Wandering in Pakistan: The Paradoxical World of the Marginalized in Nadeem Aslam’s The Golden Legend (2017)

Abstract


Introduction
The Golden Legend (2017) is a British novel written by Nadeem Aslam, a British-Pakistani writer.It tells the story of the four main characters, Nargis, Helen, Imran, and Lily making their journey of running away from society's accusation because of their identity.
Nargis, who used to be Margaret, is now a Muslim, known as an architect couple with her late husband, Massud, in one of the Zamana neighborhoods, Badami Bagh.After Massud gets killed in a mass shooting, she has to face the injustice regarding his death ending up in endless terror haunting her house.A sequence of events continues with Helen falsely incriminated writing about not believing in djinn alongside being Lily's daughter, a sinful man having an affair with a cleric's daughter.Lily soon runs away from Zamana, followed by Nargis and Helen, whose lives are more threatened daily.Imran, the blood donator for Massud, decides to go with them, believing it is unsafe for two women to wander alone.Lily heads off a different way from Nargis, Helen, and Imran and remains unfound even until the end of the story.This portrayal of searching for a safe place, where they can be what they want and get recognition from society is an allusion to what happens to Pakistani Muslims in Britain.The way this novel asserts Zamana was built to remember Britain's colonization by having it resemble Union Jack implies the double meaning of this story.It is not just to depict religious discrimination in Pakistan but also to critique Britain.

Various studies have been conducted to analyze how the problems in Nadeem Aslam's
The Golden Legend (2017) are presented.Clements (2022) thinks Aslam intends the work to be morally centered on today's world discourse, showing that this has happened recently.The phenomenon where Muslims get "hurt" is permitted through religious masquerade and is driven by "private enmities and economic ambitions" (p.864).However, there is no specific explanation of how "today's world discourse" finds its roots from colonization.Unlike Clements, Shah et al. (2023) highlight the subject of the Christian as a minority living in Pakistan, being the most appealing topic.They argue that the political marginalization and Pakistan's Islamist forces as a determiner of religious identity are the main points of minority victimization in Pakistan.Christian's identity politics as a minority has to be manipulated by forces who are in charge.However, the perspective on the violated minority here is merely focused on the field of domestic politics-it does not perceive the broader possibilities of the discourse.As the paper centers its attention on how the regime in Islamic states confines the people of the states to be under their control, it does not consider other catalysts that may trigger Aslam to raise the representation in the novel.Never has Britain been mentioned at least once in the paper, even though its existence in the story is something very fundamental.With that miss, it is a gap that we try to pursue in our research.
While Shah et al. focus on the use of forces in establishing a religious regime in Pakistan, Ifzal, Tabassum, & Murtaza (2021) talk about the religious narrative with its ontology that is a real threat to the minority group in The Golden Legend (2017).They argue that the (mis)using of religious narrative to harm the subalterns is reflected by how Aslam as a Pakistani writer "rewrit[e] the history of the globe" (p.132) in the novel.Moreover, the retold tale is packed to be something that can be seen as "more than history without becoming false," exemplified by political life at home and abroad (Waterman in Shah et al.,p. 132).The paper already states mostly the same thinking as ours, but no research clearly explains Pakistan's relation with Britain as Aslam is strongly known for his British-Pakistani identity.
British imperialism opened a way through many countries by colonizing them, at the same time opening new access to the colonized people to come to their country.With many immigrants coming, especially in this case Muslim Pakistanis, Britain becomes the "new geographies of displacement" as they need to elucidate their connection with their new society (Nasser, 2003, p. 7).They have to be unsettled for some time and go around with vague identities.They do not know whether they are already accepted by society or not.Being a part of society is more than just a sense of belonging towards the shared geography as 'home', but also equal citizenship.According to Elsayed (2023), the acknowledgment of multiculturalism makes the creation of marginalization inevitable, as it shifts to be more apparent.The acknowledgment of this distinction within society somehow also requires the minority to act as a "good citizen", if they do not want to be seen as threatening and being discriminated against their whole life.This anti-minority sentiment makes the Muslim community reconsider their choice for a place to live because an area that is shared with co-ethnics offers more security and power to counter discrimination.Facing endless persecution, in the end, they try to have a safe place by building a space through cultural networking and a physical territorial geography.Having a newly-made place specialized for the community and symbols from architecture is a realization of transnational imagining as real and thoroughly valuable within the proximity of their being.However, the dream of making a new space within a place cannot be purely made out of the independent culture as one "guest" wants it to be.The making has to be approved by the "host" either directly authorizing every admission and way of life or infusing an understanding of its cultural establishment as a postcolonial condition.Nasser (2003) discusses how the acceptance of Muslim Pakistanis in Britain is based on Britain's colonial values, compelling this "postcolonial culture" to be a part of national identity.It is intriguing how the colonized people must cherish the importance of being claimed for diversity.At the same time, they are also marginalized for being different in the land of their colonizer-not much distant from what they have experienced back at their original home.Thus, the union with the co-ethnic and co-religious communities is needed to resist homogenizing attempts.Thus, their bond with the place they inhabit is something that should be noticed further.
