When the Moon Is Low

by Nadia Hashimi

  Aziz, a nomad baby, now was starting to grab at things they dangled in front of him and cooing. He would likely be crawling soon, Madar-jan predicted. Saleem watched his baby brother growing and wished his own metamorphosis into manhood would come with the same speed. He wanted hair on his face, chest, and everywhere else he knew it was supposed to be. He looked himself over carefully in the privacy of his baths, noting the changes that no one saw but him. He wanted his arms to thicken with the road map of veins he’d traced on his father’s forearms. His voice cracked and wobbled, so his words were sparse. Soon, he hoped, his voice would catch up to him.

  The responsibility he felt for his family and the respect Hakan showed him made him feel like a man even if his body didn’t. Saleem moved about in the crowd, looking for friendly faces. Hakan knew none of the farmers and was not able to offer much beyond leading him to this gathering place. Saleem was unsure what would happen once he arrived at the farm and looked for someone who might help.

  Most of the people in the group were older. They smoked cigarettes and squinted under the bright, morning sun. There were about thirty people in all. The women kept to themselves and formed a loose mass off to the side. Some wore colorful triangles of cloth as head scarves, tied primly under the chin, with modest long-sleeved shirts and calf-length skirts. Taken together, they were an eclectic bunch, with a mosaic of patterns that dizzied the eye.

  Saleem wanted to approach the women but refrained. If he wanted to be treated as a man, he would have to act like one. He took a deep breath and sat on the curb beside a man who looked to be in his forties. Saleem rubbed his palms on his thighs, trying to think of how to strike up a conversation. The man cleared his throat roughly and spat a thick, yellow glob onto the sidewalk. A slammed door would have been more inviting.

  Saleem’s stomach turned. He stood and looked at his watch, touched its face, and ran his fingers over the worn leather band. Toward the back of the crowd stood three men in their late thirties, chatting casually. Saleem took a chance. He walked over, but just as he neared, they stopped speaking.

  “Hello. You are working on farm?” he asked, his voice crossing an octave. Saleem felt his face warm with embarrassment.

  The men watched him inquisitively. One nodded, a man dressed in a lime green shirt and loose navy slacks, who looked to be the eldest of the three. Saleem was surprised to hear him speak in Pashto.

  “Are you Afghan?”

  The Waziri family spoke Dari, but Saleem was able to recognize and understand basic conversation in Pashto as well. He nodded emphatically.

  “Yes, yes I am!” he affirmed in Dari.

  “You have come to work?” one of them asked in amusement.

  “Yes, we’ve been here only a few days.” Saleem combined Dari with Pashto. The men seemed to understand.

  “So you are traveling with people?”

  “Yes, with my family. My mother, my sister, and my brother.” One of the men took out a half-smoked cigarette and relit it. His brows perked at the family inventory.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “From Kabul. We went to Herat and then to Iran. From Iran we came to Turkey, but we are trying to get to England.” Saleem was relieved to have found Afghans, as if he’d come upon a street sign confirming his route.

  “England, huh?” They all chuckled. “With a mother, and two more kids? Hard enough to travel alone. If you’re smart, you’ll stay here and find a way to make money without getting arrested. That’s all you can hope for.”

  Saleem did not appreciate their pessimism. He decided to shift the conversation.

  “How do you find work at the farms?”

  “You’ll see, and you’ll wish you never asked. Trucks come and take you to farms bigger than you’ve ever seen. You go to the farm-houses and see which farmer will pay for a day’s work. They’ll offer you pay that will stink worse than the animal dung you’ll clean.”

  “How much will they pay?”

  “Does it matter? You’re not in any position to negotiate. If you can get something to eat from them, do it. It’s the next best thing to money.”

  The man with the cigarette finally spoke. He’d been wanting to ask something.

  “Where is the rest of your family now? Are they here?”

  “Yes, we’re staying with a Turkish family—a husband and wife. They’ve given us a small room, but I don’t know for how long.”

  “And you have a brother and a sister?”

  “Yes, and my mother.”

  “My friend, what is your dear sister’s name?” he said with a wink.

