Mister mister, p.17
Mister, Mister, page 17
Incidentally, the old man left me with a caution: Eyes open, boy! – And remember: no telling what their beliefs will have them do…And he was right about that, Mister. I began to be surrounded by strangers wanting to please me and bend over backward for me. It was an odd feeling, as though my own poems had overrun me, Mister. Or caught, like little fish-hooks, inside other people’s ears, and had somehow become animate in the world without me.
Ibrahim was the only one who remained at the Ibn Rabah. And it was his idea to record me. He’d sussed the demand to hear my verses, Mister. And so it was him – my brother Ibrahim with his canny eye for an opportunity – who started publishing my oratory online. There were videos now, audio clips and so on. Ibrahim burned CDs off a computer. He sold them over websites with my name emblazoned in bold. And the ads he made were something like Al-Bayn! Hear the Voice of a Generation!
I began drawing proper crowds. Proper numbers, Mister. Over the next few years, what started as a few nights slowly turned into shows every weekend. And soon, barely able to keep up with new poems, I was being shuttled from one recital to another. From community halls in East Ham to outdoor rallies in Dagenham, I was delivering my poems directly to crowds of hundreds.
My life, Mister, from being nobody’s boy to being cheered upon stages, had totally transformed.
96. FAMOUS You asked if I enjoyed it. Admittedly, I did – at first. I liked the attention. I don’t mean to say my mug was suddenly daubed on the sides of buses. It was nothing like that. But around them ends, and especially that corner of East London – Poplar, East Ham, parts of Shadwell and Mile End – there were some who’d come and stop me in the street. All these peaked caps and hoodies. They’d come and give me salaam, bow their heads at me: Bless you, Al-Bayn…Brother, I’ve read you, read you all over…You’re the only one telling it like it is…You! You’re the one blowing up, brother…And they’d take their phones out, Mister. Quickly snap a picture of me just standing there, squinted and startled. And then I’d look up and they’d be gone, having made off with my likeness.
97. PHOTOGRAPH Five years later, I could barely step out my dorms without getting accosted by some pack of followers who’d recognised me. A few might have seen me recite. Others had heard the name. Making me out wouldn’t have been difficult. That long black shawl down to my ankles. And my hood, which I’d wear most days, and covered often. It wasn’t like I had other clothes I’d care to wear, Mister, but it felt more appropriate now. I was dressed for the part. Same with my beard, which I’d only dyed because Ibrahim had said it’d suit my new routine.
Anyway – there I was, Mister, out on a walk one evening, when I stopped at a wall covered in fly-posters. It was a shop front, or similar. Shuttered now and serving as an advertising board for local businesses. Between them ads for estate agents, theme nights, music events and the rest, I’d recognised my own mug staring back at me.
Al-Bayn – black smock and scowling.
Mouth wide in mid-recital. One finger in the air, a little to the side, a sort of hectoring pose I’d practiced.
The photograph was taken at a performance. It wasn’t big, the poster. But then I glanced across the street and spotted more. There were others plastered up behind me. Replicates of Al-Bayn, Mister, pinned on lamp posts, the sides of walls and windows. That barking black-and-white apparition had been papered all the way down the main road.
I was struck with a sudden nausea. Five years of this, Mister. The ground, the street, seemed to rumble beneath me. I reached to grasp hold of something and catch a breath. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen. Rows of parked cars. Bags of stinking rubbish. I reached for the first poster I saw. I tore it off and revealed a bright streak of colour underneath. I stuffed the offending poster into my pocket.
I stood there for a moment then, deciding whether to tear at the others. Hundreds of Al-Bayns glowering out at me. I looked up at them heavy clouds and wondered how long it would take for the rain to wash them away. I muttered a short prayer for it.
It occurred to me – and the sense came with a feeling of dull hotness, Mister, like a hoarseness in the breath – how repulsed I was by them pictures. I decided to go and see Ibrahim. To talk to him about these photographs, tell him I wasn’t happy. I’d hated what he’d turned me into – an image, not a person.