Back to the depiction in Pakistan, certain buildings have been severely shown as territorial sites for particular groups and conditions.Especially in this novel, buildings become a part that supports marginalization.By how Aslam eventually starts the narration by irradiating the library's presence as a "far door"-being constructed oddly for having buildings situated in a room-the emphasis of how different "this world" can get that far is being alarmed.It continues with the transformation of the abandoned building into a home in contrast to the university in imaginative geography.The soon-to-come parts of geographical authority become much emphasized with the heavy demands of living generally as in the real world.Other than that, an extensive image is drawn from some characters' situations from only having a motion within one city to turn their identity into a haunt.They move freely out of their former zone, yet being trapped for being free enough outside the city.This is the irony of letting the marginalized "liberated": it becomes a punishment instead because they really become nothing.The symbolization of buildings may explain why the reasons for the harm towards Christian are legalized and normalized.It is to take revenge towards the villain in the West.This sequent event of endless war, homeless-ing most of Pakistan here as a paradoxical world, being framed by places.With this basis, our discussion here will further take a deeper look at how the places are used.
Moreover, we also observe the act of remembering offered by the story concerning the characters and the readers with the embedded excerpts of That They Might Know Each Other within the narrative itself.This secondary text is written by Massud's father, containing twenty-one sections talking about several topics revolving around wars, pilgrimage, and trades that connect places traced down to see if cultural encounters have occurred.With that, Miller (2019) thinks that textuality is a weapon to combat powered and violent systems by weaving connectivity inside the community itself or with other communities.This is specifically built in the narrative with globalization as the means stories are transmitted from one to another, which means there is an action of being reliant on the text-in-text method.The double focus that appears while reading this work allows the readers to see the more obvious interconnectivity between each block of the East and the West with regards to individuals with global connections.By subconsciously reading the excerpt, both the characters and the readers are involved in inhabiting memory and claiming their connectivity with society.Furthermore, The Golden Legend (2017) differs from Aslam's previous works in terms of not being tangled only in post-9/11 discourse, as it begins to be fixated on what Miller said as a narrative space where it shows the imagery of reading yet at the same time illiterate and leads to the loss of propensity towards one side: bad or good.Thus, the imaginative-alternative space is made as any of these communication methods does not exist in the global narrative.
With all of the above being stated, the research objectives of this study are to show how place is being used as a tool for paradoxical characters' identity markers through wandering.It also shows that with such a journey, the characters remember themselves into their society.The problems will be further investigated and will be the main subject throughout the research.

Methodology
This research is carried out by employing a close reading of the text within poststructuralist and postcolonial theoretical frameworks, mainly referring to the works of Homi K. Bhabha on unhomeliness and those by Jacques Derrida pertaining to the problematic binary of host/guest to show how the loss of geographical authority corresponds with the privation of identity.
Bhabha's theoretical elaborations on unhomeliness is set within the larger context of theories on liminality and in-betweenness in postcolonial theory, which he extensively discusses in The Location of Culture (1994), while the problematic concept of home is specifically discussed in his "The World and the Home" (1992).Bhabha's term "unhomeliness" is developed from the Freudian theory of the Unheimlich or the uncanny.This concept is significant to the argument in this article as it helps frame the complexities involved in exploring migration and social mobility with regards to alienation.
Derrida's deconstructivist elaborations on the host/guest binary are crucially relevant as they further problematize the illusive and illusionary distinction between host and guest, self and other, and dismembering and remembering.The deconstructivist discussion of those binaries also contributes to the elaboration of liminal spaces and in-between conditions.
Close reading is crucial in identifying significant passages relevant to the conceptual aspects of the theoretical discourse.The interpretation and theoretical significance of these passages are then put into a dialogue with the findings of previous studies to provide context within the state of the art as well as to identify issues that have not been addressed in existing academic discourse on the subject.

