White Teeth (50 page)

So. Gate 32. It would be just the two of them, then, meeting at last, having conquered the gap between continents; the teacher, the willing pupil, and then that first, historic handshake. Marcus did not think for a second it could or would go badly. He was no student of history (and science had taught him that the past was where we did things through a glass, darkly, whereas the future was always brighter, a place where we did things right or at least right-er), he had no stories to scare him concerning a dark man meeting a white man, both with heavy expectations, but only one with the power. He had brought no piece of white cardboard either, some large banner with a name upon it, like the rest of his fellow waiters, and as he looked around gate 32, that concerned him. How would they know each other? Then he remembered he was meeting a twin, and remembering that made him laugh out loud. It was incredible and sublime, even to him, that a boy should walk out of that tunnel with precisely the same genetic code as a boy he already knew, and yet in every conceivable way be different. He would see him and yet not see him. He would recognize him and yet that recognition would be false. Before he had a chance to think what this meant, whether it meant anything, they were coming toward him, the passengers of BA flight 261; a talkative but exhausted brown mob who rushed toward him like a river, turning off at the last minute as if he were the edge of a waterfall.
Nomosk¯ar . . . sa¯la¯m a¯ lekum . . . kamon a¯cho¯?
This is what they said to each other and their friends on the other side of the barrier; some women in full purdah, some in saris, men in strange mixtures of fabrics, leather, tweed, wool, and nylon, with little boat-hats that reminded Marcus of Nehru; children in sweaters made by the Taiwanese and rucksacks of bright reds and yellows; pushing through the doors to the concourse of gate 32; meeting aunts, meeting drivers, meeting children, meeting officials, meeting suntanned white-toothed airline representatives . . .

“You are Mr. Chalfen.”

Meeting minds.
Marcus lifted his head to look at the tall young man standing in front of him. It was Millat's face, certainly, but it was cleaner cut, and somewhat younger in appearance. The eyes were not so violet, or at least not so violently violet. The hair was floppy in the English public school style, and brushed forward. The form was ever so thickly set and healthy. Marcus was no good on clothes, but he could say at least that they were entirely white and that the overall impression was of good materials, well made and soft. And he was handsome, even Marcus could see that. What he lacked in the Byronic charisma of his brother, he seemed to gain in nobility, with a sturdier chin and a dignified jaw. These were all needles in haystacks, however, these were the differences you notice only because the similarity is so striking. They were twins from their broken noses to their huge, ungainly feet. Marcus was conscious of a very faint feeling of disappointment that this was so. But superficial exteriors aside, there was no doubting, Marcus thought, who this boy Magid truly resembled. Hadn't Magid spotted Marcus from a crowd of many? Hadn't they recognized each other, just now, at a far deeper, fundamental level? Not twinned like cities or the two halves of a randomly split ovum, but twinned like each side of an equation: logically, essentially, inevitably. As rationalists are wont, Marcus abandoned rationalism for a moment in the face of the sheer wonder of the thing. This instinctive meeting at gate 32 (Magid had strode across the floor and walked directly to him), finding each other like this in a great swell of people, five hundred at least: what were the chances? It seemed as unlikely as the feat of the sperm who conquer the blind passage toward the egg. As magical as that egg splitting in two. Magid and Marcus. Marcus and Magid.

“Yes! Magid! We finally meet! I feel as if I know you already—well, I do, but then again I don't—but, bloody hell, how did you know it was me?”

Magid's face grew radiant and revealed a lopsided smile of much angelic charm. “Well, Marcus, my dear man, you are the only white fellow at gate 32.”

The return of Magid Mahfooz Murshed Mubtasim shook the houses of Iqbal, Jones, and Chalfen considerably. “I don't recognize him,” said Alsana to Clara in confidence, after he had spent a few days at home. “There is something peculiar about him. When I told him Millat was in Chester, he did not say a word. Just a stiff upper lip. He hasn't seen his brother
in eight years.
But not a little squeak, not a whisperoo. Samad says this is some clone, this is not an Iqbal. One hardly likes to touch him. His teeth, he brushes them six times a day. His underwear, he irons them. It is like sitting down to breakfast with David Niven.”

