People who live on solid ground, underneath1 safe skies, know nothing of this; they are like the English POWs in Dresden who continued to pour tea and dress for dinner, even as the alarms went off, even as the city became a towering ball of fire. Born of a green and pleasant land, a temperate2 land, the English have a basic inability to conceive of disaster, even when it is manmade.
It is different for the people of Bangladesh, formerly3 East Pakistan, formerly India, formerly Bengal. They live under the invisible finger of random4 disaster, of flood and cyclone5, hurricane and mud-slide. Half the time half their country lies under water; generations wiped out as regularly asclockwork; individual life expectancy6 an optimistic fifty-two, and they are coolly aware that when you talk about apocalypse, when you talk about random death en masse, well, they are leading the way in that particular field, they will be the first to go, the first to slip Atlantis-like down to the seabed when the pesky polar ice-caps begin to shift and melt. It is the most ridiculous country in the world, Bangladesh. It is God's idea of a really good wheeze9, his stab at black comedy. You don't need to give out questionnaires to Bengalis. The facts of disaster are the facts of their lives.
Between Alsana's sweet sixteenth birthday (1971), for example, and the year she stopped speaking directly to her husband (1985), more people died in Bangladesh, more people perished in the winds and the rain, than in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden put together. A million people lost lives that they had learnt to hold lightly in the first place.
And this is what Alsana really held against Samad, if you want the truth, more than the betrayal, more than the lies, more than the basic facts of a kidnap: that Magid should learn to hold his life lightly. Even though he was relatively10 safe up there in the Chittagong Hills, the highest point of that low-lying, flatland country, still she hated the thought that Magid should be as she had once been: holding on to a life no heavier than a paisa coin, wading11 thoughtlessly through floods, shuddering12 underneath the weight of black skies .. .
Naturally, she became hysterical13. Naturally, she tried to get him back. She spoke14 to the relevant authorities. The relevant authorities said things like, "To be honest, love, we're more worried about them coming in or "To tell you the truth, if it was your husband who arranged the trip, there's not a great deal that we-', so she put the phone down. After a few months she stopped ringing. She went to Wembley and Whitechapel in despair and sat in the houses of relatives for epic15 weekends of weeping and eating and commiserations, but her gut16 told her that though the curry17 was sound, the commiserations were not all they seemed. For there were those who were quietly pleased that Alsana Iqbal, with her big house and her blacky white friends and her husband who looked like Omar Sharif and her son who spoke like the Prince of Wales, was now living in doubt and uncertainty18 like the rest of them, learning to wear misery19 like old familiar silk. There was a certain satisfaction in it, even as Zinat (who never revealed her role in the deed) reached over the chair armto take Alsana's hand in her sympathetic claws. "Oh, Alsi, I just keep thinking what a shame it is that he had to take the good one! He was so very clever and so beautifully behaved! You didn't have to worry about drugs and dirty girls with that one. Only the price of spectacles with all that reading."Oh, there was a certain pleasure. And don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own, from delivering bad news, watching bombs fall on television, from listening to stifled21 sobs22 from the other end of a telephone line. Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism23, human interest, cinema verite, a good belly24 chuckle25, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow26, disguised contempt.
Alsana sensed all these and more at the other end of her telephone line as the calls flooded in 28 May 1985 to inform her of, to offer commiserations for, the latest cyclone. "Alsi, I simply had to call. They say there are so many bodies floating in the Bay of Bengal...""I just heard the latest on the radio ten thousand!""And the survivors27 are floating on rooftops while the sharks and crocodiles snap at their heels.""It must be terrible, Alsi, not knowing, not being sure .. ."For six days and six nights, Alsana did not know, was not sure. During this period she read extensively from the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore and tried hard to believe his assurances (Night's darkness is a bag that bursts with the gold of the dawn), but she was, at heart, a practical woman and found poetry no comfort. For those six days her life was a midnight thing, a hair's breadth from the witching hour. But on the seventh day came light: the news arrived that Magid was fine, suffering only a broken nose delivered by a vase which had fallen from its perilous30 station on a high shelf in a mosque31, blown over in the first breath of the first winds (and keep one eye on that vase, please, it is the same vase that will lead Magid by the nose to his vocation). It was only the servants, having two days earlier taken a secret supply of gin and piled into the family's dilapidated transit32 van on a pleasure trip to Dhaka, who were now floating belly-up in the JamunaRiver as fish finned-silver stared up at them, pop-eyed and bemused.
Samad was triumphant33. "You see? He'll come to no harm in Chittagong! Even better news,he was in a mosque. Better he break his nose in a mosque than in a Kilburn fight! It is exactly as I had hoped. He is learning the old ways. Is he not learning the old ways?"Alsana thought for a moment. Then she said: "Maybe, Samad Miah.""What do you mean, "maybe"?" "Maybe, Samad Miah, maybe not."Alsana had decided34 to stop speaking directly to her husband. Through the next eight years she would determine never to say yes to him, never to say no to him, but rather to force him to livelike she did never knowing, never being sure, holding Samad's sanity35 to ransom36, until she waspaid in full with the return of her number-one-son-eldest-by-two-minutes, until she could oncemore put a chubby37 hand through his thick hair. That was her promise, that was her curse uponSamad, and it was exquisite38 revenge. At times it very nearly drove him to the brink39, to thekitchen-knife stage, to the medicine cabinet. But Samad was the kind of person too stubborn to killhimself if it meant giving someone else satisfaction. He hung on in there. Alsana turning over in hersleep, muttering, "Just bring him back, Mr. Idiot... if it's driving you nut so just bring my baby back."But there was no money to bring Magid back even if Samad had been inclined to wave thewhite dhoti. He learnt to live with it. It got to the point where if somebody said 'yes' or no' toSamad in the street or in the restaurant, he hardly knew how to respond, he had come to forget whatthose two elegant little signifiers meant. He never heard them from Alsana's lips. Whatever thequestion in the Iqbal house, there would never again be a straight answer:
"Alsana, have you seen my slippers40?""Possibly, Samad Miah.""What time is it'
"It could be three, Samad Miah, but Allah knows it could also be four.""Alsana, where have you put the remote control?""It is as likely to be in the drawer, Samad Miah, as it is behind the sofa."And so it went.
Sometime after the May cyclone, the Iqbals received a letter from theirelder-son-by-two-minutes, written in a careful hand on exercise paper and folded around a recen photograph. It was not the first time he had written, but Samad saw something different in this letter,something that excited him and validated41 the particular decision he had made; some change of tone,someSS o ^urity, of growing Eastern wisdom; and, having^carefully in the garden first, he took great pleasure in sneaking42 into the kitchen and reading italoud to Clara andAlcana who were drinking peppermint43 tea.
Listen- here he says, "Yesterday, grandfather hit Tamm (he is the houseboy) with a belt until hisbottom was redder than a from to He said Tamim had stolen some candles (it's true. I saw Ct'it!),and this was what he got for it. He says; sometrmes MUh pun she's and sometimes men have to doit, and it >s a wise n who knows if it is Allah's turn or his own. I hope one day I can be a wiseman." Do you hear that? He wants to be a Wise man How many kids in that school do you knowwho want tobe wise men?"Maybe none, Samad Miah. Maybe all."Samad scowled44 at his wife and continued, "And here here where he talks about his nose: "Itseems to me that a vase should lot be in such a silly place where it can fall and break a boy s nose Itshould be somebody's fault and somebody should be punished (but not a bottom smack45 unless theywere small and not grown-up. If they were younger than twelve). When I grow up I Sink I shouldlike to make sure vases are not put in such places where they can be dangerous and I would complam about oAer dangerous things too (by the way, my nose is fine now!) See?"Clara frowned. "See what?"Clara rrownea. occ wA-.
