by Dean Hughes
On his way back, Hadi stopped at the chicken restaurant and ordered the shawarma sandwiches. He watched the man slice off the chicken parts that were packed onto a tall spit turning in front of a bright-red burner. The cook gathered up the meat he had sliced and dropped it onto rounds of flat bread, then tossed in French fries, pickles, and a thick white garlic sauce. Hadi loved the smell of the chicken and the spices. He could taste the sandwich already.
Hadi paid the six thousand pounds, then walked back to the cabstand, where Rashid took the cigarettes and handed over two thousand lira from the change. Fawzi took the bag, pulled out one of the sandwiches, then, surprisingly, also handed Hadi two thousand lira. He grinned, showing a missing tooth.
“No, it’s okay,” Hadi said. “You bought me a sandwich.”
“That’s all right. You work hard all day. We watch you. This gives you a little more to take home today.”
Hadi didn’t argue. But he did wonder again what was going on. The cabbies had never treated him so well. Still, they had given him four thousand pounds he hadn’t expected, and it made a big difference. He thought maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad place to work after all. He looked across the street and saw Malek, who had surely seen him cross over with the sandwiches. Hadi sat down on the bench, where the cabbies always sat, ripped open the paper, and took a bite of the shawarma. It was still hot, and it tasted wonderful. But Hadi ate what he thought was half, and then he walked across the street. “Do you want to eat the rest of this?” he asked.
“Sure I do.”
Hadi handed the sandwich to Malek, and the boys walked behind the wall. “Are you selling much today?” Hadi asked.
“Some,” he said.
But Hadi heard some discouragement in Malek’s voice. Hadi was pretty sure that Malek didn’t like working alone either—even if he smiled at people.
Malek ate the sandwich in about six big bites, and Hadi knew he was hurrying to get back to work. All the same, he asked, “Do you have your book with you?”
“Sure. It’s right here.” He patted his middle.
“Let me teach you a few words.”
“There’s a chapter about love,” Hadi said. “I tried to read it last night, but I don’t understand what it says.” He turned the pages until he found the chapter, then handed the book to Malek.
Malek read for a time. “This isn’t about having a girlfriend. It’s about loving everyone. Try to read this sentence.”
Hadi pronounced the sound of the letters and recognized the first word: “when.” And he knew the word “love.” But he didn’t know the next word, and Malek struggled with it too.
“It’s ‘beckon,’ ” Malek said. “I think that means to go like this.” He waved his hand toward himself. “You know, like to call someone to you.”
Hadi was able to decipher the other words after that: “When love beckons you, follow him.”
“Right,” Malek said. “Do you see what that means?”
“No.”
“I think it’s like, if love calls to you, go where it leads you.”
“But where does it lead me?”
“To love people, I guess. I’d have to read this all the way through to figure it out.”
Hadi tried to think whether he loved people. He remembered the way Malek had treated Amir. Since then he had greeted the man every time he had seen him. He liked that. But he wasn’t sure he loved Amir. And the foreign couple. He appreciated what they did for him, but he doubted that he loved them. The same with Garo. It didn’t seem possible that a person could just love everyone.
“I like this book,” Malek said. “I’d like to read it all the way through sometime.”
“Okay. Maybe we can take turns.”
“But you keep it for now. So you can practice every day. You’re learning really fast.” He glanced toward the opening in the wall. “But you better not stay here too long. We need to get back to work.”
Hadi smiled. “It’s time to go love all these people in the cars,” he said.
“I think I only love the ones who give me money,” Malek said. “I’ll get around to the others later.”
The boys grinned at each other, and then Hadi put his book back inside his jacket and walked across the street. He didn’t sell as much gum as he would have liked in the afternoon, but then the foreign couple came by on his side of the street, and they stopped even though the light was green. Hadi stood on the passenger side of the car while people honked and tried to get around the car. The woman gave him two thousand pounds. He was happy to know that they would still look for him on this side of the street.
