The Waiter’s Wife

“‘You’re all on my back!’ Shiva would snarl, when he had to relinquish five pounds at the end of the night and drop it into the pot. ‘You all live off my back! Somebody get these losers off my back! That was my fiver and now it’s going to be split sixty-five-fucking-million ways as a hand out to these losers! What is this, communism?’”

Shiva serves as one of the most explicit antagonists throughout the story, and here he embarrasses the other waiters for their lack of talent. He explicitly names what Samad assumes others feel about him: that he is a loser who is lazy and takes advantage of others’ hard work. This is particularly ironic given the references to the National Front peppered throughout the story, since the gang assumed immigrants entering Britain would act in this manner.

“I AM NOT A WAITER. THAT IS, I AM NOT JUST A WAITER. I HAVE BEEN A STUDENT, A SCIENTIST, A SOLDIER. MY WIFE IS CALLED ALSANA. WE LIVE IN EAST LONDON BUT WE WOULD LIKE TO MOVE NORTH. I AM A MUSLIM BUT ALLAH HAS FORESAKEN OR I HAVE FORESAKEN ALLAH. I’M NOT SURE. I HAVE AN ENGLISH FRIEND—ARCHIE—AND OTHERS. I AM FORTY-NINE BUT WOMEN STILL TURN IN THE STREET. SOMETIMES.”

This quote is the closest the reader gets to understanding what Samad is like outside of his occupation and marriage. The fact that it is in all-caps creates a feeling that this is being screamed, and he uses dramatic language—such as “forsaken”—to show his desperation for a better life. However, he also does not appear to know what exactly he wants and uses words and phrases such as “sometimes” and “I’m not sure” to show that he is unsure how to navigate his new life in Britain.

“The house was the matter. Samad was moving out of East London (where one couldn’t bring up children, indeed, one couldn’t not if one didn’t wish them to come to bodily harm) from East London, with its National Front gangs, to North London, north-west in fact, where things were more […] more […] liberal.”

This quote operates in two ways. It first reemphasizes the reason for the Iqbals’ move: to escape the racist National Front gangs and live in a more liberal (and friendlier to immigrants) neighborhood. However, by saying “the house was the matter,” Samad is speaking about two things. He does need an increase in pay to cover new expenses, but he primarily needs this money because Alsana—the overseer of the domestic sphere and house—is causing him extreme stress. Regardless of where the couple move, she will continue to act in ways that make his life difficult.

“He thought of his wife, Alsana, who was not as meek as he had assumed when they married, to whom he must deliver the bad news: Alsana, who was prone to moments, even fits—yes, fits was not too strong a word—of rage. Cousins, aunts, brothers thought it a bad sign. They wondered if there wasn’t some ‘funny mental history’ in Alsana’s family, they sympathized with him the way you sympathize with a man who has bought a stolen car with more mileage on it than first thought. In his naivety Samad had simply assumed a woman so young would be…easy. But Alsana was not…no, she was not easy. It was, he supposed, the way with young women these days.”

The reader is introduced to Alsana’s tendency toward violent bouts of rage. Additionally, Smith includes asides and ellipses in this passage to show that this is a sensitive subject for Samad. The ellipses indicate that he is trying to find the correct words to describe his situation, implying that he is at a loss for how to deal with the situation, especially since Alsana’s behavior goes against any traditionally held Gender Roles and Expectations.

“‘Who are they?’ she slammed her little fist on to the kitchen table, sending the salt and pepper flying to collide spectacularly with each other in the air. ‘I don’t know them! You fight in an old, forgotten war with some Englishman…married to a black! Whose friends are they? These are the people my child will grow up around? Their children—half blacky-white? But tell me,’ she shouted, returning to her favoured topic, ‘where is our food?’”

Alsana completely strips Archie and Clara of any identifying descriptors outside of their race and nationality. This is after Clara and Alsana have presumably become friendly with each other, yet she still questions “Whose friends are they?” This shows that Alsana is unable to move past her strongly held prejudices, regardless of the complexity and depth of her friendships.

“Willesden was not as pretty as Queen’s Park but it was a nice area. No denying it. No NF kids breaking the basement windows with their steel-capped boots like in Whitechapel. Now she was pregnant she needed a little bit of peace and quiet. Though it was the same here in a way; they all looked at her strangely, this tiny Indian woman stalking the high street in a mackintosh, her plentiful hair flying every which way. Mali’s Kebabs, Mr Cheungs, Raj’s, Malkovich Bakeries—she read the new, unfamiliar signs as she passed. She was shrewd. She saw what this was. ‘Liberal? Hosh-kosh nonsense!’ No one was more liberal than anyone else anywhere anyway. It was only that here, in Willesden, there wasn’t enough of any one thing to gang up against any other thing and send it running to the cellars while windows were smashed.”

