‘Listen to him now as he tells us how and why he became a convert. Listen to his story, and profit by it. And afterwards we will take questions from the floor.’
Here Mr Malik stepped back with a flourish, and Robert found he was walking out in front of the whole school, his heart thumping, his mind a complete blank.
‘I became a Muslim,’ he said, ‘at four-thirty on Wednesday the twenty-third of July. On Wimbledon Station.’
This, thought Robert, had the right ring to it. It sounded concrete, authentic.
‘I had never, in my life, up to that point, met a Muslim. I had never even seen a Muslim – apart, of course, from on the television, and the ones I had seen there – I will be absolutely frank – did not seem a particularly inspiring bunch!’
Mr Malik seemed to like this. The headmaster smirked to himself, chuckled, and drew the edge of his right hand carefully along his moustache.
‘Colonel Gaddafi, for example – an obvious loony if ever I saw one. Saddam Hussein, for example, and his Ba’ath Party – a man, I will be absolutely frank, I would probably cross the street to avoid.’
Sheikh was looking at him intently. The little boy’s chin was cupped in his hands. He was wearing, as were all the boys, the school uniform designed by Mr Malik himself – grey jersey, grey trousers, black shoes, and bright green tie and socks. He must get off the subject of Saddam Hussein, thought Robert.
‘Ayatollah Khomeini, for example,’ he heard himself saying, ‘was a complete . . .’ He managed to head this sentence off its track just in time. ‘. . . mullah. He was in every sense a man of the cloth. Whereas Yasser Arafat . . . er . . . for example—’
Here he caught sight of Aziz the janitor, who was standing at the back of the hall with his mop and bucket. He seemed to have decided that now was the right time to clean the Great Hall floor and was poking the mop head in among the boys’ legs, muttering to himself.
‘. . . who bears a close resemblance to our school janitor, Aziz – although, as far as I know, Aziz does not wander around with a tea towel on his head organizing terrorist attacks – Yasser Arafat—’
How had he got on to the subject of Yasser Arafat? Why had he got on to the subject of Yasser Arafat? How could he leave the subject of Yasser Arafat?
‘. . . is the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.’
This was safe ground. They couldn’t be expected to argue with that. Islam, as far as he was aware, had no objections to a man stating the obvious.
‘The Palestinian Liberation Organization was founded, after the Second World War, with the intention of liberating Palestine. As we all know.’
This was all right as far as it went. But Dr Ali was looking restless. His head snaked forward. Over his not entirely clean white collar you could see his Adam’s apple thumping. Robert tried to concentrate on a spot just above the doctor’s head. He fixed his mind on a rule his father had given him for public speaking: Get a vague plan and then say anything that comes into your head. But no words would come. What they wanted to hear was why he had become a Muslim. And he simply could not think of anything that might have made him become a Muslim.
‘I can hardly believe,’ he found himself saying, ‘that someone like me could have become an . . . er . . . Muslim. Because quite a lot of Islam is, frankly to me . . . er . . . well gobbledygook!’
Dr Ali, his chin in his hands, was staring at Robert. His lips seemed to be mouthing something, but Robert could not make out what it was. He looked as if he was reciting some charm to ward off evil spirits.
‘Take the Koran, for example,’ went on Robert. ‘Take it. You know? Get it out and take a close look at it. I have to say that from my point of view – and this is only my point of view – it is not a page-turner. It just isn’t. It is obviously a very popular book and, according to my edition, has sold millions of copies worldwide – as has Enid Blyton, for example – but . . .’
This was the wrong direction. He must get off the subject of the Koran. And why was he mentioning Enid Blyton? He must get off the subject of anything controversial. But every single thing to do with being a Muslim seemed quite incredibly controversial. Why had he become a Muslim? Why hadn’t he become a Sikh or a Hasidic Jew?
‘Why,’ he went on, ‘didn’t I become a Sikh or a Hasidic Jew? I mean, it is possible that their . . . er . . . holy books are a less tough read than the . . . er . . . Koran.’
Dr Ali had put both his index fingers in his ears and was rocking backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked like an airline passenger who has just been told that all four engines on his 747 have just failed.
