Once he learned about Pagani, Saleem became very reluctant to let Madar-
jan
wander off on her own with his sister and brother. Though they had passports, they were false ones and would likely be detected. He could not risk the family being deported to Turkey or, even worse, Afghanistan.
Saleem continued to steal food and staples like soap, but he loathed doing it and was growing more and more paranoid every day. It was a calculated risk he had to take if they were to have enough money to get them to England.
Periodically, a local Greek humanitarian organization came by Attiki Square. Volunteers would talk to the refugees, attempt to assist with document issues, and hand out food and water. A nurse came along with them and placed a Band-Aid here or there or offered a course of antibiotics. The group’s resources were limited too. They were young idealists, mostly, indignant that their government could subject refugees to such degrading conditions. They wanted to set things right and they were, oftentimes, the only reliable source of information and food.
Some of the young men in the square were reluctant to trust even the aid workers. Saleem was one of those people. He avoided making eye contact with the young people who walked through the park with their purple T-shirts, their organization’s name and logo printed in large type to identify them from afar. They asked many questions and even wanted to take pictures.
Saleem felt safer questioning their motives. He felt his chest puff to think he had outsmarted the aid workers, as if he had more street sense than those boys who let their stories be scribbled into tiny notepads or voice recorders. He did his best to steer clear of every one of them.
Until he saw Roksana.
“WE CANNOT GO ON THIS WAY, SALEEM-
JAN,
” MADAR-
JAN
WHISPERED
to him. Samira and Aziz had fallen asleep.
“What do you mean?”
“In a matter of days, we will have no more money and we still have a long road ahead. We cannot wait for a miracle.”
“I know.”
“Thank goodness you have at least found a way to work for food.”
Saleem bit his lip, thankful for the darkness. He’d told his mother that he’d been hired by a café in town to sweep floors and unload boxes in exchange for food. It was a plausible explanation, especially to willing ears. In reality, no one would hire him. Saleem had returned several times to the market and snuck through other shops, taking what he needed to feed his family. It was a sin imposed upon him, he felt. To make himself feel better about it, he ate just enough food to keep his hunger at bay. It was not easy.
“This job may not last. We need to get to England before the money runs out,” Saleem agreed.
“Yes, we do. We’ll also soon need more medicine for your brother. I cannot take him to any doctors or get him medicines here. It will cost more than we have and someone might turn us in to the police.”
“You’re right, Madar-
jan,
” Saleem admitted.
Deciding when to embark on the next leg of their journey was a difficult decision. It was a gamble either way.
“We need to find a way to get to England. I think the train would be best, as Hakan had told us. Airports are full of checkpoints. Perhaps if we stay on the ground, our chances at slipping through will be better.”
“I’ll go tomorrow to find the train station and I’ll see if the Afghans know anything about the trains.”
“There’s something else, Saleem. We’ve got to make some hard choices now, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot. We cannot stay here in this room any longer. Even the price they have given us is more than we can afford. Our money is running out faster than I had imagined it would.”
This simple room with its exposed wires and badly cracked plaster, the decrepit sink from which water trickled—all this was a palace to Saleem. When he left Attiki and walked into this space, when he lay on the bed and felt the coils dig into his back, when he looked over at the second bed and saw his mother and sister sleeping two feet off the floor instead of outside, he was a king. This room let him rise in the morning without the hopelessness the boys in Attiki felt. It gave him reason to believe that fate had something more in store for his family than a rickety ship that would capsize in open waters. To give up this room was to give up so much. But to stay—to stay was to choose to bleed slowly and have no strength left to reach the tomorrow they hoped for.
“It will not be easy. We will need a safe place, especially for the nights.” Saleem knew some of the boys in Attiki slept only a few hours a day, afraid to close their eyes after sunset when a new world of dangers emerged.
“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD USE SOME WATER. HERE,” SHE SAID IN
what sounded like perfect English. Roksana, a volunteer with the aid group, held out a plastic bottle. Saleem followed the hand up to a slim wrist, a graceful arm. It only got better from there.
She wore a purple T-shirt tucked loosely into a slim pair of jeans. Her dramatically straight, black hair, fell loosely to the side as she tilted her head. She looked about his age, maybe sixteen. Her eyes, rimmed in black pencil, caught his attention with a flutter of lashes. She did not smile nor did she look at him with sympathy.
“Thank you.” Saleem took the bottle from her.
“Of course. What is your name?” she asked. Though she had a face that would inspire an overly romantic Dari love ballad, her tone was all business. She was the kind of girl so striking that she’d hardened her demeanor out of necessity, especially in a place like Attiki.
“Saleem,” he answered.
And that’s all you’ll tell her,
he reminded himself. But Saleem felt his defenses coming down as he looked into her eyes.
“Okay, Saleem. I haven’t seen you here before. How long have you been here?” He wished her to say his name once more.
“A few weeks . . . but I am not staying here,” he said, suddenly feeling embarrassed that she might think he slept in the park. He took a casual swig of water.
“Oh? Where do you stay then?”
Another swig as his mind raced.
Good question,
he thought, and turned the conversation around.
“What is your name?” he asked gently. She paused and looked at her clipboard before responding. It was clear she was not happy with his question.
“Roksana.”
“Rokshaana?”
“No. It’s Rok-sa-na,” she repeated, emphasizing the pronunciation.
“But this is an Afghan name . . . Rokshaana!” he repeated with a smile.
“It is my name, my Greek name,” she said, her lips pulled together tightly.
“But you know Iskandar, er . . . Alexander. He married an Afghan woman. She was Rokshaana. It is the same name,” Saleem explained. It felt good to show her he knew a bit of history. She looked like she might have regretted approaching him but exercised patience.
