East of Wimbledon (26 page)

Up on the stage the colour was draining from the headmaster’s face. He moved towards Robert, and his voice had the throaty intensity of a cello in the slow movement of the Elgar concerto. ‘Wilson,’ he said, reaching out towards his first recruit. ‘Wilson! Do you know what you are saying? You are a Muslim, Wilson, are you not?’

‘No,’ said Robert, with some satisfaction – ‘I am not. I have never been a Muslim. I do not wish to be a Muslim. I have no plans to be a Muslim. I would, frankly, rather swim the Hellespont in November than be a Muslim.’

This did not go down well with the punters. Many of them looked as if they might well be breaking into tears in the near future.

Mr Malik held out his arms to Robert. ‘Wilson—’ he began.

‘Oh, stop calling me “Wilson”, can’t you?’ said Robert – ‘as if we were both at some non-existent public school. You live in a fantasy world. And you don’t know anything about me. You don’t know who I am, or what I think, or what I feel about anything.’

Mr Malik looked utterly devastated. ‘Wilson,’ he began, in a trembling voice. ‘You are a Muslim. And, as a Muslim—’

‘I am not a Muslim,’ said Robert. ‘I only said I was because I needed a job. I am not – repeat, not – Muslim. Do I look like a Muslim?’

The crowd fastened on this new act with enthusiasm. Mr Akhtar could be heard to say that Robert did not look like a Muslim. Indeed, he had always thought there was something funny about Wilson. Mr Mafouz, his thick, black eyebrows well down in his face, was fighting his way through the crowd towards his son’s form master.

Robert started to walk up to the stage, and, like the Red Sea, parents, staff and pupils parted to let him pass.

Mr Malik had recovered well. He was managing some kind of transition, from deeply wounded to sad but hopeful. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘someone who lies out of fear of or respect for the truth is to be helped and not scorned. I liked you, Wilson, because I saw your weakness. Like you, I feel, I am not a very good Muslim!’

The house was divided on this. Some people thought the headmaster was an absolutely first-class Muslim, while Dr Ali declared him to be a blasphemer, a hypocrite and no better than the vomit of a dog.

‘It’s not a question of not being a
good
Muslim,’ yelled Robert, as he climbed up on to the stage – ‘I just am not a Muslim at all. I am an imitation Muslim, ladies and gentlemen. How many times do I have to say this to get it into your head?’

Fatimah Bankhead told her immediate neighbour that she viewed this as an encouraging sign. Imitation, she said, was the sincerest form of flattery.

Up on the stage, Mr Malik spread his hands in a gesture of endless tolerance. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you will come to understand that—’

‘I will never come to understand,’ said Robert, ‘because your religion is, to me, completely and utterly incomprehensible. I believe—’

Malik brightened a little at this remark. ‘What do you believe, Wilson?’

Robert looked down from the stage at the faces of the crowd. He saw Mahmud, his eyes wide with horror at what was happening. He saw Dr Ali, his nose quivering with excitement, tensing himself like a man about to burst into song. And he saw Maisie. She was by the door to the front garden. Her big, black eyes looked reproachfully up at him from the white oval of her face. What did he believe? The question she was always asking him.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I believe in something really sensible. Of course. I believe that Jesus Christ came down from heaven and was born of a Virgin, turned water into wine, walked on the water, and then was crucified and whizzed back up to heaven!’

Mr Malik stretched out his arms to him. ‘There is no need to caricature your beliefs, Wilson,’ he said. ‘If you have lied to us, you have lied for a reason. The great religions of the world have more in common than you might think. And if we worship one God—’

‘Oh, then that’s fine, isn’t it?’ said Robert. ‘I’ll swap you the Garden of Gethsemane for the Night of Power, you know? You’ll let us believe something clearly insane, and we can allow you to do the same.’

Mr Malik’s brow wrinkled. He seemed upset again. ‘What are you saying, Wilson? I do not understand. You are a Christian? You are a Muslim? What are you?’