Zamana: The Arrival Point
An absolute depiction of the endless journey that has to be done by a person to settle their identity and 'home' is performed by Nargis' story told in The Golden Legend (2017).She moves along places to find safety, to be within the society that acknowledges her fitting into their order.Her origin is not Zamana, but Lyallpur, a place where she remained as a Christian for a long time.She was named Margaret until she moved to Zamana by the name of Nargis.Nargis seeks freedom in Zamana yet ends up not fully free as she has to pretend to be Muslim.However, at one point she succeeds in getting a new life compared to how she was in Lyallpur-for being a devout Christian.This condition does not last long because she has to travel out of Zamana to accompany Helen.She goes on a journey with Helen to escape the social accusation of everything she has to endure in Zamana.With that, she has to wander again to enable her new identity.This might resonate with the starting point of the moment Muslim Pakistanis decide to migrate to Britain.Even though it is nice to be in a real home, surrounded by the religious community they belong to, the fact that homogenization takes place after colonization causes them to feel displaced and urges them to move to a better place.It is argued by Elsayed (2023) that displacement can also happen in one's homeland without bearing a physical distance, it is no wonder the desire for "home remaking" in a new place is simmering for those affected.Nargis does not like it particularly when the doctor discriminates against her for being a Christian and gives her a different syringe from the Muslims when she gets vaccinated.From that time, she is determined to get an appropriate life by having an identity as a Muslim.To her, Zamana is now the home where her house and life belong just like how the Muslim Pakistanis see Britain.
The same experience also applies to Imran's case whose appearance coming from Kashmir in India embodies another network of British imperialism.As India and Pakistan were split under British influence, the border territory was often fought over.Kashmir is that region.Endless war has broken out since 1990, so Muslims who want to fight against Indian soldiers are given training to be guerilla fighters, and it is promised that Pakistan guarantees their safety.When one is displaced to get their rights acknowledged, a noticeable colonization impact torments the colonized after the colonization is declared to have 'ended'.The British left Pakistan and India in that mess without looking back at what they had done.Imran flees the training because of the threat of being killed for not having enough faith in the religious values.Thus, he comes to Zamana to temporarily settle in Pakistan, without knowing he is going to off from the city soon.His sudden presence portrays an alarm, demanding Britain take responsibility for what happened in Pakistan and India.Though he is not Christian, he has no roots in the religious sense again as a Muslim.Therefore, according to social belief, he can be considered an infidel-especially after he is linked to Nargis and Helen's journey.
As a part of what builds Zamana, houses facilitate much of the characters' movement and development.To begin with, Nargis organizes her house to feel familiar with her recent status.Within her house is a miniature of Hagia Sofia, and the Great Mosque of Cordoba that addresses the constructions of Islam and Christian identity.Aslam affirms this by connecting the existence of these two miniatures with a legend of a priest disappearing into the eastern wall of Hagia Sofia-which was a cathedral back thenwhen Muslims entered there and will come back to "complete the divine service" (2017, p. 23).Both identities are put aside to have the separator yet also the unifier within the house, permitting the reader to be more aware of what will be discussed further.Looking at what has been put within the first appearing issue by having an embodiment of a house, it can be said that the definition of a house, can also be referred to specifically as a home.
In this notion, the understanding is married with Brickell's (2017) conception of the home, which validates the state of home not just as a place that can be seen as felt by physics but also as a space in fathom that assists a relationship with the outer world.Not stopping on the unit of a house only, the image of the Badami Bagh, the neighborhood, presents inequity as the most concerning issue.Thus, an attempt is initiated to balance the status of the two communities by having Badami Bagh rebuilt.This act is done so Badami Badgh is adequate to be lived for the Christians, though its intention is devilish.It all started when one Muslim family decided to rent out small houses to the struggling Christians, and that continued until the present with Massud and Nargis rebuilding the abandoned building to be a new one: an act of giving and providing to rule over those who receive.This seems to be a balanced relationship, but actually, one part suffers.Moreover, there is also a thing with the white circle that marks the territory of the Christian's houses, which offers the view of Muslims being the ones in power.This discrimination occurs from differences causing conflicts or even collaboration within the "collectively produced and shared social capital" (Dangschat, 2009, p. 838).The intention of having Badami Bagh as a shared place revolves around the politics of power.Looking at the fact that they still share the sameness of being physically staying in the same nation and country cannot help.It gets worse because they may be what Chun (2009) said as overdetermined to be seen as a united group that everyone assumes.The understanding of identity in the marginalized eyes gets pushed to the point where they think they have much in common with the one in power and throw themselves into the illusion of being the same which is an identity crisis.Helen being wellprovided by Massud and Nargis is a dream that other Christians cannot reach, even Lily.Thus, the gloom of the question "Who am I?" cannot be disposed of even in the earliest stage of the space narrative level here.