  Saleem clenched his teeth. “Thanks for the information,” he muttered. He gave a nod to the man in green and ignored the other two. Saleem walked away and fumed at the way his own people would treat him, as if he was incapable of defending his family’s honor. He cursed his stupidity for being so loose lipped with strangers.

  Saleem turned the corner and found himself staring through the window of a ceramics store, the glass so smudged it felt as if he were gazing into a different time. Inside, a man in his forties swept the floor slowly.

  Everywhere he turned, Saleem saw his father.

  He’d even seen him in Hakan. Something about the way he’d stepped out of the masjid, the look of peace on his face, fresh from prayers, had been reminiscent of Padar-jan. He was everywhere and nowhere.

  The sound of engines brought Saleem back. He returned to the crowd and piled into the back of the three trucks idling on the corner. He made sure to stay clear of the Afghans he’d met.

  THE FARMS WERE JUST AS THEY’D DESCRIBED. EACH HOUSE SAT on its own plot, separated from its neighbor by acres upon acres of green rows. When the trucks stopped, the medley of passengers disembarked with their small satchels and scattered toward their respective farms. Saleem stood in the dirt road, unsure. He watched the able-bodied workers disperse, going left and right. One older woman plodded down the road, the tap of a cane setting her pace. She seemed to be headed toward a run-down yellow home. Saleem followed.

  In the front of the house, a boy no more than eight or nine years old brushed the flank of a dusty-brown donkey. The sprawling house was in worse shape than its neighbors but surrounded by gridded acres of ample crops. Surely this house, whose only field help seemed to be an older woman, could use a helping hand.

  Saleem let her lead the way.

  About halfway to the house, she shot a look over her shoulder without pausing her step. She was round and scowled. Saleem quickened his pace until he was near enough to make out the lines of her weathered face. He cleared his throat and said hello. She did not look Afghan. She had choppy, black hair cut like a man’s and wore a floral print dress, the material so stiff it seemed to hover around her legs without touching them.

  She looked at Saleem and mumbled something in response. Saleem pointed at the yellow farmhouse ahead of them and asked her if they needed more people to work. She frowned and shook her head. Saleem, unsure if she’d understood his question, continued on.

  In his best English, Saleem offered his services to Mr. Polat, the lanky landowner. Mr. Polat looked him up and down, shrugged his shoulders, and introduced him to farm labor.

  At the end of the first day, Saleem lingered, thinking the farmer would pay him for his labor. But Mr. Polat shook his head, refusing to pay for a day of learning. He told Saleem to return tomorrow and earn his money. Saleem bit his tongue until he was back on the dirt path at sunset. He kicked and spat at the ground. The woman who’d worked alongside him watched without comment. As they waited for the trucks to take them back to the village, Saleem reached into his pocket and strapped the watch back on to his wrist. How would he explain to Madar-jan that he had worked from morning to evening without receiving any wages?

  SALEEM BEGRUDGINGLY WORKED FOUR FULL DAYS WITH HIS ONLY compensation being a piece of grilled chicken between two slices of bread. He picked tomatoes until his back ached and his fingers had numbed. The woman he’d followed to this house
was Armenian, he learned later in the week. Though she spoke no English, she managed to communicate two important things to Saleem: first, how to distinguish the ripe tomatoes from the unripe by the flesh and weight; and, second, that Polat would pay him eventually. Saleem tolerated the unpaid week because he had few options and feared going through another probationary period if he tried another farmhouse.

  At the end of the week, Polat handed Saleem a few crumpled bills. There was no discussion or negotiation. Saleem stared at the money in his palm, nothing much to speak of, and nodded. It wasn’t even enough to buy his family a meal.

  From that day on, Saleem was paid at the end of the day, but the amount was inconsistent and unrelated to how many buckets of tomatoes he was able to fill from the fields. When the Armenian woman saw Saleem fingering his bills in dismay, she griped alongside him in her own tongue.

  SOON SALEEM’S NAILS BECAME RAGGED AND RIMMED WITH DIRT. He developed calluses on his palms and on the pads of his fingers. His face was salty with perspiration, but he felt good. He worked like a man. Like his father might have. The money wasn’t much, but he turned it over to his mother with pride.

