Akram's War Read online

  ‘You’re not blind. When. . . well, you know. . . when people are at their worst, I think of my island, and the more they go on the clearer it seems to become. But you, I pity you, because I know you don’t have an island.’

  My heart sank at the thought of being left behind. ‘I don’t need some imaginary island.’

  Maley stooped to pick up a small stone and held it close to his eyes, examining it. ‘I tell you what I think. I think you’re going to carry on taking it for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I w-won’t,’ I stammered, looking away.

  ‘You’ll be living in one of these draughty terraced houses waiting for the next brick through the window, and every morning you’ll be scrubbing off graffiti, and just because you’ve got a shop and maybe a car you’ll think it’s all okay, but it won’t be. It never will be okay. You’ll have lost your imagination and become one of them.’

  ‘You quite finished?’

  ‘No.’ He squared up to me. ‘What you going to do about it?’ With two needle-like fingers he pushed me hard in the chest. The pink flush had spread rapidly up his face.

  ‘Steady on, mate.’ I pulled away from him, and to make light of it I forced myself to laugh.

  Maley came closer, his face craning upwards on his thin neck. With my back to the road I could feel my heels balancing on the edge of the kerb. Again he pushed me in the chest. ‘Paki. Wog. Blackie.’ His spit splattered my chin.

  ‘Blackie?’ I retreated, putting one foot into the road and wiping my face with a sleeve. ‘No one says blackie anymore!’

  I saw a curtain twitch in one of the windows and suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation became clear. ‘Someone’s watching, cut it out.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You just don’t react, do you?’ Maley took my arm, yanking me back onto the pavement.

  ‘I’ve heard it before,’ I said, as we continued on up the street.

  ‘We were northerners, but my grandfather’s grandfather came here because of the steel.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s time to move on, that’s all.’

  ‘I get it, you’re just trying to justify your new life as the only inhabitant of an Australian island.’

  ‘The only human inhabitant,’ he corrected and smiled, exposing a jagged row of large teeth crammed into a tiny pinched jaw. I had never seen him so happy. I pictured the bittersweet scene of a ghastly white Maley running along some beach in his tatty Y-fronts.

  We crossed a dual carriageway and scrambled up a steep bank on the other side. Again Maley stopped, bending down to look at a plant. ‘Have you noticed how those wasps, the yellow ones with the black stripes, you don’t see them anymore?’

  ‘When we were little we used to trap them in a milk bottle, wet them and make them fight each other,’ I said.

  ‘Know what this is?’ He caressed a small yellow flower with the back of his hand.

  ‘Never paid it much attention,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a ragwort. Oxford ragwort. It’s not indigenous. It was brought over by Indian railway workers.’ He scanned the horizon. ‘Railway used to join up here.’

  ‘Won’t you miss that? The knowledge? The stupid kingfisher and your dad going deaf from the boilers. It’s special.’

  ‘I’ll put it to good use,’ he replied cheerfully, springing to his feet and sliding down the other side of the bank. ‘This is it,’ he said.

  Following him, I looked around. It was a familiar busy intersection with traffic lights posted on each of the four sides. The 247 hurtled past and stopped further ahead.

  ‘Here?’ I gazed at the bus, wondering if he was about to run for it.

  Maley held the sign reading please across his chest. We stood for an hour, scanning each vehicle hopefully as though it would be the one, and we hardly said a word. Some drivers tooted their horns, some slowed to jeer at us, their voices lost to the rush of wind past the moving car.

  ‘I got an idea,’ I said eventually, ‘but if I tell you, you mustn’t object.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m going to go over there.’ I pointed to the top of the grassy bank. ‘It’s because of me. That’s why the cars don’t stop.’

  Maley shook his head, but without waiting for him to answer I scrambled up the slope. It was calm sitting up there, and quiet, as though it was a long way from the road. I plucked an Oxford ragwort; it had a dark orange feathery button and I counted twelve thin petals coming off it like spokes in a wheel.