98. IBRAHIM’S PRAYERS Them five years seemed to have fixed him too. Everything about Ibrahim seemed hard and serious. He’d often have me wait whenever I came to see him. He always had something else to attend to. Rushing around, scanning papers or open books, or staring into his laptop, putting his phone down in irritation, picking it up again in relief. When I showed him the poster he’d batted it away, saying, One sec, cous’, let me just –
His rooms were large, Mister. All big windows, with wooden ornaments displayed like gilded plaques on the walls. He’d been lecturing a little at the school. And this room with an awning, a view overlooking the main court, came with his new posting. All that half reading and pretend, Mister. He’d still managed to get them sheiks to regard him as a proper sort. It looked to me as if Ibrahim’s bluffing had come good.
– You don’t look well, cous’, he said at last. You should sleep better. Creative minds need sleep. Did you see – did you look at the schedule?
Ibrahim’s beard was as tidy as ever. His hair was receding, but there was a polish to him now. Everything about him so neatly pressed.
– Haven’t slept, I said, rubbing my cheeks. And this don’t help.
I dangled the poster in front of him again. Ibrahim slid it over and gave it a look. The lad seemed to feign annoyance at the image. He tutted.
– Not much we can do about that, he said. If you knew the sorts of budget operations I have to deal with, cous’ – amateurs. Spend all the money on booking you, don’t they.
Ibrahim had been on at me to start producing and posting more regularly. I’d only written a handful of poems that week. He’d been setting targets for me. Four poems written and two posted a week. I wasn’t even sure what he did with them, honestly. But I knew they went somewhere. He’d shown me screens full of numbers.
– Major, major plans for us this year, he said, tucking his hands under his elbows. Pay zero mind to the rest. We can’t bother with trivialities, bro. The world is here, now, changing, cousin. Don’t talk to me about no posters, please.
Ibrahim smiled, and pulled on his beard, scratching irritably at his ear. He came around and perched himself on the desk.
– One problem though. I’m already looking to sort, so you shouldn’t worry…
– Go on…
– It’s the sheikhs, cousin. I got a letter saying they decided against your stay. Want you out by next week. They see you as a troublemaker. Until now, they turned a blind eye to all the attention you were getting. But now – but since…
– Since…?
– It’s yesterday’s problem, cousin. Nobody comes to their sermons, that’s all. They’ve seen all the crowds flocking to you up in Lewisham, in Barking. It’s not their crowd. They call them activists, polluters, perverts – but even still, it offends them to see the younger generation take a different path to deen. People would rather watch you online, watch a video at home and then do dua. Let them sheikhs cry about it, cousin. We move.
– But where am I supposed to go, Ibrahim? Where am I supposed to –
– You’re anxious, cousin. You shouldn’t worry. I’ll take care of you…Better this way, anyway. Let that lot scare, cous’. Get your bags packed. I’ll find you a temporary –
The phone beside him began buzzing. He looked, mouthed a cuss and took it.
Ibrahim was back to other tasks, Mister. I sat there scratching my head for a moment. Looking around the room at all the good furniture and strong shelves of bound books. In the corner there, I saw several boxes of newly printed pamphlets marked Al-Bayn. There were stacks of video tapes too. And hard drives next to them. They were labelled with masking tape and left like paperweights on his desk.
Ibrahim glanced up at me, disappointed I hadn’t left.
– Alright – come. If you’re here we might as well pray together. They’ve given me a prayer room, my own. You’ll feel better after. And I’ll show you out after that.
This was the same Ibrahim who might have scoffed at Moazzam anytime he’d leave us for dhikr, Mister. This same lad was now leading me through a small door in his office to pray. Inside were two intricately woven mats lying on the floor beside each other. I was hesitant stepping in, Mister. I hadn’t prayed alongside anyone since my Sisi Gamal.
Ibrahim was neat with it. His motions well practised. As tidy and clean as that pointed beard and them line-like eyes. He knew the manner, Mister. And with them oiled feet and his flowing garb, he looked the part. A proper devout. I made do with my own shuffled motions. Keeping an eye out, Mister. Watching my brother mouthing his prayers with such easy effort.
