The Study Circle

by Haroun Khan

  The thudding tones of Lupe Fiasco played in the background and Ayub could not help but nod his skull-capped head and, under the table, tap a sandalled foot, to the rhythm.

  The music stopped and Ayub looked up. He saw Simon whispering into the ear of the remonstrating waitress, having changed the station of his own accord.

  Simon always struck Ayub as a slovenly type. He frequently wore that dirty blue suit, with a red tie mottled from decrepitude. He had thin arms and legs, but a bowling-ball belly that protruded in a white shirt over his belt. His dirty blond hair and his spindly limbs gave him the air of a floppy scarecrow, which was, apt given that that was essentially his role in life. Apart from constant pithy remarks he showed little understanding. Ayub wished Simon would go on a quest, looking for a brain.

  ‘That’s enough of that. Just mindless noise. I can’t see what people see in that stuff.’ Simon grabbed Ayub’s hand and shook it with vigour. ‘Ayub, it’s been a while.’

  ‘Not long enough.’

  Simon smiled at the mouth, not matched by the flat look in his eyes. ‘Don’t be like that, we’re old friends aren’t we? I love to give old friends a surprise.’

  ‘I was told that you were back sniffing-around. Tired of grooming fifteen-year olds online to get them to make a bomb?’

  ‘Ah, yes, our itinerant fakir. How proud his parents must be?’ said Simon, as he slid onto the benched-seating opposite.

  Ayub felt a pang of anger. Simon knew Adam’s background as well as Ayub did. ‘So why am I here? You could have just sent me a message.’

  ‘Not really. It may surprise you that we still do things face-to-face. Plus I’m not on Facebook.’

  Ayub laughed. ‘But your boss was, once. In his undies, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, it was speedos. And I agree, that was pretty disgusting but he’s MI6. Bloody amateurs, compared to us, and I don’t think he’ll be inflicting his pasty body on the general public anytime soon. Anyway, I thought it would be good to have a chat.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what? The end of the world. It’s all kicking-off now, isn’t it, haha…Just a polite catch up. Your mate Adam, doing well, is he?’

  ‘He’s fine. I have to say this is really tiresome. You have all our names, you know we’re peace-abiding, so I don’t see the need for a chat.’

  Simon picked up a laminated menu and spoke, face covered, nose down, his eyes flittered upwards from the top to look at Ayub. ‘Your next generation doing what you did. Afghanistan, Syria. A road once less-travelled but now well-trodden, indeed. Trodden by you. People like you are a sure conduit, for the young. Just indulge me, it’s getting hairy out there. Also, it is now against the law.’

  ‘Of course it’s against the law. As soon as a Muslim does something, you make it against the law. George Orwell went and fought in the Spanish Civil War. One of the Eton boys though wasn’t he, Eric Blair? Had he called himself Abdul Abulbul, or whatever, it would have been a different story.’

  ‘Ayub, come now, you’re better than that, be reasonable. This time it is different. People returning from war zones are a threat to us all. Their acts are barbaric.’

  Ayub had been in front of this flippant mouth many times. Since Bosnia the security agencies had managed to get a few of the names of those who went. A tap on the street, or a visit like this, was a regular occurrence.

  The waitress stopped at their table and took orders, not batting an eyelid at the sight of a suited white guy and a thobe-wearing Asian man chatting away, but she gave Simon a retributive look in retaliation for the radio. He ordered a full English and Ayub, after some prodding, made do with a couple of pieces of toast and a cuppa.

  Simon nodded in the vague direction of the world past the window. ‘In those talks of yours, do you still condemn extremism?’

  ‘As much as all the other isms you’ve given us; socialism, communism…maybe even Islamism.’

  ‘As well as spreading democracy, human rights. Everything that stops people like the extremists putting us back into the Stone Age,’ rebutted Simon.

  Ayub leant over the table and lowered his voice. ‘As you know, I’ve never threatened anyone, nor has anyone else I know. We don’t do that or condone it but, again, it’s a bit rich. You’ve declared the whole word as a battle zone and you can go in and kill people with drones, or special forces, anywhere…Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives wrecked, and yet when just one idiot does something stupid you want all of our heads.’

