Zia Rahman - In the Light of What We Know

That night when my father suggested I look for work elsewhere, I accepted his suggestion without debate. And so it was that I came to work on the renovation of houses. In July 1987, on a day not nearly as warm as it was bright, I took a bus from Willesden Green to Kensington, uncertain what it was I hoped to find there, but like the economic migrant who travels to the West, I thought vaguely that opportunities abounded in the streets of the affluent royal borough. Besides, I wanted to see more of Kensington. I had been there once, that winter when I hitched a ride to go to my college interview in Oxford. Kensington, I had thought then, seemed a world away from Willesden.

When I arrived, I walked through the streets, through its many mews and lanes, and I saw scaffolding and boarding and Dumpsters in the roadside, mounting with the rubble of construction, so many that they might all have submerged themselves beneath my senses had I not been specifically looking. I saw numerous renovation projects, and so I knocked on doors and asked if there was any work. No, mate, and Nothing here, mate, came the reply over and over. And then I changed my tack. I’ll work for you for nothing, I said, and if after a week you like my work, you can pay me whatever you think is right.

* * *

I joined Bill and Dave, carpenters — chippies, they called themselves — from opposite ends of Essex, two giants in tough canvas shorts, pockets full of tools, and leather belts studded with clasps for mallets, chisels, and screwdrivers. One wore a red Arsenal shirt. Bill and Dave were working on the renovation of a five-story Georgian house on a crescent-shaped terrace.

The building was legally protected by English Heritage, so any renovation work was subject to rigorous controls. Bill and Dave were highly skilled: Later, I’d see that the fact that their vans always looked spotless told you everything about their clients, the buildings they worked on, and the streets on which the vans would be parked.

Because the terrace of adjoining houses followed the curved contour of the street, the rooms in the house weren’t entirely square, which presented certain difficulties in the construction of furniture fitted into corners. This fact became useful to me.

Bill and Dave had come in near the end of the renovation project to deal with various woodwork, such as bespoke furniture, skirting, dadoes, and picture rails, and to reconstruct four flights of stairs. The existing staircases, while sturdy, were irretrievably damaged by carpet adhesives and decades of tread. Moreover, since the carpet had been removed, successive repairs over time had left the stairs with a mishmash of materials, including a number of makeshift chipboard risers and treads. All the furniture — bookcases, cabinets, and wardrobes throughout the house — would be constructed on site, except for the kitchen cabinets, which the two men later confided to me were actually off the shelf. Nine times out of ten the owners can’t draw, said Bill, and can’t even describe what it is they want. They’re bankers and lawyers, he said. Bill and Dave would then show them a catalog, just for ideas, and right as rain the owners would pick something out and say they wanted that, just that, and no they didn’t want to buy it off the shelf but wanted it made to measure, tailored to their lovely house, so that it had that personal touch, the real thing, not something you could find in any house in the area. Exactly like that, they’d say, still pointing to the picture in the catalog.

They can’t tell the difference, said Bill.

Can’t tell their arses from their elbows, said Dave.

At first, all I did was clear up after these two men, fetch tools and materials, and maintain a steady supply of tea and custard cream biscuits, as Bill and Dave went about their diligent business of bringing wood and other materials to life, while plumbers, electricians, and painters came and went around us. When the day ended I’d pack the power tools into the two vans, and in the mornings I’d unload them again and set them out where they’d need them in the house.

I warmed to Bill and Dave quickly. I remember that both of them always said “thanks” or “cheers, mate,” even to each other. Such words did not seem to figure in the vocabulary of Sylheti, a language in which, rather than saying thank you, one balanced the whole sentence on terms of deference to age or class. This had the effect, I had noticed, that those who were senior in age or higher in class weren’t required by the language to indicate deference and were therefore saved from stooping for the tools to express gratitude.

My mother had always winced when I said please and thank you. Thank you, I’d say when she gave me a second helping of rice and curry. Or thank you when she handed me a lightbulb as I stood on a chair to change the ceiling light. Thank you was an English phrase that ruptured my spoken Sylheti. My mother would grimace and insist that I stop saying it. Because we never had that kind of relationship, I could never ask her why. I have thought that she couldn’t bear to hear me say thank you because it signified how far away I’d moved from the culture and values she had inherited, even then. But over the years that have passed since boyhood, I have come to regard such explanations, where mere cultural difference is invoked at every turn, as facile and unilluminating. I now consider her distaste as having had a quality of depth I had not attributed to it before. I think the woman who had raised me, who had provided a family for me, however flawed that family was, was offended that I had turned the web of duties, which bound a family together, into the mere exchange of favors, thank you and please standing for reciprocation. In her mind, I believe, a network of duty and service, tightened under centuries of evolution, had been reduced by my thank you to the trading culture of the West. It was duty and obligation, not measured gains, that reinforced the bonds within the extended family to make something stronger than there would have been otherwise, strong enough and large enough to endure hardships. My understanding came much later, though. But in the summer before college, when I heard Bill and Dave say please and thank you, occasioned at every turn and gesture, I was charmed.

Above all, I liked Bill and Dave because of the banter between them. The two of them talked incessantly about the work in a language that was new to me. A carpenter’s world is steeped in a vocabulary of its own, and Bill and Dave were masters of that vocabulary. It was never just a hammer but a cross pein pin hammer, never just a plane but a rebate plane, never a mere clamp but a three-way edging clamp or a G or an F clamp. Each tool had a specific function, and Bill and Dave would never make do with one tool where another was better suited to the job. I fetched the tools as need arose, and very quickly I came to know each tool’s name and function.

This isn’t just a cross-head, or even a Phillips cross-head to be specific, explained Bill as he showed me a drill bit for screws. This, he said, is a Pozidriv bit. Look closely and you’ll see that the Pozidriv bit has four additional points of contact with the screw.

I nodded.

It doesn’t have the rounded corners that the Phillips cross-head bit has, he continued. Its chief advantage over the cross-head is that, provided the screw and the bit are in good condition, the bit won’t cam out, which means you can apply greater torque. By the way, you may think knowing the names of tools and hardware is about identifying them, but if that’s all you think then you’d be wrong. You see, calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom. That’s a Chinese proverb and they invented writing. The wisdom, in case you’re wondering, is that when you get names right, you narrow the gap between you and the thing. The most important tool is your hand and you’d be in serious trouble if there were a gap between you and your hand. So names are important. Unless you’re talking about roses, that is. But only roses.