  Hakan didn’t ask Saleem about his wages. Hayal accepted the few bills that Madar-jan quietly tucked into her hand every week, but soon after she would spend it on food they shared with the Waziri family. They seemed happy to have children in the home and Madar-jan did what she could to look after the house. She swept the floors, washed dishes, and did laundry while Hayal tutored a silent but inquisitive Samira. She would tap her pencil and look to Hayal when she filled in the answers to the arithmetic problems.

  They were comfortable in Intikal, but Saleem still worried.

  “Madar-jan, it will be forever before we are able to save up enough money to get us to Greece. Maybe we can ask some family for money? Maybe we should call England?”

  Madar-jan dried her hands on her apron and sighed.

  “My son, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ll try to phone them, but I don’t think they have much to send. Last time I called, your uncle said they were barely able to pay for their daughter’s school supplies. Maybe things are better now. I don’t see what options we have.” Fereiba began to think out loud. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to London. Maybe we should start elsewhere.”

  But there was nowhere else to go. The rest of the family had dispersed to India, Canada, and Australia. India offered little opportunity for a better life while Canada and Australia were simply unreachable without a visa.

  Madar-jan leaned against the counter and stared at the ceiling tiles. Yesterday, she had started cleaning some of the neighbors’ houses, thanks to Hayal’s referrals, but it was not enough to keep Saleem home. She looked at her son.

  “It’s very bad there, isn’t it? On the farm?”

  He had started to tell her about the farm after his second day there, but the look on her face made him stop short. He smiled and shook his head. Her face relaxed. They would survive in this way, telling each other that things were better than they were.

  CHAPTER 20

  Saleem

  MR. POLAT MADE SALEEM’S FOURTEEN-HOUR DAYS LONG AND hard. It was August and the height of tomato season. Work was plentiful, even on the ramshackle Polat farm, with its soil rockier than all the neighbors.

  Saleem learned to tell the hour by the sun’s position overhead. From morning, he willed his shadow to grow longer and longer so that his workday would come to an end. He got a fifteen-minute break when Polat’s wife would bring out sandwiches. Every day, a thin sandwich with a glass of lukewarm water. As monotonous as it was, the food soothed his growling stomach, and the water put out the burning of his dry throat.

  Mr. Polat and his wife had four children. The young boy who had watched Saleem in the front yard that first day was the middle child, Ahmet. Behind him were twin girls, around three years old. The oldest child was a girl, Ekin. Her name meant harvest in Turkish.

  Ekin was around Saleem’s age, lanky like her father and with similarly drawn features. She was unattractive, even to a sheltered adolescent boy. Her skin was freckled and her hair a stringy mop of curls.

  Ekin watched Saleem from a distance as she helped her mother hang laundry on the clothesline behind the farmhouse. By the end of August, she was free of her studies and lingered around the farm. Bored, she spent more time around Saleem and the Armenian woman. She especially liked to saunter about when Saleem cleaned out the barn.

  This was a new chore that Mr. Polat had assigned to Saleem as it required more effort than the woman could have mustered. The barn sheltered two donkeys, three goats, and a few chickens. The air was heavy and rank with the smell of dung and wet fleece. Saleem had never tended to animals before, and the odors seared his nostrils. He dreaded those days when Mr. Polat tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the barn, a rake in his hand. Polat took a few moments to point out what needed to be done and walked out.

  Saleem raked the moist hay and soil into the wheelbarrow and carted it off to a corner of the farm where the manure would eventually compost. The stench clung to his clothing and skin. Saleem kept to himself on the bus in the evening, knowing he turned noses on his way home.

  While Saleem breathed through his mouth, Ekin would wander idly past the open barn doors, again and again. She began to clear her throat as she passed by. Soon, she began to sit on a crate in the corner, a casual observer to his work. How or why she stomached the smell baffled Saleem. One day, she began to speak to him in broken, elementary-level English.

  “Not good,” she observed. “Still dirty.”

