We pull into the drive outside Sukhbir’s detached house on the corner of a quiet close. Of course auntie Satya has arranged everything for us. Before dad has even switched off the engine, we see Sukhbir emerge from his front door. He stands by his porch on his garden path, as if he’s impatient to welcome us. I watch the way mum and dad look at each other. They’re nervous too.
Mum gets out first. Then dad. Then me. Everything seems to be going in slow motion. Dad locking is car. Waiting for mum. Turning back to face that man. Sukhbir gazes back at us. We can see he’s not sure whether to smile or frown. He just kind of stares at us.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he mumbles towards dad.
Dad just nods his head to acknowledge him, but says nothing.
‘You okay sitting in the garden?’
Dad glances around. It doesn’t look very private, but he just shrugs his shoulders. It’s cold, but we all brought coats.
Our host shows us his palm and gestures us onwards. We walk along the side of his house, past his garage and through a gate into his back garden. The grass is rough. There’s a trampoline and a washing line, and a broken fence that offers scant privacy. Sukhbir pulls up some garden chairs for us, begging us all to sit down, only to disappear back into the house, returning shortly afterwards with a tray of cups. He sets it down on the garden table and hands a tea to each of us. Finally, he sits down facing us and just stares at dad. It’s like no one dares say a word.
‘I was surprised to get a phone call from my sister,’ he mutters finally. ‘We don’t have a very good relationship, me and her. Of course she kept it short and sweet. Okay, just short. Told me you wanted to see me. So yeah, I closed my shop and came. I had to.’ Momentarily he gazes at mum. ‘For this opportunity,’ he says, ‘thanks. Really.’ His eyes are back on dad. ‘I meant everything I said last night,’ he tells him. ‘I’ve been searching for you for years, but… it was like you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.’
‘I always said I would, didn’t I?’ says dad. ‘I always keep my promises.’
The man’s eyes fall to the ground, as if he’s totally ashamed. ‘I remember that last conversation we ever had like it was yesterday,’ he mutters.
‘Me too,’ says dad. ‘That was the day I told you I should’ve been brave; that I should’ve stood up for her. You thought I was talking about your sister, but I was talking about my soulmate. This beautiful woman sitting at my side right now. I told you I wished I’d fought for her. But you just laughed in my face and I knew right then that you’d won. That was the end for me back then. That’s when I just gave up. Joined the old firm, because what was the point? I’d tried to take a different course, but in the end everyone I thought was my friend rejected me. My best mate, Siddique: remember him? He threw me away. Tariq? The same. How ironic, he rejected me because some idiot convinced him being friends with a kafir was a sin. But here I am twenty-five years later, and I’m the Muslim. And him? I hear he runs a nightclub now. A very successful one too, I hear. Well, before Covid anyway. And Anjana? I screwed that one up right after my conversation with you. Your sister? I swore at her and told her to get a grip. And you? Always there, always in my face, threatening me, threatening me, reminding me who I was and where I came from. So, yeah, in the end I just said, maybe my family was right all along: our cultures are incompatible. We can never be friends. All of my experiences that year told me that. So I just gave up. I went back to my dad. I reconciled myself with the fact that I was just destined to be beaten up on a daily basis for believing that mankind is one race. That we’re all equal. That everyone deserves the chance to live in peace, regardless of where they come from or what they’ve seen. I just gave up.’
‘I know,’ mutters Sukhbir.