Joyce and Irie viewed the new arrival with equal suspicion. They had loved the one brother so well and thoroughly for so many years, and now suddenly this new, yet familiar face; like switching on your favorite TV soap only to find a beloved character slyly replaced by another actor with a similar haircut. For the first few weeks they simply did not know what to make of him. As for Samad, if he had had his way, he would have hidden the boy forever, locked him under the stairs or sent him to Greenland. He dreaded the inevitable visits of all his relatives (the ones he had boasted to, all the tribes who had worshiped at the altar of the framed photograph) when they caught an eye-load of this Iqbal the younger, with his bow ties and his Adam Smith and his E. M. bloody Forster and his atheism! The only upside was the change in Alsana. The
A–Z
?
Yes,
Samad Miah, it is in the top right-hand drawer,
yes,
that's where it is,
yes.
The first time she did it, he almost jumped out of his skin. The curse was lifted. No more
maybe, Samad Miah,
no more
possibly, Samad Miah.
Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no. The fundamentals. It was a blessed relief, but it wasn't enough. His sons had failed him. The pain was excruciating. He shuffled through the restaurant with his eyes to the ground. If aunts and uncles phoned, he deflected questions or simply lied. Millat? He is in Birmingham, working in the mosque, yes, renewing his faith. Magid? Yes, he is marrying soon, yes, a very good young man, wants a lovely Bengali girl, yes, upholder of traditions, yes.

So. First came the musical chairs living arrangements, as everybody shifted one place to the right or left. Millat returned at the beginning of October. Thinner, fully bearded, and quietly determined not to see his twin on political, religious, and personal grounds. “If Magid stays,” said Millat (De Niro, this time), “I go.” And because Millat looked thin and tired and wild-eyed, Samad said Millat could stay, which left no other option but for Magid to stay with the Chalfens (much to Alsana's chagrin) until the situation could be resolved. Joshua, furious at being displaced in his parents' affections by yet another Iqbal, went to the Joneses', while Irie, though ostensibly having returned to her family home (on the concession of a “year off”), spent all her time at the Chalfens', organizing Marcus's affairs so as to earn money for her two bank accounts (
Amazon Jungle Summer '93
and
Jamaica 2000)
, often working deep into the night and sleeping on the couch.

“The children have left us, they are abroad,” said Samad over the phone to Archie, in so melancholy a fashion that Archie suspected he was quoting poetry. “They are strangers in strange lands.”

“They've run to the bloody hills, more like,” replied Archie grimly. “I tell you, if I had a penny for every time I've seen Irie in the past few months . . .”

He'd have about ten pence. She was never home. Irie was stuck between a rock and a hard place, like Ireland, like Israel, like India. A no-win situation. If she stayed home, there was Joshua berating her about her involvement with Marcus's mice. Arguments she had no answer for, nor any stomach:
should living organisms be patented? Is it right to plant pathogens in animals?
Irie didn't know and so, with her father's instincts, shut her mouth and kept her distance. But if she was at the Chalfens', working away at what had become a full-time summer job, she had to deal with Magid. Here, the situation was impossible. Her work for Marcus, which had begun nine months earlier as a little light filing, had increased sevenfold; the recent interest in Marcus's work meant she was required to deal with the calls of the media, sackfuls of post, organize appointments; her pay had likewise increased to that of a secretary. But that was the problem, she was a
secretary,
whereas Magid was a confidant, an apprentice and disciple, accompanying Marcus on trips, observing him in the laboratory. The golden child. The chosen one. Not only was he brilliant, but he was charming. Not only was he charming, but he was generous. For Marcus, he was an answer to prayers. Here was a boy who could weave the most beautiful moral defenses with a professionalism that belied his years, who helped Marcus formulate arguments he would not have had the patience to do alone. It was Magid who encouraged him out of the laboratory, taking him by the hand squinting into the sunlit world where people were calling for him. People wanted Marcus and his mouse, and Magid knew how to give it to them. If the
New Statesman
needed two thousand words on the patent debate, Magid would write while Marcus spoke, translating his words into elegant English, turning the bald statements of a scientist uninterested in moral debates into the polished arguments of a philosopher. If
Channel 4
News
wanted an interview, Magid explained how to sit, how to move one's hands, how to incline one's head. All this from a boy who had spent the greater proportion of his life in the Chittagong Hills, without television or newspaper. Marcus—even though he had a lifelong hatred of the word, even though he hadn't used it since his own father clipped his ear for it when he was three—was tempted to call it a
miracle.
Or, at the very least, extremely fortuitous. The boy was changing his life and that was extremely fortuitous. For the first time in his life, Marcus was prepared to concede faults in himself—small ones, mind—but still
. . . faults.
He had been too insular, perhaps, perhaps. He had been aggressive toward public interest in his work, perhaps, perhaps. He saw room for change. And the genius of it, the masterstroke, was that Magid never for a moment let Marcus feel that Chalfenism was being compromised in any way whatsoever. His expressed his undying affection and admiration for it every day. All Magid wanted to do, he explained to Marcus, was bring Chalfenism to the people. And you had to give the people what they wanted in a form
they could understand.
There was something so sublime in the way he said it, so soothing, so
true,
that Marcus, who would have spat on such an argument six months before, gave in without protest.

