East of Wimbledon (15 page)

‘Today,’ he said solemnly, ‘Mr Wilson, or Yusuf Khan as he likes to be sometimes known, is going to tell us how and why he became a Muslim.’

He turned to Robert and extended a welcoming hand.
He knows
, thought Robert,
he knows. He is having fun at my expense.

‘It is no easy thing for a person like Wilson, whose family has had a complex religious history – his father, for example, was a . . . er . . . Buddhist – to ally himself with a religion whose roots lie far from Wimbledon.’

The boys gazed up at him in rapture. They must, thought Robert, have seen some strange things in their lives. Their parents had travelled thousands of miles, from all parts of the globe, to make a new home in quiet England, safe among the ashes of empire, only to have their children greeted by Mr Malik, a man more exotic than any schoolboy had a right to expect a teacher to be.

‘Wilson, or Yusuf Khan, or whatever you like to call him, is, as you are all aware, a man of many talents. He is a complex individual, rich in fruit, with a good long “nose” and plenty of body. In short, someone who is, as it were, drinking well now and well worth laying down for the future.’

Robert patted his hair down and tried to formulate a few opening remarks. Conversions were often the result of a journey, weren’t they? Where could he have been going?
I was on my way to West Wimbledon station, when . . .
When what?

‘Wilson is white. He is Anglo-Saxon. He is, although this may seem incredible, the kind of man who used to rule the world!’

Robert coughed apologetically.

‘And now he is
Muslim.
He is 100 per cent pure Muslim. He reads the Koran, he attends daily prayers, and occasionally, when there is a gap in the conversation, he babbles of going to Mecca. Can you imagine him there in his sports jacket, among the thousands of pilgrims?’

The boys laughed at this sally. Robert, who found he was sweating, started to try to recall some key phrases from Marwan Ibrahim Al-Kaysi. Could a case be made for the sports jacket being an Islamic garment?

‘Things are changing, gentlemen!’ said Malik, clasping his hands behind his back. ‘The Church of England is no longer the only game in town. And Wilson here is, we might say, the future – the first sign that British society is going to throw off the shackles of racism and colonialism and produce something genuinely multicultural, like .. . er . . . him!’

Loud applause greeted this remark. The headmaster seemed sincere enough, but his manner was so perfectly poised between gravity and teasing that Robert’s discomfort increased.

‘Listen to him now as he tells us how and why he became a convert. Listen to his story, and profit by it. And afterwards we will take questions from the floor.’

Here Mr Malik stepped back with a flourish, and Robert found he was walking out in front of the whole school, his heart thumping, his mind a complete blank.

‘I became a Muslim,’ he said, ‘at four-thirty on Wednesday the twenty-third of July. On Wimbledon Station.’

This, thought Robert, had the right ring to it. It sounded concrete, authentic.

‘I had never, in my life, up to that point, met a Muslim. I had never even
seen
a Muslim – apart, of course, from on the television, and the ones I had seen there – I will be absolutely frank – did not seem a particularly inspiring bunch!’

Mr Malik seemed to like this. The headmaster smirked to himself, chuckled, and drew the edge of his right hand carefully along his moustache.

‘Colonel Gaddafi, for example – an obvious loony if ever I saw one. Saddam Hussein, for example, and his Ba’ath Party – a man, I will be absolutely frank, I would probably cross the street to avoid.’

Sheikh was looking at him intently. The little boy’s chin was cupped in his hands. He was wearing, as were all the boys, the school uniform designed by Mr Malik himself – grey jersey, grey trousers, black shoes, and bright green tie and socks. He must get off the subject of Saddam Hussein, thought Robert.

‘Ayatollah Khomeini, for example,’ he heard himself saying, ‘was a complete . . .’ He managed to head this sentence off its track just in time. ‘. . . mullah. He was in every sense a man of the cloth. Whereas Yasser Arafat . . . er . . . for example—’

Here he caught sight of Aziz the janitor, who was standing at the back of the hall with his mop and bucket. He seemed to have decided that now was the right time to clean the Great Hall floor and was poking the mop head in among the boys’ legs, muttering to himself.

‘. . . who bears a close resemblance to our school janitor, Aziz – although, as far as I know, Aziz does not wander around with a tea towel on his head organizing terrorist attacks – Yasser Arafat—’

How had he got on to the subject of Yasser Arafat? Why had he got on to the subject of Yasser Arafat? How could he leave the subject of Yasser Arafat?

