I
first spotted Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand, published in
paperback in 2009, in Waterstone’s, where it was included in their 3 for 2
offer. As I browsed through the book I came across, on the first page, a note
to the ‘Dear Reader’ by one Suzie Doore, who introduced herself as Chris
Cleave’s editor.
Doore
was writing to inform ‘Dear Reader’ how ‘extraordinary’ The Other Hand was. The
novel was ‘so special’ it gave Suzie Doore ‘goosebumps’, a phenomenon, she
assured ‘Dear Reader’, she did not experience often. Doore put The
Other Hand on par with Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Arc and David
Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. The Other Hand, Doore
gushed, was an ‘amazing novel—horrifying but hilarious, tragic but uplifting,
hugely entertaining and highly intelligent.’ This was high praise indeed. Schindler’s
Arc and Cloud Atlas (which I have reviewed on this blog in the past)
are two of my very favourite novels, and if the editor of a publishing house
was of the view that The Other Hand was as good, the
novel was worth reading. I had never heard of Chris Cleave until then, but
browsing further through The Other Hand, I discovered that he
had written another novel, entitled Incendiary, which had won the
Somerset Maugham award in 2006, and was described as ‘stunning’ by New
York Times, ‘mesmerizing’ by Washington Post and ‘Pitch-perfect’
by The
Daily Telegraph.
That settled for me. I want to read novels that are mesmerizing, stunning and pitch-perfect; don't you? I bought the book and it went
on my to-read list; but it wasn't until recently that I finally read it.
The Other
Hand
deals with a topical issue in Britain—asylum seekers. The novel tells the story
of Little Bee, an asylum seeker—an illegal asylum seeker, I shall thank you to
keep in mind—which has more twists in it than a winding road in the south of France,
and more drama than in Gone With the Wind.
The
novel opens with a young Nigerian woman, who goes by the name Little Bee,
getting out of a detention centre in Britain, where she has spent almost two
years after arriving in the country as a stowaway. How has she spent these two
years? She has spent the years polishing her English. Little Bee has cunningly
figured out that if she has to survive first in the detention centre and then
(if she gets out) in England, she must learn to either sell her body or speak
English like the natives. Not keen on the first option, the bright girl has
learnt to speak perfect English by reading gossip magazines (one hopes not Heat!)
that arrive at irregular intervals at the detention centre. Luck smiles
unexpectedly on Little Bee when a Jamaican detainee, who (following Trotsky’s
maxim that end justifies means) is not averse to using her feminine charms to
entertain Home Office pen-pushers, manages to obtain an early, though not
altogether halal, release for herself
and some randomly chosen detainees from the detention centre, the Home-Office
man following the strange logic that his misdemeanour would be less likely to
arouse suspicion if he authorised the release of four detainees instead of just
one. Little Bee and three other girls are given shelter by a farmer who is
naïve or deluded or both to take pity on the girls, but Little Bee scarpers in
the middle of the night, leaving her companions—one of whom has decided, after
waiting for years to be released from the detention centre, that she does not
want to live after all, and has hanged herself—behind. She has an address to go
to in England. The address belongs to a journalist named Andrew O’Rourke,
although, when she phones O’Rourke to give him the good news that he should
expect her soon, O’Rourke’s reaction is that of a man who has made the late
discovery that the reason his tea tasted funny was because there was arsenic in
it. How does Little Bee know the British journalist in the first place? Let me
explain: Andrew O’Rourke and his wife Sarah—who is the editor of a women’s rag,
where she likes to tackle issues that matter such as the Iraq war
and the asylum problems and not just the latest innovations in vibrators—were
holidaying in Nigeria, in a particularly notorious beach very close to the
activities of the rebel groups in that country. Why do the O’Rourkes go to
Nigeria? Couldn’t they have gone, like the rest of the country, to Majorca if they wanted a cheap
holiday? They go to Nigeria partly because Sarah wants to go somewhere
different, but also because (and you suspect this is the real reason) the
Nigerian holiday is a freebie, one of the perquisites of her position in the
women’s magazine. Anyway, there they are, Sarah and Andrew, on a beach in
Nigeria, trying to sort out issues in their relationship. What are the issues?
