Aysha had been playing since the age of five. Her little fingers used to press on the keys of the piano as if they were keys to amazing treasure chests filled to the brim with delights; the music poured out of the instrument – a melody of forbidden, honey flavoured notes, 'only for adults'. The black and white keys would sing Aysha good morning every morning, and good evening every night until her mother came and said “come on now, Aysha, stop making a noise,”, or her father said “Aysha! Why are you touching that piano?”
Aysha was a thin, bright eyed little lady with dark hair that spilled on to her back like velvet curtains, a brown complexion and a smile which showered openness on every stranger and familiar to come across her path. Ever since she was five, she would steal her time at the piano and touch the piano in a way one might touch a box of chocolates that was out of bounds; a box of chocolates whose sweetness is too powerful to keep away from. Aysha would usually get caught playing, since playing is such a noisy affair, but she would always turn around and say 'sorry mummy, daddy', with a cheeky smile, just like the ghastly footprints of chocolate's kiss around someone's mouth, who wasn't allowed to eat.
What a spoiled little bitch.
The bratty girl wrote a song by the age of ten, when she'd matured enough to come up with more nonsense. The greatest nonsense girl in Hackney, she was!
Long, yellow hair,
I want you on my head...
I want you on my shoulders,
And on my back and neck.
Long, yellow hair,
She's called the English girl.
She's tall, and knows her way
To get some good respect.
To get some good respect...
To get some good respect!
The little bitch used to sing it all day long, much to the annoyance of her father, who kept asking her to be quiet, but she refused to hear him. To anything else she would listen, just not that one command.
At the age of twelve, Aysha told her mother and older sister Fatima something she'd decided. “I want to play in a bar like Dad's bar.”
“But you don't know how to play properly,” said Fatima immediately, and their mother gave Fatima a look of disapproval.
“Aysha, darling,” she said, “I'm sure if you practice very hard, one day you might be able to do a song or two as a special treat, on a night when there are less customers.”
“No, Mum, you don't understand,” said Aysha, “I want to be a professional pianist – I want lessons.”
And Fatima interrupted laughing: “Do you know how expensive that is? It would almost be as expensive as Amir's football lessons!”
“Amir is seven, and I'm twelve,” replied Aysha, and at that moment her father walked in through the front door, the final voice of reason.
“Do you believe what happened at work today?! A woman came into the bar and asked to be hired as a musician! She was so rude. She even had the audacity to ask why we don't serve any alcoholic beverages or non-Halal food, and asked me how the business keeps on running! Well it's been running for six years and going strong, I told her. That woman had blonde, straightened hair and sunglasses, and she was wearing a dress which showed her knees and she was wearing lipstick, and makeup. I swear to God I haven't seen such a prostitute walk into my bar in all the years I've been running it! You know I thought I saw chewing gum in her bag. Chewing gum! And mouth spray. Do you know what mouth spray has in it? Alcohol. Alcohol. It was atrocious, I tell you.”
And he took out a cigarette and lit it. “...Atrocious.”
“You know I can just imagine it,” he said “She'd play Beyonce or something in my bar. A woman, can you imagine? Disgraceful.” and he slammed his bedroom door in anger as he walked in. “Disgraceful!”
Slam.
And the ladies were left alone in the reception room once more.
Aysha slowly and sullenly crept back to her corner, and her reading book.
“I bet that whore is going to play in Gary's bar now,” said mother.
“Yes, I agree,” said Fatima, “Gary will hire her as long as she smiles at him, that bastard. He has some nerve opening across the street from us.”
“Absolutely, shocking,” mother said for the seventh time that week.
“He might even put us out of business with his alcohol and pork and whatnot...” began Fatima, but mother interrupted her.
“Fatima! You mustn't say such things! God forbid that after all the hard work your father has put in to the bar that it should be closed.”
At that moment, father opened his bedroom door again and poked his head out to make a final announcement.
“By the way, Adil and Jahmal are coming for a visit tomorrow.”
The following day, Aysha's hands knocked on the peeling red door of Gary's bar, “Marilyn's”, it was called. She pushed it open slowly and allowed the bitter smell of alcohol to find its way into her nostrils. The 'whore' was sitting at one of the tables painting her nails. She looked up and gave a wide, pink-lipped grin.