It is not just Helen who has an identity crisis, but Nargis, Imran, and Lily also have that.They are trapped in a mode of forever guests in Badami Bagh because they cannot fixate on the legacy of their fondness toward the Muslim community.Thus, they are not accepted within society, which is not a surprising thing.However, they are still physically allowed to be on Zamana as they have the right to do so, referring to the law of receiving hospitality.According to Derrida & Dufourmantelle (2000), things that have to be paid attention to are that "the Law" in singular form differs from "the Laws" in singular form: it offers an understanding of unlimited support one could be given as a guest, that may top as much as the host has.In other words, it is to see the Host and the Guest as the same person because if it is referred to the root of the words, both words have the same root: ghos-ti-, meaning "stranger, guest, host".This implies that Nargis, Imran, Helen, and Lily have a chance to develop from a stranger within Zamana to be a real Guest, and even become a Host.This possibility can be achieved only if they show themselves to be fully invested in society's values, and to have the same thinking as the majority of the society.It is shown in Nargis' case where she can reach the level of Host by pretending to be a Muslim and all.This act of staging her life is done intentionally for a better life full of determination.She can even have a chance to host Imran, Helen, and Lily as her guests, giving them the hospitality they deserve.Nevertheless, once she decides to side with Helen and Lily, her true color is showing and so society treats her only as a guest again.The guest where "the unconditional Law" is emphasized to be not imperative, can be practiced out of duty toward them but for "the Laws".It keeps watching them whether the guests are "sleeping, dreaming, or making love" implying they are the forever object of society that has to open for being judged whenever it is (Derrida & Dufourmantelle, 2000, p. 85).They are made to be watched "under the glass", so even only a little inconvenience can affect society as they are vulnerable and susceptible to diversity.Therefore, unthinkable persecution can always happen to them without being predicted.
This Host-Guest relationship also applies to the Muslim Pakistanis in Britain for not being able to get recognized as full citizens there.The importance of citizenship is stated by Elyased (2023) for guaranteeing equal status with the natives, thus if one cannot get it, they are barely considered to exist.In one interview, a Pakistani Muslim thinks that she has no responsibility to act in a certain way just to be accepted within society.It is rather the society's responsibility to live without discriminating against others.It seems that Helen and Lily's situation is mirrored in this case because the Host will never willingly accept them due to their resistance to being homogenized.In the end, it is valid that "[r]acialising identity and religion is a significant barrier to achieving full citizenship in law and practice" (Elyased, 2023, p. 7).
These situations portray how the oppressed are never placed in a certain position, but in-between.Their agencies are not acknowledged neither as a part of the world nor completely outsided people.They are just an unknown being situated in the third world's side.Bhabha (1994) emphasizes that their agency are being relocated and reinscipted and the meaning of the hybridity in this context is no longer just about having two sides of positivity and negativity, but is a camouflage.This hybridity is used as "a space in-between the rules of engagement" facilitating the movement that challenges the synchronicity of social order by having an exceeded addition movement (Bhabha, 1994, p. 193).The characters in this novel are shown to be able to challenge the social order while having a status of marginalized even though they end up nowhere but in the thirdalternative-world.

To the Eternal Quest
Facing a sequence of events, the story made by those four main characters continues outside of Zamana.They have to get displaced as they are threatened to be killed by the outraged people and also the authorities there.As a consequence, they have to be involved in a situation where they do not have a home, both physically and as a concept.They are depicted as a vulnerable peoplemarginalized and oppressed-and become the target of multiple displacements, which home in the concept of place attachment cannot be elaborated by them; they get disrupted every time they try to have an attachment, thus a failed process of obtaining meaningful construction with their place is inevitable (Nine, 2018).Four of them have to constantly wander to settle their identity, causing them to lose their understanding of it and have no sense of belonging.For example, at the beginning of Imran's journal, the narrator describes him as being "outside almost everything" meaning that the effect of being a fugitive makes him stay out of his home almost all of the time-that he belongs to the outside (Aslam, 2017, p. 86).The term "freak displacement" is used by Gordimen in her novel to give an image of how being unhomely affects her characters' world, and within that the separation between communities is emphasized, being re-placed to the space of ambiguity consisting of doubled or split identity (Bhabha, 1992).Every place they visit may construct or destroy how they see themselves.
These places in this section are what Ryan, Foote, & Azaryahu (2016) mean by a "story space".With the collections of spatial frames added with the non-appearing other spaces mentioned in the narrative, story space brings the newly constructed form of space that the existence is related to the plot.When the focus shifted to seeing the movement, the interconnectedness with different cities became the new focus of this story.In the case of traveling narratives, while the fixed frame gives a spotlight toward the space where an event is held, a dynamically operating space is essential for the traveling character, thus it can give a glimpse of what specific kind of space is trying to be pursued by the characters.Bal (1997) argues that the movement from one space to another is connected with the aim of each life, mostly to go to the opposite of the recent state, and that differentiates how the departure and arrival points work.
