The Black Album Read online

Deedee Osgood

  Andrew Brownlow

  Chili

  Zulma

  In a company of nine, other characters may be doubled as follows

  Young Man, Councillor Rudder, Reporter (Strapper)

  Heavy 1 (Andrew Brownlow)

  Heavy 2 (Chad)

  Old Man, Cameraman (Chili)

  Tahira, Mother (Zulma)

  Act One

  SCENE ONE

  Rural, suburban sounds, late afternoon. Lights fade up on a map of the world, followed by the legend HASAN TRAVELS. Shahid enters, wrapped in an overcoat and carrying two suitcases. He puts them down and looks at the map and the legend. Mother enters.

  Mother Arey, Shahid …!

  She pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket, spits on it and proceeds to wipe his face.

  Going to college in London and so not smart.

  Shahid (protesting) Ammi …

  Mother How happy your papa will be in paradise when you return with a college degree.

  Shahid HND, Ammi –

  Mother (dismissive) Degree is a degree. (Exclaims.) My one son charms a beautiful girl like Zulma from Karachi –

  Shahid Not exactly difficult.

  Mother Don’t argue. Chili and Zulma are a golden couple. And you are about to charm books into a degree! Have you packed toothpaste? All-Bran? Wake up, brush your teeth, have All-Bran with yoghurt and straightaway you will have perfect motions, smooth as the day is long. Promise me.

  Shahid Yes, Ammi.

  Mother And ring. Every evening I want to hear progress report, just like your papa used to. Socks – have you packed enough?

  Shahid Yes.

  Mother Here’s a kebab roll to eat on the train –

  Shahid I’m only going to London –

  Mother You’ll get hungry – why waste money? I’ve also precisely told Chili to take good care of you. He will visit often –

  Shahid Oh, no.

  Mother Listen to what he says. Packed the computer Papa bought you?

  Shahid Of course.

  Mother Papa will be so pleased. And Shahid?

  Shahid What?

  Mother Don’t talk to strangers.

  Shahid picks up his cases and leaves. Mother hides her face in her sari and starts crying. As he walks off, soundscape gradually shifts to polyglot and frenetic late-eighties London, and we see him journey to his north London digs. Strapper bumps into him.

  Strapper Want some E?

  Shahid (surprised) What?

  Strapper (urgent) E, man – ecstasy! Want some?

  Shahid No!

  Strapper Keep your shirt on, Paki!

  Strapper runs off. Shahid arrives at his digs, unpacks his new Amstrad computer and sits down to work.

  As he works, London day and night life passes by in the rooms around him – lodgers variously dancing, smoking dope, praying. Shahid is seen going between his computer and his bed, eating, reading, working and having a wank. The light in his room flickers off.

  SCENE TWO

  Shahid’s digs. There is a knock, followed by a door opening.

  Riaz (in Urdu) Khariat hai? [All okay?]

  Shahid (startled, in Urdu) J-ji … Aur aap? [Yes … And you?]

  Riaz (in Urdu) Jho Allah-tala ko manzoor … [Whatever Allah wills.] (Introducing himself.) Riaz Al-Hussain.

  Shahid (introducing himself) Shahid Hasan.

  Riaz You speak Urdu well.

  Shahid Rusty.

  The light flickers back on.

  Riaz Have you eaten? When I am studying and writing I forget for hours to eat and then I remember that I am ravenous. Are you like this?

  Shahid Only when reading a good book.

  Riaz You are searching for something.

  Shahid Am I?

  Riaz (clears space and settles himself in the room) Come.

  Shahid (confused) Where?

  Riaz Sit, sit. I’ve ordered food from an excellent Pakistani takeaway near here.

  Shahid Thank you.

  Riaz The boy will come soon. Where are you from?

  Shahid Sevenoaks, Kent.

  Riaz I am from Lahore originally.

  Shahid That ‘originally’ is a big thing.

  Riaz You recognise that, eh? You are a Pakistani at heart.

  Shahid Well … not quite.

  Riaz But yes. I have observed you before.

  Shahid Have you? What was I doing?

  Riaz You are hard-working. We all are who come here. I am without a doubt over your earnestness.

  Shahid I’m desperate for good Indian food.

  Riaz Naturally you miss such food.

  A knock on the door.

  Ah, here he is.

  He opens the door to Hat, bringing the takeaway.

  Meet Shahid – he’s been living quietly in the room next to mine. A proper student!

  Hat Salaam-a-leikum. I am Hat.

  Shahid Shahid.

