"The British army. He drove a tank. A Mr. Churchill. With her dad," explained Magid.



"I'm afraid you must be mistaken," said Mr. Hamilton, genteel as ever. "There were certainly no



wogs as I remember though you're probably not allowed to say that these days are you? But no ...



no Pakistanis .. . what would we have fed them? No, no," he grumbled, assessing the question as if



he were being given the opportunity to rewrite history here and now. "Quite out of the question. I



could not possibly have stomached that rich food. No Pakistanis. The Pakistanis would have been



in the Pakistani army, you see, whatever that was. As for the poor Brits, they had enough on their



hands with us old Queens



Mr. Hamilton laughed softly to himself, turned his head and silently admired the roaming



branches of a cherry tree that dominated one whole corner of his garden. After a long pause he



turned back and tears were visible in his eyes again fast,



sharp tears as if he had been slapped in the face. "Now, you young men shouldn't tell fibs



should you? Fibs will rot your teeth."



"It's not a lie, Mr. J. P. Hamilton, he really was," said Magid, always the peace-maker, always



the negotiator. "He was shot in the hand. He has medals. He was a hero."



"And when your teeth rot '



"It's the truth!" shouted Millat, kicking over the tea-tray that sat on the floor between them.



"You stupid fucking old man."



"And when your teeth rot," continued Mr. Hamilton, smiling at the ceiling, 'aaah, there's no



return. They won't look at you like they used to. The pretty ones won't give you a second glance,



not for love or money. But while you're still young, the important matter is the third molars. They



are more commonly referred to as the wisdom teeth, I believe. You simply must deal with the third



molars before anything else. That was my downfall. You won't have them yet, but my



great-grandchildren are just feeling them now. The problem with third molars is one is never sure



whether one's mouth will be quite large enough to accommodate them. They are the only part of the



body that a man must grow into. He must be a big enough man for these teeth, do you see? Because



if not oh dear me, they grow crooked or any which way, or refuse to grow at all. They stay locked



up there with the bone an impaction, I believe, is the term and terrible, terrible infection ensues.



Have them out early, that's what I tell my granddaughter Jocelyn in regard to her sons. You simply



must. You can't fight against it. I wish I had. I wish I'd given up early and hedged my bets, as it



were. Because they're your father's teeth, you see, wisdom teeth are passed down by the father, I'm



certain of it. So you must be big enough for them. God knows, I wasn't big enough for mine .. .



Have them out and brush three times a day, if my advice means anything."



By the time Mr. J. P. Hamilton looked down to see whether his advice meant anything, his three



dun-coloured visitors had



already disappeared, taking with them the bag of apples (apples he had been contemplating



asking Jocelyn to put through the food processor); tripping over themselves, running to get to a



green space, to get to one of the lungs of the city, some place where free breathing was possible.



Now, the children knew the city. And they knew the city breeds the Mad. They knew Mr.



White-Face, an Indian who walks the streets of Willesden with his face painted white, his lips



painted blue, wearing a pair of tights and some hiking boots; they knew Mr. Newspaper, a tall



skinny man in an ankle-length raincoat who sits in Brent libraries removing the day's newspapers



from his briefcase and methodically tearing them into strips; they knew Mad Mary, a black voodoo



woman with a red face whose territory stretches from Kilburn to Oxford Street but who performs



her spells from a bin in West Hampstead; they knew Mr. Toupee, who has no eyebrows and wears a



toupee not on his head but on a string around his neck. But these people announced their madness



they were better, less scary than Mr. J. P. Hamilton they flaunted their insanity, they weren't half



mad and half not, curled around a door frame. They were properly mad in the Shakespearean sense,



talking sense when you least expected it. In North London, where councillors once voted to change



the name of the area to Nirvana, it is not unusual to walk the streets and be suddenly confronted by



sage words from the chalk-faced, blue-lipped or eye browless From across the street or from the



other end of a tube carriage they will use their schizophrenic talent for seeing connections in the



random (for discerning the whole world in a grain of sand, for deriving narrative from nothing) to



riddle you, to rhyme you, to strip you down, to tell you who you are and where you're going



(usually Baker Street the great majority of modern-day seers travel the Metropolitan Line) and why.



