“Yes, Father. That’s why we want to get married next month.”
“Next month?” his mother exclaimed. She came running out of the kitchen when she heard that. “That’s too fast. You should give yourselves at least half a year to date and get to know each other.”
Ali’s father laughed.
“I’ve already discussed it with your grandfather,” he said. “We’re thinking of buying you a car as a wedding gift. You’ll make better money through your minicab business that way, don’t you think?”
“Really? Then I won’t have to borrow someone else’s car and work by the hour.”
“You won’t owe me anything, but you will have to repay your grandfather. Yes, now you’ll be able to start a new life, raising kids of your own and attending mosque regularly for a change.”
A couple of days after we returned from Leeds, Luna and I were heading home from work after a day at Tongking. A bright light was shining out of the window next door. Curious to know who it was, I knocked on the door. The Nigerian woman answered it, dressed in an apron and a headscarf. She looked like she’d been packing, and waved me inside. Her belongings were all bundled up.
“I’m moving out tomorrow,” she said. “The furniture was here when I moved in, but the bed is new. Abdul paid for half of it, so that worked out well for me. He says you’re moving in?”
I told her I was, and she clasped my hand.
“Congratulations! Abdul told me you’re marrying his grandson.”
She told me what happened to her husband before I had a chance to ask.
“He’s definitely being deported. But I can’t bear to go back with him. He and I are children of the Biafran civil war.”
I didn’t understand.
“Countless children died in that war. What I mean is that he and I survived by the skin of our teeth. He’ll do whatever he has to do to make it back.”
Later, Ali explained to me how African refugees would cross the Strait of Gibraltar, travel overland through Europe and then cross the Strait of Dover into England. The journey to Morocco and across the strait in a tiny boat was incomparably more dangerous than my crossing of the Tumen River. After that, they still had to travel over rugged mountains on foot or stow away on trains, and make it over several national borders before finding a way to get across yet another strait. Refugees trying to make it to London couldn’t do it without a lifeline of some kind, at least one person here who could help them get settled.
A minicab driver from Ghana that Ali knew had frittered away three years of his life trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. He was caught twice while trying to cross the Strait of Dover from Calais, and finally made it into England by clinging to the roof of the Eurostar. On the approach to the Channel Tunnel, the high-speed train passed through a pair of steep embankments that were built for forty or fifty kilometres on either side of the tracks to protect crops in the surrounding fields. The train had to slow down as it got closer to the tunnel, so refuge-seekers waiting at the top of the embankment would jump onto the roof of the train as it passed. They would cling there for the twenty-minute ride, enduring the high speed and brutal wind. If they made it to the other side, they had to jump off the train before it started to pick up speed again. Railway workers on both the French and British sides sometimes collected the bodies of stowaways who had fallen to their deaths inside the tunnel.
Ali’s friend had been inspired to attempt the crossing by a friend’s uncle, who was famous back home for making it across that way. But when he got to London and asked around, he learned that his friend’s uncle had been dead for years. The man’s name alone had served as a symbol of hope, and had kept him going on his journey. We stopped telling our stories in detail, but whenever the subject of our home countries came up, it always seemed to end in fighting and starvation and disease and brutal, fearful generals seizing power. There were still so many people dying in every corner of the world, and people crossing endless borders in search of food, just so they could live without the constant threat of death.
After the Nigerian woman moved out, Ali and I found a little time each evening to work on repainting the walls, fixing the sink and scrubbing the flat clean from top to bottom. As the layout was the same as the flat I’d shared with Luna, I felt right at home.
The whole process of getting married was called shadi, but if I remember correctly, mayoun and mehndi were the names for the parts of the ceremony where the friends of the bride and groom were invited to eat and exchange gifts the day before the wedding. We held the mayoun and mehndi in our new flat, but the baraat and valima, in which we were actually wed, took place at Ali’s parents’ home in Leeds.
I had no close friends, let alone any of my own flesh and blood in this city, so it was an opportunity to confirm the few, precious relationships I did have with those who had helped me along the way. As Uncle Lou and Uncle Tan were as good as legal guardians to me, I asked if one of them would be willing to be my chaperone. They both said yes and argued over which of them should get to do it, but in the end I assigned the task to Uncle Tan. Though Luna was born in Britain, she was also Bangladeshi, and knew the traditions more or less; she agreed to be my bridesmaid.
Luna and I went to a Muslim butcher shop in the marketplace. The meat was halal, which meant that the lamb and chicken had been drained of their blood and blessed. We also bought fish. Ali went to a Pakistani restaurant and ordered all kinds of foods: chapattis, chaanp, haleem, fried dumplings, barfi and so on. But I wanted to make a few dishes myself to serve to our wedding guests. Luna and I made lamb and vegetable tikka kebabs and a spicy chicken curry with lots of green chillies.
Ali invited his co-workers from the minicab company. Nearly half were Pakistani, while the rest were young Muslims from around Shepherd’s Bush. Grandfather Abdul invited a few of his friends from the neighbouring mosque. Ali’s two younger sisters skipped school and came down to London to help me. We placed two tables in the courtyard and set them with food and drink and stacks of plates and cups so that the guests could help themselves to as much as they wanted. No one showed up until it started to grow dark. We played a tape of Pakistani music, which had a fast rhythm and a singer with a warbling voice.
Luna told me it wasn’t time yet, so we went into her flat and waited. I put on the yellow dress that Grandfather Abdul had bought for me, and wrapped the yellow veil around my head. Luna explained that I had to keep my face covered when I was out there in front of everyone. Then Luna applied a mehndi design to my fingers and the backs of my hands using henna paste. She was supposed to draw it on my legs as well, but I told her not to. Vines, leaves and flowers wound along my skin. Luna was used to giving henna tattoos at the salon; it took her no time at all to recreate the designs. Ali’s little sisters opened the door and gestured to us.
“It’s time!”
“Hold on!” Luna yelled, a tube of mascara in her hand. “I need to do her eye makeup.”
She applied black eyeliner and mascara to my eyes. When I glanced in the mirror, the deep-set eyes of a Pakistani woman looked back at me from beneath the yellow veil. Ali’s sisters exclaimed at how pretty I was. I went out to the courtyard and sat in a chair. I had my face covered with the veil, but the light was so bright that I could see everything clearly. The sisters searched for a song, then turned up the volume and sang along. Ali appeared, wearing a white tunic. Luna and his sisters ran to him and sprinkled red rose petals at his feet. When he entered the courtyard, they held a shawl above his head to symbolically shield him from the sky. Ali walked up to a stool set in the middle of the courtyard, and seated himself on it. The guests each came up to him, took out some cash, circled it over his head and gave it to him. His sisters, who were standing next to him, collected the money. Grandfather Abdul and his friends from the mosque danced to the music with their arms raised, while the younger Pakistanis, including Ali’s sisters (as well as Luna), danced around in circles.