But he had been waiting to ask them a question. “What are your names?”
Both laughed, and the woman said, “I told you once, but maybe you didn’t understand me. Riser is our name. Emil and Klara Riser. Can you say it?”
“Riser.” He knew he sounded different when he said it, but they told him he was right. “Where do you live? I mean, when you’re not here?”
“Switzerland. In the mountains.”
Hadi had heard of this country, but he knew nothing about it.
“We speak French at home.”
“Merci,” Hadi said, and he laughed, as did they. He thought of what he might say to them, and finally came up with, “I like you.”
“Yes. We are friends, Hadi. We like you, too.”
Hadi could think only of what Malek had done. He reached through the window and extended his hand to them. They both shook his hand while drivers continued to honk and complain.
After the Risers turned right at the corner and drove up the hill, Rashid walked over to him.
“Who are those people?” he asked. “I notice they stop and buy your gum every time they see you. Why do they do that?”
Hadi shrugged.
“Come here a minute,” Rashid said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.” Hadi didn’t like the sound of this.
Rashid sat down on the bench and waited for Hadi to sit next to him. But Hadi remained standing, and he said, “I need to keep working the cars.”
“How much do you make each day?”
“It’s different every day.”
“Maybe ten thousand lira on a good day?”
“Sometimes.” Baba always told him not to tell anyone how much money he took in.
“There are better ways to make money, Hadi.”
“I don’t want to do anything else.”
“I’m not talking about one or two thousand pounds. I’m talking about a lot more.”
“No. What I make is okay,” Hadi said. He turned to walk away.
“Wait a minute, Hadi. We’re friends. I want to help you out. I have some simple errands you could do for me sometimes—sort of like today, going to get cigarettes for me. But I can pay you very well.”
“No. My father wants me to sell gum and not… do anything else.”
Hadi walked back to the street, but as he did, Rashid said, “Think about it, Hadi. You could feed your family, make things better for them. I just want to help you out.”
Baba had warned Hadi about men who made offers that didn’t sound right, and Samir had told him to stay away from Rashid. What he felt certain of was that the Risers were his friends. And so was Garo. Maybe that was the same thing as saying that he loved them. But Rashid only said he was a friend. Hadi didn’t trust the man.
8
Hadi’s income for the day was not great, but the extra four thousand had helped. When he handed over twelve thousand pounds that night, Baba said, “Not quite as good as you did yesterday.”
“I know,” Hadi said. “But it’s been a lot worse at times. And I got more food from Garo than usual. I helped him move a box this morning, and he said he owed me something extra.”
Baba nodded. “That’s good, and we have two more days. We should have enough, but nothing extra. What exactly did you bring from Garo?”
Hadi held up his net. “Potatoes,” he said. “Lots of them. And carrots, le
eks, cabbage, and two tomatoes. We can make a big soup. Everyone will like that.”
“That’s good, Hadi. You did well. Once I pay the rent, we can stock up on a few groceries before we start saving for next month. But the electricity bill is coming up before long, and more than anything, we need to get your mother to a dentist.”
Baba looked serious but not quite so worried as he had been lately. At least it appeared they were going to get by again. But Hadi wondered whether he would have even worse days in the future. What about days when the cabbies didn’t send him on errands? He had hoped that this new side of the street might actually turn out better, but now it seemed it would only be more unpredictable.
Maybe Baba sensed Hadi’s concern. He said, “On the bus, let’s look at your book. I’ll help you learn some words tonight.”
Hadi was happy to hear him say that. Hadi had not wanted to bother him. But when they sat together on the bus, Baba told him to pick a passage and try to read it.
Hadi turned to the chapter on love again. He pointed to a word and asked his father what it was.
“Desire,” his father said. “You know—something you want.”
“I ‘desire’ to eat tabbouleh, not potatoes and bread,” Hadi said.
Baba laughed. “Yes. Exactly. See, you do know that word.”
“And what’s this one?”