99. ‘WHO IS AL-BAYN?’ It became obvious the sheikhs at the school had known what was coming. Maybe they’d been offered a tip, Mister, I don’t know. The following week, after all my Ibrahim’s don’t worry’s and I’ll sort it’s, the national papers had my Al-Bayn plastered all over their pages. They’d used the same picture from that poster. With the headline going like: Who is Al-Bayn? – Britain’s newest hate-preacher. I couldn’t believe it, Mister. After spending all this time sourcing the papers and telly for my poetry, it was Al-Bayn who was now staring back at me.
Every word, of course, was slander against me and lies. Some British journalist, Mister, had framed what I’d written, inserted a few quotes and listed them in a spew. I remember marching around my room fuming at it – Al-Bayn…this ghoulish figure…– appalled at the caricature: …anti-Western hate spills from the preacher’s mouth…mosques up and down the country…The entire article, Mister, painted me as a big-mouthed cleric. As if I were up near a street corner somewhere, some any-sort fanatic, pushing oratory. My poems, they said, had been greeted like sermons, my recitals like jihadi bile…And though there was no mention of the Ibn Rabah by name directly, Al-Bayn’s schooling was noted as having taken place at a popular East London madrasa…
Them sheikhs must not have liked that. Ibrahim had only once previously mentioned a fuss over a poem. That one about the cartoons, cous’, was strong, very strong – published last week. Some cartoonist had had a poke at the Prophet. The whole thing had provoked such an uproar online, I’d made a verse from what I read. The poem had come out flying, Mister. Like so many I’d written at the time. And, honestly, I wouldn’t have remembered had they not been reprinted in the paper: – let them mock! – let them ridicule! – clowns! Apologists! – our kitchen knives are mightier than their armies! –
My words were taken out of context. It offended me, honestly.
This cartoonist had started appearing in papers himself, saying he’d received death threats and so on. The article claimed my poems had something to do with it. As if I’d egged them on, Mister. As if I, myself, had been calling for the doodler’s head!
I couldn’t bear to read the rest of it. I took out my bag, Mister, and began throwing my clothes into it. The thought occurred to me that Ibrahim must have known about the article. He must have, Mister, and yet he hadn’t warned me about any of it. I felt aggrieved. I started stamping over my notebooks and that, sending papers flying with a swift kick and a cuss. I was angry at Ibrahim. Angry at the article. Everything felt so unjust.
100. PANTOMIME Of all things, Mister! Your papers chewing me out for what? For a few lines on a cartoonist. The whole thing felt like a pantomime to me. And the maddest part: the article only made my Al-Bayn more popular. Life during the next few months became even more like a parody for me. More like a cartoon than any real life. I became just as they’d drawn me, Mister, caricatured with my glowering eyes, black mouth and black beard. And I soon came to realise – after Ibrahim saying: Don’t worry about it, cous, look at the numbers! Look at the crowds! – that all this had gone far beyond my control.
101. CROWDS, CROWDS, CROWDS See me drawing mobs in places like West Harrow, Slough and Tower Hamlets. See me out there, Mister, in front of all them baying faces. Every crowd I performed for felt both larger and more rabid. Scrawny young men, mostly, with hungry expressions on their faces. They always seemed to stare, fish-eyed, jostling and elbowing each other, as soon as I took a breath to begin…
Oh – a little on the quality of my performances, Mister. You should know how much I’d come on. I made sure to serve it out the belly, just as my uncle had taught me. But there was no finesse to how I performed – that wasn’t what they’d come to see. I let my body slouch almost, sloping to the side, and carrying the same finger-wagging style as my Sisi Gamal. I knew my silhouette alone was enough to unsettle some in the crowd. And I also knew the mystique made them want to hang on my every word.
Off to the likes of Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds after that. I’d never travelled so far, Mister. I was loosed and newly minted. My Al-Bayn had become top billing, and there were even times when it felt good giving these people what they wanted. The real uneasiness came later.
