The Buddha of Suburbia

by Hanif Kureishi

  The attack on Changez angered me, and I asked Jamila if I could do anything. Yes; these attacks were happening all the time. I should come with Jamila and her friends on a march the following Saturday. The National Front were parading through a nearby Asian district. There would be a fascist rally in the Town Hall; Asian shops would be attacked and lives threatened. Local people were scared. We couldn’t stop it: we could only march and make our voices heard. I said I’d be there.

  I hadn’t been sleeping with Eleanor more than once a week recently. Nothing had been said, but she’d cooled towards me. I wasn’t alarmed; after rehearsing I liked to go home and be frightened alone. I prepared myself for the opening by walking around the flat as Changez, not caricaturing him but getting behind his peculiar eyeballs. Robert de Niro would have been proud of me.

  I took it for granted that Eleanor spent the evenings at parties with her friends. She often invited me, too, but I’d noticed that after a couple of hours with her crowd I felt heavy and listless, life had offered these people its lips, but as they dragged from party to party, seeing the same faces and saying the same things night after night, I saw it was the kiss of death; I saw how much was enervated and useless in them. What passion or desire or hunger did they have as they lounged in their London living rooms? I told my political adviser, Sergeant Monty, that the ruling class weren’t worth hating. He disagreed. ‘Their complacency makes them worse,’ he argued.

  When I rang Eleanor and told her we should join the others in confronting the fascists, her attitude was strange, especially considering what had happened to Gene. She vacillated all over the place. On the one hand there was this shopping to do in Sainsbur’s; on the other hand there was that person to visit in hospital. ‘I’ll see you at the demo, love,’ she concluded. ‘My head’s a little messed up.’ I put the phone down.

  I knew what to do. I was supposed to be meeting Jamila, Changez, Simon, Sophie and the others at the house that morning. So what? I’d be late. I wouldn’t miss the march; I’d just go straight there.

  I waited an hour and caught the tube northwards, towards Pyke’s. I went into the front garden of the house opposite his, sat down on a log and watched Pyke’s house through a hole in the hedge. Time passed. It was getting late. I’d have to take a cab to the march. That would be OK, as long as Jamila didn’t catch me getting out of a taxi. After three hours of waiting I saw Eleanor approach Pyke’s house. What a genius I was: how right I’d been! Eleanor rang the bell and Pyke answered immediately. Not a kiss, or a stroke, or a smile – only the door shutting behind her. Then nothing. What did I expect? I stared at the closed door. What was I to do? This was something I hadn’t thought about. The march and demonstration would be in full swing. Perhaps Pyke and Eleanor would be going on it. I’d wait for them; maybe declare myself, say I was passing, and get a lift to the march with them.

  I waited another three hours. They must have been having a late lunch. It started to get dark. When Eleanor emerged I followed her to the tube and got into the carriage behind her, sitting opposite her in the train. She looked pretty surprised when she glanced up and saw me sitting there. ‘What are you doing on the Bakerloo Line?’ she asked.

  Well, I wasn’t in a defensive mood. I went and sat right next to her. Straight out, I asked her what she’d been doing at Pyke’s, instead of throwing her body in front of fascists.

  She threw back her hair, looked around the train as if for an escape and said she could say the same about me. She wouldn’t look at me, but she wasn’t defensive. ‘Pyke attracts me,’ she said. ‘He’s an exciting man. You may not have noticed, but there’s so few of those around.’

  ‘Will you carry on sleeping with him?’

  ‘Yes, yes, whenever he asks me.’

  ‘How long’s it been going on?’

  ‘Since that time … since that time we went over there for supper and you and Pyke did that stuff to each other.’

  She rested her cheek against mine. The sweetness of her skin and entire aroma practically made me pass out.

  ‘Oh, love,’ I said.

  She said, ‘I want you to be with me, Karim, and I’ve done a lot for you. But I can’t have people – men – telling me what to do. If Pyke wants me to be with him, then I must follow my desire. There’s so much for him to teach me. And please, please, don’t ever follow me around again.’

