by Haroun Khan
Ishaq scrunched his face, leaving his father looking satisfied. He liked that about him, his father lived within himself, but that laughter, that life, was always there bubbling. There was some inner space that was always his own. Life had never defeated him.
Ishaq went upstairs, tiptoeing to the door, pushing it slightly ajar. He heard his mother’s heavy exhales that verged on snoring, and gently shut it again.
‘Hey Brother Malcolm, Mr El-Shabazz, come here.’ He heard his sister’s laughing whisper emanate from her room. There was a stifling lack of privacy in this place. His sister was always nosing, and had nicked the bigger room. She could just about fit a study desk and a chest of drawers into her room. As for Ishaq, he resided in what could hardly be called a bedroom. More like a lock up for solitary confinement. He had the ‘box room’. A third of the room was literally taken up by a large box structure that extended from the walls. He was often told that it served some structural function, possibly to support the stairs. He couldn’t see how that was possible and was tempted to take a sledgehammer to it to see if the stairs would actually fall down. The rest of the room held a single bed, leaving a small sliver of real estate for everything else. Ishaq was clean and methodical, but you wouldn’t know it. He had no option but to use the floor as a system of storage, layered like an archaeological dig. He knew where to summon clothing and books. Football kit from the Mesolithic layer, textbooks from the Palaeolithic. He drew into a muffled rage when anyone tried to ‘clean’. For studying purposes, there was always a battle to use his sister’s desk that he invariably lost. So he studied by sitting on the floor of the living room, with his books on the floor and the dining cum coffee cum chickpea de-shelling table as a desk. The advantage of this was a showering of steaming cups of chai and various coronary inducing fried treats and sweetmeats from his mother, joyous at her studious boy.
As he entered her room she slammed her laptop shut. Ishaq walked up and forced it open, overcoming his sister’s closing pressure.
‘That’s shady. What you hiding?’ he said, as he input the password.
‘Hey, how do you know my password?’
‘Uhh, I set it up for you remember? And I know you’re too lazy to change it.’
‘It’s private,’ protested Maryam, as her hand covered the screen.
‘My dear sister, you know privacy has been abolished. Now shove over.’
Password in, the screen resolved to a YouTube clip of some guys driving cars. Ishaq watched as the shaggy uptight with arrested development, the man-child, and the ironically racist one, lumbered around, carrying out hi-jinks in some foreign land, making bids for the freedom of middle-aged white men everywhere.
‘You like Top Gear?’
Maryam blushed. ‘Yea, so what. I’m not ashamed. It’s better than watching the news.’
‘It’s annoying. I like it, too.’ Ishaq sat on the double bed to watch the rest of the clip. ‘I heard Mum was crying?’
Maryam eyebrows slightly raised, yet looked pleased. ‘She was upset but it wasn’t that bad. It was embarrassing for them. They lost face. Dad just knows that, for a mummy’s boy like you, their greatest fear is mama’s tears. By the way, thanks for telling her to talk to me about that FGM stuff. That was an enjoyable conversation. Not.’
‘Hmm, it’s like that, is it? I’m being played. It’s not like I don’t worry about the future. I think about how I’m going to support them when I’m older. They shouldn’t worry so much, I’ll do it. Plus you’re not doing too bad…’
Maryam made a show of clearing her throat, as she clicked on a new clip. ‘Excuse me. I’ll help out too, but don’t you be getting ideas. Anyway, back to the goss; I heard she was a catch. Well out of your league.’
‘Uhh no, her eyes were all over me,’ said Ishaq, finally breaking out in a simper that immediately made Maryan smile.
‘I doubt it. She sounded accomplished. Look at you, you can’t even look after yourself. You haven’t even got a driving licence. If she was late and needed a lift to work, what would you do? Take the training wheels off and give her your bicycle?’
‘Uhh no, I’m a gentleman. I’d lend her my bus pass.’
