Notes

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Chapter 1: The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archibald Jones

Alfred Archibald Jones decides to commit suicide in Cricklewood Broadway, outside of a halal butcher on New Years Day. Mo- Hussein Ishmael noticed Archie’s car sitting in the loading dock where he would block deliveries and asked his son to get Archie to move. When confronted Archie told them he was gassing himself and would like to be left alone. But the confrontation is eventually enough to remind Archie that he wants to be alive and he profusely thanks the uninterested butcher before driving off.

His wife Ophelia, whom he never loved, left him after thirty years of marriage. Mental illness ran in her family and she began to believe shortly after they got together that she was the maid of Cosimo de’ Medici. Archie’s friend from the war, Samad Miah Iqbal, tries to convince him to forget his wife and marry someone young and fresh like he recently did.

When Archie almost died, his life flashed before him: His time in the war (and its insignificance to all but him), his work as a folding paper designer, when he tied for thirteenth place in the Olympics with a Swede named Horst Ibelgaufts who continued to send him updates of his life for years. With his newfound lease on life he resolved to seek out excitement and leave his old life behind. He drove until he found a house advertising an “End of the World” party, which he convinced the man at the door (Merlin/Tim Westleigh) to let him in on despite his advanced age. He meets a group of eccentric party-goers who offer him a place in the commune and Clara Bowden, his future wife.

Characters

Alfred Archibald Jones (1)

Mo Hussein-Ishmael (2)

• Owner of the Hussein-Ishmael, a halal butcher shop

Varin (3)

• A “massively overweight Hindu boy” who is training at the butcher shop

Arshad (3)

• Mo’s son

Ophelia (7)

• Archie’s wife

Santa Maria (8)

• The “Spanish home-help” who hates Archie for leaving his wife and being pathetic

Samad Miah Iqbal (10)

• Fought alongside Archie in the war
• Recently moved to London with his young wife

Alansa (10)

• Samad’s young wife

Horst Ibelgaufts (13)

• Swedish track cycler with whom Archie tied for 13^th place during the Olympics
• Sends Archie letters with updates about his life

Daria and Melanie (14)

• Prostitutes that Horst and Archie hooked up with after the Olympics
• Daria was the last thing Archie saw before he made the choice to live

Tim Westleigh/Merlin (15)

• Owner (?) of the house where the commune party is taking place

Clive, Leo, Wan-Si, and Petronia (18)

• Young people Archie spends the day getting drunk with and begins to feel close to before getting into an argument about WW2

Clara Bowden (19)

• A toothless, beautiful nineteen year old woman who Archie marries

Chapter 2: Teething Trouble

Clara is a black Jehovah’s Witness who attends a private catholic school with the intention of converting the lost souls there. Her dad had moved to England ahead of them from Jamaica on the pretense of making enough money that they could follow. Instead, he came down with a mystery illness that left him mute, lazy, and glued to the television.

Ryan Topps was the only other non-Catholic at St. Jude’s and he was considered completely revolting by the school body. But Clara related to him and felt entranced by him and believed she could save him so they could live together forever in God’s Paradise. The end of the world was scheduled for January 1^st, 1975 and Clara and her family were ready.

Clara met Ryan while she was doorstepping and he invited her in. She became friends with his stoner friends and managed to keep him a secret from her mom for a time. When her mom met Ryan they hit it off and Clara began to see him in a different light. Clara realized that Ryan and her mom were trying to save her ahead of the coming apocalypse and ran off to throw her “End of the World” party where the world didn’t end. This affected Clara more than she expected and Archie seemed like a good idea in the wake.

Characters

Ryan Topps (24)

• Thin, red-headed freckled boy who drives a Vespa scooter and cares about little else

Hortense Bowden (26)

• Clara’s mom

Darcus Bowden (26)

• Clara’s dad

Chapter 3: Two Families

Clara and Archie got married against the wishes of their friends and family. Though Clara has given up her faith she still feels a need to live a godly life. Clara quickly learned that Archie is not a romantic or passionate lover, he is simply good enough. She asked him to take her away to Morocco or Belgium and he moved her to a good enough house in North London. Their only friends are Samad and Alsana, who are also the only people who accepted their wedding invitation.

