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THERE ARE LOTS AND lots of publishers of Kahlil Gibran’s 1923, The Prophet. I am, of course, aware that it is not a ‘Christian’ text in the usual (too narrow) sense of the word.
The edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Lek uses after her dinner-party in Chapter Twenty-Two is the 1959 Penguin edition, translator Brian Stone. I’ve no idea where she got so many copies from.
Erich Krauss’ Wave of Destruction: One Thai Village and its Battle With the Tsunami (Vision Paperbacks, 2005) is an excellent account of the 2004 catastrophe.
Lane R. Earns’ paper, Italian Influence in the ‘Naples of Japan’, 1859-1941, mentioned in Chapter Fifty-Nine, is available to read for free on the Internet.
If you have enjoyed this book, you might like The Weird Problem of Good, which you can find here.
It begins like this:
The Weird Problem of Good
1: A FINE ROMANCE
Mrs Asar put on her reading glasses and scanned her invitation. ‘You are cordially invited’ – yes, yes, very nice – ‘3rd August 2009’ – no, not that; maybe the next line? – ‘Shree Sanatan Dharma Temple, Middlesbrough’ – Damn her ancient eyes, she never used to be this blind! – Ah, here it was. ‘5.30pm for a 6pm start’. Exactly what she remembered. She tore the card into eighths then sixteenths and transferred it to her clutch bag.
The bride was late. Three hundred guests were squashed together on a grey carpet looking at their watches and grumbling. The oak-framed portraits of the gods and goddesses covering three of the temple’s four walls made it look as if a better class of guest was peering in from outside, as if this was a world historical event. The air was thick with incense smoke.
At times like this Mrs Asar wished she was a Christian. In Hinduism the bride always arrived first. Since the groom was in place and the ceremony should have begun five minutes ago it was probably time to assume the worst.
Sitting cross-legged under the canopy in his cream suit and socks, his head and chest sagging, Prem looked as if his bones had sunk under the impact of a massive fall and someone had propped his corpse up. No one was saying anything to him but he wasn’t making eye contact any more. Presumably, he knew. It was just a matter of time before he turned and faced the crowd, all eighteen stone of him – he’d have to – and owned up. It’s not my fault but I don’t think she’s coming. Or something similar.
Mrs Asar wore an ochre sari and ballet pumps and stood near the exit so she could get to the toilets. She adjusted her ghomta over her white hair and lifted her glasses to give the bridge of her nose a rest. Next to her, Mrs Chaudhari sat on a plastic chair, leaning on her walking stick. Someone in the hall had broken into the orange squash and men with polystyrene cups shuffled past, brushing against her knees and muttering apologies. On the wall there was a picture of the goddess Durga on a tiger. From a distance it looked as if the tiger was sitting on Mrs Chaudhari’s head.
“You cannot help feeling sorry for him,” Mrs Asar said. “It is not his fault.”
“It is very much looking to me,” Mrs Chaudhari said, “as if he has aimed his hopes too high.”
“Nasreen Sanim? I do not think he has aimed his hopes too high.”
“I only said that I thought it was looking that way.”
“I think that she is very lucky to have him.”
“He is fat. That is all. I am thinking only about what people will say, my dear. Especially the men. You know what they are like.”
“She is a bloody idiot.”
“It is more than that, I am afraid,” Mrs Chaudhari said. “You have to think to be an idiot. She does not think.”
Mrs Asar looked round to see whether the bride’s mother and father were nearby. They were, but they were out of earshot. “It is her parents to blame.” She nodded as if she was saying the same words again but with her chin.
Mrs Chaudhari folded her arms under her breasts and heaved them up. “If she does not turn up, her life will not be worth a damn. Not with parents like that. She is too stupid to see it, but that is how it will be.”
“You cannot help feeling sorry for her. In spite of everything.”
“Perhaps we should go and pay them a visit. After this disaster is done.”
Pandit Sharma’s wire glasses, goatee beard and spangled waistcoat made him look younger than his seventy-two years. His tight lips and worried eyes made him look older. He scanned the entrance, checked his watch and frowned. He got down on his haunches by Prem’s left ear.
Prem removed his tinsel-veiled turban. The two garlands of flowers round his neck were wilting.
“I am not sure she is coming,” Pandit Sharma said.