Maryam laughed and punched Ishaq on the shoulder with a knuckle. She did that all the time, since he could remember, and always a bit too rough for his liking. When he was too small to resist, she and her friends delighted in running experiments. Once they tied him up with sellotape to see if he could get out. Her face when Mum told her off in front of her mates was priceless.
‘No way she would have said “Yes”.’
‘Mmm, nooo. She definitely would’ve. Anyway, you’re not doing much better.’
Maryam had been approached through a marriage site, online, by a white convert. A while back he visited and met the parents. More inclined towards the sufi ascetic than the brand of Islam that was popular round the estate, the biggest turnoff was his staring eyes and his strict adherence to his own religious law. Way too intense. Five minutes of him was enough.
‘I couldn’t believe it. A man who doesn’t drink tea and coffee. Honestly, it’s difficult enough sometimes, without completely making stuff up,’ said Ishaq.
‘He creeped me out anyway.’
‘He looked like Rasputin didn’t he? Seriously, I think some of the really posh white converts are a bit nuts.’
‘Astagfirullah, you can’t say that. That’s terrible,’ said Maryam
‘It is a bit predictable though isn’t it; if you’re from the estates or working class and brown or black then you become orthodox. If you feel hard done by, you go to one of the extreme groups. Now, if you’re white and middle class, looking to fill something empty, you become a yippee-dipee head in the clouds spiritual-type.’
‘Hmm maybe, but it’s loose talk like this that’ll get you into trouble one day.’
Shaking his head, Ishaq said, ‘I’m just talking to you.’
Maryam gave Ishaq a strange look. A bit like when she had been caught stringing him up. She shut the door, went over to her chest of drawers, brought out a white envelope and handed it to Ishaq. This was weird. He checked for any markings but none were visible; opening it he saw a bunch of fifty-pound notes.
Handing it back, he said, ‘What’s that for?’
‘I wanted to tell you…I got approached in the street by two people who said…they said they were from MI5.’
Ishaq stared, mouth open slightly. She had said that as if she was talking about going to the post office. Maryam, with force, flattened some crinkles in her skirt. ‘I was coming out of the tube and I heard my name called, “Maryam Tabrizi”. They said they were from the security service and asked for a bit of my time.’
‘Ok…What did they look like?’
‘I can’t remember – it all happened so quickly and it was so surreal. The lady was youngish in her late twenties, but the man was older. He had a strange name and bad teeth but said I could call him Al. They took me to a cafe, sat down, and they asked for my help.’
‘What kind of help?’
‘It was vague, like they wanted me to go places and get info where they couldn’t. For example, go to a place where Muslims gather and give them information on the room, size of the room, who goes in and out. That kind of thing.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I want to be left alone. They went on for a while but once they realised I wasn’t interested they thanked me for my time and gave me this.’ She held the envelope in a pincer with the edge of her fingertips, as if it were diseased.
Ishaq looked at it, churning through the ramifications of what this meant. Even its existence in the household violated. ‘This is dirty money, you need to give it away.’
‘I know, I’ll give it to charity or something. What do you think it was all about? They actually wanted to recruit me or something else?’ Maryam paused, making a tentative move to hold her baby brother’s hand. ‘Ishaq, you know you can tell me anything. If you have problems…or anything
. Have you been up to anything dodgy? You just…you don’t seem very surprised.’
‘I can’t believe you’re asking me that. By Allah, I’ve done nothing. I just…anyway, I can guarantee I wouldn’t be of any interest. I should be more offended that they didn’t want to hire me. As for what it is really about? I don’t know. No point wasting energy on things so out of our hands.’
Maryam looked at her younger brother, studying him. For what, she wasn’t sure. ‘I never know what you’re thinking. Dad says the same thing. We worry you know.’
Ishaq looked down, his hands entwined, wringing them with force. He could tell them about uni, about the police, about boys on the estate, but what was the point. A plague of anxiety when there was nothing they could do but fret.