Samad and Alsana just moved nearby from a worse area because Alsana is pregnant. She has been working nonstop making clothing for a sex store (though she doesn’t seem to know that’s what it is) while Sadam works the night shift at his cousin’s restaurant where he made measly tips. He never sees the sun or his wife and is denied a raise when he asks for one. Both men are learning that their young new wives are not as easy to handle as they initially anticipated.

Characters

Ardashir Mukhul (47): Samad’s younger cousin and boss

• Owns the Palace restaurant
• Hussein-Ishmael (the butcher) is his brother-in-law

Shiva (47): Young cocky waiter who hates having to pool tips with the uglier, older men

Muhammed (47): Ardashir’s eighty-year-old great-uncle who works as a waiter at the Palace

Neena (53): Alsana’s niece who works cobbling heels back onto shoes

• Alsana repeatedly refers to her as her “Niece of Shame”

Places

Willesden Green (39): As they drove along the area flipped between poorer, derelict homes and large stately home surrounded by giant oak trees. Archie and Clara’s house was somewhere in between.

Chapter 4: Three Coming

Clara calls Archie at work to tell him that she is pregnant, and Archie buys sweets that none of his coworkers will take to celebrate. His boss, Mr. Hero, uninvites him to company dinners because his wife is black.

Clara and Alsana grow closer, both because of their pregnancies and because of their shared experience as young wives of old, boring husbands. They go to the park with Neena and talk of the babies (Alsana is having twins) and discuss their opinions on men and marriage in general.

Characters

Noel (58): The office junior

Gary from accounts (59)

Elmott (59): Archie’s fellow paper-folder

Mr. Hero (59): Kelvin Hero, Archie’s boss and the owner of MorganHero

Maureen (59): The MorganHero receptionist who is a little bit into Archie

Sol Jozefowicz (67): An old man who fought in the war with Samad and “polices” the park even though no one pays him to do it anymore

Chapter 5: The Root Canals of Archibald “Archie” Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal

We go back to when Archie and Samad were “soldiers” during WW2. They didn’t really fight in the war; they were a part of a group that would repair bridges after they were bombed. Samad got fed up after Archie had been staring at him for days straight and confronted him about it. From then on, Samad took a liking to Archie. Or at least spoke at him.

Samad hates how little action their brigade sees. He also hates that he’s a private in the British army when he was an officer in India. He thinks he’s above the work that they do and he believes that he must follow in the steps of his great-grandfather, Mangal Pande, who was a hero in the Indian mutiny.

The group gets stranded in a Bulgarian village. While the others attempt to work the radio, Samad and Archie go and eat in the town. When they come back to the tank the others have been murdered. They repair the radio but no one responds. The two become closer because of their situation. They would sleep in an abandoned church and eat dinner at a café in the town. Samad reveals to Archie that he has been promised the daughter of the Begum family, even though they have yet to have a daughter.

Russian soldiers show up in the town and inform the pair that the war has been over for 2 weeks. They are there on the belief that Dr. Sick, a French shut in in the village, is a nazi who worked on the sterilization project. Samad sees his opportunity (spurred on by morphine he has started taking secretly) to gain glory and pretends he is a captain and can lead the expedition. They go to capture Dr. Sick but Samad loses conviction as the morphine wears off. He becomes angry and upset with himself, going as far as to stick his gun in his mouth with the intention of killing himself. He is stopped when a Russian soldier comes spots and Archie tells him Samad is just cleaning his gun, the Bengali way.

They capture Dr. Sick and handcuff him while they go to celebrate with cards and more alcohol. Samad is much better at cards than any of the other guys and starts to win everything they have. He offers to give everything back in exchange for being allowed to take Dr. Sick away themselves, unreported. Him and Archie get into the Jeep with Dr. Sick and Samad tells Archie that he must kill him because it is his destiny. They fight for a while until Samad riles Archie up so bad that he drags Dr. Sick out of the Jeep and shoots him. He comes back with a limp.