‘. . . is the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.’

This was safe ground. They couldn’t be expected to argue with that. Islam, as far as he was aware, had no objections to a man stating the obvious.

‘The Palestinian Liberation Organization was founded, after the Second World War, with the intention of liberating Palestine. As we all know.’

This was all right as far as it went. But Dr Ali was looking restless. His head snaked forward. Over his not entirely clean white collar you could see his Adam’s apple thumping. Robert tried to concentrate on a spot just above the doctor’s head. He fixed his mind on a rule his father had given him for public speaking:
Get a vague plan and then say anything that comes into your head.
But no words would come. What they wanted to hear was why he had become a Muslim. And he simply could not think of anything that might have made him become a Muslim.

‘I can hardly believe,’ he found himself saying, ‘that someone like me could have become an . . . er . . . Muslim. Because quite a lot of Islam is, frankly to me . . . er . . . well gobbledygook!’

Dr Ali, his chin in his hands, was staring at Robert. His lips seemed to be mouthing something, but Robert could not make out what it was. He looked as if he was reciting some charm to ward off evil spirits.

‘Take the Koran, for example,’ went on Robert. ‘Take it. You know? Get it out and take a close look at it. I have to say that from my point of view – and this is only my point of view – it is
not
a page-turner. It just isn’t. It is obviously a very popular book and, according to my edition, has sold millions of copies worldwide – as has Enid Blyton, for example – but . . .’

This was the wrong direction. He must get off the subject of the Koran. And why was he mentioning Enid Blyton? He must get off the subject of anything controversial. But every single thing to do with being a Muslim seemed quite incredibly controversial. Why had he become a Muslim? Why hadn’t he become a Sikh or a Hasidic Jew?

‘Why,’ he went on, ‘didn’t I become a Sikh or a Hasidic Jew? I mean, it is possible that their . . . er . . . holy books are a less tough read than the . . . er . . . Koran.’

Dr Ali had put both his index fingers in his ears and was rocking backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked like an airline passenger who has just been told that all four engines on his 747 have just failed.

‘Take,’ went on Robert, ‘the chapter called “The Bee”. For the first four or five pages there is absolutely no mention of a bee. In fact it seems to talk about almost every kind of animal there is
apart
from the bee, and, for someone like myself, a total newcomer to Islam, this is, I have to say in all honesty, deeply confusing. I mean, you know, why not call it “The Ant”? Or “The Porcupine”? Or “The Frog”? You know?’

Some boys in the front row laughed. Dr Ali increased the rocking movement until the point where his forward movement was critical. Suddenly the mathematics master was on his feet. He was pointing at Robert and yelling something that sounded like Arabic but turned out to be very emotional English. ‘I cannot listen to this!’ yelled Dr Ali. ‘I cannot allow this to continue!’

Mr Malik turned sharply to his second master. ‘Wilson is simply expressing the doubts and fears of a new—’

But Dr Ali did not listen. He raised his right hand and threw a quivering index finger in Robert’s direction. ‘This man,’ he said, ‘is a blasphemer and a hypocrite! I have been watching him for some weeks, and I accuse him publicly – before the whole school!’

Robert started to shake. ‘I don’t think—’ he began.

‘Did you or did you not read this book to the reception class?’ yelled Ali. He produced from under his jacket a small paperback book which he waved in the air, furiously. ‘A book, gentlemen, which will make you physically ill should you even catch sight of it in Waterstones! A book which has as its hero – as its
hero
—’

He held the book out between finger and thumb as if it contained some dangerous virus which at any moment could threaten the whole school.

‘. . . a
pig
! A pig is the hero of this book!
The Sheep-Pig
, by Dick King-Smith!
And this is not all!’

Mr Malik, too, was on his feet, waving his arms. ‘My dear Ali,’ he was saying, ‘our religion forbids us to eat pigs. It doesn’t prohibit us from talking about them. May I remind you that—’

Robert had read
The Sheep-Pig
to Class 1. He had, on rainy afternoons, read quite a lot of books about pigs to them.