Robert strode across the sand towards his headmaster. Between them lay the cardboard chain-mail and the plastic sword that had belonged to the Bosnian refugee, who was now being given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by Mr Husayn. Robert picked up the imitation Crusader armour and held it aloft, facing out to the audience. ‘I’m nothing,’ he said. ‘Don’t you understand? England is full of people who are nothing. You’re living in a country that doesn’t exist. A country where people go to church, and try and help their neighbours, and bicycle to work down country lanes, and believe in . . .’ Here he brandished the armour and its painted cross in the faces of the crowd. ‘. . . all this!’

The Bosnian refugee, coming round in the arms of Mr Husayn, was heard to order his men to slay the Saracen dogs.

Robert rounded on Mr Malik. He had always thought, somehow, that Malik had seen through him. That the headmaster was keeping him on for his own private amusement. And it was this knowledge that allowed him to suspect that, at last, someone had really understood quite how empty he was inside. What finally broke him was the realization that here was yet another person who, like his parents, thought him a stronger, nobler person than he actually was. Why did the world assume that you must be interested in any kind of truth, let alone the fundamental variety? Why did people always want you to have aspirations?

‘England,’ went on Robert, ‘is no longer anything to
do
with the country that carved up India or shipped out whole generations of Africans as slaves. It’s a squalid little place, full of people who don’t believe in anything. Am I making that clear? I don’t believe in
anything.
I think it’s all a load of toss really. That is my considered opinion.’

Mr Malik looked at his first member of staff. There was infinite sadness in his eyes. ‘You believe in something, Wilson,’ he said. ‘You must believe in something. Everyone must believe in something.’

Robert looked across at Maisie. He felt suddenly tired. As if all these people were a dream. As if he had been asleep for a whole year. He would say what he had to say, and then he would leave. He would get out – not only of the school, but of the suburb. He would find somewhere a long way away from Mr Malik, from his parents, and from everyone else who wished him well.

‘Maybe I do,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe I do.’

Then, with the cardboard armour in one hand and the plastic sword in the other, he stepped slowly down from the stage and walked through the assembly to where Maisie was waiting.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re the only person who understands. We’re . . . well, we’re . . . Wimbledon, aren’t we? What are you doing here? You know you don’t belong here, don’t you?’

Maisie looked back at him steadily.

‘I’m going!’ he said. ‘Will you come with me?’

Maisie looked at him. She sighed. Then she looked up at the headmaster, standing on the shabby stage in his crumpled green suit. Malik mopped his forehead, glowing under the lights.

‘No,’ she said – ‘I won’t!’

Robert had not expected her to say this.

‘Why not?’ he said.

She looked impatient. ‘Because, Bobkins,’ she said, ‘I love him.’

‘Love who?’ said Robert.

‘Mr Malik!’ said Maisie.

This created a sensation in the audience. If they had ever had doubts about their headmaster, they were dispelled instantly. The general feeling seemed to be that not only was Mr Malik a good public speaker and a man of learning and conviction, he had also performed well in the Islamic virility stakes.

Up on the platform, Mr Malik was positively preening himself. He smoothed his hair back over his ears and gave a little smile at a mother in the front row.

‘You
love
him?’

‘I’m afraid I do, Bobkins!’ said Maisie, with a sigh. ‘I’m afraid he means more to me than anything else.’ She shook her head, and her thick, black hair trembled under her scarf. One of the spotlights caught her face.

‘Why?’ said Robert.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Maisie. ‘Maybe it’s Muslim men. They have something you just don’t have!’

Robert did not like the way this conversation was going, but there seemed no easy way to get control either over it or over its alarmingly public nature.

‘What,’ said Robert with heavy irony, ‘do Muslim men have that I don’t?’

He recalled, with some bitterness, that it was only after he had publicly announced his conversion that she had become interested in him. Was she just kinky for Muslims, the way some people were kinky for football players or trombonists? Perhaps he should reconsider his position.

‘They’re virile,’ said Maisie. ‘They’re strong! They’re decisive! They’re proud and certain and noble!’

This went down incredibly well with the male members of the audience. Even Rafiq could be heard to say that this was fair comment. Mr Mafouz, who had been looking deeply depressed during Robert’s altercation with the headmaster, straightened himself up and threw out his chest. Mr Akhtar was seen to stroke his moustache.

‘They’re gentle, too,’ went on Maisie, ‘and loyal and straightforward and kind and clever and respectful and good with children and God-fearing!’