"Clearly he disapproves46 of iconography in the mosque, he dislikes all heathen, unnecessary,dangerous decoration! A boy like that is destined47 for greatness, isn't he?" "Maybe, Samad Miah,maybe not." Maybe he'll go into government, maybe the law, suggested^Rubbish' My son is for God, not men. He is not fearful of his duty. He is no" fearful to be areal Bengali, a proper MusUm.
Here he tells me the goat in the photograph is dead. "I helped to kill the goat, Abba," he says. "Itkept on moving some time after we had split it in two." Is that a boy who is fearful?"It clearly being incumbent48 upon someone to say no, Clara said it with little enthusiasm andreached for the photograph Samad was passing her. There was Magid, dressed in his customarygrey, standing50 next to the doomed51 goat with the old house behind him.
"Oh! Look at his nose! Look at the break. He's got a Roman nose, now. He looks like a littlearistocrat, like a little Englishman. Look, Millat." Clara put the photo under Millat's smaller, flatternose. "You two don't look so much like twins any more.""He looks," said Millat after a cursory52 glance, 'like a chief."Samad, never au fait with the language of the Willesden streets, nodded soberly and patted his son's hair. "It is good that you see the difference between you two boys, Millat, now rather than later." Samad glared at Alsana as she spun53 an index finger in a circle by her temple, as she tapped the side of her head: crazee, nut so "Others may scoff54, but you and I know that your brother will lead others out of the wilderness55. He will be a leader of tribes. He is a natural chief."Millat laughed so loud at this, so hard, so uncontrollably, that he lost his footing, slipped on a wash cloth and broke his nose against the sink.
Two sons. One invisible and perfect, frozen at the pleasant age of nine, static in a picture framewhile the television underneath him spewed out all the shit of the eighties Irish bombs, English riots, transatlantic stalemates above which mess the child rose untouchable and unstained, elevatedto the status of ever smiling Buddha56, imbued57 with serene58 Eastern contemplation; capable of anything, a natural leader, a natural Muslim, a natural chief- in short, nothing but an apparition59. A ghostly daguerreotype60 formedfrom the quicksilver of the father's imagination, preserved by the salt solution of maternal61 tears.
This son stood silent, distant and was 'presumed well', like one of Her Majesty's colonial islandoutposts, stuck in an eternal state of original naivety62, perpetual pre-pubescence. This son Samadcould not see. And Samad had long learnt to worship what he could not see.
As for the son he could see, the one who was under his feet and in his hair, well, it is best not toget Samad started up on that subject, the subject of The Trouble with Millat, but here goes: he is thesecond son, late like a bus, late like cheap postage, the slow coach the catch-up-kid, losing that firstrace down the birth canal, and now simply a follower63 by genetic64 predisposition, by the intricatedesign of Allah, the loser of two vital minutes that he would never make up, not in those all-seeingparabolic mirrors, not in those glassy globes of the godhead, not in his father's eyes. Now, a moremelancholy child than Millat, a more deep thinking child, might have spent the rest of his lifehunting these two minutes and making himself miserable65, chasing the elusive66 quarry67, laying itfinally at his father's feet. But what his father said about him did not concern Millat all that much:
he knew himself to be no follower, no chief, no wanker, no sell-out, no fuck wit no matter what hisfather said. In the language of the street Millat was a rude boy a badman, at the forefront, changingimage as often as shoes; sweet-as, safe, wicked, leading kids up hills to play football, downhill torifle fruit machines, out of schools, into video shops. In Rocky Video, Millat's favourite haunt, runby an unscrupulous coke-dealer, you got porn when you were fifteen, i8s when you were eleven,and snuff movies under the counter for five quid. Here was where Millat really learnt about fathers.
Godfathers, blood-brothers, pacinodeniros, men in black who looked good, who talked fast, whonever waited a (mutherfuckin') table, who had two, fully20 functioning, gun-toting hands. He learntthat you don't need to live underflood, under cyclone, to get a little danger, to be a wise man. You go looking for it. Aged68 twelve,Millat went out looking for it, and though Willesden Green is no Bronx, no South Central, he founda little, he found enough. He was arsey and mouthy, he had his fierce good looks squashed tightlyinside him like a jack-in-a-box set to spring aged thirteen, at which point he graduated from leaderof zit-faced boys to leader of women. The Pied Piper of Willesden Green, smitten69 girls trailingbehind him, tongues out, breasts pert, falling into pools of heartbreak.. . and all because he was theBIGGEST and the BADDEST, living his young life in CAPITALS: he smoked first, he drank first,he even lost it IT! aged thirteen and a half. OK, so he didn't FEEL muchorTOUCHmuch,itwasMOIST andCONFUS IN G, he lost IT without even knowing where IT went, but he stilllost IT because there was no doubt, NONE, that he was the best of the rest, on any scale of juveniledelinquency he was the shining light of the teenage community, the DON, the BUSINESS, theDOG'S GENITALIA, a street boy, a leader of tribes. In fact, the only trouble with Millat was thathe loved. trouble. And he was good, at it. Wipe that. He was great.
Still, there was much discussion at home, at school, in the various kitchens of the widespread Iqbal/Begum clan70 about The Trouble with Millat, mutinous71 Millat aged thirteen, who farted inmosque, chased blondes and smelt72 of tobacco, and not just Millat but all the children: Mujib(fourteen, criminal record for joyriding), Khandakar (sixteen, white girlfriend, wore mascara in theevenings), Dipesh (fifteen, marijuana), Kurshed (eighteen, marijuana and very baggy73 trousers),Khaleda (seventeen, sex before marriage with Chinese boy), Bimal (nineteen, doing a diploma in Drama); what was wrong with all the children, what had gone wrong with these first descendants ofthe great ocean crossing experiment? Didn't they have everything they could want? Was there not a substantial garden area, regular meals, clean clothes from Marks 'n' Sparks, A-class top-notch education?
Hadn't the elders done their best? Hadn't they all come to this island for a reason? To be safe.
Weren't they safe"!
"Too safe," Samad explained, patiently consoling one or other weeping, angry ma or baba, perplexed74 and elderly dadu or dida, 'they are too safe in this country, accha? They live in big plasticbubbles of our own creation, their lives all mapped out for them. Personally, you know I would spiton Saint Paul, but the wisdom is correct, the wisdom is really Allah's: put away childish things.
