You Don't Know Me

I pulled on a hoodie low over my eyes and jumped down the stairwell to the communal doors. I pushed open the heavy metal doors and the light hit me, like bam. And then all the smells that I had nearly forgotten. It was strange to be out in the proper daytime. It felt like I hadn’t really seen real daylight for time. The closest I had got to the outside was that day with the Alpina but that was more or less night-time. I looked up at the sky which was getting darker by the second and pulled my clothes tight to me. I ran to the nearest bus stop and put my head under the shelter just as the first drops of rain started. For some reason I couldn’t quite work out, I felt really uneasy. Like some bad shit was going to happen.

I jumped on the first bus I saw and sat on the lower deck away from the kids at the top who were making the kind of noise that people without real problems can make. All I wanted to do was to make sure she was okay, I said to myself as I stared out of the window. The ride was a short one maybe two stops. Then I saw the low, square building come into view. I rang the bell and then got off and jogged up to it keeping close to the walls to try and avoid the rain. It still had the words ‘Community Centre’ high up on the bricks, just above the words ‘Camberwell Community Mosque’. I took a deep breath and approached the main doors.

The prayers were still in progress when I got there so I hung back outside and waited close by in a doorway to avoid the rain. I didn’t really want to be interrupting no prayers. You know you don’t want to be fucking wid no Muslims breders when they in the middle of praying. They don’t take to that kind of shit well from what I hear.

Ten minutes or so later the people started pouring out. Hundreds of them. Made you wonder how they could get so many people in one small place. I mean literally, there were hundreds of them. There were even more people in here than in my mum’s church and trust, her church packs them in on any given Sunday. This mosque though must have been rammed with three times the numbers I even saw in a church. I didn’t go in but I had a sneaky look in through the windows of the double doors.

It’s just like it is on TV. Rows and rows of people, not an inch between them, all praying. I have to tell you, for a second I started to wonder whether there was maybe something in this religion thing. That many people all cramming into one tiny space, all praying? It’s not like they even got chairs you get me. It’s all just floor. You didn’t go to a place like that just to get some quiet time or because your mum made you go but you could still doze off and think about at least getting a Sunday lunch after. And there weren’t even no singing you get me. This was more like the gym. The kind of place you go to do your thing and then leave.

So anyway, I waited to see if I could see Ki when I realized that the only people coming out were men. I don’t mean mainly men. I mean all men. Every single one. So when the last few stragglers were coming out I stopped one of the younger guys.

‘Hey, is there ladies in this place?’ I said keeping my eyes low.

‘Sisters’ entrance round the back,’ he says as he’s slipping his shoes on and then mingles in with the rest of the crowd heading out.

Who knew there was a ladies’ entrance? Shit. I ran round the back just in time to see the door open. And then slowly at first, they start to come out, until there’s maybe sixty of them out there. And then slowly it hits me. I’m a idiot.

Every second one of these ladies is in a black burkha. There are dozens of Kiras. All star-bursting into different directions to get out of the rain. Shit. I can’t follow all of them so I decide I got no choice but to get back. Quickly.

I kept it on the low, head down, hoodie zipped up, eyeballed no one. In less than ten minutes I was racing back up the stairs to my flat. Breath heavy with all the no-exercise I was doing at that time. I know to look at me with all these prison muscles I look like a superhero but in them days, cooped up in that flat, I was more Fatman than Batman.

The thing that messed me up though when I got back in was that Ki still wasn’t back. Maybe she was still inside hanging with a few of the sisters until the rain stopped, I thought. It was possible since I didn’t actually go into the building. And anyway she weren’t going in there to pray so maybe she was up in some room somewhere where maybe people go to meditate or whatever.

So when she did turn up an hour later, I didn’t say anything. Nobody wants to be one of them type of guys who stalks his own girlfriend innit?

She breezed in holding her burkha over one arm and came into the kitchen bit where I was heating up some soup for lunch. She gave it a jokey, ‘Honey I’m home,’ draped her burkha over one chair and sat on another by the table.

‘Hey come sit, we need to talk,’ she says and smiles at me.