“ ‘Fulfill.’ That’s something you complete, or you accomplish what someone asks of you.”
Hadi read slowly, “ ‘Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.’ What does that mean?”
“Hadi, I know this book, The Prophet. It’s what we call ‘philosophical.’ Many of the ideas are hard for anyone to comprehend. Gibran is talking about love as though it has a will of its own. It’s something we’ll both have to think about. But I wish you had a simpler book to learn from.”
“I know. But I can learn new words from it. I need to know all words.”
“No one knows every word.”
That surprised Hadi. He thought that people who went to school learned all the words in every book. He at least wanted to know each word in this book. So he and Baba worked their way through the whole page, and Hadi was relieved to know that once he could pronounce the words, he usually knew their meaning.
“Hadi,” Baba finally said, “you’re very smart. Do you know that? I’m sorry you’ve had to spend your days on the street, not in school.”
Hadi knew that it hurt Baba to keep him out of school. But Hadi didn’t want to make him feel any worse, so he said nothing more. He looked out the window. He saw run-down buildings, which were now making a silhouette like a picket fence. People on the street were moving about, sometimes walking through the slow traffic. In a neighborhood like this, lots of the people were Syrians—people like him who tried each day to earn enough to feed their families.
They were “displaced,” or at least that was what people in government offices called them. When Hadi had been nine or ten, he had gone with his father to apply for “legal status.” He hadn’t understood what that meant exactly, but he knew his family needed certain kinds of papers or they would get in trouble. The man in the office had sounded unfriendly, impatient. He had asked Baba if he and his family were “temporarily displaced,” and Baba had said yes. Afterward, Hadi had asked what the man had meant, and Baba said, “We had to leave Syria and find a new place to live. Now we’re ‘displaced’—forced to live away from our home.”
“You mean we’re in the wrong place?”
“Not exactly. We’re where we have to be for now, but it’s not our home.”
“But that man, when he said, ‘displaced,’ it sounded like he thought something was wrong with us.”
“I know. That’s why we have to be good people, so the Lebanese won’t have any reason to dislike us.”
Hadi wondered about that now. He never said bad things to the drivers in the cars. He thanked people and blessed them when they bought his chewing gum. He did as Baba and Samir told him, didn’t cause problems, but lots of people hated him anyway. Baba always told him not to hate the people back, but he didn’t know how to change the way he felt when someone called him names.
But there were worse things. Hadi thought of little Marwa back in Aleppo, her dusty body, her legs twisted the wrong way. And he thought of a man he had seen, gasping for air, then vomiting on the street. Someone told him that the man had breathed chlorine gas. He hadn’t known what that was, still didn’t; he only knew that people killed each other, and not always with bombs. He doubted he could love the people who’d killed Marwa. He didn’t even want to try. So he did what he always tried to do: force all those memories out of his mind.
Hadi made the soup that night, with Mama’s guidance, and then he sat in a corner with Khaled and tried to help him read some of the words in the book. He knew Khaled needed to learn to read too. But Khaled didn’t last long. “I don’t like to do this,” he said.
“Don’t you want to learn to read?” Hadi asked him.
“Not tonight” was all he said.
Little Aram had climbed onto Hadi’s lap. He liked to have Hadi home, liked to wrestle with him or get tossed about, or just to cuddle next to him when he was cold. Across the room, Aliya, Rabia, and Samira had been playing with dolls—rag dolls they had received from the same charity that gave them clothing. But holding the dolls, pretending to feed them, had apparently lost interest for them. They were laughing now and using the dolls as weapons, swinging them and hitting each other. Hadi hated to see them do that.
Mama had been cleaning up after dinner, but now she turned and looked at the girls. “Please don’t,” she said. “I’ll take those dolls if you don’t treat them right, and I’ll give them to girls who want them.”