  Riaz His father owns the takeaway. He is paying for him to study at the college.

  Hat (to Shahid) Nice room, brother.

  Riaz (to Hat) Have you brought your abha’s famous brinjal pakoras to start with?

  Hat (putting the takeaway cartons on Shahid’s computer table) Everything exactly as ordered. Kebab rolls as well.

  Riaz (exclaiming) Masha-Allah!

  He sits on the floor and opens the cartons.

  Come, Shahid – eat!

  Hat (to Riaz) Papa very annoyed – he say definitely no more meetings in our café.

  Riaz (reassuring as he eats) We will respect his wishes. Don’t worry – now go.

  Hat hesitates.

  (Realising.) Ah! The money, of course. Take out a note from my pocket. Come, come, Shahid – this is the best food in London!

  Hat fishes a fiver out of Riaz’s pocket, as Shahid joins him in eating.

  Shahid Are you a student too, Riaz?

  Riaz Yes, of the law. Before, I gave only general and legal advice to the many poor and uneducated people who came to see me in Leeds. But now it is time to make a proper study. So, here I am in London – the mecca for all students, no? (Notices Hat standing by.) You need more money?

  Hat (brandishing the fiver) I have no change!

  Riaz Arey, give it to me later. (To Shahid.) Your family name is Hasan, am I right?

  Shahid Yes.

  Riaz (glowing) A family that bears the name of the martyred son of Ali can only be of great distinction.

  Hat browses through Shahid’s bookshelf.

  Shahid I’d like to think so.

  Riaz How, then, did they let you come to such a derelict college?

  Shahid Because I met a lecturer called Deedee Osgood. I really liked her. So I enrolled. Do you know her?

  Riaz Oh, yes, she has a reputation at the college.

  Shahid At my interview, she only asked what I liked to read and the music I listened to. I talked of Midnight’s Children – have you read that?

  Riaz (indicating Hat browsing Shahid’s shelf) Hat has never seen a book before – he is an accountant. (Returning to Shahid’s question.) That book was accurate about Bombay. But this time he has gone too far.

  Shahid When that writer got on TV and attacked racism, Riaz, I wanted to cheer. He spoke from the heart.

  Riaz My abha spoke from the heart. He set me on the path of showing our suffering people their rights.

  Shahid That’s exactly what the man argued on TV – our rights against racism.

  Riaz How do you like the pakoras?

  Shahid They taste just like my ammi’s.

  Hat Wicked, yaar! I’ll tell my abha. He be dead pleased.

  Riaz (to Shahid) What does your abha do?

  Shahid Travel agent. He bought the agency where he worked as a clerk when he first came to Sevenoaks.

  Riaz (exclaiming, with satisfaction at having polished off a kebab roll) Al-hum du’lilla – he found his right path.

  Shahid Mum runs the agency now with my brother Chili. His wife Zulma’s from Karachi.

  R
iaz While your papa enjoys a well-earned retirement!

  Shahid (matter of fact) He died six months ago.

  Riaz (sympathetic, as he wipes his fingers on a handkerchief) To pass your last days so far from home must have been very painful for him.

  Shahid Not Papa. Every evening he’d lie in bed in his smoking jacket and entertain visitors like some pasha. His ‘centre of operations’, he’d call it, swigging whisky and soda in a long glass, with Glenn Miller on the turntable.

  Riaz looks at him.

  Him and Ammi – they’d never go anywhere themselves, apart from Karachi once a year.

  Riaz Your brother, he is in charge of the business now?

  Shahid Chili? He has a looser attitude to work.

  Riaz Is he a dissipater?

  Shahid bristles.

  (Urging him on.) Eat, eat!

  Shahid complies.

  What do our people really have in their lives?

  Shahid Some have security and purpose at least.

  Riaz They have lost themselves.

  Shahid They’ve certainly lost something. My parents always despised their work and laughed at customers for boiling their bodies on foreign beaches.

  Riaz Precisely right! No Pakistani would dream of being such an idiot by the seaside – as yet. But soon – don’t you think? – we will be parading about everywhere in these bikinis.

  Shahid That’s what my mother and Chili are waiting for. I’ve got to tell you, Riaz – after Papa died – this is the truth now –

  Riaz Anything less is worthless.

  Shahid I lost it for a while. Did badly at school. I’d, uh, got my girlfriend pregnant, and she’d had to have a late abortion. I started hitting the clubs after that, just bumming around. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I wanted – wanted to – uh –

  Riaz Yes, yes?

