Home Fire(50)

But why was it Isma coming toward her—liar, betrayer, but now that Parvaiz was home she could be forgiven. But even so, why was it Isma catching her in a familiar familial embrace, and why the face she knew too well the one that had said Ama’s dead Dadi’s dead, why her voice heavy with tears saying, “I took the first flight when Aunty Naseem called,” and “We’ll always have each other,” when Isma had never been “always”; “always” stretched both forward and back, womb to tomb, “always” was only Parvaiz.

And why was he back, the man with the plastic comb in his pocket, the representative of the Pakistan High Commission, holding his hands up as she entered the room, apologizing for yesterday, which should have meant apologizing for bringing them someone else’s grief but instead meant apologizing that he’d failed to lift his cupped hands and recite Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un—We surely belong to Allah and to him we return.

“No,” she said to the man. “You’re confusing him with someone else. He’s a British citizen; he has nothing to do with you.”

“I’m sorry,” the man said, miserably, looking at Isma, who had taken Aneeka’s hand as if one of them were a child in need of help crossing the road. “You’re obviously a good, pious family. You don’t deserve this treatment from your government. This home secretary has a point to prove about Muslims, no?”

She’d been so preoccupied with waiting to hear from Parvaiz she’d failed to notice Eamonn hadn’t called back.





iii.


[CLOSED CAPTIONING]

The Turkish government confirmed this morning that the man killed in a drive-by shooting outside the British consulate in Istanbul yesterday was Wembley-born Pervys Pasha, the latest name in the string of Muslims from Britain who have joined ISIS. Intelligence officials were aware that Pasha crossed into Syria last December, but as yet have no information about why he was approaching the British consulate. A terror attack has not been ruled out. The man in the white SUV who shot Pasha has not been identified, but security analysts suggest he could have belonged to a rival jihadi group.

The home secretary spoke just minutes ago to our political correspondent, Nick Rippons, about Pervys Pasha: –So we have yet another case of a British citizen who –I’m going to cut you off there, Nick. As you know, the day I assumed office I revoked the citizenship of all dual nationals who have left Britain to join our enemies. My predecessor only used these powers selectively, which, as I have said repeatedly, was a mistake.

–And Pervys Pasha was a dual national?

–That’s correct. Of Britain and Pakistan.

–Practically speaking, does this have any consequences now that he’s dead?

–His body will be repatriated to his home nation, Pakistan.

–He won’t be buried here?

–No. We will not let those who turn against the soil of Britain in their lifetime sully that very soil in death.

– Has his family in London been informed?

– That’s a matter for the Pakistan High Commission. Excuse me, Nick, that’s all I have time for.





iv.


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v.


The kitchen filled with food for mourners who didn’t come.

Only Gladys phoned. Her daughter had arrived in the afternoon to bundle her in the car and take her to Hastings, where she wasn’t supposed to leave the house until the news cycle stopped replaying the woman with mascara-stained cheeks telling news cameras: “He was a beautiful, gentle boy. Don’t you try to tell me who he was. I knew him from the day he was born. Shame on you, Mr. Home Secretary. Shame on you! Give us our boy to bury, give his mother the company of her son in the grave.”





vi.


@gladysinraqqa

   Tweets 2 Following 0 Followers 2,452

   Ooh such beautiful boys, let me lift my veil to see them better—oh, I’m being gently #crucified.

   Come on boys, look at me, I can do things those 72 virgins don’t know about. #MaybeThisIsntHeaven





vii.


What was this? Not grief. Grief she knew. Grief was the stepsibling they’d grown up with, unwanted and inevitable. Grief the amniotic fluid of their lives. Grief she could look in the eyes while her twin stared over its shoulder and told her of the world that lay beyond. Grief changed its shape to fit your contours—enveloping you as a second skin you eventually learned to slip into and resume your life. Grief was the deal God struck with the angel of death, who wanted an unpassable river to separate the living from the dead; grief the bridge that would allow the dead to flit among the living, their footsteps overhead, their laughter around the corner, their posture recognizable in the bodies of strangers you would follow down the street, willing them never to turn around. Grief was what you owed the dead for the necessary crime of living on without them.

But this was not grief. It did not cleave to her, it flayed her. It did not envelop her, it leaked into her pores and bloated her beyond recognition. She did not hear his footsteps or his laughter, she no longer knew how to hunch down and inhabit his posture, she couldn’t look into a mirror and see his eyes looking back at her.