‘I’m fine…you just don’t hear something like this every day. Feels so weird, you know? You do everything right. Pay taxes, look after your family, be community-minded, adhere to the law, and it all can get wiped out in an instant.’ Ishaq snapped the fingers of his right hand, the harsh click catching Maryam by surprise and making her jump. ‘A malicious tip off. Your neighbour maybe. An ambitious officer or politician…all…outside of your control, all unknown, at anytime, any place…that’s how I feel sometimes. I’m just keeping my head down.’
Ishaq moved a hand to stop a video clip, which was still playing in the background. His sister noticed his hand shake. He tried to stop it and quell the nausea. Maryam placed a hand on her brother’s head and ruffled his hair.
‘And do you think this is what it will be like from now on? Looking over our shoulders.’
Ishaq gripped his sister’s hand firmly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take you to work if it all kicks-off sometime.’
His father used to get Ishaq to escort Maryam to work whenever there was a terrorist incident. Hoodlums courted trouble by targeting woman they thought looked ‘foreign’, especially those who covered their hair.
And what do you do if you have to confront one. Treat violence with violence? The Quran taught patience in trying times. Excuse those who treat you badly. The prophet, peace be upon him, said the strong is not the one who overcomes people by his strength but the strong is one who controls himself in anger.
The problem was this cultured behaviour. Like being called a Paki or getting into a fight, the accumulation of daily petty harassments went unseen and unchecked by the police or society. The street had its own laws, ones that didn’t reward reason, or civility, or negotiation. When you avoid retaliation they rarely see it as someone acting out of strength, someone trying to be better. Like hyenas, they smell weakness. If a man feels it’s ok to be racist, call you a terrorist, or take aim at someone’s clothing, they feel braver next time. Allow a slur go unanswered in front of a crowd, especially one that has permitted it with their silence, and you encourage it to happen again. Stupid people, bigoted people, don’t understand subtlety and morality. They need to know you are avoiding violence out of strength, not out of weakness, and the only way to do that is to crack a few skulls first.
But Ishaq could see the lunacy, and he wanted no part. He wanted to step outside it all. He was disturbed from his thoughts, as Maryam’s head flexed back in laughter.
‘Haha, that’s a laugh. Look after me? Like a few years ago, when you were a small, skinny thing. It was more like me looking after you. That’s part of the problem with this world, lots of skinny boys, even if they don’t look like it on the outside, pretending they are grown men who have to do manly things. Anyway, you don’t know any self-defence?’
Ishaq gave a look of mock-indignation. ‘I do.’
‘Yea, right. Like what, boxing, or MMA?’
Ishaq paused for thought, scratched his nose and then said, ‘100 metre sprint.’
Maryam patted her eyes as she laughed, as if she was trying to put tears back in. She put her hand on Ishaq’s again. ‘Good, that’s the best one. Ninety-nine percent of the time, there’s no point fighting. I hope you never ever see the one per cent. Promise me you’ll run if something happens. There’s no shame in it.’
Ishaq looked at his sister. The only time someone had dared touch her in the street, it was another Muslim. A woman had grabbed her — brown, with an accent — she held Maryam in two desperate hands. Shaking her, clawing at her hijab and shouting, ‘If it wasn’t for you, we would all be ok, they would leave us all alone. You’ve made it hell for all of us.’ The shouts on the street were nothing, that was the only incident that hurt, that got past her defences. Ishaq was in awe of his sister; he had no idea how strong you had to be to wear clothing in such open devotion. Despite people wearing special clothing, or holding sacred rites, through all recorded history, in this confined modernity it was seen as pathology. An object for fear, an expression that was the subject of government bans.
‘I promise to do the right thing. Don’t worry.’
Maryam nodded, as she put the envelope away. Layering it under multiple pieces of clothing in a bottom drawer. Her voice softer, she said, ‘She would have definitely said “No”, by the way.’
‘Uh, definitely would have said “Yes”.’
‘Na, she sounds too cool, she would have said “No”.’
‘Naaa, I’m a catch. I’m convinced.’
‘Ishaq, COME HERE.’ Ishaq heard his father give a pleading shout from the living room. Ishaq swapped a confused look with Maryam and then shot down the stairs. He can’t have heard the conversation?