“Let’s just give her another ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes? She should have been here half an hour ago.”
“Maybe there’s a traffic jam. Are her parents here?”
“They are at the back.”
“Of the hall? Didn’t they think to bring her?”
Pandit Sharma shook his head. “I think they have been drinking. You know how alcohol can make people think things are all right when they are not.”
“Have they tried ringing her? Has anyone?”
“Mrs Chandee has. Nasreen is not answering her home phone and her mobile is switched off.”
“That seems to clinch it then.”
“Well, that may still be premature ...‘clinch’.”
“Come on,” Prem said. “If she was caught in a traffic jam she’d have rung ahead to let us all know.”
“Perhaps she has. Have you checked your mobile?”
“Good God, I didn’t think. It’s switched off.” He removed it from his inside pocket and pressed ‘on’. The O2 logo appeared and a little fanfare played. Those nearest to him went quiet, apparently mistaking it for something ceremonial. The silence swept to the back of the hall like a Mexican Wave until all that could be heard was a series of beeps as he accessed his inbox. “No messages,” he said, in what he thought was a discreet tone.
A collective groan went up and the conversational rumble resumed.
Pandit Sharma threw his arms up. “God, what a woman! What on earth are you doing with her really, Prem? I mean really? I know I have gone along with it but I have done that for your sake. She has no education, no manners, no compassion, she is – just – just – a body. She is the opposite of you!”
“I like her.”
“Are you sure she likes you? Because I am not.”
Prem sighed. “You don’t understand, Dad. She’s vulnerable and she’s alone. Her parents aren’t joking. They really will throw her out. And then she’ll just ... I don’t know: come to a bad end – because no one else will come to her rescue.”
“Ah, I see. So this is about rescuing her, is it? God, I wish we had had this conversation at the start. I have neglected my duty. But at thirty-three, Prem - ”
“And our two families have known each other a long time. We took her in before remember, when she was just a child?”
“That was different. Her mother and father went on holiday and they did not want to take her.”
“Yes, because they hate her, let’s not mince words. Because she’s a girl. I’m not saying they hate girls full stop – I don’t know about that. Maybe they actually like girls in the abstract. But they don’t like having one in their family. That’s the truth, Dad, before you interrupt. Every year they managed to take her brothers wherever they were going. Every year they left her behind. It’s no wonder she’s ended up a bit ... odd. But I can help her. When we’re married - ”
Pandit Sharma snorted. “I do not think it is a question of ‘when’ any more.”
“I know she’s coming. She isn’t that bad.”
“Perhaps she is. Parents make children in their own image. She has long since reached the age of responsibility. If she is selfish, conceited and heartless now it is too late for anyone to remedy that. And if you try, you will be eaten up.”
“I won’t be ‘eaten up’.”
“You know what people are saying behind your back. I have been denying it but - ”
“That she’s marrying me for my money. And I’m marrying her for her looks. Yes, I know.”
“Then you have heard?”
Prem rolled his eyes. “I can guess.”
“And?”
“I’m not marrying her for her looks.”
“So then - ”
“Perhaps tell them this, Dad. It’s an arranged marriage. That’s how arranged marriages work. Money and marriage are open bedfellows. I’d advise them to get over it if I were you. How long have we got?”
“Two more minutes. Then I am going to call it off.”
Ninety minutes earlier, in a cramped kitchen in a terraced house on the opposite side of town, Mr Sanim shot the bride-to-be a withering look. He and his wife wore their best clothes and he pulled on a pair of driving gloves. They stood on one side of the table. Nasreen sat on the other. Her eyes were clear and comma-shaped, her eyelashes fresh with make up. She had a delicate nose, full lips and cheekbones as high and understated as curtain rails. For no reason, she pinched the hem of her bridal sari and twisted three centimetres worth into a peak.
“This is probably going to be your only chance,” Mr Sanim said. “He’s running out of time, he’s clinically obese and he doesn’t know you properly.”
Mrs Sanim poured herself another brandy and set the bottle in the middle of the table. “We can’t keep supporting you for much longer if today doesn’t happen. Are you sure you won’t come with us just to be on the safe side?”
“I’m not a prisoner. I don’t need to be accompanied.”
“I really think - ”
“I’m not coming if you’re going to accompany me. It’s humiliating.”
