You Don't Know Me

The imam wasn’t the hook-hand-eye-patch-beardy-screamer that I was hoping for. He was just, you know, normal. He was maybe thirty with a trimmed beard. Not tall. Not fat. Just average. And he weren’t in some box or nothing or standing on top of a flight of stairs waving a stick around. He was sitting in the corner just saying goodbyes or whatever to some regulars.

‘Ah brother,’ he says standing up and offering me his hand, ‘Assalamalaikum.’

I gave my best try back at him.

‘You’re the young man Abdul mentioned. You’ve been waiting outside, he tells me. He thinks you had some questions perhaps?’ he says. I look round for the guy who brought me in, but he has gone.

‘Not really. I was just waiting for someone,’ I say and start shifting about in my socks.

He carries on smiling at me and part of me begins to feel sorry for him. I feel like I need to ask him something just so he feels better about having brought me in. I search for a question I can maybe ask him.

‘Actually I do have one question. Why does everyone stand so packed in tight together when they’re praying? You need more space or something?’

‘Muslims,’ he says, ‘are fond of saying that if there’s a space between two people praying then the Devil stands in it.’

‘Seen.’

‘But that isn’t what is really meant by that saying. It means that if you let people make spaces between each other when they are praying, then some people will say, “Oh I don’t want to stand next to that man, he looks dirty or he smells,” or something like this. The Devil is really in man’s behaviour, not standing in the mosque with horns and a tail,’ he says making a ‘horns’ sign with his fingers.

‘But maybe sometimes people don’t want to be standing next to some rank-smelling person. They want to be standing next to clean people,’ I say back. If you ever been on a bus in Peckham you will know what I mean.

‘Clean people are only dirty people who have washed. And dirty people are only clean people that have not yet washed,’ he says showing me a smile.

‘So we all the same then is that what you’re saying?’

‘No, we are not the same. But we can be.’

By the time I leave I know that Ki ain’t here. She has gone already. I had missed her again. I was going to ask the imam about where the ladies hang out but I thought maybe I would come off as some kind of pervert if I did that so I just shook his hand and left.

By the time that I get back to the flat, Ki is there already and is deep in conversation with Curt. I walk in and see them both sat around the table and flipping through the notes that she has made. Ki looks up and starts to speak as if she knows what I am going to say.

‘Look I know what you’re going to say,’ she says standing up and taking a step towards me, ‘but I can explain it.’

‘I doubt that. Because this shit is going to need more explaining than I think you got in the tank. But fire away Kira. Tell me. What the fuck is going on?’

‘I didn’t know for sure whether what I was being told was true. I had to, you know, test it out. That’s why I told Curt, so he could get back to me if it all checked out. And it does!’ she says her eyes going wide with excitement.

‘Wait, wait, wait. You didn’t know if what you were being told was true? Being told by who? Who, Kira? Who is giving you all this vine?’ I say now with my voice at max revs.

‘One of the girls in the mosque. I overheard her speaking to one of her friends. It was her. That is who I got it from. That’s why I have been going there every day. To pick up bits and pieces.’

‘One of the girls? Are you crazy Ki? Just some random girl starts talking to her mate and suddenly you know that a proper big man gangster is planning a hit on Guilty? You expect me to believe that?’

‘It’s not some random girl,’ she says quietly and then her tone changes a bit, ‘and anyway what does it matter if you believe it or not? It is checking out.’

‘Are you even that stupid? You believe some girl you don’t even know? How you even know that you’re not being set up by Face himself? And who is this girl anyway. You still haven’t said.’

‘It’s Face’s girlfriend. Or to give him his real name, Faisal’s girlfriend. Look whether you believe me or you don’t believe me the fact is that I trust what I am hearing. She is not setting me up because she has no idea who I am. I don’t even talk to her. I just sit close by and listen in.’

‘So how do you know that she is Face’s girl? Or that Face is this Faisal guy? Come on Ki you’re smarter than that,’ I go, getting angry now at how stupid this is all sounding to me.

Just then her phone pings up a message and she quickly clicks her phone and puts it back in her handbag. She thinks I ain’t seen it. But I have.

‘Obviously I didn’t at first. But the more I heard, the more it sounded like it could be him. That is why I had to tell Curt. So he could check it out. See if it was real.’

Curt gets up from the table holding the pad.