How can our boys become men when they are never challenged like men? Hmm? No doubt about it,on reflection, sending Magid back was the best thing. I would recommend it."At which point, the assembled weepers and moaners all look mournfully at the treasured pictureof Magid and goat. They sit mesmerized75, like Hindus waiting for a stone cow to cry, until a visibleaura seems to emanate76 from the photo: goodness and bravery through adversity, through hell andhigh water; the true Muslim boy; the child they never had. Pathetic as it was, Alsana found it faintlyamusing, the tables having turned, no one weeping for her, everyone weeping for themselves and their children, for what the terrible eighties were doing to them both. These gatherings77 were like last-ditch political summits, they were like desperate meetings of government and church behindclosed doors while the mutinous mob roamed wild on the streets, smashed windows. A distancewas establishing itself, not simply between father sons old young bomtherebornhere, but between those who stayed indoors and those who ran riot outside.
"Too safe, too easy," repeated Samad, as great-aunt Bibi wiped Magid lovingly with some Mr. Sheen. "A month back home would sort each and every one of them out."But the fact was Millat didn't need to go back home: he stood schizophrenic, one foot in Bengal and one in Willesden. In his mind he was as much there as he was here. He did not require a passport to live in two places at once, he needed no visa to live his brother's life and his own (he was a twin after all). Alsana was the first to spot it. She confided78 to Clara: By God, they're tied together like a cat's cradle,connected like a see-saw, push one end, other goes up, whatever Millat sees, Magid saw and vice79 versa! And Alsana only knew the incidentals: similar illnesses, simultaneous accidents, pets dying continents apart. She did not know that while Magid watched the 1985 cyclone shake things from high places, Millat was pushing his luck along the towering wall of the cemetery80 in Fortune Green;that on 10 February 1988, as Magid worked his way through the violent crowds of Dhaka, duckingthe random blows of those busy settling an election with knives and fists, Millat held his own against three sotted, furious, quick footed Irishmen outside Biddy Mulligan's notorious Kilburn public house. Ah, but you are not convinced by coincidence? You want fact fact fact? You want brushes with the Big Man with black hood82 and scythe83? OK: on the 28th of April, 1989, a tornado84 whisked the Chittagong kitchen up into the sky, taking everything with it except Magid, left miraculously85 curled up in a ball on the floor. Now, segue to Millat, five thousand miles away, lowering himself down upon legendary86 sixth-former Natalia Cavendish (whose body is keeping adark secret from her); the condoms are unopened in a box in his back pocket; but somehow he will not catch it; even though he is moving rhythmically87 now, up and in, deeper and sideways, dancing with death.
Three days:
1 October 1987Even when the lights went out and the wind was beating the shit out of the double glazing88,Alsana, a great believer in the oracle89 that is the BBC, sat in a nightie on the sofa, refusing to budge90.
"If that Mr. Fish says it's OK, it's damn well OK. He's BBC, for God's sake!"Samad gave up (it was almost impossible to change Alsana's mind about the inherent reliabilityof her favoured English institutions, amongst them: Princess Anne, Blu-Tack, Children's RoyalVariety Performance, Eric Morecambe, Woman's Hour). He got the torch from the kitchen drawerand went upstairs, looking for Millat.
"Millat? Answer me, Millat! Are you there?""Maybe, Abba, maybe not."Samad followed the voice to the bathroom and found Millat chin-high in dirty pink soap suds, reading Viz.
"Ah, Dad, wicked. Torch. Shine it over here so I can read.""Never mind that." Samad tore the comic from his son's hands. There's a bloody91 hurricane blowing and your crazy mother intends to sit here until the roof falls in. Get out of the bath. I needyou to go to the shed and find some wood and nails so that we can-'
"But Abba, I'm butt-naked!""Don't split the hairs with me this is an emergency. I want you to '
An almighty92 ripping noise, like something being severed93 at the roots and flung against a wall, came from outside.
Two minutes later and the family Iqbal were standing regimental in varying states of undress, looking out through the long kitchen window on to a patch in the lawn where the shed used to be.
Millat clicked his heels three times and hammed it up with corner shop accent, "O me O my.
There's no place like home. There's no place like home.""All right, woman. Are you coming now?""Maybe, Samad Miah, maybe.""Dammit! I'm not in the mood for a referendum. We're going to Archibald's. Maybe they still have light. And there is safety in numbers. Both of you get dressed, grab the essentials, the life or death things, and get in the car!"Holding the car boot open against a wind determined94 to bringit down, Samad was first amused and then depressed95 by the items his wife and son determined essential, life or death things:
Millat AbanaBorn to Run (album) Sewing machineSpringsteen Three pots of tiger balmPoster of De Niro in "You tal- Leg of lamb (frozen)kin' to me' scene from Taxi Foot bathDriver Linda Goodman's Starsigns Betamax copy of Purple Rain (book) (rock movie) Huge box of beedi cigarettesShrink-to-fit Levis 501 (red tab) Divargiit Singh in Moonshine Pair of black converse96 baseball over Kerala (musical video)shoes A Clockwork Orange (book)Samad slammed the boot down.
"No pen knife, no edibles97, no light sources. Bloody great. No prizes for guessing which one of the Iqbals is the war veteran. Nobody even thinks to pick up the Qur'an. Key item in emergencysituation: spiritual support. I am going back in there. Sit in the car and don't move a muscle."Once in the kitchen Samad flashed his torch around: kettle, oven hob, teacup, curtain and then a surreal glimpse of the shed sitting happy like a treehouse in next door's horse chestnut98 He picked upthe Swiss army knife he remembered leaving under the sink, collected his gold-plated,velvet-fringed Qur'an from the living room and was about to leave when the temptation to feel the gale99, to see a little of the formidable destruction, came over him. He waited for a lull100 in the windand opened the kitchen door, moving tentatively into the garden, where a sheet of lightning lit up a scene of suburban101 apocalypse: oaks, cedars102, sycamores, elms felled in garden after garden, fences down, garden furniture demolished103. It was only his own garden, oftenridiculed for its corrugated-iron surround, treeless interior and bed after bed of sickly smelling herbs, that had remained relatively intact.
He was just in the process of happily formulating104 some allegory regarding the bending Eastern reed versus105 the stubborn Western oak, when the wind reasserted itself, knocking him sideways and continuing along its path to the double glazing, which it cracked and exploded effortlessly, blowingglass inside, regurgitating everything from the kitchen out into the open air. Samad, a recently airborne col lander resting on his ear, held his book tight to his chest and hurried to the car.
"What are you doing in the driving seat?"Alsana held on to the wheel firmly and talked to Millat via the rear-view mirror. "Will someoneplease tell my husband that I am going to drive. I grew up by the Bay of Bengal. I watched my mother drive through winds like these while my husband was poncing about in Delhi with a load of fairy college boys. I suggest my husband gets in the passenger seat and doesn't fart unless I tell him toAlsana drove at three miles an hour through the deserted106, blacked-out high road while winds of no mph. relentlessly107 battered108 the tops of the highest buildings.
"England, this is meant to be! I moved to England so I wouldn't have to do this. Never again will I trust that Mr. Crab109.""Amma, it's Mr. Fish.""From now on, he's Mr. Crab to me," snapped Alsana with a dark look. "BBC or no BBC."The lights had gone out at Archie's, but the Jones household was prepared for every disastrous110 eventuality from tidal wave to nuclear fallout; by the time the Iqbals got there the place was lit with dozens of gas lamps, garden candles and night lights, the front door and windows had been speedilyreinforced with hardboard, and the garden trees had their branches roped together.