“Hello, I'm afraid we're closed right now,” she said.
“Oh, um...I was hoping I'd be able to speak to Gary please, if he's here,” said Aysha.
“Well... he's right round the back,” said the whore, looking slightly concerned, “but what do you need to speak to him for? I think he might be...quite busy right now.”
“Nonsense!” a deep, male voice interjected, “I'm free as a bird right now, how can I help you, little girl?”
“Well, I...uh...have a request if that's not a problem,” began Aysha, “you see -”
“We do requests here!” he interrupted, “take a seat. Would you like a drink? Apple juice? Water? ...Beer? Ahahahahahaha!!” he cheesed at her through two rows of yellow teeth.
“Oh, uh, no thanks, but I wanted to ask if -”
“Come, take off that ridiculous Burka.”
Aysha cautiously removed it, and something inside her told her to undo the bun on her black hair, but something else inside her told her not to, so she didn't.
“If you'd let me play the piano in your bar.” she finished.
“The piano?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, I'm sure we can arrange... something of that nature, if you want to play here some evenings,”
At that moment, another little whore came in through the back door, but she was no older than thirteen. She had the same blonde hair, lipstick, makeup, skirt, you name it.
“Sabrina!” said Gary, “don't you have any more washing up to do? Ahahahahahahaha!!!”
“No Dad...” said Sabrina rolling her eyes. “Who's this?”
“My name is Aysha.”
“Aysha?” repeated Gary, “from the bar across the road?”
“Yes.”
Gary's eyes narrowed in a wonderful stubble-studded smile. “I see... well in that case I'm sure something came be arranged between us...”
“Gary you can't do that!” said the older whore.
“What?” he replied.
“I mean...to have relations with the opposition business,” she said.
“Who said anything about relations?!” Gary defended.
“Business relations?” she said.
“Oh...er...yes. That's right. Business relations...I guess not then.”
“I'll walk Aysha out,” said the other girl, Sabrina.
When Aysha got home, Adil was sitting on the couch and smoking, and Fatima was rambling on to him.
“She fancies herself a professional pianist, do you believe? She thinks she'll play in Dad's bar. Can you imagine? How ridiculous.”
Aysha recalled for a second something that happened when she was smaller. Adil had held her on his lap and bounced her up and down – she must have been two or three – and she remembered his saying “she's such a good girl isn't she, she doesn't cry, she doesn't mess around, she doesn't cause any trouble at all. Thank goodness my Jahmal isn't like that but for a girl, inshallah, you're a lucky man. Eh? Eh? Mapsuta?”
And since then, every time Adil came to visit he would smile at Aysha and give her a chocolate coin, and she never played piano in his presence.
“She plays all evening, mother has to tell her to shut up eventually!” Fatima drooled.
“Really?” said Adil, “that doesn't seem like her at all.”
“It is like her!” cried Fatima with glee, “It's all she ever thinks about.”
“Enough of that Fatima,” said her mother, “do you realise she's standing right there?”
Fatima turned to Aysha and gave her an evil look. Her chubby fingers clutched the hem of her dress and she looked defiantly at her mother as she rose up and made her way into the bedroom.
“Thank you Mum,” said the foolish and embarrassed Aysha as she sat on the couch. Jahmal promptly came to sit next to her. Contrasting his pale blue shirt was his cropped hair and tan skin. The boy was ten years old at the time.
“Fatima says you want to become a professional pianist,” he jeered.
“That's right,” replied Aysha in a near whisper.
“Do you think you could really do that, being a girl and all.”
“Of course.”
“I heard you play once,” he said, “You're not very good, it's like listening to you crying and whining to the piano about how you want to find lurrrveeee.”
“That's not what I play about!”
“Is too!”
“IS NOT!”
“AYSHA! Don't shout!” said her mother.
“Sorry.”
That night Aysha stole into her father's bar late in the evening; it was closed because it was Friday. She sat at the piano and rubbed her hands together. Aysha put her fingers on the cool, white keys and pressed down, feeling their weight against her; feeling the sound they echoed vibrate through her body. Aysha picked up the book of notes. Although she couldn't read them, she liked to flip through and run her fingers over the patterns of sound. She was music, they were music; she and they were the same.
