Zadie Smith - White Teeth

But if you could begin again, thought Irie, if you could take them back to the source of the river, to the start of the story, to the homeland… But she didn’t say that, because he felt it as she felt it and both knew it was as useless as chasing your own shadow. Instead she took her hand from underneath his and placed it on top, returning the stroke. ‘Oh, Mr Iqbal. I don’t know what to say…’

‘There are no words. The one I send home comes out a pukka Englishman, white suited, silly wig lawyer. The one I keep here is fully paid-up green bow-tie-wearing fundamentalist terrorist. I sometimes wonder why I bother,’ said Samad bitterly, betraying the English inflections of twenty years in the country, ‘I really do. These days, it feels to me like you make a devil’s pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started… but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers – who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained. Who would want to stay? But you have made a devil’s pact… it drags you in and suddenly you are unsuitable to return, your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere.’

‘Oh, that’s not true, surely.’

‘And then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging , it seems like some long, dirty lie… and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is an accident . But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does anything matter?’

As Samad described this dystopia with a look of horror, Irie was ashamed to find that the land of accidents sounded like paradise to her. Sounded like freedom.

‘Do you understand, child? I know you understand.’

And what he really meant was: do we speak the same language? Are we from the same place? Are we the same?

Irie squeezed his hand and nodded vigorously, trying to ward off his tears. What else could she tell him but what he wanted to hear?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

When Hortense and Ryan came home that evening after a late-night prayer meeting, both were in a state of high excitement. Tonight was the night. After giving Hortense a flurry of instructions as to the typesetting and layout of his latest Watchtower article, Ryan went into the hallway to make his telephone call to Brooklyn to get the news.

‘But I thought he was in consultation with them.’

‘Yes, yes, he is… but de final confirmation, you understand, mus’ come from Mr Charles Wintry himself in Brooklyn,’ said Hortense breathlessly. ‘What a day dis is! What a day! Help me wid liftin’ dis typewriter now… I need it on de table.’

Irie did as she was told, carrying the enormous old Remington to the kitchen and laying it down in front of Hortense. Hortense passed Irie a bundle of white paper covered in Ryan’s tiny script.

‘Now you read dat to me, Irie Ambrosia, slowly now… an’ I’ll get it down in type.’

Irie read for half an hour or so, wincing at Ryan’s horrible corkscrew prose, passing the whiting fluid when it was required, and gritting her teeth at the author’s interruptions as every ten minutes he popped back into the room to adjust his syntax or rephrase a paragraph.

‘Mr Topps, did you get trew yet?’

‘Not yet, Mrs B., not yet. Very busy, Mr Charles Wintry. I’m going to try again now.’

A sentence, Samad’s sentence, was passing through Irie’s tired brain. Sometimes I wonder why I bother . And now that Ryan was out of the way, Irie saw her opportunity to ask it, though she framed it carefully.

Hortense leant back in her chair and placed her hands on her lap. ‘I bin doin’ dis a very long time, Irie Ambrosia. I bin’ waitin’ ever since I was a pickney in long socks.’

‘But that’s no reason-’

‘What d’you know fe reasons? Nuttin’ at all. The Witness church is where my roots are. It bin good to me when nobody else has. It was de good ting my mudder gave me, an’ I nat going to let it go now we so close to de end.’

‘But Gran, it’s not… you won’t ever…’

‘Lemme tell you someting. I’m not like dem Witnesses jus’ scared of dyin’. Jus’ scared. Dem wan’ everybody to die excep’ dem. Dat’s not a reason to dedicate your life to Jesus Christ. I gat very different aims. I still hope to be one of de Anointed evan if I am a woman. I want it all my life. I want to be dere wid de Lord making de laws and de decisions.’ Hortense sucked her teeth long and loud. ‘I gat so tired wid de church always tellin’ me I’m a woman or I’m nat heducated enough. Everybody always tryin’ to heducate you; heducate you about dis, heducate you about dat… Dat’s always bin de problem wid de women in dis family. Somebody always tryin’ to heducate them about someting, pretendin’ it all about learnin’ when it all about a battle of de wills. But if I were one of de hundred an’ forty-four, no one gwan try to heducate me . Dat would be my job! I’d make my own laws an’ I wouldn’t be wanting anybody else’s opinions. My mudder was strong-willed deep down, and I’m de same. Lord knows, your mudder was de same. And you de same.’

‘Tell me about Ambrosia,’ said Irie, spotting a chink in Hortense’s armour that one might squeeze through. ‘Please.’

But Hortense remained solid. ‘You know enough already. De past is done wid. Nobody learn nuttin’ from it. Top of page five please – I tink dat’s where we were.’

At that moment Ryan returned to the room, face redder than ever.

‘What, Mr Topps? Is it? Do you know?’

‘God help the heathen, Mrs B., for the day is indeed at hand! It is as the Lord laid out clearly in his book of Revelation. He never intended a third millennium. Now I’ll need that article typed up, and then another one that I’ll dictate to you off the cuff – you’ll need to telephone all the Lambeth members, and leaflet the-’

‘Oh, yes, Mr Topps – but jus’ let me tyake it in jus’ a minute… It couldn’t be any udder date, could it, Mr Topps? I tol’ you I felt it in my bones.’

‘I’m not sure as to how much your bones had to do wiv it, Mrs B. Surely more credit is due to the thorough scriptural study done by myself and my colleagues-’

‘And God, presumably,’ said Irie, cutting him a sharp glare, going over to hold Hortense, who was shaking with sobs. Hortense kissed Irie on both cheeks and Irie smiled at the hot wetness.

‘Oh, Irie Ambrosia. I’m so glad you’re here to share dis. I live dis century – I came into dis world in an eart-quake at de very beginning and I shall see the hevil and sinful pollution be herased in a mighty rumbling eart-quake once more. Praise de Lord! It is as he promised after all. I knew I’d make it. I got jus’ seven years to wait. Ninety-two!’ Hortense sucked her teeth contemptuously. ‘Cho! My grandmudder live to see one hundered-and-tree an de woman could skip rope till de day she keel over and drop col’. Me gwan make it. I make it dis far. My mudder suffer to get me here – but she knew de true church and she make heffort to push me out in de mos’ difficult circumstances so I could live to see that glory day.’

‘Amen!’

‘Oh, hamen, Mr Topps. Put on de complete suit of armour of God! Now, Irie Ambrosia, witness me as I say it: I’m gwan be dere. An’ I’m gwan to be in Jamaica to see it. I’m going home that year of our Lord. An’ you can come dere too if you learn from me and listen. You wan come Jamaica in de year two thousand?’