"It's all about preparation," announced Archie, opening the door to the desperate Iqbals and their armfuls of belongings111, like a DIY king welcoming the dispossessed. "I mean, you've got to protect your family, haven't you? Not that you've failed in that de par8 you know what I mean 'sjustthe way I see it: it's me against the wind. If I've told you once, Ick-Ball, I've told you a million times: check the supporting walls. If they're not in tiptop condition, you're buggered, mate. You really are. And you've got to keep a pneumatic spanner in the house. Essential.""That's fascinating, Archibald. May we come in?"Archie stepped aside. "Course. Tell the truth, I was expecting you. You never did know a drill bit from a screw handle, Ick-Ball. Good with the theory, but never got the hang of the practicalities.
Go on, up the stairs, mind the night lights good idea that, eh? Hello, Alsi, you look lovely as ever; hello, Millboid, yer scoundrel. So Sam, out with it: what have you lost?"Samad sheepishly recounted the damage so far.
"Ah, now you see, that's not your glazing that's fine, / put that in it's the frames. Just ripped out of that crumbling112 wall, I'll bet."Samad grudgingly113 acknowledged this to be the case.
"There'll be worst to come, mark mine. Well, what's done is done. Clara and Me are in the kitchen. We've got a Bunsen burner going, and grub's up in a minute. But what a bloody storm, eh?
Phone's out. "Lectricity's out. Never seen the likes of it."In the kitchen, a kind of artificial calm reigned114. Clara was stirring some beans, quietly hummingthe tune81 to Buffalo115 Soldier. Me was hunched116 over a notepad, writing her diary obsessively117 in the manner of thirteen-year-olds:
8.30 p.m. Millat just walked in. He's sooo gorgeous but ultimately irritating! Tight jeans as usual. Doesn't look at me (as usual, except in a FRIENDLY way). I'm in love with a fool (stupid me)! If only he hadhis brother's brains ... oh well, blah blah. I've got puppy love and puppy fat aaaagh! Storm still crazy. Got to go. Will write later.
"All right," said Millat.
"All right," said Me.
"Crazy this, eh?""Yeah, mental.""Dad's having a fit. House is torn to shit.""Ditto. It's been madness around here too.""I'd like to know where you'd be without me, young lady," said Archie, banging another nail into some hardboard. "Best protected house in Willesden, this is. Can't hardly tell there's a storm going on from here.""Yeah," said Millat, sneaking a final thrilling peek118 through the window at the apoplectic119 trees before Archie blocked out the sky entirely120 with wood and nails. "That's the problem."Samad clipped Millat round the ear. "Don't you start in on the cheekiness. We know what we're doing. You forget, Archibald and I have coped with extreme situations. Once you have fixed121 a five-man tank in the middle of a battlefield, your life at risk at every turn, bullets whizzing inchesfrom your arse, while simultaneously122 capturing the enemy in the harshest possible conditions, let me be telling you, hurricane is little tiny small fry. You could do a lot worse than yes, yes, very amusing I'm sure," muttered Samad, as the two children and the two wives feigned123 narcolepsy.
"Who wants some of these beans? I'm dishing out.""Someone tell a story," said Alsana. "It's going to get oh so boring if we have to listen to old warhorse big mouths all night.""Go on, Sam," said Archie with a wink124. "Give us the one about Mangal Pande. That's always good for a laugh."A clamour of Nooo's, mimed125 slitting126 of throats and self asphyxiation127 went round the assembled company.
"The story of Mangal Pande," Samad protested, 'is no laughing matter. He is the tickle128 in the sneeze, he is why we are the waywe are, the founder129 of modern India, the big historical cheese."Alsana snorted. "Big fat nonsense. Every fool knows Gandhi gee130 is the big cheese. Or Nehru.
Or maybe Akbar, but he was crook-backed, and huge-nosed, I never liked him.""Dammit! Don't talk nonsense, woman. What do you know about it? Fact is: it is simply a matter of market economy, publicity131, movie rights. The question is: are the pretty men with the big white teeth willing to play you, et cetera. Gandhi had Mr. Kingsley bully132 for him but who will do Pande, eh? Pande's not pretty enough, is he? Too Indian-looking, big nose, big eyebrows133. That's why I am always having to tell you ingrates a thing or two about Mangal Pande. Bottom line: if I don't, nobody will.""Look," said Millat, "I'll do the short version. Greatgrandfather '
"Your great-great-grandfather, stupid," corrected Alsana.
"Whatever. Decides to fuck the English'
"To rebel against the English, all on his Jack-Jones, spliffed up to the eyeballs, tries to shoot his captain, misses, tries to shoot himself, misses, gets hung '
"Hanged," said Clara absentmindedly.
"Hanged or hung? I'll get the dictionary," said Archie, laying down his hammer and climbing off the kitchen counter.
"Whatever. End of story. Boring."And now a mammoth134 tree the kind endemic to North London, the ones that sprout135 three smaller trees along the trunk before finally erupting into glorious greenery, city-living for whole diaspora of magpie136 a tree of this kind tore itself from the dog shit and the concrete, took one tottering137 step forward, swooned and collapsed138; through the guttering140, through the double glazing, through the hardboard, knocked over a gas lamp, and then landed in an absence that was Archie-shaped, for hehad just left it.
Archie was the first to leap into action, throwing a towel on the small fire progressing along the cork141 kitchen tiles, while everyone else trembled and wept and checked each other for injury. ThenArchie, visibly shaken by this blow to his DIY supremacy142, reclaimed143 control over the elements, tying some of the branches with kitchen rags and ordering Millat and Irie to go around the house, putting out the gas lamps.
"We don't want to burn ourselves to death, now do we? I better find some black plastic and gaffer tape. Do something about this."Samad was incredulous. "Do something about it, Archibald? I fail to see how some gaffer tape will change the fact there is a half a tree in the kitchen.""Man, I'm terrified," stuttered Clara, after a few minutes' silence, as the storm lulled144. "The quietis always a bad sign. My grandmother God rest her she always said that. The quiet is just God pausing to take a breath before he shouts all over again. I think we should go into the other room.""That was the only tree on this side. Best stay in here. Worst's done here. Besides," said Archie, touching145 his wife's arm affectionately, 'you Bowdens have seen worse than this! Your mother was born in a bloody earthquake, for Christ's sake. 1907, Kingston's falling apart and Hortense pops into the world. You wouldn't see a little storm like this worrying her. Tough as nails, that one.""Not toughness," said Clara quietly, standing up to look through the broken window at the chaos146 outside, 'luck. Luck and faith.""I suggest we pray," said Samad, picking up his novelty Qur'an. "I suggest we acknowledge the might of the Creator as he does his worst this evening."Samad began nicking through and, finding what he wanted, brought it patrician-like under his wife's nose, but she slammed it shut and glared at him. Ungodly Alsana, who was yet a nifty hand with the word of God (good schooling147, proper parents, oh yes), lacking nothing but the faith, prepared to do what she did only in emergency: recite: "I donot serve what you worship, nor do you serve what I worship. I shall never serve what you worship, nor will you ever serve what I worship. You have your own religion, and I have mine. Sura 109, translation N. J. Dawood." Now, will someone," said Alsana, looking to Clara, 'please remind my husband that he is not Mr. Manilow and he does not have the songs that make the whole world sing.