“What the hell are you planning on doing in the meantime?” Mr Sanim said.
“I want to talk to my bridesmaids. It’s the first time they’ve ever been allowed round to my house in eleven years, remember? In eleven years. I’m always going round to theirs. And I won’t see them for two weeks after the marriage, will I? I’m going on a stupid ‘honeymoon’.”
The corners of Mrs Sanim’s mouth turned down. She blinked and drew a breath through scrunched lips. “Tell them to take their shoes off. And not to go wandering round. It’s not your house, girl. Never has been, never will be. You’re just taking up floor space.”
“Bridesmaids!” Mr Sanim said.
Mrs Sanim put her palms flat on the table and put her face a millimetre in front of Nasreen’s. “Listen, Stupid, you can do what you bloody well like after you’re hitched. You’ll be his responsibility. If you don’t like it, you can up and leave him. Providing you move out of the area ... But you’ll have lots of money. Money enough to finally take care of yourself.”
“I know.”
She smacked Nasreen’s hand. “And stop fiddling with that bloody sari, Gormless!”
Five minutes later there was a knock at the front door. Nasreen judged it was too gentle to be her parents come back for something so she undid the latch. Her bridesmaids, Nadia and Anna, whooped and let off two party poppers. A flurry of streamers cascaded into the hallway.
Then silence. The breeze teased their hair. The sky threatened an hour or two’s drizzle. The streamers reformed into balls of tumbleweed and hissed into the distance. “Come in,” Nasreen said.
Anna was plump and blonde with glasses and six earrings in each ear. Nadia had dyed black hair, pearl skin, kohl eyelids and a Sainsbury’s bag. They wore short white dresses, tights and heels.
“Haven’t you got changed yet, pet?” Nadia asked, removing her shoes in the lobbyway and going through into the lounge. She slumped onto the sofa between the television and the display cabinet. “Shoes. Killing me.”
“This is my wedding sari – dress,” Nasreen said.
“But it’s red,” Anna said.
“I know. It’s supposed to be the, er ... the colour of fertility.”
Anna and Nadia exchanged looks. “Brown’s the colour of fertility,” Nadia said decisively. “Light brown.”
“It probably started off brown,” Anna said. “I mean Hinduism’s probably hundreds of years old, isn’t it, Nass?”
Nasreen shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Anna, what the hell’s that got to do with it?” Nadia said.
As she always did when she got into an argument, Anna stood on her tiptoes and joined her fingertips above her head like a ballerina. “Well centuries ago, I mean when Hinduism first started, the colour of fertility probably was brown. And then they thought: this is a bit dowdy. So the leader of the Hindus – what’s he called, Nasreen? – said: let’s mix a bit of red in, to spice it up a bit. And then they added more, and it became more and more red. Over the centuries, I mean. Until it was just red.”
Nadia peered into a hand mirror and patted her hair. “Whatever.”
“I wanted to wear white,” Nasreen said. “But my mum says white’s the Hindu colour for funerals.”
“Somebody should tell them it’s black,” Anna said. “Black for funerals.”
“Black for funerals, brown for fertility, white for weddings,” Nadia said. “Perhaps when they see us they’ll catch on.”
“It’ll be too late for me,” Nasreen replied.
Nadia dipped into the carrier bag. “We’ve brought you some wedding presents.” She pulled out a pair of scissors and some parcel tape and set them on the coffee table. “That’s not them. But you can keep them. Here.” She handed Nasreen a floppy rectangle in silver paper.
“Oh, wow.” Nasreen stuck the tip of her tongue out and prised it open. Three magazines. Hello, Heat and Reveal.
“This week’s,” Anna said. “They’ve only just come out.”
“We thought you could read them on the plane to St Lucia,” Nadia said, “or wherever it is you’re going on honeymoon.” She reached into the carrier bag again and pulled out three bottles of Tia Maria. “All for one and one for all. Let’s get started. Pass me Reveal.”
They unscrewed the liqueurs and exchanged magazines. They laughed at cellulite, cringed at substandard cosmetic surgery, gushed over weddings and slated the celebrities’ clothes and hair and life histories and opinions and homes.
“There’s something here about Francis Ardry,” Anna said.
“Francis Ardry of Home and Away?” Nadia asked.
