“Musa, what are you doing here?” asked Khadija coming through the main door.
“I was supposed to meet Babarr. Why are you here?” asked Musa feeling distinctly uneasy.
“A girl rang me at my home and told me that she wished to convert to Islam. She asked if I could meet her here. She said Babarr had given her my number.”
“Armila,” Musa said to himself.
Hidden in a room at the far end of the Centre, Babarr, Armila, Suleiman and Shabnam stood around a table on which had been placed a speaker with a flashing red light.
“What makes you think it will work?” asked Suleiman.
“Khadija did. I went to one of her debates and she gave me the idea. Be quiet! Musa is saying something!”
“You’re upset. What is it?” asked Musa.
“Don’t you ever find such questions inappropriate?”
“Well no, not really. I’ve never really been a great one for propriety to be honest.”
“Does that make you feel proud?”
“No, not at all. But you’re evading the question. Why have you been crying?”
“How do you know I’ve been crying?”
“Your eyes are very expressive, Khadija, more expressive than most. That may be a side effect of having worn the veil for so long. Something is making you unhappy.”
Khadija made as if to say something but knowing that she might break down she remained silent, her turmoil perceptible.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude,” apologised Musa.
Khadija snorted “Of course you meant to intrude. That’s why you asked the question in the first place.”
“My apology was not meant to anger you. It was just meant to placate you.”
“That’s even worse. How many times a day do you apologise Musa? Do you never stop to think before you act or speak?”
“Not much. I can’t change the way I am and I don’t much want to. I prefer it this way. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Nobody does that anymore. What is not being said always has more potency than what is actually said. In our culture you have to learn to read the sub-text and I’ve never been any good at that.”
Khadija did not reply and guessing the reason for her silence Musa felt compassion for her.
“I know what’s the matter with you. It’s always the same isn’t it? No one can ever be free to make their own choices. We are all imprisoned by the same things. It doesn’t matter how much we know about Islam or how little. It doesn’t matter how much education we have or how little. The ache in your eyes is the same as the ache in my heart. You’re trapped and there’s no way out. No little door through which you can run and find the light. Do you remember the verse in Surah Hadid, the one before the last?”
Khadija nodded.
“Recite it,” he asked gently.
She shook her head.
“Please. Just this once!”
Khadija began to recite: “Believers, be mindful of God and have faith in His Messenger: He will give you a double share of His mercy.”
She hesitated and Musa saw that she was near to tears. He finished the verse for her: “He will provide a light to help you walk.”
He paused and then asked,” Where’s the mercy? Where’s the light? Isn’t it strange that people like us can’t see the light or feel the mercy any more than the rest? Sometimes you come to a point in life where you can’t see ahead and you need a light. But there is no light. And you feel so afraid. You want so badly to feel a blanket of mercy. But it doesn’t come does it?”
“It does come,” replied Khadija. “You just have to be patient.”
For the first time Musa smiled at her.
“How long can you be patient? How much of your life can you be expected to sacrifice in patience? There is a puzzle in all this, Khadija. What does each one of us deserve? Do you deserve what is happening to you?”
Khadija struggled.
“You’re scared aren’t you? Some bastard is doing this to you and there’s nowhere you can turn. It gets to you after a while doesn’t it? Endless patience but no reward. But the crazy thing is that it’s not patience. All you’re doing is tearing up the part of you that keeps hoping. If you lose that part, you won’t ever get it back. You will live a life of quiet desperation.” Those words of some American whose name he couldn’t recall had hit home when he had first read them and they did so now.
Khadija began to weep. Her body shook with fear.
Musa knelt down and stretched out his hand, tentatively.
Khadija saw his heart in his eyes.
“Take my hand. I’ll never let you go, Khadija.”
Khadija placed one hand in his and with the other she removed the veil from her face.
Musa saw her then: here was his dream.
A great cheer erupted. Babarr pounded the table and whooped and Armila and Shabnam hugged each other. Suleiman, full of joy for his brother, ran out of the room to find him. When he walked in on Musa and Khadija they were only momentarily surprised, aware that he must have been part of the plan. He laughed in delight at seeing Khadija unveiled and put his arm around his brother. “You fool. She was right in front of you the whole time.”
29
Dadaji lay on his bed with his arms folded across his stomach. The rays of a brilliant moon cut through the window and he smiled to see its beauty. Aboo came in and sat down by his side.
Without turning his head. Dadaji said, “Itrat, read the verse of light to me.”
Aboo took the Quran from the shelf and flipped through the pages until he came to the correct place. “‘God is the Light of the heavens and earth. His Light is like this: there is a niche, and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, a glass like a glittering star, fuelled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, whose oil almost gives light even when no fire touches it – light upon light – God guides whoever He will to his Light: God draws such comparisons for people. God has full knowledge of everything.’”