Lily's displacement starts in the narrative when he revisits the place of buses passing by, indicating that the desire to do a movement is big as he is trapped inside the city receiving constant discrimination for being a Christian.He cannot ignore his thirst for freedom.Even though coming from an unfortunate event, Lily takes his chance to run away from his problems, wandering Pakistan after unintentionally becoming a murderer and being wanted by the authorities.In Lily's vision, Zamana is the complex space that, because of its people's background, pushes him outside of Zamana with a paradoxical identity: he is a fugitive but freed.However, freedom for him will never be guaranteed at all as he has to die uneasily at the end of the story, having his ghost also wander in the world.That is when he is finally freed but still does not have a real destination to go for his freedom.Lily's movement is followed by Helen's courage to board after her father makes her travel from Zamana to other regions.According to Zoran (1984), the textual structure has what is called a "field of vision", not reaching the state to be a "zone of action" and "place", including all that can be described as "here".The act of highlighting the present time of one situation, referring to the "now" base.Though he argues that it can be depicted as a "tiny object", in this case, the image of Zamana is not necessarily tiny physically, but be compared with the world Helen wants outside of Zamana.
Running away from blasphemies, Lily encounters an experience of being homeless; he sleeps on the street with other homeless people.He has to live with hunger, beg people to help him with his current condition, and work when there is a chance so that he can get at least a little penny to eat by pretending as a Muslim.He may be back to Badami Bagh, but that is just for a quick stop to make sure about Helen's whereabouts and pay a visit to his "victims" in their graves.Afterward, he straightly goes out of Zamana without ever coming back alive.Meanwhile, Nargis, Imran, and Helen experience a different way of wandering as they originally already have a plan for where they should go.That place is a building designed by Massud and Nargis located on a small island in the river.There, they get themselves to be temporarily 'safe', but another upcoming journey awaits them to be displaced again.
Based on Ryan, Foote, & Azaryahu's (2016) statement, the portrayal of their journey throughout the story spaces can be seen as mutual with Zoran's (1984) conception of "chronotopic space" that the relations are divided to be two parts: synchronic and diachronic.Lily, Helen, and Imran having no reversible movement can be indicated as diachronic relations.To have himself die in the middle of wandering, Lily never reaches the destination of his whole life either, thus he cannot make it again to the point where he starts as a living person.That case is the same with Helen, who suddenly disappears with Imran into an unknown situation, making the readers consider whether she is thriving alive or dying in the middle of her escapes.This situation leads to the closure that the search for life could result in the loss of self and identity.Wise (2000) sees migration as an act of being forced to make every place their "home" because they have to keep accepting new environments, situations, and habits that conduct cultures while clinging to what they already have.Thus, his statement that "[t]here is no fixed self, only the habit of looking for one" (Wise, 2000, p. 303) explains how unstable a state of self is, let alone added by the movement that makes it worse.With this, the characters' identities being displaced are validated as they are not where they usually belong and are questioned about their intention to make the move unless they reach a certain point.
While the diachronic relation is applied to Lily, Helen, and Imran's situation, Nargis and Aysha have the similarity of making Zamana both the departure and arrival point.It suits the synchronic relation of Zoran's (1984) chronotopic space theory.Nargis goes on a journey with Helen to escape the social accusations of things she has to endure in Zamana but comes back again without Helen and Imran to face the truth she tries to resist back then.Other than her, Aysha, Lily's lover, has her own story of wandering Pakistan to address her authority over herself for years of her life, making her journey seem different from Lily's for marking the territory based on a distinct perspective.As we already said before, the marginalization here also happens to the frail people within the same Muslim community, thus her story also carries the value of settling self with wandering.It starts from Zamana where she was born and lived briefly before moving to Dera Ismail Khan to reach the stage of getting married.Her movement toward Dera Ismail Khan displays a loosening chance of freedom, being tied up in the name of marriage.Then, she moves on to Waziristan to fulfill her husband's dream come true for being involved in the military.However, she cannot last it any longer after her husband convinces her to get a new wife.Therefore, running to Zamana again to gain back her freedom from her husband makes Zamana the land of freedom for Aysha instead, unlike the other characters.Both of the cases show how those women strive to make room for themselves, whether it means they have to get separated from their husbands or instead have to be married, aligning the fact both paths can work if only the women are treated right and are given "room", as how Stevenson (2014) refers room as something important for women.
Referring to Woolf's interpretation, a room is something that women must have, must be a place to settle which will facilitate them being independence.