  The doors of the train were closing, but I managed to nip through them. As I walked up the platform I resolved to break with Eleanor. I would have to see her every day at the theatre, but I’d never address her as a lover again. It was over, then, my first real love affair. There would be others. She preferred Pyke. Sweet Gene, her black lover, London’s best mime, who emptied bed-pans in hospital soaps, killed himself because every day, by a look, a remark, an attitude, the English told him they hated him; they never let him forget they thought him a nigger, a slave, a lower being. And we pursued English roses as we pursued England; by possessing these prizes, this kindness and beauty, we stared defiantly into the eye of the Empire and all its self-regard – into the eye of Hairy Back, into the eye of the Great Fucking Dane. We became part of England and yet proudly stood outside it. But to be truly free we had to free ourselves of all bitterness and resentment, too. How was this possible when bitterness and resentment were generated afresh every day?

  I’d send Eleanor a dignified note. Then I’d have to fall out of love with her. That was the rough part. Everything in life is organized around people falling in love with each other. Falling is easy; but no one tells you how to fall out of love. I didn’t know where to begin.

  For the rest of the day I wandered around Soho and sat through about ten porn films. For a week after that I must have gone into some kind of weird depression and sulk and social incapacity, because I cared nothing for what should have been the greatest evening of my life – the opening of the play.

  In these days before the opening I didn’t talk to the other actors. The intimacy Pyke had engendered now seemed like a drug which had temporarily given us the impression of affection and support but had now worn off, returning only in occasional flashbacks, like LSD. I took direction from Pyke but I didn’t get in his car again. I’d admired him so much, his talent, daring and freedom from convention, but now I was confused. Hadn’t he betrayed me? Or perhaps he was helping to educate me in the way the world worked. I didn’t know. Anyway, Eleanor must have told him what had happened between us because he kept away from me and was merely polite. Marlene wrote to me once, saying, ‘Where are you, sweetheart? Won’t you come see me again, sweet Karim?’ I didn’t reply. I was sick of theatre people and the whole play; I was turning numb. What happened to me didn’t seem to matter. Sometimes I felt angry, but most of the time I felt nothing; I’d never felt so much nothing before.

  The dressing rooms were full of flowers and cards, and there were more kisses in an hour than in the whole of Paris in a day. There were TV and radio interviews, and a journalist asked me what the main events of my life had been. I was photographed several times beside barbed-wire. (I noticed that photographers seemed to love barbed-wire.) I was living intensely in my mind, trying to keep my eyes off Eleanor, trying not to hate the other actors too much.

  Then, suddenly, this was it, the night of nights, and I was on stage alone in the full glare of the lights, with four hundred white English people looking at me. I do know that lines that sounded overfamiliar and meaningless to me, and came out of my mouth with all the resonance of, ‘Hallo, how are you today?’ were invested with life and meaning by the audience, so much so that the evening was a triumph and I was – I have this on good authority, that of the critics – hilarious and honest. At last.

  After the show I drank off a pint of Guinness in the dressing room and dragged myself out into the foyer. There I saw, right in front of me, a strange and unusual sight, especially as I’d invited no one to the opening.

  If I’d been in a film I would have rubbed my eyes to indicate that I didn’t believe
what I was seeing. Mum and Dad were talking to each other and smiling. It’s not what you expect of your parents. There, among the punk sophisticates and bow-ties and shiny shoes and bare-backed women, was Mum, wearing a blue and white dress, blue hat and brown sandals. Standing nearby was my brother, little Allie. All I could think was how small and shy my mum and dad looked, how grey-haired and fragile they were, and how the distance they were standing apart looked unnatural. You go all your life thinking of your parents as these crushing protective monsters with infinite power over you, and then there’s a day when you turn round, catch them unexpectedly, and they’re just weak, nervous people trying to get by with each other.

  Eva came over to me with a drink and said, ‘Yes, it’s a happy sight, isn’t it.’ Eva and I stood there together and she talked about the play. ‘It was about this country,’ she said. ‘About how callous and bereft of grace we’ve become. It blew away the self-myth of tolerant, decent England. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.That’s how I knew it was good. I judge all art by its effect on my neck.’

