The Illegal Gardener gv-1

by Sara Alexi

  He stands for a moment by the gate. It is already warm. A bird sings from the garden. The wind machines were not switched on the night before, and he feels rested, his shoulders limp, his limbs gangly. He also feels an ease that, with his pay from the day before, he has secured his bed for the week at the mud brick barn. He has faith that his work with this lady will also last a day or two at the least. He has hope. He can hear many birds singing now. The cat is at his feet and he bends to stroke it. It purrs before it jumps through the gate towards the approaching lady.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, ma’am.”

  “Please do not call me ma’am. I am not the Queen. Call me Juliet.” The cat winds around her legs as she opens the gate.

  Aaman immediately takes off his jacket and leaves the lady to begin work. The lady, Juliet, returns indoors.

  He works for a while and, as his activities and the sun begin to make him hot, he senses movement by the house and turns to see the lady putting a bottle of water and an iced coffee on the windowsill. He continues his labour until she is gone.

  It is not buffalo milk coffee, but it is good. A slight breeze lifts his flopping fringe. It is more peaceful without Mahmout’s constant talk. The ground is beginning to take shape. He decides which piece to clear next. He wonders if he should clear each area more thoroughly as he goes or move all the big debris first and then clear the whole area more exhaustively. A lizard darts.

  A rumbling from across the valley catches his attention. He has heard the same rumble in Pakistan. The sky is dark grey in the distance, the wispy clouds in the blue overhead tell him the wind direction will bring the grey towards him. It will rain within the hour.

  The rain comes in teasing, intermittent, warm dips. A deep grumble directly overhead causes the clouds to heave. The ground responds with a breath of ozone before the sky unloads its weight in a torrential sudden roar.

  Aaman runs for the back doorstep to stand, looking out at his work, the covering growth bowing under the weight of the downpour. The light green has turned to deep emerald, the darker hollow to black. There is a whiteness to the light, like moonlight.

  “Come in, you will get soaked.”

  They stand in the kitchen. Juliet looks out at the rain. Aaman looks round the kitchen.

  “Inside needs work too?”

  “Yes, I need a woman to come and help me clean and organise. Do you have a wife here who could come?”

  “Not here.” Aaman does not wish talk to this lady about his wife. Saabira is back in Pakistan, waiting. He was nineteen when he married her. They had met twice before her hands were hennaed and she entered maayun. She had been so timid, like a trembling jasmine. The thirteen years since passed with many sorrows, but Aaman feels proud of his relationship with his wife. He has been gentle, conscientious. He waited for her to come to him. Now she adores him; she treats him like a prince. It is her belief in him that has brought him to these foreign lands.

  “For inside work I will do it, I do woman’s work.” Aaman’s frown is sudden and deep, he drops his head, his hands twisting on themselves, the tension grows visible across his shoulders. He is not proud of his words. The rain is increasing its pace, cool air blows in from the open back door. Looking up, he is surprised when his eyes meet hers. He has not stood this close to her before, nor looked her so boldly in the eye. Saabira was the same height as him; he was a man at home. He feels himself grow, empowered, as he meets his employer’s eyes on the same level as his own. A man not a child.

  “Would you really want to do inside work?”

  “Ma’am, Juliet, I am your house boy.”

  Her lower lip raises into her upper lip, between her eyes creases; she pushes her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, lowering her gaze to the floor.

  “Oookay…” She drawls the letters out slowly and looks back up. Aaman wonders if he has chosen the right title for the job he is trying to secure. He searches his memory for another English phrase to express himself. He feels much gratitude toward Saabira who taught him the English he knows, but feels much frustration in drawing all he learnt to the surface. He decides to take a risk by constructing a sentence of which he is not sure, such little practice.

  “I am your man, all jobs for the house.” He meets her gaze, level with his own. By the look in her eyes, he feels sure he has used the right words. He pushes his shoulders back to breathe in the cool moist air filtering through the house. The rain continues to pound. He looks past her and sees the cat sitting on the sofa in an indentation beside some fluttering papers.

  Juliet follows his gaze.

  “Off.” She darts across the room, shooing the cat. Aaman steps forward and picks the cat up, takes it to the front door, puts it down gently and closes the door. He feels disquieted as Juliet steps away as if the door is no longer her own. She looks away from him; Aaman shifts uncomfortably. He feels unwelcome, but she says she wants to put the house in order.

  “The kitchen. Mice. I bought the place just as it stood.” She leads the way and opens a cupboard door. Old plates and cups are stacked in dust and mouse droppings. She begins to take things out and put them in the sink. Aaman sees the work to be done and gently eases his way between her and the cupboard and takes over the job. She begins in another cupboard, but Aaman quickly realises that if she helps, she will take his work. Also, she will get in the way. She stands with some pots; he moves to her and takes them from her, looking her in the eye, unblinking. He is aware that such eye contact is challenging but he needs the work to last, he needs her to need him. She stares back for a moment, shifts her weight, tightens her lips and retreats to the sofa. Aaman feels ashamed of his behaviour. He fears he is becoming like Mahmout.