Aysha's figure through the window was like a ghost in the dim sunset. The thick, escalating, crescendoing, diminishing tunes rippled through the air, they tasted bittersweet and passionate beyond Aysha's twelve years of age. The smell of emptiness in the shop was recorded in the hollow fourth and fifth harmonies she was unknowingly creating; the sound of looming footsteps on the base chords; the sound of jeering on the middle discords; the sound of finally coming to unison with her music in the high harmonies.
Anyone listening to the bitch would have found it hilarious, her emotion, her stupidity. I'd say no man could ever stoop so low and yet, in a way there is a beauty that can be found in the playing of an instrument. It's a beauty like the beauty of glass – how can something transparent appeal to the eye? But it does. How can a mirror distort the world? When Aysha saw her reflection in the smooth varnished wood of the piano, she seemed beautiful for once in her life; and any onlooker would have seen that beauty.
Perhaps she wasn't so foolish after all. Perhaps we've been watching her life with unjustly judgemental eyes; perhaps we should leave her alone and end the story here; maybe someone else's art is none of our business at all, and there are some questions we should never ask.
Aysha touched that piano in a way one might touch a sweet, sweet box of chocolates which leaves guilt around your mouth with its kiss. Aysha sunk herself into the passions of the thick, luscious melody which had swelled considerably since when she was small. Aysha felt a love for music that she'd never been able to feel before, almost like a hope – a glamour in the moment.
I want your long, yellow hair; she sang,
I want it on my back and neck,
I want it on my shoulders...
I want some good respect,
Some good respect...
Some good respect!
And Aysha beat that piano with her fires until a knocking on the window behind her interrupted her playing. Two blue eyes were staring back at her. She let the girl in.
“Sabrina, take a seat,” she said. Gary's daughter – the 'whore', but maybe she wasn't even a whore – maybe it's none of our business really.
“I heard you playing through the glass; I hope you don't mind.”
“Not at all, not at all...I'm not meant to be here actually.”
“Really!” said Sabrina, “bit of a rebel, ay?”
“Hahaha... I never thought of it like that before,” Aysha replied, “What were you doing outside my window anyway?”
“Oh! Well this boy called Jahmal has been stalking me apparently,”
“Oh my God!” said Aysha, “I know him!”
“No way!” said Sabrina, “and he totally just confessed his undying love for me, it was hilarious. What is he – like nine?”
“Ten, but yeah, I can't believe that!”
“I really love your playing,” smiled Sabrina, “It's so...I can't think of the right word to describe it...”
“Stupid? Haha,”
“No! Not at all! It's like...it makes me think. It makes me feel who you are,” said Sabrina, “Do you play for people often?”
“No hardly ever, I feel like they'd laugh at me.”
“Oh...I'm sorry, I don't want you feel like I invaded your privacy or something,”
“Oh no it's alright I like it when you listen, it's just like...my parents can't take anything I do seriously. If they don't laugh at it they are so patronising and they don't think I can become a professional. They don't understand me at all.”
“Oh amen to that!” said Sabrina, “nobody understands people like us. Ever.”
Sabrina brushed her long, yellow hair behind her ear, and she moved a little bit closer to Aysha and took her hand.
“People like us?” asked Aysha, not understanding.
“Aysha,” began Sabrina, “do you ever feel like you want to just live, but you feel like someone's watching you from above – like God is watching you, and he invented you and now he's watching you and showing you off to all his friends who think we're so stupid.”
“Yeah!” said Aysha, “I always feel like I'm being spied on be someone – someone bad, who laughs at me.”
And Aysha learnt a lesson that night about playing the piano. It's very important to play all you can, and not to let anyone tell you otherwise. But sometimes you don't need to finish off the piece. You can just leave it hanging for the audience, because honestly, it's none of their business. And the only person who was always allowed to listen was Sabrina, because Sabrina...well.
“Do you think someone's watching us right now?” said Sabrina.
“I think they are,” replied Aysha.
Let me put it this way to you: Aysha learnt that not everyone needs to hear you play, unless they are nice people, and if you start feeling like it's too open, you just...stop playing.
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