‘But more irony. That day we spoke: I told you all about your sister’s heart of gold. You just yelled at me and told me I knew nothing at all. Yeah, but it turns out I was right. Because there I was standing with a bunch of fascists in the middle of town. We had riot police on one side. We had fences on another. And right in front of me, a crowd of protesters screaming at me: “Fascist scum!” And they were right. Those people I was with: they were everything everyone said they were. But that protest wasn’t going to change them. It wasn’t going to make them search their souls. We were sent there, me and my cousins, for one thing only: to kick off a riot. And so that’s what we did. We didn’t need sticks or stones, we just had to stand there, knowing that eventually it would rile someone up just enough to have them throw a bottle or a brick. And me? I was just standing there, praying they’d finish me off. I wanted God to take me away that day. I said this prayer. I said: “I’m not strong enough for this. Just take me away.” And I just decided there and then that I wouldn’t run away. For the first time in my life I decided I was going to stay put. I was just going to submit to my fate. And then do you know what happened? Just as I said that, I saw a face in the crowd I recognised. Yes, your sister. She stared at me, but she wouldn’t have recognised me at first. I’d stopped eating properly months before. I stopped injecting insulin too. My face looked like Skeletor. Remember him? From He-Man, when we were kids. No, but when our eyes snapped together, then she knew. She knew that ugly racist over there was Ben Johnson. The one she taught how to cook a Punjabi thali. The one whose clothes she washed, whose house she cleaned, who she had tutored and advised, and fed and comforted. Yes, there he was standing with those vile fascists. I watched her turn away from me completely repulsed. She ran. I saw her disappear into the crowd, and then the crowd just surged forwards, like a wave coming over me. A tsunami. It just cut me down, and all I knew then was that this was the end. I felt the first kick to my head. The rest, no, I don’t remember it. But I have this recurring dream: I’ve had it for years. I don’t know if it’s real or not. But it’s your sister’s face, gazing down at me. She says, “I’m not going to let you die.” And she didn’t. She shielded my body so fearlessly and she saved my life. So I was right, wasn’t I? About her heart of gold. She saved me, and it turns out that in the twenty-five years I’ve been away, she saved my mum’s life too. Yeah, so I was right back then. I told you she’d make somebody the perfect wife, and she has. Her husband adores her. I saw that last night, and I’m so happy for her. Because, your sister is a gem, just like I said she was. And I owe her a debt I can never repay, because she stepped aside to make sure I was reunited with my soulmate. Yes, this soulmate here, who sits at my side, with whom I’ve raised three beautiful children. This soulmate who is my all and everything. This is Anjana, my gift from God, who was always destined to be mine, because God doesn’t give gifts he intends to take away. I’ve learnt that in my life. “Even if all the nations on earth gathered together to harm you, they would never be able to harm you except with something He has already decreed.” Yes, I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Anjana: here she is, still with me, despite what you did to me. Despite what you threatened to do to her. Why? Because our love was stronger than your hate. Because she was, is and always will be my soulmate. Hand in hand in this world, hand in hand in the hereafter. That’s what I believe in my heart. She’s mine.’
There’s silence now. I’m blown away by my dad’s speech. Mum is too. She’s staring at him, shocked that her quiet man said all of that. And Sukhbir? He’s crying. His eyes are red, his cheeks streaked with tears.
Mum pulls a tissue from her pocket and hands it to me, and I hand it to him. We watch him wipe his face dry and blow his nose.
‘I’ve yearned to say sorry to you for twenty years,’ he says. ‘To both of you. I know that what I did to you back then was inexcusable. I never told my sister this, but I knew who your dad was. I knew all about your family. I knew your cousins. I knew who they were and what they stood for. I knew because my dad told me. Because he knew them too. He knew your dad and your uncles, because they harassed my dad all through the 60s and 70s, before I was born. Mostly they just verbally abused him, calling him the N-word and the P-word, pushing him and shoving him, telling him to go home. Go back home. This is what they said to him. They used to attack my grandad too, smashing his windows. It went on for years, until my dad stood up to them. That’s when they beat him up and he returned home covered in blood. My dad, he dropped out of school after that. Left school at sixteen and started working. He set up his own shop, made a success of it. Married my mum. In 1975, they had me. In 1977, Satya. In 1980, Jas. In 1984, Meeta. And my dad, he just worked his socks off. Despite everything he went through, all the adversity he faced, he became the respected Mr Vijay Singh, Employer of the Year 1988. He’d made it. He decided to send all his kids to private school, but only Satya made the effort. The rest of us flunked the entrance exams. But that was okay, because it meant he had money left over to splash out on donations for new school buildings. Yes, dad was the very respectable Mr Singh then, famous for his generosity. But us kids? We just took his place. At school, constantly, constantly being harassed, pushed about, spat upon. The P-word every single day. Satya? No, she was doing fine. But me and Jas and Meeta? Go back where you come from. What are you looking at? All this, every single day. When I was little, I was polite like dad. Smile, just take it: the grateful guest. Dad said work hard and you’ll earn their respect. But I never did. It never worked for me. Every day, kids pushing and shoving, telling me I was nothing. So I just stood up. I said, no more. No more good little Sukhbir, all nice and polite. So I fought back. I was fourteen the first time I fought back. It was 1989. I wasn’t going to take it anymore. So I got into a fight with these racist kids at school. That’s when my dad told me that story about what he faced when he was my age. And that’s when he told me that most of the kids that were harassing me were the kids of the ones that harassed him. It was history repeating itself. I was just reliving my dad’s youth, and I knew right then that I was never going to walk in my dad’s footsteps. I wasn’t going to become another respectable Mr Singh. I was going to stand up and be counted. I was going to fight back, to make sure that cycle ended. It was going to end with me. So, yes, I became a fighter. I never, ever let anyone bully me again. My sisters: I was there to stand up for them the moment the tiniest word was said. I made sure everyone feared me, and they did. Your cousins: they left me alone from then on. They picked on other Asian kids, but not me. No way. They knew exactly how that would end. My dad thought he’d made it when he got some fancy business award. But me? I knew I’d made it when your family’s racist mafia clan feared me. When they cleared off whenever I approached. That was power, right there. I could make them disappear just by looking at them.’
