The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

did not,’ he said. ‘Well, soon I will have power. And I will take theirs from them.’

The rage that had been simmering in the pit of Jia’s stomach dissipated. For the first time in her life she was afraid, really afraid for her brother and for her family. She placed the piece of paratha she had been about to put in her mouth back on the plate and pushed it away.

‘Don’t say that word again,’ she said.

‘What word?’

‘Paki. Don’t say it again.’

‘But I am one and so are you. And in the minds of some people, that’s all we’ll ever be.’ Zan spoke slowly, his hands perfectly still, staring into his chai. He told his younger sister everything he knew about the family business, and the fog around him began to clear. ‘I listened to the things they said about Baba,’ he said. ‘I didn’t speak. I just listened.’

The police had accused the teenager of knowing more than he claimed. They had pushed him gently, insulted him, and then they had turned nasty. ‘We’re going to have fun fucking with you on the stand,’ they had said. ‘You’re going away for a very long time.’ The lead interviewing officer had fed on the fear in Zan’s eyes, his chest becoming broader. He’d leaned back in his chair. ‘And you know what happens to pretty brown boys in prison, don’t you?’

Zan’s eyes were still red with the residue of the pictures he’d seen in the interrogation room. When they finished telling him he was scum, they asked him to turn traitor, to sign documents that gave them access to his father’s accounts. ‘It’s not like you’ve got a choice, is it? We are your lord and master.’ And it was then that something snapped, something tiny and inconsequential, something not worthy of note to anyone else but to Zan. Every man has a limit. If pushed hard enough he will either make a leap, fulfil his potential and become the thing he is meant to be, or else stumble to his knees and crawl. If the heat is high and the pressure pronounced, the result can be kundan, the purest kind of gold. As the officers poured scorn and stress on Zan in the hope of breaking him, they unknowingly flipped the switch that would make him the next Khan. Hunched and crumpled in the hard plastic seat, he began to straighten up, and leaned back in his chair. ‘Yes, alright, I’ll do it.’ he said. The men smiled. They pushed over the necessary paperwork and handed him a pen. He took both and then met their gaze.

‘I’ll sign. But first you need to bring me the man who burned my aunt and my cousins alive. Then bring in the policeman who assaulted me. Then go and get every racist who stops someone like me and my father getting on in life, from moving on to the next level, from taking what is due to us, from getting a place at a good university, from finding a job that’s slightly better than cleaning your shit, from setting our minds free from the sense of inferiority you’d have us believe in. Then, and only then, will I give you all the information you need.’

The switch threw the men. They’d been cocky and they’d been arrogant, and in playing games, they had run out of time. The budding law student knew his rights and he knew how long he could be held without charge. He had played them, and now they had no choice but to release him.

Back home, sitting with Jia, Zan had clarity. He knew what he had to do. ‘I’m not going to take the place at Oxford,’ he told her. ‘I’ve spoken to Baba already. I know he wanted to keep us away from his line of work and I respect him for it and love him even more now I know what that means, but I need to stay and help with the family business.’

‘What? No! We should get as far away from here as possible! Why don’t you understand that?’ Jia said.

‘You still don’t get it, do you? I’ve tried to get Baba’s approval my whole life. Now, at last, I understand the world he lives in. He wanted to make me tougher, strong enough to deal with life, but he also wanted to distance us from his work, to live like respectable white people. He expected too much too quickly.

‘He wanted us to be spotless and know nothing about where our family money comes from, and what he has to do to earn it, so that no one can use it against us. But his plan didn’t work. We can’t have the lives he wants us as a family to have while the business exists as it does. Someone has to act as a buffer or the past will bleed into all our lives. I need to be that buffer, so that you and Maria and Ben can get out.

‘Do you remember the goat herder’s daughter, Jia, the one who Mama put through school?’

‘The one who killed herself?’

Zan nodded. ‘You know why?’

Jia shook her head.

‘Not really. I remember Mama blaming herself.’

‘She was really bright. Graduated top of her class, but after she finished her MA, she no longer fitted anywhere. She knew there was a better life out there than the slums – she had seen it. But the people in that world didn’t accept her, they didn’t want her to marry their sons, live in their houses, be their equal. In the end, the fight broke her. Change has to be slow, has to be incremental, otherwise people don’t accept it. We have to do it together. I have to help Baba evolve the business, clean it up now, so that by the time you are ready to leave, the past is buried. The business holds our family together. If we dismantle it too fast, it will collapse and we can’t live like ordinary people