7 wasn't the one -1

But Samad wasn't listening, he was already reciting in his head, repeating two English phrases

that he tried hard to believe in, words he had learnt these past ten years in England, words he hoped

could protect him from the abominable heat in his trousers:

To the pure all things are pure. To the pure all things are pure. To the pure all things are pure.

Can't say fairer than that. Can't say fairer than that. Can't say fairer than that. But let's rewind a

little.

To the pure all things are pure

Sex, at least the temptation of sex, had long been a problem. When the fear of God first began

to creep into Samad's bones, circa 1976, just after his marriage to the small-palmed, weak wristed

and disinterested Alsana, he had inquired of an elderly alim in the mosque in Croydon whether it

was permitted that a man might.. . with his hand on his .. .

Before he had got halfway through this tentative mime, the old scholar had silently passed him

a leaflet from a pile on a table and drawn his wrinkled digit firmly underneath point number three.

There are nine acts which invalidate fast:

Eating and drinking Sexual intercourse

Masturbation (istimna), which means self-abuse, resulting in ejaculation

Ascribing false things to Almighty Allah, or his Prophet, or to the successors of the Holy Prophet

Swallowing thick dust

Immersing one's complete head in water

Remaining in Janabat or Haidh or Nifas till the Adhan for Fajr prayers (viii) Enema with

liquids Vomiting

"And what, Alim," Samad had inquired, dismayed, 'if he is not fasting?"

The old scholar looked grave. "Ibn "Umar was asked about it and is reported to have answered:

it is nothing except the rubbing of the male member until its water comes out. It is only a nerve that

one kneads."

Samad had taken heart at this, but the Alim continued. "However, he answered in another report:

it has been forbidden that one should have intercourse with oneself."

"But which is the correct belief? Is it hal al or hara am There are some who say ..." Samad had

begun sheepishly, "To the pure all things are pure. If one is truthful and firm in oneself, it can harm

nobody else, nor offend .. ."

But the Alim laughed at this. "And we know who they are. Allah have pity on the Anglicans!

Samad, when the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intellect go away," said the

Alim, shaking his head. "And one third of his religion. There is an hadith of the Prophet

Muhammad peace be upon Him! it is as follows: O Allah, I seek refuge in you from the evil of my

hearing, of my sight, of my tongue, of my heart, and of my private parts."

"But surely .. . surely if the man himself is pure, then ' "Show me the pure man, Samad! Show

me the pure act! Oh, Samad Miah .. . my advice to you is stay away from your right hand."

Of course. Samad, being Samad, had employed the best of his Western pragmatism, gone home

and vigorously tackled the job with his functional left hand, repeating To the pure all things are

pure. To the pure all things are pure, until orgasm finally arrived: sticky, sad, depressing. And that

ritual continued for some five years, in the little bedroom at the top of the house where he slept

alone (so as not to wake Alsana) after crawling back from the restaurant at three in the morning

each and every morning; secretly, silently; for he was, believe it or not, tortured by it, by this furtive

yanking and squeezing and spilling, by the fear that he was not pure, that his acts were not pure,

that he would never be pure, and always his God seemed to be sending him small signs, small

warnings, small curses (a urethra infection, 1976, castration dream, 1978, dirty, encrusted sheet

discovered but misunderstood by Alsana's great-aunt, 1979) until 1980 brought crisis point and

Samad heard Allah roaring in his ear like the waves in a conch-shell and it seemed time to make a deal.

Can't say fairer than that

The deal was this: on i January 1980, like a New Year dieter who gives up cheese on the

condition that they can have chocolate, Samad gave up masturbation so that he might drink. It was

a deal, a business proposition, that he had made with God: Samad being the party of the first part,

God being the sleeping partner. And since that day Samad had enjoyed relative spiritual peace and

many a frothy Guinness with Archibald Jones; he had even developed the habit of taking his last

gulp looking up at the sky like a Christian, thinking: I'm basically a good man. I don't slap

the salami. Give me a break. I have the odd drink. Can't say fairer than that.. .

