by Haroun Khan
Marwane and Ishaq exchanged bewildered looks. Marwane said, ‘You cheeky bastard. You’re as much a part of this mess as everyone else. You’re not going anywhere. Now just sit there and shut the fuck up.’
As a shy Charlie slinked back, Ishaq felt a beat, the pounding. They were all babes like Charlie, like Shams. From the safety of the womb you came into this world. You came with screams and spent your life clawing for lost comfort. ‘I feel it too, Shams…being surrounded by people for who life is just a game. I want to lash out, but where does it end …where does it end? Look where it has got you? Please. Look where we are now, you with a knife, scaring people, bleeding.’
Shams nodded at Charlie. ‘People like him. If he got really scared that would be good, we can force them to feel what we feel.’
Ishaq could see in Shams the terror of life, the uncertainty. The shock, when exposed to the world, in learning that they were seen as violent, and sexist. Rotten to the core, atavistic and recidivistic. All the compassion that Ishaq knew added up to nothing, for the outsider. Yet the greatest assault was that somehow they were irredeemable, it was part of their being, somehow impure. This shook Ishaq so much more as he realised that was exactly what he used to think of them.
Stories, no…slurs, came at a pace like a beat to a drum, the frequency more rapid year after year. He knew that their objective was to get a reaction out of him, get him to prove their point and make him jig, but he was not their monkey and he would not do their dance. There was a difference between the two boys; Ishaq couldn’t think of himself without hope.
‘You think our lives are small. They’re not, you just don’t see it. All our history, Shams. You, me, Marwane, together, has to count for something. Just trust me. I won’t let you down again.’
‘You always say that success isn’t on your self, that it’s our group, our people as a whole, but what’s the point of doing anything when the goalposts shift? It’s like we’re building lives on a pile of sinking, shitty, mud. It’s like being shouted at constantly. No room to think…no room to breathe.’
The narrow light carried Shams’ anger. He was there, standing, his face twisted, using a fist to bang at his head from above. Drip. Drip. Drip. Like Chinese water torture, each issue falling on him, collectively driving him insane.
‘And do you plan going through life with a mass of resentments? I have my own, and you need to just let go. You can’t just be a collection of likes and dislikes, of sorrows and wounds. You are what you intend and do, however difficult. You can’t package everything up and solve it all. That’s impossible, these questions are so much bigger. You can’t take responsibility for all that,’ said Ishaq, his plea showing in his voice.
‘ You?…it’s all words, you’re just leaving everyone behind, just charging ahead. You’re a cold fish, cold and into yourself…’
‘That’s not true…’
‘Let me finish.’ Eyes closed, Shams brought a flat palm downwards in a scything motion through the air, his face red, straining with some internal pressure that threatened to break. ‘You don’t want us to own our own pain. You even want to deny me that. You want us to go through life like robots, not feeling what other people feel. All logical and shit. What kind of life is that? To have nothing of our real self. Look in the mirror one day and see a stranger. Not sure if he exists. I’m not sure if I exist.’
Ishaq’s footing became unsure and he collapsed onto a metal crate to rest. Shams was right. He restricted himself, cut bits off that could catch. It was the only way he could cope. He didn’t want to feel everything. He couldn’t feel everything. Easier to feel nothing.
‘I can control what I do, what I say. As soon as I try to do more than that it becomes confusing…I get confused, Shams, and I don’t know what to do…’ Ishaq’s voice had lost its vigour. He was shorn of all strength.
‘See, why don’t you speak to me like that? Instead you try to manage me like a problem. Speak to me like a person.’
‘…I’m so sorry…please…honestly, I had no idea…I always thought of us all as the same…’ Ishaq understood what those closest were saying. He had taken the world’s problems on his shoulders. Not in vanity but as an honest desire to work out a way to help his friends. But what was important was the now, with his boys. ‘…I’ll do better, I’ll be a better friend. All I know is that this isn’t the way.’