  Chad enters.

  Chad Riaz, brother –

  Riaz gestures for Chad to keep quiet.

  Riaz (to Shahid) Speak openly – he is one of us.

  Shahid I wanted to be a racist.

  Chad What kind of thing are we talking about here?

  Shahid Go around abusing Pakis, niggers, Chinks, Irish, any foreign scum. Slag them under my breath. Kick them up the arse.

  Riaz Open your heart.

  Shahid The thought of sleeping with Asian girls made me sick. I wouldn’t touch brown flesh, except with a branding iron. Even when they came on to me, I couldn’t bear it. I thought, you know, wink at an Asian girl and she’ll want to marry you up.

  Riaz Oh, how is this done?

  Chad You didn’t want to be a racist. I’m telling you that here and now for definite. And I’m informing you that it’s all all right now.

  Shahid I am a racist.

  Chad You only a vessel.

  Shahid I wanted to join the British National Party. I would have filled in the forms if they have forms. How do you apply to such an organisation?

  Chad Would the brother know? Listen. It been the longest, hardest century of racism in the history of everything. How can you not have picked up the vibe in this distorted way? There’s a bit of Hitler in all white people – they’ve given that to you.

  Riaz Only those who purify themselves can escape it. Racism turns us away from ourselves. But there is another way. I am honoured to know you, Shahid.

  He hugs him.

  Shahid I’m pleased to have met you tonight.

  Riaz Thank you. I too have learned.

  Chad (to Shahid) I am hearing every moment of your soul cry. Call me Chad.

  They embrace.

  (To Riaz.) We need to sort things for the meeting.

  Riaz Hat’s papa doesn’t want us to meet in his café any more.

  Chad But Tahira’s bringing all the petitioners there!

  Riaz Tell her to delay until we find another place – I have too many petitions and letters to work on for everyone to meet in my room.

  Shahid You can meet here.

  Riaz (delighted) Al-hum du’lilla – you are a Pakistani at heart!

  Shahid I’ll just put my books and Prince collection away and –

  Chad (quickly) You say Prince?

  Shahid Yeh, I’ve got all his records – even the Black Album.

  Chad No way, man – I mean brother – that bootleg.

  Shahid Picked it up in Camden Market.

  Chad Right. Right. It good for bootlegs.

  Shahid Want it?

  Chad Never! We are slaves to Allah! He the only one we must submit to.

  Shahid It’s only music.

  Riaz Only those who purify themselves can escape it.

  Chad (to Shahid) The brother mean your soul – you got to clean yourself inside from all that white shit.

  Shahid Prince is black.

  Chad There’s more to life than entertaining ourselves! Brother, you got a lot to learn.

  Riaz gets up.

  The brother need fresh air. We all do. Phew.

  Riaz We are pleased to have you with us.

  They leave.

  Shahid returns to his computer. Music. The college bell rings.

  SCENE THREE

  Morning. A run-down, inner-city further education college. Noisy class. Wolf whistles and comments fly as Deedee strides through the room.

  Deedee Our subject today is the Black struggle in America –

  Various excited comments fly around the class.

  – as reflected in popular culture.

  She clicks on a slide: a photo of young Emmett Till. Comments fly around on the look of this young, fresh-faced Black young man.

  Fifteen-year-old Emmett Till – a boy living in Chicago in the 1950s. One day, he went to visit his relatives who lived in a small town in Mississippi. On the High Street, he saw a young white woman –

  Someone in class lets out a wolf whistle.

  Stop that! He did it for a dare. That night, the woman’s husband and brother paid him a visit. They took him to a warehouse, broke his wrists and ankles, gouged out his left eye and shot him through the head. Then, they tied his neck to a seventy-pound fan used for winnowing cotton and dumped the body in a nearby river – where it was found by fishermen three days later. This is what Emmett Till looked like after his trip to the South.

  She clicks on another slide – photo of Emmett Till in his coffin.

  Emmett Till’s mother wanted the whole world to see what had been done to her baby. So she insisted on an open coffin at his funeral.

  Tahira How did the whites react?

  Deedee Many accused her of being eager for publicity –

  Tahira That’s blaspheming, right?

  Deedee Only in the sense that it blasphemed the reality of what happened to her son.

  Tahira So the blasphemers were racists?

  Deedee You could say that.

  She starts another set of slides, depicting the Civil Rights movement and popular Black musicians, writers, sportsmen and other artists.

  I want you to focus on the extraordinary creativity that emerged from America by artists questioning segregation.