But as a city we are not appreciative of these



people. Our gut instinct is that they intend to embarrass us, that they're out to shame us



somehow as they lurch down the train aisle, bulbous-eyed and with carbuncled nose, preparing to



ask us, inevitably, what we are looking at. What the fuck are we looking at. As a kind of



pre-emptive defence mechanism, Londoners have learnt not to look, never to look, to avoid eyes at



all times so that the dreaded question "What you looking at?" and its pitiful, gutless, useless answer



"Nothing' might be avoided. But as the prey evolves (and we are prey to the Mad who are pursuing



us, desperate to impart their own brand of truth to the hapless commuter) so does the hunter, and



the true professionals begin to tire of that old catch phrase "What you looking at?" and move into



more exotic territory. Take Mad Mary. Oh, the principle's still the same, it's still all about eye



contact and the danger of making it, but now she's making eye contact from a hundred, two



hundred, even three hundred yards away, and if she catches you doing the same she roars down the



street, dreads and feathers and cape afloat, Hoodoo stick in hand, until she gets to where you are,



spits on you, and begins. Samad knew all of this they'd had dealings before, he and red-faced Mad



Mary; he'd even suffered the misfortune of having her sit next to him on a bus. Any other day and



Samad would have given her as good as he got. But today he was feeling guilty and vulnerable,



today he was holding Poppy's hand as the sun crept away; he could not face Mad Mary and her



vicious truth-telling, her ugly madness which of course was precisely why she was stalking him,



quite deliberately stalking him down Church Road.



"For your own safety, don't look," said Samad. "Just keep on walking in a straight line. I had no



idea she travelled this far into Harlesden."



Poppy snatched the quickest glance at the multicoloured streaming flash galloping down the



high street on an imaginary horse.



She laughed. "Who is that?"



Samad quickened the pace. "She is Mad Mary. And she is not remotely funny. She is



dangerous."



"Oh, don't be ridiculous. Just because she's homeless and has mental health .. . difficulties,



doesn't mean she wants to hurt anyone. Poor woman, can you imagine what must have happened in



her life to make her like that?"



Samad sighed. "First of all, she is not homeless. She has stolen every wheelie bin in West



Hampstead and has built quite a significant structure out of them in Fortune Green. And secondly



she is not a "poor woman". Everyone is terrified of her, from the council downwards, she receives



free food from every corner shop in North London ever since she cursed the Ramchandra place and



business collapsed within the month." Samad's portly figure was working up quite a sweat now, as



he shifted another gear in response to Mad Mary doing the same on the other side of the street.



Breathless, he whispered, "And she doesn't like white people."



Poppy's eyes widened. "Really?" she said, as if such an idea had never occurred to her, and



turned round to make the fatal mistake of looking. In a second, Mad Mary was upon them.



A thick globule of spit hit Samad directly between his eyes, on the bridge of his nose. He wiped



it away, pulled Poppy to him and tried to sidestep Mad Mary by ducking into the courtyard of St.



Andrew's Church, but the Hoodoo stick slammed down in front of them both, marking a line in the



pebbles and dust that could not be crossed over.



She spoke slowly, and with such a menacing scowl that the left side of her face seemed



paralysed. "You .. . lookin'... at... some .. . ting?"



Poppy managed a squeak, "No!"



Mad Mary whacked Poppy's calf with the Hoodoo stick and turned to Samad. "You, sir! You .. .



lookin' ... at... some .. . ting?"



Samad shook his head.



Suddenly she was screaming. "BLACK MAN! DEM



BLOCK YOU EVERYWHERE YOU TURN!"



"Please," stuttered Poppy, clearly terrified. "We don't want any trouble."



"BLACK MAN!" (She liked to speak in rhyming couplets.)



"DE BITCH SHE WISH TO SEE YOU BURN!"