“Yeah, like there’s another Francis Ardry,” Nasreen said.
“It says he might be coming to England for a week to do some filming.”
Nasreen reached over. “Can I see it?”
Anna transferred it and Nasreen’s eyes widened. She stroked the photograph with her fingertip.
“He won’t come to Middlesbrough,” she said. “Even if he does, it’s too late for me.”
Anna switched her mobile on. “Look at this,” she said. The screen showed a blond man of about twenty-five, suntanned with an open-necked shirt and a Buddhist medallion. Across his teeth were the words, ‘No New Messages’.
“Francis Ardry wallpaper,” Nasreen said. “Where did you get that?”
Anna smiled with one side of her mouth and nodded. “You just text, ‘I want to hump Francis’ to this number I’ve got, plus your card details.”
“That’s nice,” Nasreen said.
“Are your brothers coming to the wedding?” Anna asked.
“They can’t get any time off,” Nasreen said. She took another slug of Tia Maria. “The truth is they don’t like me. No one in my family likes me.”
“Cheer up, Cinders,” Nadia said. “We like you.”
“Are you going to get divorced from Prem?” Anna asked.
“Of course-a-mundo. He’s eighteen stone. He doesn’t love me. If he did, he’d have lost some weight. If he doesn’t care enough to get in shape for our wedding day he’s probably never going to, is he? Not that I want to be loved by him anyway.”
Anna dumped her chin in her palms and sighed. “I don’t understand. You’re really, really pretty. And you’ve got a great figure. You could get married to anyone. Lots of men want that. Someone gorgeous with a good body. Why Prem?”
Nasreen’s eyes glazed over. “I - I’ve had lots of interviews with ‘suitable’ men. Rich men. But I never seem to get along with them. They don’t like it that I don’t want a job and I haven’t any GCSEs, and they don’t like my Middlesbrough accent and they don’t like my ‘attitude’. That’s what they say. They think I’m thick and common. I look good in a photo, that’s all. I’m crap in real life. Prem’s the only one that’ll have me.”
“Why can’t you wait? You’re only, like, twenty-two.”
Her jaw juddered and she wept. “Because my parents want me out of the house. They know I’m ‘sexually active’ as they put it. Yeah, I like a shag, who the hell doesn’t? I know what a condom is. They don’t, though. They think I’ll get knocked up.”
“Even if you did, you could have an abortion,” Anna said. “Or are they against that?”
“No way. They’d have had me aborted if there’d been scans in those days. They’ve even admitted it. They never wanted a girl. Well maybe like some soppy one who’ll stand in the corner twenty-four seven, but not me.” She was crying hard now, the tears running down her face and into her lap so copiously they made a stream.
Nadia knelt by her chair and put her arms round her. “I’ve never seen you like this. Please don’t cry.”
“You’re making me blub,” Anna said, wiping her face.
“Tell us what you’d like to do,” Nadia said. “We didn’t have a hen night. We can do anything you want. What would you like to do?”
Nasreen wiped her eyes again and thought. “Remember when it was your sixteenth, Anna, and we all went trampolining? I want to do that.”
“There isn’t time,” Nadia said. “Where are we going to get a trampoline from now?”
“We could jump up and down on my parents’ king-sized double bed. They’d never know.”
Nadia pulled out an empty Chardonnay bottle from under the cushions. “Bloody hell, I thought this sofa was lumpy. Is this yours, Nass?”
“No. Just put it back and pretend you haven’t seen it. I’ve got a copy of the keys. My parents don’t know, but I sneaked the fob out one day while they were asleep and got everything copied.”
“What are you talking about?” Anna asked. “Keys to what?”
“My parents’ bedroom so we can go trampolining,” Nasreen said. “Duh? Keep up, Anna.”
“Your parents have got a lock on their bedroom door?” Nadia said.
“They’ve got a lock on every door in the house,” Nasreen replied. “Go round and check if you like. They’re all locked today except this room.”
“That’s seriously weird,” Nadia said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Anna crossed her legs and grimaced. “The door to the bog isn’t locked, is it?”
“I’ve got the keys,” Nasreen repeated.
“Could I borrow them?” Anna said. “I only want a number one, that’s all. I wouldn’t ever do a number two in someone else’s house unless it was a sleepover, or I had a tummy upset and I just couldn’t help it.”