Sukhbir stops now and looks at my dad, then down at the ground. He seems to be staring at a blade of grass, as if he’s contemplating what he’ll say next.
‘I never told my sister this, but I knew exactly who you were then. Your cousins absolutely hated you. They used to pick on you too. I remember that. I remember it very clearly. I saw them smash your head against a brick wall once. It was in primary school. It must’ve been 1985, because I was two years above you. I didn’t run to help you or anything. I just remember asking my mate what was going on. Family business, they said. That’s when I found out they were your cousins.’
‘Yeah, I remember that day,’ says dad, ‘I was nearly eight. I was living with foster carers. My dad was in prison. I saw my mum once a week. I didn’t even know who those kids were. They weren’t in my year and I’d never met them before. I didn’t know anything about my uncles. I didn’t know why my dad was in prison. In fact, I don’t think I even knew he was in prison then. I just thought my mum and dad were divorced. Of course, they weren’t even married. At eight, I wasn’t curious about any of that stuff. The only thing I cared about…’ Dad glances at my mum. ‘Yes, that sweet girl in my class. She always made me smile. Her face was so adorable. Her big eyes, looking at me so graciously. She was my best friend. And I told everyone that.’
Mum gazes back at him.
‘I remember that day too,’ she says. ‘That was the day that silly, clumsy, dozy boy presented me with a flower made out of tissue paper in the playground at morning break and said in front of all my friends, “Will you marry me?”’
‘And what did you say, mum?’ I ask.
‘I said, “We’re only seven.” Then he said: “Please.” And then I said, okay, but when we’re all grown up.’
‘How cute.’
‘For about five minutes, yes. Then those boys turned up, snatched that paper flower out of my hand, ripped it to shreds and stamped on it, which made your dad seriously mad.’
‘What did you do, dad?’
‘I told them to leave my girl alone. Which is how my head came to be smashed against that wall. I had concussion for the rest of the day, but it was worth it. Everyone knew Anjana was mine from then on.’
‘Did you look after him, mum?’
‘No, I sat inside crying all day. I never knew then that this would be the story of my entire life. The volume of tears I’ve shed for that man: I’m sure they’d be an ocean by now.’
‘And I know I’m to blame,’ says Sukhbir, glancing up at us. ‘Yes, because I knew who you were. By the time I’d learnt to stand up of my own two feet, I knew who everyone in your family was. I knew all your names and, honestly, I hated your whole family with all my heart. Between you, your family was responsible for most of the racial tension in town. I’d found out about your grandad. I’d found out why your dad was in prison. I’d worked out who your uncles were. That was 1990. I’d worked it all out. And I was going to dismantle that family of yours, one brick at a time. That was my new year’s resolution. I’d just turned fifteen and I knew I was invincible. Nobody could touch me and I was going to bring your racist mafia clan down.’
‘That’s funny that,’ says dad, ‘because around the same time, I had exactly the same plan. Except I was going to do it by marrying that beautiful Indian girl who followed me around everywhere. My dad came out of prison in 1988 and for some reason I will never ever understand, my mum decided she’d get back together with him. That’s when I found out what kind of family I had. Mum only lasted a few months back with him. Maybe it was a year; I don’t recall exactly. All I remember were the bruises he left all over her face. I was twelve when I first realised that my entire family on my dad’s side were absolute nutters. They existed in a completely different reality to the rest of us. I’d spent all of my childhood until then playing and hanging out with Asian kids. I was in and out of Anjana’s parents’ house with my mum all the time. My best friend was this cute Indian girl I’d known since birth. And then all of a sudden, I discover my whole family belongs to some weird far-right ultra-nationalist white supremacist cult. They were so far out that even the BNP considered them extreme. Yes, so as soon as we escaped from them, my mum and me, I decided I was going to do everything in my power to stand in their way. I was going to do the complete opposite of everything they demanded. They said stick to your own, so I made Siddique and Tariq my best mates. They said make life hell for all the ethnics, so I went round and played Nintendo. They said boycott all the Asian businesses, so I made sure mum did the opposite. But my masterstroke? Yes, that was deciding that Anjana was indeed my soulmate and I was going to keep her at my side until I was eighteen, and then I was going to marry her. It’s true that I asked her to marry me all through primary school, but that was just a bit of fun. We were kids and she was just too cute not to say things like that to. But at twelve I was absolutely serious. I committed myself to saving myself for her then. In my head, I just had six years to wait. I could manage that. I’d known her parents since I could crawl. My mum loved her mum. We were destined to be together. Only, I never accounted for that curve ball.’
