Straightening Ali (16 page)

“
Leave me alone, Yasmin. I’ve agreed to the wedding, so just let me be. I can’t bear to listen to your religious babble,” Ali said.

“
I don’t like seeing you unhappy, Ali. I can tell you’ve been talking to one of your stupid friends, and they’ve been trying to influence you. Why else would you be crying? You have to stop listening to them for your own sanity. Your life has taken a different path. They’re degenerate. You must leave them behind and stay away from them,” Yasmin said.

“
You just can’t stop lecturing me can you? Look at you! You’re nearly thirty, and no one wants to marry you! You’ve scared off all the men with your fanatical ranting. You wear that hijab everywhere, but you’re the only girl I know who wears one. Ammie doesn’t even like you wearing it when she takes you out. You’re going to end up as a bitter old spinster who’ll still be living at home in her sixties,” Ali said, tearing into Yasmin furiously.

“
Unlike you, Ali, I don’t worry about what other people think of me. I’ve got something precious to hold onto. My faith. It’s kept me on the path that God has chosen for me,” Yasmin said. “Have you looked at yourself? You have no clue about what it is you want with your life and blunder about blindly. Islam would give you all the answers if you let it.”

“
Oh shut up. I don’t want to hear it!” Ali retorted angrily.

“
It’s your mehndi tonight. Please try to enjoy it,” Yasmin said. “Speaking to your friends seems to upset you. Look at the state of you. You have the rest of your life ahead of you with Sajda. These friendships you have are meaningless. You have to put an end to them.”

“
What do you know about friendships when you don’t have any!” Ali snapped angrily.

“
Ali, I know which friendships are right to have and which ones are wrong. I know about that man you’re friends with. Steve isn’t it? That’s not the type of friendship that a man who’s about to get married should have!” Yasmin exclaimed.

“
I don’t know who you’re on about,” Ali said in denial, not wanting to drag Steve into the mess. It was as if a hole had opened up in the ground in front of him. How had Yasmin found out about Steve?

“
Is that why you’re in a public phone box nearly every evening making your phone calls? I know all about it. You should have tried to be a little more discrete. Your friendship with Steve has to come to an end! If you don’t stop contacting him, I’ll make sure that his family finds out about it. I suggest that you end it, or else, there’ll be trouble,” Yasmin said, threateningly.

“
Leave me alone. That’s my personal business,” Ali said, outraged at the threat. “You know what, Yasmin? Once I’m married, I won’t have anything to do with any of you. I’ll move to the house in Nottingham, which Mum is buying for me, and I’ll make sure that I never see anyone from this family again.”

“
Ali, I feel so sorry for you. You really don’t know the importance of family,” said Yasmin, shaking her head with a sigh. “If only Dad was alive today to put you on the right path. Instead the duty has to fall to me.”

“
I’m going to my bedroom. I can’t bear to look at you, let alone listen to you,” Ali said getting up.

“
Yes, run away when someone tries to talk some sense into you,” Yasmin shouted after him. “Just behave like a man tonight, and make sure the guests don’t find out what problems you’ve been causing us.”

Ali stomped up the stairs to his bedroom like an angry teenager. When he got to the safety of his room, he banged the door shut loudly behind him and flung himself onto the bed. “Why are they making me do this,” he said to himself, shaking uncontrollably at his confrontation with Yasmin.

After a while, his shaking stopped, but his thoughts took a different turn. “I just want to kill myself,” he muttered as tears of self-pity began to flow down his face again. He turned himself face down on the bed and began to cry. He tried to muffle the sound of his crying by covering his face with the duvet, so that no one in the house would hear him.

The day of the wedding had arrived. Ali’s mehndi had taken place the night before, and the events of the previous evening now washed over him like waves in a bad storm as he sat in the car recalling them. The evening began with the arrival of the guests, and the men and women going into two separate rooms. Ali’s in-laws had traveled from Nottingham to join in the celebrations, leaving Sajda behind.

Ali was introduced to the best man, his dost – Khamran, under his father-in-laws approving gaze. Khamran had been specially chosen for this role by Ali’s mother, who informed Ali that he came from a good Pakistani family. What she didn’t say was that she hoped Khamran would be a good influence on him and stop him from being led astray in the future. She had even professed that Ali used to play cricket with Khamran as a youngster, knowing that it was a lie.

After the initial greeting and exchange of pleasantries, Ali and Khamran realized that they had nothing in common as their conversation soon dried up. Kham, as he liked to be known, was the same age as Ali and loved listening to music by The Who, despite strong disapproval from his father. He prayed five times a day, and made sure he attended the Mosque every Friday. He was looking forward to settling down and getting married to a girl from Pakistan in a month’s time.

There were no other guests present who were in Ali’s age group, which meant that Ali ended up spending most of the evening sitting in painful silence as the older men swapped stories of their own weddings. Their recount of tricks that had been played on them by their own dosts became more and more outrageous as the evening dragged on. Yunus joined in with the conversations, laughing animatedly in the right places, and adding his own tales to the repertoire. Ali felt envious at the ease with which Yunus had managed to fit in. Ali therefore welcomed the intrusion when Yasmin called him to join the ladies in the other room.

The room was full with women sitting and standing in every available space. They were clapping their hands loudly to the beat of a drum that was being pounded by Auntie Fazal who was in the thick of the festivities. Several women chanted a traditional mehndi song in Urdu while others took turns to join in with the chorus.

Ali was seated on a chair in the center of the room, and amidst the raucous cries of the women, his hand was coated in Vaseline to stop the henna dye from staining it. Ali’s mother explained that it might look unseemly if Ali went to a job interview with a red hand. However, it didn’t stop the women from covering his left foot with the stuff. They then took turns in rubbing coconut oil into Ali’s hair until it was dripping onto his clothes.

