The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

the case of the white rioters in Ravenscliffe that Raza spoke of had been lenient, something that was widely known in legal circles. Jia had studied them at the time and then put them aside. The thought that she could have helped was acerbic; it grieved her.

‘We want to help,’ Razi said, ‘but we want to make sure everything is done respectfully, you understand?’

‘I understand your concerns. It is time to take responsibility, but we will do it without offending your fathers. Some of us tried to leave this life behind, but the outside world wasn’t as simple as we hoped. Our elders paved a path for us, we can take it further. Maybe one day one among us will be the parent of a government minister or even the prime minister. But until that day comes we are Pukhtuns, we live by our own law and we should die by it. It is time we brought the family business into the new era. But I need your help to do it.’

‘All we ask is this one job to clean up the place,’ said Idris. ‘Then, if you want, we’ll train you, we’ll give you jobs, we’ll pay your tax and your national insurance contributions, everything. The tech centre will give you a step up and a place in society. You have already seen what we are doing. Your children won’t have to lie about what you do. You will live like honourable men but without the boot of white privilege on your necks.’

Razi turned to Jia. ‘White society did not give us justice. If we do this with you, you will give us justice?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know about justice, but I will give you back your dignity,’ she said. ‘If you want it. The only thing that separates us from the rest of the country is opportunity. The politicians, the wealthy, the people with power – they are not going to give us what we want. We will have to seize it for ourselves.’

She could feel the energy in the room, the dead dreams of men coming alive as she spoke. Sitting so low in the well, surrounded by the skeletons of those who had tried to escape, the men had no idea how to climb out. But she had thrown them a rope and they were going to hold on to it with both hands.

CHAPTER 45

‘I won’t let you do this!’ the woman screamed at the boy, grabbing him by his hood. His feet dragged across the asphalt as she pulled him into the white van that was waiting close by. The door slid shut hard behind her, and she slapped her son for the first time in her life. ‘Beta! They want to kill you! They want to kill you, my flesh and blood! I carried you for nine months inside me, I nursed you for two whole years. Why? Because I love you, and no one will weep for you except me! Do you understand, you little shit?’

The boy pushed his mother aside, trying to clamber over her and out of the van. ‘Mum! Let me out, you crazy woman! What the fuck!’

An old lady, strengthened and fattened by desi ghee, pushed him back into his seat. ‘Tu bai ja,’ she said, telling him to sit in the way only Punjabi grandmothers can, before adding ‘ulloo da patha!’ for good measure.

He’d been called worse than a ‘son of an owl’ before, but the insult, like the push, came with a force that shocked him. He sat back down, rage and embarrassment burning up his cheeks. ‘This in’t our homeland, Mum! We gotta show them what’s what. You should just take me home to Pakistan!’

His mother banged the palm of her hand on her forehead and then raised it up to heaven. ‘Ya khuda! How is my son this stupid? Pakistan is not your homeland! This is your home. Your homeland is where I am! You listen to me, you! You lived in me before you lived anywhere else! I am your mother and your homeland! And I was born right here on Morley Street. You think I’m going to let you ruin your life for this? You are going home with me. And all your other friends are going to do the same!’ She turned to the boy’s grandmother. ‘If it wasn’t for Jia Khan, who knows what would have happened,’ she said, shaking her head. At the sound of Jia’s name, the colour drained from the boy’s face.

The message had come through the grapevine: the women were to gather at the Pakistani Community Centre on White Abbey Road. They waited, eager to hear why Akbar Khan’s daughter had called them, voices of dissent rife among them. Rumours about her had been perpetrated and perpetuated in these circles for years. Was that why she had called them together? Despite misgivings, they came to listen, some out of loyalty, some out of curiosity, but mostly they came for the gup shup, chai and chaat.

Jia stood before them, dressed in a chador much like their own. Her words were strong but her manner mild and what she said made sense. She told them rumours had reached her about men travelling from other cities to cause trouble, as they had once before. That time the community had done nothing. But this time they were being called to arms.

‘You must keep your boys safe,’ Jia said. ‘The menfolk will not do it. You and I know that while they talk a lot, it is us women who actually do the work.’ She would give them practical help, she said. And she offered them vehicles to do the task, and her voice gave them the courage and permission to do what needed to be done. And most of all she promised to stand by them in a way that no one had done before.

‘We experience the sort of pain that would kill a man in order to give birth