  “I am not finished,” Saleem answered, keeping his eyes on the ground. He doubted a Turkish father would be much different from an Afghan one when it came to his daughters. He wanted no problems with Polat. Ekin had a tall tumbler of water in her hand. She gulped loudly.

  The barn’s dust had dried his tongue and airways. The sound of her drinking made him furious but he said nothing.

  “What is your name?” When she did not get a response, Ekin repeated her question, louder and annoyed. “I said, what is your name?”

  “Saleem,” he mumbled.

  “Saleem?” Ekin played with her stringy hair. She picked through the ends, her fingers getting locked in the knots. “This is name for old man. Why you have old man name?”

  Saleem’s lips tightened.

  “Why you not clean there? It will still smell if you do not clean this. The animals will be sick. My father will not be happy.”

  Saleem remained tight-lipped, finished as quickly as he could, and returned to the fields where the Armenian woman raised an eyebrow and nodded in the direction of the barn. When he shook his head in frustration, she smiled. They were beginning to understand each other.

  A WEEK LATER, EKIN SAW SALEEM MAKE HIS WAY INTO THE BARN. She followed after, turned the crate over, and sat on it, stretching her legs out before her.

  “The summer is too hot. I am in the house all day. It is too long! School is better. Better to see my friends.”

  Saleem’s silence was not a deterrent.

  “Here, there is nothing. I cannot talk to my friends. I am alone.” She paused. “You do not go to school so you do not know. Have you been to a school?”

  Saleem raked harder.

  “I know the work people do not go to school. But my father and mother say I must learn so I will not be a worker. They say I must be a schoolgirl and be clean, have a nice life. Why you do not talk? It is good you are not in school. In school the teachers say you must talk!” She laughed, tapping her heels on the straw-covered floor.

  Mrs. Polat’s voice rang out. Ekin stood with a heavy sigh. She brushed the straw off the seat of her pants and left the barn, throwing Saleem a curious look on her way out. Saleem was thankful for the reprieve. A few moments with Ekin was more exhausting than a fourteen-hour workday. But before he could fully enjoy the silence, she returned with his lunch sandwich in her hand.

  “Here,” Ekin called out from the ba
rn door. She paused and looked down at the sandwich in her hands. She brought it to her face, so close that Saleem could see her nose brush against the meat. “It is good. We can eat together?”

  Ekin sat on the crate and just as Saleem walked over to claim his sandwich, she carefully pulled it into two pieces and handed him half. Saleem watched angrily as the bread and chicken disappeared between her teeth.

  “This food is for me,” he objected.

  “But we eat together,” Ekin replied, confused. “Like friends, okay?”

  “No. No. No. Not okay!” Saleem’s back ached. His fingertips burned, and his stomach growled angrily.

  Ekin seemed surprised by his reaction. After a moment she stood, reached into her dress pocket, and pulled out a packet of two small sugar cookies. She tossed the packet onto the crate and walked out of the barn without saying a word.

  Saleem, furious, could think only that he would be hungry for the rest of the day. The half sandwich she’d left him was not much sustenance, and there was no use complaining to Polat or his wife. He threw the rake to the ground and shoved the half sandwich into his mouth. He looked the sugar cookies over and wondered what they meant as he scarfed them down.

  Ekin did not venture out into the fields, but Saleem could feel her eyes on him from a distance, watching him pick tomatoes as she pretended to read a book. The Armenian woman noticed Ekin’s presence too and clucked her tongue disapprovingly. She put two fingers to her lips and shook her head. She pointed to the six rows of tomato plants left to harvest and patted her pocket.

  Say nothing, she was telling him. Get back to work and earn your money.

  Saleem knew it was sound advice. As a young child, he’d seldom worried about money. If he did think about money, it was to wonder if he had enough to pay for a piece of candy or a soda in the market. They were far from wealthy, but Padar-jan made sure they had plenty. After his death, Madar-jan rationed their savings and meted out small allowances for groceries and the absolute essentials. Saleem knew they had little, but it never occurred to him that their funds would dry up entirely. Now that he was passing his wages over to his mother, he understood that they were financially in a very precarious position.