Land of no regrets, p.5
Land of No Regrets, page 5
We were not allowed to break prayer for fear of him, though. We were in a trance and could take from the bountiful and limitless treasures of God, plucking immaterial rewards from immaterial trees, oblivious to the temporal world, our senses deaf-mute-blind-dumb-numb through communion.
Maulana Hasan continued to hammer on the door furiously. We smiled through closed eyes, the final prostration and the salam to each recording angel on our shoulders. Nothing would be missed by them. And we would be punished anyway, of course. Twice, actually. Once after the prayer by the maulana, who wouldn’t believe our piety, and then again in the grave after we died. The maulana would be punished once, by us.
I looked across the line of students, searching for the cause of the mayhem. I spotted Farid being discreetly prodded and cajoled, other students eager to share in the prank while he grinned, revelling in the pleasure, drinking in their adoration, eyes alight with life. He caught me looking and flashed me two mocking middle fingers, mouth open and shoulders swaying in a dance move. I rolled my eyes, but my heart sang, eager to see what else he would do. I knew some people would hate him, and some people would love him. For some people, it would be something in between. Whatever it was, they’d remember him forever.
Chapter 4
Quadruple Bypass
With Farid in our midst, the atmosphere changed. We didn’t know it yet, but the seeds had been planted for something far more permanent. Escape wasn’t even on my mind in those days, however; freedom was too heavy an abstract I couldn’t afford, so I didn’t even entertain it. What would I do? Where would I go? Who would have us? My parents wouldn’t accept me if I left Al Haque. No matter how miserable we were, we all knew this was it. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, so we threw ourselves into that nowhere-nothing in search of foretold ambrosia. Bodies supplicant in search of somewhere-something. But for some people, that wasn’t enough.
“Has anyone seen my keys?”
It was a Friday evening in mid-October, that time of year when the night sky creeps up on the sun too early, snuffing out its descent. Maulana Ibrar’s car keys had gone missing. He lived an hour away, in Peterborough, and as class neared its end, he was growing fidgety. If he couldn’t find them, he would have to bum a ride home with Heart Attack Three. He rushed through the final lesson of the day, an exegesis on the order of the chapters in the Quran, absent-mindedly checking his pockets and fumbling around for keys that weren’t there. He turned his spectacled gaze on the class.
“I know I had them with me.”
He looked at the class over the top of his frameless glasses, condemning the room from right to left. We stared back with ignorance, busy in memorization.
We heard his tongue click, and the maulana shook his head, his long black beard moving with him.
“If anyone steps forward with information, that will be the end of it. No one will be punished. No harm, no foul.”
He looked at the class one last time. The snitch wouldn’t have the strength to step forward in front of everybody. To be honest, the snitch probably didn’t even know he would end up snitching at that point.
“Okay. I’ll deal with this on Monday then.” Maulana Ibrar gathered his black bubble jacket and left, his tall frame making no noise as he exited the room. Even his long white jubba neglected to swoosh behind him as he went.
Most of us had no idea what had happened to his keys and didn’t really care. Farid, however, knew exactly where they were. As soon as the coast was clear, he flashed them to the room, spinning them in his hand and offering his trademark grin. I should’ve known it was him.
“Fam. Why?” I stretched my palm towards him in the Gujarati style of our teachers. We all knew Farid was crazy, but we also knew he didn’t do anything without a reason, even if it was a dumb one.
“Maulana Ibrar called my dad last month. Told him shit about how he caught me on Derry Road after Isha. My dad flipped. Came here just to beat my ass in the principal’s office after Zuhr and then left.”
We hadn’t seen anyone unfamiliar at the madrasa, so it really must have been a drive-by beating.
Everyone around us cracked up. Farid lived his life in between beatings and we bore witness with mirth, and something else. Farid was indifferent to our laughter.
“Why some maulanas gotta act all mighty and shit? Can’t deal with madrasa issues inside the madrasa?”
Farid had a point. The maulanas usually didn’t alert the parents unless it was absolutely necessary. They liked maintaining the illusion of control over the student body, as if nothing was ever wrong. Unless a transgression was especially egregious, they preferred to deal with things themselves. Maulana Ibrar had broken protocol by contacting Farid’s parents directly.
We also had no idea how Farid was managing to sneak out, as Maaz, Nawaaz and I had not shared our window trick with him. No one was in the mood for sharing anything in the madrasa. Knowledge was power, and power meant freedom.
“Why would Maulana Ibrar call your parents right away? Have you been caught before?” Maaz asked. We were all draped around the red-and-navy carpet after the evening prayer. Most of us were unsupervised until Isha. There was only one window, and the pitch-black night projected nothing into the room as Farid narrowed his brown eyes towards us. The fluorescent bulbs above us provided the only light.
“Wallahi, on my life I haven’t been caught yet. That’s why I don’t understand why he called my dad. And get this—now they think I’m a troublemaker!” Farid said.
We laughed again at his incredulousness, unsure if he seriously thought he could sell the piety act. The maulanas themselves had bought it for only a few weeks. Too many people had been caught laughing around Farid. He hadn’t been careful enough with his language, and there was no accent to sell the pious FOB charade either. It’s like he didn’t care about keeping it up. I could tell he was growing bored of the role. He relished a new one.
