by Nick Louth
One young black man gave Cantara twenty pence then hung around and asked her for a date. Even after she refused, he still waited around for another quarter of an hour, making comments. Throughout the day, she was variously accused of being a scrounger, an asylum seeker, a stuck-up Paki cow (by the would-be boyfriend), a benefit cheat and an angel. This last was from an elderly lady, who noticed how wet Cantara was getting. She gave a pound from her purse in the collection box, and another ten pence directly to her ‘to get herself a nice cup of tea and sit down, somewhere warm.’ Mostly, though, Cantara was ignored: pushed past, blanked, treated as if she didn’t exist at all.
When they got back at seven, exhausted, the women all went into the musallah’s communal kitchen while Bram took away the buckets. There, in the steam of drying clothes and boiling water, they swapped stories of rudeness or empathy, generosity or meanness from the day’s work, as they prepared a giant curry. Soraya had left a large shoulder of lamb simmering in the oven since the morning, and to it were added cardamom, fried onions and garlic, toasted cumin seeds and a handful of beautiful mauve aubergines. Cantara washed and chopped vegetables, and cleaned huge bunches of coriander as a garnish. Zainab was in charge of the pilau rice, which she topped with grated coconut and banana. A few dishes were taken out to the men, but there was plenty left for the women as they squeezed around the kitchen table, and absorbed the warmth of the huge oven, human proximity and conversation, reaching across each other for naan breads and yoghurt, dal and condiments. It was a tangled, noisy, communal process that reminded Cantara of the best days at home in the camp.
The next day of fundraising was harder. Cantara and Zainab were in Harlesden, a much-more run-down area than the day before. They were shooed away from one mosque by a man who said he ‘knew their sort’, and said their money would end up in the hands of terrorists. They ended up at 5pm by a kebab shop frequented by Muslim men visiting a musallah across the road. They collected plenty of change, and after it began to rain were offered some free falafel by the owner. While Zainab went inside to collect it, Cantara stood outside, rattling her bucket and stamping her feet to restore her circulation. Today, she really appreciated Rifat’s comment that Britain was just many variations on too cold.
From nowhere someone pushed her over. The bucket was torn from her grasp, and she fell into an artificial potted palm tree outside the kebab shop door. Two rangy youths, one white, one black, both in hooded tops, baggy low-slung jeans and trainers sprinted away. They had with them the proceeds of an entire day’s work in the cold and wet. Cantara was furious. There were plenty of people in the street, but no-one moved to intervene. They just stood and stared, immobilised by the latent violence the two exuded.
Where the palm had been knocked over, dozens of pebble that were used to weight the pot spilled across the pavement. Cantara leapt to her feet, and grabbed a handful. The muggers were walking away now, thirty metres on. One had a congratulatory arm round the other, only occasionally glancing behind.
Cantara took a deep breath. This would be tough, and she was out of practice.
‘No!’ Zainab yelled, as she emerged from the shop. ‘They’ll come back for you.’
Cantara’s first shot fell well short, clanging off the side of a bus shelter. With her second stone, she took a step back and, whipping her forearm in a smooth low arc, flung it so fast it was invisible. Immediately the taller of the muggers yelled, then staggered and held the side of his head. The shorter one, the white guy with spiky ginger hair turned and flicked back his hood to look back at them. He bellowed expletives and murderous threats, a finger jabbing in the air, his neck muscles corded in fury.
Zainab started to turn back for the safety of the kebab shop.
‘Don’t run,’ said Cantara. ‘They need to see we are strong.’
The owner of the kebab shop was now with them, wielding the long carving knife that he used to slice doner. The white youth held the bucket high in the air to taunt them, and danced from one foot to the other, rattling the money. Cantara threw a third time, a fluid motion that gathered power from the large stone. It found its mark full in the white youth’s face. He let out a cry, dropped the bucket and, with his equally battered mate, ran rapidly away and up an alleyway.
