Dear Infidel (12 page)

She turned the ignition and the car jolted as the engine revved. Scooby Doo promptly toppled over on the dashboard, his fixed grin now seeming sinister. She remembered when they first met, in the gym of all places: her and the skinny Asian guy, sitting on a bench and watching her on a treadmill. He thought he was being discreet, the silly sod. Still, he at least had the guts to follow after her, and he seemed kind of all right. Cute. A cute boy. But six weeks earlier she’d been with Martin.
Martin
. Their dates were certainly different: Aadam liked holding hands in Kew Gardens; Martin liked taking her to Sandbanks harbour after dark, finding an unlocked yacht and soiling a millionaire’s bed sheets. But all that ended so suddenly. Sure, it was all her doing, but still – his absence left such a hole. And she felt unsteady, unbalanced, in need of anchoring.

She remembered when Aadam proposed. A beautiful summer’s day. Hyde Park. They’d lunched under glorious sunshine; the air
unburdened, soft, and lilting with notes of freshly cut grass. He talked and she’d listened, his words caressing, reassuring. They’d taken shade under a large tree, him up against the trunk and her inside him. And he was wrapping her; her arms, her legs, her whole being encased by him. And his touch: delicate, restrained, thumbs exploring, lips brushing skin. And it did nothing for her. Absolutely nothing. She’d wanted it to – part of her was desperate to get swept away, to have faith in his quiet yearning. But as Aadam caressed her, like a blind man trying to make sense of a masterpiece, she couldn’t stop thinking of Martin, always making her forget the world. But Aadam was so,
decent
. And smart, responsible and driven.
And Muslim
. Whereas Martin was ... The very promise of summer lay in his smile but summer had to end, right?
Only today, forget tomorrow
, he’d often say. This was all there was for him: seeing it, tasting it, touching it. This strange gift, this sliver of time. This Life. She’d started to dislike the very things that she’d first found so exciting. Because it wasn’t just about today, was it? But for him there would never be anything else – just this bizarre gift. The banquet was prepared and there was no need to fast, only feast. But then Ramazan came and suddenly she
did
want to fast. She hadn’t previously – not the year before or two years before, or indeed ever. But that year she did. A voice deep inside, whispering secrets. And she heard, she understood, but she didn’t obey;
couldn’t
obey. After all, what words could explain that the feast couldn’t go on? And so she walked out, finding excuses, but she never lost her jungle instinct. But Aadam had no edge, no hunger.
Where was the maniac inside?
She couldn’t remember the last time he’d been reckless, thrown the dice, been spontaneous. Sex was OK, but he had no ...
animal.
Whereas Martin
was
animal. Raw, unrefined, moving on instinct.
Oh Martin
,
me and Martin. I wanna go back. Take me, take me away to Red Rocks, Colorado
.

Martin.
Yeah
.
He’ll be back in our room by now
, she thought.

They came out here on a working holiday, at the end of their first year at uni. Whilst everyone else was downing Snakebite and Black and bopping along to
Dancing Queen
for the three-hundredth time, Martin and Nazneen headed off to Keystone, Colorado. Three whole months to work and play like never before. They’d found employment at a lakeside resort, Martin joining the landscape gardening team and Nazneen becoming a maid. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to be handling
industrial-strength toilet cleaner daily, especially when Martin got to do fun things like plant trees, but it was only for a few hours a day. And then they’d go swimming and canoeing, or ride mountain bikes up and down the surrounding foothills. And when time allowed they’d take trips out to Red Rocks Mountain Park, along the eastern slope of the Rockies. With its Mars-like geology it hypnotised, as they hiked through rifts and creeks, surrounded by 400-foot red sandstone monoliths formed 290 million years ago.
What does such time mean?
Nazneen once pondered as they gazed across the Great Plains, spread out under a vast blue sky. They’d be going back there today – one last time.