“Now what am I supposed to do with car keys?” Farid said, twirling the shiny silver bundle in his hands. Half the kids were watching us, and the other half were engrossed in their own conversations. “If only there was a car for them. Hmmm. If only the principal and the maulanas weren’t here tomorrow night. Hmmm. If only they were going to a huge bhaiyan in Toronto. If only it was just Sharmil Bhai left here to watch us. Hmmm. HMMMMM!”
“You’re crazy, bro,” I said as I shook my head. The heist he was proposing was on another level. We had no idea how Sharmil Bhai could get so distracted that he wouldn’t notice a missing car. I wanted no part of it. But Farid, idiot that he was, was harder to dissuade. There was forever a strange light in his eyes that never dimmed. It helped him convince us of anything, but it also helped the maulanas find him.
“Pickering Town. Tomorrow night. Bare shordies at the movies. Who’s reaching?”
He leaned over a bench to stare at me, Maaz and Nawaaz. He knew who would be most likely to join him. Of the students in our year, none were older than fourteen, and most hadn’t spoken to a girl in years, or possibly ever. It was a bad mix. We were fitted with holiness young, the garb too long and large for our growing frames, but we didn’t care about our appearance without girls around to impress. Now, though, there was the prospect of girls. For some, it was an easy decision.
“Fuck that. I don’t wanna die,” I replied. As a newer arrival, I was not as starved as the others. I tried to ignore the whisper in my head. For others, it was impossible to ignore.
“Lemme talk to you after Isha, still,” Maaz said with a glib smile. He was smart. It was wiser to hold these kinds of talks in private. Conspirators only. He didn’t need to say why.
Unspoken facts are unspoken for a reason. Nobody had to tell the first men and women not to snitch. You don’t snitch. You just don’t rat. That law never had to be articulated until rats showed up. Scions of the early Quraysh, they couldn’t handle the pain of hunger and quickly turned to any hand that would feed them, selling out Companions under a crescent moon like pelts in exchange for full bellies. But if you were weak and couldn’t handle pain, you couldn’t be trusted and we’d have to adjust our behaviour around you. You were just another cop, another teacher. Even the good kids—Hafiz Abdullah, Syed, Jara and the others—knew better. You could be studious without snitching. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Feign ignorance. Even if the maulanas started whupping us to find out who’d snuck out of the school, or who had stolen cash from the principal’s office, or who had hidden Heart Attack One’s belt, the good kids knew to stay tight-lipped and take the beating. You’d retain respect that way, even gain some. But more importantly, you’d remain unharmed.
While other maulanas might be more lenient if they caught you in the middle of mischief, there were three who were notorious for their brutality. The Three Heart Attacks were aptly named because of their propensity to instill exactly that upon sight. Seeing one meant an instant heart attack, out of fear for what you were about to endure. But what the Three Heart Attacks did behind closed doors was nothing compared to what we could do. And I was just as guilty—I participated. But only part of me feels remorse. Violence motivated, and we would much rather be villains than victims. Villains survived longer.
If it had been up to us, we would have added a few extra questions to the Al Haque admission interview, to screen out the weak and hungry. “Have you ever been accused of being a snitch?” Or, “Describe the toughest beating you ever caught, and what was your crime?” As it was, we couldn’t determine with certainty who was strong and loyal and who was weak and spineless. We thought Bilal was strong and loyal.
* * *
On Saturday night, when Sharmil Bhai was busy supervising the students on kitchen duty after dinner, we got ready to sneak out. No one besides Farid had had much of an appetite, so we cut out early, dragging him with us to the shoe foyer. We slid our shoes off the racks and silently slipped them on, slinking away into the evening. The plan went off without a hitch. When we got to the parking lot, Farid walked over to the only remaining car, a nondescript black vehicle that defied attention, and unlocked it. Then he took his place in the driver’s seat. Maaz, Nawaaz and I filled the other seats, unsurprised that Farid somehow knew how to drive.
By the time we got to the mall, it was almost closed. There was barely an hour left. The sky above us was purple and red and fading fast. A breeze cut through the near empty parking lot and reminded us it was October. We welcomed the bite, as the chill was something we seldom felt now, living our lives indoors, underneath cheap chandeliers and white ceilings. It had been some time since we’d borne non-windowed witness to a bleeding sky and a whistling wind. Being closer to it all changed things. Red turned to purple on our brown skin as more cars emptied the lot, heading one way while we headed the other.
We entered the mall and walked the sparse halls, wandering from quiet storefront to quiet storefront. It didn’t bother us that we weren’t there during peak hours. There was no way we could have been. Sean John jeans, Rocawear shirts. Caps and the beginnings of beards. The beginnings of piety for some of us; the beginnings of the end of piety for others. We trod on marble tiles and pretended to be engrossed in all that we saw, trying to make our truancy worth it. There were girls around, but none of us dared speak to them. Just the idea of them—the sight of them—was enough. We just needed a reminder that night. That they were out there. We drank in freedom and walked like drunkards. Paused at the knockoff retailer. Loitered too long at Starbucks and stole straws and napkins like desperate men. Postured under awnings of light. Stood on benches and chairs like Renaissance statues. Rode escalator rails like broncobusters of yore. Pitched together enough coins for a shared Iced Capp.
