“Their concerns. Their concerns/’ Agatha mocked.
“Gran, it wasn't the time. I couldn't make demands in the middle of chaos. Especially demands about redevelopment.”
She thumped her stick on the carpet. “Why not?”
“Because it seemed to me that getting to the bottom of the Nez killing was more pressing an issue than the funding of the renovation of the Pier End Hotel.” He help up his hand. “No, wait a moment, Gran. Don't interrupt. I know this project is important to you. It's important to me as well. And it's important to the community. But you've got to see that there's hardly a point in infusing money into Balford if there isn't going to be a community left.”
“You certainly can't be suggesting that the Asians have the power or even the temerity to destroy this town. They'd be cutting their own throats.”
“I'm suggesting that unless the community is a place where future visitors don't have to be afraid of being accosted by someone with a grudge against the colour of their skin, any money we pour into redevelopment is money we might as well send up in flames.”
He was surprising her. For a moment Agatha saw the shadow of his grandfather in him. Lewis would have thought exactly the same way.
“Hmph,” she sniffed.
“You see I'm right, don't you.” He phrased it not as a question, she noted, but as a statement, which was like Lewis as well. “I'll give it a few days, let the tension pass, and organise another meeting then. It's for the best. You'll see.” He glanced at a carriage clock on the mantelpiece and got to his feet. “And now it's time you were in bed. I'll fetch Mary Ellis.”
“I shall ask for Mary Ellis when I'm ready, Theodore. Stop treating me like—”
“No arguments.” He went to the door.
She spoke before he could open it. “You're going out, then?”
“I said I'd fetch—”
“I don't mean out of the room. I mean out. Out. Out of the house. Are you going out again tonight, Theo?” His expression told her she'd pushed too far. Even Theo—malleable as he was—had his limits. Too much delving into his personal life was one of them. “I ask because I wonder about the wisdom of these nocturnal wanderings of yours. If the situation in the town is as you suggest—tense—I dare say no one should be out and about after dark. And you've not been taking the boat out again, have you? You know how I feel about sailing at night.”
Theo regarded her from the doorway. There it was once again, that look of Lewis's: the features settling into a pleasant mask beneath which she could read absolutely nothing. When had he learned to dissemble so? she wondered. And why had he learned it?
“I'll fetch Mary Ellis,” he said. And he left her with her questions unanswered.
SAHLAH WAS ALLOWED to be part of the discussion because, after all, it was her fiancé whose life had been taken. Otherwise, she'd not have been included, and she knew it. It wasn't the way of the Muslim men of her acquaintance to give merit to what a woman had to say, and although her father was a gentle man whose tenderness often showed itself only in the soft pressure of his knuckles against her cheek as he was passing by, when it came to convention, he was Muslim to the core. He devoutly prayed five times each day; he was on his third reading of the Holy Qur'aan; he made certain that a portion of the profits from his business went to the poor; and twice already he'd paced in the footsteps of millions of Muslims who had walked the perimeter of the Ka'bā.
Thus on this night, while Sahlah herself was permitted to listen to the men's discussion, her mother merely served the purpose of bringing food and drink from the kitchen to the front room, while Sahlah's sister-in-law made herself scarce. Yumn did this for two reasons, naturally. One was a bow to haya: Muhannad insisted upon the traditional interpretation of feminine modesty, so he would allow no man save his father ever to look upon his wife. And one was her nature: Had she remained downstairs, her mother-in-law might have ordered her to help with the cooking, and Yumn was the laziest cow on earth. So she'd greeted Muhannad in her usual fashion, fawning over him as if her dearest desire were that he might wipe his boots on the seat of her drawstring trousers, and then she'd disappeared upstairs. Her excuse was the need to be vigilant should Anas have another one of his terrible nightmares. The truth was that she'd be entertaining herself by flipping through magazines which displayed the Western fashions that Muhannad never allowed her to wear.
Sahlah sat well away from the men, and in deference to their sex, she neither ate nor drank. She wasn't the least bit hungry anyway, although she felt a craving for the lassi that her mother served to the others. In the heat, the yoghurt drink would be a source of blessed refreshment.
As was his custom, Akram Malik thanked his wife courteously as she set plates and glasses before their guest and their son. She touched his shoulder briefly, saying, “Be well, Akram,” and left the room. Sahlah often wondered how her mother could defer to her father in all things, as if she had no will of her own. But when asked, Wardah always explained simply, saying, “I don't defer, Sahlah. There's no necessity. Your father is my life as I am his.”