  ‘Ah, and here was I wanting a pleasant cup of tea and chit-chat, not a litany of Western sins and how we’re to blame for everything from Eve eating that damn apple onwards.’

  Ayub saw Simon’s smug satisfaction at his reference and thought how strange it was to live among people with no concept of sin, with no notion of the sacred; no idea of its demanding burden, carrying none of its brought humility and salutary guidance; that, just because you do not believe in it, it does not mean you do not bear any.

  ‘You don’t want our condemnation, you just want us prostrate, controlling how we respond and react to everything. No matter how many statements we make, and bleat, and cry, it’s never enough.’

  Simon looked at Ayub as if expecting more. Ayub returned the stare, eyeballing Simon. After a long pause Ayub said, ‘We can sit here and be silent as long as you want. I don’t find it uncomfortable. It’s really just a crap journalistic trick to try and get more out of someone. If you have questions ask them, or stop wasting my time.’

  Simon said, ‘I don’t want your head bowed but it would be good to see anger at them, not only at us. Large unsolicited demos would make us less suspicious. And all your talks…What’s the point of your circle? At some point you have to assimilate to Western norms? Not always get out of control, like the protests about the Danish cartoons. Look at what happened next…’

  Ayub picked up a fork and jabbed it in Simon’s direction. ‘I hate what happened in France but the cartoons were different. That wasn’t an exercise in free speech, it was a statement of power. Some jumped-up guy saying to us, a minority that is already being hammered, “Hey, you will abide by our rules whether you like it or not.” No conversation. “We will dictate to you.” And a bunch of us, saying, “This isn’t 100 years ago when the conversation was one-sided.” See their PM now, kissing the backside of Arabs they hate but whose investment they need.’

  Ayub was in no doubt that press-attacks on his community were acts of violence. As much as a slap in the face, they were attacks on people without funding, status, or elected power. And that was what he felt the cartoon demos were, a response to that violence. Telling Europe that, now, you have limits on behaviour, not just us. Europeans wanted the freedom to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded building that wasn’t theirs. They were atheists who wanted to create a world in their own image.

  Ayub studied Simon for a response, but saw a man who was just grinding through the gears, going through the motions. Simon looked tired. When they first encountered each other, a decade and a half before, he used to have the air of a proper boy scout, like out of the Enid Blyton books Ayub used to read. Someone who went on toothsome adventures, with their exotic jars of potted meat, hard-boiled eggs, and lashings and lashings of lemonade. Now he resembled someone who had slept uncomfortably in the office, had it tough at home, and didn’t even have the recompense of being the big-man at work.

  Ayub leant over the table again. ‘Simon, why all this intrusion with people like me? I’ve made my choices. I’m not a burden. I don’t kick up a fuss. But that’s not enough. You want an act of complete self-abnegation. All you have destroyed is a bunch of people coming together to discuss issues. Now they’ll be scared to talk, so everything will fester, and problems be repressed until they become bigger, or some fall into bad groups, or look at the Internet. You should listen to me and think. I’m giving you the best type of intelligence-gathering. I’m giving you understanding.’

  Simon put down his men
u card and placed both cuff-linked arms on the table, one folded over the other. ‘We think about things very carefully. We have doubt.’

  Ayub noted Simon’s sleeves, that some of the cufflink’s silver acrylic paint was peeling off to reveal a base plastic. Ayub found it hard to take that a jumped up civil servant had such power over him. A self-appointed pharisee. ‘Ha. Doubt. That old thing. You think it makes you human. It’s up there with “Let’s have a debate.” A way of nullifying opposition. How does it go? “I have doubts, and so should you. I listen to you. That should give you pause for thought and keep you happy.” But, in the end, what’s the difference between a politician who doubts and one who doesn’t? Nothing. Same result. They still bomb. Give me two presidents: both send drones and kill faceless, unknown people far away from their leather chair in a cushy office. The President who is assured gets vilified. The President who says he thought a lot about it and has doubts, maybe he gets a Nobel prize, instead. Doubts…’

  ‘Now, now, Ayub, all this talk about killing. Especially when it’s likely that only one of us has, and it’s not me,’ said Simon, with a sly look of contentment.