He will whistle his tune and I will whistle mine."Samad turned contemptuously from his wife and placed both hands rigidly148 on his book. "Who will pray with me?""Sorry, Sam," came a muffled149 voice (Archie had his head in the cupboard and was searching for the bin29 bags). "Not really my cup of tea, either. Never been a church man. No offence."Five more minutes passed without the wind. Then the quiet burst and God shouted just as Ambrosia150 Bowden had told her granddaughter he would. Thunder went over the house like a dying man's bile, lightning followed like his final malediction151, and Samad closed his eyes.
The Millat called Clara, then Alsana. No answer. Standing bolt upright in the cupboard, smashing his head against the spice shelf, Archie said, "It's been ten minutes. Oh blimey. Where are the kids?"One kid was in Chittagong, being dared by a friend to take off his lungi and march through a renowned152 crocodile swamp; the other two had sneaked153 out of the house to feel the eye of the storm, and were walking against the wind as if thigh-high in water. They waded154 into Willesden recreation ground, where the following conversation took place.
"This is incredible.""Yeah, mental!""You're mental.""What do you mean? I'm fine!""No, you're not. You're always looking at me. And what were you writing? You're such a nerd.
You're always writing"Nothing. Stuff. You know, diary stuff.""You've got the blatant155 hots for me.""I can't hear you! Louder!""THE HOTS! BLATANTLY156! YOU CAN HEAR ME.""I have not! You're an egomaniac.""You want my arse.""Don't be a wanker!""Well, it's no good, anyway. You're getting a bit big. I don't like big. You can't have me.""I wouldn't want to, Mr. Egomaniac.""Plus: imagine what our kids would look like.""I think they'd look nice.""Browny-black. Blacky-brown. Afro, flat nose, rabbit teeth and freckles157. They'd be freaks!" "You can talk. I've seen that picture of your gran dad --'
"GREAT-GREATGRANDAD.""Massive nose, horrible eyebrows'
"That's an artist's impression, you chief.""And they'd be crazy he was crazy your whole family's crazy. It's genetic.""Yeah, yeah. Whatever.""And for your information, I don't fancy you, anyway. You've got a bent49 nose. And you're trouble. Who wants trouble?""Well, watch out," said Millat, leaning forward, colliding with some buck158 teeth, slipping a tongue in momentarily, and then pulling back. "Cos that's all the trouble you're getting."14 January 1989Millat spread his legs like Elvis and slapped his wallet down on the counter. "One for Bradford, yeah?"The ticket-man put his tired face close up to the glass. "Are you asking me, young man, or telling me?""I just say, yeah? One for Bradford, yeah? You got some problem, yeah? Speaka da English?
This is King's Cross, yeah? One for Bradford, in nitMillat's Crew (Rajik, Ranil, Dipesh and Hifan) sniggered and shuffled159 behind him, joining in on the ye ahs like some kind of backing group.
"Please?""Please what, yeah? One for Bradford, yeah? You get me? One for Bradford. Chief.""And would that be a return? For a child?""Yeah, man. I'm fifteen, yeah? "Course I want a return, I've got a bar ii to get back to like everybody else.""That'll be seventy-five pounds, then, please."This was met with displeasure by Millat and Millat's Crew.
"You what? Takin' liberties! Seventy chaaaa, man. That's moody160. I ain't payin' no seventy-five pounds!""Well, I'm afraid that's the price. Maybe next time you mug some poor old lady," said the ticket-man, looking pointedly161 at the chunky gold that fell from Millat's ears, wrists, fingers and from around his neck, 'you could stop in here first before you get to the jewellery store.""Liberties!" squealed163 Hifan.
"He's cussin' you, yeah?" confirmed Ranil.
"You better tell 'im," warned Rajik.
Millat waited a minute. Timing164 was everything. Then he turned around, stuck his arse in the air, and farted long and loud in the ticket-man's direction.
The Crew, on cue: "Somokdmi!""What did you call me? You what did you say? You little bastards165. Can't tell me in English?
Have to talk your Paki language?"Millat slammed his fist so hard on the glass that it reverberated166 down the booths to the ticket-man down the other end selling tickets to Milton Keynes.
"First: I'm not a Paki, you ignorant fuck. And second: you don't need translator, yeah? I'll give it to you straight. You're a fucking faggot, yeah? Queer boy, poofter, batty-rider, shit-dick." There was nothing Millat's Crew prided themselves on more than the number of euphemisms167 they could offer for homosexuality.
"Arse-bandit, fairy-fucker, toilet-trader.""You want to thank God for the glass between us, boy.""Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thank Allah, yeah? I hope he fucks you up wicked, yeah? We're going to Bradford to sort out the likes of you, yeah? Chief!"Halfway168 up platform 12" about to board a train they had no tickets for, a King's Cross security guy stopped Millat's Crew to ask them a question. "You boys not looking for any trouble, are you?"The question was fair. Millat's Crew looked like trouble. And, at the time, a crew that looked like trouble in this particular way had a name, they were of a breed: Raggastani.
It was a new breed, just recently joining the ranks of the other street crews: Becks, B-boys, Indic kids, wide-boys, ravers, rude-boys, Acidheads, Sharons, Tracies, Kevs, Nation Brothers, Raggas and Pakis; manifesting itself as a kind of cultural mongrel of the last three categories.
Raggastanis spoke a strange mix of Jamaican patois169, Bengali, Gujarati and English. Their ethos, their manifesto170, if it could be called that, was equally a hybrid171 thing: A&ahfeatured, but more as a collective big brother than a supreme172 being, a hard-as-fuck geezer who would fight in their corner if necessary; Kung Fu and the works of Bruce Lee were also central to the philosophy; added to this was a smattering of Black Power(as embodied173 by the album Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy); but mainly their mission was to put the Invincible174 back in Indian, the Bad-aaa ass7 back in Bengali, the P-Funk back in Pakistani. People had fucked with Rajik back in the days when he was into chess and wore V-necks.
People had fucked with Ranil, when he sat at the back of the class and carefully copied all teacher's comments into his book. People had fucked with Dipesh and Hifan when they wore traditional dress in the playground. People had even fucked with Millat, with his tight jeans and his white rock.
But no one fucked with any of them any more because they looked like trouble. They looked like trouble in stereo. Naturally, there was a uniform. They each dripped gold and wore bandanas, either wrapped around their foreheads or tied at the joint175 of an arm or leg. The trousers were enormous, swamping things, the left leg always inexplicably176 rolled up to the knee; the trainers were equallyspectacular, with tongues so tall they obscured the entire ankle; baseball caps were compulsory177, low slung178 and irremovable, and everything, everything, everything was Nike(tm); wherever the five of them went the impression they left behind was of one gigantic swoosh, one huge mark of corporate179 approval. And they walked in a very particular way, the left side of their bodies assuming a kind of loose paralysis180 that needed carrying along by the right side; a kind of glorified181, funky182 limp like theslow, padding movement that Yeats imagined for his rough millennial183 beast. Ten years early, while the happy acid heads danced through the Summer of Love, Millat's Crew were slouching towards Bradford.
"No trouble, yeah?" said Millat to the security guy.
"Just going' began Hifan.
"To Bradford," said Rajik.
