Secrets of the Henna Girl

by Sufiya Ahmed

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied immediately.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘It will do you the world of good.’

  ‘I’m not sure I really want to.’

  ‘Do you own a pair of trainers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a pair you can borrow. You look the same shoe size as me. Five? Yes?’

  Alice disappeared out of the kitchen and returned with a pair of running shoes. I stared at her, slightly irritated. Did she not understand the meaning of the word no?

  ‘Put these on,’ she said, and when I refused to move, she shrugged her shoulders and left. I looked down at the trainers lying on the floor. What was the big deal with running? I slipped my feet into the shoes and they fitted perfectly. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to venture out and get some exercise. I went upstairs and found some tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt that would do to wear.

  I did not run that morning. Power walking would’ve been a better description, but I enjoyed it. I ventured out as far as Tower Bridge, up through the streets to Aldgate, down the Minories and on to the blue bridge that featured on all the postcards.

  I gazed at the Tower of London from the bridge. I couldn’t believe I was actually looking at it. I’d always been fascinated with Tudor history: King Henry VIII and his wives. What was the rhyme about the fate of his wives again? Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. What a psycho. My eyes darted between the towers. I wondered which one had imprisoned Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard as they’d waited for their executions. I smiled slightly as I imagined Sher Shah in the garb of Henry VIII – two peas in a pod when it came to power and control.

  The River Thames ran beneath the bridge. On the one side was the Tower and on the other a twenty-first-century building, City Hall; the London mayor’s power house. I marvelled at the contrast between these two buildings – one representing modern democracy, the other a symbol of the feudalism that had prevailed in England for centuries before real democracy had been born. A time of landlords and peasants – much like the village in Sindh.

  I thought about Sehar. She had never been to college, but occasionally she exhibited wisdom that far exceeded her age. I remembered one day at Nannyma’s house she had argued that poor people couldn’t be elected to a parliamentary seat.

  ‘Pakistan’s democracy isn’t like Western democracy where anyone can rise to the top,’ she had said. ‘Power here is concentrated with the super rich and they won’t allow their privileges to be watered down.’

  ‘I would have to agree with you.’ Nannyma had nodded. ‘But how do you think they keep their power?’

  ‘By denying education to the masses,’ Sehar had replied. ‘People can’t ask for rights they don’t know about. How many people are illiterate in this country?’

  ‘Too many,’ Nannyma had said quietly. ‘But landlords like Mohammad Ali Sahib do their best. They serve the people who live on their land. They pay them good wages and set up charity schools for their workers’ children. There are good people and bad people in the world. You should know that.’

  As I walked back to the hostel I thought about what Nannyma had said: There are good people and bad people in the world. Was my father really one of the bad people?

  As the days passed I started to run more regularly. I ventured out from the streets of Whitechapel and Aldgate to run along the Embankment beside the Thames. Running made me forget everything. I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other and pushing my body further and further.

  ‘Don’t you get lonely running by yourself?’ Surjit asked.

  ‘No,’ I replied honestly. ‘I don’t feel lonely. I feel free. My mind only thinks about what it is doing right there and then.’ I didn’t add that I found it liberating not to have to think of my past, present or future.

  Ramadan began and I was determined to stick to it, which meant no food or drink between sunrise and sunset. I had observed the fasts since I was thirteen and just because I wasn’t at home didn’t mean I could ignore my faith. It was a little hard to get up pre-dawn for the sehri meal. At home Mum would prepare a breakfast of potato pancakes and masala tea. I’d never given much thought to how she’d worked hard at laying the breakfast table for me and Dad. She must have got up much earlier to get the food prepared. I felt a pang of guilt when I realized that I’d never appreciated or thanked her. My own preparations for sehri consisted of a few dates I’d bought from one of the many Bangladeshi stalls in the market, and a glass of cold milk. It wasn’t much but it got me through the day.

