Brick Lane

Language level: Advanced

Standard: British accent

Source: SPEAK UP

Brick Lane

Tower Humlets, London, 1985

Nazneen waved at the tattoo lady. The tattoo lady was always there when Nazneen looked out across the dead grass and broken paving stones to the block opposite. Most of the flats that closed three sides of a square had net courtains and life behind was all shape and shadows. But the tattoo lady had no curtains at all. Morning and afternoon she sat with her big thighs spilling over the slides of her chair, tipping forward to drop ash in a bowl, tipping back to slug from her can. She drank now, and tossed the can out of the window. It was the middle of the day. Nazneen had finished the housework. Soon she would start preparing the evening meal, but for a while she would let the time pass. It was hot and the sun fell flat on the metal window frames and glared off the glass. A red and gold sari hung out of a top-floor flat in Rosemead block. A baby’s bib and miniature dungarees lower down. The sign screwed to the brickwork was in stiff English capitals and the curlicues below were Bengali. No dumping. No parking. No ball games. Two old men in white Panjabi-pyjama and skullcaps walked along the path, slowly, as if they did not want to go where they were going. A thin brown dog sniffed along to the middle of the grass and defecated. The breeze on Narneen’s face was thick with the smell from the overflowing communal bins. Six months now since she’d been sent away to London. Every morning before she opened her eyes she thought, if I were the wishing type, I know what I would wish. And then she opened her eyes and saw Chanu’s puffy face on the pillow next in her, his lips parted indignantly even as he slept. She saw the pink dressing table with the curly-sided mirror, and the monstrous black wardrobe that claimed most the room. Was it cheating? To think, I know what I would wish? Was it not the same as making the wish? If she knew what the wish would be, then somewhere in her heart she had already made it.

The tattoo lady waved back at Nazneen. She scratched her arms, her shoulders, the accessible portions of her buttocks. She yawned and lifts a cigarette. At least two thirds of the flesh on show was covered in ink, Nazneen had never been close enough (never closer than this, never further) to decipher the designs. Chanu said the tattoo lady was Hell’s Angel, which upset Nazneen. She thought the tattoos might be flowers, or birds.

They were ugly and they mad the tattoo lady more ugly than necessary but the tattoo lady clearly did not care. Every time Nazneen saw her she wore the same look of boredom and detachment. Such a take was sought by the sadhus who walked in rags through the Muslim villages, indifferent to the kindness of strangers, the unkind sun. Nazneen thought sometimes of going downstairs, crossing the yard and climbing the Rosemead stairwell to the fourth floor. She might have to knock on a few doors before the tattoo lady answered. She would take something and offering of samosas or bhajis, and the tattoos lady would smile and Nazneen would smile and perhaps they would sit together by the window and let the time pass more easily. She thought of it but she would not go. Strangers would answer if she knocked on the wrong door. The tattoo lady might be angry at an unwanted interruption. It was clear she did not like to leave her chair. And even if she wasn’t angry, what would be the point? Nazneen could say two things in English: Sorry and thanks you. She could spend another day alone. It was only another day.

She should be getting on with the evening meal. The lamb curry was prepared. She had made last night with tomatoes and new potatoes. There was chicken saved in the freezer from the last time Dr. Azad had been invited but had cancelled at the last minute. There was still the dal to make, and the vegetable dishes, the spices to grind, the rice to wash, and the sauce to prepare for the fish that Chanu would bring this evening. She should rinse the glasses and rub them with newspaper to make them shine. The table cloth had some spots to be scrubbed out. What if it went wrong? The rice might stick. She might over-salt the dal. Chanu might forget the fish.

It was only dinner. One dinner. One guest. She left the window open. Standing on the sofa to reach, she picked up the Holy Qu’ran from the high shelf that Chanu, under duress, had specially built. She made her intention as fervently as possible, seeking refuge from Satan with fist clenched and fingernails digging into her palms. Then she selected a page at random and began to read.

To God belongs all that the heavens and the earth contain. We exhort you, as we have exhorted those to whom the Book was given before you, to fear God. If you deny Him, know that to God belongs all that the heavens and earth contain, God is self-sufficient and worthy of praise. The words calmed her stomach and she was pleased. Even Dr. Azad was nothing as to God.  To God belongs all that the heavens and the earth contain. She said it over a few times, aloud. She was composed. Nothing could bother her. Only God, if he chose to. Chanu might flap about and squawk because Dr Azad was coming for dinner. Let him flap. To God belongs all that the heavens and the earth contain. How would it sound in Arabic? More lovely even than in Bengali, she supposed, for those were the actual Words of God.