  ‘I’m glad it did that, Eva,’ I said. I could see she was in a bad state. I didn’t know what to say. Anyway, Shadwell was lurking nearby, waiting for her to finish with me. And all the time Eva’s eyes wouldn’t keep still – not that they ever moved anywhere near Mum and Dad, though that would be their natural resting place. There they would devour. When she turned back to Shadwell he smiled at me and started to speak. ‘I am ravished but resistant because …’ he began. I looked at Mum and Dad once more. ‘They still love each other, can’t you see that?’ I said to Eva. Or perhaps I didn’t say it; perhaps I just thought it. Sometimes you can’t tell when you’ve said something or just had it in your head.

  I moved away, and found Terry standing at the bar with a woman who didn’t look like the rest of the scented and parading first-nighters. Terry didn’t introduce me to her. He didn’t want to acknowledge her. He didn’t shake my hand. So she said, ‘I’m Yvonne, a friend of Matthew Pyke, and a police officer based in North London. Sergeant Monty and I’ – and she giggled – ‘were just discussing police procedures.’

  ‘Were you, Terry?’ I hadn’t seen Terry looking like this before, this upset; he kept shaking his head as if he had water in his ears. He wouldn’t look at me. I was worried about him. I touched the side of his head. ‘What’s wrong, Monty?’

  ‘Don’t call me that, you cunt. I’m not Monty. I am Terry and I am disturbed. I’ll tell you what it is. I wish it had been me on that stage. It could have been me. I deserved it, OK? But it was you. OK? So why am I playing a rucking policeman?’

  I moved away from him. He’d feel better tomorrow. But that wasn’t the end of it. ‘Hey, hey, where are you going?’ he said. He was following me. ‘There’s something for you to do,’ he said. ‘Will you do it? You said you would.’

  Forcibly, he led me to one side, away from everyone, so we wouldn’t be overheard. He held my arm. He was hurting me. My arm was going numb. I didn’t move away.

  ‘It’s now,’ he said. ‘We’re giving you the call.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ I said.

  ‘Not tonight? Why not tonight? What’s tonight to you? A big deal?’

  I shrugged. ‘All right.’

  I said I’d do it if I could. I knew what he was on about. I wasn’t about to be a coward. I knew who to hate. He said, ‘The Party requires funds right now. Go to two people and ask them for money.’

  ‘How much?’ I said.

  ‘We’ll leave that to you.’

  I sniggered. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Watch your mouth,’ he shouted. ‘Just watch all that fucking lip!’ Then he laughed and looked mockingly at me. This was a different Terry. ‘As much as you can get.’

  ‘So it’s a test?’

  ‘Hundreds,’ he said. ‘We want hundreds of pounds. Ask them. Push them. Rip them off. Steal their furniture. They can afford it. Get what you can. OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I walked away. I’d had enough. But he took my arm again, the same arm. ‘Where the fuck are you going now?’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Don’t bring me down.’

  He was angry, but I never got angry. I didn’t care what happened.

  ‘But how can you get the money if you don’t know the names of the parties involved?’

  ‘OK. What are the names?’ I asked.

  He jerked me around again until I was facing the wall. I could no longer see my parents; I could only see the wall and Terry. His teeth were clenched. ‘It’s class war,’ he said.

  ‘I know that.’

  His voice dropped. ‘Pyke is one. Eleanor is the other.’

  I was astonished. ‘But they’re my friends.’

  ‘Yeah, so they should be friendly.’

  ‘Terry, no.’

  ‘Yes, Karim.’

  He turned away and looked around the crowded restaurant area. ‘A nice bunch of people. Drink?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  I nodded.

  ‘See you then, Karim.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  We separated. I walked about. I knew a lot of people but I hardly recognized them. Unfortunately, within a minute, I found myself standing in front of the one person I wanted to avoid – Changez. There would be debts to pay now. I was for it. I’d been so nervous about this that a couple of days earlier I’d tried to stop him coming, saying to Jamila, ‘I don’t think Changez will enjoy this evening.’ ‘In that case I must bring him,’ she said, characteristically. Now Changez embraced me and slammed me on the back. ‘Very good plays and top playing,’ he said.

  I looked at him suspiciously. I didn’t feel at all well. I wanted to be somewhere else. I don’t know why, I felt this was some kind of snide trick. I was for it. They were out to get me tonight.