Alsana criticizes her new neighborhood for being performatively liberal. Additionally, by listing as many restaurants—all of different ethnicities and cuisines—as she can, she overwhelms the reader, recreating the feeling she experiences as she walks through this new world. She seems unimpressed by her more diverse surroundings, implying she is not very interested in modernity or assimilating to Britain.

“But she had gone. Neena shook her head and sighed as she watched her young aunt disappear down the road like a little brown bullet. Alsana. She was young and old at the same time, Neena reflected. She acted so sensible, so straight-down-the-line in her long sensible coat, but you got the feeling—”

This is one of the few times a secondary character provides their opinion of Alsana’s actions. Neena plays up the contradictions of her “young aunt” (which is unexpected because aunts are usually much older than their nieces). She highlights Alsana’s violent nature, describing her as a “little brown bullet.” Additionally, she is “young and old at the same time,” implying that she is both mature and immature simultaneously. The thought trails off at the end, implying that Neena is unwilling or unable to articulate what she sees as Alsana’s hidden character.

“But in response Niece-Of-Shame bats her voluminous eyelashes, wraps her college scarf round her head like purdah, and says, ‘Oh yes, Auntie, yes, the little submissive Indian woman. You don’t talk to him, he talks at you. You scream and shout at each other, but there’s no communication. And in the end he wins anyway because he does whatever he likes when he likes. You don’t even know where he is, what he does, what he feels, half the time. It’s 1975, Alsi. You can’t conduct relationships like that any more. It’s not like back home. There has to be communication between men and women in the West, they’ve got to listen to each other, otherwise…’ Neena mimes a small mushroom cloud going off in her hand.”

Neena mocks Alsana’s traditionalism, pretending to be a “little submissive Indian woman.” Additionally, she argues “It’s not like back home,” implying that certain traditions should be left in the home country, ultimately stripping Alsana of the comfort and identity that helps her survive in Britain.

“‘Repression! Nonsense silly-billy word! I’m just talking about common sense. What is my husband? What is yours?’ she says pointing to Clara. ‘Twenty-five years they live before we are even born. What are they? What are they capable of? What blood do they have on their hands? What is sticky and smelly in their private areas? Who knows?’ She throws her hands up, releasing the questions into the unhealthy Kilburn air, sending a troupe of sparrows up with them.”

Alsana uses rhetorical questions to support her argument that it is better to keep an element of mystery in her romantic relationship with Samad. Additionally, she uses these rhetorical questions to dehumanize Archie and Samad, referring to them as “they” and asking Clara, “What is yours?” She does not ask “who” Archie is, but “what” he is. She also accuses the men of being “sticky and smelly in their private areas,” which again reduces the men to animals who are unable to properly bathe themselves. Her questions are pointed and seemingly scary enough that they frighten “a troupe of sparrows up with them.”

“Because, Miss Smarty-pants, it is by far the easier option. It was exactly because Eve did not know Adam from Adam that they got on so A-OK. Let me explain. Yes, I was married to Samad Iqbal the same evening of the very day I met him. Yes, I didn’t know him from Adam. But I liked him well enough. We met in the breakfast room on a steaming Dhaka day and he fanned me with The Times. I thought he had a good face, a sweet voice, and his backside was high and well formed for a man of his age. Very good. Now every time I learn something more about him I like him less. So you see, we were better off the way we were.”

Alsana at one time found his voice sweet, but it currently infuriates her to the point that she becomes violent or looks for ways to silence him. Alsana additionally brings up the biblical allusion to Adam and Eve, arguing that they had a good marriage. Ironically, Eve was punished for her independence, which Alsana glosses over.

“‘I mean, I just think men have caused enough chaos this century. There’s enough bloody men in the world. If I knew I was going to have a boy…’ she pauses to prepare her two falsely conscious friends for this new concept, ‘I’d have to seriously consider abortion.’”

The men are consistently thought to be weak and inefficient, while the women are strong. It is ironic that Neena claims here that “men have caused enough chaos in this century,” especially given that Samad and Archie met while fighting in a bloody war. Additionally, the most chaotic characters in the story are the women, but the men take most of the blame for any conflict.

“It strikes all three women—the way history will: embarrassingly, without warning, like a blush—what the park keeper’s experience might have been. They fall silent.”

When Sol comes to check on the women, they realize they don’t know anything about his history and what traumas he may have experienced before immigrating to Britain. However, Smith decides to give this moment the significance of “history,” implying that no person is ever fully able to escape their past.

“‘But the past is made of more than words, dearie. We married old men, you see? These bumps,’ Alsana pats them both, ‘they will always Daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this. Their roots will always be tangled.’”

This quote uses imagery to emphasize The Inescapability of the Past. By describing Archie and Samad as “Daddy-long-legs,” Smith emphasizes the gulf between the past and future and the fact that Archie and Samad will never be fully in either time period. Additionally, the phrasing draws up the image of a spider, which adds a creepy feeling to the image, highlighting the discomfort in the situation.