But of course he was in the wrong religion for compromises, deals, pacts, weaknesses and can't

say fairer than that. He was supporting the wrong team if it was empathy and concessions he

wanted, if he wanted liberal exegesis, if he wanted to be given a break. His God was not like that

charming white-bearded bungler of the Anglican, Methodist or Catholic churches. His God was not

in the business of giving people breaks. The moment Samad set eyes on the pretty red-haired music

teacher Poppy Burt Jones that July of 1984, he knew finally the truth of this. He knew his God was

having his revenge, he knew the game was up, he saw that the contract had been broken, and the

sanity clause did not, after all, exist, that temptation had been deliberately and maliciously thrown

in his path. In short, all deals were off.

Masturbation recommenced in earnest. Those two months, between seeing the pretty red-haired

music teacher once and seeing her again, were the longest, stickiest, smelliest, guiltiest fifty-six

days of Samad's life. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he found himself suddenly accosted

by some kind of synaesthetic fixation with the woman: hearing the colour of her hair in the mosque,

smelling the touch of her hand on the tube, tasting her smile while innocently walking the streets on

his way to work; and this in turn led to a knowledge of every public convenience in London, led to

the kind of masturbation that even a fifteen-year-old boy living in the Shetlands might find

excessive. His only comfort was that he, like Roosevelt, had made a New Deal: he was going to

beat but he wasn't going to eat. He meant somehow to purge himself of the sights and smells of

Poppy Burt-Jones, of the sin of istimna, and, though it wasn't fasting season and these were the

longest days of the year, still no substance passed Samad's lips between sunrise and sunset, not

even, thanks to a little china spitoon, his own saliva. And

because there was no food going in the one end, what came out of the other end was so thin and

so negligible, so meagre and translucent, that Samad could almost convince himself that the sin was

lessened, that one wonderful day he would be able to massage one-eyed-Jack as vigorously as he

liked and nothing would come out but air.

But despite the intensity of the hunger spiritual, physical, sexual Samad still did his twelve

hours daily in the restaurant. Frankly, he found the restaurant about the only place he could bear to

be. He couldn't bear to see his family, he couldn't' bear to go to O'Connell's, he couldn't bear to give

Archie the satisfaction of seeing him in such a state. By mid August he had upped his working

hours to fourteen a day; something in the ritual of it picking up his basket of pink swan-shaped

napkins and following the trail of Shiva's plastic carnations, correcting the order of a knife or fork,

polishing a glass, removing the smear of a finger from the china plates soothed him. No matter how

bad a Muslim he might be, no one could say Samad wasn't a consummatewaiter. He had taken one

tedious skill and honed it to perfection. Here at least he could show others the right path: how to

disguise a stale onion bhaji, how to make fewer prawns look like more, how to explain to an

Australian that he doesn't want the amount of chilli he thinks he wants. Outside the doors of the

Palace he was a masturbator, a bad husband, an indifferent father, with all the morals of an

Anglican. But inside here, within these four green and yellow paisley walls, he was a one-handed

genius.

"Shiva! Flower missing. Here."

It was two weeks into Samad's New Deal and an average Friday afternoon at the Palace, setting up.

"You've missed this vase, Shiva!"

Shiva wandered over to examine the empty, pencil-thin, aquamarine vase on table nineteen.

"And there is some lime pickleafloat in the mango chutney in the sauce carousel on table fifteen."

"Really?" said Shiva drily. Poor Shiva; nearly thirty now; not so pretty; still here. It had never

happened for him, whatever he thought was going to happen for him. He did leave the restaurant,

Samad remembered vaguely, for a short time in 1979 to start up a security firm, but 'nobody wanted

to hire Paki bouncers' and he had come back, a little less aggressive, a little more despairing, like a

broken horse.

"Yes, Shiva. Really and truly."

"And that's what's driving you crazy, is it?"

"I wouldn't go as far as to say crazy, no ... it is troubling me."

"Because something," interrupted Shiva, 'has got right up your arse recently. We've all noticed it."

"We?"