"For business, yeah?" explained Dipesh.
"See-ya! Bidayo!" called Hifan, as they slipped into the train, gave him the finger, and shoved their arses up against the closing doors.
"Tax the window seat, yeah? Nice. I've blatantly got to have a fag in here, yeah? I'm fuckin' wired, yeah? This whole business, man. This fuckin' geezer, man. He's a fuckin' coconut184 I'd like to fuck him up, yeah?""Is he actually gonna be there?"All serious questions were always addressed to Millat, and Millat always answered the group as a whole. "No way. He ain't going to be there. Just brothers going to be there. It's a fucking protest,you chief, why's he going to go to a protest against himself?""I'm just saying," said Ranil, wounded, "I'd fuck him up, yeah? If he was there, you know. Dirty fucking book.""It's a fucking insult!" said Millat, spitting some gum against the window. "We've taken it too long in this country. And now we're getting it from our own, man. Rhas clut! He's a fucking bad or white man's puppet.""My uncle says he can't even spell," said a furious Hifan, the most honestly religious of the lot.
"And he dares to talk about Allah!""Allah'll fuck him up, yeah?" cried Rajik, the least intelligent, who thought of God as some kind of cross between Monkey Magic and Bruce Willis. "He'll kick him in the balls. Dirty book.""You read it?" asked Ranil, as they whizzed past Finsbury Park.
There was a general pause.
Millat said, "I haven't exackly read it exackly but I know all about that shit, yeah?"To be more precise, Millat hadn't read it. Millat knew nothing about the writer, nothing about the book; could not identify the book if it lay in a pile of other books; could not pick out the writer in a line-up of other writers (irresistible, this line-up of offending writers: Socrates, Protagoras,Ovid and Juvenal, Rad clyffe Hall, Boris Pasternak, D. H. Lawrence, Solzhenitsyn, Nabokov, all holding up their numbers for the mug shot, squinting185 in the flashbulb). But he knew other things.
He knew thathe, Millat, was a Paid no matter where he came from; that he smelt of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people's jobs; or had no job and bummed186 off the state; or gave all the jobs to his relatives; that he could be a dentist or a shop-owner or a curry-shifter, but not a foot baller or afilm-maker; that he should go back to his own country; or stay here and earn his bloody keep; that he worshipped elephants and wore turbans; that no one who looked like Millat, or spoke like Millat, or felt like Millat, was ever on the news unless they had recently been murdered. In short, he knew he had no face in this country, no voice in the country, until the week before last when suddenlypeople like Millat were on every channel and every radio and every newspaper and they were angry, and Millat recognized the anger, thought it recognized him, and grabbed it with both hands.
"So .. . you ain't read it?" asked Ranil nervously187.
"Look: you best believe I ain't buying that shit, man. No way, star."The neither," said Hifan.
"True star," said Rajik.
"Fucking nastiness," said Ranil.
"Twelve ninety-five, you know!" said Dipesh.
"Besides," said Millat, with a tone of finality despite his high rising terminals, 'you don't have to read shit to know that it's blasphemous188, you get me?"Back in Willesden, Samad Iqbal was expressing the very same sentiment loudly over the evening news.
"I don't need to read it. The relevant passages have been photocopied189 for me.""Will someone remind my husband," said Alsana, speaking to the news reader 'that he does not even know what the bloody book is about because the last thing he read was the bloody AZ.""I'm going to ask you one more time to shut up so I can watch the news.""I can hear screaming but it does not appear to be my voice.""Can't you understand, woman? This is the most important thing to happen to us in this country, ever. It's crisis point. It's the tickle in the sneeze. It's big time." Samad hit the volume button a few times with his thumb. "This woman Moira whateverhernameis she mumbles190. Why is she reading news if she can't speak properly?"Moira, turned up suddenly in mid-sentence, said, '.. . the writer denies blasphemy191, and argues that the book concerns the struggle between secular192 and religious views of life."Samad snorted. "What struggle! I don't see any struggle. I get on perfectly193 OK. All grey cells in good condition. No emotional difficulties."Alsana laughed bitterly. "My husband fights the Third World War every single bloody day in his head, so does everybody '
"No, no, no. No struggle. What's he on about, eh? He can't wangle out of it by being rational.
Rationality! Most overrated Western virtue194! Oh no. Fact is, he is simply offensive he has offended '
"Look," Alsana cut in. "When my little group get together, if we disagree about something, we can sort it out. Example: Mohona Hossain hates Divargiit Singh. Hates all his movies. Hates him with a passion. She likes that other fool with the eyelashes like a lady! But we compromise. Never once have I burned a single video of hers.""Hardly the same thing, Mrs. Iqbal, hardly the same kettle with fish in it.""Oh, passions are running high at the Women's Committee shows how much Samad Iqbalknows. But I am not like Samad Iqbal. I restrain myself. I live. I let live.""It is not a matter of letting others live. It is a matter of protecting one's culture, shielding one's religion from abuse. Not that you'd know anything about that, naturally. Always too busy with this Hindi brain popcorn195 to pay any attention to your own culture!""My own culture? And what is that please?""You're a Bengali. Act like one.""And what is a Bengali, husband, please?""Get out of the way of the television and look it up."Alsana took out baltic-brain, number three of their 24setReader's Digest Encyclopedia196, and read from the relevant section:
The vast majority of Bangladesh's inhabitants are Bengalis, who are largely descended197 from Indo-Aryans who began to migrate into the country from the west thousands of years ago and who mixed within Bengal with indigenous198 groups of various racial stocks. Ethnic199 minorities include the Chakma and Mogh, Mongoloid peoples who live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts200 District; the Santal, mainly descended from migrants from present-day India; and the Biharis, non-Bengali Muslims who migrated from India after the partition.
"Oi, mister! Indo-Aryans... it looks like I am Western after all! Maybe I should listen to Tina Turner, wear the itsy-bitsy leather skirts. Pah. It just goes to show," said Alsana, revealing her English tongue, 'you go back and back and back and it's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe. Do you think anybody is English? Really English? It's a fairy-tale!""You don't know what you're talking about. You're out of your depth."Alsana held up the encyclopedia. "Oh, Samad. Miah. You want to burn this too?""Look: I've no time to play right now. I am trying to listen to a very important news story.
Serious goings on in Bradford. So, if you don't mind '
"Oh dear God!" screamed Alsana, the smile leaving her face,falling to her knees in front of the television, tracing her finger past the burning book to the face she recognized, smiling up at her through light tubes, her pixilated second-son beneath her picture-framed first. "What is he doing? Is he crazy? Who does he think he is? What on earth is hedoing there? He's meant to be in school! Has the day come when the babies are burning the books, has it? I don't believe it!""Nothing to do with me. Tickle in the sneeze, Mrs. Iqbal," said Samad coolly, sitting back in his armchair. "Tickle in the sneeze."When Millat came home that evening, a great bonfire was raging in the back garden. All his secular stuff four years' worth of cool, pre- and post-Raggastani, every album, every poster, special-edition t-shirts, club fliers collected and preserved over two years, beautiful Air Maxtrainers, copies 20-75 of 2000 AD Magazine, signed photo of Chuck D." impossibly rare copy of Slick Rick's Hey Young World, Catcher in the Rye, his guitar, Godfather I and II, Mean Streets, Rumblefish, Dog Day Afternoon and Shaft201 in Africa- all had been placed on the funeral pyre, now a smouldering mound202 of ashes that was giving off fumes203 of plastic and paper, stinging the boy's eyes that were already filled with tears.
