REMEMBRANCE
Virtue’s English Dictionary,
Encyclopaedic Edition
Gay: merry. Given to
pleasure. Often to vicious pleasure.
Vicious
pleasure? In the old Georgian sense, perhaps, but what a definition. Her
childhood dictionary had transfixed Rumana for years. It had landed in her
parents’ bookcase by accident, left behind by a colleague of her father’s. From
the School of Oriental and African Studies, where Riz lectured in political
science. The search for definitions, the discovery of unknown words, fuelled
Rumana’s love of reading and followed her into adulthood. By which time gay
meant something else. Sexual and very specific. The dictionary, published long
ago, survived the cull of possessions when the house was sold. Along with her
new wave records and her brother’s stash of albums by The Clash. It was still
with her when she heard of lesbianism, and looked it up. Lesbian, and homosexual,
were nowhere to be found. Did such people, therefore, not actually exist? Were
they merely making themselves up?
Rumana placed
the dictionary on her shelf, alongside her books on the First World War. She
was pretty much an expert now on battles and artillery. She worked in museum
education and had endless questions to answer. From fans of Michael Murpurgo.
From the great grandchildren of soldiers and evacuees. From children whose
parents had fled modern, contemporary wars. She learned about wounded soldiers,
and the true effects of shrapnel and gas and grenades. And, to keep herself
from falling into weapons talk, she read the War Poets. To try and humanise the
horrors.
If only she’d
known, in school, that Wilfred Owen was gay. They’d taught the Great War in
language that she failed to relate to. She, 16 and Asian. Owen, white and
remote. In an age she could make no sense of. Of colonialists and
discrimination. Today she showed children how to make poppies. Little children,
proud and excited. And she wore her own poppy to commemorate the fall of Japan,
with its implications for her family. No fan of empire, for sure, but fully
aware of the fallen.
She was not
sure if she was gay herself. Discovery of this had come late. She’d loved her
ex, Seb. That was certain. But had it been sexual love, or romantic - almost
platonic - love for a very sensual and wonderful man? She was greatly aroused by Käthe, her German
teacher, and this confused her. Being gay, or bi, had not been an option when
she was growing up. Feelings for women were crushes. Men were the real deal,
preferably in marriage. Not that her parents were in any way traditional, or
even role models. Her mother read all kinds of literature, but failed to tell
her daughter about Virginia Woolf. Nusrat was an artist. She painted in bold
colours. Scenes of life in Karachi and London. In her private studio, where she
also painted Julian.
Until she was fourteen, Rumana had no concept of her parents as sexually active human beings. This dissolved
when she found out the truth. That Riz was shagging his colleague Louise at the
university and had fathered her child. Rumana’s older brother Sohail said he’d
known for a while, and that Nusrat too had been at it for years.
‘I wish they’d just split up,’ he said furiously. ‘They’re
staying together for other people.’
He presumably meant family in Pakistan, because Riz
and Nusrat had no interest at all in the emotions of their children. Their
marriage had been a disaster, despite its early promise. A clinical, sterile
home awaited Sohail at his birth. And his sister’s arrival added nothing. The
siblings wondered, as adults, why Nusrat had bothered to have them. She told
them once, after too much sherry. ‘To shut your Nani up.’
Riz and
Nusrat had plenty of sex, but not with each other. Always secret, and alluded
to in couched terms. Rumana considered their marriage to be transactional. It
was therefore not her parents, but society, that influenced her sexual choices.
St Ursula’s School for Girls, in Finchley, where the only talk was of
boyfriends and marriage. A girl named Amanda joined her year. She was funny.
Good at hockey. Long legs, and fair, plaited hair. Each felt shame at mutual,
shocking, attraction. Rumana, hearing sniggers on the sports field. Amanda,
scared to respond to unwanted and disgusting desires. Each shunned the other,
afraid to explore this new longing. Kissed boys to feel and appear Normal.
It was the eighties, after all, and they were fourteen.