"Us. The boys. Yesterday it was a grain of salt in a napkin. The day before Gandhi wasn't hung

straight on the wall. The past week you've been acting like Fuhrer-gee," said Shiva nodding in

Ardashir's direction. "Like a crazy man. You don't smile. You don't eat. You're constantly on

everybody's case. And when the head waiter's not all there it puts everybody off. Like a football

captain."

"I am certain I do not know to what you are referring," said Samad, tight-lipped, passing him

the vase.

"And I'm certain you do," said Shiva provocatively, placing the empty vase back on the table.

"If I am concerned about something, there is no reason why it should disrupt my work here,"

said Samad, becoming panicked, passing him back the vase. "I do not wish to inconvenience

others."

Shiva returned the vase to the table once more. "So there is something. Come on, man ... I know

we haven't always seen eye to eye, but we've got to stick together in this place. How long have we

worked together? Samad Miah?"

Samad looked up suddenly at Shiva, and Shiva saw he was sweating, that he seemed almost

dazed. "Yes, yes .. . there is ... something."

Shiva put his hand on Samad's shoulder. "So why don't we sod the fucking carnation and go and

cook you a curry sun'll be down in twenty minutes. Come on, you can tell Shiva all about it. Not

because I give a fuck, you understand, but I have to work here too and you're driving me mad, mate."

Samad, oddly touched by this inelegant offer of a listening ear, laid down his pink swans and

followed Shiva into the kitchens.

"Animal, vegetable, mineral?"

Shiva stood at a work surface and began chopping a breast of chicken into perfect cubes and

dousing them in corn flour.

"Pardon me?"

"Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?" repeated Shiva patiently" title="ad.不耐烦地，急躁地">impatiently. The thing that's bothering you."

"Animal, mainly."

"Female?"

Samad dropped on to a nearby stool and hung his head.

"Female," Shiva concluded. "Wife?"

The shame of it, the pain of it will come to my wife, but no . she is not the cause."

"Another bird. My specialist subject." Shiva performed the action of rolling a camera, sang the

theme to Mastermind and jumped into shot. "Shiva Bhagwati, you have thirty seconds on shagging

women other than your wife. First question: is it right? Answer: depends. Second question: shall I go to hell? -'

Samad cut in, disgusted. "I am not.. . making love to her."

"I've started so I'll finish: shall I go to hell? Answer '

"Enough. Forget it. Please, forget that I mentioned anything of this."

"Do you want aubergine in this?"

"No .. . green peppers are sufficient."

"Alrighty," said Shiva, throwing a green pepper up in the air

and catching it on the tip of his knife. "One Chicken Bhuna coming up. How long's it been going on, then?"

"Nothing is going on. I met her only once. I barely know her."

"So: what's the damage? A grope? A snog?"

"A handshake, only. She is my sons' teacher."

Shiva tossed the onions and peppers into hot oil. "You've had the odd stray thought. So what?"

Samad stood up. "It is more than stray thoughts, Shiva. My whole body is mutinous, nothing

will do what I tell it. Never before have I been subjected to such physical indignities. For example:

I am constantly '

"Yeah," said Shiva, indicating Samad's crotch. "We noticed that too. Why don't you do the

five-knuckle-shuffle before you get to work?"

"I do .... I am .. . but it makes no difference. Besides, Allah forbids it."

"Oh, you should never have got religious, Samad. It don't suit you." Shiva wiped an onion-tear

away. "All that guilt's not healthy."

"It is not guilt. It is fear. I am fifty-seven, Shiva. When you get to my age, you become .. .

concerned about your faith, you don't want to leave things too late. I have been corrupted by

England, I see that now my children, my wife, they too have been corrupted. I think maybe I have

made the wrong friends. Maybe I have been frivolous. Maybe I have thought intellect more

important than faith. And now it seems this final temptation has been put in front of me. To punish

me, you understand. Shiva, you know about women. Help me. How can this feeling be possible? I

have known of the woman's existence for no more than a few months, I have spoken to her only once."

"As you said: you're fifty-seven. Mid-life crisis."

"Mid-life? What does this mean?" snappedSamadirritably. "Dammit, Shiva, I don't plan to live

for one hundred and fourteen years."