‘Take,’ went on Robert, ‘the chapter called “The Bee”. For the first four or five pages there is absolutely no mention of a bee. In fact it seems to talk about almost every kind of animal there is apart from the bee, and, for someone like myself, a total newcomer to Islam, this is, I have to say in all honesty, deeply confusing. I mean, you know, why not call it “The Ant”? Or “The Porcupine”? Or “The Frog”? You know?’
Some boys in the front row laughed. Dr Ali increased the rocking movement until the point where his forward movement was critical. Suddenly the mathematics master was on his feet. He was pointing at Robert and yelling something that sounded like Arabic but turned out to be very emotional English. ‘I cannot listen to this!’ yelled Dr Ali. ‘I cannot allow this to continue!’
Mr Malik turned sharply to his second master. ‘Wilson is simply expressing the doubts and fears of a new—’
But Dr Ali did not listen. He raised his right hand and threw a quivering index finger in Robert’s direction. ‘This man,’ he said, ‘is a blasphemer and a hypocrite! I have been watching him for some weeks, and I accuse him publicly – before the whole school!’
Robert started to shake. ‘I don’t think—’ he began.
‘Did you or did you not read this book to the reception class?’ yelled Ali. He produced from under his jacket a small paperback book which he waved in the air, furiously. ‘A book, gentlemen, which will make you physically ill should you even catch sight of it in Waterstones! A book which has as its hero – as its hero—’
He held the book out between finger and thumb as if it contained some dangerous virus which at any moment could threaten the whole school.
‘. . . a pig! A pig is the hero of this book! The Sheep-Pig, by Dick King-Smith! And this is not all!’
Mr Malik, too, was on his feet, waving his arms. ‘My dear Ali,’ he was saying, ‘our religion forbids us to eat pigs. It doesn’t prohibit us from talking about them. May I remind you that—’
Robert had read The Sheep-Pig to Class 1. He had, on rainy afternoons, read quite a lot of books about pigs to them.
‘The Tale of Pigling Bland,’ Dr Ali was yelling, ‘by the woman Potter! Horace: the Story of a Pig, by Jane DuCane Smith. Pigs Ahoy!, by Harts Wilhelm. Pig Time, by Duncan Fowler and Norman Bates. Don’t Forget the Bacon!, by Pat Hutchins. The man is obsessed with pigs!’
It was true that Robert had always liked pigs. But no one in Class 1 had seemed unduly disturbed by his account of them, even if the Husayn twins had said that pigs were ‘boring’ and had asked if they could bring in the novelization of Terminator Two.
Dr Ali was now incoherent with rage. He looked, thought Robert, like something out of one of his own visions. Whirling round on his toes, he kept stabbing towards his fellow member of staff with his long, bony fingers. But it wasn’t until Robert thought he recognized a familiar English word that he leaned across to the headmaster to check if he had heard it correctly.
‘I think,’ said Mr Malik, cheerfully, ‘he is sentencing you to death.’ He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. ‘Apparently,’ he went on, ‘he does this quite a lot. I have been researching into his background, and apparently he is a member of an organizaation known as the British Mission for Islamic Purity. We must endeavour to rise above, Wilson. Rise above!’
But the mathematics master, now dribbling free
ly, his face contorted with hatred, continued to dance from foot to foot, watched impassively by the ninety or so young British citizens of the Wimbledon Islamic Day School (Independent Boys’).
Mr Malik put his arm round Robert and continued to watch this display with apparent unconcern. He beamed again as Ali, practically choking on his own saliva, fell forward into a group of pupils.
He was practically laughing out loud as Ali reached critical mass. Foaming at the mouth, the maths master, now on his knees, raised both hands above his head and shook them violently. He was screeching, sobbing and wailing with the aplomb of a professional mourner and it wasn’t always easy to understand what he was saying. But the gist of it seemed to be that there should be an early, and preferably unpleasant, end to the miserable life of the blasphemer and pig-fancier, Wilson.
