Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

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Less than three minutes in front of the interview panel and Alice Bhatti knows in her heart that she is not likely to get the job advertised as Replacement Junior Nurse, Grade 4. A sharp tingling in the back of her neck warns her that not getting the job might not even be the worst thing that could happen here. No questions have been asked yet, but she knows that all the preparation — her starched white uniform, the new file, a faint smudge of mud-brown lipstick, breathing exercises she has done to control her jumpy heart, even the banana she ate on the bus to stop her stomach from rumbling — all seems like wasted investment, halal money down the haram drain, as her father Joseph Bhatti had put it. “These Muslas will make you clean their shit and then complain that you stink,” he had said. “And our own brothers at the Sacred? They will educate you and then ask you why you stink.”

She has been in this room before but is dreading the prospect of sitting down on a chair and talking. She has always stood here and taken her orders: Have you cleaned the floor, Alice? Why have you not cleaned the floor? Who do you think will clean that blood on the floor, Alice? Your father?

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