White Teeth

‘Yes, Mr Iqbal,’ said Katie Miniver. ‘What about the Harvest Festival?’

‘That is precisely what I want to know. What is all this about the Harvest Festival? What is it? Why is it? And why must my children celebrate it?’

The headmistress, Mrs Owens, a genteel woman with a soft face half hidden behind a fiercely cut blonde bob, motioned to Katie Miniver that she would handle this.

‘Mr Iqbal, we have been through the matter of religious festivals quite thoroughly in the autumn review. As I am sure you are aware, the school already recognizes a great variety of religious and secular events: amongst them, Christmas, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, the birthday of Haile Selassie, and the death of Martin Luther King. The Harvest Festival is part of the school’s ongoing commitment to religious diversity, Mr Iqbal.’

‘I see. And are there many pagans, Mrs Owens, at Manor School?’

‘Pagan – I’m afraid I don’t under-’

‘It is very simple. The Christian calendar has thirty-seven religious events. Thirty-seven. The Muslim calendar has nine. Only nine. And they are squeezed out by this incredible rash of Christian festivals. Now my motion is simple. If we removed all the pagan festivals from the Christian calendar, there would be an average of’ – Samad paused to look at his clipboard – ‘of twenty days freed up in which the children could celebrate Lailat-ul-Qadr in December, Eid-ul-Fitr in January and Eid-ul-Adha in April, for example. And the first festival that must go, in my opinion, is this Harvest Festival business.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Owens, doing her pleasant-but-firm smile and playing her punchline to the crowd, ‘removing Christian festivals from the face of the earth is a little beyond my jurisdiction. Otherwise I would remove Christmas Eve and save myself a lot of work in stocking-stuffing.’

Samad ignored the general giggle this prompted and pressed on. ‘But this is my whole point. This Harvest Festival is not a Christian festival. Where in the bible does it say, For thou must steal foodstuffs from thy parents’ cupboards and bring them into school assembly, and thou shalt force thy mother to bake a loaf of bread in the shape of a fish? These are pagan ideals! Tell me where does it say, Thou shalt take a box of frozen fishfingers to an aged crone who lives in Wembley?’

Mrs Owens frowned, unaccustomed to sarcasm unless it was of the teacher variety, i.e., Do we live in a barn? And I suppose you treat your own house like that!

‘Surely, Mr Iqbal, it is precisely the charity aspect of the Harvest Festival that makes it worth retaining? Taking food to the elderly seems to me a laudable idea, whether it has scriptural support or not. Certainly, nothing in the bible suggests we should sit down to a turkey meal on Christmas Day, but few people would condemn it on those grounds. To be honest, Mr Iqbal, we like to think of these things as more about community than religion as such.’

‘A man’s god is his community!’ said Samad, raising his voice.

‘Yes, umm… well, shall we vote on the motion?’

Mrs Owens looked nervously around the room for hands. ‘Will anyone second it?’

Samad pressed Alsana’s hand. She kicked him in the ankle. He stamped on her toe. She pinched his flank. He bent back her little finger and she grudgingly raised her right arm while deftly elbowing him in the crotch with her left.

‘Thank you, Mrs Iqbal,’ said Mrs Owens, as Janice and Ellen looked over to her with the piteous, saddened smiles they reserved for subjugated Muslim women.

‘All those in favour of the motion to remove the Harvest Festival from the school calendar-’

‘On the grounds of its pagan roots.’

‘On the grounds of certain pagan… connotations. Raise your hands.’

Mrs Owens scanned the room. One hand, that of the pretty red-headed music teacher Poppy Burt-Jones, shot up, sending her many bracelets jangling down her wrist. Then the Chalfens, Marcus and Joyce, an ageing hippy couple both dressed in pseudo-Indian garb, raised their hands defiantly. Then Samad looked pointedly at Clara and Archie, sitting sheepishly on the other side of the hall, and two more hands moved slowly above the crowd.

‘All those against?’

The remaining thirty-six hands lifted into the air.

‘Motion not passed.’

‘I am certain the Solar Covenant of Manor School Witches and Goblins will be delighted with that decision,’ said Samad, retaking his seat.

After the meeting, as Samad emerged from the toilets, having relieved himself with some difficulty in a miniature urinal, the pretty red-headed music teacher Poppy Burt-Jones accosted him in the corridor.

‘Mr Iqbal.’

‘Hmm?’

She extended a long, pale, lightly freckled arm. ‘Poppy Burt-Jones. I take Magid and Millat for orchestra and singing.’

Samad replaced the dead right hand she meant to shake with his working left.

‘Oh! I’m sorry.’

‘No, no. It’s not painful. It just does not work.’

‘Oh, good! I mean, I’m glad there’s no, you know, pain.’

She was what you would call effortlessly pretty. About twenty-eight, maybe thirty-two at most. Slim, but not at all hard-bodied, and with a curved ribcage like a child; long, flat breasts that lifted at their tips; an open-neck white shirt, some well-worn Levis and grey trainers, a lot of dark red hair swished up in a sloppy ponytail. Wispy bits falling at the neck. Freckled. A very pleasant, slightly goofy smile which she was showing Samad right now.

‘Was there something you wanted to discuss about the twins? A problem?’

‘Oh no, no… well, you know, they’re fine. Magid has a little difficulty, but with his good marks I’m sure playing the recorder isn’t high on his list, and Millat has a real flair for the sax. No, I just wanted to say that I thought you made a good point, you know,’ she said, chucking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the hall. ‘In the meeting. The Harvest Festival always seemed so ridiculous to me. I mean, if you want to help old people, you know, well, vote for a different government, don’t send them cans of Heinz spaghetti.’ She smiled at him again and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

‘It is a great shame more people do not agree,’ said Samad, flattered somehow by the second smile and sucking in his well-toned 57-year-old stomach. ‘We seemed very much in the minority this evening.’

‘Well, the Chalfens were behind you – they’re such nice people – intellectuals,’ she whispered, as if it were some exotic disease of the tropics. ‘He’s a scientist and she’s something in gardening – but both very down to earth with it. I talked to them and they thought you should pursue it. You know, actually, I was thinking that maybe we could get together at some point in the next few months and work on a second motion for the September meeting – you know, nearer the actual time, make it a little more coherent, maybe, print out leaflets, that sort of thing. Because you know, I’m really interested in Indian culture. I just think those festivals you mentioned would be so much more… colourful, and we could tie it in with art work, music. It could be really exciting,’ said Poppy Burt-Jones, getting really excited. ‘And I think it would be really good, you know, for the kids.’

It was not possible, Samad knew, for this woman to have any erotic interest in him whatsoever. But still he glanced around for Alsana, still he jangled his car keys nervously in his pockets, still he felt a cold thing land on his heart and knew it was fear of his God.

‘I’m not actually from India, you know,’ said Samad, with infinitely