“I’ll unlock the bog now,” Nasreen said. “When you’ve finished come upstairs and get on the trampoline. Me and Nadia will go and get started, yeah?”
“Game on,” Nadia said. She grabbed her Tia Maria.
Twenty minutes later the three women lay under the covers of the double bed, exhausted. They had stripped down to their underwear and Anna was nursing a black eye, having slipped off the mattress and gone face-first into the headboard. This had been both tragic and funny. Tragic at first, then increasingly funny as it became obvious Anna wasn’t going to die.
Apart from the bed, the room contained a dresser, a fitted wardrobe, a padded chair and lots of framed photographs, most on the walls but a few on stands on the dresser. Nadia got up and strolled around inspecting them. On the deep beige carpet at her feet lay three empty bottles of Tia Maria, two white satin dresses, two pairs of tights and a red sari.
“This is really weird, Nass,” Nadia said. She climbed back into bed. “There isn’t a single picture of you. Not even with your parents or brothers. It’s like you don’t exist.”
Nasreen snuggled up to her. “I wish we could stay like this for ever.”
Nadia guffawed. “It’s a good job you took your specs off,” she said to Anna. “Otherwise, you’d have a glass eye by now. Glass-in-your-eye: glass eye, get it?”
“Just the three of us talking with no one else around,” Nasreen said.
“If I’d kept my specs on it probably wouldn’t have happened,” Anna said, starting to cry again. “It was only because I couldn’t see where I was going.”
“Like some big ‘pause’ button on life,” Nasreen said.
“Anyway, you wouldn’t be laughing if it was your eye,” Anna said.
Nasreen put her fingers on her lips and smiled. “And when you pressed that button, your parents would instantly die and you’d win the lottery.”
“Why don’t you get contact lenses?” Nadia said.
“Because I can’t afford them,” Anna replied.
Nasreen sat up. “I’ve had an idea. I’m – I’m going to get married.”
There was a pause. “Er, yeah ... we know,” Nadia said.
“I need another wee,” Anna said.
Nasreen laughed. “But don’t you see? If I marry Prem then divorce him I’ll come into lots of money, then I can buy us all a house and we can live together.”
“Yeah, that sounds nice,” Nadia replied.
“And you can both be my servants.”
“Er ...”
“I’ll pay you. – Shit, I’ve taken my sari off! Shit! Shit! – Don’t worry” – she was talking to herself now – “there’s the book downstairs. Shit, it’s ten to six. I’m supposed to be there!”
She threw herself out of bed and raced downstairs. She came back with a copy of Schott’s Original Miscellany open at page eighty-seven: ‘How to Wrap a Sari’.
Nasreen had never heard three hundred gasps of amazement before – not all at once – but that was what greeted her as she walked into the temple trailing Anna and Nadia. Her hair was tucked beneath her veil and she gripped the folds of her sari. Swathes of it trailed on the floor.
She spotted her father making his way through the crowd, his face the colour of beetroot rind. She removed her heels, folded her arms to pretend she didn’t care, and hurried up the central aisle with lowered eyes, to shield her from the hostility.
She gestured for her bridesmaids to sit on the floor with the other women and ascended the three steps to the shrine without looking at Pandit Sharma or Prem. She tucked her legs beneath her and flopped into a sitting posture. “Ready to go.”
Pandit Sharma shook his head as he assumed position.
“Hurry up,” she said. “I can still change my mind, you know.”
“What did you just say?” Prem said, leaning towards her.
She sighed. “Nothing. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?”
Prem reached out for her hand but she withdrew it. They took their seats beneath the matrimonial canopy. She gave another sigh, redolent of spearmint and alcohol, and much more desolate than the last.
Just as the first words of the ceremony were emerging from the Pandit’s lips, Mr Sanim arrived. He leaned into the marital canopy. “Where in damnation have you been? What the bloody hell time - ”
“Anna had an accident.”
“Out, spit it out!” He held his palm beneath her chin and received a wad of chewing gum. He transferred it to a handkerchief and thrust it into his pocket.
“We will talk about this later,” he said.
Nasreen counted five whole seconds as Prem and his father exchanged looks. Eventually Prem nodded.
“No more gum,” Mr Sanim mock-admonished Nasreen, waggling his index finger and grinning manically. He took his place next to her and muttered to himself.