Characters

Roy Mackintosh (72): Co-driver of the tank in the bridge brigade

Will Johnson (72): The gunner

Captain Thomas Dickinson-Smith (72): Recently promoted to captain, not-so-secretly queer and into Samad

Mangal Pande (75): Samad’s great-grandfather who fired the first shot during the Indian Mutiny

Dr. Sick/Dr. Marc-Pierre Perret (81): A man in a ran-down house in the village who can’t move because he is too sick

• Nazi scientist involved in the sterilization and euthanasia programs

Comrade Nikolai “Nick” Pesotsky (91): The Russian solider leading his men to capture the nazi scientist and bring him to justice

Chapter 6: The Temptation of Samad Iqbal

The story moves in time again to 1984, focusing on Samad Miah Iqbal this time. His twin boys, Millat and Magid, are nine years old. Samad finds himself at PTO meetings, pushing for less anglicized school festivals and functions, which the English chairwoman and timekeeper of the PTO have come to expect and disdain. He tries to pass a motion to get of the pagan Harvest Festival so that Muslim holidays can have a chance to be celebrated.

The motion doesn’t pass, but it is supported by the boys’ music teacher, Poppy Burt-Jones. She was young and beautiful and Samad immediately became entranced with her when she came up to him after the board meeting to express her support for the motion. They plan a meeting to reintroduce the motion closer to the festival date and Samad spends the next two months thinking about nothing but her. Making deals with God so he can masturbate all of the time to try and get her out his mind. It does not work.

When the date comes around, Samad offers to take the boys and Irie to school where he sits in on their music class. Samad has forbidden the boys to go to Harvest Festival and convinced Archie to keep Irie home in solidarity. Instead, Samad wishes to take Magid with him on Hajj. Magid and Irie are staging a vow of silence to protest this injustice. When the music class is over, Poppy Burt-Jones asks Samad what Muslim holiday Magid is honoring and he is forced to make up an answer.

Samad spends the entire music class and the meeting afterwards fantasizing about Poppy Burt-Jones until he is overcome and kisses her in the tiny instrument storage closet she uses as an office.

Characters

Katie Miniver (106): The recently divorced chairwoman of the PTO

• Ellen Corcoran and Janine Lanzerano (108) are two friends of hers from the Women’s Action Group

Mrs. Hanson (106): The “fat woman behind him”, another parent at the meeting

Mrs. Khilnani (106): The secretary of the PTO

Magid Iqbal (107): A smart and serious boy who only wears grey sweaters and dress shoes

• Tells his friends behind his parent’s backs that his name is Mark Smith
• The eldest by two minutes

Millat Iqbal (107): Fully engrained in English culture, loves video games and pop music

Mrs. Owens (108): The school headmistress

Poppy Burt-Jones (110): The school’s red-headed music teacher

Marcus and Joyce Chalfen (110): “An aging hippie couple dressed in pseudo-Indian garb

Irie (113): Archie and Clara’s daughter who is in the same grade and Magid and Millat

Shiva (118): Now a little older, he hasn’t “made it” like he thought he would and is still working at the Palace

• Tries to help Samad out when he stops eating and is clearly hard all of the time and is getting on everyone’s nerves at work

Chapter 7: Molars

Samad is preparing to meet Poppy in Harlesden and the boys are delivering charity to an elderly man with Irie as part of the Harvest Festival. The old man, Mr. Hamilton, can’t eat any of the apples or canned chickpeas the kids brought him because he doesn’t have any teeth. He begins to tell the kids that he was only able to identify black men in the Congo by their white teeth (144). Millat tells him his dad was in the war for England and Mr. Hamilton tells him he will lose his teeth for lying. Millat flips the tea table. Irie is crying and the kids leave.

Samad and Poppy are walking down the street in Harlesden when they catch the attention of Mad Mary, a homeless woman in North London who curses people and chases them down if they make eye contact. She spits on Samad and whacks them with her stick (147). Samad believes that Mad Mary chooses him because she can see that they are similar, that he is also mad. He is able to talk her down and him and Poppy are able to continue walking down the street. They are talking to postpone the physical act that neither of them can avoid. They get into a little spat because Samad feels guilty, but in the end, he admits he wants to spend the night with her. She gives him a gift of a red toothbrush. As she pulls it out, Samad spots Magid and Millat waving at them across the street.