  I could have done with sharing Ramadan with another Muslim, but Nasreen had been moved to another part of the country for her own safety just as it began. Yet again we knew nothing of the details, but I was slowly learning that life was going to be like that in the hostel. Not everyone wanted to, or could, share their experiences. I never did manage to exchange any words with her, but she’d hugged me tightly on the day she’d left, her eyes wide and fearful. I hoped that wherever she was going she was safe from the people who wanted to harm her.

  One Monday during Ramadan I was returning from college and my stomach was protesting loudly at the lack of food, making me feel lethargic. I couldn’t wait to get to my room and have a lie-down for a couple of hours. The back streets I walked through were quiet at this time of day. The bustling crowd and noise from the high street was only a few blocks away, but these streets were deserted. Walking back from college on some days, my overactive imagination had wandered back a hundred years to the time when Jack the Ripper had terrorized these very roads and alleys. Then my reverie was shattered.

  ‘Help! Help!’ An old Bangladeshi man was yelling.

  I looked up. He was about a hundred yards from me, hopping around in panic. What was wrong with him? He didn’t look injured. A woman opened her front door and peered out. A toddler was clinging to her legs.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she called.

  ‘Someone stabbed! Someone stabbed!’ the old man yelled. And he pointed down the road. I could just see a crumpled heap on the ground.

  The woman picked up her baby and ran back in her house, slamming the front door.

  ‘Help!’ the old man yelled again.

  The woman’s front door opened again and she ran out, a phone clutched to her ear. ‘Ambulance! Ambulance!’ she was saying.

  More doors opened and people emerged looking curious and concerned. They were all Bangladeshi. I found myself drawn closer to the crowd gathering round the shape on the ground and noticed that their curious expressions had been replaced with horror. Who was it who had been stabbed? It was morbid, I knew that, but I felt the need to see for myself the person who had been stabbed. For a moment I worried that I would know them, that it might be someone from the hostel.

  My breath caught in my throat as I stared down at the unconscious man. Blood stained his top and someone was holding a towel to his waist, trying to stem the flow. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and I stared fascinated at his deathly pale face until someone pushed me back. I kept thinking of Habib, who came to our counselling sessions. For some reason I imagined him being stalked through the streets by his family and stabbed in broad daylight.

  ‘Let the paramedics through,’ a voice yelled, breaking my trance.

  I turned and walked away. There was no need for me to hang around, and suddenly I wanted to be inside the safe, secure walls of the hostel more than ever before.

  Chapter 33

  In the third week of Ramadan, my carefully constructed world turned upside down again.

  Nusrat-kala’s email popped up on the computer screen in the college library, entitled: Nannyma. Worried that something was wrong, I opened it. The message was short.

  Dearest Zeba

  My mom’s going over to England for Eid.

  Hope you’ll take the time to see her.

  Love

  NK
>
  My nannyma was coming? Why was she coming? She’d never visited England before.

  That evening after breaking my fast, I called Tara and explained my dilemma over Nannyma. She told me not to worry and to take my time over my decision. But no matter how hard I tried to, it was impossible. My nannyma was one of the few family members I would gladly have seen.

  When the Eid festival to mark the end of Ramadan arrived, I got dressed in my specially chosen new clothes and walked to the enormous East London mosque to offer my prayers. Groups of women, many with children, smiled and welcomed me with ‘salaam’. I smiled back and went to take my position in the line of prayer. We prayed as one, following the lead of the imam from the men’s section, and then it ended and everybody was hugging each other and exchanging joyous ‘Eid Mubaraks’.

  My thoughts flew to the Eids of my childhood. My dad had always insisted on hugging everyone outside the small mosque in our town. It was the one occasion when my famously reserved mum reached out to tentatively pat the shoulders of other women.

