The Black Album (3 page)

Chad
Never! We are slaves to Allah! He the only one we must submit to.

Shahid
It’s only music.

Riaz
Only those who purify themselves can escape it.

Chad
(
to Shahid
) The brother mean your soul – you got to clean yourself inside from all that white shit.

Shahid
Prince is black.

Chad
There’s more to life than entertaining ourselves! Brother, you got a lot to learn.

Riaz gets up
.

The brother need fresh air. We all do. Phew.

Riaz
We are pleased to have you with us. 

Deedee
Our subject today is the Black struggle in America –

Various excited comments fly around the class
.

– as reflected in popular culture.

Fifteen-year-old Emmett Till – a boy living in Chicago in the 1950s. One day, he went to visit his relatives who lived in a small town in Mississippi. On the High Street, he saw a young white woman –

Someone in class lets out a wolf whistle
.

Stop that! He did it for a dare. That night, the woman’s husband and brother paid him a visit. They took him to a warehouse, broke his wrists and ankles, gouged out his left eye and shot him through the head. Then, they tied his neck to a seventy-pound fan used for winnowing cotton and dumped the body in a nearby river – where it was found by fishermen three days later. This is what Emmett Till looked like after his trip to the South.

Emmett Till’s mother wanted the whole world to see what had been done to her baby. So she insisted on an open coffin at his funeral.

Tahira
How did the whites react?

Deedee
Many accused her of being eager for publicity –

Tahira
That’s blaspheming, right?

Deedee
Only in the sense that it blasphemed the reality of what happened to her son.

Tahira
So the blasphemers were racists?

Deedee
You could say that.

I want you to focus on the extraordinary creativity that emerged from America by artists questioning segregation.

Shahid
How’s the music of Prince relate to the Black struggles, miss?

Tahira
Prince? He’s a total dushman!

Hat
Yeah – he ain’t apna.

Deedee
Good question, Shahid. We’ll make that the assignment for next week – how Black musicians responded to racism.

Tahira
Why you shoving us always to music and them fripperies – what about the Nation of Islam?

Deedee
Let’s have an essay from you on Malcolm X and how the Nation of Islam helped in the Black struggles, Tahira – when you can get your head out of Khalil Gibran. The rest, concentrate on Black musicians. On my desk by next week. And as the mathematicians say, go forth and multiply.

Hat
(
emulating a move of Michael Jackson’s
) Thriller! I’m bad!

Deedee
Why do you like Prince?

Shahid
Well, the sound.

Deedee
Anything else?

Shahid
He’s black.

Deedee
And half white, half man, half woman –

Shahid
Half size –

Deedee
Feminist –

Shahid
But macho too.

Deedee
He can play soul and funk –

Shahid
And rock and rap.

Deedee
How are you coping?

Shahid
Never been so alone before. But I’ve run into people who excite me. Your lectures fire me up to spend the time reading and writing.

Deedee
You’re a good student.

Shahid
(
diffident
) Could you – have a look at something I’ve written? About a friend?

Deedee
(
offhand
) How sad! (
Beat
.) Some of my other students are coming by later to eat and talk – why don’t you join us? You can pore through my Prince videos.

Shahid
I’d like that. Thank you.

Deedee
Have you read this?

Shahid
(
taking it
) Oh wow! Just the writer I’ve been talking about with my friends! Thanks. 

Riaz
Communism has been a good idea to bring into the world, Dr Brownlow. But its repressive championing of atheism goes against fundamental human impulses, don’t you think?

Chad
Right. Atheism only a tiny minority thing. Like transvestism.

Brownlow
Y-y-you are confusing the p-p-practice with the ideal. That’s like equating the Ch-Ch-Church with the Bible.

Riaz
The idea can only be as good as the practice. You have to admit Communism everywhere has failed to wipe out the base human disease of racism. Without God people think they can sin with impunity. There is no morality.

Chad
Only extremity, ingratitude, hard-heartedness, like Thatcherism.

Riaz
Capitalism in a nutshell, will you agree, Dr Brownlow?

Brownlow
Oh, wh-wh-wholeheartedly! Her destruction of the working classes is one of the crimes of the century.

Chad
They been saying God dead. But it being the other way round. Without the creator no one knows where they are or what they doing.

Riaz
Allah-u-Akbar!

Deedee leaves
.

All
(
except Shahid
)
Allah-u-Akbar!

Riaz
We should pray.

Shahid
Here?

Chad
Allah’s command overtop all others, brother.

Riaz
Will you join us, Dr Brownlow?

Brownlow
(
to Riaz
) It w-w-would be an honour. I have papers to mark. This e-e-evening? If you w-w-would lead me?

Riaz
Of course, of course.

Brownlow leaves
.

Shahid
Who is Dr Brownlow?

Hat
Teaches history here. A couple of decades back he was at the Cambridge University –

Chad
The top student of his year.

