White Teeth: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

Marcus is sitting in Heathrow Airport, smoking a pipe, when a pretty Asian girl—holding a copy of the book he published last spring—tells him that he can’t smoke in the airport. Marcus asks the girl if she thinks that the book is good, and she tells him that she thinks it’s a “headfuck.” Marcus presses her, and she explains that she finds it frightening, since it is about genetic engineering: she believes that recombinant DNA technology might be used to wipe out Arabs. Marcus has been shocked by the reception of his FutureMouse project—mentioned in the book—which has been criticized by “a great ocean of idiots, conspiracists, religious lunatics,” and others. The girl calls Marcus’s book “fascist,” though Marcus thinks that the book is concerned with “more prosaic developments in recombinant DNA”; people have focused on the mouse chapter, though, including Joshua, who now refuses to speak to his father.

As Marcus struggles to justify the book, the girl gets up and walks to her gate. Marcus remembers his appointment with Magid Iqbal at gate 32, which he has begun to think of as a “meeting of minds”: he is picking up Magid from the neighborhood because the Iqbals’ car broke down, and Marcus persuaded Alsana and Samad that there would not be enough room for Magid’s luggage if they came with him in his car. Marcus believes that he and Magid will be a teacher and a willing pupil, and he reflects that though Magid will look identical to Millat, he will otherwise be completely different. Magid approaches Marcus, and he is struck by his appearance, which is “cleaner cut” than Millat’s. Marcus marvels at the fact that Magid has spotted him from a crowd of many—evidence of their intrinsic connection—but Magid tells him that it was easy to spot him, since he is the only white person at the gate where the flight from Bangladesh has disembarked.

Alsana tells Clara that she doesn’t recognize Magid, who seems strange; he is fastidious, and he does not react when Alsana tells him that Millat is not living at home with them. Samad, too, is disappointed in Magid’s intellectualism and atheism, but he is pleased that Alsana no longer addresses him with “maybe” or “possibility”—she now says “yes” and “no” to him. Millat returns at the beginning of October, determined not to see Magid on “political, religious, and personal grounds.” Musical chairs ensues between the children: Millat stays with the Iqbals, Joshua goes to the Joneses’, Magid stays with the Chalfens, and Irie also goes to the Chalfens to earn money working for Marcus. She is jealous of Magid, who is treated as an equal to Marcus, while she acts as Marcus’s secretary; Magid helps Marcus prepare for interviews and press releases, bringing “Chalfenism to the people.” 

Magid and Marcus are oblivious to the “widespread displacement” that their friendship has caused for their families members. Irie, though, acknowledges that Magid is “good” and “kind,” with “absolute empathy for everybody,” though he is also somewhat socially awkward and stunted. Millat is still shunning Magid, who says that he has “converted to Life,” seeing god in science and rationality. Irie realizes that Magid, like Mad Mary, is touched by “it”—“prophecy.”

Irie gives a press release to a journalist calling about the FutureMouse project (which has become an “enormous, spectacular, cartoon of an idea”), describing an event that will take place on December 31, 1992: a two-week-old FutureMouse will be put on display at the Perret Institute in London. The mouse will be an experiment in cellular biology and the way that cancer progresses within cells. Irie tells the journalist that the mouse will live for seven years on display at the institute, and that at certain points in its aging, certain characteristics will appear, offering the public “a unique opportunity to see a life and death in ‘close-up.’” This technology might hold the key for slowing the progression of disease and the process of aging.

After Irie finishes her call, Joyce asks her not to use the phone, since she is concerned that Millat might be trying to call. Joyce wants to get Millat and Magid to face each other, since she believes that they need each other. She thinks that the two boys have experienced trauma because of the split in their religions and cultures. Irie tells Joyce that she should worry about her own family, particularly Joshua, whom she hasn’t seen in two months. Joyce thinks that Joshua is just trying to get attention, whereas Magid has some “real problems.” Irie disagrees, calling Magid a “Zen master.”