Prem was given a mixture of yoghurt and honey to eat, symbolising the hope that life would be kind to the couple in the years to come. Pandit Sharma lit the sacred fire and chanted from the Vedas. Mr Sanim placed his daughter’s hand in Prem’s while Prem offered cereals to the fire.
Nasreen had a high alcohol tolerance but the Tia Maria had all gone to her head now. She raised her eyes, looking past everyone. The only things she could focus on – though she didn’t want to – were the figures of the god and goddess, Rama and Sita, in the shrine behind the Pandit.
She didn’t know much about Hinduism but virtually everything she did know concerned these two deities. For ten years of her life, from five to fifteen, she’d spent every Divali at the Junior Hindu Club while her parents went on a pub-crawl – a tradition of their own devising, otherwise unknown in the faith. Since Divali was a celebration of the words and deeds of Rama and Sita, she ended up knowing them intimately. And she knew every detail of their shrine here.
Sita and Rama were supposed to be the ideal couple. Normally their expressions epitomised grace and continence. But though Rama’s face was unchanged, Sita’s looked enraged. Nasreen felt a rush of shame as her own words returned to her as she’d spoken them an hour ago: Prem’s the only one that’ll have me. The red corpuscles galloped in her ribcage. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath to quell the panic-horror.
She suddenly saw her getting married was wrong. Not in a trivial, relative or instrumental sense. But wrong absolutely. She had no idea where the conviction had begun. She’d never experienced anything like it before. Eerily, it seemed to be emanating from Sita.
She reached out for Prem’s hand, gave it a squeeze and let it go. Then she got to her feet.
“Stop the ceremony,” she said in a croak.
Pandit Sharma and Mr Sanim locked eyes, each apparently seeking reassurance in the other. The congregation gasped. Through her daze she saw eyebrows furrowing, mouths opening, curses being uttered. But Sita was glowering and that was far more frightening than a few eyebrows and mouths. She gathered her courage and raised her hand to cover a burp.
“I – I just don’t want to get married,” she said eventually, cutting the silence. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m sorry. Yes I know this is going to spoil everyone’s nice day out but ... Well, it’s my life ... isn’t it? I’ve changed my mind. Please. Sorry. Like I said: sorry. But there it is. Bye” – hiccup – “Prem. Sorry you’ve had a wasted journey. Sorry, really.”
She dropped her eyes again, refolded her arms, descended the steps from the shrine and marched down the central gangway. She picked up speed as she closed on the exit and tripped on her sari but righted herself.
Even Nadia and Anna looked shocked, but as they got up to follow her they giggled. Mr Sanim stood up with his shoulders thrown back and his arms dangling.
In the time it took the silence to dissolve completely, Prem got to his feet and went after her, still in his turban and without pausing to grab his shoes. The crowd met him with mingled abuse and encouragement – lots of Heys, Watch Its, Don’t Push Mes, Let Him Throughs and Don’t Get in His Ways. One minute he was wading through a jungle of arms and legs and torsos, the next he was standing alone in the icy evening, snorting steam.
He was just in time to see Nasreen on all fours next to a taxi, vomiting like a sick whippet. Her sari had come away leaving her legs bare and her knickers showing. Nadia and Anna were having an argument with the driver.
Suddenly they all turned and saw Prem. Nadia and Anna hauled Nasreen to her feet and pushed her into the car, then scrambled in after her. The driver threw his arms up, but in response to a loud command from inside he got in. The taxi pulled away.
Prem wondered why he’d come after her. It wasn’t to entice her back inside. She was drunk, anyone could see that, but sometimes you needed to be drunk to tell the truth. Partly, he was fleeing the palaver. But ... he also wanted to tell her it was okay, he wasn’t angry.
Which was why it was so hurtful, her friends bundling her into the taxi like that. As if he was the enemy. He’d wanted to forgive her ... but suddenly yes, he did feel angry after all! She could go to hell, they all could!
He stood on the grass verge watching the traffic whizzing past like a volley of missiles all aimed in his direction. There was no point going back inside, even to retrieve his shoes. He was too dispirited even to bother pulling his wedding turban off.
He put his hands in his trouser pockets and started walking.
Get The Weird Problem of Good here.