  He cleans each cupboard and the contents. The floor now has dust and mouse droppings on it. Aaman is aware that she is watching from the sofa. Saabira would have found other work around the house. She did not sit during the day. He finds a broom and sweeps then mops. Saabira swept the house many times a day, and kept it very clean. She took the work from his mother when they returned to live with them just as he had tried to relieve some of the work from his father in the fields.

  But the village was dying. The young no longer wanted to work the land. Everyone in the village had a son, even a daughter in the city working. With their help gone, the family needed to employ labour when harvest time came. The children in the cities sent money home to help. Saabira felt that this was not the answer; she saw this was a trap. The more people who left the village, the more people the village needed to employ at harvest time. The price of the labour was so high, it needed to be subsidised by the children working in the cities to make the whole system, how had she put it, “economically viable.” She saw it as a cycle that would only make them unhappy because families were forced to be apart.

  It was Saabira who first said they needed a harvesting machine. Aaman had suggested it at the chopal one evening. It was discussed by the village. The discussion went on for weeks. A new machine could never be bought. They were many, many thousands of rupees, but there was a big trade for secondhand machines. Someone said a New Holland was the best. The useful working life of these secondhand machines had expired, which is why the cost was so cheap to the importers. The importers then sold them to the farmers. The farmers sold them on to other farmers when they could afford better. It was possible to buy one collectively.

  Aaman begins to clear the ashes from the fireplace. A daily job, but one which has not been done for weeks. He looks over to see Juliet flicking through some papers, her feet crossed up on the arm of the sofa. A Western pose.

  The villagers find that they can afford one if they divide the price by the amount of land each has. The larger families can find the money without much struggle. They work out how much time each would take at harvesting. This lets them know there is much time left when the machine will sit idle. They invite a nearby village where there are many cousins to become part owners. Now the divided price b
ecomes possible for all but the poorest families. Aaman’s is one of the poorest families.

  The fireplace is clean and re-laid. He begins on the windows. Juliet jumps when she hears the first squeaking of newspaper against clean pane. She gathers her papers, disappears into another room and shuts the door. Aaman continues with the room to himself.

  Saabira had suggested that Aaman get a better job in Sialkot to raise his share of the machine. But Aaman knew, as he was unskilled, he would find it hard to secure a position that was any better than the one he had previously. With the pay he could expect, raising his share would take a lifetime. They had thought through of all the cousins they could borrow from, but the cousins have one by one left and lost themselves in cities. He asked himself, ‘What would my brother have done?’ His chest swells, even after all this time, at the thought of his brother. Tears prick his eyes.

  “Do you want water?”

  Aaman hadn’t seen her come back in the room. She looks out onto the grey weather, the gravel drive saturated to the point of puddles. The bright orange-red flowers of the pomegranate trees against the whitewashed wall a sharp contrast to the charcoal sky.

  “Yes.”

  Aaman sweeps the sitting room floor. He lifts the rugs, takes them onto the covered porch and bangs them against the garden wall. The dust settles quickly in the damp air.

  When he returns, there is a glass of water on the table and the room is empty.

  Aaman drinks the water down in one and refills the glass from the bottle in the kitchen. He surveys the room; the bathroom door is open. Aaman arms himself with a cloth and enters.

  It was Saabira who suggested Aaman go abroad to earn their share. She had such belief. His mother had not approved. His father had remained silent. His grandfather and grandmother gave him their blessing, whatever he decided. Aaman worked all day for many days with nothing else on his mind. Saabira so confident, so sure of him, Aaman began to believe he could do it.

  Normally the fee for such a journey was six hundred thousand rupees. But they wanted to raise money, not spend it. Saabira had thought of a way.

  The bathroom now clean, Aaman looks out at the weather. The skies have lifted, the rain stopped.

  The air smells full of energy and freshness in the garden. The ground is muddy, but Aaman begins his outdoor task once again.

  Saabira had done much research and she could see a way for Aaman to use each country’s authorities to aid his journey down to the rich countries of the West. There was a man in the next village who was travelling to visit relatives near the Iranian border. He already had two passengers, her distant cousins, who would travel with Aaman.

  The three of them would cross the border at night and then begin a very long walk to Kerman. If they could make it beyond Kerman, it would be a victory because when they were picked up by the authorities, they would be taken to the capital, Tehran. They needed to get past Kerman before being picked up, or they would be taken back to the Pakistani border. The Iranian authorities, although not particularly friendly, would hold them in very unsavoury places for some days before they could confirm that they were illegal and assist them out of the country. The nearest country was Iraq but the authorities knew taking them there would only result in their return, so they would willingly take them to the Turkish border.

  It is raining again. Aaman returns inside. Juliet is on the sofa.

  “It’s raining.”

  Juliet is prepared. She gives him a brush and a tin of paint and points to the kitchen wall. There is a sheet covering the surfaces and newspaper on the floor. She leaves the room.

  Aaman brings the stepladder in from where he had noticed it outside. The newspaper grows soggy where he plants the feet of the ladder. He opens the paint and begins.