Hat
Yeah, I’m telling you. He come from the upper middle classes. He could have done any fine thing. They wanted him at Harvard. Or was it Yale, Chad?

Chad
He refused them places down.

Hat
Yeah, he told them to get lost. He hated them all, his own class, his parents – everything. He come to this college to help us, the underprivileged niggers and wogs and margin people. He’s not a bad guy – for a Marxist-Communist –

Chad
Leninist –

Tahira
Trotskyist –

Hat
Yeah, a Marxist-Communist-Leninist-Trotskyist type. He always strong on anti-racism. Isn’t that right, brother Riaz?

Riaz
Dr Brownlow has a good heart.

Chad
Problem is –

Hat
(
to Shahid
) Yeah, listen – problem is – he been developing this st-st-st-stutter.

Shahid
It’s a new thing then, is it?

Hat
Yeah, it come on since the Communist states of Eastern Europe began collapsing. As each one goes over he get another syllable on his impediment, you know. In a lecture, it took him twenty minutes to get the first word out. He was going h-h-h-he-he … we didn’t know if he was trying to say Helsinki, hear this, help, or what.

Shahid
What was it?

Hat
Hello.

Chad
By the time Cuba goes he won’t even manage that, I reckon.

Tahira
You met his wife – Deedee Osgood.

Shahid
She’s his wife?

Chad
She his wife.

Tahira
Keep away from her.

Shahid
Why?

Tahira
Riaz has evidence that her family are nudists.

Beat, as the others consider the comment
.

And she always watching
Top of the Pops
.

Shahid
Really?

Chad
Without God-consciousness you can get away with everything. And when that happens you’re lost. Now I know God is watching me. With him seeing every single damn thing, I have to be pretty careful about what I’m up to.

Shahid
Like living in a greenhouse?

Riaz
Everything you do and think is witnessed. Time to pray.

Chad
Oi – this here our multicultural democratic right, so fuck off!

Shahid
Come.

Chad enters
.

Chad
Hey, going somewhere, yaar?

Shahid
Na, just a function, you know, student thing.

Chad
Good, good. We need the room – expecting many more people coming to our meeting tonight.

Hat barges in
.

Hat
Hey, Shahid, there’s someone looking for you.

Shahid
Who?

Hat
He wearing crocodile shoes.

Shahid
(
quickly
) Please, Hat, say I had to go out.

Chad
Hat don’t tell no lies.

Shahid
Sorry?

Hat
No, I’m training to be an accountant.

Enter Chili, smartly dressed
.

Chili
How you doing, baby brother? Hug me, babe. Toot sweet.

They hug
.

Shahid
Chad, Hat, this is my brother Chili.

Hat
Hi.

Chili
Where the hell to sit?

Shahid gathers the manuscript to take to Deedee’s
.

Why are you being in a hurry with me, brother?

Shahid
I’m not.

Chili
You tapping your foot.

Shahid
I got an appointment, Chili.

Chili
Pussy?

Shahid
No! A tutor from the college.

Chili
Ah-ha. You’re starting to pull – the family is delighted. Remember what Uncle Asif always said: ‘Your country’s gone to the wogs, boys! Pakistanis in England now have to do everything – win the sports, present the news, run the shops and businesses, as well as fuck the women. You’ve got the brown man’s burden.’

Shahid
Which you take on personally.

Chili
Cool trousers. Tartan suits you. They’re not mine, are they?

Shahid
No.

Chili
Where’s my red shirt?

Shahid
What?

Chili
Papa would be pleased. He always admired your brains. Got some jimmi hat?

Shahid is mystified
.

(
Explaining
.) Rubbers. Johnnies. You don’t want no baby’s mama just yet, bro. Not still doing that scribbling, are you?

Shahid
What do you mean?

Chili
I’ll give you a slap if you waste your time like that. How the hell will you ever look relatives in the face?

He feints a slap at Shahid, but turns it into a caress
.

That big boy, is he a new friend of yours?

Shahid
Chad? Yes.

Chili
Tell him if he sniffs his fingers at me again his children’s children will feel the pain.

Shahid
Okay. What do you want, Chili?

Chili
What is the world coming to, when a man can’t visit his baby brother?

Shahid
You haven’t shown much concern before.

Chili
You know what Papa said to me before he died? ‘Take care of the boy, don’t let him go down, Chili.’

Shahid
He called me a bloody eunuch fool for reading Shelley to Sarah on my first date!

Chili laughs
.

Chili
I’m widening horizons – expanding the business. Can’t have only you exploiting the riches of this city. When you’re done at the college, I’m taking you on as a partner – that’s a promise. Between us, we’ll hoover up all the money this town’s flashing at whoever cares to look. It’ll be just like Karachi, being chauffeured in Uncle Asif’s Merc. I’ve got a Beamer, now, five series.

Shahid
You need serious cash to have a chauffeur.

Chili
Bro, if you can’t dream, you won’t get. – I need a place to shack in.

Shahid
Some of the friends might be using the room for their meetings.

