Brick Lane by Monica Ali Read Free Book Online

briefcase, watched him from the window as he stepped like a band leader across the courtyard to the bus stop on the far side of the estate. Then she ate- standing up at the sink and washed the dishes. She made the bed and tidied the flat, washed socks and pants in the sink and larger items in the bath. In the afternoons she cooked and ate as she cooked so that Chanu began to wonder why she hardly touched her dinner, and she shrugged in a way that suggested that food was of no concern to her. And the days were tolerable, and the evenings were nothing to complain about. Sometimes she switched on the television and flicked through the channels, looking for ice e-skating. For a whole week it was on every afternoon while Nazneen sat cross-legged on the floor. While she sat, she was no longer a collection of the hopes, random thoughts, petty anxieties and selfish wants that made her, but was whole and pure. The old Nazneen was sublimated and the new Nazneen was filled with white light, glory.
    But when it ended and she switched off the television, the old Nazneen returned. For a while it was a worse Nazneen than before because she hated the socks as she rubbed them with soap, and dropped the pottery tiger and elephant as she dusted them and was disappointed when they did not break. She was glad when the ice e-skating came no more. She began to pray five times each day, rolling out her prayer mat in the sitting room to face east. She was pleased with the order it gave to her day, and Chanu said it was a good thing. 'But remember,' he said, and coughed away a little imaginary phlegm, 'rubbing ashes on your face doesn't make you a saint. God sees what is in your heart.' And Nazneen hoped it was true because Chanu never to her knowledge prayed, and of all the books that he held in his hand she had never once seen him with the Holy Qur'an.
    He took down his framed certificates and explained them to her. 'This one is from the Centre for Meditation and Healing in Victoria Street. Basically it is a qualification in transcendental philosophy. Here's the one from Writers' Bureau, a correspondence course. I applied for some jobs as a journalist after that. And I wrote some short stories as well. I have a letter from the Bexleyheath Advertiser somewhere. I'll look it out for you. It says, "We were most interested in your story, 'A Prince Among Peasants', but unfortunately it is not suitable for our publication. Thank you for your interest in the Bexleyheath Advertiser." It was a nice letter, I kept it somewhere.
    'Now this is not actually a certificate as such. It's from Morley College evening classes on nineteenth-century economic thought, and it's just directions to the school, but that's all they gave out. No certificates. Here's my mathematics A level. That was a struggle. This is cycling proficiency, and this is my acceptance letter for the IT Communications course – I only managed to get to a couple of classes.'
    He talked and she listened. Often she had the feeling he was not talking to her, or rather that she was only part of a larger audience for whom the speech was meant. He smiled at her but his eyes were always searching, as if she were a face in the crowd singled out for only a moment. He was loud, he talked, he joked, and he sang or hummed. Sometimes he read a book and sang at the same time. Or he read, watched television and talked. Only his eyes were unhappy. What are we doing here, they said, what are we doing on this round, jolly face?
    It was when he talked about promotion that Chanu grew serious. 'This Mrs Thatcher is making more cuts. Spending cuts, spending cuts, that's all we hear. The council is being squeezed dry. Now we have to pay if we want biscuits with our tea. It's ridiculous. And it could affect my promotion.' And then he was silent for a while, and Nazneen began to include the promotion in her prayers, although it came below her prayer for another letter from Hasina.
    Once or twice she went out. She asked