Nazneen finishes off the last room on her rota and heads back to the village, where all the seasonal workers stay. She’s disappointed to find that Martin isn’t back yet, and so busies herself by putting together whatever food is left for their final meal in their summer digs. She peers into the fridge and inspects the few scattered items suspiciously. The milk has gone off and the salad is now way beyond limp, but the quiche looks good and she opens the last can of beans to accompany it. As she does she hears a group of Americans arriving next door. A gaggle of excited voices compete to be heard over each other, and Nazneen struggles to latch onto the conversation. But soon she picks up the thread. Of course.
The snow’s coming.
They’re here for the winter, replacing the Brits who came for the summer, and the talk is about only one thing: “
Aspen are predicting a big one this year. Yeah, I hear the slopes of Powderhorn are already getting white.”
Powderhorn, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain and Arapahoe Basin. Nazneen has never been to any of these places, but just the names make her tingle. Colorado was too good. She resolves to come back one day, and in winter. Arapahoe Basin – that sounds the most exciting. She’ll hang out there. One day.

Nazneen puts out a couple of plates and some cutlery, and chides herself for becoming wistful.
Have I forgotten the last three months already? Never.
Tomorrow they pack up, put on an extra layer, and begin the long journey home. But for the rest of today, tonight, well this is her High Noon, and the gods will worship at her altar.

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us

ROBERT BURNS

Arwa Walayat swung open her front door. Her first-born, Ibrahim Pasha Walayat was standing on the porch, his hand still on the doorbell. For a second, mother and son simply gazed at each other. Her first thought?
My Ibrahim, my son
. And her second?
He has some grey in his hair now. He’s wasted his youth.

Pasha thought his mother looked even smaller than before. Her billowing scarf covered her head and shoulders and hung loose, momentarily hiding the peeling Minnie Mouse motif on her apron. Her smile was tender, full of yearning – and her face and head seemed shrunken, her body amorphous. He was convinced that Death had been claiming her by stealth for years, rather than extinguishing her in an instant. He couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t busy, slowly dying. Pasha fell into his mum’s arms.

‘Ibrahim, my Ibrahim,’ she said softly, smoothing his head with her hands. He stood a good foot taller but it looked so natural. ‘
Ibrahim, my Ibrahim.
’ Those words, that name, her voice. Pasha didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything; he was trembling in her embrace.

Pasha was delighted to learn that he was, after all, the first to arrive. He’d made great time in travelling down and hadn’t hit even one patch of traffic. After fetching presents, his attention was caught by noise from the living room: the sounds of a Bollywood movie gate-crashing his welcome home. He entered and was greeted by an enduring image: his father in front of the telly, doped up on his drug of choice – Hindi movies, Hindi songs, Hindi life. Pasha looked at the screen and
wondered how a nation with such a proud intellectual history as India, could be responsible for such a thing.

‘Oh hello, son!’ his father exclaimed rather weakly, prising himself out from his favourite chair. He was smiling and extending his arms but Pasha knew it was a little bit put on. It’s not that he wasn’t happy to see his son, it’s just that his viewing pleasure had been disturbed. All Zakir Walayat really needed from life was pretty girls on the box, jangling their bits to a Hindi soundtrack. Seeing his father now, though, so clearly an old man, he for the first time found it amusing.

* * *

Pasha stirred a vat of soup.

‘Keep it constant,
Beta
, or it will burn at the bottom.’ He was thirty-eight years old and his mother was still calling him
child
.

‘Sure, Mum,’ he replied with a measured tone, not wanting to make a thing of it. He was stirring slowly, making a spiral from outside in. It smelled nice but was hardly traditional.

‘What was the traffic like,
Beta
?’

‘Fine, very smooth. But what’s in this soup?’

‘Leek and potato. I got the recipe from a magazine.’ Arwa went to the adjoining utility room and returned with an A4-sized folder, which Pasha instantly recognised. She opened it at the last page to show her son the cut-out recipe. She smiled, clearly wanting his approval. Pasha put a hand on her shoulder. He wanted to tell her that this is Eid, and that leek and potato soup wasn’t appropriate, and that she should have realised it wouldn’t work with the menu as a whole. Instead he just left his hand on her shoulder.