Characters

J.P. Hamilton (135): The old toothless white man the children are randomly assigned to provide charity to for the Harvest Festival

Hakim and Zinat Mahal (139): Samad’s cousin and his wife who run a €1 + 50p shop in Harlesden (where Poppy lives)

• Zinat is known to gossip about everything widely

Mad Mary (146): “a black voodoo woman” who lives in a garbage can palace and receives free food from every shop because they’re scared of her curses

• “Mad Mary was a beautiful, a striking woman: A noble forehead, a prominent nose, ageless midnight skin and a long neck such as queens can only dream about. But it was her alarming eyes, which shot out an anger on the brink of collapse” (148)

Chapter 8: Mitosis

Samad tells Archie about the affair and they meet up for an extended session at their favorite pub, O’Connell’s Poolroom. More than the affair itself Samad is worried about the boys, about them losing their roots, England corrupting them. It is decided that the boys must go to Bangladesh but there is only money enough for one of them to go. After going back and forth, Samad plans for Magid to be secretly flown to Bangladesh in the middle of the night. He does not tell Alsana but she knows and there is a confrontation one night after Samad gets home from work.

She is listening to the news that the prime minister of India has been assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. This will cause violence and chaos for months to come and she fears for her friends and family. Samad thinks she is crying because she found out about Poppy and lashes out. He continues to berate her once he realizes what she’s upset about and they fight in the backyard while the boys come down to bet on who will win. Samad tells the boys it is the country that makes them fight like this. After the fight he calls Poppy to end the affair.

At work on the night Magid is to leave, a table requests Samad to serve them. When he gets there he sees it’s Poppy and her sister, who berate him the whole time. At 1 am, when the shift is over, Archie is waiting outside with his car. The three kids were having a sleepover and Archie had to wake them all to get Magid so they’re all in the car, delirious and excited because it’s so late. Samad tells them that Magid is going on a trip with his aunt and when prompted he lies and tells him he’ll be back in time for school Monday, to see his photosynthesis project grow.

Abdul-Mickey (154): The owner/waiter/bartender of O’Connell’s Poolroom

• All of the sons in his family are named Abdul and use an English nickname to make it less confusing
• He’s the one who pitches the “send the kids back to the home country” idea

Denzel and Clarence (157): Two elderly men who are miserable and make everyone else miserable

Abdul-Jimmy (159): Abdul-Mickey’s youngest son, who is in trouble with the law for stealing VW medallions

Ravind (171): The newest waiter at the Palace, the chef’s sixteen-year-old nephew who Ardashir belittles at their “pep talk”

Chapter 9: Mutiny!

Alsana believes that living in Bangladesh, with its constant cyclones and floods and instability, makes a person hold their life lightly. “The life you lead is a midnight thing.” (176). She believes that this is what really sets her family apart from the British, and her anger with her husband lies in sending her son somewhere where he will learn to value his life less. It is clear that her family takes a little bit of glee in watching her suffer like they have been. She stops speaking to her husband directly, never giving him a definite answer to the questions he asks.

The “trouble with Millat” is spoken of constantly, in contrast to his frozen-in-time perfect twin brother. He’s a street kid, smoking and drinking and fucking around.

There’s a cyclone in Britian that pulls the Iqbal’s shed out of the ground and bursts their windows. They go to the Jones’ house, which is faring better. Irie is writing in her diary about her crush on Millat when he walks in. During the eye of the storm the two kids go outside and Millat teases Irie about her crush and about her weight. Despite his insistence that Irie “can’t have him” he kisses her for good measure.

Millat and his crew rush onto a train to Bradford where there’s a book burning. The book is evidently blasphemous, though written by an Indian Muslim. Neither Millat or any of his friends have read it, but they will defend Allah’s honor regardless. Alsana and Samad watch the protest on the news, with Samad taking more of his son’s position. Alsana spots her son’s face in the crowd and is furious, deciding to stage a burning of all of Millat’s own blasphemous possessions.

The Jones and Iqbal’s have a get together to watch the Berlin Wall come down. Alsana and Clara believe it is a historic and educational moment, while the boys are mostly bored and want to see real action. Irie, who has recently become very self-assured, challenges Samad that she knows more about the Cold War than he does. He tries to get out of this by calling on his experience, but in the kids and the mothers storm away and Archie and Samad are left to their O’Connell’s Poolhouse tradition.

Characters

Dipesh (182): 15 and into smoking marijuana, one of Millat’s crew

Natalia Cavendish (183): “Legendary sixth-former” that Millat hooked up with

• Hinted that she carries AIDS

Bibi (183): Millat’s great-aunt

Rajik, Ranil, Dipesh and Hifan (191): Millat’s ‘Raggastani’ crew

Chapter 10: The Root Canals of Magal Pande

O’Connell’s, for Archie and Samad, is a place they have invested so much time into that they have to keep going back. They know the story of how Abdul-Mickey’s father opened O’Connell’s and how he had a heart attack that caused the shop to stop selling pork. It’s a place they have expertise in, as opposed to all other areas of their lives.