One year
earlier, before Rumana had periods and a bra, she heard gossip in her parents’
living room. A newly divorced neighbour had been unearthed as a lesbian. Local
mothers, whose children played in this woman’s home, were banding together to
make her leave the street. To be rid of what Riz brazenly described as
perversion. Her father’s hypocrisy grated on her later, when she figured out
that he’d already slept with Louise. As for Nusrat, the free-thinking,
liberated artist, lesbians were ‘seeking attention.’ They were even giving birth
through artificial insemination. To what everyone, in wider society, referred
to as Freaks.
When Rumana was eighteen8 her parents made the break, and the
house without love was emptied.
Listening now
to Käthe talking about verbs and declension, Rumana felt a stirring that she
wanted to explore. She’d been in this class for weeks now, and her spoken
German was improving. It was the writing that was hard, and practice was
needed. She found Käthe vibrant and passionate. Keen to get everyone chatting –
in German, of course – and quite open about her sexuality. She had girlfriends,
she told them, but no one special. She didn’t have children. Rumana guessed she
wasforty, maybe forty-five. She imagined lying with her, making love. The mechanics of
it. Thoughts she’d forced herself to suppress, when she’d longed to kiss and
touch Amanda.
Since joining
the museum, with her Masters in Holocaust Education, Rumana had expanded her
reading. Her job made her brain swim with facts, conveyed to school parties on
a never-ending loop. It was why she wanted to learn German. The history of that
nation. The Holy Roman Empire. The Weimar Republic. The Nazis. The Holocaust
team was full, and they started her on War and Empire. She searched the museum
bookshop and picked out a novel. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, by Erich
Maria Remarque. A curious name. Intriguing. She may as well try it, and aim to
read it in German in a couple of years’ time. She’d only just joined the class
and her crush made her feel stupid. What if Käthe noticed how she felt, and
asked her to pull herself together? She began to make an effort, focusing
entirely on the lesson and fantasising after. She told Sohail and he laughed
out loud.
‘Don’t tell me you’re gay now. After all that stuff
with Seb.’
Seb, her
Romanian ex-lover. Sohail had loved the joke. Rumana. Romania. He’d liked Seb
and was sorry when the relationship came to an end. At the time, Rumana was in
love. She still loved Seb, unconditionally, but what she felt for Käthe was
voracious. She had certainly loved Seb with her body, and this left her
confused. Maybe we’re all a little bit ‘bi’? We’ve just been conditioned not
to be. The young had no hang-ups. They found it all totally normal. She
watched them scrolling all day, affirming all kinds of love and offering their
pronouns whole-heartedly. It was beautiful, she thought. A freeing of the body
and soul. Friends of her age were not so liberated, and she was lucky to have
her brother. An open-hearted guy with no complications. They’d had each other’s
back since childhood. Negotiated stepparents together. The departure to
Australia of their father, from whom they’d become estranged. Frequent
altercations with their mother, who had split from Julian long ago and lived
with a sculptor.
The book by
Remarque plunged Rumana into grief and led her to Wilfred Owen. This was when
she discovered that Owen was gay. Frustrating, she thought, that they didn’t
tell us this incredible fact. I would have wanted to read his poems. To
consider what we had in common, as victims of prejudice and assumption. It was
normal and rational, when Rumana was growing up, to use offensive words. To
yell out racial abuse. To spit at women in sarees and push dark children off
their bikes. Streets where you wouldn’t walk. Wilfred Owen would have
understood that. Gay-bashing. Can’t have been much different. Remarque had
survived the Great War, but Owen died in battle. She told children that all the
time. That the Armistice had been one week away.
It turned out
that Blighty came from an Indian word. Bilayati. Foreigner. Rumana was
shocked to read this, to discover the role of Indians in the war. She now had a
link to that time, and to Remembrance Day itself. A day of no significance in
her family home, but maybe that was an error. She lay on her sofa with one book
after another. Books from many genres and cultures, which taught her to travel.