"We are minding our own business' began Samad, but he was stopped by a second projectile of



phlegm, this time hitting him on the cheek.



"Tru hill and gully, dem follow you dem follow you, Tru hill and gully, de devil swallow you



'im swallow you." This was delivered in a kind of singing stage-whisper, accompanied by a dance



from side to side, arms outstretched and Hoodoo stick resting firmly underneath Poppy Burt-Jones's chin.



"What 'as dem ever done for us body got kill us and enslave us? What 'as dem done for our



minds got hurt us an' enrage us? What's de pollution?"



Mad Mary lifted Poppy's chin with her stick and asked again,



"WHAT'S DE POLLUTION?"



Poppy was weeping. "Please ... I don't know what you want me to '



Mad Mary sucked her teeth and turned her attention once more to Samad.



"WHAT'S DE SOLUTION?"



"I don't know."



Mad Mary slapped him around the ankles with her stick.



"WHAT'S DE SOLUTION, BLACK MAN?"



Mad Mary was a beautiful, a striking woman: a noble forehead, a prominent nose, ageless



midnight skin and a long neck that Queens can only dream about. But it was her alarming eyes,



which shot out an anger on the brink of total collapse, that Samad was concentrated on, because he



saw that they were speaking to him and him alone. Poppy had nothing to do with this. Mad Mary



was looking at him with recognition. Mad Mary had spotted



a fellow traveller. She had spotted the madman in him (which is to say, the prophet); he felt sure



she had spotted the angry man, the masturbating man, the man stranded in the desert far from his



sons, the foreign man in a foreign land caught between borders .. . the man who, if you push him



far enough, will suddenly see sense. Why else had she picked him from a street full of people?



Simply because she recognized him. Simply because they were from the same place, he and Mad



Mary, which is to say: far away.



"Satyagraha," said Samad, surprising himself with his own calmness.



Mad Mary, unused to having her interrogations answered, looked at him in astonishment.



"WHAT'S DE SOLUTION?"



"Satyagraha. It is Sanskrit for "truth and firmness". Gandhi gee's word. You see, he did not like



"passive resistance" or "civil disobedience"."



Mad Mary was beginning to twitch and swear compulsively under her breath, but Samad sensed



that in some way this was Mad Mary listening, this was Mad Mary's mind trying to process words



other than her own.



"Those words weren't big enough for him. He wanted to show what we call weakness to be a



strength. He understood that sometimes not to act is a man's greatest triumph. He was a Hindu. I am



a Muslim. My friend here is'



"A Roman Catholic," said Poppy shakily. "Lapsed."



"And you are?" began Samad.



Mad Mary said cunt, bitch, rhasclaat several times and spat on the floor, which Samad took as a



sign of cooling hostilities.



"What I am trying to say



Samad looked at the small group of Methodists who, hearing the noise, had begun to gather



nervously at the door of St. Andrew's. He grew confident. There had always been a manque



preacher in Samad. A know-it-all, a walker-and-a-talker. With a small audience and a lot of fresh air



he had always been



able to convince himself that all the knowledge in the universe, all the knowledge on walls, was his.



"I am trying to say that life is a broad church, is it not?" He pointed to the ugly red-brick



building full of its quivering believers. "With wide aisles He pointed to the smelly bustle of black,



white, brown and yellow shuffling up and down the high street. To the albino woman who stood



outside the Cash and Carry, selling daisies picked from the churchyard. "Which my friend and I



would like to continue walking along if it is all right with you. Believe me, I understand your



concerns," said Samad, taking his inspiration now from that other great North London



street-preacher, Ken Livingstone, "I am having difficulties myself we are all having difficulties in



this country, this country which is new to us and old to us all at the same time. We are divided



people, aren't we."



And here Samad did what no one had done to Mad Mary for well over fifteen years: he touched



her. Very lightly, on the shoulder.



"We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with my legs crossed, letting



the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight the holy war.



Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my



past and your truth is not my truth and your solution it is not my solution. So I do not know what it



is you would like me to say. Truth and firmness is one suggestion, though there are many other



people you can ask if that answer does not satisfy. Personally, my hope lies in the last days. The



prophet Muhammad peace be upon Him! tells us that on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be



struck unconscious. Deaf and dumb. No chit-chat. Tongueless. And what a bloody relief that will be.



Now, if you will excuse me."



Samad took Poppy firmly by the hand and walked on, while Mad Mary stood dumbstruck only



briefly before rushing to the church door and spraying saliva upon the congregation.



Poppy wiped away a frightened tear and sighed.



She said, "Calm in a crisis. Impressive."



Samad, increasingly given to visions, saw that great grandfather of his, Mangal Pande, flailing



with a musket; fighting against the new, holding on to tradition.



"It runs in the family," he said.



Later, Samad and Poppy walked up through Harlesden, around Dollis Hill, and then, when it



seemed they were hovering too near to Willesden, Samad waited till the sun went down, bought a



box of sticky Indian sweets and turned into Roundwood Park; admired the last of the flowers. He



talked and talked, the kind of talking you do to stave off the inevitable physical desire, the kind of



talking that only increases it. He told her about Delhi circa 1942, she told him about St. Albans



circa 1972. She complained about a long list of entirely unsuitable boyfriends, and Samad, not able



to criticize Alsana or even mention her name, spoke of his children: fear of Millat's passion for



obscenities and a noisy TV show about an A-team; worries about whether Magid got enough direct



sunlight. What was the country doing to his sons, he wanted to know, what was it doing?



"I like you," she said finally. "A lot. You're very funny. Do you know that you're funny?"



Samad smiled and shook his head. "I have never thought of myself as a great comic wit."



"No you are funny. That thing you said about camels She began to laugh, and her laugh was infectious.



"What thing?"



"About camels when we were walking."



"Oh, you mean, "Men are like camels: there is barely one in a hundred that you would trust with your life."



"Yes!"



"That's not comedy, that is the Bukharl, part eight, page one



hundred and thirty," said Samad. "And it is good advice. I have certainly found it to be true."



"Well, it's still funny."



She sat closer to him on the bench and kissed his ear. "Seriously, I like you."



"I'm old enough to be your father. I'm married. I am a Muslim."



"O K, so Dateline wouldn't have matched our forms. So what?"



"What kind of a phrase is this: "So what?" Is that English? That is not English. Only the



immigrants can speak the Queen's English these days."



Poppy giggled. "I still say: So '



But Samad covered her mouth with his hand, and looked for a moment almost as if he intended



to hit her. "So everything. So everything. There is nothing funny about this situation. There is



nothing good about it. I do not wish to discuss the rights or wrongs of this with you. Let us stick to



what we are obviously here for," he spat out. "The physical, not the metaphysical."



Poppy moved to the other end of the bench and leant forward, her elbows resting on her knees.



"I know," she began slowly, 'that this is no more than it is. But I won't be spoken to like that."



"I am sorry. It was wrong of me '



"Just because you feel guilty, I've nothing to feel '



"Yes, I'm sorry. I have no '



"Because you can go if you '



Half thoughts. Stick them all together and you have less than you began with.



"I don't want to go. I want you." Poppy brightened a bit and smiled her half-sad, half-goofy smile.



"I want to spend the night.. . with you."



"Good," she replied. "Because I bought this for you while you were next door buying those sugary sweets."



"What is it?"



She dived into her handbag, and in the attenuated minute in WK



which she scrabbled through lipsticks and car-keys and spare "i change, two things happened.



1.1 Samad closed his eyes and heard the words To the pure all things are pure and then, almost



immediately afterwards, Can't say fairer than that.



1.2 Samad opened his eyes and saw quite clearly by the bandstand his two sons, their white



teeth biting into two waxy apples, waving, smiling.



And then Poppy resurfaced, triumphant, with a piece of red plastic in her hand.



"A toothbrush," she said.

关键字:White Teeth

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