Tears streamed down Shams’ face. Words twisted and strained, forcing their way through. ‘And what way is it with these people. Our countries were invaded and the locals made second class, but we need to forget?! Our parents came over and were treated like crap, and we’re supposed to let it slide. We’re stopped and hassled . These lot have gone over the whole planet and fucked so many countries up. Every single problem on the planet they started, and we’re supposed to pretend that’s not the case, pretend, instead, that it all started with us. Forgiveness? Patience? They ask us to do what they’ve never done or would never do. They only stopped when they’re weak. I’m sick of them. Fuck ‘em! All they do is screw us over.’
Ishaq let Shams discharge, he let the air electrify and then go still and saw the dust settle. Softly, as if any sudden noise would break them into pieces. Ishaq put out a hand. As if surveying the fragile crucible of the cabin, he presented the panorama of broken technology, shattered ties, tribal rivalries and the airing of sweat and blood. Slow and steady, almost in a whisper, he said,
‘But look around, Shams. That’s only half of a truth. We do it to ourselves. We do it to each other.’
Shams was in the midst of sobs, bent over, chest expanding in raspy breath. Ishaq walked over and lifted him up. Holding Shams’ face, between his hands, he wiped away some of Shams’ tears with a thumb. ‘It’s all shit. You’re right. All we…I can do, is try.’ Ishaq looked over at Marwane. ‘Not be consumed. It destroys us, Shams. Yes, I’ve failed. I won’t let that happen again. I’m learning. I hope that you’ll forgive me…please, Shams.’
Life was asking them questions so grand that any answer was an impossibility. To burden lone souls with so much was an oppression. They had the right to make mistakes, the agency to start anew, and the right to anger. There was remembrance held in that fury. They would not stand as ciphers for whichever ill society wished.
Ishaq looked into Shams’ eyes and saw them clear, a calm return to an even-keel, after thunder. He took his head and buried it into his shoulder as Shams continued to sob. Marwane came over, picking up Shams’ schoolboy cap and carefully placing it on his head, and gave Shams an embrace as Ishaq pulled away.
A loud cackle broke through the ensuing stillness. Charlie said, ‘You boys are flogging a dead horse. I’ve got mates just like him. Once a fuck-up, always a fuck-up. You can’t change your nature. One day you two boys will wish his dad had worn a johnny when he was banging his decrepit old mum. Stupid fuck.’
Sham let out a roaring scream, and jumped for the blade on the floor. Getting up, he swiped at Charlie, who had a forearm out to protect himself and caught a slash from the knife. Marwane pulled Shams back, but he pushed backwards, smashing Marwane into a set of metal shelving. Shams took turns to look at the other three men, turn by turn.
‘I’ll fucking show him and his mates.’
Shams ran out, the door making a loud bang as it slammed open. Charlie’s arm ran crimson as Marwane lifted it up and scrambled on the table for any cloth to stem the bleeding.
Ishaq said to Marwane, ‘How bad is it?’
‘It’s not good, he needs a hospital. What do we tell them?’ Marwane looked on as Ishaq stretched his neck out of a window. ‘Let him go, Ishaq, it’s done.’
Ishaq looked back at Marwane. ‘Take him, tell them whatever you need to to get him sorted. Tell it all if you need to.’ Ishaq addressed Charlie. ‘Your mates, they headed to that march?’
Charlie nodded with a grimace. Ishaq ran out of the cabin.
24.
He ran as fast as he could, legs shaking, heart beating with an excavating
thud. Down the escalator, three steps at a time. He saw a train about to leave and jumped for the carriage. The doors were shutting and he jammed them, with his torso partially through, and then pried them open with his free hands. He squeezed through, with the help of another passenger pulling him in. As the train left the station the passenger asked him if he was ok but he could only hear a drowned warble of speech. His running had produced a clogging sweat that reached up to the middle of his ears. Ishaq’s drained lips mumbled something appeasing and he felt the travellers’ presence retreat as they took fright.
The driver’s voice announced that Whitechapel had closed, so Ishaq came off a stop early. At the station gates his Oyster card refused to work. He swiped it multiple times, scraping the card reader, getting frustrated at the ‘Seek Assistance’ message that displayed on each swat. His pleading face turned to a guard, who dismissed him without even a cursory look, instead waving a silencing hand as he talked to another customer. Ishaq looked at the closed gates and then listened, as the underground employee explained some Odyssean route. Ishaq vaulted the gates, both hands apart. As he rocked through the air he ignored the timid plea and delayed grasp of the guard. People hesitated and looked at him but if there was a shout behind him Ishaq refused to hear.