There was a bond between her parents that Sahlah had always admired although she'd never completely understood it. It seemed to rise from an ineffable mutual sadness that neither of them spoke of, and it manifested itself in the sensitivity with which they treated and spoke to each other. Akram Malik never raised his voice. But then, he never had to. His word was law to his wife, and it was supposed to be law to his children as well.
But Muhannad, as a teenager, had sneeringly called Akram “old fart” behind his back. And in the pear orchard beyond their house, he would hurl stones at the wall and viciously kick the mosaic-barked trunks of the trees to rid himself of the fury he felt whenever his father thwarted his wishes. He was careful never to let Akram see his rage, however. To him, Muhannad was silent and obedient. Sahlah's brother had spent his adolescence biding his time, doing his father's bidding, and knowing that as long as he put his obligations to the family first, the family business and fortune would be his in the end. It was his word that would then be law. Sahlah knew that Muhannad longed for that day.
But at the moment he was faced with his father's unspoken outrage. In addition to the turmoil he'd roused in town that day, he had brought Taymullah Azhar not only into Balford but into their home. This constituted the gravest act of defiance against their family. For although he was the oldest son of Akram's brother, Sahlah knew that Taymullah Azhar had been cast out of his family, and to be cast out meant that he was dead to everyone. Including to his uncle's family.
Akram had not been at home when Muhannad arrived with Taymullah Azhar, disregarding Wardah's quiet but urgent “You must not, my son,” spoken with a warning hand on his arm. Muhannad had said, “We need him. We need someone with his experience. If we don't start getting the message out that we won't let Haytham's murder be swept under the rug, we can expect business as usual from this town.”
Wardah had looked worried but said nothing more. After the first moment of startled recognition, she didn't even look at Taymullah Azhar. She merely nodded—the deference towards her husband translating automatically into deference towards her only son—and she retreated to the kitchen with Sahlah, awaiting the moment when Akram returned home from arranging for Haytham's replacement at the mustard factory.
“Ammī,” Sahlah had asked in a low voice as her mother began assembling a meal, “who is that man?”
“He is no one,” Wardah had replied firmly. “He does not exist.”
But clearly, Taymullah Azhar did exist, and Sahlah first heard his name—and immediately realised who he was from the past ten years of family gossip among the younger cousins—when her father came into the kitchen upon his return home and Wardah intercepted him, telling him about the visitor who had arrived with their son. They exchanged hushed words. Akram's eyes displayed his only reaction to the visitor's identity. Behind his glasses, they narrowed quickly.
He said, “Why?”
His wife replied, “Because of Haytham.” She glanced at Sahlah with compassion in her eyes, as if in the belief that her daughter had actually come to love the man she'd been told to marry. And why not? Sahlah realised. Under identical circumstances, Wardah had learned to love Akram Malik. “Muhannad says that your brother's son has experience in these matters, Akram.”
Akram snorted. “It all depends on what ‘these matters’ are. You should not have let him into the house.”
“He came with Muhannad,” was her reply. “What could I do?”
He was with Muhannad still, seated at one end of the sofa while Sahlah's brother took the other. Akram was in an easy chair, with one of Wardah's embroidered pillows cradling his back. The oversize television was playing another of Yumn's Asian films. She'd muted the sound instead of dousing the picture before scuttling upstairs. Now, over her father's shoulder, Sahlah could see two desperate young lovers meeting secretly like Romeo and Juliet. Except instead of upon a balcony, they met, embraced, and fell to the earth to do their business in a field where maize grew to their shoulders and hid them from view. Sahlah averted her eyes and felt her heart beating in her throat like a trapped bird's wings.
“I know you're not happy with everything that happened this afternoon,” Muhannad was saying, “But we've got the police to agree to meet with us daily. That'll keep us informed of what's going on.” Sahlah could tell by the clipped way her brother spoke that he chafed beneath their father's unuttered disapproval and disgust. “We wouldn't have got that far in one interview had Azhar not been there, Father. He positioned the DCI so that she had no option but to agree. And he did it so smoothly that she wasn't aware of the direction he was leading her till she arrived there.” He shot Azhar a look of admiration. Azhar crossed his legs, pressed the crease of his trousers between his fingers, but said nothing at all. He kept his gaze fixed on his uncle. Sahlah had never seen anyone look so composed in a situation in which he was so unwelcome.
“And this was your purpose in causing a riot?”
“The point isn't who caused what. The point is that we got an agreement.”
“And you think this is something we could not have managed on our own, Muhannad? This agreement, as you call it.” Akram lifted his glass and drank some of the lassi He hadn't glanced once at Taymullah Azhar.
“The cops know us, Father. They've known us for years. And familiarity makes people lax when it comes to fulfilling their responsibilities. Who shouts the loudest gets heard the soonest, and you know it.”
