‘What is the answer then?’ Parvez said miserably. ‘According to you.’
Ali addressed his father fluently, as if Parvez were a rowdy crowd that had to be quelled and convinced. The Law of Islam would rule the world; the skin of the infidel would burn off again and again; the Jews and Christers would be routed. The West was a sink of hypocrites, adulterers, homosexuals, drug takers and prostitutes.
As Ali talked, Parvez looked out of the window as if to check that they were still in London.
‘My people have taken enough. If the persecution doesn’t stop there will be jihad. I, and millions of others, will gladly give our lives for the cause.’
‘But why, why?’ Parvez said.
‘For us the reward will be in paradise.’
‘Paradise!’
Finally, as Parvez’s eyes filled with tears, the boy urged him to mend his ways.
‘How is that possible?’ Parvez asked.
‘Pray,’ Ali said. ‘Pray beside me.’
Parvez called for the bill and ushered his boy out of the restaurant as soon as he was able. He couldn’t take any more. Ali sounded as if he’d swallowed someone else’s voice.
On the way home the boy sat in the back of the taxi, as if he were a customer.
‘What has made you like this?’ Parvez asked him, afraid that somehow he was to blame for all this. ‘Is there a particular event which has influenced you?’
‘Living in this country.’
‘But I love England,’ Parvez said, watching his boy in the mirror. ‘They let you do almost anything here.’
‘That is the problem,’ he replied.
For the first time in years Parvez couldn’t see straight. He knocked the side of the car against a lorry, ripping off the wing mirror. They were lucky not to have been stopped by the police: Parvez would have lost his licence and therefore his job.
Getting out of the car back at the house, Parvez stumbled and fell in the road, scraping his hands and ripping his trousers. He managed to haul himself up. The boy didn’t even offer him his hand.
Parvez told Bettina he was now willing to pray, if that was what the boy wanted, if that would dislodge the pitiless look from his eyes.
‘But what I object to,’ he said, ‘is being told by my own son that I am going to hell!’
What finished Parvez off was that the boy had said he was giving up accountancy. When Parvez had asked why, Ali had said sarcastically that it was obvious.
‘Western education cultivates an anti-religious attitude.’
And, according to Ali, in the world of accountants it was usual to meet women, drink alcohol and practise usury.
‘But it’s well-paid work,’ Parvez argued. ‘For years you’ve been preparing!’
Ali said he was going to begin to work in prisons, with poor Muslims who were struggling to maintain their purity in the face of corruption. Finally, at the end of the evening, as Ali was going to bed, he had asked his father why he didn’t have a beard, or at least a moustache.
‘I feel as if I’ve lost my son,’ Parvez told Bettina. ‘I can’t bear to be looked at as if I’m a criminal. I’ve decided what to do.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m going to tell him to pick up his prayer mat and get out of my house. It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but tonight I’m going to do it.’
‘But you mustn’t give up on him,’ said Bettina. ‘Many young people fall into cults and superstitious groups. It doesn’t mean they’ll always feel the same way.’
She said Parvez had to stick by his boy, giving him support, until he came through.
Parvez was persuaded that she was right, even though he didn’t feel like giving his son more love when he had hardly been thanked for all he had already given.
Nevertheless, Parvez tried to endure his son’s looks and reproaches. He attempted to make conversation about his beliefs. But if Parvez ventured any criticism, Ali always had a brusque reply. On one occasion Ali accused Parvez of ‘grovelling’ to the whites; in contrast, he explained, he was not ‘inferior’; there was more to the world than the West, though the West always thought it was best.
‘How is it you know that?’ Parvez said, ‘seeing as you’ve never left England?’
Ali replied with a look of contempt.
One night, having ensured there was no alcohol on his breath, Parvez sat down at the kitchen table with Ali. He hoped Ali would compliment him on the beard he was growing but Ali didn’t appear to notice.
The previous day Parvez had been telling Bettina that he thought people in the West sometimes felt inwardly empty and that people needed a philosophy to live by.
‘Yes,’ said Bettina. ‘That’s the answer. You must tell him what your philosophy of life is. Then he will understand that there are other beliefs.’
After some fatiguing consideration, Parvez was ready to begin. The boy watched him as if he expected nothing.
Haltingly Parvez said that people had to treat one another with respect, particularly children their parents. This did seem, for a moment, to affect the boy. Heartened, Parvez continued. In his view this life was all there was and when you died you rotted in the earth. ‘Grass and flowers will grow out of me, but something of me will live on —’
‘How?’
‘In other people. I will continue — in you.’ At this the boy appeared a little distressed. ‘And your grandchildren,’ Parvez added for good measure. ‘But while I am here on earth I want to make the best of it. And I want you to, as well!’
‘What d’you mean by “make the best of it”?’ asked the boy.
‘Well,’ said Parvez. ‘For a start … you should enjoy yourself. Yes. Enjoy yourself without hurting others.’
Ali said that enjoyment was a ‘bottomless pit’.
‘But I don’t mean enjoyment like that!’ said Parvez. ‘I mean the beauty of living!’
‘All over the world our people are oppressed,’ was the boy’s reply.
‘I know,’ Parvez replied, not entirely sure who ‘our people’ were, ‘but still — life is for living!’
Ali said, ‘Real morality has existed for hundreds of years. Around the world millions and millions of people share my beliefs. Are you saying you are right and they are all wrong?’
Ali looked at his father with such aggressive confidence that Parvez could say no more.
One evening Bettina was sitting in Parvez’s car, after visiting a client, when they passed a boy on the street.
‘That’s my son,’ Parvez said suddenly. They were on the other side of town, in a poor district, where there were two mosques.
Parvez set his face hard.
Bettina turned to watch him. ‘Slow down then, slow down!’ She said, ‘He’s good-looking. Reminds me of you. But with a more determined face. Please, can’t we stop?’
‘What for?’
‘I’d like to talk to him.’
Parvez turned the cab round and stopped beside the boy.
‘Coming home?’ Parvez asked. ‘It’s quite a way.’
The sullen boy shrugged and got into the back seat. Bettina sat in the front. Parvez became aware of Bettina’s short skirt, gaudy rings and ice-blue eyeshadow. He became conscious that the smell of her perfume, which he loved, filled the cab. He opened the window.
While Parvez drove as fast as he could, Bettina said gently to Ali, ‘Where have you been?’
‘The mosque,’ he said.
‘And how are you getting on at college? Are you working hard?’
‘Who are you to ask me these questions?’ he said, looking out of the window. Then they hit bad traffic and the car came to a standstill.
By now Bettina had inadvertently laid her hand on Parvez’s shoulder. She said, ‘Your father, who is a good man, is very worried about you. You know he loves you more than his own life.’