‘My God, that was brilliant,’ said Zainab.
Cantara laughed. Like every Lebanese child she had learned how to throw hard and accurately. In the camps there is little else to do, and it is a vital skill, begun as soon as you can stand. At her eleven-year old best, and after hundreds of hours of practice, coached by her brother Hakim, she could reliably hit a can at fifty paces. Not just hit it, but smash it right off a wall. With him and other camp children at her side she had fought vicious wars against the Maronite Christian youngsters beyond the camps, who had taunted them for their poverty and for their faith. She had been bruised and cut many times in these endless and savage skirmishes. Cantara smiled to herself, and thought of her brother. He would have been so proud. It gilded an otherwise miserable, flat day.
Cantara and her fellow live-in students were among two dozen female day students at the musallah. Most were younger and shy, and clearly new to Britain. Two of the older ones wore the full niqab. The musallah’s resident imam, Dr. L.G.K. Khan, oversaw the Islamic learning programme. He was old and partially blind, but his milky eyes seemed to locate exactly those students who weren’t paying attention, or were passing notes. He had learned the entire Koran by heart, and recited great chunks in a nasal sing-song voice that irritated Cantara. She wanted to discuss the meaning behind the Koran, not parrot the words. But for many weeks there was nothing of this. Just rote study, and the repetitive chanting of various suras. Cantara and Zainab, who were of the same height and identical petite build, tried to fool the imam by swapping hijabs and seats during breaks, so the imam would call the wrong names. It didn’t work. Not even when on one day they swapped clothes entirely at lunch, with Zainab even wearing Cantara’s glasses. He clearly wasn’t as blind as he pretended to be.
However as the weeks went by they felt less need to challenge the boredom with such games. There were occasional guest attendances by outside teachers, a series of more challenging discussion groups on Islam in Britain led by Bram Malik, and even a female lecturer from Essex University who talked about women and Islam. The religion Cantara had grown up with seemed more coherent to her now than ever before.
As the days slid by, the feeling of community grew, as Cantara settled into the fixed rhythm of the musallah. Prayers, lessons, cleaning work, fundraising days, all of which was leavened by the proximity to the other women. It served to offset the rules and rigidities: the difficulty getting cash, or permission to travel outside, a ban on mobile phones except in private rooms, the lack of a TV, the discouragement of Western music and magazines. Worst of all was the strictly limited Internet use. Only Bram had a personal Internet connection in his room, which he jealously guarded. Everyone else had to share a single socket in a rather public cubbyhole right outside the imam’s office, all to be booked in advance in ten minute slots with the dreadful Mrs Ghat.
For all that there were subtle, almost monastic pleasures. One was the women’s prayer room, another the small library. It was a delight to read in the beams of the afternoon light that filtered through the library’s Victorian stained-glass window, and hear the gentle and rhythmic sound of prayers wafting through the rambling halls and corridors. These all combined to make her feel more relaxed and comfortable. She was praying regularly, eating simply, dressing simply and sleeping better. Getting the new mobile phone meant she would no longer have to worry about Chris Wyrecliffe trying to contact her. She had set up a new e-mail address too, as Bram had suggested, though she had barely had the opportunity to use it. That had been a definite break. Some of her college friends fell by the wayside. She felt her circle of friends contracting but deepening. Zainab, Rifat and a couple of the other students on the course were perhaps a smaller circle, but were more in tune with he
r rebirth into Islam. She started being asked to run errands, usually for Bram. She enjoyed these as they were a rare chance to go outside, to walk in the open, or take a bus. Dr Khan repeatedly emphasised that fostering the true path of Islam in the heart of a city of unbelief requires self-discipline, screening the soul from the chaos of material desire that London represented.
Most of the errands were simple: a mobile phone top-up, newspapers, stamps and quite often a new pay-as-you go phone. Bram required a surprisingly large number of these. He listed the stores she should buy from, rarely the same one twice. Cigarettes too, were needed, and Bram always made sure that she always got a packet of her own as commission. Between the prayers, the three days per week spent fundraising, and the chores around the musallah and her own studies she didn’t have much free time. She spent most of that chatting and drinking tea with the other women, particularly Zainab.
