I thought a baby, my baby, was too young to have problems with
his heart. I felt a sense of overwhelming hopelessness. How could we possibly fix something that was wrong with his heart?
Doctor Ozdemir knew his message had gotten across. He tapped his pencil on the sketch he held in his lap. Intikal was a small town, and there was nowhere to do the things he felt were necessary. There would be no X-rays or blood test. Aziz needed a hospital and even if we were able to reach the plentiful resources of a city, I had no money to finance all that this baby would need. Doctor Ozdemir shook his head.
The doctor had reduced my world to a graphite sketch on a scrap of paper. I needed to hear Doctor Ozdemir’s grand conclusion. He rubbed at his forehead, pulled a paper pad from the pocket of his white coat, and scribbled something on it. He handed the prescription to Hayal, and between the two of them, they informed me that these medications would help keep Aziz comfortable temporarily, but that his condition would only worsen with time.
Hayal’s eyes watered. She had trouble getting the words out.
It was not language that got in the way of our communications that day. Had he spoken Dari fluently, I still would not have understood my son’s prognosis. The doctor looked at me, and in his eyes, I could see he was not surprised by my reaction. I would refuse to accept, he knew, just as so many mothers did up until the very end and sometimes long after.
I pushed aside everything I was being told and held on to what I could do. I needed something tangible to keep me afloat.
“I will give him this medicine,” I said. “How many times a day? For how long?”
They understood me. Doctor Ozdemir made loops in the air with his pointer finger, continuously.
Hafta
meant week in both Turkish and Dari.
Every week,
he motioned with his hand that the medicine should go on. I nodded.
“Return in two weeks’ time,” the doctor said. Hayal nodded, thanked the doctor, and asked him something I did not catch. Doctor
Ozdemir shook his head and gently waved her off. He touched my elbow and stroked Aziz’s forehead before he walked out.
I was numb. Hayal started to usher me out the door with only that small square of paper in her hand.
I didn’t know how much the medicine would cost. We retraced our path back to the house, a quiet between Hayal and myself. At the pharmacy, I pulled bills from my change purse to pay for the bottle of liquid the pharmacist prepared. Not wanting to wait, I pulled the blanket back from Aziz’s face and pointed to his mouth. Hayal relayed my urgency and the mustached man nodded. He opened the bottle and poured a small amount into a plastic spoon. I brought the dark liquid to Aziz’s thin lips.
My child’s heart was more broken than mine. I buried the rage I felt toward my husband, for his decisions that had brought me here. So much was not his fault and I knew that when I had the strength to be rational. But other times, when my shoulders started to give under the pressure of it all, thoughts of my husband were clouded with resentment. I saw pigheadedness instead of perseverance, pride instead of principle, and denial instead of determination. The light of our marriage dimmed. I prayed for a way to love my husband in death as wholly as I’d loved him in life.
In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate,
cried my heavy heart.
SALEEM HAD LISTENED QUIETLY AS MADAR-
JAN
RELAYED THE
doctor’s thoughts. She maintained her composure with clipped phrases and the reassurance that the medication had already made a difference. But the truth was in the space between her words, the hollows that Saleem and Samira had grown to recognize and fear. Samira met her brother’s gaze, her face drawn under the weight of all she left unsaid.
Saleem had kept his eyes on his baby brother. Aziz was sleeping comfortably, his breathing quieter. Hakan, having heard the news from Hayal, had sighed, shaking his head. To Saleem, it was a look of pity and he resented it. He sweated in Polat’s field every day so that he would not have to be pitied. The expression on Hakan’s well-meaning face, the hand on his shoulder—Saleem wanted to run from it all.
Saleem sat on the edge of the school soccer field, plucking blades of grass. Judging by the sun’s position in the sky, the children should be coming out soon. He could feel them stirring in their seats, watching the minutes pass and anxiously waiting for their teachers to dismiss them. A lifetime ago, in a far-off land, Saleem had been the same—
eager for the moment when he could stuff his papers and pencils into his knapsack and scurry out the door.
But that was a different time, a different Saleem. This Saleem longed for a school with classmates, with friends. He longed for a normal life. More painful than Kabul, the normal life was now touchably close and yet unreachable. The longing brought him here, to the shaded, grassy field of the schoolyard. He passed the school every day on his way to the truck stop. It was a constant reminder of how things could have been different.