‘You mean me?’ asks Sukhbir.
‘What else could I mean?’ says dad. ‘What you did… it set off a chain reaction you just couldn’t have comprehended.’
‘I know. My sister told me.’
‘What, that because I cut myself off from Anjana, my mum cut herself off from me? Because my mum loved Anjana’s mum; they were best friends. So when that happened, it just broke us. My mum hated me for what I did to Anjana, and in the end she just took her revenge. She did to me what I did to my soulmate. I was the same as my dad, she said, so she just threw me away and sent me back to him.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry. I’ve spent twenty years mulling over all my actions then. I’ve seen all that my sister has achieved since then, and how little I have. I’ve regretted the way I treated you all my adult life.’
‘And so you should’ve,’ says mum. ‘Because he has too. He’s never forgiven himself for the way he treated me then. I forgave him long ago, but no, that man there: he still won’t forgive himself for all he did to protect me.’
Mum stares at the man.
‘So tell me, what was it all for? What did we do to deserve all that? What was our crime? Because, you know, I’m sure I never knew you. I’m sure you’re not a relative of mine. I’m sure you weren’t a friend. I’m sure you’re not from my ancestral village. I’m sure we don’t follow the same religion. I’m sure you know absolutely nothing about my honour. I’m sure you had absolutely nothing to do with me.’
Sukhbir is silent again, his eyes buried in the lawn.
‘It was never about honour,’ he mutters. ‘I was just enraged that someone from his family was with an Indian girl. That’s it. That’s all it was. I was enraged that a guy from a family that had caused my family so much pain was acting like he owed us nothing. No apology. No remorse. Nothing. No, instead he was right there, in our face, as if to say, “Up yours.” His whole family harassed my family for thirty years: first my grandad, then my dad, then me and my sisters. Go back where you come from. That’s what we had to put up with. My dad in the 60s and 70s, and me all through the 80s. Your family. So that day I heard those rumours about what you two had done, I was just enraged. Yes, so that’s why me and my mates battered you. Vengeance for all my family had suffered at the hands of yours. And I wanted to make you suffer. That’s why I gave you that ultimatum. That’s why I made that threat. Because there was no way I was going to let anyone from your family find comfort with someone who looked like my mother, or my sisters, or my friends. No, because I’d heard with my own ears your cousins racially abusing my sisters all through school. So that was my revenge.’
‘And do you think my family cared?’ asks dad. ‘Do you think the man who regularly beat up my mum cared for your act of vengeance? Do you think my cousins, who were continuously harassing me cared either? Do you think it stirred their conscience? To see me lying in hospital with a swollen eye popping out of my head? No, you just did their business for them, because it was them I feared. If anyone was going to batter me for being with an Indian girl, it was them.’
‘And my crime in all of this?’ begs mum. ‘What was my role? Collateral damage?’
‘Back then… I just told myself you shouldn’t have been with him. Back then… I was doing you a favour. Now, of course…’ His words trail away.
‘You know I’ve realised that everything I believed about family back then… it was nonsense. Look at me: I have hardly anything in common with the rest of my family. My sister, Satya: she married a guy who earns a hundred-thousand a year. Her kids are following him to medical school. My middle sister, Jas: she raised three kids all alone, but still managed to build a business which employs a hundred people. And my little sister, Meeta: I hardly know what she’s doing with her life. Moved to the midlands with her husband. As far as I know, she’s some kind of legal consultant. But me? I’ve spent the past decade just trying to make ends meet. I live in this pokey house I can’t get planning permission to extend. I can’t afford to buy a bigger house. I have three different businesses, but I barely break a profit. I do what I can to give my wife and kids what they need, but I admit I feel like an utter failure every single day of my life. And of course, why not? Because my uncle’s kids… my dad’s brother… my cousins: his eldest is a barrister, his middle son is a big planning lawyer and his youngest daughter is a GP. And their kids… I can’t even think about it. Private schools, the best education money can buy, great big houses in Solihul, with flash cars in the drive. That’s family. They’re living the highlife, and here I am in this pokey house, driving a van. This is what I didn’t see back then. I thought we were a tribe and I thought you were too. I thought family sticks together, through thick and thin. Now I realise that was mere delusion.’