One rainy Tuesday, Bram came to see her. He told her that they thought they would be able to sort out her visa problems for her, so long as she signed up for the full Islamic study course. He said this would classify as full time education and take three years, so the immigration authorities would be off her back. Given her previous breaches, she might have to go to an immigration tribunal eventually to get her visa reinstated. She would certainly have to show six solid months of study as evidence of this. Would she be willing to do this?
‘Definitely,’ Cantara said. ‘I don’t want to dodge the authorities if I don’t have to.’
‘The course would cost a few hundred pounds, of course. But we can loan that to you,’ Bram said.
‘How can I earn money to repay it?’ she asked.
‘Oh, we’ll find you some jobs that you’ll get paid for,’ he said, rubbing his stubble reflectively.
Chapter Twenty
Cantara felt at home in the musallah, and for the first time in her life she felt part of a community which had joy at its centre, not pain. She had a new roommate too, in Zainab Picho. She was an Islamic enthusiast, the only Muslim that Cantara had ever met who never missed any of the five elements of the daily salat prayers, even Fajr that fell before dawn. Cantara, who hadn’t previously been diligent about Fajr started to join Zainab when she heard her muttered prayers in the middle of the night.
‘There’s this thing about Islam,’ Zainab said. ‘It is a religion that really requires some effort and commitment from you as an individual. That’s why the West fears it. Islam will undermine not only the weak social religions of the West, but capitalism. There’s no interest payment allowed in Sharia law. Imagine that?’ She giggled. ‘Where are the fat cats going to make their money?’ Cantara found some of Zainab’s ideas scatty, but she was entertaining, and warm. She had arrived in Islam after being a communist, then an anarchist and, briefly, a feminist lesbian punk. ‘I’m still a feminist, but I love my hijab because I choose to wear it. No one else chooses it for me, I choose it,’ she said.
Zainab had been christened Pamela Hargreaves and grown up with two boisterous brothers in Thackley, a well-to-do area of Bradford. But her family, previously tight-knit, now disowned her because of her marriage. She was married to a Pakistani, who she called Jam, short for Jamal. They had a son now three, who stayed with her mother-in-law in Oldham. She never saw her husband now, and wasn’t even able to see her son very much. Cantara asked why.
‘It’s complicated,’ Zainab said, her blue eyes shiny with tears. She got out her mobile and showed the screen to Cantara. ‘Look, isn’t he just gorgeous?’
Cantara looked at pictures of the boy, a grinning, impish blond called Harry, though Zainab explained his real name was Haroun. Cantara thought he was lovely, and felt a little kick of envy. There were pictures of Zainab helping Harry to blow out the candles on a birthday cake, one of them playing football in a park, and a very endearing one of him hugging his mother outside the entrance to the Legoland theme park in Windsor. Cantara asked if she had a photograph of Jamal.
Zainab worked the phone, and showed Cantara a picture of her with him. ‘This was taken five years ago.’ Jam was a tall, gaunt man of perhaps thirty-five in a leather jacket and white shirt. Zainab looked little more than a teenager, much slimmer than now, and with a huge mass of dyed blonde hair.
‘What happened between you two?’ Cantara asked. ‘Aren’t you together anymore?’
Zainab sighed. ‘Jamal has been locked up in Jordan for the last three years, imprisoned without charge.’
‘Why?’ Cantara asked.
‘You know what the Middle East is like. Allegations made without substance, lack of rights. No access for family.’
‘That’s awful!’
‘He’s never even seen his son. Not even a photograph.’
‘Can’t Britain get him out?’
‘He’s not a British citizen. His residency hadn’t come through. We’re relying on the Pakistani consular people, who are frankly useless. They can’t even get my letters through to him. All I can do is to pray that one day he will be brought back to me.’