He started running again and, as he ran, he tried Shams’ mobile. His call was blocked; the cell towers here must have overloaded. He shoved his own phone back into a pocket and slowed, as he saw the golden dome of the great mosque. The protest had picked one of the most civic-minded Muslim institutions in the country. A great achievement of the local Bangladeshi community, it had taken great strides in developing links with greater society, even sheltering a tiny synagogue. Seven thousand people could attend prayers in the cluster of buildings that had started out, a hundred years ago, as a rented room. Over a century it had been supplemented by the donations of cloth-factory workers. Layer upon layer of immigration was the sediment that had firmed into foundations and had produced the latest inhabitants of the area.
Coming near to Whitechapel Road, Ishaq heard a mighty crescendo, and as he turned a corner he saw crowds, thousands of people, blocking the wide thoroughfare. Finding Shams would be impossible and he almost turned back, defeated, but then gathered his determination and went towards the throngs. Eyeing a lamppost he scrambled up on a bin beside it, and shimmied up the pole. Nearing the top he saw such heaving crowds they almost looked like celebration. Riots of colour, accompanied by shouts that erupted into the air. A tapestry of people extended to the horizon. Ishaq could see pigmented layers that blended into the skyline. First there was a motley mix of all sorts of browns, then an empty expanse of grey concrete road, and then a further band of pinky-mass, before all the colours hit the now-violet sky, as evening descended on all.
Enforcing the grey no-go zone were bands of black-armour-clad police, holding riot-shields and wearing visored helmets. They were sandwiched between the two battle lines. Two serried ranks of foot-soldiers agitating for their just cause, pawns, in someone else’s game, who gladly gave their lives to the swell. Even over the clamouring, from his side, Ishaq heard savage, discordant cries coming from the white side, modulating between insults and taunts. Vicious calumnies and screeds were catapulted across the divide at a stinging pace. The two sides were feeding off each other, goading and amplifying each other’s hate and righteousness. Each side stood behind their line trying to incite the other to do something to break their own, to do something outside of their normal boundaries.
Ishaq could make no sense of it. He closed his eyes and all he could hear was one mass-harmonised scream. Shrieks by people of scripture, ritual, or tribe, frozen out by streamlined industrial society. Those who felt so cast-aside that all they could do was throw their bodies on the tracks and try to break the whole damn thing. People who, on normal days of monotony, would shop, work, and go to school. Different, yet distinct. One thousand points of contact held the rift together. Friction holding them united, yet retaining a power so monstrous that, when unleashed, it was out of anyone’s control. An earthquake that could shatter societies.
Ishaq slipped. He clung on, desperate to avoid a crash to the ground, overcoming the sudden shock of pain in his right arm. He fell only half-a-foot yet his eyes caught Shams’ cap weaving a path. It was taking a crooked but driven direction to the front of the Muslims, to the first black row of police. Ishaq, taking a mental marker of Shams’ flight path, slid down and started pushing his own way forward.
As he navigated his way the crowd became denser. Thickets of bodies had to be nudged aside as he gently advanced. He reached where the road met the start of the mosque complex, spreading eastwards. An old man, wearing a fluorescent helper-bib, had made an impromptu platform from plastic boxes. He was urging the men from his own side to go home, but his frail voice failed him and was usurped by more virile shouts. His white beard dripped worry, his face ashen. A voice from the crowd told him it was too late, that now was the time to make a stand or never. That once you allowed these animals to march past they would do so forever-more, without compunction. The aged man made entreaties, asking them what example they were setting for the youth. He implored them to step back and think, but was besieged. Defiant voices that said it was better to die a shaheed, a martyr, today, than live a whole life as a coward. The old man was pulled down and bundled away, and a more triumphant, rallying howl took his place.