PART THREE
13
Islamic time seemed to pass more quickly. Christmas had only just gone, and now the mornings were bright. On longer evenings the sound of wood against leather could be heard in the garden behind the large house.
‘You’ll be late, darling,’ called Mrs Wilson. ‘You don’t want to be late, do you? It’s Sports Day!’
Robert did, actually, quite want to be late. He had never found it easy to get up in the morning, and being under sentence of death did not make the prospect of a new day any more enticing.
Outside, April had come to Wimbledon. A blackbird was singing, carelessly, in the trees behind the house. A breeze stirred the curtains. On the chest of drawers in the corner of the room was Malik’s newsletter: SPRING NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC SCHOOL WIMBLEDON.
Admissions are up by 30 per cent and we are ahead of budget. The profit-sharing scheme is coming on line in June and we are already planning a follow-up to our successful Islamic Quiz Evening on March 12th. Well done, Mr Mafouz – we hope you enjoy the tickets for Les Miserables! Plans for the swimming-pool continue apace!
The swimming-pool was something of a disappointment. Rafiq had dug a twelve-foot hole at the bottom of the garden, and then, in the grip of one of his periodic fits of depression, had abandoned it to the spring rain.
‘You can do nothing with Rafiq during Ramadan,’ Mr Malik had said. ‘He just lies on his bed and thinks about having his end away!’
But, for the first time in his life, Robert felt part of a success. Every day a new parent would appear in Mr Malik’s office. And, so it was rumoured, ‘This is a Christian Country’ Gyles, of Cranborne Junior School, had privately denounced the headmaster’s operation as being ‘a bucket shop’. The inspector of schools had, however, described the operation as ‘offering an entirely new slant on the core curriculum’. They even had locks on the lavatory doors.
Islam had offered him a lot. Among the things it had offered him was Maisie. If it had not been for their long, soul-searching conversations about the Koran and the life of the Prophet, he would probably not, now, be sleeping with her. Next to him, she snored lightly. As he got out of bed, she moved. The top of her thigh just cleared the duvet. He gulped.
She was still convinced he was homosexual. They had been having sexual intercourse about three times a day, every day, for the last six weeks, but Maisie still maintained that Robert was faking it. His orgasms seemed to him to be perfectly genuine, but once Maisie had an idea in her head it proved difficult to shift. There were still moments when he worried about her attitude. Might Malik be something to do with it? Did Malik still suspect him of not being quite the full shilling as far as heterosexuality was concerned? Such ideas were hard to dispel.
At the mere thought of the word shift his penis leaped doggily to attention. Islamic underwear! he crooned to himself, as he groped for his grey jersey. It takes so long to get off! Her clothes, lying across the back of the bedroom chair, spread out in a black line towards the door. There was enough material there, thought Robert, reaching for his green tie, to shroud a fair-sized glasshouse in darkness. You could climb in there with her and still have room to conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Her garments were so large and flowing that a man could have pleasured her while she was waiting at a bus stop and no one would have been any the wiser.
‘We’ll be late, darling!’ he called, lightly. ‘Darling!’ She let him talk dirty whenever he felt like it!
She had been living with the Wilsons for nearly three months. Maisie’s father had died just after Christmas. He had been briefly but sincerely mourned. Her mother had surprised everyone by dying just as they were recovering from her husband’s death. She was helped into the gardens of paradise by a number 33 bus, which had reversed over her while trying to execute a three-point turn outside the Polka Theatre, but some people still claimed that her death was, in part anyway, due to a broken heart. ‘If she’d been herself,’ Maisie wailed to Robert, ‘she’d have looked.’
Maisie had been more affected by her mother’s death than most people thought possible. She had always referred to her as ‘the old bat’, or occasionally as ‘that hard bitch’. Mr and Mrs Wilson had been very sympathetic.
Maisie had moved out of her parents’ house and come to stay at the Wilsons’ shortly after her mother’s funeral, a multidenominational affair dominated by the headmaster of the Wimbledon Independent Islamic Boys’ School (Day). Mr Malik’s speech – described by one of Maisie’s mother’s oldest friends as ‘a masterpiece of bad taste’ – had dwelt, at great length, on the sexual prospects awaiting the Faithful in heaven. Maisie was no longer on speaking terms with any of her family ever since her stepbrother’s son had asked her where she had parked the camel and when she was going to be circumcised.
