No New Land (11 page)

Having finished his coffee, and calmed himself somewhat, Nanji went to the Lalanis’.

The family had just sat down to watch the news. A place was made for him, as a matter of course, but he remained standing and said, “Have you heard – about Esmail?” His manner suggested something ghastly had happened, to himself, so that he was made to sit down and receive Zera’s ministrations. He told them what had happened, and Zera telephoned Esmail’s apartment. Esmail’s sister, with whom he lived, knew of the incident, in fact people had already begun to arrive to show sympathy. Zera could hear them in the background. Hanif and Fatima were told to stay home, and the three adults walked up two flights of stairs to join the sympathizers.

There were people from all the neighbourhood buildings, some thirty in number. How had they all heard in such a short time? The sofa and chairs had been moved to the walls and were all occupied. More people sat on the floor. They looked like mourners gathered in the first hours after news of death – with uneasy sighs and subdued murmurs and sympathetic glances towards the next of kin, the sister sitting in a prominent place, distraught and tearful, flanked by solicitous relations.

They seemed to be waiting, for something, for someone, to break the tension. Waiting and thinking: What now? Was this a sign of things to come … danger to self and property, to wife and kids. Have we come to the right place after all. In all these years in Africa not to have seen anything so wanton, so arbitrary, so public. If they had wanted money, yes.
Anything political, yes, riots, yes, they were understandable. But this, public humiliation, by kids. And where had they learned this hatred? Not from their parents? not from their elders? – that was hard to imagine. How can you send the children to school, to play, to the supermarket, how can you let the girls out?

From the corridor came Jamal’s voice, nothing tentative about it, and welcome as the tinkle of ice on a hot day. He entered, in a black suit and red tie, tall and handsome, just in from a late rendezvous, and instantly anticipatory eyes full of unanswered questions turned to him. Jamal sensed the unspoken honour and braced himself. Slowly and deliberately he walked up to Esmail’s sister and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry. Your brother will go down in history. His suffering will not have been in vain. He is the first and last. From now on we will fight back!” His voice had risen in pitch. Jamal had addressed many student rallies in Dar, as Nanji recalled.

“Aré, man, we are not Sikhs, you know.” This from the clown who is always present at such meetings.

“The blacks kicked us out, now the whites will do the same.… Where do we go from here?”

“Looks like Pakistan for us.”

“There are worse goons there. Did you hear of the two murders – ”

A woman cut in impatiently. “Why doesn’t someone tell these Canadians we are not Pakis. I
have never been to Pakistan, have you been to Pakistan? Tell them we are East Africans!”

“You tell them.”

“Aré,” Jamal’s voice came in derision, “it is because of milksops like you that we have to suffer such ignominy. Your time has come and gone. The blacks fingered your asses and you let them. We will fight back.”

A fight would have erupted right there if the counsel of the women had not prevailed, and if that excellent soother of nerves, masala tea, not been produced.

It was past one o’clock before the meeting ended, when an elderly female relation simply stood up and said, “Now everyone go.”

Esmail had broken both shins, but he would live.

When he heard the story, surprisingly, Jamal expressed no contempt for Nanji’s lack of initiative. In order to discuss the incident, for there was much on their minds, they had taken a stroll on Rosecliffe Park Drive. It was a cool, starry night. Except for themselves, and the odd car, the street was empty. The solitude drew them closer, into a communion they had never known before. Their voices, though controlled, rang clear in the open space.

“Scared shitless, were you?” Jamal said.

“Yes.”

“The bastards. You know, it burns me up.”

“What – ”

“You know that Somerset Arms girl?”

“The manager?” The woman in question was quite a few years older than Jamal.

“Yes, the bloody manageress.”

“Well?”

“She’s spurned me all this while. ‘You give me the creeps,’ she told me. But now she’s giving me the eye.”

Nanji was silent. Jamal’s sexual escapades did not really interest him.

“You see it was Kassam who was fucking her meanwhile,” Jamal muttered on.

“Oh, and now they’ve broken up.”

Jamal looked furtively around him. Nothing moved. “You want to know what really happened? If I tell you, don’t tell anyone.”

“Except the rest of the world, you mean. Go on.”

“You know Kassam – Gorilla? Here’s what he says to me, listen: ‘I had just finished fucking this woman. We were lying on our backsides, smoking, and I was thinking what a wonderful world this is, if I had to give up everything for this, it’s been worth it.’ What’s he given up, except the jungle! Now listen, Nanji. This is Gorilla: ‘Then this gauri who’s been oohing and aahing me, she turns her flank to put out her cigarette and she says to me, “Why do you Pakis come to this country?” Just like that. I had
been getting up to pee, Jamal, and I just burned up inside. I was halfway out of bed, but I simply let her have it.’ ”

“What – you mean – ” said an open-mouthed Nanji to Jamal, who was doubled over in soundless laughter.

“He peed on her, man. ‘This is what we Pakis are going to do to you,’ he said.”

“Don’t tell me, you plan to do the same thing,” said Nanji.

Jamal, almost recovered, brought his hands together in a silent clap.

But Nanji was impressed. Not at the exhibition but at the sheer energy and anger expressed. Some of his compatriots would move mountains if they didn’t aim so low.

The incident at the Yonge and College subway station marked a new beginning in the lives of the Dar immigrants. For one thing, the outrage expressed officially, though perhaps too piously, by police, newspapers, and ordinary citizens decided once and for all that the line had been overstepped, that this was beyond tolerable limit. Toronto the Good would not have it. It brought home, to everybody, the fact that the immigrants were here to stay, they could not, would not, simply go away.