She wondered what Käthe thought about the British Legion, and the poppies on
sale at Charing Cross station. They’d walked there together after class one
evening, and both had felt a spark. What were Käthe’s feelings about the Great
War, and of course about the Nazis? It never came up in class but didn’t
everyone share the revulsion? Class was no place for politics, but they often joked
about Brexit and the Indian-heritage PM. He and his mixed Cabinet, and their
Stop The Boats obsession.
Term ended
for a break at the end of October. A few drinks in the nearby bar, and a
definite frisson. Rumana felt Käthe’s hand stroking hers and flushed.
‘Which way are you walking?’
‘Whichever way you are,’ Rumana whispered.
Corny. Absurd. Have a little
sophistication.
‘Okay.’ Käthe smiled. ‘Do you want to come back, for a
– coffee?’
Reply slowly this time, with
decorum. Don’t rush ahead.
‘Maybe. Where do you live?’
‘Holland Park. Central Line.’
‘I don’t know it but I’m in Stratford. On the same line.’
‘Useful.’
Käthe felt for her fingers under the table.
‘I’m not your teacher tonight. And we are full adults.’
Doubt, mixed
with anticipation. Is Käthe the one? Was Rumana reading too much into
Käthe’s warm and open smile. Her desire to chat as class came to an end.
Waiting to walk together. Now, on the tube, hands touching. Too late for poppy
sellers to be out at this time. Books, on every shelf. What a paradise, Rumana
thought, as she entered the Holland Park flat.
‘I don’t know if you really want coffee right now,’
Käthe said.
‘I don’t think so –’
Overwhelmed, both, with desire. They fell onto the
sofa and began to kiss, feeling for one another. The first sight of the female
body, after all this time without knowing. Thumping heart and trepidation. For
weeks the fantasy. The auburn hair. The chance to stroke it, and to feel the
skin of this woman. Käthe laughing, afterwards, at the way it had unfurled.
‘I wanted to make a move,’ she whispered, ‘but I
didn’t want to be unprofessional.’
Coffee and
sliced bread for breakfast, and a traditional honey spoon. A very German
affair. The familiar food of many trips to Berlin. To Munich, and to the Black
Forest.
‘Have you had boyfriends?’ Käthe asked.
Rumana thought of Seb, of his generous words when they
split:
‘It didn’t work out, but it was incredible.’
He was a space
scientist, a man of unparalleled intelligence. They’d met at another museum and
she’d told him she didn’t get physics.
‘I can tell you about rocket science,’ he laughed. She
wondered how he’d feel if he saw her now, with Käthe. But he’d always been open
minded.
The coffee
was strong and they left for work with reluctance. They parted on the tube and
Rumana made her way to the museum. A museum of war, which she wished could be
re-named. To National Museum of War and Remembrance. She’d been here now for
two years, fielding the children’s obsession with weapons. Occasionally she
filled in at workshops on Holocaust education, and today she watched some Year
9’s in the permanent Holocaust exhibition. She’d been here with Seb, thinking
of their hero Elie Wiesel. Today there were quite a few older children heading
that way, persuaded by their teachers to take a look inside. All of them were
of South Asian appearance, just like her. As a group they pretended to titter.
They were scared of showing emotion. They gazed at the Nazi uniforms,
mesmerised and embarrassed. You weren’t supposed to admire things in here. It
was spelt out in the subsequent rooms what those uniforms had done. They left
the gallery feeling sick. Like the feeling you got after a funeral.
They behaved
quite well compared to some school parties. They exited quite fast and Rumana
made her way to the poppy workshop to meet the under-10s. They grilled her
about the Blitz, and compared it to life in Gaza and Ukraine. Their school was
in Mile End, not far from where she lived. Not one of them could have had a
relative in the Blitz but they understood about war and child evacuation.
‘My friend’s Ukrainian, Miss,’ a boy said. ‘His dad
had to stay to fight the Russians.’