Well, there is really only one issue: Sarah’s infidelity. You see, for a while
now, especially after the birth of their son, Charlie, Sarah has been feeling
unfulfilled in the relationship (yawn); she feels something is lacking (yawn, yawn); there is a
vacuum (oh, for God's sake). Therefore, when she visits the Home office for one of her serious
articles on the asylum seeker and meets Lawrence, the press officer, Sarah
wastes little time in seeking asylum in his bed. When Andrew finally gets wise
to the fact that his wife’s compass is pointing in some other direction, he
deals with the crisis in the mature Irish way: he blows a gasket, disappears to
Ireland, and goes on a bender. Lawrence is married and much as he enjoys the
clandestine rendezvous with his mistress, he is unwilling to leave his wife and
children, and Sarah does not quite fancy bringing up Charlie on her own. She
decides to go back to Andrew with tail between her legs, so to speak, and, in
the time honoured fashion of wooing back a cuckold, arranges a holiday in
Nigeria. So far so good. What is Little Bee doing on the beach? There is of
course no reason why she can’t be on the beach in Nigeria, seeing as she is
Nigerian. Nigeria is a free country and she, as a Nigerian citizen, can go
wherever she wants. However, there is a reason why Little Bee and her elder
sister, Nikiruka, who has begun to refer to herself as ‘Kindness’, are on the
beach. I don’t think I shall be giving away the game by revealing Little Bee’s
real name, which is Udo. Quite why the two sisters decide to change their
tribal names to those of an abstract concept and an insect is not made clear;
but perhaps that is not important. It is important, however, to know why the
two sisters are on the beach. They are on the beach because they are fleeing
persecution. They are fleeing from their village; they are fleeing from the
murderers who machine-gunned down (or, more probably, macheted down) all the
men in their village. And now the murderers are after the two sisters who
witnessed the massacre. The reader is invited to believe that the ruthless
murderers are very concerned that the only way the authorities would come to know of
their crimes—which involved killing scores of men in daylight—is if these two
girls go to the police. Who are the murderers and why have they massacred
the men in the village? The novel provides only a sketchy explanation. We do
not know who the murderers are, but they have cleared the village (in a manner
of speaking) because it is sitting on an oil reserve. Certain parts of Nigeria
are rich in oil, a precious commodity, and (hang your heads in shame) the evil Western multinationals
can’t wait to get their grubby hands on this manna from heaven. The
multinationals want to drill for oil, the Nigerian politicians want the
kickbacks (which the Western multinationals are willing to provide), and the marauding squads want to kill people. You don’t need to be
Sir Alan Sugar to figure out that there is a scope here to form a mutually
benefiting consortium. Couldn't the villagers have been re-located, given
compensations, if they were expected to leave the land where they had
cultivated yam and looked after (and occasionally had sex with) their goats for
generations? The answer, regrettably, is ‘no’. The novel, via its protagonist,
Little Bee, kindly informs the reader that Nigeria is a country of spectacular,
unheard-of lawlessness. Everyone over there is corrupt. And the most corrupt
are the politicians. Which means that the poor, downtrodden, beshitten village
people have nowhere to go (except England). And only if the murderers do not
get to them first. Quite why the mercenaries, presumably the henchmen of the
big multinationals, which have the Nigerian politicians in their pockets, would
feel the need to silence the two orphan sisters is not clear, but it serves the
important function of propagating the story to one of its many dramatic points.
So there they are, Sarah and Andrew, strolling on the beach, with a guard from
the hotel resort keeping a respectable distance behind them, hoping to weave
back the frayed tapestry of their marriage, and all that the couple is asking
for is that they be left in peace. Is that too much to ask? Of course not; but peace and
solitude are luxuries that are more difficult to get in Nigeria than a doctor's appointment in England, even if you have the
all-powerful British pound (the British economy has not yet fallen off the
cliff) at your disposal. Out of the jungle that abuts the beach, run Little Bee
and Kindness towards them; and, hot in their pursuit, the killers. After disposing
off the guard with the ease of a Vince Lombardi quote, in a highly charged and
melodramatic scene (in comparison with which the most melodramatic of the most
melodramatic Bollywood films would pale into insignificance), the leader of the
gang, who takes this opportunity to inform the couple that he was educated in
England (which just goes to show that if you are a bad egg even English
education won’t turn you into a good egg), makes an extraordinary demand on the
British couple if they want to save the lives of the Nigerian teenagers
(begging the question why his gang was so desperately following the girls in
the first place if he was prepared to let them live, after all). Andrew, very
sensibly, rejects the demand out of hand, but Sarah has other ideas; she yields
to the insane demand of the leader. The gang-leader may be way beyond your
basic logic and facts, but he is a man of his word: Little Bee’s life is
spared, but Kindness is not so lucky. She is subjected to unimaginable unkindness
before she is killed. Little Bee then manages to get onto a ship headed for
England; she spends her time reading (as you do) Dickens’s Great Expectations (which
was obviously not a up to scratch with regard to its English, forcing the
teenager to read gossip magazines so that she could improve her English once
she is locked up in the detention centre). Back in England, Andrew is wrecked
with guilt for not saving the life of Kindness and descends into deep
depression. So deep is the depression that it is only a matter of time, you
feel, before he will become suicidal. That point is reached when he receives
the phone-call from Little Bee (although, as you delve further into the novel,
you realise that he could—surely would—have become suicidal earlier had he
known that upon their return Sarah—having got over the remorse of her
adultery—had once again approached Lawrence to fill her 'salt-seller'). Andrew
concludes that he has had enough of this living thing and decides to remove
himself from the Darwinian pool. By the time Little Bee reaches his house—she
walks all the way; running away endlessly from the men in Nigeria having
prepared her well for long journeys on foot—Andrew has hanged himself; indeed
Little Bee turns up on the day of his funeral. Sarah, who may or may not be a
member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, gives Little Bee a sanctuary in her
house, knowing fully well that she is an illegal immigrant, much to the
annoyance of Lawrence, the creepy Home Office man, who is hoping to lift the
widow’s spirits by introducing an invigorating regime of bedroom exercise.