These last four words were a mistake, born of Muhannad's impatience and of his aversion for the English. Sahlah understood his feelings—having also been on the receiving end of childhood torment at the hands of schoolmates—but she knew that their father did not. Born in Pakistan and coming to England as a man in his twenties, he'd had only one experience of racism that he ever spoke of. Even that one episode of public humiliation in a London Underground station had not soured him about the people he'd decided to adopt as his countrymen. In his eyes, Muhannad had disgraced their people that day. Akram Malik wasn't likely to forget that fact soon.
“Who shouts the loudest often has the least to say,” he responded.
Muhannad's face tightened. “Azhar knows how to organise. The way we need to organise now.”
“What is now, Muni? Is Haytham less dead than he was at this time yesterday? Is your sister's future any less destroyed? How does one man's presence change what is?”
“Because,” Muhannad announced, and the tone of his voice told Sahlah that her brother had saved the best for last, “they've now admitted it's murder.”
Akram's face grew grave. However irrationally, he'd been consoling himself, his family, and Sahlah especially with the belief that Haytham's death had been an unfortunate accident. Now that Muhannad had ferreted out the truth, Sahlah knew that her father would have to think in different terms. He would have to ask why, which might very well lead him in a direction in which he didn't wish to go.
“Admitted, Father. To us. Because of what happened at today's council meeting and in the street afterwards. Wait. Don't respond yet.” Muhannad pressed his point, rising to his feet and pacing to the fireplace, where the mantelpiece held a score of framed family photographs. “I know I angered you today. I admit that things got out of hand. But I ask you to look at the results I got. And it was Azhar who suggested the town council meeting as a place to start. Azhar, Father. When I phoned him in London. Can you tell me that when you spoke to the CID they admitted murder to you? Because they didn't to me. And God knows they didn't tell Sahlah anything.”
Sahlah lowered her eyes as the men looked her way. She didn't need to confirm her brother's words. Akram had been in the room for her brief conversation with the police constable who'd come to inform them of Haytham's death. He knew exactly what had been said: “There's been a death on the Nez, I'm sorry to say. The deceased appears to be a Mr. Haytham Querashi. We need someone to identify the body formally, however, and we understand you were to marry him.”
“Yes,” Sahlah had replied gravely, while inside she was screaming, No no no!
“This may be,” Akram said to his son. “But you have gone too far. When one among us has died, it is not up to you to see to his resurrection, Muhannad.”
He was, Sahlah knew, not speaking of Haytham. He was speaking of Taymuliah Azhar. Azhar was supposed to be dead to everyone in the family once his parents had proclaimed him so. If you saw him on the street, you were to look through him or avert your eyes. His name wasn't to be mentioned. His existence wasn't to be spoken of to anyone, even in the most oblique terms. And if you thought of him, you quickly busied your mind with something else lest thinking of him turned to speaking of him turned to a willingness to consider allowing him entrance to the family once more. Sahlah had been too young to be told what crime Azhar had committed within the family to have been cast out, and once the casting out had been accomplished, she'd been forbidden to speak of him to anyone.
Ten years of solitude, she thought as she observed her cousin. Ten years of wandering in the world alone. What had it been like for him? How had he survived without his relations?
“What's more important, then?” Muhannad was attempting to sound reasonable. He didn't want to be any further at odds with their father than the day's proceedings had already made him. He couldn't risk being cast out himself. Not with a wife, two children, and the need to be gainfully employed. “What's more important, Father? Tracking down the man who murdered one of our own or making certain Azhar is cut off for life? Sahlah is a victim of this crime as much as Haytham. Don't we have an obligation to her?”
When Muhannad looked in her direction again, Sahlah lowered her eyes modestly a second time. But her insides shrivelled. She knew the truth. How could anyone not see her brother for what he was?
“Muhannad, I do not need your instruction in this or any other matter,” Akram said quietly.
“I'm not trying to instruct you. I'm only telling you that without Azhar—”
“Muhannad.” Akram reached for one of the parāthās that his wife had prepared. Sahlah could smell the minced beef that had been folded within the pastry. Her stomach lurched at the odour. “This person you speak of is dead to us. You should not have brought him into our lives, much less into our home. I have no argument with you about the crime that has been committed against Haytham, your sister, and all of our family, if indeed it is a crime.”
“But I told you the DCI said it was murder. And I told you she was forced to admit it because of the pressure we've put on the CID.”
“The pressure you brought to bear this afternoon was not on the CID.”