"Everyone has to be taught a lesson," Alsana had said, lighting204 the match with heavy heart some hours earlier. "Either everything is sacred or nothing is. And if he starts burning other people's things, then he loses something sacred also. Everyone gets what's coming, sooner or later."10 November 1989A wall was coming down. It was something to do with history. It was an Historic occasion. No one really knew quite who had put it up or who was tearing it down or whether this was good, bad or something else; no one knew how tall it was, how long it was, or why people had died trying to cross it or whether they would stop dying in future, but it waseducational all the same; as good an excuse for a get-together205 as any. It was a Thursday night, Alsana and Clara had cooked, and everybody was watching history on TV.
"Who's for more rice?"Millat and Me held out their plates, jostling for prime position.
"What's happening now?" asked Clara, rushing back to her seat with a bowl of Jamaican fried dumplings, from which Irie snatched three.
"Same, man," Millat grumbled206. "Same. Same. Same. Dancing on the wall, smashing it with a hammer. Whatever. I wanna see what else is on, yeah?"Alsana snatched the remote control and squeezed in between Clara and Archie. "Don't you dare, mister.""It's educational," said Clara deliberately207, her pad and paper on the arm rest, waiting to leap into action at the suggestion of anything edifying208. "It's the kind of thing we all should be watching."Alsana nodded and waited for two awkward-shaped bhajis to go down the gullet. "That's what I try and tell the boy. Big business. Tip-top historic occasion. When your own little Iqbals tug209 at your trousers and ask you where you were when'
Till say I was bored shitless watching it on TV."Millat got a thwack round the head for 'shitless' and another one for the impertinence of the sentiment. Irie, looking strangely like the crowd on top of the wall in her everyday garb210 of CND badges, graffiti-covered trousers and beaded hair, shook her head in saddened disbelief. She wasthat age. Whatever she said burst like genius into centuries of silence. Whatever she touched was the first stroke of its kind. Whatever she believed was not formed by faith but carved from certainty.
Whatever she thought was the first time such a thought had ever been thunk.
That's totally your problem, Mill. No interest in the outsideworld. I think this is amazing. They're all free! After all this time, don't you think that's amazing?
That after years under the dark cloud of Eastern communism they're coming into the light of Western democracy, united," she said, quoting Newsnight faithfully. "I just think democracy is man's greatest invention."Alsana, who felt personally that Clara's child was becoming impossibly pompous211 these days, held up the head of a Jamaican fried fish in protest. "No, dearie. Don't make that mistake. Potato peeler is man's greatest invention. That or Poop-a-Scoop.""What they want," said Millat, 'is to stop pissing around wid dis hammer business and jus' get some Semtex and blow de djam ting up, if they don't like it, you get me? Be quicker, in nit"Why do you talk like that?" snapped Irie, devouring212 a dumpling. That's not your voice. You sound ridiculous!""And you want to watch dem dumplings," said Millat, patting his belly. "Big ain't beautiful.""Oh, get lost.""You know," murmured Archie, munching213 on a chicken wing, "I'm not so sure that it's such a good thing. I mean, you've got to remember, me and Samad, we were there. And believe me, there's a good reason to have it split in two. Divide and conquer, young lady.""Jesus Christ, Dad. What are you on?""He's not on anything," said Samad severely214. "You younger people forget why certain things were done, you forget their significance. We were there. Not all of us think fondly upon a united Germany. They were different times, young lady.""What's wrong with a load of people making some noise about their freedom? Look at them.
Look at how happy they are."Samad looked at the happy people dancing on the wall and felt contempt and something more irritating underneath it that could have been jealousy215.
"It is not that I disagree with rebellious216 acts per se. It is simply that if you are to throw over an old order, you must be sure thatyou can offer something of substance to replace it; that is what Germany needs to understand.
As an example, take my great grandfather Mangal Pande '
Me sighed the most eloquent217 sigh that had ever been sighed. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same."TheI' said Clara, because she felt she should.
"Well! He goes on like he knows everything. Everything's always about him and I'm trying to talk about now, today, Germany. I bet you," she said, turning to Samad, "I know more about it than you do. Go on. Try me. I've been studying it all term. Oh, and by the way: you weren't there. You and Dad left in 1945. They didn't do the wall until 1961.""Cold War," said Samad sourly, ignoring her. "They don't talk about hot war any more. The kind where men get killed. That's where I learnt about Europe. It cannot be found in books.""Oi-oi," said Archie, trying to diffuse219 a row. "You do know Last of the Summer Wine's on in ten minutes? BBC Two.""Go on," persisted Me, kneeling up and turning around to face Samad. "Try me.""The gulf220 between books and experience," intoned Samad solemnly, 'is a lonely ocean.""Right. You two talk such a load of sh '
But Clara was too quick with a slap round the ear. TheI'
Me sat back down, not so much defeated as exasperated221 and turned up the TV volume.
The 28-mile-long scar the ugliest symbol of a divided world, East and West has no meaning any more. Few people, including this reporter, thought to see it happen in their lifetimes, but last night,at the stroke of midnight, thousands lingering both sides of the wall gave a great roar and began to pour through checkpoints and to climb up and over it.
"Foolishness. Massive immigration problem to follow," said Samad to the television, dipping a dumpling into some ketchup222. "You just can't let a million people into a rich country. Recipe for disaster.""And who does he think he is? Mr. Churchill-gee?" laughed Alsana scornfully. "Originalwhitecliffsdover piesnmash jelly eels28 royal variety british bulldog hell?""Scar," said Clara, noting it down. "That's the right word, isn't it?""Jesus Christ. Can't any of you understand the enormity of what's going on here? These are the last days of a regime. Political apocalypse, meltdown. It's an historic occasion.""So everyone keeps saying," said Archie, scouring223 the TV Times. "But what about The Krypton Factor, I TV? That's always good, eh? "Son now.""And stop sayin' "an historic"," said Millat, irritated at all the poncey political talk. "Why can't you just say "a", like everybody else, man? Why d'you always have to be so la di da?""Oh, for fuck's sake!" (She loved him, but he was impossible.) "What possible fuckingdifference can it make?"Samad rose out of his seat. TheI This is my house and you are still a guest. I won't have that language in it!""Fine! I'll take it to the streets with the rest of the proletariat.""That girl," tutted Alsana as her front door slammed. "Swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter139 Millat sucked his teeth at his mother. "Don't you start, man. What's wrong with "a" encyclopedia? Why's everyone in this house always puttin' on fuckin' airs?"Samad pointed162 to the door. "OK, mister. You don't speak to your mother like that. You out too.""I don't think," said Clara quietly, after Millat had stormed up to his room, 'that we should discourage the kids from having an opinion. It's good that they're freethinkers."Samad sneered224, "And you would know .. . what? You do aSamadl984, 1SS7great deal of free-thinking? In the house all day, watching the television?""Excuse me?""With respect: the world is complex, Clara. If there's one thing these children need to understand it is that one needs rules to survive it, not fancy.""He's right, you know," said Archie earnestly, ashing a fag in an empty curry bowl. "Emotionalmatters then yes, that's your department '
"Oh women's work!" squealed Alsana, through a mouth full of curry. Thank you so much,Archibald."Archie struggled to continue. "But you can't beat experience, can you? I mean, you two, you're young women still, in a way. Whereas we, I mean, we are, like, wells of experience the children can use, you know, when they feel the need. We're like encyclopedias225. You just can't offer them what we can. In all fairness."Alsana put her palm on Archie's forehead and stroked it lightly. "You fool. Don't you know you're left behind like carriage and horses, like candle wax Don't you know to them you're old andsmelly like yesterday's fishnchip paper? I'll be agreeing with your daughter on one matter of importance." Alsana stood up, following Clara, who had left at this final insult and marched tearfully into the kitchen. "You two gentlemen talk a great deal of the youknowwhat."Left alone, Archie and Samad acknowledged the desertion of both families by a mutual226 rolling of eyes, wry227 smiles. They sat quietly for a moment while Archie's thumb flicked228 adeptly229 through An Historic Occasion, A Costume Drama Set in Jersey230, Two Men Trying to Build a Raft in Thirty Seconds, A Studio Debate on Abortion231, and back once more to An Historic Occasion.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
"Home? Pub? O'Connell's?"Archie was about to reach into his pocket for a shiny ten pence when he realized there was no need. "O'Connell's?" said Archie. "O'Connell's' said Samad.