Aliya stood up and said, “That’s fine with me. Here—take mine.” She tossed the doll at her mother. It fell at Mama’s feet. She picked it up, stared back at Aliya, but she didn’t say anything. Always before, Mama would have talked to Aliya about such behavior, punished her perhaps, maybe even gotten angry with her, but she didn’t seem to have the energy now.
It was Baba who said, “You must not talk to your mother that way, Aliya. Tell her you’re sorry.”
“I’m not sorry,” Aliya said. “I hate that dirty old doll.” She looked at her sisters, clearly hoping they would laugh.
But this was something new. Hadi could see that Baba didn’t know what to do. “Aliya,” he said, “it’s been a hard day. We’re all tired. Let’s be kind to each other.”
Aliya stood with her hands still on her hips, but she didn’t say anything. What Hadi understood about her was that she had always been a busy, active little girl. These winter days inside were almost more than she could stand, and misbehavior must have seemed a way to create a change from all the boredom.
Hadi got up and walked to Aliya. He put his hand softly on her shoulder. “Remember when I taught you the alphabet?” he asked.
Aliya looked surprised. “Yes.”
“Do you remember how to write the letters?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s learn letters tonight, okay? Khaled will help me teach you.”
Baba was nodding, and Aliya, without admitting it, seemed interested, maybe happy for Hadi’s attention.
Little Jawdat had begun to cry. Mama walked to the corner, where Jawdat had been sleeping on some blankets. She picked him up and then sat on her chair. She wrapped her arms around him, covered herself, and prepared to nurse him. Hadi gathered his siblings close to Mama, so she could learn too, and they worked on their letters.
What Hadi was noticing by then was that Mama’s face was more swollen. She was probably relieved that Hadi had calmed the children, but she looked broken. He knew her pain was terrible. Somehow, he and Baba had to do better these next few days.
* * *
When Hadi and Baba reached the Dora intersection the following morning, Baba only said, “God bless you, Hadi.” But there was more in his voice t
han his words, and Hadi knew that he was thinking about Mama too.
Hadi walked faster than usual to his intersection. At the cabstand, Rashid was sitting on the bench smoking a cigarette, wearing the same blue coat he had worn all winter and a black cap pulled down tight over his eyes. But he raised the cap when he saw Hadi, and he said, “Good morning, Hadi. I hope you have a successful day.”
Hadi only said, “Thank you,” and then asked for his gum.
Rashid opened the cabinet and brought out a carton, which he handed to Hadi. “I don’t know why anyone would buy such junk,” he said. “You need something better to sell.”
Hadi didn’t answer. He filled his jacket pockets with the various flavors, and then he walked to the curb. He got there as the cars were stopping, so he immediately cut across to the driver’s side of the first car, then walked up the line, showing the little boxes to the drivers. He stopped each time, tried to make eye contact, to nod, and to plead with his eyes but not look too sad. He had to find a way to do better today.
But this technique didn’t make any difference, and then rain began to fall. People kept their windows closed—and no one bought his gum.
After an hour without a sale, Hadi felt desperate. He was thinking he might try saying, “My mother needs to have a tooth pulled. She’s in bad pain.” It was true, after all.
As he waited on the curb, Rashid called to him, “Hadi, go get me a pack of cigarettes, will you?”
That would be something: a start. Maybe Rashid would pay him two thousand pounds again. So he hurried to the Charcoutier, bought the pack of cigarettes, then jogged back. When he handed over the cigarettes, Rashid said, “So, is this a bad morning for you? I haven’t seen anyone buy your gum.”
“They don’t buy as much when it rains,” Hadi said.
“That’s too bad. The taxi business gets better when it rains.”
Hadi wanted to ask him why he sat around at the cabstand most of the time if that was the case, but he didn’t. He was watching Rashid wrap the bills Hadi had brought back to him around a thick roll of money and he was starting to worry. Maybe he wasn’t going to give Hadi anything today. But then he said, “I’ll tell you what. You’re having a bad day, so I’ll pay you a little better this time.” He peeled off five one-thousand-pound bills, folded them, and handed them all to Hadi.