  Once in Turkey, they would head for Ankara. The authorities would probably give them a lift to the capital. They too knew the direction of travel. If they took them back to Iran they would simply be brought by Iranian authorities back to the Turkish border. So the Turkish authorities would take them to Ankara. There they would be held in warehouses with many other illegals. They could be held here for up to two years before being deported, but not to worry, Saabira had said, because they would be used by the government as underpaid labour in tourism and local industry. At this point, it would be good to bribe to get to work sooner and to get a job of choice. When out labouring, it would be easy to make contacts and escape the authorities to make their way to the border crossing to Greece. From there, they would need to bribe again or they could go into Bulgaria and then down to Greece where the border was, in some places, even unmarked. In Greece, it would be possible to make money and go to Italy. In Italy, it would be possible to make even more money and go to Spain. In Spain, it would be easy to get papers to work legally before maybe even flying home. She was told all this by a man who came to the village offering to escort people for pay. But Aaman was clever. He did not need an escort.

  Saabira made it sound so heroic, Αaman grew in stature with every word she spoke, every plan they made. He would return tall and wealthy.

  The paint splats on Aaman’s trousers, and he looks around the room to ensure he is alone before using the tap and cloth to wipe it off.

  Saabira estimated the journey to the first country where he could make money would take maybe four months if he was lucky. He would then need another ten months, travelling and earning, to make the money they needed. He would be back within two years, just in time for when the village planned to buy the machine. She would be so proud of him.

  The painting is a very satisfactory job. The grey walls cover well in the white. The progress is quick. At the end of the first wall, he wonders if he should continue on to the next. He turns to ask Juliet, but the room is still empty.

  He made the journey to Greece in five months. He had been very lucky. The longest part of the journey was the walk through the hills in Iran. When he arrived in Greece, he made arrangements and finally rung Saabira on her neighbour’s mobile phone. She acted as if she had expected his great achievement. He didn’t talk of the horrors he had seen and the hardship he had suffered. He didn’t mention that the way into Greece had been patrolled very tightly, his skirmish with patrol dogs, or that he had been beaten and robbed in Bulgaria. He felt so grateful for his life as he talked to Saabira that day that he didn’t want to talk of hardships.

  Aaman starts on the next wall. The rain had stopped again but the progress he is making is very satisfactory, and he is not a man to leave jobs unfinished. The cat is curled at the bottom of the ladder on the newspaper.

  Juliet comes into the kitchen. Aaman carries on his work. Her tongue clicks off the roof of her mouth, and she takes a breath as if she is about to speak, but then the softest of exhalations tells him she has decided not to.

  She clatters about the kitchen before announcing food.

  Aaman climbs down the ladder and washes his hands well, removing all traces of paint. The food is on the kitchen table, and he hesitates not knowing whether he should take it outside onto the folding table at the front now that the rain had stopped. He pulls out a chair and sits in the kitchen. He looks over to Juliet on the sofa, who is stroking the cat and feeding it bits of bread.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Aaman is startled and tries to think in English.

  “Sorry?”

  “How long have you been in Greece?”

  “Ten months.”

  “Is there work?”

  “No.”

  “Will you stay?”

  “Maybe I move on. Papers are easy in Spain.”

  “To make you legal, you mean?”

  “Yes, legal means more work, better pay.”

  There is a pause.

  “I didn’t ask you to paint the second wall.”

  “It was a necessity.”

  Juliet leaves the room. Aaman feels that she is tense. He washes the pots. He finishes the wall. On impulse he nips outside and snaps off som
e of the twigs bearing the pomegranate flowers and arranges them in a jar on the kitchen table. He stands to admire his work before cleaning the brushes and going back into the garden. After a while, she wanders out to see the progress.

  As he picks among the debris, he asks Juliet, very quietly, if she has any old clothes, especially shoes, that would fit him. “For work.”

  Juliet spends an hour searching through the clothes she brought with her. She has brought some scruffs for painting or gardening and some old trainers. She also has a pair of walking shoes that she has never really worn and she decides that Aaman’s need is greater than her own.

  Considering his pride, she wraps the items in a good towel and places them inside a large brown bag. He will walk through the village as he leaves and he will not want his secondhand clothes to be seen, she imagines.

  As he puts on his jacket to leave, Juliet hands him the bag. She expects a single word of thanks at least and smiles in anticipation.

  He does not smile. He walks with the bag back to the patio and, squatting, opens it. He takes out the white t-shirts on top and declares them too small without unfolding them. He pulls out some unisex jeans that Juliet thought she might use for painting. He nods as if they pass the first test and then searches along each seam. He finds a worn area the size of his thumbnail in the crotch. He displays it to Juliet, shaking his head manfully, tutting.

  Juliet is speechless. Each action he performs so carefully is so far from her comprehension that she is left without even a question to ask, just a deep, sickening confusion that spirals her away from the scene.

  He finds the shoes at the bottom, admires the walking shoes at arm’s length, but then turns them over to inspect the sole. He undoes the laces with small movements and slow progress and puts them on, re-laces them equally as neatly and then stands and walks.

  “No, no, no, too tight.” He takes them off with little care and glances at the trainers, picks them up, looks at the soles and then drops them after noticing that the laces have lost their plastic ends. Before standing he brushes down his trousers where the shoes have been resting.