Samad has been trying to convince Abdul-Mickey to hang up a portrait of Mangal Pande for years, and he finally convinces him on New Years Eve 1989. He has to fight and cry a little but they agree it can stay up for a week. This prompts an argument that Archie and Samad have been having for decades over the validity of Samad’s story. Many English scholars that Archie has read and taken to heart believe that Pande was a reckless drunk who did very little to further the (eventually unsuccessful) cause of the Indian Mutiny.

Characters

A.S. Misra (208): A scholar who wrote a story praising the actions of Pande

Rajnu (214): Samad’s nephew who alerts him to Misra’s book

Chapter 11: The Miseducation of Irie Jones

Irie is a big girl and she is aware of it. She wishes she could be smaller, with straight flappable hair like the English girls Millat is always fawning over. Trying to achieve this she schedules an appointment at P.K.’s Afro Hair: Design and Management to get her hair straightened. She had washed her hair the day before, though, and the ammonia burnt her scalp and much of her hair. The hairdresser felt bad for her and offered to help her for free. Irie left the salon with bundles of Pakistani hair glued onto her hair.

She raced to Millat’s house but he wasn’t there. Instead, Neena (Niece-of-Shame) and her girlfriend Maxine are there. They tell her that she looks crazy and that her natural hair was beautiful. Maxine calls her sexy. Hearing this Alsana pulls her into the kitchen to keep her from getting corrupted. She shows her a letter from Magid, which talks about how he was invited to meet a famous Indian writer after winning an essay prize. Samad is furious, though, saying his son is being poisoned by a “Rule-Britannia-worshipping Hindu old queen.” Irie tears the fake hair off her head.

Later at school, Irie is searching for Millat to warn him that there will be a drug raid. He’s sitting with his “old friend” Hifan who is trying to recruit him to his religious organization, Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (KEVIN). Millat shrugs off Irie’s warning, saying that he always slips off when they come in. Irie had a couple hits of the joint and is walking away when Joshua Chalfen stops her. He is beginning to have a crush on her and asks to hit the joint. The drug raid surrounds them on all sides and the three of them are caught.

The headmaster gives them the punishment of having to spend two days a week at the Chalfen’s house studying Joshua’s strong subject (and Milllat and Irie’s weak ones), Biology and Math.

Characters

Mrs. Olive Roody (223): English teacher who declares that Shakespeare couldn’t have written about black people because there were no black people in England then

Francis Stone (223):

Nikki Tyler (223): Described as pretty and English, flirting with Millat

Annalese Hersh (225): Spends the lesson braiding red and yellow thread into her hair

Joshua Chalfen (226): “The only kid in class who volunteered opinions”

• Nerd type, plays Goblins and Gorgons
• Lies to the headmaster that he’s a chronic drug dealer

Jackie, Denise, and Andrea (228-229): Hairdressers at P.K.’s, seem to take a little bit of pity on Irie

Maxine (236): Neena’s slender and sexy girlfriend

Hifan (244): Formerly a member of Millat’s crew, now deeply religious and trying to get people to join him

Tina (248): Headmaster’s secretary

Sir Edmund Flecker Glenard (252): The “founder” of the school

• Owned a tobacco farm in Jamaica where he witnessed how Jamaicans practiced faith
• Set up a factory in England where Englishmen and Jamaicans could live side by side, with the intention being from the Englishmen to teach work ethic and the Jamaicans to teach praise

Chapter 12: Canines: The Ripping Teeth

"Marcus created beings. And Joyce was his wife, industrious in creating smaller versions of Marcus.” (260)

Joyce Chalfen is a gardener, author, and a mother of four. Her husband Marcus is a geneticist working on gene editing in mice. Their four boys are perfect smart clones of their father. Millat and Irie bring a much-needed break to the neatness of their lives. As opposed to Joyce’s own children, Millat and Irie seem to need her. And both Millat and Irie seem to enjoy the Chalfen way of life.

Eventually they start going over to the Chalfen’s all the time, not just for study groups. Joyce only has eyes for Millat in spite of his increasingly bad behavior. Marcus tries to compensate for this by taking a special interest in Irie, showing her his science and paying her to organize his things.