As Aboo read, Dadaji recalled a time when he had fallen under the sway of devotion through his holy friend. Their companionship was marked by a rivalry to outdo one another in prayer and remembrance of Allah. They would both arise before dawn and walk in silence to the mosque and there they would worship with all the zeal and vigour of one mired in filth seeking to cleanse himself. Then, when the darkness began to ebb away, they would walk in bashful bliss to the minaret and together they would watch the sun rise under the command of Allah and the awe of that moment would douse them with the awful nearness of the final day.
Dadaji knew that his holy friend was a disciple of Baba Pir-E-Shah Ghazi, the Great Sufi Saint of Mirpur, and when troubled or anxious he would make the journey to see him. Often he had asked his holy friend that he too be accepted as a disciple but the reply was always the same, “He will choose you, you cannot choose him.” So Dadaji waited.
Then his beloved wife Afiyah fell ill and the village doctor told him that her time had come. He and his children gathered around her bedside weeping and chanting prayers. He remembered her face, ashen and grey. He had been afraid then and he walked away lest his terror unman him in front of his wife. That very night he had a dream and in that dream he saw an ancient man dressed in white with his head covered with a scarlet cloth. A light brighter than the sun radiated from behind him, obscuring his face in its brilliance. The ancient man had raised his hand and beckoned him and there was in that gesture an authority so imperial that no man could refuse. When he awoke, he set off, travelling some seventy miles by foot. To this day he could not recall the journey nor what had sustained him. All he knew was that the heavens and the earth beneath him seemed suspended and the air was filled with a musk-like fragrance and music the like of which no one had heard before.
When he met the Great Saint, Dadaji had felt his eminence flood him and wash away all sense of self. The Saint had said: “To sit at my table you must prostrate your soul. When you are ruler of yourself you shall again hear my call
. Begin the fight against the devils that try to waylay us all. Read the Quran as it was revealed to Our Prophet (Peace be upon Him) and pray as though the final day awaited you behind the veil of the night. Read the blessed verse of light and you shall be within my sight. Restrain your anger and unclench your heart so that mercy and compassion may once again flow. For the light of Allah shall not fall upon the hard of heart and the harsh of tongue.”
When Dadaji returned to the village, Afiyah was ill no more and he rejoiced in this first boon. He busied himself in duty and devotion but try though he may his mind would race like the wind when in prayer and his anger would not subside. His children would quail as his steely eye fell upon them. He cursed himself for his weakness and vented his fury upon his long-suffering wife.
Slowly he felt his piety disappear and so he read the blessed verse of light and the Great Saint came to him in a dream and pointed at a lamp that lay on the floor. The Saint told him to pick it up but when he approached the lamp a furious storm burst into the room and the lamp hurtled from wall to wall, cracking but never breaking. Dadaji tried in vain to retrieve it but whenever he bent down the wind jostled him away. The harder he fought, the stronger the wind and the angrier he became. His sense of burning shame grew. In despair he looked at the Great Saint who smiled, calmly walked against the howling wind, picked up the lamp and vanished. When he re-appeared he was in a niche in the wall, the lamp in his hands still against the might of the storm. He looked towards Dadaji and said,” Stand tall and firm. Become the niche.”
Then Dadaji understood. He persevered and in time he no longer summoned his anger to give him power. He discovered that all that separated him from calm was the control of an errant thought and gradually he felt the tranquil lull of prayer: when he prayed he was aware of nothing more. As his self-awareness began to fade he felt an inner eye open and his instincts heightened. But its vision was blurred and its perception clouded. The Great Saint came to him again in a dream and in that dream he held the lamp but the glass was dirty and stained. He said to Dadaji, “Cleanse your mind of all thought other than that of Allah and glorify him. Praise him for each breath you take.”
And Dadaji did so. He seldom spoke but to recite a name of Allah or to pray. His sense of self was no more. As he toiled upon his land, he would see the earth and the people around him in shades of light and dark. His inner eye began to consume his physical eye and now its vision was pristine and bright but there was no horizon. His inner eye could focus on one thing only: the Great Saint of Mirpur. He was aware of his existence alone.
The Great Saint came to him a third time and in his hands was the lamp but the glass was now bright and luminous. As Dadaji looked closer he could see that the glass was a brilliant star, a luminary of a world supernal, radiant with the light of Allah. When his consciousness returned to him he felt at one with the light that suffused all creation. His physical eye could now look at a person and relay the voice of their heart to him.
The Great Saint came to him one last time. Dadaji stood by the foot of an ancient olive tree, its branches interlaced with an intricate and unending symmetry. The Great Saint raised his hand in which he held a seed brighter than the sun. “This is the germ of the tree. Its form cannot be contained in the intellect of man. As you walk under the shade of this tree, some truths will be revealed to you and others will remain hidden.”
The years rolled on and as Dadaji walked under the shade of the olive tree, he came to know of many things. He learnt of the mercy embedded in adversity. He saw the play of destiny and desire. He came to understand the myriad branches of choice and fate and he marvelled each time at the harmony of Allah’s will and how it encompassed the mortal symphony of anguish and joy. He smiled as he saw the allocation of Allah’s bounty in the enclave of human endeavour but his heart was sorrowful when he witnessed evil queer the path of the decent, a vagary of divine will that he could never understand.