  ‘Yeah, you look happy, Changez. What’s brought on this ecstasy?’

  ‘But surely you will have guessed, my Jamila is expecting.’ I looked at him blankly. ‘We are having a baby.’

  ‘Your baby?’

  ‘You bloody fool, how could that be without sexual intercourse? You know very well I haven’t had the extent of that privilege.’

  ‘Exactly, dear Prudence. That’s what I thought.’

  ‘So by Simon she is expecting. But we will all share in it.’

  ‘A communal baby?’

  Changez grunted his agreement. ‘Belonging to the entire family of friends. I’ve never been so happy.’

  That was enough for me, thank you very much. I would piss off, go home. But before I could, Changez reached out his thick paw, the good hand. And I jumped back. Here we go, he’s going to smash me, I thought, a fellow Indian in the foyer of a white theatre!

  ‘Come a little closer, top actor,’ he said. ‘And listen to my criticism. I am glad in your part you kept it fundamentally autobiographical and didn’t try the leap of invention into my character. You realized clearly that I am not a person who could be successfully impersonated. Your word of honour is honourable after all. Good.’

  I was glad to see Jamila beside me; I hoped she’d change the subject. But who was that with her? Surely it was Simon? What had happened to his face? One of Simon’s eyes was bandaged; the cheek below it was dressed; and half his head was wrapped in lint. Jamila looked grave, even when I congratulated her twice on the baby. She just eyed me steadily, as if I were some kind of criminal rapist. What was her fucking problem, that’s what I wanted to know.

  ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘You weren’t there,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it. You just didn’t show up.’

  Where wasn’t I?

  ‘Where?’ I said.

  ‘Do I have to remind you? At the demonstration, Karim.’

  ‘I couldn’t make it, Jammie. I was rehearsing. How was it? I hear it was effective and everything.’

  ‘Other people from the cast of your play were there. Simon’s a friend of Tracey’s. She was there, right at the f
ront.’

  She looked at Simon. I looked at Simon. It was impossible to say what expression he had on his face, as so much of his face was a goner at the moment.

  ‘That’s how it was. A bottle in the face. Where are you going as a person, Karim?’

  ‘Over there,’ I said.

  I was leaving, I was getting out, when Mum came up to me. She smiled and I kissed her. ‘I love you so much,’ she said.

  ‘Wasn’t I good, eh, Mum?’

  ‘You weren’t in a loin-cloth as usual,’ she said. ‘At least they let you wear your own clothes. But you’re not an Indian. You’ve never been to India. You’d get diarrhoea the minute you stepped off that plane, I know you would.’

  ‘Why don’t you say it a bit louder,’ I said. ‘Aren’t I part Indian?’

  ‘What about me?’ Mum said. ‘Who gave birth to you? You’re an Englishman, I’m glad to say.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘I’m an actor. It’s a job.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘Be what you are.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  She looked across at Dad, who was now with Eva. Eva was talking angrily to him. Dad looked sheepish, but he took it; he didn’t answer back. He saw us and lowered his eyes. ‘She’s giving him a thick ear,’ Mum said. ‘Silly old cow – it’ll do no good with a stubborn arse like him.’

  ‘Go to the Ladies and blow your nose,’ I said.

  ‘I better,’ she said.

  At the door I stood on a chair and overlooked the crowd of potential skeletons. In eighty years the lot of us would be dead. We lived, having no choice, as if that were not so, as if we were not alone, as if there would not come a moment when each of us would see that our lives were over, that we were driving without brakes towards a brick wall. Eva and Dad were still talking; Ted and Jean were talking; Marlene and Tracey were talking; Changez and Simon and Allie were talking; and none of them had much need for me now. Out I went.

  In comparison with their fetid arses and poisonous talk, the night air was mild as milk. I opened my leather jacket and unbuttoned my fly and let my prick feel the wind. I walked towards the shitty river Thames, that tide of turds polluted with jerks who lived on boats and men who liked rowing. I got into this invigorating walking rhythm for a while, until I realized I was being followed by some kind of little creature whom I spotted a few yards behind me, walking calmly along with her hands in her pockets. I didn’t give a fuck.