"It's a manner of speaking. You read about it in the magazines

these days. It's when a man gets to a certain point in life, he starts feeling he's over the hill.. .

and you're as young as the girl you feel, if you get my meaning."

"I am at a moral crossroads in my life and you are talking nonsense to me."

"You've got to learn this stuff, mate," said Shiva, speaking slowly, patiently. "Female organism,

gee-spot, testicle cancer, the menstropause mid-life crisis is one of them. Information the modern

man needs at his fingertips."

"But I don't wish for such information!" cried Samad, standing up and pacing the kitchen. "That

is precisely the point! I don't wish to be a modern man! I wish to live as I was always meant to! I

wish to return to the East!"

"Ah, well .. . we all do, don't we?" murmured Shiva, pushing the peppers and onion around the

pan. "I left when I was three. Fuck knows I haven't made anything of this country. But who's got

the money for the air fare? And who wants to live in a shack with fourteen servants on the payroll?

Who knows what Shiva Bagwhati would have turned out like back in Calcutta? Prince or pauper?

And who," said Shiva, some of his old beauty returning to his face, 'can pull the West out of 'em

once it's in?"

Samad continued to pace. "I should never have come here that's where every problem has come

from. Never should have brought my sons here, so far from God. Willesden Green! Calling cards in

sweetshop windows, Judy Blume in the school, condom on the pavement, Harvest Festival,

teacher-temptresses!" roared Samad, picking items at random. "Shiva1 tell you, in confidence: my

dearest friend, Archibald Jones, is an unbeliever! Now: what kind of a model am I for my children?"

"Iqbal, sit down. Be calm. Listen: you just want somebody. People want people. It happens

from Delhi to Deptfbrd. And it's not the end of the world."

"Of this, I wish I could be certain."

"When are you next seeing her?"

"We are meeting for school-related business .. . the first Wednesday of September."

"I see. Is she Hindu? Muslim? She ain't Sikh, is she?"

"That is the worst of it," said Samad, his voice breaking. "English. White. English."

Shiva shook his head. "I been out with a lot of white birds, Samad. A lot. Sometimes it's worked,

sometimes it ain't. Two lovely American girls. Fell head-over-heels for a Parisian stunner. Even

spent a year with a Romanian. But never an English girl. Never works. Never."

"Why?" asked Samad, attacking his thumbnail with his teeth and awaiting some fearful answer,

some edict from on high. "Why not, Shiva Bhagwati?"

"Too much history," was Shiva's enigmatic answer, as he dished up the Chicken Bhuna. "Too

much bloody history."

8.30 a.m." the first Wednesday of September, 1984. Samad, lost in thought somewhat, heard the

passenger door of his Austin Mini Metro open and close far away in the real world and turned to his

left to find Millat climbing in next to him. Or at least a Millat-shaped thing from the neck down: the

head replaced by a Tomytronic - a basic computer game that looked like a large pair of binoculars.

Within it, Samad knew from experience, a little red car that represented his son was racing a green

car and a yellow car along a three-dimensional road of l.e.d."s.

Millat parked his tiny backside on the brown plastic seat. "Ooh! Cold seat! Cold seat! Frozen bum!"

"Millat, where are Magid and Me?"

"Coming."

"Coming with the speed of a train or coming with the speed of a snail?"

"Eeek!" squealed Millat, in response to a virtual blockade that threatened to send his red car

spinning off into oblivion.

"Please, Millat. Take this off."

"Can't. Need one, oh, two, seven, three points."

"Millat, you need to begin to understand numbers. Repeat: ten thousand, two hundred and seventy-three."

Then blousand, poo bum dred and weventy-wee."

Take it off, Millat."

"Can't. I'll die. Do you want me to die, Abba?"

Samad wasn't listening. It was imperative that he be at school before nine if this trip were going

to have any purpose whatsoever. By nine, she'd be in class. By nine-oh-two, she'd be opening the

register with those long fingers, by nine-oh-three she'd be tapping her high-mooned nails on a

wooden desk somewhere out of sight.

"Where are they? Do they want to be late for school?"

"Uh-huh."