Alsana and Clara can see what is happening but are unsure the best course of action to take. They ask Niece-of-Shame to go over to the Chalfen’s for dinner with Maxine and they are subjected to sexual, racist, homophobic rambling the entire time. Neena reports back that the Chalfens are crazy people, affirming Alsana’s beliefs. She doesn’t change her tune when Millat does better than expected on his GCSEs, instead owing it to his genes finally kicking. Clara goes to thank the Chalfens for their help and leaves belittled by Joyce.

Characters

Benjamin, Jack, and Oscar (260): The other Chalfen sons

Chapter 13: The Root Canals of Hortense Bowden

“When an Englishman wants to be generous, the first thing you ask is why, because there is always a reason.” (296)

Captain Charlie Durham impregnates Ambrosia Bowden while he is posted to Jamaica. After this he decides he wants to educate her, teach her about history and reading and anatomy when no one is looking. When he is called back to England, he asks Mr. Glenard to continue Ambrosia’s education and take care of her. She is only in the house until it is obvious that she is with child and sent back to her mother. In spite of her condition Mr. Glenard recommends she go stay with a Mrs. Brenton to continue her education.

This Englishwoman introduces Ambrosia (and baby Hortense) to Jehovah. She is excited about the prospect of converting two lost Jamaican souls.

Mr. Glenard finds her one day and takes her into a church to have his way with her. She prays for Jehovah or Captain Durham to save her. The earthquake begins as Ambrosia’s water breaks, and Hortense comes into the world. In the aftermath Captain Durham tries to find Ambrosia and take her away. When he gets a message to her she rejects him and his education.

Characters:

Mrs. Brenton (297): “a fiery Scottish spinster who specialized in lost souls”

Chapter 14: More English Than the English

Marcus and Magid have become penpals. Magid has taken Irie’s spot as Marcus’ special project. He’s pushing for Magid to come back to England, whatever it takes. Irie reads one of their letters and finds that Marcus sees her as incapable of becoming a scientist (though maybe a lab assistant). Irie begins to turn away from Marcus a little bit.

Joyce has broken through to Millat in a way; he came to her for advice about his newfound hatred of western women and their short shirts and parading sexuality. He had started to fall in love with an English girl and his friends at KEVIN didn’t approve. The pamphlets they continued to hand him started to get him and he began to hate spending time with her. Joyce is there to psychoanalyze him according to her “research” and put him in expensive 3x a week therapy.

Irie and her mother get into a fight when she expresses her desire to go to Africa for a year before university. They stop speaking for a while and Irie decides to catch her at night, when she’s half asleep and talks in her “baby voice.” They’re getting nowhere at the end of the fight when Irie bumps into the nightstand and knocks the glass holding Clara’s false teeth over. This is another thing that has been hidden from her, another lie her parents have told her. She gets on a night bus and gets off at the house of Hortense Bowden.

Characters

Brother Tyrone (307): Another member of KEVIN

Karina Caine (306): Millat’s typical size 10 English blond, but this time he finds her funny and “really likes her”

Sister Aeyisha (308): She is introduced to Millat as an African Goddess from Clapham North by Brother Hifan and Brother Tyrone

Chapter 15: Chalfenism Versus Bowdenism

Irie shows up at her grandmother’s house and finds it unchanged after six years. Her grandmother, on the other hand, has progressed to the final stage of old age. The difference is immediately pronounced, with Hortense fussing over Irie and applying painful Jamaican health remedies to treat her fever. Irie asks to stay with Hortense for a couple months and they set up a space for her on the couch. It isn’t until the next morning that Irie learns why she can’t sleep in her mom’s old bedroom: Ryan Topps is living there.

Upon recognizing Irie he is stunned by her resemblance to her mother, though he claims his religion has crowded out any memories of his secular past. He is now a church leader studying the good word to decipher the exact time and day of judgement. Hortense is unable to hold any authority in the church because she’s a woman. Her belief is still unshaken and she believes her faith will carry her up to be with the select few Anointed.

Irie has awkward dinners with her parents every weekend. She doesn’t really go to school as much as she should. Here, in her grandmother’s house, there is past, there is homeland. She begins to create a fantasy/delusion version of Jamaica where there are no lies or myths. Joshua comes to visit her to complain about his parents, who continue to eat meat despite Joshua’s opposition (based on his newfound pescatarian diet.) He tells Irie she should come with him and his new friends to Glastonbury.

