You can feel bad... I mean, that’s not illegal.
A trauma is something one repeats and repeats, after all, and this is the tragedy of the Iqbals – that they can’t help but reenact the dash they once made from one land to another, from one faith to another, from one brown mother country into the pale, freckled arms of an imperial sovereign.
More silence; children’s silence, so desperately desired by adults yet eerie when it finally occurs.
The fear was respect, the respect, fear. If you didn’t have the fear you had nothing.
And the sins of the Eastern father shall be visited upon the Western sons. Often taking their time, stored up in the genes like baldness or testicular carcinoma, but sometimes on the very same day.
Archie says -Science- the same way he says -Modern-, as if someone has lent him the words and made him swear not to break them.
The fate of the young man in his headphones, who faced a jail cell that very night, did not seem such a world away from his own predicament: an anniversary party full of academics.
But the Alim laughed at this. ‘And we know who they are. Allah have pity on the Anglicans! Samad, when the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intellect go away,’ said the Alim, shaking his head. ‘And one third of his religion.
This was one of the little ways in which he said sorry. They were meant to add up each day.
A carefully preserved English accent also upped the fear factor.
American houses... ′ she said, peering over her right shoulder and down the street. ‘They always seem to believe that nobody ever loses anything, has lost anything. I find that very sad. Do you know what I mean?
Thirty years – almost all of them really happy. That’s a lifetime, it’s incredible. Most people don’t get that. But maybe this is just over, you know? Maybe it’s over...
E in passato, si chiese Archie, la gente imbrogliava di meno? Era piu’ onesta, lasciava la porta di casa aperta, affidava i figli ai vicini, faceva visite agli amici, aveva il conto aperto con il macellaio?
Here lie a man and a woman. The man is more beautiful than the woman. And for this reason there have been times when the woman has feared that she loves the man more than he loves her. He has always denied this.
Nobody can cast themselves out.