Spitalfields Life

Anthropologist & Writer Delwar Hussain sent me this follow-up to his recent piece, describing his experiences of self-isolating alone with his mother in the family home in Spitalfields

Portrait by Sarah Ainslie

My mother and I may have the virus. It began with a cough followed by flu symptoms. I had night sweats, she had headaches and we each had swollen glands, and a general weakness and soreness. We both lost our sense of taste and smell.

Every morning, we wake late and gargle with hot salt water to clear bacteria from our throats. Through the day, we sip a tea of turmeric, cinnamon bark, cloves, Nigella seeds, garlic, ginger and lemon.

‘It is now up to Allah,’ my mother says, rubbing dollops of Vicks onto her forehead and chest. She has been having nightmares but tries to rest. I struggle with the books I set myself to read over Easter because it is impossible to immerse myself in other worlds and times when this one is so pressing, so big.

I find myself ambling around the house and my tread is heavy, often painful. I have lived here for thirty years and although I have tried other places, in other cities in other parts of the world, I am unable to sever my attachment to this one. Every inch, every doorknob, hinge, every gap, crack and blemish is a prompt, recalling constellations of memories that span epochs of our family life. These stories criss-cross, beginning here and ending over there, their contours no longer precise or clear. Details, chronologies, who actually said what and why, cease to matter as much as that they happened here. The house embodies our collective histories, hopes, resources, ideals and fears – all the pain, despair and dreams of my family and those who have lived here.

My attic bedroom looks out to the City of London with a view of Christ Church and the weavers attics of neighbouring houses. It is freezing in winter, boiling in summer. I have had my room for over a decade but I inherited it from my cousin whom my mother raised with us. He had it for years before he got married and moved out, then it became our sitting room until I was able to claim it. My mother and I watched Princess Diana’s funeral up here, both of us numbed into silence.

Across the landing is my sister’s workroom, full of colours, paints and brushes. Her room faces east, looking towards the minaret of the Brick Lane Jama Masjid and, beyond that, the helipad of the Royal London Hospital where today coronavirus patients are being ferried. Before my sister took over this room, my mother kept her sewing machine there and stitched lining for leather jackets late into the night. It was full of scraps, boxes of bobbins, spools of thread in a myriad of colours, tape measures and massive scissors. The floor below is where my mother has her bedroom. Other than rearranging the direction her bed faces in the nineties, an event in itself, I do not recall her moving bedrooms as the rest of us did. She recently asked me to paint the walls of her room and I had been planning to do it over Easter, but this will need to be postponed for the moment.

Styga, our old cat, warily accompanies me as I lumber around the house. She is disorientated, not just because of her grand age, but because the pandemic is confusing her. She does not understand why there are no people on the streets, taking photographs of her, or why she is not being stroked by those on the Ripper tours that stop outside. Her sister, Chompa, was the fiercest cat to have lived with us. The two could not stand the sight of each another, dividing the house between them.  Styga had the top half and Chompa the bottom half. Like border guards, they scowled and snarled when one encroached the other’s territory until, a few years ago, Chompa disappeared. Then Styga changed, became nervous, unsettled, anxious and was in constant search for her sister.

Styga accompanies me, joining my mother in the sitting room where I can hear her coughing and praying to herself. This room is where we encounter the world and the world encounters us. It is the site of victories and where schemes, plans and ambitions are laid out. This is where our family gather when it appears everything may have been lost. The place where difficult conversations are had and rites of passage held. My cousin was made to confess to his gambling addiction here. My brothers brought their brides and introduced them to the rest of the household here. My sisters departed from this room when they married. It is where grandchildren and great-grandchildren come to play when we are not in self-isolation, where kittens are raised, and Eid parties and Christmas lunches held.

As I walk down the stairs, I am reminded of the last time my father was in the house. I was descending as I am now, aged eighteen, and he was sprawled out on the floor below, writhing and grimacing in pain. I tried to pick him up and he was frail and light. Doctors could not diagnose what was wrong. He died a month after this.

In the kitchen, I make more of the tea that we think is doing us good. Outside, the streets are thick with silence, yet from everywhere, I hear a confetti of sounds, of laughter, of tears, the voices of people who have rung the doorbell, the voices of our younger selves. They come for friendship, for refuge, for solace, for time, and to play a game of cricket. People shout, whisper and cry. There are disorderly queues formed by lovers. There is the song of blackbirds and of the ducks we once kept. The latest Bollywood songs, the azaan from the mosque, the church bells from next door. I can hear preparations to go on anti-war demonstrations, the fruit and vegetable merchants from the Spitalfields Market, drunk office workers vomiting curry and beigels. The man who sold rice from a supermarket trolley is calling, and Sheila and Paddy from number eight are telling me to turn the radio down. Fireworks are exploding on Guy Fawkes night, bailiffs are knocking, camera-shutters are falling, countless winos are sleeping, peeing and raging at our door.

One day we will have to give up our house and we will be left with our past. Our past became our stories. Like our forebears, the Huguenot and Jewish families who lived here before us, the house made us who we are and we, too, have made it what it is.

Family portrait, 1980. From left to right – Arful Nessa (mother), Haji Abdul Jalil (father), Hafsa Begum (sister), Rahana Begum (sister), Faruk Miah (cousin), Shiraz Miah (cousin) and Delwar Hussain.

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