Ishaq came to a stop, unable to push further past. He could not see any gaps to his side and those behind had closed tight. Through the bow of someones arm he could see the nationalist lines. Revelling in their bigotry like pigs in mud, enjoying their big fuck-you to the world, that looked to them as strength. He could make out red puffed cheeks as they made their taunts, arms outstretched, grasping for a fight. Bodies swaddled him, and the sounds became muted. A message passed through the crowd, trouble was starting around the city and they were being kettled until police could get a handle on the situation. People with radios tuned into the news as looters used the day’s events as an opportunity to go shopping. The police were responding to incidents all over the city and were stretched.
Ishaq waited. He tried his phone but still there was no signal. He asked others but they had the same problem. He could feel a panic set in as a wave of claustrophobia washed over him, a spread of nausea that was made worse as he tried to take in more air. Ishaq asked for more space and pushed at the huddle around him but they were all in the same position. There was no one to hear Ishaq’s plea.
Time dragged on and day turned into the fullness of night. Over the course of hours his personal space receded until his arms were pinned by his side, his head nearly resting on someone’s shoulder. Ishaq felt pressure on his chest but this time he managed to suppress his anxiety and keep some calm. Others, however, started to push and complain. He heard a grand roar from the other side as they tried to push through the police line. An older man fainted and water was passed from beyond to the man’s aid. A whop-whopping sound was heard as helicopters passed over-head, reminding the crowd that their penned-in plight was known, yet nothing was being done. Ishaq thought about Shams and was satisfied that, once freed, he could go home. Shams would have had time to calm down. The biggest problem for Ishaq would be what story to make up, for his parents.
The night was at the height of its blackness, everything still and unchanging. The local shops had been boarded-up, so no light escaped their frontages. Street lamps cast their jaundiced light over the quieted crowds, stilling the scene, fossilizing them in amber. Yellowed skin and eyes of ivory-white accompanied a silence that gave the occasion the quality of the unreal. The calm occasionally broke when the police made sorties at the edges and snatched a body. They took their guidance from security service spotters, up on the high, overlooking roofs, who watched through binoculars for people of interest.
For a moment Ishaq viewed the scene out-of-body, as if seeing an ossified diorama. People started to use their mobiles as flashlights and wer
e joined by the flashing of police cameras taking shots. The constant adjustment of eyes to differing sources of light made his head ache. Whispers went through the crowd, colliding and contradicting, about how long they would be here, and what the police were saying. Someone said that the police were not sure themselves what the next step would be.
Ishaq heard another roar from the other side. They were hurling abuse at the police and pushing forward. What looked like a brick flew through the air and hit a policeman on Ishaq’s side. Despite the man’s visor it caused a bloody-cut and he was led away by a colleague. Ishaq started to feel more space around him. First, the rubbing of shoulders subsided and then he could actually move his feet without stepping on another’s. A rippled message came through that a gap had been forced in the other crowd, and they didn’t have enough heads to keep both sides contained. As if they detected a coming moment, people started wrapping scarves around their heads, leaving a slit only for their eyes.
From opposing lines, rocks, then stones, then hewn slabs of paving, hailed their way onto the police’s heads. Someone shouted push and everyone pushed against them. Ishaq saw a boy, just into his teens, break some paving and throw a concrete fragment. The police broke their cordon, creating a Roman shield wall, lines merging behind to get the culprit. The testudo, moving at tortoise pace, gave-up and came back as it took battering hits from all angles.
The slow boil of the kettle came to a sudden steam. Against the darkening sky molotov projectiles flew through the air, searing their fiery trails into the night, most bursting in no-man’s land, but they pierced the gloom, and provided a background to the shouts that broke the previous hours of peace. Ishaq felt the space enlarge around him so that he could take more steps, but still no-one was sure what was happening. Flares were lit that gave out a vermillion aura. They pierced the gloom and their burning smoke reached Ishaq’s nostrils, bringing the rotting smell of sulphur. Fires were started elsewhere and smoke billowed through the crowds. A gap opened that let a couple of EDL badged supporters cross the forbidden concrete. They ran the distance between the two lines and slammed with a thud into the next line of riot shields and visors, who turned their backs to pin them to the floor. That enabled a few, then many, Muslims to get through. The police struggled to stop both sides pushing-through to start fighting. The lines broke, and two phalanxes met in the no-man’s land. The Children of Adam collided. Cruelty burst through, violence won the day, it was the language of the street writ large. A syntax of brutality, a cycle of reaction.