The incident had such an effect that afterwards some would attribute to it the small but perceptible
rise in car sales. Immigrants, if they could afford it, and sometimes even when they couldn’t, simply stopped using public transport. Many seized on the aftermath of this well-publicized incident to begin a new career – that of selling cars – and you could see more and more of the jolly-faced salesmen on the community
TV
channel on Sunday exhorting in a multitude of accents.

Esmail took a long time to recover. But he became an instant celebrity. His photos appeared in all the newspapers, depicting various stages of his recovery. There were even photos, in a feature article, from his childhood. In hospital he was showered with gifts and goodwill messages from many communities. When he was discharged the entire staff on duty came to see him off. When he returned in a wheelchair to Sixty-nine a welcome sign greeted him, under which, surrounded by other well-wishers, stood the local
MPP
and a local representative from the Asian community – none other than Jamal, whose idea it had been to invite the politician. During the following weeks, Esmail was deluged by visitors, bringing words of comfort and reassurance, bearing presents of all kinds, and even envelopes stuffed with money. All this culminated in a major demonstration that turned into quite a fête, and a salutory lesson for Jamal.

It was a warm late-spring day, a Sunday, and a large number of Asians, many of them prominent, met around noon at the school on Rosecliffe Park Drive. Teachers, professors, doctors, and government
employees, most of them alien to Rosecliffe Park. To the Dar people, in the buildings just across from the school, the event came as a surprise, even though announcements had been posted in English and Gujarati. But who reads posters? For them the important news was read out in the mosque, then travelled by word of mouth for those who missed mosque. On that bright Sunday afternoon they finally got wind of the rally – Rosecliffe Park Drive had become a promenade with unfamiliar faces, posters flew about – and they took note of it, but warily. A Paki rally was not really their cup of tea – weren’t they from Africa? A few of them went to the meeting, to see what it was all about. It seemed that they were being forced into an identity they didn’t care for, by the media and public, and now by these Paki Asians who meant well but couldn’t keep their distance. None of them seemed to realize, or care, that Esmail belonged to them, their particular East African Asian Shamsi community.

The meeting had been called for by an ad hoc group of successful Asian immigrants setting themselves up as leaders of the community. It was well organized but, initially, tedious. A communiqué had been drawn up and was read out. No one beyond the first few rows heard it, and there were grumbles. It was read out again, then one more time when the janitor of the building had been discovered, the headmaster telephoned, and the
PA
system brought out. Speeches followed. Just when rival factions from the floor began vying for attention, Esmail was
opportunely wheeled in, and received a standing ovation. He said a few emotional words and gave up, tearful, and received once more a standing ovation. A demonstration had been planned and, since it had to go somewhere, Esmail was quickly wheeled away to the gate of Sixty-nine to await it. There followed a rally the likes of which Don Mills had never seen. Several hundred people – including children – of all backgrounds, smiling, chanting, carrying provocative placards:
ESMAIL WE ARE WITH YOU, NO TO APARTHEID, LET MY PEOPLE COME
. At the gate they stopped. They filled the driveway, overflowed onto the sidewalk, the road, and the parkette across from it. Esmail was presented with a cheque.

With clapping and cheering the demo finally came to an end, the crowd gradually diffusing. Ice cream and hot dog vans appeared, the sun had kept faith, as Nanji might have put it, and music was in the air. There and then another small meeting got under way in the parkette. This one drew together the intellectual and artistic left wing, many of them known to Nanji through his university connections. It was a lively gathering and many stood by to watch.

A witty young man had been set up as emcee. His hair was gathered at the back of his head in a net, which created the effect of a black beanbag and bobbed up and down when he spoke, giving him a humorous aspect. After opening remarks, he introduced a soft-spoken bearded man in a suit, puffing at a pipe, who gave a short chatty talk about the importance of fighting racism at all levels, beginning with
the schools and textbooks. Then a woman in sari, much loved it seemed, was gently pushed to the centre and she gave a personal account of discrimination. She was a single mother, and she, too, it turned out, had been confronted in a subway station. She ended by reading a poem about the experience, then two more poems in encore. Then the emcee read his own humorous poetry, poking fun at the government and what he called “multivulturalism.” Then a heavily built Jamaican woman performed dub poetry. The gathering became calm and the bystanders moved closer to listen better, utterly captivated by the rhythm, the strange yet recognizable sounds, the enchanting defiance. There was loud applause, ending the event with an explosive climax. The left wing, it seemed, had stolen the show.

Magically, a bookstall had appeared on the sidewalk and then a samosa stand beside it, manned by Ramju, the former bandmaster and now chappati-helper of the fourteenth floor of Sixty-nine. An artist, a short fierce-looking sculptor with a Lenin beard, calling himself Young, had cornered Jamal near the bookstall. His works had been acquired by museums in New York and Delhi and Frankfurt. Now he wanted to make an impression in Ontario, and he was appealing to Jamal as a community leader and lawyer. He showed Jamal some photographs of his works, designs for fountains and monuments containing whorls and mazes, abstract figures human and animal, phalluses. Jamal, trapped, could only muster, “Wow! You made these?”

Young took back his photographs. “Commissions!” he said sharply, slapping his hand with the bundle.

“You mean you can make them – ”

“If you get me the commissions.”

“Ah, my friend, in a few years – ”

“In a few years I’ll be dead. I’m suffering from a terminal disease.” He walked away, disappointed.

At Sixty-nine, however, over the coming months a completely new and unschooled artistic career began. One of the numerous anonymous gifts Esmail had received was a supply of art materials. His legs continued to ache, especially in the cold, and he was, essentially, disabled. So Esmail started to paint. From what hidden resources, what buried memory, this passion drew its energy, even he could not have said. But passion it was. The first report of his work arrived when a social worker who came to see him saw the paintings. One newspaper printed a photo of the artist surrounded by his works. It said that he had an apocalyptic vision and a gift for colour.