"Are they always this late?" asked Samad, for this was not his regular routine the school run

was usually Alsana's or Clara's assignment. It was for a glimpse of Burt-Jones (though their

meeting was only seven hours and fifty-seven minutes away, seven hours and fifty-six minutes

away, seven hours .. .) that he had undertaken the most odious parental responsibility in the book.

And he'd had a hard time convincing Alsana there was nothing peculiar in this sudden desire to

participate fully in the educational transportation of his and Archie's offspring:

"But Samad, you don't get in the house 'til three in the morning. Are you going peculiar?"

"I want to see my boys! I want to see Me! Every morning they are growing up1 never see it!

Two inches Millat has grown."

"But not at eight thirty in the morning. It is very funnily enough that he grows all the time

praise Allah! It must be some kind of a miracle. What is this about, hmm?" She dug her fingernail

into the overhang of his belly. "Some hokery-pokery. I can smell it like goat's tongue gone off."

Ah, Alsana's culinary nose for guilt, deceit and fear was without equal in the borough of Brent,

and Samad was useless in the face

of it. Did she know? Had she guessed? These anxieties Samad had slept on all night (when he

wasn't slapping the salami) and then brought to his car first thing so that he might take them out on

his children.

"Where in hell's name are they?"

"Hell's bells!"

"Millat!"

"You swore," said Millat, taking lap fourteen and getting a five-oh-oh bonus for causing the

combustion of Yellow Car. "You always do. So does M'ster Jones."

"Well, we have special swearing licences."

Headless Millat needed no face to express his outrage. "NO

SUCH THING AS-'

"OK, OK, OK," back-pedalled Samad, knowing there is no joy to be had in arguing ontology

with a nine-year-old, "I have been caught out. No such thing as a licence to swear. Millat, where's

your saxophone? You have orchestra today."

"In the boot," said Millat, his voice at once incredulous and disgusted: a man who didn't know

the saxophone went in the boot on Sunday night was some kind of a social retard. "Why're you

picking us up? M'ster Jones picks us up on Mondays. You don't know anything about picking us up.

Or taking us in."

"I'm sure somehow I will muddle through, thank you, Millat. It is hardly rocket science, after all.

Where are those two!" he shouted, beeping the horn, unhinged by his nine-year-old son's ability to

recognize the irregularity in his behaviour. "And will you please be taking that damn thing off!"

Samad made a grab for the Tomytronic and pulled it down around Millat's neck.

"YOU KILLED ME!" Millat looked back in the Tomytronic, horrified, and just in time to

witness his tiny red alter-ego swerving into the barriers and disappearing in a catastrophic light

show of showering yellow sparks. "YOU KILLED ME WHEN I

WAS WINNING!"

Samad closed his eyes and forced his eyeballs to roll up as far

as possible in his head, in the hope that his brain might impact upon them, a self-blinding, if he

could achieve it, on a par with that other victim of Western corruption, Oedipus. Think: I want

another woman. Think: I've killed my son. I swear. I eat bacon. I regularly slap the salami. I drink

Guinness. My best friend is a kaflfir non-believer. I tell myself if I rub up and down without using

hands it does not count. But oh it does count. It all counts on the great counting board of He who

counts. What will happen come Mahshar? How will I absolve myself when the Last Judgement

comes? . Click-slam. Click-slam. One Magid, one Irie. Samad opened his eyes and looked in the

rear-view mirror. In the back seat were the two children he had been waiting for: both with their

little glasses, Irie with her wilful Afro (not a pretty child: she had got her genes mixed up, Archie's

nose with Clara's awfully buck teeth), Magid with his thick black hair slicked into an unappealing

middle-parting. Magid carrying a recorder, Irie with violin. But beyond these basic details,

everything was not as it should be. Unless he was very much mistaken, something was rotten in this

Mini Metro something was afoot. Both children were dressed in black from head to toe. Both wore

white armbands on their left arms upon which were painted crude renditions of baskets of

vegetables. Both had pads of writing paper and a pen tied around their necks with string.

"Who did this to you?"

Silence.

"Was it Amma? And Mrs. Jones?"

Silence.