Samad visits Irie too, because he wants her advice after Millat has gone missing for three weeks. She offers advice at first but quickly realizes that he is coming to her to vent, and she understands his frustration that this country has taken his children, corrupted them. That things would’ve been different if they were born in the homeland.

The day of reckoning has been decided again, the dawn of the century, the year 2000. Hortense is ecstatic to end up in the same century she started in. She swears she will be there when the world ends, and she will be in Jamaica. She invites Irie to come with her.

Chapter 16: The Return of Magid Mahfooz Murshed Mubtasim Iqbal

Marcus ends up meeting Magid at his gate by himself. While waiting a pretty young woman angrily informs him that he isn’t allowed to smoke at Heathrow and he realizes she’s reading his pop science book. He asks her thoughts on it and is annoyed when she speaks about the implications of his work, which he thinks is beside the point.

Magid immediately recognizes him, though they’ve never met. This leads Marcus to believe that this is fate, they’re drawn to each other, but really he is the only white person at the gate. Process of elimination.

Millat refuses to meet with Magid. Millat wouldn’t even live in the same house as him due to his godlessness. Magid instead stayed with the Chalfens. Joshua went to stay with the Joneses due to his protest of his dad’s work. Irie went back to living with her parents but spent most of her time at the Chalfen’s, earning money towards her planned trips. She became a secretary for Marcus, taking calls from journalists and keeping his and Magid’s work organized. Magid acted as Marcus’ PR trainer, helping him to come across better with a wider audience.

When Irie is reading a press release to a reporter over the phone, Joyce comes in and tells her she can’t be on the phone in case Millat calls. He’s been skipping his phycologist appointments and no one has seen him. Everyone else knows he’s with KEVIN except for Joyce. Irie tells her that an ADHD diagnosis won’t fix him being Muslim. Joyce believes that the twins need each other, and their issue lies in being apart.

Chapter 17: Crisis Talks and Eleventh-Hour Tactics

Joyce comes to the Iqbal house to convince Alsana that the twins need to meet. At first, Alsana ignores her and refuses to open the door. Joyce is persistent and she eventually gives in. They both blame each other for the problems with the boys. Alsana reveals that she found leaflets underneath Millat’s bed that disparage Marcus’ mouse project. Millat comes into the house in the middle of this argument and interrupts the ladies in the kitchen.

Millat is aware that his biggest problem in following the rules of KEVIN is his inability to purge himself of the western influence. He loves and has always loved his gangster movies. “It was his most shameful secret that whenever he opened a door … the opening of Goodfellas ran through his head and he found this sentence rolling around in what he presumed was his subconscious: As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. ” (368)

Alsana convinces Samad (by beating him in a wrestling match) that the boys have to meet. Samad and Archie take Magid to O’Connell’s where he is well received by Abdul-Mickey and Clarence and Denzel. Abdul-Mickey even goes next door to get him a bacon sandwich. When Samad tells Magid he is to meet his brother, Magid asks what his (and not his mother’s) opinion is. Samad tells him that he wishes the two boys would move as far apart as possible from each other. Never speak.

Joyce sends Irie to deliver the message to Millat because she is “uninvolved.” For whatever reason Irie does it and when she gets there, she finds Millat has tied belts around his upper body and is reciting a gangster monologue. She touches him lightly after handing him the key to the “neutral place” the twins are to meet and both teenagers are overcome with passion and have sex on his prayer mat. At the end, Millat is ashamed and repentant and Irie is ashamed because she can tell how he feels. As revenge, she goes and sleeps with Magid, to make him the second at something.

The two twins meet at the neutral place and use every inch of it against each other. They turn every object into part of their history. They fight and argue their differences but in the end they are going nowhere. There is no movement. They are two forces of the same magnitude in opposite directions.

Chapter 18: The End of History Versus the Last Man

Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah, the founder of KEVIN, is giving a speech about Marcus Chalfen and FutureMouse and their attempt to leave the Creator out of creation. Millat is approached by Mohammed Hussein-Ishmael, who donated a bunch of money to KEVIN and is rising up in the ranks. He wants in on what the boys are planning for December 31 ^st , the unveiling of the mouse. He has spent his years in this country being a victim of violence at the hands of white Englishmen and it’s time to get revenge.

