  ‘A Man in Dark Times,’ Brock read the title. ‘That one’s easier, is it?’

  ‘Probably. It’s his autobiography, written just after his wife died, so it’s a bit gloomy in parts. But moving too. His experiences in the camps for instance.’

  Brock frowned, puzzled. ‘I thought it was his parents who were in the camps . . .’

  ‘Not in Germany—in Lebanon. He understood, you see? He experienced it. It gave him the right to talk about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the struggle between truth and freedom.’

  Brock sipped his drink, none the wiser. ‘You haven’t told us how you fit into all this, Briony. How come you know these people?’

  ‘I met George at uni, and through him I met Fran and Nargis and Abu.’

  ‘That puts you in a rather special position, doesn’t it? You must be one of the few people who knew both Max and his killer.’

  She flinched at the word and glared at him. ‘I still don’t accept that Abu did it,’ she hissed fiercely, keeping her voice low so that Nargis wouldn’t hear.