Not being able to finish it in one way, is indicated as the aimless movement because the character is going back again to the departure point.This presents the space as "a labyrinth, as unsafety, and as confinement" (1997, p. 137).They cannot help but go back again to what attracts them to freedom, risking their whole lives just to be truly who they are.Throughout their mobility, they tend to do what Zoran (1984) said is having "motion and rest".The motion cuts off the world's tie with the characters and rest to have a reconnection within each place they go to visit.Though Zoran argues that some specific characters must move and rest separately, this does not apply to Nargis and Aysha as they can do both.Therefore, Zamana is a place that assists both possibilities.
Sometimes, the handful of oppressors, those who take a little part in the action, become victims.In Clignet (1971), Memmi states that there is no better choice for the colonizer other than "being evil and being ill at ease" (p.298).There is a misfortune for those who do not intend to sustain the disastrous condition but are forced to endure it because of having a shared identity with other colonizers.Having no protection over the sin their brothers have done in the 'mainland', they become the new aim of this madness targeted by the used-to-be victims there.Pakistan, being the land that offers such a chance, holds the power of Muslims as the majority in exchange for cornering out the now-marginalized community, the Christians.This situation is also highlighted by Adipurwawidjana (2020) in the event discussing Conrad's fiction narrative, saying that, "the oppressors are as dehumanized as the oppressed, despite the fact that they are more powerful and more at an advantage in imperial hegemony, which the narrative structure itself represents" (2020, p. 146).
The status of these displaced people is as confusing as how Muslim Pakistanis are seen in Britain.They come to Britain without knowing they will be permanent settlers or transients.This topic is discussed in Dahya's "Pakistanis in Britain: Transients or Settlers?" (1973), showcasing the mindset of the immigrants, who think about themselves as transient only because they plan to return to their homeland.They think that their recent place during their migration period is just a "temporary nature" because they still have responsibilities left in their homeland thus the thought of coming back is unbearable.Despite the dynamic portrayal of their identity, their belief that they can be a member of both societies so they can stay alive while living in a split is a myth that should not be questioned (Dahya, 1973).Home, whether to be the starting point or the place where they return is depicted in the novel as well.This represents that it is also an inner conflict for the marginalized to decide whether they deserve to settle.

Remembering as an Act of Re-membering
A lot of recalling of the past is contained in the narrative, thus indicating an unbroken loop of the past that still haunts the present, begging the unexplained remains to be reappointed though the memories are fragmented.For this action of reimagining the past to be applied in the present, Genette (1983) calls it "analepsis", having a trigger within the present to construct a reform may cause a repetition and a crash between two times or even the presence itself.This tool addresses not just the setting being absurd but also the identity of each character to be deconstructed as well by a later destroyed symbolic order that is their language.Being presented by the third narrator, the restriction passed to the authorization of the narrator makes each character's language wrecked; only dialogue facilitates them being presented.This "lack of word" is also an outcome of the paralyzes that will harm both the story and text level (Bal, 1997, p. 145).In one scene, as the characters do not have agency of themselves, Helen's feelings over a devastating event happening in front of her eyes are mostly described by the narrator.Her dialogue stops at, "[p]lease help him."and the description of how terrified she is only viewed by how she acts, not how she expresses how she feels about this (Aslam, 2017, p. 135).It is general the case for most of the narration; there is always limited access to the narrator as the distance to narrate the story is great.The narrator chooses to describe the situation depending on their thoughts rather than continuing the dialogue or trying to be involved in the characters' minds.
Remembering the past in the novel also has an impact on the author's background.Pakistan, Aslam's homeland, has been the reason why he is "broken in half" because when he left for England he was just 14 years old (Aslam & Sethi, 2008, p. 354).There, he had to dump all his interests and further pursue what was being set as the standard.Thus, he has no good memories except what had been dumped behind which he does not carry to England.The depiction of his disconnection from Pakistan is seen in how he performs the narrative in this work.He uses a constant past tense to tell the story time, indicating that it all happened in the past-except the last part of the last chapter-as if it is a tale being retold to ensure that it has already passed and the one who retells it was involved in that situation.
Despite the fact that this book is the latest work written by Aslam, with the most modern setting compared to The Wasted Vigil (2008) and The Blind Man's Garden (2013) which are set between the 1980s and until early 2000s, he places Pakistan in a position as if he wants it to be the home he used to live in, not tangled with any current situation of the danger 'outside'.It is the Pakistan he wished to live in during his early stage of life which the gap between the actual setting of the work is more likely thirty years apart.