She’d chosen not to have a child, though Seb had been
persuasive on the subject of adoption. She still considered it sometimes. She
thought of Käthe and pictured her as a mother. Teaching their adopted child, of
mixed or unknown origin, to speak and write German. If they adopted together
she’d be a mother too. A better, more loving, one than Nusrat had ever been.
She wondered
if Käthe would want to meet again. She’d been afraid to ask, and dared not look
at her phone. If only she could be more spontaneous. Seb was always jumping
into love, and he’d finally cracked it. He had a partner now whom Rumana saw on
his various social media profiles. A space psychologist named Mariella.
Her phone pinged as she went to lunch.
‘Dinner tonight – and more?’
They lay in
bed together, she and Käthe, at her flat in Stratford. They giggled a lot as
they drank.
‘Your books are – eclectic,’ Käthe smiled. ‘Space
exploration, the Vietnam War - and the Nazis. And you have a lot of different
novels.’
‘So do you. But forget the books,’ Rumana declared. ‘I
love you.’
Shocking herself. This had to be the gin. Käthe kissed
her, a little tenderly.
‘I’m falling in love with you too.’
‘Have you – ever slept with a man?’
Käthe, so free and upfront about her sexuality. Even
she had denied her first instincts.
‘I slept with a guy at university. I thought I was a
freak, when I didn’t – perform. You understand? And he wasn’t that gracious
about it.’
‘So how – when did you realise?’
‘I fell for a beautiful woman, a musician, at a party.
She guided me. That’s when I found out.’
‘But I – I’m mixed up. This, with you, is fantastic.
But I’ve enjoyed sex with guys.’
‘Don’t put a label on yourself. Just have fun.’
And this was
how it flowed. Rumana moved classes, to another night and another excellent
tutor. Love, unlabelled and beautiful. They reached the late autumn of 2024,
with a new government that didn’t seem so full of hate, and the poppy sellers
were out again. It was their first year anniversary and they were on their way
to meet Sohail, and his new partner Natalie, for a drink.
Walking to
the station. Holding hands. Past a tiny cabal of people with Jesus Loves You
placards. Gospel music on a phone. A glare from a woman with a poppy on her
coat, following them with a young girl.
‘Don’t you ever end up like that,’ she instructed her
daughter.
Her voice clear and bitter.
‘Excuse me,’ Rumana exploded.
‘Jesus died for you,’ the woman said boldly. The child
fixed Rumana and Käthe with a curious stare.
‘Jesus would have held our hands,’ Käthe laughed. ‘He
would have celebrated our passion.’
‘Are they lesbians, Mum?’ the girl said out loud.
‘They’re two very sick people. We’ll pray for you,’
the woman replied.
‘A gay man called Wilfred Owen died for you,’ Rumana
said.
The woman
scoffed and moved away but Rumana held back. The child. The child could not
hear this and be left without the truth. And the child didn’t want to move
away. Back to the staring Jesus lovers. Her brain was seeking an answer. An
explanation. Rumana looked into her eyes. Year 7, she guessed. An age to rebel.
She could be at the museum one day, reading Wilfred Owen’s poetry. Learning
about humans, shot into pits by degenerate, blind-drunk hooligans. She could
turn now into the future, or shuffle along with the poison. With the senders of
hate texts. The transphobes.
‘We’re just
two people in love,’ Rumana replied. ‘It’s a lot better than hate, isn’t it?’
For a moment
the child kept looking. At the women holding hands. At their obvious joy and
unison. Then she smiled and nodded her head. Watched the women in love moving
on, towards the Central Line. Into the crazy mix of London.
about the author
Nargis Lal is a new writer. Her achievements include:
Short-listed for Cranked Anvil Flash Fiction Prize with ‘VIRGINITY’
Long-listed for Fiction Factory Short Story Competition with ‘MATRICIDE’ and ‘WALTHAMSTOW VILLAGE’
She is British Indian. Her stories deal with sex, race, politics, and relationships
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