It was after my recitals, when I came down from them stages, that a strange surge started to worry me. There, among them sweaty bodies, Mister, I always felt a revulsion. A sudden physical nausea that I couldn’t quite explain. It might have been all them skinny arms reaching out at me. I was surrounded. They’d shove things onto me, into my hands. Bits of papers, receipts. Sometimes it’d be little scribblings of me. And they’d demand my name, that I write it out for them. I couldn’t stand all that babbling hysteria, Mister. It was as if they envied something inside of me, sensing something monstrous, outrageous even, that they now wanted for themselves.
Ibrahim had me staying at a bedsit with a boy named Zenab. Another white-boy convert, Mister. One of a group of volunteers helping to distribute flyers and so on. Ibrahim told me: The boy Zenab’s a proper sort, cous’. Best stay with him until I can find better…Zenab was a runner, Mister. As well as a driver, a recorder and whatever else Ibrahim would have him do. His name hadn’t always been Zenab. He’d been some Christopher or Lawrence or similar. Ibrahim had told me he’d converted when he’d reached this side of Mile End. He had that same strange vacancy in the eyes, Mister, that odd dimness to him, as if in awe of me, maybe, or totally bewildered.
It was this Zenab who recorded my recitals, Mister. Always had a contraption on him too. Some camera strapped to his shoulder or a wired up mic propped on a pole. His thin English-English accent would follow me about: …Yeah, yeah, I did Media Studies at uni…and so on. Prattling away behind me, Mister, showing off a new bit of kit. No drama, he went, if the crowd go off on one again. This thing will catch your voice perfect.
All that electrical equipment stuffed into an enormous rucksack, Mister, kept him hunched as if on expedition. It made him look bigger than he was. I’d watch him in the evenings when we returned to his dingy rented bedsit to-gether. I’d watch him as he’d kneel to pray on the carpet as soon as we got back. I’d ask him how he’d managed it, following me around for the entire day. No drama, he said, which was his usual refrain, I eat on my feet when I’m able. It’s an honour anyway, a duty.
It was Zenab’s job to follow me, Mister. Everywhere I turned I’d find the lad pointing a scope at me, recording my every gesture. I’d see his shaven head tucked under his beanie, them crooked eyes fixed on me. Like the rest of that begging crowd, Mister, he did seem lost in that same daze of unnatural adoration.
102. ‘GERMANY SOON, COUSIN!’ There was one night in Manchester. We were very late getting back in the car. Ibrahim had been driving, giving Zenab, who had driven for the last few hours, a break. He was in the back now, sleeping with a coat over him. I was tired, Mister. Sore in the head. My throat feeling tight and there was traffic as we came into London. Them red lights seemed to stretch for ages.
While he slept, I remember asking Ibrahim how long I was expected to stay with Zenab.
– Few more weeks, cousin, he said. Just until –
He seemed distracted, Mister. The radio was going. He kept nudging me to listen.
– See Tunisia on the news, cous’ – it’ll drive hits for our stuff for sure. Libya next and then, maybe –
Ibrahim pressed the volume on the radio. I’d been making a habit of bringing along notebooks on these rides out of London. I liked to jot down phrases, little terms I could turn into verses.
it is the end of everything, mashallah!; the old and very old.
there is hope, gathering in masses; people are rising!
we are connected; this is not your revolution!
spring; hope springs.
– The world’s a madness, cousin, Ibrahim went.
There was a giddiness about him suddenly. Fidgeting behind the wheel. He quickly glanced behind us at the sleeping Zenab.
– You’re too restless, you know. Shouldn’t worry about Zenab. The boy’s just eager. Says he wants to make a documentary about you – about Al-Bayn. Has he asked?…I told him unlikely. All these younger lot, all they want to do is be the next – some are not bad, actually, the poets – all these next-next Al-Bayns.
Ibrahim scanned the side mirrors and turned into another lane.
– And there’s the other project. I can tell you a bit about it if you want – about Hamburg. Yasir and I spoke. Last week. Yasir wants you to come in, cousin, meet people, wants you to talk to people there. They’re serious there. The path out from places like Belgium, Germany is all set…
I was listening to the radio, Mister, trying to ignore him. The news was Iraq again. Some border town had been sacked by a new militia. The newsreader’s voice came low as I listened, shifting in my seat, making a few scratchings on my pages, facing away from Ibrahim and toward the window.
