Hanif Kureishi - Something to Tell You

The others were coming upstairs and quickly picking glasses of champagne from silver trays. Mustaq followed me across the room to a quieter spot, where we sat down together. The story took only a moment to make up.

I said, “This was not long before he died. I was at your house with your sister when your father came home. I couldn’t let on that I was her boyfriend, so I said I was waiting for you. He laughed and told me I was wasting time.”

“He said that a lot.”

“He wanted me to help him with a box of papers he couldn’t carry himself. Upstairs in your bedroom, in that small dressing room just off it, full of suitcases, he took off the watch. He told me it was valuable, it was a gift, he was giving it to me. I said I didn’t want it, but he insisted on stuffing it into my pocket. I noticed his trousers were open. He was touching himself. He took hold of me and forced me to caress him. Then we brought the box downstairs. That’s all,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to tell you.” While he was thinking, I said, “Mustaq, did he touch you?”

“No! Me-never. Why are you saying that? He didn’t go that way. He hated homos!” He stood up suddenly and stared out of the window. “For fuck’s sake-why are you telling me this! I have to consider it all now!” He was staring at me; his tone became absurdly gracious. “And I have to apologise to you. On behalf of my family, I am sorry for what my father did to you.”

“Will you speak to Ajita about it?”

“She’s fragile. She has a lot of depression, at least two weeks a month she is almost catatonic, and I really worry about her.” Then he said, “Do you know whether he did this to anyone else?” I said nothing. “Jamal, in your professional experience, do people who do these things do them to others?”

“My answer will be of no use to you. It depends on the subject’s history. Often, people do it for a particular period in their lives, after a separation or when they are depressed, and never again. I think we’re talking about a version of incest rather than paedophilia. They are different.”

He wasn’t listening. “The damned filthy man, with his bloody secrets. Do you hate him?”

“Me? No. It did disturb me. It shook me up. I guess it might have helped me in the direction I was going-to analysis. It spoiled my week but not my life.”

“Now I’m suffocating!” he said. I noticed his hands were on his own throat, as though he was trying to strangle himself. “I need to get out. I must walk freely for a bit.”

I watched him hurry out of the room. Alan went to him, but Mustaq brushed him aside. Alan looked at me and shrugged. I took another glass of champagne and wondered where Ajita was.

She wasn’t outside. From the window I could see Mustaq in the illuminated grounds, pacing, his arms thrashing. After a while he seemed to make up his mind about something and disappeared into another part of the house.

“Look,” he said, when he reappeared. He was tapping his arm.

“What is it?”

“I’ve already had an allergic reaction to the watch. My wrist is red and a little swollen. There’s a…throbbing!” I looked closely but could see nothing. He took the watch off and put it in his pocket. He said, “I went to Ajita’s room and opened up to her. I couldn’t stop myself. I told her what you said about our father. I wanted her to know. I asked what she thought. You’re lucky.”

“In what way?”

“She believed you, saying you were always a trustworthy person, with no reason to make up a story about our father.”

He went on, “The weird thing was: I thought it would devastate her, to learn Father was like that. Wouldn’t such knowledge do that to a person? To me it was an explosion. I watched her closely, and she didn’t seem shocked or even surprised.”

“Do you know why?”

“Sorry?”

I said, “What sort of man was your father?”

“He was strict. I think I mean stern. There was always reason to be afraid of him. But he wasn’t religious and never prayed. He’d have despised those mad mullahs and extreme Islam fascist wallahs. When Papa was alive, intelligent people thought superstition was dying out. Of course he hated the whites, particularly after his experience with the documentary. They were tricky, and their racism was deep.

“But there was a barrier between him and me. Since before I was eleven I suspected I might be gay.”

“You did?”

“The other boys called me a fat Paki bummer. I guess that just about clarified everything. One of our cousins told Papa I wanted to be a dancer or hairdresser. Papa had already noticed I had a weak handshake. So his response-that fags should be killed-made it obvious that this was not only unacceptable but a crime.

“I expect you know it, but I was in love with you and couldn’t wait for you to visit. I wondered what you wanted me to wear, what you wanted me to be. I read all those books thinking you might decide to test me on them. At the same time, whenever I was alone with Papa-only when we watched cricket or boxing together-I asked his advice about women. ‘How do you get a girl to be nice to you? Should you kiss her on the first date? What about marriage, should you bring it up sooner or later?’ I knew he liked to talk about such things. The stupid, indirect shit the straights have to go through. What’s it laughably called-seduction? At least it made my father feel like a big man.”

“But never enough of one?”

“How could he be? All the time we lived in that house he was anxious about keeping the factory going. He said his only ambition outside work was to walk across Africa. But the strike made him so crazy he started to do weird stuff.”

“What sort?”

“I’d hear him walking about at night. Doors banging, groans, shouts even-”

“Do you know why?”

“He was drinking. Staggering around blotto. He’d drink half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s when he came home after work, and finish the rest by morning. When I opened my door in the morning, he’d be on the floor. I was scared to come out of my room. Ajita and I had to pull off his dressing gown and pyjamas and drag him into the shower. It was hard for her, she had to do everything.” He wiped his eyes. “Did she tell you about it?”

“A little.”

“I’d throw the bottle away before I went to school. No wonder all I learned was how to masturbate. It was worse for Ajita.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Ajita adored her father, Jamal. I’ve never seen two closer people. As a girl she’d wait by the door for him to come home. In the evenings, while Mum was cooking, she’d oil and comb his hair, walk on his back, wash him in the bath. He’d tell her stories about India and Africa. I’m telling you, I was left out. When he was killed, I’ve never seen anyone more devastated. She hardly spoke for three months.”

“And your mother had already gone away.”

“Yes.”

“Had she left your father?”

He said, “No one said that. But how could she be with him? She considered him a failure. He thought if he made enough money she’d come back. One day, according to Father, we’d be free of anxiety, because we’d be rich. Before then he had no time for anything else, for sport, culture, nature-love, even. He didn’t know what we were doing at school.” He leaned towards me. “I had a voodoo doll-of Father-which I stuck little nails into. I was convinced I’d killed him!”

“You wanted all the credit.”

“If he were alive today, he would disapprove of everything about me. I have to be glad he’s dead-which is difficult…”

I said, “You remember when you asked me to go away with you?”

“Oh, Jamal, I’m so embarrassed!”

“Why don’t we run away?” Mustaq said to me the next time I went to the house. Last time we’d wrestled; now he told me there was something he just had to show me in his bedroom. “What is it?” I asked. “My haircut,” he replied. “David Jones would be proud of you,” I said.