  Ayub’s lips opened in response but were thwarted by the returning waitress, so he pulled back his fork and placed his hands on his lap. She smiled at Ayub, put down his plate, and then almost dropped Simon’s onto the table with circling vibrations. Once his plate stopped trembling Simon made a massive inhalation and a show of breathing in the aroma of his bacon rashers. He wafted a hand, wheeling it and trying to take in more, while dispersing the hoggish odour. ‘Mmmm, marvellous, some proper English scran.’

  Ayub couldn’t stop his face turning at the smell. ‘You’re a proper wind-up merchant, you know that? For your information, this cafe is halal and that’s turkey bacon. Low quality meat-ends that will probably give you cancer but, yes, I still find the smell distasteful. Happy?’

  ‘Well, really, in this job I have to amuse myself, somehow. People look at me like some Torquemada but, trust me, behind the scenes it’s more like working for the Inland Revenue. You do have to work for your kicks in this job.’ Simon started cutting into his rashers and sausage, taking them down with large gulps, hardly bothering to chew, and punctuated his speech by pointing his knife at Ayub. ‘You know it must be frustrating, a man of your capability just working away in his father’s grocer’s. You’ve got a good education and…what is it…three languages you are fluent in? If you weren’t so obsessed with this Islam thing, maybe you could have been somebody. Interest. Free mixing. All these prohibitions…you just make yourself poor.’

  ‘A big somebody like you? You think if I’d changed, I could be sitting where you are. My languages, my knowledge is useless here?’

  ‘It may surprise you, Ayub, but we are sitting in the same place.’

  ‘It sure looks that way from the outside, doesn’t it?’

  Ayub had to look down every time Simon opened his mouth. We are a civilised country, he thought, we did have a publicly funded healthcare, so surely he could get those bloody disgusting teeth fixed. They looked worse every time they met. In a way, they had grown up and were now growing old together. In a kind of stasis, not quite knowing each other, a grudging respect mixed with a sliver of disgust. ‘My mother became ill. My father struggled to work, so I had to chip-in, early on. That’s life, and I am somebody. Somebody to someone. Being a working man isn’t a punishment.’

  ‘I checked your internet connection, too. You don’t even look at porn, which is a bit odd. You would be amazed how many pious Muslims, Christians, or saffron-robed Buddhist monks like a bit of five-knuckle shuffle before browsing the latest deals on Amazon.’ Simon demonstrated by curling his right hand and jerking it up and down. He then allowed his words to settle as he mopped up some yellow drip from his eggs and added, ‘You could move more towards the Gandhi side of things but I actually think you’re a good role model to the kids at your circle.’

  That wasn’t a wind-up attempt. That was him. People like him always called on others to produce Mandelas and Gandhis, while lauding Churchills and Andrew Jacksons. Ayub laughed. ‘And what would you know about what’s needed in their lives? I always wonder what you actually see through your eyes. I’m not sure you understand anything. Honestly, you probably think that they’re walking down the street, see a wonderbra advert and next thing decide to blow themselves up.’

  Simon sighed, looking Ayub over. ‘I really don’t care what they’re thinking, only how to stop their violence. Some of the ones who have made it abroad are truly moronic. They text each other about getting loo paper and Nutella and video games while planning murder. I don’t understand.’

  ‘You can’t have it both ways, be scathing of them and also say they’re an existential threat to the country. The kids I see – the ones I try to talk to – they have it hard. In my day we could learn and speak in private. And really it was without the responsibility of having to actually change anything. Nowadays, everything is monitored and up for criticism. You’re a target and object of vilification, and at the same time expected to take the brunt of responsibility for building bridges between communities.’ Ayub rubbed his bottom lip to indicate to Simon that he had some milky residue hanging from his mouth, and chucked over a bunch of napkins from his tray.

  ‘They can be dumb, but still dangerous.’