In Harvey (2006), Barthes argues that the use of the past tense implies a sense of consequentiality that is seen when one looks back at the past event and tells that in an order.This is chosen selectively, only a certain part will appear in the retelling process.Aslam actually can only remember fragmented memories of his homeland, so he still chooses the part he only wants to show.In this case, he even twists it by adding what does not belong to his real experience as a Muslim, so it becomes a paradox with what he has undergone.The paradox is further found by referring that the use of the past tense is not always to address that it is past.Now, the pastness is no longer about time, but just become the identification key of fiction, and "these events must have happened for the narrator to tell us about them" (Harvey, 2006: 73).Even if it is not in the past, but just seconds away before the narrator tells the story, it still has that distance of the gap between the narrative time and the past of the storytime.Therefore it cannot fulfill what the statement argues, because never has that side of the pastness-a recent past-ever been addressed by the narrator, unless in the fact that it is just in the vague modern time setting.By looking at the narration, "[w]hen mobile phones appeared on the market a decade or so ago" (Aslam, 2017, p. 68), it can be sensed that the story time setting may be situated in the early-mid 2000s since mobile phones were introduced to the market in Pakistan around the 1990s.
The narrative time is still undecided since the shift towards the 'real' present, where it is the time of the narrator narrating the story, is just indicated by "[t]hese years later" (Aslam, 2017, p. 286) that cannot be surely determined as well.However, one sure thing, the use of past tense here, really indicates that what is told is mostly a part of remembering from the narrative time as present, where the implication is that the present is just temporal instead of the past.Not just the connection between the story time and the narrative time, but the story time having its past also becomes the embodiment of remembering as well.Using a perfect past tense indicates that something had happened before the current story time, validating that the story time has its past.As seen in how Nargis regrets her decision to not tell Massud that she was Margaret, she recalls the moment when Massud bought her a phone, ending in the describing how she had been anxious having a phone, afraid that her identity might get revealed, which is not totally in line with the first narrative but still contains bits of relevance and it is what Genette calls "internal heterodiegetic analepsis" (Genette, 1983, p. 50).This passage of Nargis going back to the past shows that to 'answer' the present by recalling the past, picking up pieces of the past that may not be fully becoming an answer that is wanted.However, it helps to understand from a different perspective: the disconnection and an effort to weave them back together by remembering.
Another act of remembering can also be seen in the symbolization of the building.Being stacked up into one nation, the regions within Pakistan build a new side in the narrative for not being known as a nation only but what Ryan, Foote, & Azaryahu call a "story world", a place where the depiction of "the imagination as a coherent, unified, ontologically full, and materially existing geographical entity" addressed (2016, p. 24).Because of this understanding, the readers can grasp the union of both real and imaginary places, giving them a new perspective built by the narrative structure.Hagia Sofia and the Great Mosque of Cordoba miniature as a pair being built by Massud and Nargis represent the accompaniment of Islam and Christianity in the history of civilization.Hagia Sofia used to be a cathedral but now is a mosque, while the Great Mosque of Cordoba is the reverse.It depicts what we said as "role-switching" regarding who has been in power for a certain period.Now, that both existences are established within the narrative, spaces become much more detailed and particular.Those miniatures are not set to be represented and ends in "what" questions, but "how".It works just precisely like the narrative itself.According to Tschumi in Psarra (2009), architecture works to deliver such a meaning socially.Thus, a notion of order, event, and movement should not be ignored but must be "questioned, deconstructed and reinterpreted" (Psarra, 2009, p. 234).It is quite a strong statement if it were to be compared to the narrative, so we get to let in another perspective from Hillier in Psarra (2009) that it is not the building that directly affects humans' actions.Having a certain building being constructed within an area means that its spatial configuration is considered wisely.So, once the building finally gets assembled, it can deliver back the same purpose of means.Therefore, it can be concluded that the properties' presence embodies the area's social value, specifically defining what has been happening (2009).With that being said, Hagia Sofia and the Great Mosque of Cordoba miniatures are important symbolizations of Islam and Christianity being a community that coexist side by side.It is also depicted as a try to put those communities on par as can be seen by how Nargis does not leave the last detail in the miniature so both buildings can be in the same height.Moreover, at the end of those miniatures' state, the Great Mosque of Cordoba still hangs just the way it has always been while the Hagia Sophia falls back on the floorit has never been moved back.It signals how, the focus is put on the Christian-dominated society now, holding power over the fall of Islam: Muslim Pakistanis in Britain.
Furthermore, the act of remembering is also represented by the telling of golden legends.The golden legends delivered by That They Might Know Each Other contain several historical moments that resonate with the intra-and inter-textual discourse of the novel.The Turkish rulers in "The Book of Architecture" are told to get the Parthenon as a Christian church and change it to a Mosque under their power.However, this history is later banished with what happened in 1492: the moment of Spain being rechristened and also Ottoman Türkiye established with the displaced Muslims and Jews from Spain.One part where Türkiye and Spain's relationship is utilized for depicting Muslims and Christians is contained in Don Quixote, telling about how Turks attack a Spain ship but end up failing as the Turkish captain is captured waiting for the death.This situation implies how an attempt by Islam to win over Christians fails, which reflects Aslam's effort to portray something that would not happen in Pakistan.This situation outside Pakistan is nearly the same as the tale told in the secondary text.Now, Türkiye as the representative of the East gets replaced by Pakistan, while the West shifts from Spain to Britain.