“But that's how it works. Don't you see that?” The room was stifling. Muhannad's white T-shirt clung to his muscled frame. In contrast, Taymullah Azhar sat in a state of such cool calm that he appeared to have transported himself to another world. Muhannad changed gears. “I'm sorry to have caused you pain, and maybe I should have warned you in advance that there would be a disruption in the meeting—”
“Maybe?” Akram asked. “And what occurred at the meeting wasn't a simple disruption.”
“All right. All right. Maybe I approached it wrong.”
“Maybe?”
Sahlah saw her brother's muscles tense. But he was too old to throw stones at the wall, and there were no tree trunks in the room to be kicked. His face was beaded with sweat, and for the first time Sahlah realised the importance of having someone like Taymuilah Azhar acting as intermediary for the family in future discussions with the police. Tranquillity under duress wasn't Muhannad's strong suit. Intimidation was, but more than intimidation was going to be called for. “Look where the demonstration got us, Father: an interview with the DCI heading the investigation. And an admission of murder.”
“I see that,” Akram acknowledged. “So now you shall offer formal thanks to your cousin for his advice and send him on his way.”
“Bugger that shit!” Muhannad swept three framed pictures from the mantel onto the floor. “What's the matter with you? What are you afraid of? Are you so tied to these bloody westerners that you can't even think that—”
“Enough.” Akram stepped out of character: He raised his voice.
“No! It's not enough. You're afraid that one of these English murdered Haytham. And if that's what happened, you're going to have to do something about it—like feel different about them. And you can't bloody face that because you've been playing at being a sodding Englishman for twenty-seven years.”
Akram was up and across the room so quickly that Sahlah didn't realise what had happened until her father struck Muhannad across his face. It was then that she cried out.
“Stop it!” She heard the fear in her voice. It was fear for both of them, for what they were capable of doing to each other and how what they did had the potential to rip their family apart. “Muni! Abhy-jahn! Stop!”
The two men faced off, Akram with a warning finger held stiffly in front of Muhannad's eyes. It was the posture he'd adopted throughout his son's childhood, but with a difference. Now he held his finger up to his son's face because Muhannad topped him by more than two inches.
“We all want the same thing,” Sahlah said to them. “We want to know what happened to Haytham. And why. We want to know why.” She wasn't sure of the veracity of either of those statements. But she said them anyway because it was more important that her father and brother remain at peace with each other than it was that she speak the complete truth to them. “Why are you arguing, then? Isn't it best to follow the path that'll take us to the truth the quickest? Isn't that what we want?”
The men didn't answer. Upstairs, Anas began to cry, and in response Yumn's feet pattered down the corridor in her expensive sandals.
“It's what I want,” Sahlah said quietly. She didn't add the rest because she didn't have to: I am the injured party because he was to be my husband. “Muni. Abhy-jahn. It's what I want,” she repeated.
Taymullah Azhar rose from his place on the sofa. He was smaller than the two other men, slighter of build and shorter in height. But he seemed their equal in every way as he spoke, even though Akram didn't look at him. “Chachā,” he said.
Akram winced at the appellation. Father's brother. It claimed a tie of blood where he would not acknowledge one.
“I don't wish to bring trouble to your home,” Azhar said, and held Muhannad off with a gesture when he would have interrupted hotly. “Let me serve the family. You won't see me unless it's necessary. I'll stay elsewhere so that you needn't break your vow to my father. I can help because, when necessary, I work with our people in London when they have troubles with the police or the government. I have experience with the English—”
“And we know where that experience took him,” Akram said bitterly.
Azhar didn't flinch. “I have experience with the English that we all can use in this situation. I ask you to let me help. Because I have no direct connection with this man or his death, I have less emotion tied up in it. I can think more clearly and see more clearly. I offer myself to you.”
“He disgraced our name,” Akram said.
“Which is why I no longer use it,” Azhar replied. “I can show my regret in no other way.”
“He could have done his duty.”
“I did my best.”
Instead of answering further, Akram studied Muhannad. He seemed to be taking the measure of his son. Then he turned heavily and looked at Sahlah where she still sat, perched this time on the edge of her seat.
He said, “I would not have had this happen in your life, Sahlah. I see your sorrow. I only want to bring it to an end.”
“Then let Azhar—”
Akram silenced Muhannad by raising his hand between them. “This is for your sister,” he told his son. “Do not let me see him. Do not have him speak to me. And do not bring another moment of disgrace on this family's name.”
With that, he left them. His footsteps heavily struck each stair.
“Old fart.” Muhannad spat the words. “Ignorant, grudge-bearing, bloody-minded old fart.”
Taymullah Azhar shook his head. “He wants to do what's best for his family. It's a concept that I, of all people, understand.”