‘
The Tale of Pigling Bland,
’ Dr Ali was yelling, ‘by the woman Potter!
Horace: the Story of a Pig
, by Jane DuCane Smith.
Pigs Ahoy!
, by Harts Wilhelm.
Pig Time
, by Duncan Fowler and Norman Bates.
Don’t Forget the Bacon!
, by Pat Hutchins. The man is obsessed with pigs!’

It was true that Robert had always liked pigs. But no one in Class 1 had seemed unduly disturbed by his account of them, even if the Husayn twins had said that pigs were ‘boring’ and had asked if they could bring in the novelization of
Terminator Two.

Dr Ali was now incoherent with rage. He looked, thought Robert, like something out of one of his own visions. Whirling round on his toes, he kept stabbing towards his fellow member of staff with his long, bony fingers. But it wasn’t until Robert thought he recognized a familiar English word that he leaned across to the headmaster to check if he had heard it correctly.

‘I think,’ said Mr Malik, cheerfully, ‘he is sentencing you to death.’ He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. ‘Apparently,’ he went on, ‘he does this quite a lot. I have been researching into his background, and apparently he is a member of an organizaation known as the British Mission for Islamic Purity. We must endeavour to rise above, Wilson. Rise above!’

But the mathematics master, now dribbling freely, his face contorted with hatred, continued to dance from foot to foot, watched impassively by the ninety or so young British citizens of the Wimbledon Islamic Day School (Independent Boys’).

Mr Malik put his arm round Robert and continued to watch this display with apparent unconcern. He beamed again as Ali, practically choking on his own saliva, fell forward into a group of pupils.

He was practically laughing out loud as Ali reached critical mass. Foaming at the mouth, the maths master, now on his knees, raised both hands above his head and shook them violently. He was screeching, sobbing and wailing with the aplomb of a professional mourner and it wasn’t always easy to understand what he was saying. But the gist of it seemed to be that there should be an early, and preferably unpleasant, end to the miserable life of the blasphemer and pig-fancier, Wilson.

Islamic time seemed to pass more quickly. Christmas had only just gone, and now the mornings were bright. On longer evenings the sound of wood against leather could be heard in the garden behind the large house.

‘You’ll be late, darling,’ called Mrs Wilson. ‘You don’t want to be late, do you? It’s Sports Day!’

Robert did, actually, quite want to be late. He had never found it easy to get up in the morning, and being under sentence of death did not make the prospect of a new day any more enticing.

Outside, April had come to Wimbledon. A blackbird was singing, carelessly, in the trees behind the house. A breeze stirred the curtains. On the chest of drawers in the corner of the room was Malik’s newsletter:
SPRING NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC SCHOOL WIMBLEDON
.

Admissions are up by 30 per cent and we are ahead of budget. The profit-sharing scheme is coming on line in June and we are already planning a follow-up to our successful Islamic Quiz Evening on March 12th. Well done, Mr Mafouz – we hope you enjoy the tickets for
Les Miserables!
Plans for the swimming-pool continue apace!

The swimming-pool was something of a disappointment. Rafiq had dug a twelve-foot hole at the bottom of the garden, and then, in the grip of one of his periodic fits of depression, had abandoned it to the spring rain.

‘You can do nothing with Rafiq during Ramadan,’ Mr Malik had said. ‘He just lies on his bed and thinks about having his end away!’

But, for the first time in his life, Robert felt part of a success. Every day a new parent would appear in Mr Malik’s office. And, so it was rumoured, ‘This is a Christian Country’ Gyles, of Cranborne Junior School, had privately denounced the headmaster’s operation as being ‘a bucket shop’. The inspector of schools had, however, described the operation as ‘offering an entirely new slant on the core curriculum’. They even had locks on the lavatory doors.

Islam had offered him a lot. Among the things it had offered him was Maisie. If it had not been for their long, soul-searching conversations about the Koran and the life of the Prophet, he would probably not, now, be sleeping with her. Next to him, she snored lightly. As he got out of bed, she moved. The top of her thigh just cleared the duvet. He gulped.

She was still convinced he was homosexual. They had been having sexual intercourse about three times a day, every day, for the last six weeks, but Maisie still maintained that Robert was faking it. His orgasms seemed to him to be perfectly genuine, but once Maisie had an idea in her head it proved difficult to shift. There were still moments when he worried about her attitude. Might Malik be something to do with it? Did Malik still suspect him of not being quite the full shilling as far as heterosexuality was concerned? Such ideas were hard to dispel.