After death claimed the Great Saint, Dadaji continued to dream about him. He saw that from the fruit of the olive tree came a luminous oil that flowed like a river and every ripple was a flame of a heavenly fire with radiance enough to dispel all the pain and darkness since time began.
The day before he left for England he dreamt of the Great Saint and his Holy Friend travelling on a raft upon the sacred river, heading towards the ultimate light. Their raft had come to a halt and they were hailing him. He walked towards them but stopped suddenly for the entrance to the ultimate light was darker than night. That way was his death, from which he knew there was no reprieve.
30
“Well here we are!” said Armila. She waved at the sofa. “You two make yourselves at home while I make some coffee.”
Khadija, after a moment’s pause, removed the veil from her face. Her astonishing almond-shaped grey-blue eyes were unusually large and her complexion was white.
“Why are you so fascinated?” she asked Shabnam.
“You’re English, aren’t you?”
“My mother is English, if that’s what you mean.”
“You know, without that thing covering your face, you’re a completely different person.”
“It’s just a veil. It doesn’t make you a different person, it just changes the way people react to you.”
“What are you gonna do about Musa?” Shabnam asked.
“I don’t know. I want to tell my brother first and at some point soon my father will have to be told. The longer we leave it, the more awkward it will be.”
“Hey that’s really good you know!” said Shabnam. “You’re already thinking we.”
“So can you if you try. I’m sure some of your unhappiness comes from the fact that you think too much about what you want and how you can make people do what you want. And you’re so angry. I noticed that when you came to the debate. Is there really so much wrong in your life?”
Shabnam shrugged. “What can I say? Pakistani culture and Pakistani parents. There’s no known cure for those two diseases. The world will end before they find the cure.”
“Why is it always about your culture and never about you? There is a difference you know. Not everyone is defined by their culture or even their religion.” She picked up her veil. “I wear this veil. It does not wear me. You don’t have to be owned by the things you hate. That’s one thing I’ve learnt from your brother.”
Just then Armila arrived carrying three cups of coffee on a tray. “Here we are,” she said brightly.
Khadija smiled and said, “Thanks very much but first I need to offer my morning prayers. Is there somewhere I can go?”
“Sure,” answered Armila. “Just outside the front door on the left there is a quiet alcove. No one will disturb you.”
As Khadija left the room, Armila handed a cup to Shabnam.
“So what are you going to do?”
“About what?” sighed Shabnam, knowing full well what she meant.
“You know the triangle, Leroy, Titty Soups and you.”
Shabnam’s face darkened.
“Who does he think I am?” she said crossly.
“Who? Leroy or Titty Soups?” inquired Armila.
“Titty Soups. I hope that scumbag burns in hell!”
“But he does have a point,” said Armila. “You have to keep your eyes focussed on what’s in front of you rather than always looking to the horizon.”
Shabnam clenched her jaw.
“Do you know what gets me about you, Miss Goody Two-Shoes? You were born with a bloody silver spoon in your gob. Guess what? I never had it so lucky. Mummy and Daddy never sent me to a posh school so I could be all clever and educated. Mummy and Daddy never took me to restaurants. Your parents brought you up so they could be proud of you. My parents brought me up so I could be their slave and then, when the time comes, they can marry me off to some prick so I can be his slave as well. You don’t know shit about my culture! You don’t have a clue about what I’ve been through! You got no bloody right giving me your wisdom!”
Seeing Armila’s face, she realised she had gone too far. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
Armila hugged her. “Don’t worry about it.”
Khadija re-joined her friends and after they had finished their coffees, Armila said,” Listen I need to go. I promised my parents I’d meet them. Can I give you a lift Khadija?”
Left alone, Shabnam sank into the sofa and slowly let her head fall back. It was true, it was too much to be pissed off all the time. But nobody ever seemed to get where she was coming from. Everybody had their own theories and opinions about what she needed to do in her life but none of it made any sense to her. She had never really considered marriage, believing it was more fun being a girlfriend. And then Leroy had got all serious.
Recalling last night’s events made her smile. When Leroy got desperate all sense just went out of his head and he did the first thing he was told. Titty Soups must have picked up on that, the arrogant stuck-up pig. But he was right, she had to end it with Leroy, she knew that.
God, that Titty Soups was one sly son of a bitch. He knew exactly which buttons to push. The worst thing about it was that he was spot on. There was only one door in front of her and he was on the other side of it. If she could get Leroy eating out of her hand it shouldn’t be too hard to get Titty Soups to do the same. It was just acting and that was something she had being doing for a long time, acting like she was respectful in front of Aboo and acting like she agreed with Amma. It was no big deal to do the same with Titty Soups and she had an ace up her sleeve. She knew instinctively how to keep a guy sweet.
She thought of Leroy and again felt shame at the game she had played. She would have to lose someone kind and good to gain what was meant for her.
Armila walked into Babarr’s office carrying an envelope.
The Reluctant Mullah Page 26