Saleem had arrived at the farm earlier in the day and let Polat know he would need to leave early. He mumbled a half-truth about his brother. The farm owner had grumbled, and Saleem knew to expect a cut in his wages. But Polat had few options for labor, and Saleem knew he would be welcomed back tomorrow.
If he couldn’t live a normal life, he would watch it. He wanted just a few hours with his feet cooled by the grass. He wanted an afternoon just for himself, away from the backbreaking work.
SALEEM TRIED TO PICTURE AZIZ’S HEART. HE COULD FEEL HIS
own beating, pounding sometimes, in his chest. Saleem had seen an animal heart once. He had gone with his father to the butcher shop for chicken, a rare treat to mark the Eid holiday and the culmination of a long month of fasting. Their household budget had tightened when Padar-
jan
’s wages became inconsistent.
Saleem had watched as the butcher wiped his bloodied hands on a cloth and came over to speak with his father. They exchanged pleasantries before Padar-
jan
asked to see what chickens the butcher had. The butcher raised an eyebrow, and Saleem, the young son, felt his chest swell with pride. The Waziris were not the average customers asking for the cheapest cut of meat. They were here for the best.
While his father and the butcher haggled over the price, Saleem looked to see what the butcher had laid out on display. A skinned
lamb was strung up on a hook. Chunks of meat and shiny organs were lined up in short rows. They fascinated and nauseated Saleem. He remembered tugging on his father’s sleeve.
“Padar-
jan,
what are those?” he had whispered, not wanting to draw the butcher’s attention but unable to stifle his curiosity.
“Those are chicken hearts.”
Padar-
jan
and the butcher chuckled to see Saleem with one hand to his chest, trying to feel his own heart beating, his eyes glued to the apricot-sized hearts on the block.
THE SCHOOL DOORS OPENED AND THE STUDENTS SQUEEZED
out in a boisterous flood. Saleem envied their schoolbags, their notebooks, their lack of responsibility.
Boys his age headed onto the field, a group of about eight or nine. Saleem looked down at his watch as they neared. He did not want to be caught gawking. The watch hands had stopped turning last night. Saleem tried winding it again though he did not expect it to help. It was an engineer’s watch, an uninterpretable dial within the dial. Padar-
jan
probably would have been able to repair it. Saleem kept it on, hoping it would spring back to life spontaneously.
One of the boys on the field, the lankiest in the group, pulled a soccer ball out of a satchel. Saleem felt his feet fidget for the feel of the leather. He couldn’t bring himself to get up and walk away.
They probably won’t even notice me,
he reasoned. He turned so that he was only half facing the boys who had begun to pass the ball around, their feet tapping as they crisscrossed the field. Their voices rang out, undoubtedly shouting obnoxious comments to one another in Turkish slang that Saleem did not understand.
They came together in a loose huddle for a moment, two boys shooting glances in Saleem’s direction. Feeling like a trespasser, Saleem brought himself to standing, brushing his backside. He was about to walk away when he heard a yell in his direction. He turned reluctantly.
The lanky ringleader repeated himself loudly. Saleem did not know how to respond and simply shrugged his shoulders.
“No Turkish.”
“No Turkish?” The boy laughed and switched into English. “You like to play football or you like to sleep in grass?”
Saleem felt a rush. He followed the boy over to the others who had already broken into two teams. One team was short a player.
“You play with them,” the lanky boy declared. He paused and looked Saleem up and down. “You have a name?”
Saleem paused, wanting to be sure he was not being mocked.
“Saleem,” he finally answered, taking his watch off and placing it in his pocket.
“Saleem? You talk slow. I hope you move fast.”
Kabul had been full of boys like this. Saleem sauntered over to his designated team and greeted the guys with a quick nod. They looked him over in turn and began to assume their field positions.
As the ball tumbled from boy to boy, Saleem was transported. He was in Kabul, catching a quick street game with neighborhood friends before light fell. He ran after the ball, kicked it away from boys whose names he did not care to know. He tapped it, passing it to his new teammates, boys who otherwise in the marketplace might shun him as a foreign migrant worker. He was not an outsider here. The ball came his way again. Saleem dribbled to the goalpost, watching for defenders and trying to stay ahead of the others.