‘What is it?’ he asked, his insides feeling shaky.
‘See what this stupid man has said.’ He pointed at the telly, glee mixed with apprehension, like a kid pointing at the Gorilla cages in the zoo.
On the screen were two men coming out of some uniform building in Europe – Strasbourg maybe, Brussels, or Luxembourg; drab men against dreary backgrounds surrounded by a jaded mob of press. One was that German politician Ishaq had heard speak at the conference; he seemed to be in an argument. His colleague was proposing a charter for minorities that specifically targeted Muslims. The German said that we might as well start sticking yellow stars on. He defended an integrated Europe, welcoming all to work within a common framework, excluding extremists on all sides.
Ishaq closed one eye and rubbed it with a knuckle, his stomach settling. ‘I thought something big had happened. I’ve seen this plenty of times.’
‘No. Wait.’ His father grabbed Ishaq by the wrist stopping him from leaving. ‘Watch the rest.’
The German’s opponent was a man from a Dutch far-right party, in an expensive suit, swept-back hair. All ruddy and chubby cheeks with an upturned nose that gave him a porcine air. He had no real political base or influence but was far more at ease in English than the German, and had a populist forthrightness that commanded more attention than was his due.
‘What my esteemed colleague doesn’t understand is that this is a fight for civilisation. We are civilised and tolerant, and our European values will triumph.’
The man checked to see he had the full attention of the stalking cameras. Flashes of light lit up the dusk and bathed his face in a lambent glow. He was smiling, hands outstretched in openness. Annointed, he held court in full flow, while the German stood silent beside him, looking small and pressured.
‘When I was a child I used to play with a magnifying glass and ants. You put it up and, from the outside what can seem the clearest surfaces, reveal imperfections. Even if I held it up to a beautiful young lady I could reveal some flaws,’ he said, squinting with one eye and making an O with the thumb and forefinger of a hand as he held it up to the face of a young reporter: a once antagonistic questioner who now instantly went flush. ‘That’s what we can do with the Muslims, bring light onto them and reveal. And of those imperfections, of those who abuse our trust and our history of justice, we can expose them. And with all the light that Europe can muster, we can concentrate it so that they burn like ants.’
The crowd gasped and murmured. The flashes intensified, calls and texts were made as the swar
ming pack smelled the wounded scent of headlines. The young woman recoiled from the politician, her flattered face turning to disgust. The Dutchman patted down the crowd with his hands and they heeded.
‘Now, we, the enlightened West, we invented the magnifying glass, we hold it, we use it, and I shouldn’t be blamed for ants being ants.’
Ishaq clutched the arm of his father’s chair as his nausea returned. He felt hairs on his arm rise. Ishaq was used to politicians talking like this, talking about them without them, but it still sent a quake through to his marrow. Like members of a rarefied banqueting club, these men flung statements into the ether that served their own gluttonous agenda. But this was no vacuum, no blue-skies where they could conduct thought experiments, their self-determination at the expense of others.
What hurt was not the casual references to taking away citizenship, the taking of children, travel bans, torture and deportation. Not the prisons of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, or talk of collective punishment until they get their house in order. What vexed was that, in actuality, these men could not care less about these issues, because they did not have to. They did not need to. Obese in their entitlement. They were in thrall to their own voice, their own ambition. They would ditch any conviction for lurid exigencies. They had room to equivocate. They could make throw away comments and wake-up the next day and turn to opining on the decline of the grey squirrel, or the wretched state of their football team. They lived lives with no consequence, existences with no repercussion.
Ishaq looked at his father, who now looked concerned. ‘The man is a nobody and obviously psycho mad. He’s going to cause loads of headlines, and chat ,and then nothing as usual.’
‘But wait, there is more. They are repeating this on all the channels now,’ insisted his father, as he hurriedly thumped buttons on the remote until another channel was found.
The German man, his glasses shaking as he adjusted them by pressing a finger against the bridge, came forward.