  A few minutes later, a truck stopped next to Maley. I felt a sudden wave of panic. After signalling to the driver, Maley raced up the hill. Standing over me, panting, he said, ‘Just so you know, kingfishers aren’t stupid.’ Then, without looking back, he raced to his waiting lift and climbed into the cabin. For a minute the truck remained eerily still. I felt a strange foreboding, but not for him. Maley would be okay. The fear was for me.

  *

  I search for words to explain why I am here. It is warm and there is Grace asleep. I feel passive and content and beyond that I cannot provide an answer. I should leave, but the view through the window, the luminous presence of Allah in the near dark, it keeps me glued.

  The evening of the day Maley left, like most evenings, I went to Best Street mosque, but that day I went of my own volition, without my father having to nag. Best Street mosque is on the junction of Best Street and Garratt’s Lane. A small green sign above the door announces the purpose of the building, and across the windows are steel bars. It is shabby and unkempt and it was once an ordinary house occupied by the foreman of Rowley Works. Ordinary, but with the bonus of being located on a corner and hence having a side yard and two street-facing walls. When the foreman died it was sold at auction, and the local Pakistanis, all of whom sent their children to school in tatty clothes and lived in dingy, cold houses, clubbed together thousands of pounds and bought it.

  When we got the key, we entered en masse, about twenty men and boys, and without a word began to strip the walls and floors, piling everything unholy outside. We laid bricks, later rendered, to make stools and installed before them a long strip of cold water taps, and there the men and boys shivered as they conducted ablutions before prayer. Later, dividing walls were knocked through to make a prayer room, one that could hold – we counted – fifty-three seated worshippers. We fixed to the walls pictures of Mecca and Medina and one other of the oldest mosque in Jerusalem, cheaply framed and with Christmas tinsel around the edges. A carpet was purchased at great cost. On a Sunday morning exactly five years after it was installed, we took out the carpet, spread it across Best Street, closing off the public highway, beat the thick wool with sticks and soaped and rinsed it using buckets of water. Finally, when the imam was satisfied, we hung it to dry on the side wall on Garratt’s Lane. Under its sodden weight the wall collapsed and blocked traffic to the lane. Quickly arriving were the newspapermen and council inspectors. While they reported and called their superiors, they over saw like colonial masters supervising the natives as we relaid the bricks – the first wall any of us – factory workers, bus drivers and children – had built.

  Every day after school throughout my childhood and teenage years I went to Best Street. There we boys and girls sat in a line with our backs to the wall, a Koran spread open before each of us on a wooden, easel-like stand, rocking back and forth to the ebb and flow of the metre we could not hope to understand. Of the Arabic words we recited I knew only one, Allah. At first the routine seemed relentless and without joy, and I found it difficult to find the word Allah, appearing as it often did as a prefix or suffix in a long string of curling calligraphy, but even then I knew it was about faith, about carrying on. Like a parade sergeant the imam patrolled the line, lashing his stick painfully at anyone who displeased him, often apparently at random. Later I grew to understand that the word Allah was synonymous with justice; but at the time of the imam’s thrashing stick, the Bible passages read out at school assembly, in direct contrast, were all about love. God was love. Jesus loved us and we loved
him and he had come as a baby to save us all. We Muslims, we have missed a trick, I used to think, and it is a simple fix – just add love. After Koran lessons I’d go home for supper and then return to the mosque with my father for the last prayer of the day. It is important to sleep on a prayer was my dad’s refrain, and the same day Maley left I sat on the mosque carpet, gone eleven at night, staring at the age-defying tinsel garlanding the picture of the Great Mosque in Mecca.

  Loudspeakers transmitted the soft voice of the imam, muffled and sleepy, as he closed the night prayer. It was black and wet outside, and mid-prayer a brief storm passed overhead. We were seated facing the imam who was at the front, and on the wall behind him were six wooden clocks, like those used by children to learn time. Five were set, by the imam’s finger, to the hours of the five daily prayers, and the sixth established the time of Friday prayer, usually around lunchtime. I closed my eyes, feeling a clock beat inside my head, in rhythm with the imam’s final chant, and tried to imagine how Maley must be feeling. He was alone and surely he was scared. How far had he got? Where was he sleeping? I said a Bismillah, and as I prostrated myself for the last time, my forehead to the ground, the imam ahead of me and worshippers either side of me, silently I prayed in English. I prayed for Maley.