His team lost by a point but he’d played well enough to have won the respect of the group. The lanky boy gave Saleem a sidelong glance, panting and sweaty.
“Where are you from?” he asked, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Afghanistan,” Saleem answered hesitantly. The boy seemed unfazed.
“My name is Kamal.”
KAMAL AND SALEEM BECAME FRIENDS, AS MUCH AS A NATIVE AND
an immigrant could in Intikal. From that day on, Saleem joined the boys once a week for a soccer game, returning from the Polat farm to play for an hour or two and sometimes going back to the farm to resume work. He was exhausted and ravenous on those days, but it was worth it to feel the grass under his feet, the pats on the shoulder, and the wind on his face. Polat grimaced but tolerated Saleem’s absences since he made up for the work he missed.
At home, Saleem kept his new activities to himself. He could not bring himself to tell his mother that for an hour a week he felt free. He saw his mother’s anxious face when he came home. She spent every moment fussing over Aziz and scrounging for any work to pad their pockets. Samira continued to pitch in, either watching Aziz while Madar-
jan
worked or helping out around the house for Hakan and Hayal. Though it felt dishonest, Saleem kept his sport to himself.
On the field, Saleem was too tongue-tied to make smart replies when the boys tossed around the usual jeers. He hoped his silence came off as cool indifference. Kamal continued to poke at Saleem and didn’t seem too disappointed that he didn’t get much response.
In the evenings, the boys sometimes gathered in town to have a soft drink and ogle the scantily clad women in magazine ads. Saleem only met up with them on occasion, self-conscious about his sweaty work clothes and vine-chafed hands. Unable to keep everything from his mother, he told her he’d met some nice local boys and would join them for a soda. She was encouraging, which only made him feel worse that he’d kept so much from her.
Kamal, having walked Saleem home once, knew where they lived. Still, Saleem was surprised to come home from the farm one evening and find his friend sitting in the kitchen with Hakan. On that night, Saleem learned that Kamal was as adaptive as a chameleon. It was a quality he admired for its usefulness.
“Saleem, good timing. You have a visitor,” Hakan announced with a smile.
“Hello, Saleem,” Kamal said jovially, rising from his chair.
“We were just chatting. I’m happy you are getting to know the neighborhood boys. And as it turns out, I know Kamal’s father.”
“Hello . . .” Saleem was caught off-guard. He was not thrilled to see Kamal at home. “You . . . you know his father?”
“Yes, isn’t that interesting, Saleem? I had no idea that this was dear Mr. Hakan’s home!”
“It is Intikal. We are bound to know each other. But I haven’t seen Kamal here since he was a young boy, just barely the height of this table,” Hakan said with a chuckle. Kamal grinned, looking remarkably wholesome.
“Yes, it turns out that my father and Mr. Hakan taught at the same university,” he explained.
“Indeed, but Kamal’s father is much younger than me. He was new—a very bright professor. The students loved him then and now. Although I’m sure his son misses having his father around during the semester.”
Saleem’s surprise must have been obvious in his face. He had a lot to learn about Kamal. Hakan stood up and took his teacup to the sink. He tousled Kamal’s hair on the way. Saleem could understand most of their conversation but had to focus. Kamal’s Turkish was a cleaned-up version of what Saleem usually heard him speaking.
“Well, you boys enjoy yourselves. Kamal, give your father my regards when you speak to him. Tell him I’ll be waiting for a visit when he returns. It would be nice to catch up with him at the end of the semester.”
“Of course, Mr. Hakan. I’ll tell him. I’m sure he’ll be most pleased to hear from you. Just a few more weeks and he’ll be home.”
Hakan walked out of the kitchen, and Kamal punched Saleem in the shoulder playfully.
“Hey, come on, man. Get that look off your face! And some of that sweat, too, while you’re at it.”
Saleem smiled sheepishly and went to wash the hard day’s work from his face, neck, and arms. Madar-
jan,
Samira, and Aziz were in the back bedroom. Aziz was already asleep and Madar-
jan
was braiding Samira’s hair. Saleem greeted them and leaned over to kiss his mother’s cheek. She had met Kamal, she told him, and was happy that Hakan seemed to know his family. He seemed like a nice young man.