Other than the explanations above, remembering can also be seen in the appearance of haunting ghosts.Bigger than a story world, there is a narrative universe that Ryan, Foote, & Azaryahu define as the world that consists of what has been presented in the text added by the made-up worlds that are desired by the characters along with much of the "beliefs, wishes, fears, speculations, hypothetical thinking, dreams, fantasies, and imaginative creations" (2016, p. 25).Imaginative creations in The Golden Legend (2017) can be sensed by the presence of the ghost that wanders throughout Badami Bagh, indicating a new-made alternative space out of Pakistan itself.The presence of this ghost starts with the hanged mutineer moving here and there to ask people to untie himself.It continues with an appearance of not so much highlighted woman wearing a pearl necklace; addressing how women are still hidden because of men's dominance in the other dimension.The appearance of the mutineer ghost is repetitive, and it has a strong impression on some characters that she thinks of herself as having another Self that is a ghost too.Also, Lily dances with that haunting ghost as if the ghost is real-the dance that we think makes Lily unwantedly become a ghost also.Ending up nowhere, the ghost of Lily also symbolizes how unhomeliness makes the people unable to get anywhere but wander without an exact identity.He no longer gets called Lily, as his identity is just a ghost.
According to Derrida in Saghafi (2006), a ghost is less realistic and can be seen as equivalent to an "image" that has copies or doubles.Lily imitates the path of being a ghost, showing that haunting can also be persuasive even though the presence of the ghost is merely a "being".Derrida in Lewis (1996), haunting can be done without being present because all it gives is a "ghostly embodiment of a fear and panic" caused by an unstable self (p.26).Furthermore, ghost haunts with no meaning to be feared but to make the man terrified of themselves, starting to question if they are the "grueman spook" (Lewis, 1996, p. 27).They are pressured to be ideal but do not believe in themselves.The pressure of being able to reach the ideal state depending on the idealized form, makes all the past and the present seem "illusive" (Gallop, 1982).According to Lacan in Gallop (1982), it is because something ideal that is formed in a mirror stage is fictional for being an establishment of ego.To end this, it can be inferred that even until the new dimension is constructed, the marginalized cannot find their identities to fit the social standard or what they want it to be, and being a ghost may be the last stop to their forever identity: keep existing but is not seen.The wandering is not necessarily impactful for their purpose of living a new life of the desired freedom, not marginalized and settled because once they become the marginalized group, they will forever be the one.
Lastly, remembering is an act to 'remember' one into their society.Looking back at what Bhabha (1992), who pioneers the term 'unhomely', said, there is no partiality to one side as two sides are blended, not for good, confusing the viewing.It is quoted that Bhabha refers to the event to be realized when the vision has to be seen "as divided as it is disorienting" (1992, p. 141), and does not let the people be sure of which part they are in now.The defamiliarization of Zamana's beauty symbolizes the love for a real identity that has disappeared, "It was a new Zamana, a new Vela" (2017, p. 62).The action of forgetting something and then remembering it again is done to have a new identity.Remember in other terms can also be seen as a move to 'remember' what used to be a community member, but is no longer now.

Conclusion
Nadeem Aslam's The Golden Legend (2017) reflects a similar experience of Muslims as a marginalized group in Britain through the depiction of Christians in Pakistan: a paradox.The story of the selfless and homeless wanderers seizes the readers' perspective toward the marginalized, which is more than just a place-level classification.This research shows how place is being used to construct the identity of the characters through wandering and also to show that with such a journey, there is also an act of characters re-membering themselves into their society.Through a methodology of close reading, this study refers to the texts of the poststructuralist and postcolonial theoretical frameworks, specifically Homi K. Bhabha's unhomeliness and Jacques Derrida's host/guest concept.With this, it gives a better comprehension of the unheard, a forum that represents a fictional story from the subaltern of the East and also the East suffering in the West.The movement of the character is not just determined by whether it is reversible or not; it signifies the status of the displaced people to be considered forever guests to a host.They are never fully accepted in society nor get recognition as an absolute citizen, thus coming back to their homeland has become a choice.As a more obvious comparison, paradox is depicted through architecture and the golden legend told in the story so the text-in-text does not just work to remind the characters of the past, but also to the inter-discourse.This act of remembering the past is done to remember themselves, inhabiting a sense of belonging with society.As this research focuses on the utilization of places that allow the wanderers to establish their identity, we expect future research will be able to explore more on the aspect of migration that will unveil more findings.