  I straightened to a sitting position and turned to the brother on my right and whispered, ‘Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah,’ and then recited the same words to the brother on my left, and the prayer was over. Easing the stiffness from my legs, I sat cross-legged on the soft prayer-room carpet, leaning back with a palm stretched flat behind me.

  I looked around. A few of the brothers leant into each other, conversing in hushed tones. As though showing off his wealth, one thumbed a mobile phone, and several got out their prayer beads. A yawning child received a light slap across the head from his father. Readying for a reading, the imam sat down on the only chair in the room, a copy of the Holy Koran in his lap. Like a blind man he felt underneath the chair for his spectacles and, finding them, put them on. He leant back and then did a double take. Peering over our heads, he stammered loudly, ‘H-hello!’ The word hello was for the gora and the world outside and was never used inside Best Street mosque.

  We all turned at once. In the corner by the door, a figure was curled asleep, and in the brief, tense silence that suddenly prevailed, I could hear him snore. I stared in disbelief. The boy had fine blond hair and a pink nose, and a layer of steam gathered on the surface of his wet T-shirt. I recognized him as Adrian Hartley and felt a strange shiver in my chest, as though that knowledge made me an accomplice.

  We rose carefully to our feet and gathered to form a semicircle about three feet from him. He was lying on his side, his head buried in a bent arm. He had his back to the wall and his T-shirt was rucked up, his jeans sagging, exposing his underpants. My father stood directly in front of Adrian and I pressed up behind my dad.

  ‘The door was left unlocked?’ my father asked.

  ‘Fire regulations,’ offered the imam with a shrug of his shoulders.

  My father leant a little way over the figure and sniffed, then waved one hand in front of his own face in disgust. ‘He’s been drinking.’

  Voices spoke at once, some puzzled and others panicked:

  ‘If he was my son I would kill him.’

  ‘Allah, Allah.’

  ‘Drunk? Here?’

  ‘Call the police.’

  ‘Come on, brothers, there’s a dozen of us, let’s have him.’ That was Mustafa.

  The imam cleared his throat loudly, silencing the assembly. ‘Does anyone know who this gora is?’

  ‘What does that matter?’ my father said.

  ‘Akram knows him,’ cried Mustafa.

  I glanced angrily at Mustafa. He had grown fat and studious and wore thick glasses. He was rarely seen outdoors, and rumour was that he would go to university. I blurted out without thinking, ‘You should keep your mouth shut, white boy!’

  My father rapped me, not lightly, across the back of my head.

  Taking off my skullcap and pressing it to my nose, I stepped forward and crouched over Adrian. Close up he stank of beer, sweat and the cold rain. Each time he exhaled, red-stained mucus spluttered out of his nostrils, and I felt the iron in his blood coat my tongue.

  I stood up, relieved to be away from the smell, and offered the crowd a wry smile. ‘Mustafa’s right, it’s Adrian Hartley who was expelled from school.’

  Everybody looked at me and then at Adrian asleep on the carpet.

  ‘There’s a bruise on his chin and blood coming from his nose,’ I continued.

  ‘Shall we call an ambulance?’ someone asked.

  ‘Allah, Allah,’ cried the imam, shaking his head.

  ‘It’s who?’ My father shot me a stern glance.

  Adrian coughed and we fell silent, watching as he began to stir. He opened his eyes then slowly eased himself into a sitting position against the wall, drawing his knees to his chest. His eyes swept the room; if there was any fear in him it didn’t show. When he saw me he raised his eyebrows, gave a nonchalant half-smile and then winced in pain. He wedged a fist up against his chin, his knuckles raw.

  ‘It’s cold outside.’ His speech was slurred.

  ‘You can’t just come in here!’ cried Mustafa.

  ‘Have a heart!’ Adrian said with sad eyes. A streaked mixture of blood and saliva dripped from his nose, adding to that already on his T-shirt.

  ‘You been drinking, boy?’ asked my father.

  ‘Shouldn’t leave your door open,’ mumbled Adrian.

  ‘He’s probably got nowhere to go,’ I offered, hoping Adrian would add to my plea. He studied us with a wry expression but said nothing.