  Somebody hugged me and moved on and I stood there, consciously looking around at these people who all seemed to know each other. A few minutes later it was over and women and girls swarmed out of the mosque to head for homes filled with families and feasts. I remained behind on my own. I had nowhere to go. I sat down to absorb the tranquillity of the mosque and tried to blank out the fact that, despite everything, I missed my mum and dad. It didn’t work; the empty space between the four walls just emphasized how alone I felt. Craving company instead, I walked out of the mosque and into the crowds still mingling outside. I crossed the road to head back to the hostel when someone called out my name. It was Habib.

  I had got to know him at the weekly meetings and we had become quite friendly. Habib was one of those people who could charm anyone, and even Aisha was extremely fond of him despite his constant badgering at her to do more to help young men who were also being forced to marry.

  ‘Eid Mubarak,’ he said, walking up to me.

  ‘And to you,’ I replied shyly.

  ‘Where are you heading?’

  ‘Back to the hostel.’

  He nodded and then asked, ‘Do you want to grab a bite to eat? I mean Eid’s about having a feast, ain’t it? It’ll be my treat, kiddo.’

  I hesitated. Go for a meal with a boy? Years of being told that I must never be seen out alone with a boy made me think twice and it didn’t matter that I was hundreds of miles away from home. The busybody aunties were not here to see me and pass judgement, but still I hesitated and Habib guessed my reaction.

  ‘Chill, girl,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m not taking you out on a date. We’re just two lost, abandoned souls looking for a friend to share an Eid meal.’

  Habib was right and I nodded my head in agreement. We fell into step and headed for Brick Lane, otherwise known as London’s Curry Mile.

  ‘You look kinda sad,’ Habib observed, when we were seated at our table in a small restaurant.

  I managed a forced smile. ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yeah, you do. What is it? You missing home or something?’

  I wanted to deny it in order to look strong and independent, but my quivering lips gave me away.

  ‘Hey,’ Habib said in a concerned voice. ‘Don’t be down. It’s Eid.’ He laughed. ‘You’re commanded to be happy today by God.’

  I shrugged my shoulders feebly. ‘Yes, I do miss home. I actually miss my mum and dad.’

  ‘That’s natural,’ Habib reassured me. ‘Course it is. You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t miss your parents. Do you know I read somewhere that most suicides are committed during Christmas?’

  I stared at Habib. Was this his way of trying to cheer me up? I think he noted my startled expression because he quickly rushed to justify what he had said.

  ‘What I mean … right … is that Eid is like that. It’s about family and you’re missing them and that’s quite normal and …’ He trailed off and I burst out laughing. ‘I’m not doing a very good job of explaining my point, am I?’ he said, grinning.

  Our food arrived and we picked up our forks to dig in.

  ‘Anyway, listen, kiddo,’ Habib said through a mouthful of rice. ‘Tell me everything. I’ve got a good pair of ears. Maybe I can advise you.’

  I sighed. It was about time I told someone the whole story, and I actually felt like I could do it without bursting into tears. So I didn’t hold back and told Habib everything – from what happened to Sehar to how I was feeling today. It was a huge weight off my shoulders, like confiding in an older brother.

  ‘So basically,’ Habib said, now devouring a huge bowl of ice cream, ‘you wanna go home and yet you feel like you need to punish your parents for not putting you first.’

  I couldn’t believe his bluntness. ‘Well, I … I …’

  ‘Do you know something,’ he continued. ‘A saying just occurred to me. There are those who cut off their nose to spite their own face. It applies to you, innit. You have no idea how lucky you are. You get to go home on your own terms; unlike some of us whose parents would rather we were dead because we ran away.’

  ‘Your mum wants you dead?’ I repeated.

  Habib put down his spoon and sat back in his chair. ‘Yeah,’ he said in a voice tinged with sadness. ‘When Ramadan started, I felt this urge to call her … to hear her voice. I dunno why I did it, but it felt right. I went to the sermon on the first Friday fast and the imam’s sermon was all about how the best Muslim is the one who is a good person and who forgives others. I wanted to forgive my mum for being mean to me, and for trying to force me … and …’

  ‘So you rang?’ I asked, when he fell silent.