Not having seen the folder for so long, Pasha began flicking backwards through the plastic leaves. It had all been lovingly preserved, so much so that when he reached a recipe near the front – a magazine cut-out dated 1970 – it was in very good condition. He carefully removed it and held it up close. The colours had faded and the paper felt a little brittle, but it was still intact. On it was a recipe for chocolate cake, with a big picture accompanying the text, the font of which Pasha thought was now dated. But what really interested him was a small photo attached to the corner, which he lifted out from under a paperclip. It was of him and his mum in the back garden on this very same house. He was standing behind a stall on top of which a chocolate cake was
perched, bearing three lit candles, and his excited little face was just making it over them. His mum was kneeling down beside him, holding him, and wearing the very same apron as today – he recognised the Minnie Mouse. Pasha was shocked; shocked to see what his mother looked like as a young woman. He just couldn’t see any relation between the person in the photo and the one standing next to him. He was unable to project from lustreless grey hair to the shiny locks that once crowned the same head. Or transpose firm skin onto the same frame, and thus visualise the finer features that time had taken away. And his mum was only sixty-three, not eighty-five – it really shouldn’t have been that hard. But he couldn’t do it. She looked so beautiful, holding her Birthday Boy. He clenched his jaw and silently put the photo back.

Returning to the vat of soup, he considered the effort involved in all this preparation. His mum would have been working on the feast for days whilst his father did a little work, played solitaire on the computer and watched Zee TV.
She’s getting too old for this
. Stirring once more, his mum continued talking, her rabbiting voice exhibiting excitement plus a few nerves. He noticed that she’d even written a menu, stuck up on the refrigerator: apparently the soup was for starters. He was relieved that he didn’t pick her up on the leek and potato thing.

‘
Beta
, can you fetch me some saffron?’ Arwa asked. Knowing where everything was, Pasha got a chair to reach for the cupboard above the microwave. It was one of the bigger ones, boasting real depth, width and height. Peering in he saw seven, eight, no nine tall plastic containers, all filled with different kinds of pulses. He was initially bemused.
Why is Mum’s kitchen so well stocked?
As if she regularly cooked for six. But deep down he knew that she wanted to cook for six; that cooking for six would make her life bright. But he also knew she’d die before any of those containers needed refilling.

‘What was the traffic like,
Beta
?’ Arwa Walayat absent-mindedly asked again. Pasha said nothing at all.

Husband and Wife – till death us do part...

Married couples never unsettled Pasha. On the contrary, they only ever rubberstamped his choices: love one person forever? Commitment? He wasn’t that stupid. But looking at this couple, standing together on his mother’s porch ... He was wearing a
sherwani
, a long coat-like garment. It was wrapping his slim frame tightly and fell to just below knee-length. She was wearing a turquoise
shalwar kameez
, one cut to a modern fashion. The
shalwar
was fitted, falling into a gentle bell-bottom around the ankles, and the
kameez
hypnotised, delicate fractals bleeding colour. She had a long scarf draped around her neck, one end of which she held gracefully with a bent arm, the length falling before being taken up by her wrist. The effect was so delightfully feminine it made Pasha uncomfortable. But it wasn’t their clothes or their youth, her beauty or the pride in his smile; they just looked so natural together. Jenny flashed in his mind but he shook off the thought.
It’s too late now
. Pasha caught the woman’s eyes and she smiled. He immediately looked away.

... God, this is awkward. I squeeze Aadam’s hand tight and give Pasha my best, fake smile. Actually, he’s looking quite a bit older than I remember. When was it that we last met? Oh, I don’t know. Pasha looks away quickly, like he’s embarrassed. Good. I can use that. Allah, what are we doing here? We could have had a lovely day together, at home.

Aadam steps into the house and I reluctantly let go. The two of them hug and I feel a bit naked, left on the porch. I tuck away some imaginary stray strands of hair. I’ve never liked Aadam’s family.
Actually, no. What I mean is I’ve never been comfortable with them; not truly at home. They’re lovely people, mostly, but ... how can I explain. I love Pakistanis, I love
being
Pakistani, but I hate Pakis, I guess. One man who is definitely no Paki, though, is Pasha. Now
there’s
a man who knows what to do. But then I catch his eye for a second time, this time over Aadam’s shoulder, and
again
he looks away. That old confidence. He’s definitely looking a lot older. Oh boy, this is going to be a long day.