Now she knew what went on and how it felt. How he wished he’d said nothing and protected her, for Big Billy was using her name: ‘Yvonne, Yvonne, hey, Yvonne, didn’t I give you a good time that time?’
‘Evie, a good time, right?’ sang Little Billy.
Big Billy smirked. ‘Thing is,’ he said, holding his nose, ‘there’s a smell on this bus.’
‘Pooh!’
‘How many of them are there living in that flat, all squashed together like, and stinkin’ the road out, eatin’ curry and rice!’
There was no doubt that their flat was jammed. Grandpop, a retired doctor, slept in one bedroom, Azhar, his sister and parents in another, and two uncles in the living room. All day big pans of Indian food simmered in the kitchen so people could eat when they wanted. The kitchen wallpaper bubbled and cracked and hung down like ancient scrolls. But Mother always denied that they were ‘like that’. She refused to allow the word ‘immigrant’ to be used about Father, since in her eyes it applied only to illiterate tiny men with downcast eyes and mismatched clothes.
Mother’s lips were moving but her throat must have been dry: no words came, until she managed to say, ‘We’re not Jews.’
There was a silence. This gave Big Billy an opportunity. ‘What you say?’ He cupped his ear and his long dark sideburn. With his other hand he cuffed Little Billy, who had begun hissing. ‘Speak up. Hey, tart, we can’t hear you!’
Mother repeated the remark but could make her voice no louder.
Azhar wasn’t sure what she meant. In his confusion he recalled a recent conversation about South Africa, where his best friend’s family had just emigrated. Azhar had asked why, if they were to go somewhere — and there had been such talk — they too couldn’t choose Cape Town. Painfully she replied that there the people with white skins were cruel to the black and brown people who were considered inferior and were forbidden to go where the whites went. The coloureds had separate entrances and were prohibited from sitting with the whites.
This peculiar fact of living history, vertiginously irrational and not taught in his school, struck his head like a hammer and echoed through his dreams night after night. How could such a thing be possible? What did it mean? How then should he act?
‘Nah,’ said Big Billy. ‘You no Yid, Yvonne. You us. But worse. Goin’ with the Paki.’
All the while Little Billy was hissing and twisting his head in imitation of a spastic.
Azhar had heard his father say that there had been ‘gassing’ not long ago. Neighbour had slaughtered neighbour, and such evil hadn’t died. Father would poke his finger at his wife, son and baby daughter, and state, ‘We’re in the front line!’
These conversations were often a prelude to his announcing that they were going ‘home’ to Pakistan. There they wouldn’t have these problems. At this point Azhar’s mother would become uneasy. How could she go ‘home’ when she was at home already? Hot weather made her swelter; spicy food upset her stomach; being surrounded by people who didn’t speak English made her feel lonely. As it was, Azhar’s grandfather and uncle chattered away in Urdu, and when Uncle Asif ’s wife had been in the country, she had, without prompting, walked several paces behind them in the street. Not wanting to side with either camp, Mother had had to position herself, with Azhar, somewhere in the middle of this curious procession as it made its way to the shops.
Not that the idea of ‘home’ didn’t trouble Father. He himself had never been there. His family had lived in China and India; but since he’d left, the remainder of his family had moved, along with hundreds of thousands of others, to Pakistan. How could he know if the new country would suit him, or if he could succeed there? While Mother wailed, he would smack his hand against his forehead and cry, ‘Oh God, I am trying to think in all directions at the same time!’
He had taken to parading about the flat in wellington boots with a net curtain over his head, swinging his portable typewriter and saying he expected to be called to Vietnam as a war correspondent, and was preparing for jungle combat.
It made them laugh. For two years Father had been working as a packer in a factory that manufactured shoe polish. It was hard physical labour, which drained and infuriated him. He loved books and wanted to write them. He got up at five every morning; at night he wrote for as long as he could keep his eyes open. Even as they ate he scribbled over the backs of envelopes, rejection slips and factory stationery, trying to sell articles to magazines and newspapers. At the same time he was studying for a correspondence course on ‘How To Be A Published Author’. The sound of his frenetic typing drummed into their heads like gunfire. They were forbidden to complain. Father was determined to make money from the articles on sport, politics and literature which he posted off most days, each accompanied by a letter that began, ‘Dear Sir, Please find enclosed …’
But Father didn’t have a sure grasp of the English language which was his, but not entirely, being ‘Bombay variety, mish and mash’. Their neighbour, a retired school-teacher, was kind enough to correct Father’s spelling and grammar, suggesting that he sometimes used ‘the right words in the wrong place, and vice versa’. His pieces were regularly returned in the self-addressed stamped envelope that the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook advised. Lately, when they plopped through the letter box, Father didn’t open them, but tore them up, stamped on the pieces and swore in Urdu, cursing the English who, he was convinced, were barring him. Or were they? Mother once suggested he was doing something wrong and should study something more profitable. But this didn’t get a good response.
In the morning now Mother sent Azhar out to intercept the postman and collect the returned manuscripts. The envelopes and parcels were concealed around the garden like an alcoholic’s bottles, behind the dustbins, in the bike shed, even under buckets, where, mouldering in secret, they sustained hope and kept away disaster.
At every stop Azhar hoped someone might get on who would discourage or arrest the Billys. But no one did, and as they moved forward the bus emptied. Little Billy took to jumping up and twanging the bell, at which the conductor only laughed.
Then Azhar saw that Little Billy had taken a marble from his pocket, and, standing with his arm back, was preparing to fling it. When Big Billy noticed this even his eyes widened. He reached for Billy’s wrist. But the marble was released: it cracked into the window between Azhar and his mother’s head, chipping the glass.
She was screaming. ‘Stop it, stop it! Won’t anyone help! We’ll be murdered!’
The noise she made came from hell or eternity. Little Billy blanched and shifted closer to his father; they went quiet.
Azhar got out of his seat to fight them but the conductor blocked his way.
Their familiar stop was ahead. Before the bus braked Mother was up, clutching her bags; she gave Azhar two carriers to hold, and nudged him towards the platform. As he went past he wasn’t going to look at the Billys, but he did give them the eye, straight on, stare to stare, so he could see them and not be so afraid. They could hate him but he would know them. But if he couldn’t fight them, what could he do with his anger?
They stumbled off and didn’t need to check if the crêpe-soled Billys were behind, for they were already calling out, though not as loud as before.
As they approached the top of their street the retired teacher who assisted Father came out of his house, wearing a three-piece suit and trilby hat and leading his Scottie. He looked over his garden, picked up a scrap of paper which had blown over the fence, and sniffed the evening air. Azhar wanted to laugh: he resembled a phantom; in a deranged world the normal appeared the most bizarre. Mother immediately pulled Azhar towards his gate.