‘It always was,’ says dad. ‘I had nothing in common with my cousins either. I didn’t even have anything in common with my own dad. I identified more with the foster carers who looked after me for the first few years of my life. Those uncles of mine? I didn’t even know them until after you smashed me to pieces. Yet more irony, right there: I was only introduced to them after my mum threw me out.’
‘And I will always regret that,’ says Sukhbir. ‘I will always regret my rage that day. For getting carried away. For projecting the sins of your relatives onto you. As I said yesterday, I have been searching for you for years, desperate to make amends. I have yearned to say sorry for the whole of my adult life. So, humbly, I ask you again: will you forgive me?’
I watch my dad glance at my mum, begging her to speak first.
‘I have always told myself I would never forgive you for what you did.’ She pauses and glances at each of us in turn. ‘But my husband and son have better hearts than me. They reminded me that kind speech and forgiveness are better than charity followed by harm. So today I must stand with my husband and my son.’
She stops there, and her eyes land on my dad.
‘There are three kinds of people I’ve sought all my life: the siddiqin, the shuhada and the saliheen. These kinds of people have a good influence on the world. The siddiqin are people of truth. The shuhada are people who stand for the truth. And the saliheen: these are people who live in harmony with all others.’
Mum gazes at me and my dad.
‘You won’t believe it, but after searching for these three kinds of people all my life, I found they’d been sitting beside me all along. There’s my son, with his perpetual refrain: forgive, forgive, forgive. A refrain we taught him, as it happens, but only he took it to heart. Be merciful, he says. Yes, our son understood our path long before we did. And then there’s my husband: a man who doesn’t even feel his own existence in front of his Lord. Not only does he not see himself above anyone else, but he thinks nothing of himself. He describes himself as a speck of dust, but to me: to me he’s like a mountain. Yes, this man at my side is much more than a speck of dust. He’s the one who told me this morning that we are bound by the truth only. And it’s the truth that we seek wherever it is.’
Mum stares at Sukhbir. ‘Yes, so on this question, I defer to my husband. My answer is the same as his. Seeking the mercy of my Lord, I seek forgiveness, so I too must forgive. And in this, I pray that my heart finds rest.’
Dad smiles at mum, reaching across to stroke her arm.
‘We’ve both carried this weight for far too long. It’s done nothing for us: it’s just burned us up. I’ve carried hate in my heart for thirty years, but all it did… it just killed my heart. My heart just turned to stone. It’s time we tried something different.’
Dad stands up and paces over to Sukhbir. He stretches his hand out towards him. Seeing him, Sukhbir also rises and offers his hand, grasping my dad’s.
‘Assalamu alaikum,’ says dad. ‘That means, “Peace be upon you.” And I mean it. Peace. Let’s make peace.’ He looks at Sukhbir seriously. ‘I forgive you,’ he says, gripping his hand firmly.
Mum also stands now, wrapping her arm around dad’s back, her eyes awash with fresh tears, only to watch Sukhbir collapse back onto his chair, burying his head in his hands. He is speechless.
‘Khimaa gahee brat seel santokhan…’ he mutters finally.
‘What was that?’ asks mum.
‘Raag gauree: “To practice forgiveness is the true fast, good conduct and contentment. Disease does not afflict me, nor does the pain of death. I am liberated…”’
‘Inshallah, we are all liberated now,’ says dad.
‘Inshallah,’ says mum.
‘So… homeward bound?’ asks dad.
‘No,’ says Sakhbir, ‘you’ll eat with me tonight.’
‘Please,’ says dad, ‘no need.’
‘No, you must,’ insists Sukhbir: ‘Sukh vele shukrana: in times of peace, give thanks.’
‘We have an early start tomorrow,’ says dad, ‘and a long journey ahead of us. Thank you, but…’
‘Please,’ he says, ‘I insist. Give me two hours and I’ll call you.’
‘We don’t want you to go to any trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble. I’ll call my parents. Their garden is nicer than ours. I insist. Give me your number and I’ll call you.’
Reluctantly, my parents agree.
‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘Sukh vele shukrana.’