  The cafe lit up briefly as something greasy blazed on the cafe’s main griddle. Ayub saw the flames shoot up as the cook rushed to manage the frying load. He wished to tell the man in front of him that they were the children of partition, colonialism, immigration, racism, and terrorism. That every part of them was formed in an act of violence whether physical or verbal, over generations. That they lived in constant convulsions of which glib Little Englanders like Simon, with their parochial view of humanity, had absolutely no comprehension. But it was pointless. It was like trying to use a shallow breath to blow down a brick wall.

  This society only sympathised, it only listened, if it had made a great sin against your people, neutralised you as an apparent threat. Until then it pressured and wore you down until you collapsed. Just like with the invasion of countries, they hit you and justified intervention with the issue of the day: insurgency, then the plight of women, then drugs. Each time succeeding in making that problem even worse. Focusing on one errant thread that, when pulled away in isolation, unravelled everything else.

  When your people ceased to be a threat, or simply ceased to be, they could enjoy pitying you. They could show sorrow in retrospect. The Left would highlight your strained forgotten-voices to no avail, serving only to sap away at your passions. The Right would clap, using it as a sign of their culture’s largesse, carry-on doing whatever they wanted and then cuff you. The Left liked you as a pet victim, the Right as a rabid threat. The Left defanged you for the Right to dominate. Society was a giant game of good cop, bad cop. Ayub was not interested in either. He was not interested in their game or their caged limitations. Please, just let me be.

  In the background, interspersed with the sound of raw meat sizzling, cracked eggs frying, and steam hissing from the coffee machine, the radio provided a soundtrack to their conversation. A debate was being held about young girls in the North who had been sexually abused by Pakistani men. People rang in to excoriate the community, saying they were in denial over sexism and misogyny, and sheltered the abusers. Others on the defensive said that the flurry of BBC presenters and MPs caught abusing women and children were never talked of as a ‘white’ issue.

  Ayub cupped his ear. ‘Listen to that debate. Yet another with us as the football. You and me have major differences but we can all agree that those men are animals, yet the police said they went softly because of race. We didn’t ask for that. You don’t hesitate to stop us, target us, when it comes to terrorism, but when it comes to homeless white girls, or black kids stabbing each other, you don’t care. Easier to put the blame on people like me, though?’

  ‘Again, Ayub, that’s PC Plod, nothing
to do with me. But go ahead, use me as a punchbag. You’re lively today.’

  ‘No, you guys are the fake yellowcake from Nigeria, the dodgy dossier on WMD in Iraq. Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, you are the thousands of renditions. You’re all no better. At the height of your civilisation, you failed. You can’t compare it to some guy on a council estate…’

  Simon banged a clenched fist on the table. ‘These are trying issues and circumstance. Our intentions are good. We’re only human…’

  ‘So are we.’

  Simon and Ayub fell silent, auditing each other.

  Simon’s plate was empty and Ayub used an errant piece of charred toast to swab some remnants of butter off his own. The waitress came and collected their plates and Simon proceeded to order two teas, this time not bothering to ask Ayub.

  ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind today. All this European stuff will blow over. Always does.’

  ‘I have a lot on my mind everyday.’

  For a moment Simon looked almost human. His face slackened and the soft wrinkles around his eyes flexed. ‘I’m a government employee. I won’t apologise for defending my country. I make choices everyday that are difficult. Sometimes, you should see that too. You should see what I see. I’m not your enemy.’

  ‘You push the kids outside, treat them like scum, and soon enough people are hopeless enough, and give up, and play-up to it. You don’t understand the world we live in, but we do. You should encourage our voices even if you discard the bodies, otherwise you’ll just stare at your bloody screens thinking none of it makes sense.’

  ‘Again I don’t understand, but then you’re mistaking me for Oprah. It’s not my job to care or feel. My job is security. As far as who started all of this, and the sorrows of the world, I haven’t a clue. Again, chicken or egg – not my concern. And what my current concern is, is to keep an eye on you and your associates and to make sure that you’re quiet while the latest events run their course. I’m doing you a favour.’