  ‘But. . . here?’ said my father.

  ‘He lives on the Old Hill estate,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t care if he lives in Buckingham Palace, he ought to know better.’

  ‘His dad’s an alc, probably hit him,’ I added.

  ‘Looks like he needs teaching a stronger lesson,’ said my father.

  ‘I’m just saying, it’s freezing out.’

  ‘Boy,’ my father pushed me to one side and addressed Adrian, ‘I’m going to teach—’ He stopped, his eyes narrowing. ‘Hartley? Son of Chav Hartley?’

  ‘Charlie,’ snapped Adrian. ‘He doesn’t go by Chav no more and he isn’t no fire starter, right, and yeah, he’d knock your block off.’ He gazed at each of us in turn. He wore a bemused expression, one of helplessness but also resignation.

  ‘He didn’t know it was a mosque,’ I said.

  Gripping the wall behind him, Adrian slowly got to his feet and stammered, ‘I’ll f-fight anyone.’ He left clawed bloodstains on the wall. My father stepped forward.

  ‘No, Dad, he’s just not worth it,’ I said.

  An older Bangladeshi who on Mondays drove the 247 put a hand on my father’s shoulder. He shook his head gravely. ‘It’s his word against ours. If you beat him up you will go to prison.’

  ‘Then my son will do it,’ said my father without hesitation.

  ‘Me?’ I looked up at my old man.

  His teeth were tightly clenched, exposing a thin jawline. He shook off the Bangladeshi’s grip. His hand trembled as he pointed at Adrian, and in a staccato exaggerated-Pakistani accent he said, ‘That family, Paki-bashers.’ The old phrase, one I had not heard for years, and the way it came out of his mouth, made me laugh. I thought others might laugh too, but no one did. His face red, he turned to me. ‘You!’

  I bit my cheeks to stop the laughter. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Why you? You want me to explain? You want me to tell everyone?’

  I gritted my teeth and concentrated on not crying or laughing.

  ‘Father of Akram, that’s enough,’ interjected the Bangladeshi on my behalf.

  ‘This Hartley has been a thorn in your side for how long?’ my father said, announcing it to the assembly. I looked at the carpet, tracing its green, roadmap-like grid against a red background.


  My father continued. ‘After school your mother and I wiped away your blood how many times? Did you not get pneumonia when he pushed you into the canal? Have the police not been called? This Chav Hartley, did I not witness him break Mustafa’s windowpane?’

  ‘Yeah, and if he saw you he’d smash you,’ Adrian interjected.

  ‘Then Mustafa should fight him,’ I suggested, observing that Mustafa had retreated behind my father.

  ‘You,’ my father pointed squarely at me, ‘you sort him out.’ He paused to reassuringly squeeze Mustafa’s shoulder before returning his attention to me. ‘You’re not old enough for prison. Take him outside.’

  I wondered what Maley would do in my place, but I couldn’t supply the answer. Somehow I found myself pushed up next to Adrian against the wall. Unsteady on his feet, Adrian leant against me. From that view the encirc­ling worshippers, primed like an unconvinced lynch mob, made me want to laugh. My father, as head of the posse, looked me up and down slowly.

  ‘I’m gonna be sick,’ said Adrian, breaking the impasse and falling unsteadily towards the sacred carpet.

  9

  Grace stirs and I fall silent, wondering how much of the story she has actually heard. Still seated at the end of the bed, I turn to see her slowly prop herself up against a pillow and reach for the bottle on the bedside table. She drinks from the bottle, takes a pack of cigarettes from her bedside drawer and lights one up. She coughs, then peers over the foot of the bed, observes her towel spread on the floor, smiles and says nothing. Her face seems softer after the sleep and her lower jaw wobbles as though freed of its musculature. Her eyes are glazed and warm and she raises the bottle in salutation as though instructing me to continue.

  *

  The following morning I went to work for my father. My first task was to make a delivery. When I returned to the shop, my father was sitting behind the counter. He glanced up from his Urdu newspaper and eyed me suspiciously. He was singing along to a naath, repeating softly the word Allahu. It was playing from a pirate radio on a small transistor hung on a nail behind him.