‘Boom. Boom.’ That’s Ali, the Karahi House proprietor. He is a joker and speaks carelessly as though to shame us. ‘I can see ladies dancing in your eyes.’ A spatula in one hand gesticulates lewdly while with the other he flips lamb chops on a sizzling grill. ‘Their feet, garlanded in silver anklets, dancing on your filthy souls.’ Oily spice fills the room.
Carefully I drop the hair into a plastic Ziploc bag retrieved from my pyjama pocket. The uneven crop of close-cut bristle now reveals something of my former face. I have a square jaw, full lips, and eyes a girl once described as gentle. When it mattered to me, I considered myself handsome. It flashes across my mind that before I shave it all off I could groom myself something fashionable. A goatee, perhaps? Just for a minute, to see what it would look like. But those thoughts are the diversions of Beelzebub, a temptation to infidelity, and to compensate I whisper a quick Bismillah. Staring into the mirror, I allow myself a small smile. A smile in recognition of the unfortunate fact that we can never be truly faithful to Allah, that within my weak mind there is still resistance, rebellion.
I shake my head vigorously as though it will scatter those thoughts, and with the razor I cut neat tracks into what remains of my beard, dispersing shaving foam thick with black hair under the running tap. The skin underneath is smooth and stretched taut like a canvas over my chin. Already I feel colder without the beard. My face itches and burns and I rub and press at it as though kneading dough, leaving behind short-lived, thumb-shaped welts. The image staring back at me is boyish: it is the vanity of the infidel and reminds me of my earlier self, of a time before belief in the one and true God. That there was a time before belief seems hardly possible, and I turn my eyes away.
I rub in a splash of Cologne, gritting my teeth as it stings. It has been a long time since I felt that particular pleasurable pain.
My gaze tilts upwards, squinting through a small rectangular window to the marbled black sky, imagining the hazy horizon, the join between sky and land that determines the end of the visible world. A scene that Allah will illuminate at dawn. ‘Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.’
I concentrate my eyes into the distance, connecting with what I cannot see, the great invisible being just beyond. I am barely conscious that I am standing before Allah. I see through the clouds to a crescent moon. As I concentrate harder, I view a colourful scene of an orchard with round bushy trees of a wonderful brightness, the likes of which I have never before seen. Bulbous red pomegranates grow on the trees, and in the air is the scent of sandalwood and jasmine and roses. A stream flows across the foreground. On its golden waters glides a wooden barge propelled by a fisherman punting with a long pole. In the background, as though painted in, are the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, places colder and more isolated than man could ever stand. As I now look down, out from this dizzying height, a wind spurs like sharp knives at my face, and as my arms waver for balance I open my mouth for one final breath of thin, giddy air.
I feel a knot in my throat; my heart races and a surge of adrenaline makes my whole body shiver. Despite the coldness of the bathroom, strangely I feel warm. It takes all my control not to cry out loud.
And suddenly an ugly pain works my knee. A familiar antagonist that is worse between the hours of sunset and sunrise. The doctor assured me that all pain increases at night-time, but its eagerness surprises me. Sweating, I rest on the edge of the toilet seat and clutch at my artificial knee and hope that might banish the sensation that grips, like the branches of an electrical tree, the nerves above and below the wound.
When finally it eases, I pull down my pyjamas, letting them drop to my ankles. My cock I shield with one hand and, with the other, first trim the hair, snip and deposit. I adjust my position, but very carefully in case I reignite the pain, bending low to my task. I rub in a very thin layer of shaving foam and carefully guide the razor around the curves, pulling and tweaking at my anatomy, stretching the skin flat.
The razor, sealed into the Ziploc bag, I dispose of in a pedal bin under the sink. The shaving foam and scissors are replaced in the cupboard. It is better to return things to where they came from, always better.
Quietly I unlock the bathroom door, turn off the light and step into the hallway. It wasn’t as satisfying as I would have had it. I had imagined an overwhelming serenity, but it was more practical than that, and at times, shivering in the cold bathroom, I had wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I have to admit, the martyr’s penultimate scene would, to an infidel, seem a strange one. But that is the point, the very point that only true believers in the one true God understand. It is the very thing that separates the martyr from the infidel. It is about faith — a compulsion elevated above all others. About doing what Allah wills. And belief, belief is faith, believing in His justice. Like any soldier in war, orders must be followed. Not satisfying nor serene, but successful. No razor cuts. Not a drop of blood.
I turn one last time and see a patch of sky through the window. Bismillah.
I smile. Not a drop, not yet.
2
Briefly I look in on my parents sleeping. I am not yet dead and cold and devoid of feeling, and I regard them with pity. Pity for their worn ageing bodies and pity that there will be no one to care for them. Azra I do not wish ever again to gaze upon. Instead, as I pick up my number two dress uniform from a wardrobe on the landing and descend the stairs, I imagine her body twisted into the sheets and feel a bitter resentment in the knowledge that she will stop only long enough to collect her inheritance, my army compensation money. Again I am leaving my parents, and this time forever, or at least forever in this world. If they are heaven-worthy then I will see them, and if they are not, I as a heaven dweller may have it in my power to summon them. Or I may not. There are many contradictions. Many unknowns.
Downstairs, before a tinsel-garlanded picture of Mecca above the mantel, I dress quickly. My father’s snores reverberate through the ceiling above, and in the loneliness of the night every sound grows, its significance amplified.
I leave the house, creeping out like a soldier on manoeuvre. The clouds are dense and the air dewy grey; absent is the crescent moon of my imagination. Part way down the street a fox slinks nervously across the tarmac, its beady eyes caught by the light of a street lamp, momentarily glowing a bold yellow. It stops briefly to consider me leaning on my stick and then skulks on. My best army boots clink on the pavement, their polished toecaps twinkling beneath the same street lamp under which the fox paused moments earlier.
On my head I wear a peaked sergeant’s cap. It is black and across it runs a red sash. In its centre, like a third eye, is a brass cap badge bearing the emblem I once earned, a double-headed eagle. My tunic is olive green, with many utilitarian pockets, all of them empty save for a little money and another cap badge that I have, since my return, kept in an inside pocket next to my heart. The tunic is tight over my bulging waist, yet still I feel strong in it, as though the chest is padded with plates of steel. It was hand cut precisely to fit my body, my body in its prime, and wearing it for the first time on parade was my proudest moment. I stood a good inch taller than I actually was. Squinting into the sun, I saluted Her Majesty, our Colonel-in-Chief, and swore I would defend Great Britain, her territories and dominions, with my life.
I don’t look back, picturing instead how the house diminishes from view. It grows not only smaller, but somehow also less significant. As I cross the road and take a left turn, already it feels as though the house, to which I will not return, is a place I never inhabited. The streets are deserted, yellow where illuminated, and seem to pulse quietly as though resting for the night. On the distant peak of Turner’s Hill flashes an orange beacon mounted on an aerial, a tiny, almost imperceptible dot of light, one I watched as a child looking out of my bedroom window, mesmerized.