Brick Lane by Monica Ali Page B

thumbs before feeding so the milk is ready for him. Leave him for one hour a day on his belly to strengthen his neck and chest. Make a little pillow of feathers and bay leaves and cloves to help him sleep. Parrot feathers were best. Add some ghee to his bathwater to keep his skin soft. Paste turmeric and aniseed on his chest to cure a cough. Rub his feet with coconut oil to draw out a cold. Never, ever turn him upside down.
Nazneen filled the kettle. She hoisted the baby on her hip. 'Gi-gi,' she said. 'Go-gi.' The baby quivered in anticipation. 'Ga!' she said. 'Gi-ga, gi-ga, gi-ga!' Raqib leaned back, incredulous. His bottom lip hung. Banners of drool proclaimed his adulation. Nazneen jiggled him. Up and down. Up and down. 'Dah,' said the baby, and kicked his fat legs. He stared at her face as if it were a wonder, as if he beheld beauty there. His eyes, unfurled now from the ancient wisdom they brought from the womb, were wide worlds, bright as stars. She put him down on a nest of cushions brought from the sitting room. He was shattered. Betrayed. He howled like a widow.
Nazneen smiled. She poured boiling water on tea bags and made ticking noises with her tongue. Then she picked him up again. 'Do you cry for me? Is it me? Do you cry for me?' And with these words made good his loss.
'I'll take him back with me this afternoon,' said Mrs Islam. 'Let you catch up on some housework.' She made circles in the air with a finger. Her small black eyes appraised the room. 'My niece is coming. She loves to play with babies.'
Eleven, said Nazneen to herself. There were eleven chairs in the room, not counting the cow-dung armchairs that went with the sofa. How was she supposed to tidy up? There was nowhere to put anything. And Chanu's books and papers grew like weeds. And the dust – it came from nowhere, like a plague, and it could not be cured.
'He's so small,' said Nazneen. 'Send your niece to me.'
'Nonsense. I'll take him.' Mrs Islam slurped at her tea. The bristles around her wart were long today. Soon they would be plucked.
Nazneen busied herself with Raqib. She dabbed at his chin with a tissue. She examined his fingernails. She put him on her shoulder and patted his back to expel some imaginary wind. He made a noise, an experimental sort of sound, which she seized upon as distress and walked with him over to the window. 'There, there,' she said. 'Never mind. Look, look, look.' But she kept him against her shoulder so that it was she who looked out.
The sun is large and sickly. It sweats uncomfortably in a hazy sky, squeezed between slabs of concrete. There is barely enough sky to hold it. Below, the communal bins ring the courtyard like squat metal warriors, competing in foulness, contemplating the stand-off. One has keeled over and spilled its guts. A rat flicks in and out of them. A boy, sixteen, seventeen, walks by. He tests his shoulders this way and that. His head moves in and out like a chicken, strutting. He holds a cigarette in one hand and a radio or a tape player in the other. His friends call out to him from the shelter, next to the entrance to Rosemead. It is their headquarters. The bins have been evicted. Bhangra. That's what they play, Razia tells her. Bhangra and Shakin' Stevens. All hours of the day, and some of the night. The parents are losing control. But some of it is quite good – her eyes slide left, and narrow themselves to two shiny slivers – particularly the Shakin' Stevens.
Rosemead faces her unblinkingly. There are metal frames on the windows. For one week they had sparkled and zinged. They had promised much. They had sung about how neat they were, how new. And then they fell into line. Overnight. The next morning they were subdued. The light did not play with them. The brick, dull red, got its way. The frames are as dirty, as sullen, as their hosts.
You can spread your soul over a paddy field, you can whisper to a mango tree, you can feel the earth beneath your toes and know that this is the place, the