The whole episode was filmed by a cameraman, who was short, fat, and balding. He sweated profusely with the strain of carrying the camera. Ali’s mother had hired him at a bargain price to film the whole wedding ceremony.

Glistening with coconut oil, Ali made his excuses and slipped away to have a shower. He quickly washed away the nauseating smell of coconut before scraping away the henna that seemed to have imbedded itself onto his foot. When he finished, instead of going back to the guests, Ali crept back to his bedroom.

Yunus found him lying on the bed an hour later. Ali ignored his tirade of abuse as he tried to persuade him to come back downstairs to the guests. Tiring of Yunus’s ranting, Ali covered his head with the duvet, closed his eyes, and blocked Yunus out. Yunus eventually gave up and left the room to the surprise of Ali who’d expected him to use force to get his way.

“
We’re here,” called out Uncle Kareem from the driver’s seat of the car, rudely interrupting Ali’s reverie. Uncle Kareem was Ali’s mother’s stepbrother.

Ali’s mother’s already fragile relationship with Uncle Kareem had been destroyed overnight a few years ago by the announcement of Yunus’s marriage, and they hadn’t spoken to each other since. It wasn’t unusual for first cousins to marry each other within Pakistani families, so Uncle Kareem had naturally assumed that his eldest daughter would marry Yunus, and he had been completely devastated at the announcement.

In the spirit of reconciliation, he’d approached his stepsister as soon as he heard about Ali’s wedding to volunteer his new Mercedes to ferry Ali around on the wedding day and to conduct the wedding ceremony itself. It had given him an opportunity to try and get closer to her and to rebuild some bridges. Maybe a wedding between his daughter and the newly divorced Yunus might still be arranged in the process.

Ali felt conspicuous in the car and was pleased that they’d finally arrived. It felt as if all the other motorists on the road were staring, which was probably true due to the decorations on the car. It had pink paper ribbons running along the length of it and several brightly colored balloons adorning its wing-mirrors. To make matters even worse, the car was part of a convoy that was similarly decorated.

Ali looked out of the window, pulling aside the sehra that was veiling his face. The sehra was a small curtain made of gold tinsel hanging from a red and gold band that had been tied around his head. He looked ridiculous and knew it. Traditionally, the sehra was made from fresh flowers, but this was the cheaper mass produced option favored by the community. It irritated Ali’s face and made his forehead itch from where Kham had tied it earlier.

“
Do you want me to loosen it for you?” asked Kham, noticing Ali’s discomfort. Despite sitting next to each other, they’d hardly spoken throughout the journey. The silence, however, was a comfortable one. They’d come to a mutual unspoken understanding the previous evening that they were both here to perform a duty for their families, and that getting to know each other did not have to be a part of it.

“
I’m fine, don’t worry,” replied Ali. He dropped the sehra back in front of his face, opened the car door and stepped out. The cameraman from the mehndi evening was already standing in front of him pointing the lens into his face as if he was auditioning to be a member of the paparazzi.

“
I’ll help you,” Kham said following after him. He kindly held Ali by his arm and guided him to the house knowing that Ali could barely see from behind the sehra.

It was noisy and chaotic outside the house. Through the small gaps in the sehra, Ali could make out small groups of young children playing. They yelled excitedly upon noticing Ali’s presence and watched as he was led into the house. To Ali’s bemusement, the house was sparkling with Christmas fairy lights. It had been completely covered with the stuff, as every window, door and even the roof danced with rainbow colors.

When they entered the main room, Ali resisted the urge to push aside the sehra so as to see clearly. “Ma sha Allah. The bridegroom is finally here,” he heard a man’s voice exclaim loudly.

“
Sit next to your brother,” Kham said maneuvering Ali to a chair and then taking a seat on the other side of him.

“
You made it,” said Yunus giving Ali a friendly pat on the shoulder, as Ali recoiled from his touch.

“
I’m so proud of you, young man,” Uncle Kareem said jovially, shaking Ali’s hand before striding away.

Ali gave his uncle’s disappearing form a withering look from behind the sehra. Uncle Kareem looked the perfect picture of Islamic respectability. He’d grown his beard long and was wearing religious garb similar to that which an Imam would typically wear.

It was a far cry from the image that his uncle presented five years ago. He’d driven the latest car, wore designer suits, and owned a string of restaurants in the south of England. However, everything came crashing down around him when his wife discovered his affair with her best friend’s daughter who was only sixteen.

As his wife began divorce proceedings, Uncle Kareem turned to drugs for comfort and lost all of his money chasing the high that only drugs could bring him. Then he suddenly rediscovered Islam and began to practice to become an Imam. Three years later, his past sins were now forgotten, and he was back with his wife who’d been persuaded by the community to take him back.

“
Let me see your face?” Ali heard a voice grate shakily, before a wrinkly hand reached and pulled the sehra aside to look at him. It was a wizened old man with a walking stick in his hand, looking unsteady on his feet. He hovered, hunched over in front of Ali. His eyes were brimming with tears. “You look so much like your father,” he said forlornly.

“
Thank you,” Ali said, pleased by his comment.

“
Your father would have been so proud today,” the old man said. “Did he ever talk about me?”

“
I don’t remember him mentioning you,” Ali said unsure who the elderly man was.

“
He used to talk about you a lot,” Yunus said interrupting.

“
He was such a kind man. I miss him dearly,” the old man said. He stroked Ali’s face with his gnarled hand and then hobbled away to sit next to a group of men his age, and stared mournfully at Ali from across the room.

“
He’s our great-uncle. Try and be more respectful,” said Yunus crossly.