Abdullah

A literary thought piece with connections to Cricklewood that talented readers will readily spot and others will expand their minds by trying to spot.

Abdullah was exhausted as he stumbled into the mosque. Approaching him were two boys, perhaps a couple of years younger than him. They looked like they were Berber too. He smiled warmly “Salam”. Their eyes opened wide and they laughed out loud, shoving him to one side as they passed by.

He sank exhausted into a seat at the back and began to pray – pray as he’d never prayed before. As he poured out his soul to Allah, he felt the tears well up inside. How had he ever ended up here?

It was now, when he felt most alone, that he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into the warm eyes of a kindly old man. “Salam” he said, “I’m Aman Hassan.”

Abdullah had been studying English for five years at the mosque in Marrakesh. During the day, he worked in a stall at the markets and in the afternoons he would go to the mosque where he would read books in English with one of the clerics. Some were better than others, Tamil was older and pronounced things all wrong but he was patient and could explain things. Said was much more impatient, racing through the text and easily angered by mistakes. He still wasn’t sure whether Abdul-karim knew anything about the language at all. It was a challenge, though, and he was pretty sure that he was learning faster than his brothers who went to the school.

The idea that he might get the chance to go and live in London excited him from the start. To him, just the word, London, conjured up exotic images of traffic jams, wealth, purpose, opportunity, strange customs, strange beliefs and plenty of danger. He was Berber, though! He could handle all of that.

Hassan had a kind face and an open smile. Abdullah took one look and fell into his embrace. He realised that this was the first time in days when he had touched another person without getting a look of horror in return. The person in the underground railway at Heathrow didn’t seem to like him. He wasn’t sure why. He had arranged a place to stay for a couple of days and he knew he needed to get the underground railway to get there. It was an extraordinary thing, the station – so many people, so much English, so much machinery. He found the ticket office, asked the fare and bought the ticket. In all of this, not once did the man in the little window look him in the eye. He didn’t reply when he said hello or thank you, nor did he have a response when Abdullah asked how he was.

He was told at the mosque that there would be racists in London but that was why he had picked the window with the Arab man serving. It was a disheartening experience. However, he remembered all the long conversations he had had with the English and American people visiting his stall and the fact that not everybody wanted to sit and take tea. Some of them would be friendly. He just had to persevere.

“They are not trained in the Koran. They know not the light and have turned from it. The same cannot be expected from the unfaithful, my friend – nor given.” They were among Hassan’s first words to him. Abdullah had said nothing to Hassan and yet already Hassan seemed to know what was in his mind. “It is not you who are displaced and alone, my son. It is them. Look into their eyes. They are frightened and alone. You have Allah, always.”

The ride on the underground railway had been a long one. He soon found himself surrounded by people in each seat. He smiled broadly to them all but they looked away when they saw him. The woman next to him was talking to her sister. She too, apparently, was having terrible trouble making friends:

“I just can’t seem to meet guys, know wha’ I mean? They’re everywhere aroun’ an’ that but you can’t seem to get ’em, eh?”

“Excuse me!” he said with a warm smile, “I am Abdullah. Pleased to meet you.”

She looked over to him for a second, horrified, and quickly looked away.

“I am new here too. Maybe we could meet people together.”

“Come on love, we best go” said her friend. They got up, careful not to make eye contact with Abdullah, and hurried away into the next carriage. The train was full with people standing in the aisles but no-one took the seat next to him. They only looked at him when he wasn’t watching. He didn’t know why they did that – but it made him feel very alone.

“In my stall at home, they were much nicer. They would talk and take tea with me,” he explained to Hassan.

“You gave them tea from your own house and offered them products at good prices? You welcomed them into your country.”

“They paid more than we did.”

“But much less than it would cost here. Do they give you good prices here?”

“They don’t bargain here.”

“No.”

He had met his landlady on a cold and rainy night.

“Your room’s the first on the right, next to the lift. There’s no smoking or women allowed in the rooms and if you want breakfast, you’ll need to be in the dining room by ten. That’s the dining room there behind me. The hot water gets switched off at 9:30. No loud music and no pets. And I don’t want to hear from you unless it’s an emergency. I’m a busy woman.”

“This is your place here, mate. You stand out here and try to get the people in. The punters are easy to spot. They might have a brown paper bag from somewhere they went before or they’ll look a bit sort of nervous. Pull them in. Be friendly but persistent. Smile. Make them feel like everyone in the world is coming in to watch this girl strip… What? Well Jesus, if you’re going to get all religious about it then I’ll give the job to someone else, mate. But let me ask you this. Where is a freshly arrived Arab like you going to get a job in this town? How are you going to pay your rent? Anyway, it’s a condition of your visa. You’re only here as long as you work for me, mate. All I have to do is make one call and you’re out of here.”

“I don’t know if Allah will forgive me.”

Hassan understood. “You are dealing with people already lost. Their sin doesn’t matter, nor your part in it.” He squeezed Abdullah’s shoulder a little more, “Be strong. We will yet have the final success.”

He had only been doing his job a few hours when a woman passed by, tripped on the pavement and lost control of her pram. He righted it quickly, only to see again that horrified expression as the woman cried out “Get away from my baby, you awful man!” He leapt back as she stormed past him.

“All sleaze, those Arab men! Fancy doing that. Sleazes and terrorists every one,” he heard an older woman say as she went by.

“Worse than soulless, they have rejected the light and embraced darkness thicker than oil.” It had stuck with him. Sort of poetic. Something that Hassan had said during the four weeks that Hassan had taken him into his home, never wanting any rent. “Muslim to muslim, we help each other.”

No-one helped him on that day in his second month. He had gone to get his dinner and momentarily forgot that traffic ran on the left hand side of the road in this country. The car that had hit him sped on and he struggled to get to the other side as innumerable people walked by pretending not to see. As he sat on the footpath, pain pouring from his knees, he was vaguely aware of the people passing by. People he had already learned not to ask for help.

“Ignore it. It’s all a show,” one said.

“These people have to learn to get by on their own. Don’t give him anything”

“Let’s just cross over to the other side, eh? To be safe.”

These were the minority of course. Most just raced by, without seeming to see him.

Only one of those people who raced by felt a momentary pang of regret when they made it home. “I wonder if he really was hurt. I should have stopped,” she thought. “But then, I suppose I’d never have got rid of him. Someone else will have stopped, I suppose.”

They didn’t recognise each other when they saw each other again but she was nonetheless very very near to him. The force of the blast hit her directly. She was later identified from her dental records.

There weren’t any dental records for him. He hadn’t even heard of the NHS.