Joshua is at a FATE meeting where they’re discussing what they’re going to do at the FutureMouse unveiling. He isn’t listening so much as staring at Joely’s boobs. He is in love with her despite her being married and ten years older than him. She founded FATE with her husband Crispin and even after he went to jail for years their love has continued to grow. They’ve been toning down their political violence in favor for more peaceful measures but this situation is making them reconsider their position. It comes down to a vote: Target the man or free the animal?

Irie is called at midnight by Mr. Topps and her grandmother. They are calling to warn her about the end of days and to try to convince her to stay away from Marcus Chalfen. She insists she’s only working for him as a secretary and that they’re crazy for calling her in the middle of the night. Hortense tells her that the Witnesses will be at the event and that she’s going on hunger strike for it.

Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah (388): Founded KEVIN after locking himself in a room for five years to study the Qur’an.

• Five foot five
• Immigrant from Barbados

Norman Henshall (389): Reporter who covered Brother Ibrahim’s seclusion (the Guru in the garage)

Crispin (394): Joely’s husband and founding member of FATE

• Prefers violent methods of protest, which his wife has moved the group away from while he’s been in prison

Joely (395): One of the founders of FATE

• Joshua is in love with her

Kenny (395): A FATE member who saw his dad kill a puppy

Paddy (395): FATE member, lifetime dole collector and pigeon-fancier

Chapter 19: The Final Space

Joshua and the FATE group are on their way to Trafalgar Square. Crispin has people reading him various news stories and tabloids about Marcus Chalfen and his mouse. Joely tells Joshua how he’s so calm, this must be so hard for him, and Joshua is coming to terms with the key difference between him and his dad: Joshua knows that the world happens to him. Marcus believes that he happens to the world, that he can control it.

Millat and the higher-up members of KEVIN are waiting at the Willlesden Green Station for the train to take them to Trafalgar Square. There’s a signal problem that causes them to have transfer in the middle of their trip. Millat got very stoned earlier in the day in the hope of working up the courage to actually do something, take action. This roundabout way of getting there is already throwing him off. The group had abandoned their more actionable Plan A after Brother Ibrahim got arrested. Millat resents that.

Ryan and Hortense are riding on his scooter on the way to the event. Hortense is reciting bible verses and Ryan is reflecting on his life leading up to this. His intelligence lies in his ability to focus on one thing and devote himself entirely to it. Witnessing is the best use of this talent and is why he ended up where he is. It offers no grey areas or nuance. There is good and there is evil and there is punishment.

Neena convinced the Joneses and Iqbals to go and support Magid and Irie. They reluctantly agreed and are now sitting apart from each other on the 98 bus. They immediately get into a fight and Irie shuts it down, telling them that other families aren’t like this, other families are quiet, they don’t revel in their disorder. She has been increasingly more emotional lately because she is eight weeks pregnant with either Millat or Magid’s baby.

Chapter 20: Of Mice and Memory

Archie settles in, excited to be entertained. Not just because of the spectacle in front of him but also because Abdul-Mickey chose to sit beside him and commentate. Each of the warring factions is thinking about what they’ve set out to do. Josh and FATE plan to fake a hostage situation (let the mouse out or Joshua gets it!), Hortense and other elderly witnesses are getting ready to sing and bang on drums and march outside the entrance, and Millat is holding on to the gun in his pocket, gearing himself up for the big moment.

When Hortense begins to sing Clara tries to get Archie to stop it, but he defers to Samad who objects to this business and desperately wants to leave. Once out there he can’t find it within himself to stop her. As he heads back inside, Marcus is thanking his mentor, who is crying wet tears of gratitude. Archie and Samad both recognize him as Marcus asks the audience to applaud for Dr. Marc-Pierre Perret. Samad immediately runs to Archie, cursing him, lapsing into Bengali in his anger.

While everyone is stunned by the disturbance they’re creating Millat raises the gun to shoot. Archie jumps in front of the doctor, taking a second bullet for this man. He slams into the glass case and the mouse takes his chance to escape.

The judge is unable to figure out which twin is guilty. He sentences them both to community service that they complete in Joyce’s garden. Seven years later Joshua and Irie are lovers in Jamaica with Hortense, awaiting the end of the world. Her daughter has no father and runs free. Clara and Alsana are allowed into O’Connells and the couples play cards together.