The Convert

Martin and I had been engaged for three months when we received the dinner invitation from his younger sister.  It worried me.  I didn’t even know he had a younger sister.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked.

Martin shrugged, and said, ‘She’s nothing to do with us anymore.’

Her name was Clara, and she was married to a man called Tariq.  They lived sixty miles away, in Birmingham.  She was estranged from the whole family, including her parents, and had been for three years.  Martin called his mum and dad to ask if they’d had an invitation too.  They had, and they weren’t going to see her.

I could only wonder: what could she possibly have done?  Martin’s family had always been so loving towards each other, and his parents were sweet to me.  They had welcomed me into the family with open arms, and couldn’t disguise how much they were looking forward to grandchildren, though they did try not to seem as though they were pressuring me.  For them to have disowned their own daughter… well, it must have been something terrible.

Of course, I asked Martin.  We were at home, having dinner, and I had done nothing but try and get him to talk about Clara.  The dinner she had invited us to was only a day away.  Finally I said, ‘Why don’t you have anything to do with her?’

‘It’s that man she married,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘He’s a Muslim.’

I waited.  That couldn’t be it - there had to be more.  There had to be, because this was the man I loved.  This was the man I was going to marry.

But no more came.

‘And?’ I said.

‘That’s it.’

‘Martin…’  But what could I say?

‘They’re allowed to have up to four wives, you know.’

‘Not in England they’re not,’ I said.  ‘It’s part of some cultures because it’s more effective for reproduction, but if Tariq had more than one wife here he’d be prosecuted.’

‘You sound like you’re making excuses for it,’ said Martin.

‘Well, it’s a reason.  I mean, just because it’s not what we’ve been brought up to believe…’

‘You think it’s okay?’

‘I don’t go around questioning other cultures.’

‘Oh,’ said Martin, ‘so you don’t question people going around crashing planes into towers, and blowing up trains full of people.’

Well, that did it.  I could only stare at him for… I don’t know how long.  Then he broke the silence with, ‘What?’

‘How can anyone be so fucking ignorant?’ I said.  ‘Extreme acts of violence are not part of Islamic culture!’

‘They do it in the name of God,’ he said.

Wow.  I wanted to yell, but I knew I had to try and be rational.

‘Your family’s Christian,’ I said.  ‘How do you justify the Ku Klux Klan?’

He frowned at me.  ‘We don’t.’

Perhaps I could have phrased it better, but at any rate I thought I’d made my point.

‘That’s not the same thing at all.’

Clearly, then, I hadn’t made my point.  I stood up and made straight for the front door.  Martin got up too and followed me, saying my name and grabbing my arm.  I span round and wrenched myself away.

‘Stay away from me.’

So, I didn’t know him at all, and after that I didn’t want to know him.  Yet I was still curious enough to go to Birmingham the next day.  I rang Clara and Tariq’s doorbell at six o’clock in the evening, just as the invitation had said.  Clara answered in full hijab, and I wondered what Martin would have thought about that.

I introduced myself.  Then, feeling rather silly for turning up without her brother, I said, ‘Martin’s not coming.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Clara.  ‘Do come in.’

‘We aren’t together anymore.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.  Why?’

‘I never even knew about you,’ I said.  ‘And then when I found out the reason they don’t see you anymore…’

‘It’s a shame,’ said Clara.  ‘I really hoped they’d all come tonight.’

‘Is anyone else coming?’  It occurred to me that if she had not received any replies to her invitations, she might not have made dinner after all.

‘Some cousins,’ she said.  ‘I’m glad.  They were children when I married Tariq, and now they consider themselves adults.  It’s amazing what three years can do.’

‘Peter and Lucy?’ I asked.  They were the children of a cousin of Martin’s, and the only relatives I could think of who fit Clara’s description.  They were fourteen and sixteen.

‘And Peter’s girlfriend,’ said Clara, ‘and Michael and James.’

Michael and James were the children of another cousin, but they were older: eighteen and nineteen.  It was the younger generation, and me.  I was twenty-six - five years younger than Martin.  I was glad those cousins were coming.  Not everyone over thirty is ignorant and prejudiced, but apparently they were in that family.  It was good to know there was hope for the young ones.

‘I hoped they’d all come,’ said Clara, ‘because I wanted them to meet Amal.’

I thought I could guess who Amal was - and sure enough, when Clara took me through to the back garden, a man I assumed to be Tariq was walking up and down the patio with a baby in his arms.  I didn’t have much experience with babies, but I estimated that she looked about three months old.  The same age as my engagement to Martin - but of course, that was a thing of the past now.

Tariq smiled when he saw me, and came over to introduce himself.

‘I feel really stupid,’ I said, ‘being here without Martin.  I mean, you’re not my family anymore, are you?’

‘Is there really no chance of that changing?’ asked Clara.

‘Not after what I heard him say about you two,’ I said.  ‘That’s not the man I fell in love with.  I don’t even know him.’

‘He’s just ignorant,’ said Tariq.  ‘They all are, who think badly of us.  Ignorance can’t be helped.  It’s only a bad thing when people are determined to stay ignorant.’

I shook my head.  ‘I can’t teach him.  I tried.’

‘Well,’ said Tariq, ‘you fell in love with something in him, and he with something in you.  If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’

‘Maybe,’ was the best answer I had.  ‘Can I hold her?’

The doorbell rang, and Clara went to answer it.  Tariq handed me Amal, and when I rocked her in my arms he said I was a natural.

‘So they do have a grandchild,’ I said.

‘They wanted one?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Will you tell them about her?’ asked Tariq.  ‘Clara isn’t sure that she wants them to know about Amal without loving her again first, but maybe this will make them see.’

‘All right,’ I said.  ‘I’ll tell him.’

He smiled at me, and said, ‘It’s never too late for the people you love.  I hope you and I can still be family.’