This brought a smattering of applause. Robert looked up at the headmaster, who was stretching out his hands to Maisie. ‘Come to me, my daughter!’ said Malik, in deep, resonant tones. Maisie squared her shoulders and, with a toss of her head, prepared to come to him. She looked, thought Robert grimly, as if she was prepared to get on the floor and kiss his feet should this prove necessary.

‘I wonder why this should be!’ shrieked Robert. ‘What is it makes them so amazingly wonderful? Is it that they don’t drink except behind closed doors? Is it halal meat – is that it? Is it that they have devised an unusually energetic form of prayer?’

Mr Malik, his eyes big with grief, was still holding out his hands to Maisie. ‘Maisie,’ he said, ‘come to me! And, Wilson, go! Go in peace. Without curses or recrimination.’ He put his head to one side. ‘If you have been foolish,’ he said, ‘God will forgive you. He forgives the ignorant.’

Maisie started towards the stage. As she walked, women touched her dress, murmuring words of encouragement, and men, with wistful smiles on their faces, stepped back to let her pass.

‘I suppose,’ yelled Robert, ‘it’s their role model! I suppose it’s because Muhammad was such a terrific guy! Is that it?’

No one answered this question, but there was suddenly a dangerous silence in the room.

‘I mean,’ went on Robert, shaking his long, lank, blond hair across his face, ‘it may just be that I’m an ignorant Brit and don’t know anything about anything, but the thing that really puzzles me about your religion is the endless respect you’re supposed to pay to this guy. What is it all in aid of, may I ask? I mean, who was he? What makes him such a big cheese?’

Mr Malik glanced down at the audience. He looked worried. ‘Please, Wilson,’ he said, ‘go now. Go back into Wimbledon, and we will forget that we ever met. Do not—’

‘I’m only asking,’ said Robert, ‘because I have picked up a little gen about Islam over the course of the last year and I have formulated my view of your top man which, if you like, I will be happy to give to you!’

Mr Malik, and several others in the audience, winced visibly. ‘I really would not do that if I was you, Wilson!’ said the headmaster. But Robert did it.

He went on to give detailed, and not always accurate, criticisms of the
hadiths
of the Prophet. He questioned their relevance to modern society, their internal logic, and their implications for women, infidels and anyone not prepared to accept the central tenets of Islam. He quoted several at length, and laughed, mockingly, during his rendition of them.

After he had questioned the Prophet’s reported views, he went on to denigrate his character in sometimes offensive terms. He went on to criticize, in an uninformed way, the Prophet’s skill as a military tactician, and made several spectacularly ill-informed remarks about the history of Islam.

At this point, Mr Malik, who like almost everyone else in the room had his hands over his ears, begged him to stop. He explained that one of the missions of the Wimbledon Islamic Independent Boys’ Day School was to make peace between religions and communities, and that he, personally, along with the Wimbledon Dharjee businessman Mr Shah, had worked hard over the last year to create an institution that would ‘build bridges’ between Muslims and Christians and, indeed, any other decent, civilized individuals who were prepared to let others live with their faith without insult or abuse. He wept at this point.

He explained how Mr Shah’s rival, the restaurant owning Mr Khan, had been trying to destroy the unity of the Muslim community, and said that their unity was only an aspect of the wider union that peace loving and civilized Muslim men and women sought with the country to which they had come.

He went on to beg Robert not to say any more. He said that, unlike certain people he could mention in the hall – here he looked narrowly at Rafiq and Dr Ali – he was a reasonable man, and that some in his community had said he was ‘a hypocrite’ because he went too far in accommodating others’ beliefs and opinions. He said he was not a hypocrite. He repeated that he was a sincere, if not always scrupulous, Muslim, and he repeated several
hadiths
of the Prophet – to whom, in this context, he gave the traditional blessing – to support his view that Islam was a tolerant, generous and beautifully constructed faith.

But, he said, there was a limit. Many people in the hall agreed, and said, loudly, that Robert Wilson had already passed it. Dr Ali made reference to his earlier sentence on the reception class teacher, and several parents said that this was ‘too good’ for the young man who was now standing by the door, open to the summer day, waving a plastic sword and cardboard armour decorated with a crucifix at pupils, teachers and parents associated with the Wimbledon Islamic Independent Boys’ Day School.