Robert struggled into his green socks. Mr Malik had insisted the staff also appear in uniform since early February, although Robert suspected this was only because he had a deal with the shop that supplied the ties and the socks. He had come to quite like the outfit. I will die with my boots on! It can’t be worse than Ramadan!
He shuddered slightly as he thought about Ramadan. Dr Ali had been particularly active during Ramadan. He kept leaping into the darkroom, created for the Photographic Society on the first floor, and claiming that he had heard the sound of munching.
It was surprising, really, that the only person in the school whom Dr Ali had sentenced to death should be Robert. Close examination of the man’s conversation suggested that no one in the Western world was safe. There was quite a lot of his conversation. Like the woman in the fairy story, once Ali started talking he did not stop.
There were, as far as Robert could tell, no other members of the British Mission for Islamic Purity, the organization the doctor claimed to represent. Ali had an aunt in Southfields, but, he told the headmaster, she was doomed to everlasting hellfire. The man was, as Dr Malik had pointed out to Robert, a fundamentalist’s fundamentalist. ‘As far as he is concerned,’ said the headmaster one evening in the Frog and Ferret, ‘there is Allah, there is Muhammad, and then there is him. What can you do with such people?’
Ali, it turned out, had been sentencing people to death for years. He had sentenced the owner of a garden centre in Morden to death when the man refused to take his Access card. He had sentenced the entire General Synod of the Church of England to death. He had sentenced over fifteen hundred journalists to death, including all of the staff of The London Programme. He had terrifyingly conservative views on the ordination of women.
The encouraging thing was that all the people he had sentenced were, so far at any rate, in good health. Some of them, as far as Robert could tell, were completely unaware that Dr Ahmed Ali had officially decreed they were no longer worthy to share the planet with him. Some of them seemed to have positively enjoyed the experience. One of them – the owner of a mobile whelk stall in South Wimbledon – had told the doctor that he could sentence him to death until he was blue in the face and that he, personally, could not give a flying fuck. This was more or less the view of the headmaster.
‘By all means sentence Wilson to death,’ Mr Malik had said. ‘By all means.
I think we should all start sentencing each other to death. It clears the air. Let’s “go for it”. Sentence me to death if it makes you feel better.’
Mr Malik’s tolerance was limitless. ‘I may have tried to keep the loonies out,’ he said, ‘but once they are in, they are in!’ The more eccentrically his maths master behaved, the more Malik was prepared to defend him. At half-term, Ali had offered ten pounds to any of ‘the proud Muslim people of South-West London’ who would be prepared to finish off Robert Wilson, but, even though he had raised this sum to twelve pounds fifty, there were, so far at any rate, no takers.
Robert’s real worry was that he could not understand what it was that had caused offence. If he had been able to understand that, he might at least have been able to formulate a coherent apology. It couldn’t have simply been his reading The Sheep-Pig to Class 1. Maybe the doctor had some inside information on him. Anyway, if he opened his mouth again, he thought glumly as he started down-stairs to breakfast, he would probably get into worse trouble. He had stayed clear of the subject of religion since Christmas.
If only he could manage to finish the Koran. He had made several attempts on it. He had tried saying it out loud. He had tried reading it on trains, in bed at night, and even, on one occasion, in the bath. He had tried starting in the middle and working backwards. He had tried starting at the end and flicking to the beginning. He had tried reading isolated pages – reading three pages, skipping three, and then reading four. He had tried it drunk and he had tried it sober. He had even tried starting at page I and working his way through to the end. None of these methods had worked. After a page, his eyes would wander away. After two pages, he would find himself, without quite knowing why or how he got there, making a cup of tea or watching the television. After three or four pages, he found himself wandering the streets or pacing anxiously through some park he didn’t even recognize, twitching and murmuring strangely to himself while mothers, at the sight of him, drew their children to them and stole softly away across the grass.
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