Zainab described how Jamal was held in a high security facility, far out into the desert, for high risk prisoners. He had reported being badly beaten up on a couple of occasions according to a consular official who had managed to see him, but Zainab herself had not been able to get permission to visit. ‘I miss him so much,’ she said. ‘I’d love for him just to be able to see that he has a son.’
Not able to hold that lovely little boy. How sad, Cantara thought.
* * *
Irfan Tiwana never made inflammatory speeches. Not any more. Back in 2005 he’d publically made some stupid remarks. It was only three months after the 7th July London bombings, when an Islamist cell had killed fifty-two people. They had used rucksacks filled with homemade explosive on the London Underground and on a bus. He should have been careful about what he said. He should have been extremely careful. But when he had addressed three private meetings, in mosques in Blackburn, in East London and in Birmingham, he had talked about feeling ‘a well of sympathy’ with some of the frustrations of those young radicalised Muslims. Then he went just a step further and said he too was ‘exploding with rage.’ Of course it went down well with the audiences, but he should have anticipated that even private meetings, not just open prayer sessions, would now be infiltrated.
The first hint that he was being watched was when his name appeared in the Daily Mail a week after the last meeting. Under the headline ‘The Halal Hatemonger’, they had pictured him eating, with some juice dribbling down his chin. It made him look obese and repulsive. That picture was two years old. He recognised the restaurant in Leicester where it must have been taken, but had no idea who had taken it or how the newspaper had got hold of it. The police and the security services, twitchy about accusations of being asleep to the threat of terror, would doubtless be homing in on him now. He just hoped he was well down their list. That list would contain thousands of British Muslims who have been suspected of flirting with or supporting terrorism. He didn’t want to be on that list, but there was little he could do about it now, except to give the impression that he wanted nothing to do with extremism or jihadis, and to spend plenty of time with the mainstream British Muslims who had given up trying to right the wrongs imposed upon them. The irony, and he presumed that the security services would be well aware of it, was that suddenly ceasing high profile calls for jihad would be precisely what those who had decided to pursue acts of terrorism would be likely to do. So the important thing for him was to have a firewall between himself, a high-profile ‘troublemaker’, as he had been labelled in the Daily Telegraph, and those who would actually do the work of fighting back against the West.
That was why he was so interested to hear about Cantara. Something about her background and attitude intrigued him. Something about her open-mindedness. Most potential new recruits emitted such a radioactive wave of Islamic zeal and righteous anger, that they were dangerous to be near. Particularly for him, particularly now. A dozen bearded loudmo
uths banging on about jihad might be useful in Pakistan, but here they would just draw unwelcome attention. He now worked to keep his distance from them. But women were different. There were few enough female recruits, and they were less visible, more intelligent and subtle for the tasks he had in mind. Important tasks that required a softly, softly approach.
* * *
About two weeks after Zainab moved in, Cantara awoke from a dream. The details were elusive, but she felt ashamed and upset. A few minutes later, she felt Zainab sitting at the edge of her bed. ‘Are you alright, duck?’ she said. ‘You’ve been crying.’
Cantara apologised, and took the tissue that Zainab offered to wipe her eyes. Zainab’s hair, normally held fast with a slide under her hijab, was a mass of curls above her mauve pyjamas. The warmth of her body next to Cantara was comforting.
‘What was upsetting you?’
‘Something horrible happened to me last November. Someone I trusted took advantage of me, and hurt me,’ Cantara blurted out. ‘I’ve never told anyone about it. I’ve been too ashamed.’
‘You shouldn’t be ashamed of something that was done to you,’ Zainab said. ‘Who was he? I take it was a man?’
Cantara started to cry. ‘I loved him, and wanted him to make love to me. It was my first time. But though he started gentle, he suddenly changed. He was so horrible, so brutal, as if he wanted to make me suffer. I cried for him to stop, but he didn’t.’