“I am not her. My name is Roksana. And that is enough about my name,” she said. “Tell me, Saleem. Do you want to stay in Greece or do you want to leave?”
“Nobody wants to stay in Greece,” Saleem said quietly.
Roksana, less naïve than most girls her age, was not surprised to hear Saleem say this.
“Where are you trying to go?”
“England.” Saleem sighed. Saying it out loud, it seemed like an impossibly far destination. “My aunt is there.”
“Ah, England,” Roksana nodded as she looked out at the other refugees. “Yes, England is very popular.”
“Greece is beautiful, but Greece does not want us here.”
“It is a small country. The government does not have the money to help everyone.”
“But you . . . you give food and help.”
“We are just people, not the government.” Roksana did not go into ideology or motives. She was not here to sing about the cause. It was her quiet presence that spoke to her beliefs. Saleem felt ineloquent around her.
“You do not agree with the government?” Saleem felt a little apprehensive for her. Where he came from, it was more than dangerous to blatantly oppose the thinking of those in power. Roksana was young and bold. His father would have liked her.
“We believe that people should be treated decently. We know what happens when people come to Greece, and we don’t think it should be this way.”
“People cannot apply for asylum here. Why is it so different?”
Saleem had initially been frightened by the stories he’d heard about Greece from the boys in Attiki. He worried that the rest of Europe would be similar, a dead zone where his family would be adrift forever and in fear of being sent back to Afghanistan. The life of transience was exhausting both physically and mentally. But the Afghans he’d met also told him tales about the better worlds. Places deeper into Europe, countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, did not turn up their noses the way Greece or Turkey did. Afghans there had been given second chances at having a normal life.
“Most people do not understand our system. How did you get here?”
Saleem did not want to answer. He twisted the cap back on the bottle of water and shrugged his shoulders cheerfully. His playful elusiveness made Roksana laugh.
“Tell me what happens here,” Saleem said instead.
“Yes, yes. Okay, forget the question. This is what happens to most people who come here. They are arrested and the police take them to detention centers. They should be clean and safe places for people to stay, but there are too many people. There is no room. People say it is like a prison, even for children. They say it is worse than the place they came from. Sometimes they stay there for months.
“One day, the doors open and they get some papers. The papers say you have one month to leave Greece. Some people even get a ticket to Athens so they can leave from there.”
“But asylum? There is no asylum?” Saleem was once again grateful for the false passports and the good fortune they’d had not to be stopped in Piraeus. They’d breezed through checkpoints without a second glance. According to what Roksana was telling him, their story was an exception.
“There is no real asylum. You must have work to get asylum. How can people find work?” She waved in the direction of the park. “First, you need a work permit. And for a work permit, you must apply for asylum. You see the problem?”
“Why are your friends here talking to refugees and writing these papers?”
“We volunteer. We want to be here. No one is giving us money to come. We come because we want to help.”
Saleem looked at Roksana and wondered what kind of person he would be if he were in her shoes. He tried to picture himself as a high school student in a peaceful Kabul, coming home to his mother and father. Would he take up the cause of strangers? Would he care enough about how people were being treated that he would spend his time handing out food and filling out applications on their behalf?
He hoped he would. But it was very possible he wouldn’t.
Just picturing himself in that utopian snapshot was painful, though. It was possible he would never be restored to the person he once was, the person who’d been able to laugh and dream and call a place home. It was possible that person, like his father, lay in an unmarked grave somewhere in Afghanistan.
ON THEIR SECOND ENCOUNTER, A DAY AFTER SALEEM’S FAMILY
left their room in the Attica Dream, Roksana was more direct.
“
Ela,
you want to apply for asylum or no?” Roksana was in no mood to mince words today. They sat on the concrete steps leading to the park. He wanted to ask her if she knew of a place his family could stay. Tonight would be their first night on the streets.
“Roksana, you ask me this again? I do not want to stay in Greece. I want to take my family to England. And you tell me Greece does not give asylum. These papers are for what?” Saleem felt terribly clumsy speaking in English, but he was thankful he could have even this much of a conversation. There was much he would have said had he been able to speak in Dari. She would have looked at him differently, he thought.
“But they do grant asylum
sometimes
. It depends on the story of the person or the family. Everyone is different.” She looked off in the direction of the square pensively. “I think you have a story.”
“A story? What do you mean?”
“A story. The reason why you and your family left Afghanistan. Some people left because there was no work or because they were tired of war. But I think you have something a little different. Maybe you do not want to say it, but maybe it can help you to apply for asylum.”
“We left for many reasons.”
Roksana looked at him patiently. After a long pause, Saleem started talking, his voice subdued.
“It is true, there was no work and the war was terrible. People were waiting . . . for peace or to die.” Saleem looked off toward the street, the buildings. He had not talked to anyone about his life in Kabul, the things he saw. He hadn’t wanted to rehash those dark times any more than he already did. In his mind, they were like the sound of a dripping faucet, a relentless sound that amplified in the quiet. And yet, he continued.
“My sister could not go to school. My mother could not teach. My aunts, uncles, and cousins—everyone left. My family stayed. We listen to rockets in the sky and pray the rockets do not fall on our beds. There was no music. There was only life the Taliban way. Sometimes we think maybe the Taliban is better than fighting. Maybe the Taliban make the fighting stop but they bring more problems.
“My mother cannot go outside without a man. There was only me. I go to the market and find food but we have only little money. There was no job. We understand that soon there will be no food and no money and no life.”
Roksana listened intently. Her eyes stayed on the ground.
There was silence. Saleem wandered through his broken memories. He had been only thirteen or fourteen at the time. Looking back now, he appreciated much more just how desperate their situation had become—especially now that the burden of feeding his family fell on his shoulders.