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underneath
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temperate
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formerly
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random
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cyclone
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expectancy
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ass
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par
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wheeze
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relatively
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wading
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shuddering
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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14
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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15
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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16
gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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17
curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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18
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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19
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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20
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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21
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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22
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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23
voyeurism
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| n.窥阴癖者 | |
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24
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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25
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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26
eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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27
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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28
eels
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| abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system） | |
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29
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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30
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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31
mosque
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| n.清真寺 | |
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32
transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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33
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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34
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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35
sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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36
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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37
chubby
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| adj.丰满的，圆胖的 | |
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38
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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39
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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40
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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41
validated
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| v.证实( validate的过去式和过去分词 )；确证；使生效；使有法律效力 | |
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42
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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43
peppermint
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| n.薄荷，薄荷油，薄荷糖 | |
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44
scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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46
disapproves
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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48
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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49
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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50
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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51
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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52
cursory
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| adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的 | |
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53
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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54
scoff
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| n.嘲笑，笑柄，愚弄；v.嘲笑，嘲弄，愚弄，狼吞虎咽 | |
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55
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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56
Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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57
imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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58
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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59
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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60
daguerreotype
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| n.银板照相 | |
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61
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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62
naivety
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| n.天真，纯朴，幼稚 | |
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63
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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64
genetic
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| adj.遗传的，遗传学的 | |
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65
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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66
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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67
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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68
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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69
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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70
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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71
mutinous
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| adj.叛变的，反抗的；adv.反抗地，叛变地；n.反抗，叛变 | |
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72
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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73
baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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74
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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75
mesmerized
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| v.使入迷( mesmerize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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76
emanate
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| v.发自，来自，出自 | |
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77
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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78
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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79
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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80
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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81
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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82
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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83
scythe
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| n. 长柄的大镰刀，战车镰； v. 以大镰刀割 | |
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84
tornado
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| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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85
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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86
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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87
rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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88
glazing
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| n.玻璃装配业；玻璃窗；上釉；上光v.装玻璃( glaze的现在分词 )；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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89
oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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90
budge
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| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
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91
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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92
almighty
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|
| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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93
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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94
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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95
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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96
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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97
edibles
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| 可以吃的，可食用的( edible的名词复数 )； 食物 | |
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98
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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99
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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100
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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101
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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102
cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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103
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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104
formulating
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| v.构想出( formulate的现在分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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105
versus
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| prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下 | |
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106
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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107
relentlessly
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| adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断 | |
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108
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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109
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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110
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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111
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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112
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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113
grudgingly
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114
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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115
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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116
hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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117
obsessively
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| ad.着迷般地，过分地 | |
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118
peek
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| vi.偷看，窥视；n.偷偷的一看，一瞥 | |
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119
apoplectic
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| adj.中风的；愤怒的；n.中风患者 | |
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120
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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121
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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122
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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123
feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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124
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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125
mimed
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| v.指手画脚地表演，用哑剧的形式表演( mime的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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126
slitting
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| n.纵裂（缝）v.切开，撕开( slit的现在分词 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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127
asphyxiation
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| n. 窒息 | |
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128
tickle
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| v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒 | |
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129
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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130
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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131
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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132
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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133
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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134
mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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135
sprout
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| n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条 | |
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136
magpie
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| n.喜欢收藏物品的人，喜鹊，饶舌者 | |
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137
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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138
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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139
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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140
guttering
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| n.用于建排水系统的材料；沟状切除术；开沟 | |
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141
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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142
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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143
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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144
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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145
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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146
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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147
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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148
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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149
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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150
ambrosia
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| n.神的食物；蜂食 | |
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151
malediction
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| n.诅咒 | |
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152
renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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153
sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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154
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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155
blatant
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| adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的 | |
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156
blatantly
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| ad.公开地 | |
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157
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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158
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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159
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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160
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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161
pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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162
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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163
squealed
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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164
timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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165
bastards
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| 私生子( bastard的名词复数 )； 坏蛋； 讨厌的事物； 麻烦事 （认为别人走运或不幸时说）家伙 | |
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166
reverberated
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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167
euphemisms
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| n.委婉语，委婉说法( euphemism的名词复数 ) | |
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168
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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169
patois
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| n.方言；混合语 | |
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170
manifesto
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| n.宣言，声明 | |
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171
hybrid
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| n.(动，植）杂种，混合物 | |
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172
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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173
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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174
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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175
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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176
inexplicably
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| adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是 | |
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177
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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178
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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179
corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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180
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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181
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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182
funky
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| adj.畏缩的，怯懦的，霉臭的；adj.新式的，时髦的 | |
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183
millennial
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| 一千年的，千福年的 | |
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184
coconut
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| n.椰子 | |
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185
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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186
bummed
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| 失望的，沮丧的 | |
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187
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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188
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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189
photocopied
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| v.影印，照相复制（photocopy的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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190
mumbles
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| 含糊的话或声音，咕哝( mumble的名词复数 ) | |
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191
blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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192
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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193
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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194
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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195
popcorn
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| n.爆米花 | |
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196
encyclopedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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197
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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198
indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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199
ethnic
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| adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的 | |
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200
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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201
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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202
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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203
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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204
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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205
get-together
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| n.(使)聚集；(使)集合 | |
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206
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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207
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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208
edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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209
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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210
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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211
pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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212
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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213
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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214
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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215
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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216
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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217
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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218
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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219
diffuse
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| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
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220
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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221
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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222
ketchup
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| n.蕃茄酱，蕃茄沙司 | |
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223
scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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224
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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225
encyclopedias
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| n.百科全书， （某一学科的）专科全书( encyclopedia的名词复数 ) | |
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226
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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227
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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228
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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229
adeptly
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230
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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231
abortion
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| n.流产，堕胎 | |
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