“There's room for one more chap this century,” Magid told him (this guy was a master in flattery), “Freud, Einstein, Crick and Watson . . . There is an empty seat, Marcus. The bus is not quite full capacity. Ding! Ding!
Room for one more . . .
”

And you can't beat that for an offer. You can't fight it. Marcus and Magid. Magid and Marcus. Nothing else mattered. The two of them were oblivious to the upset they caused Irie, or to the widespread displacement, the strange seismic ripples, that their friendship had set off in everyone else. Marcus had
pulled out,
like Mountbatten from India, or a satiated teenage boy from his latest mate. He abrogated responsibility, for everything and everybody—Chalfens, Iqbals, and Joneses—everything and everyone bar Magid and his mice. All others were fanatics. And Irie bit her tongue because Magid was good, and Magid was kind, and Magid walked through the house in white. But like all manifestations of the Second Coming, all saints, saviors, and gurus, Magid Iqbal was also, in Neena's eloquent words, a first-class, 100 percent, bona fide, total and utter
pain in the arse.
A typical conversation:

“Irie, I am confused.”

“Not right now, Magid, I'm on the phone.”

“I don't wish to take from your valuable time, but it is a matter of some urgency. I am confused.”

“Magid, could you just—”

“You see. Joyce very kindly bought me these jeans. They are called Levi's.”

“Look, could I call you back? Right . . . OK . . . Bye.
What,
Magid? That was an important call. What is it?”

“So you see I have these beautiful American Levi jeans, white jeans, that Joyce's sister brought back from a holiday in Chicago, the Windy City they call it, though I don't believe there is anything particularly unusual about its climate, considering its proximity to Canada. My Chicago jeans. Such a thoughtful gift! I was overwhelmed to receive them. But then I was confused by this label in the inner lining that states that the jeans are apparently ‘shrink-to-fit.' I asked myself, what can this mean: ‘shrink-to-fit'?”

“They shrink until they fit, Magid. That would be my guess.”

“But Joyce was percipient enough to buy them in precisely the right size, you see? A 32, 34.”

“All right, Magid, I don't want to see them. I believe you. So don't shrink them.”

“That was my original conclusion, also. But it appears there is no separate procedure for shrinking them. If one washes the jeans, they will simply shrink.”

“Fascinating.”

“And you appreciate at some juncture the jeans will require washing?”

“What's your point, Magid?”

“Well, do they shrink by some precalculated amount, and if so, by how much? If the amount was not correct, they would open themselves up to a great deal of litigation, no? It is no good if they shrink-to-fit, after all, if they do not shrink-to-fit
me.
There is another possibility, as Jack suggested, that they shrink to the contours of the body. Yet how can such a thing be possible?”

“Well, why don't you get in the fucking bath with the fucking jeans on and see what happens?”