We walked along the black tiles, evading the eyes of security guards, and eventually followed the herded crowd out. Chrome pillars on either side of us shepherded us into the night. Everything looked shiny and clean in that industrial consumer purgatory. Our feet dragged us along, each step aging us as we grew all fucky and pledged our campaign of pain in favour of all that was beautiful but temporary.
Our hearts reached for pleasure as we walked away from it all. Farid, Maaz, Nawaaz and I were caught in the dream of our brief escape. The dangerous satiation of desire in temporal things led only to addiction, and then a fall from grace, but there was nothing else we wanted more. And we wanted more. The drive back to the madrasa was made more difficult as a result. I remember looking down every side street and intersection thinking about what would happen if we just . . . kept driving? I twisted in my seat a few times to face my companions and give voice to this desire. But no words came out. Just Maaz and Nawaaz with lifted brows, wondering what was on my mind. Did they feel the same way? How could they not?
We made it back safely that night, and everything seemed like it would be fine. But on Monday, during our regular lesson review, I saw Sharmil Bhai fetch our classmate Samir. They disappeared quietly and returned sometime later. Sharmil Bhai then took Alif with him. That’s when I realized that something was up. We all did. They were trying to be discreet about the one-on-ones, but as I hummed ayat after ayat, I exchanged glances with Maaz and Nawaaz to make sure they were seeing the same thing I was. I nudged Farid beside me.
“I know,” he said. He then began to bellow out his review louder than anyone else, drowning out the others. Maulana Hasan didn’t even look up at the noise. Passion was good.
I watched Alif come back. He seemed a little shaken and settled himself uncomfortably on his knees before continuing his recitation. Something was up. I knew it couldn’t involve Saturday’s excursion as we’d pulled that heist off successfully. We’d made it back for the last bit of the Isha, and nothing seemed amiss. I wondered if it could be about the missing car keys (which we’d discreetly returned to Maulana-sab’s cubby in the main prayer hall), but Maulana Ibrar wasn’t there and his class wasn’t until later that day.
Soon, Sharmil Bhai motioned for me to follow him to Principal Abbas’s office. I swallowed my fear and did as directed.
As I entered the office, I was surprised to see Maulana Ibrar leaning against a windowsill in one corner. Light framed his darkened form, but I could still clearly make out his long white jubba, white cap and white eyes behind the rimless glasses. In those eyes, I immediately saw why the maulana had broken protocol and gone straight to Farid’s parents. I knew now that Maulana Ibrar had no sympathy for worldly desires. He’d been in the country for thirty years, since he was a kid, and yet remained unchanged in all that time. He seemed to have more in common with the earliest Companions of the Prophet than anyone else alive. His was one of the first families to come in the 1970s, as part of the first wave of immigrants from India and Pakistan to settle in Toronto. I’d heard that his father was a prominent maulana in his Gujarat village, and that he had quickly enrolled his son in an Islamic school in England out of fear that he would lose his faith in the new land. That expensive but necessary education across the pond soon created a dour, no-nonsense man who decried anything he had not learned indoors. He had a serious disposition and was attracted solely to study, ibaadat, teaching and devotion. He rarely cracked a smile, meeting each joke with a cliff, and took pleasure in being steadfast. As a matter of fact, the only time I remember him smiling is when another maulana complimented him for something. The corners of his lips raised slightly before he checked them and politely and modestly declined the compliment. I knew he’d been commended many times on how well his class behaved, so he’d be greatly troubled if a student’s misbehaviour challenged the pleasing paradigm he’d established. Maulana Ibrar believed his class behaved because they respected him. Farid was there to remind him.
The principal was seated behind his desk. White kurta in the subcontinental style, white beard in the natural one. The smell of oud from the agar tree permeated the room. He looked at me through his glasses. Maulana Ibrar didn’t look at me at all, instead adopting the posture of someone who was there by accident. As if he just happened to be passing through. He would not dignify the crime by speaking. He let the principal speak in his stead.
“A very serious crime was committed on Friday,” he began. “Do you know what it could be?” Principal Abbas was rarely the arbiter of crimes at Al Haque. His inexperience showed.
“No,” I said quietly.
“Maulana Ibrar’s car keys went missing. This is a very serious issue. Do you know who took them?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Maulana Ibrar is your respected ustad. He’s come from Dewsbury just to teach here. He didn’t come here for this nonsense. I know you spend time with those troublemakers Farid, Maaz and Nawaaz. Did they do this? Tell me now because we’re going to find out anyway.”
The principal was a portly, aging man with a loud but warm voice. Anger didn’t suit him. He was more accustomed to shaking hands, waddling, winking, smiling and finger-wagging.
“No sir. I don’t know anything.”
“Place your hands on the table and spread your legs. Look down at the ground.” This was Sharmil Bhai’s hard voice.
I did as he asked, putting my hands on the principal’s desk and looking down. The air whistled softly, and then there was a crack. My knuckles screamed in pain.