Chili
Can’t see that big boy staying awake after midnight. She a feminist? Bad luck. They tell you your prick’s too small –

Shahid
(
interrupting
) How is your wife, by the way?

Chili
(
fiercely
) What the hell you saying?

Shahid
Just asking after Zulma.

Chili
You trying to start me up?

Shahid
No, Chili, I promise.

Chili
Sure?

Shahid
It was a family enquiry.

Chili
(
kisses him
) Enjoy, bro. Soon we’ll really party. And remember, no one envies another a wank.

Chili exits. Chad enters
.

Chad
How is he?

Shahid
Who?

Chad
Honestly, you are lucky enough to be living here beside him, and you’re asking who? Brother Riaz!

Shahid
Not bad.

Chad
Good, good. There’s some project special to his heart he has to complete. I know he’ll offer me first look soon – it nearing the end. He’s not working too hard?

Shahid shrugs
.

There’s a lot to get done.

Shahid
What exactly is he working on?

Chad
Pardon?

Shahid
I mean is there anything more than normal?

Chad
He can’t talk about it, Shahid.

Shahid
I know, I know. But –

Chad
He up to something with the Iranians, that’s all I can say right now. What you said the other day – it touch my heart right through. A man who speaks is like a lion.

A brisk coded knock on the door
.

They’re early.

Wicked. Ta very much, Zia.

Shahid
What are you doing?

Chad
I was thinking, you know, the brother never have time for his-self. He wearing same clothes now for a week. It’s important he looks good at the meeting – like a chairman. Or general.

Shahid
But Chad –

Chad
What now?

Shahid
I can’t see him in the Fred Perry.

Chad
No?

Shahid
And this purple number might make him look effeminate.

Chad
What?

Shahid
Like a poof.

Chad
That won’t do. What you got so many books for?

Shahid
I love reading stories.

Chad
How old are you – eight? Aren’t there millions of serious things to be done? Out there … it’s genocide. Rape. Oppression. Murder. The history of the world is slaughter. And you reading stories like some old grandma.

Shahid
You make it sound like I was shooting up heroin.

Chad
Nice one.

Shahid
But don’t writers try to explain that kind of thing? Just now I’m reading
The Possessed
–

Chad
What about the dispossessed, eh? But let’s waste no more time discussing peripheries. We got many real things to accomplish. Hey, where d’you get this Paul Smith shirt?

Shahid
(
evasive
) A shop in Brighton.

Chad
Riaz’ll be thrilled. He like Brighton and he look best in red. You big-hearted, too, like a lion. Riaz was right about you.

Another coded knock
.

Now what? Everyone’s in a hurry today.

Hat pokes his head round the door
.

Hat
Hey, Shahid, it for you. Popular guy!

Shahid
Is it Chili? Say I’m –

Hat
A lady.

Zulma strides in
.

Zulma
Hello, Shahid.

Shahid
Oh, Zulma Auntie, great to see you. What’s up?

Zulma
Never call me Auntie, you damn fool. In some quarters I’m a sex symbol. Here – your ammi asked me to bring your favourite aubergine pakoras.

Shahid
She shouldn’t have …

Zulma
And leave those brain cells unfed? How are the studies coming?

Shahid
Fine, fine.

Zulma
Working hard?

Shahid
Never harder.

Zulma
Making friends?

Shahid
The best ever.

Zulma
Have you seen my beloved husband?

Shahid
Yes.

Zulma
When? Where?

Shahid
He popped by to say hello.

Zulma
That bastard Chili never said hello to anyone. Did he borrow money? What’s his number? My pen is hanging! Where’s he staying at the moment in London? Quickly.

Shahid
Don’t you know?

Zulma
I’ve chucked him out until he cleans up. If he can, or wants to.

Shahid
What do you mean, ‘cleans up’?

Zulma
Let’s just say your ammi worries about him.

Shahid
He’s with his friends. Playing poker all night.

Zulma
What the hell, Shahid, which damn friends? You better tell me or I’ll string you up by the balls, okay?

That brother of yours – Papa’s barely got cold and he’s off dreaming.

Shahid
I must run to the library. You know Chili doesn’t tell no one what’s what.

Zulma
What are you studying?

Shahid
Post-colonial literature.

Zulma
No finer qualification for a travel agent. Are we still colonial after so long, ‘post’ or not? Get a degree – whatever else, make sure you come out qualified, for your ammi’s sake. You haven’t got in with a rotten crowd, have you? Intellectuals or some other such fools?

Shahid
(
ushering her out
) I’ve got to hand in an essay tomorrow, Auntie.

Zulma
(
forceful
) Shahid! Your ammi is worried. Get Chili to ring her. He hasn’t been home for weeks.

Shahid
I’ll tell him.

Zulma
Remember what Papa always said – working your arse off is the only religion worth the name. Do that, and then go home.

Shahid
(
ushering her out
) I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from Chili, Auntie. Bye.