Towards that end he has told some porkies to his unsuspecting wife and has
turned up unannounced at Sarah’s home. In the breakfast room, the morning after
his arrival, Lawrence tries to persuade Little Bee to give herself up to the
police. Little Bee refuses to see his reasonable point, pointing out
(reasonably, you have got to admit) that she would definitely be deported back
to Nigeria if she did that, where unspeakable fate awaits her (she has, you are
pleased to note, by now, appropriated the language of victimization). When
Lawrence threatens to go to the police himself, Little Bee ripostes by
threatening to tell on him to his wife. That does it. All fight goes out of
Lawrence, and he decides to deal with the situation in the time-honoured
English way of empty platitudes and avoidance of awkward questions. Even the
devastating secret to which he is made privy (another melodramatic point in the
novel) by Little Bee fails to spur him. Then Charlie gets lost, while the
reconstituted, albeit temporarily, family—the grieving widow, her lover, and
the illegal immigrant who may or may not have contributed, directly or
indirectly (I can’t spill all the beans) to the death of the widow’s diseased
(and unlamented) husband—is picnicking; and in the ensuing hysteria, the police
cotton on to the fact that Little Bee has outstayed her welcome in the
unwelcoming Britain. With the alacrity of a mountaineering team that has
decided to beat a hasty retreat to the base-camp after discovering that the
oxygen-cylinders are leaky, Little Bee is put back on the plane back to Nigeria
for repatriation. Is everything lost? Not yet. Sarah and Charlie have managed
to sneak on to the plane. How did Sarah know that Little Bee would be on the
plane? Via Lawrence, the spy. Lawrence, who was excessively desirous of getting
rid of the discommodating Nigerian teenager from his life so that he could go
on sampling the widow’s goodies without any complications, has had an inexplicable
change of heart now his very wish is granted. He supplies Sarah with the
details of Little Bee’s flight details, knowing fully well that Sarah, who has
turned into a crusader—she has resigned her job at the women’s magazine having
decided that writing editorials on women’s cosmetics is not how she would like
to channel her talents—would go into the lawless land that is Nigeria where, badness knows, what fate awaits her. As it happens what awaits Little Bee,
Sarah and Charlie when they arrive at Abuja, Nigeria, is a team of military
police. The reader is then expected to believe that the ruthless (and, lest you
forget, corrupt) Nigerian military and its commander, in their own country, are
intimidated by Sarah’s assertion that she is a British journalist and would
report anything they did to Little Bee to the British consulate. The military then places Little Bee in
a hotel—instead of marching her off to the nearest prison for leaving the
country under false pretext—together with Sarah. (You are in with a chance even
in the most corrupt, most ruthless and most lawless nation if only you have the
backing of an honest, brave and upright—even if adulterous, but we shall let it
pass—ex-editor of a British women’s magazine.) From this point onward, the
ludicrous tale becomes even more ludicrous, leading—mercifully not too many
pages later—to an ending that probably made Suzie Doore, the editor at Spectre,
whoosh that the novel was ‘tragic but uplifting’.
The Other
Hand
purports to tackle the serious issue of people fleeing oppression and
persecution from their home countries and seeking sanctuary in the safety of
the developed world several thousand miles away. The novel, insofar as I can
see, attempts to make a powerful case, via the travails of one of its
protagonists, Little Bee, for giving asylum to the victims of atrocities. It
also highlights the humiliating conditions in which the asylum seekers are made
to live at the detention centres in England. The novel, you feel, is trying to make
a serious point—that it would be a folly to paint all asylum seekers with the
same broad brush. It tries to smash the stereotype—which undoubtedly exists in
the minds of certain section of the British society—that all asylum seekers are
either economic migrants or spongers. It is a praiseworthy aim. In the process,
though, the novel creates a few stereotypes of its own. Now I am no expert on
West Africa, but the representation of Nigeria and what goes on there is so
unsubtle, so completely lacking in any nuance, and yet so utterly sketchy it lacks credibility. (The author provides some Mickey Mouse statistics at the end,
which are about as convincing as a man weighing two hundred pounds extolling
virtues of moderation).
The
novel is cleverly structured. Told from the perspectives of its two protagonists—Little
Bee and Sarah—it goes back and forth in time. Cleave knows the tricks of the
trade: there are dramatic scenes at regular intervals and many of the
chapters—like those in Cloud Atlas, to which Suzie Doore
compared it—end tantalizingly. All of this helps to keep the reader’s interest
going. Cleave is also very good at capturing the modern British lingo. Oiled
along by prose that is not cumbrous and at pace that is brisk, the flow of
narrative is smooth; the reader romps through the novel in no time. The trouble
is the dramatic points—on some of which hinges the whole structure of the
narrative—are, not to put too fine a pint on it, implausible. They do not ring true.