  ‘Yeah, I rang,’ he shrugged. ‘But she was brief with me, innit. Said I was dead to her and if I wanted to make amends I would have to marry her niece, who is still looking for a husband. She said it was the only way she could regain her honour with her family back in Pakistan.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all I could manage.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Habib said, picking up his spoon. ‘I was upset at first, but you know I got my friends … and, well, I’m happier now than I would be if I’d married my cousin …’

  I just stared at Habib as he trailed off again. I felt sorry for him for him, and yet I knew he was happier here alone than he would be with his mum and a forced wife. I thought about what he had said to me about cutting off my nose to spite my face. Was it true? Did it apply to me? The two people I trusted most in the world, Nannyma and Nusrat-kala, were advising me that my parents wanted me back, yet I was caught in a self-inflicted bubble that kept them at bay.

  Suddenly I found myself sobbing, tears streaming down my face. Sitting there in the restaurant, I finally accepted that I needed to go home.

  Two days after Eid, Tara and I walked into the cafe and sat down. Nannyma had arrived in England a few days before and celebrated with my parents up north.

  Now, my parents and Nannyma walked in slowly. I stared at them and they returned the scrutiny. My nannyma looked the same; serene with silver hair scraped back in a bun and a shawl arranged on her head to frame her face. My mum looked thinner than I remembered with dark circles under her eyes. And my father … Dad looked like he’d aged ten years since I’d last seen him. Deep lines zigzagged all over his face. Had my disappearance done that to him?

  ‘As salaam alaikum, my dear Zeba,’ Nannyma said.

  I whispered a response, unable to raise my voice. My parents didn’t utter a word.

  ‘Why don’t you take a seat,’ Tara offered.

  They sat down and silence followed until it was broken by Nannyma.

  ‘How are you, my child?’ she asked.

  ‘Better than I was in Pakistan,’ I replied.

  My dad flinched and Nannyma said, ‘We are here to take you home, my beti. But first your parents must convince you that they have changed. They want you to know tha
t you come first in their lives.’

  I nodded slowly. What should I say? Who was going to go first? I thought about the questions I had written down last night. What were they again? I couldn’t remember a single one. My fingers touched the paper in my pocket. Perhaps I should just take it out and read aloud the questions? But I didn’t get the chance because my dad spoke up.

  ‘Zeba, things have changed. We just want you with us where you belong.’

  ‘I’m not getting married to Asif,’ I blurted out.

  ‘We don’t want you to either,’ my dad replied.

  ‘I don’t want to get married for a long while yet, and, when I do, I want it to be someone I choose. Someone from this country if I want … a Muslim … but maybe British … Just whoever I fall in love with.’

  My dad nodded and I stared at him doubtfully because this all seemed too easy.

  ‘How do I know you won’t back down on your promise?’ I asked.

  ‘You have to trust us.’ My mum spoke for the first time.

  I looked her directly in the eyes. ‘What if I can’t trust you? What if I don’t believe you?’

  ‘We lost you once, Zeba beti,’ my dad said. ‘We won’t risk losing you again.’

  One of the questions from my list popped into my head and I blurted it out before I forgot. ‘People from the community will have talked about me, gossiped about me. If I come home, they will gossip even more. Can you deal with that?’

  The question was directed at Mum, but it was Dad who answered.

  ‘You think I care what people say? Maybe I would have cared before … before I knew what it was like to wake up every day and not know if I would ever see you again. I wouldn’t wish that on any father …’ There was a pause and then: ‘And you think I care what people will say?’

  I listened to Dad, but my eyes never left Mum. I needed her to confirm what Dad was saying. Nannyma and Dad were silent as they waited for Mum to speak. She finally did.

  ‘You are my child. You need to be safe at home with me. That is all that matters.’