Saleem, grim faced, was suddenly alert—the slumber quickly vanished with the need to share his overnight encounter.
“Abdullah, something strange happened last night,” Saleem began, his voice tight and tense. He was not sure how his friend would react. Maybe the whole thing would sound made up.
“Not that strange, actually. Happens to all guys. Welcome to manhood, little boy.” Abdullah sat up and stretched his arms over his head.
“Listen to me for a minute, will you? I woke up in the middle of the night and Saboor was sitting right there, just over my feet.” Saleem pointed to the spot where he’d seen Saboor’s crouching figure.
“That bastard—he was trying to steal our things!” Abdullah turned around and checked for his plastic bag of belongings. He relaxed when he saw everything still in its rightful place.
“I do not know why he was here. I don’t think he was stealing anything. He was acting . . . he was acting strange.”
“Strange? What do you mean strange?”
“I mean, he . . . well, when I woke up he was . . . he was just sitting there watching me.” Saleem rubbed the fog from his eyes. It was difficult to form the words. “And then he touched my leg.”
Abdullah sat up straight. His face tightened with alarm.
“He touched your leg? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Saleem shook his head. He didn’t know why.
“I asked him twice what he wanted and I thought that might wake you up, but then he stood up and I didn’t know what he’d done.” Saleem felt exceptionally filthy this morning. He hated that Saboor was just a few yards away.
Abdullah paused, rubbed his eyes roughly, and lowered his voice.
“There was a young boy here last month. Do you remember him? Just a little school-age kid. He was here with his older brother. Anyway, one day the kid woke up like the djinns had come for him in the night. We woke up in the morning and he was vomiting. When his brother tried to talk to him, the kid started screaming his head off. We had no idea what had happened to him but I happened to notice the boy look over twice in Saboor’s direction. Saboor gave him the iciest look I’ve ever seen. Scared me, really. Two days later, the boy ran into a busy street and got hit by a car. He died right there in the road.”
Abdullah shook his head at the memory.
“It was terrible. His brother was a complete mess after that. The police came and took him away and none of us said much of anything. He wouldn’t have survived long the way he was carrying on.” Abdullah let out a heavy sigh. The memory troubled him. “I don’t know what happened, but since then I’ve wondered if Saboor didn’t have something to do with it. There was something really strange about the way that boy looked at him. And Saboor, it was like he’d silenced the kid from across the square with just a look.”
Saleem felt his throat knot.
Abdullah sat with his bent knees drawn to his chest. His right foot tapped out the urgency of his story.
“It is bad enough to be trapped here, but to be trapped here with him . . . God have mercy on us. I’ll warn Hassan and Jamal at least. If you start telling everyone, you never know what that animal will do. We’ve got to watch out for ourselves, Saleem, and for each other. That’s the only way to survive in a place like this.”
Saleem nodded. He needed a way to protect himself. Now, he realized, he was truly on his own and defenseless. In the months before he’d disappeared, Padar-
jan
had taken to sleeping with a knife under his mattress. He thought the children didn’t know, but Saleem had seen it and wondered what Padar-
jan
was afraid of so he could fear it too. But, with the privilege of childhood, Saleem could close his eyes and feel reassured that his father would defend them from whatever
it might be. Maybe that was the moment a child became an adult, he thought—the moment your welfare was no longer someone else’s responsibility.
He had to watch out for himself now, as Abdullah said.
He would get a knife, just like Padar-
jan
. He would find something heavy and deadly, not a trinket.
He could have slept, but he walked instead. He worked his way through the market shops, browsing from windows and wandering into a few stores that looked promising. He found a few kitchen knives, an antique dagger with a decorated metal sheath, and a pocketknife bearing the Greek flag. None of these would do.
In a tiny shop set off in an alley, he found precisely what he was looking for. The shop window was a dense display of goods, heralding the mess inside: a sewing machine, a stool, a stack of books, kitchen utensils, children’s clothing, a pair of work boots, and an old globe. Saleem walked in, a door chime signaling his entrance. Somewhere in this pile of items had to be a reasonable blade. He was right. The shop owner was an older man with wire-framed glasses. He had a miniature screwdriver in his hand and was probing the insides of an antique clock whose pieces had been dissected out and spread on the glass countertop. A row of antique clocks sat behind him in various stages of disrepair. Saleem gave him a nod and began to weave his way through the three narrow aisles.
Bowls on top of pillows, a thermos surrounded by old cassettes, used reading glasses next to a box of lightbulbs—there was no rhyme or reason to this store. Saleem’s eyes scanned until they landed on the bottom shelf. Buried beneath a stack of table runners was a bronze handle. Saleem pulled it out and saw that the handle inserted into a decorated, bronze sheath. He slid the nicked cover off and found a six-inch blade singed with rust. It was old but more beautiful than any knife Saleem had ever before seen.
This was exactly what he wanted. Saleem touched the blade lightly. It felt bold and intimidating against his palm. The tip was still sharp
enough to prick the pad of his finger when he pushed against it. He slid the knife back into the sheath and held it up to his waist. It would fit inside his jeans, heavy but he could secure it. Saleem walked it back up to the front, where the man was still fiddling with the clock’s gears.
“I want to buy please. How much?”
The old man looked up, his lenses nearly falling off the tip of his nose. He looked at the dagger and then at Saleem.
“Twenty euro,” he said and returned to his tinkering. Saleem shifted his weight and considered how much he was willing to pay.
“Mister, I give you ten euro. No problem.”
“Twenty euro.”
“Mister, please. Ten euro.” The man looked up again to get a better look at Saleem. He took his glasses off and laid them on the table.
“Eighteen.”
Saleem paused. He thought back to last night and the hand on his knee.
“Fifteen euro, please,” he offered. The man nodded. He held out his palm as Saleem counted out bills. He tucked the handle into the waist of his pants. Just as he was walking out the door, he paused.
“Mister, you fix the clocks?”
“Mm-hmm.” The shop owner had already gone back to work and didn’t bother to look up.
“You . . . you can check my watch?”
At the mention of a watch, the old man’s head lifted. He held out his hand expectantly. Saleem quickly unfastened the band, then slipped the watch off his wrist and into the man’s open palm.
The shop owner turned it over, shaking it gently while he held it up to his ear. He mumbled something and dug through a plastic bin until he found the right tool. He pried open the back of the watch and pulled out a set of fine tweezers. He touched the cogs gently and nudged and tapped. The parts were so small, Saleem could not see what he was doing. After a few moments, he snapped the back on again, turned it over, and wound the dial.
He handed the ticking watch back to Saleem unceremoniously.
“Is okay now. You fix the time.”
Saleem took the watch, his heart leaping to see the small hand tick away the seconds. His father’s watch worked again!
“Mister, thank you! Thank you very much! Thank you!” Saleem leaned across the counter and wrapped his arms around the startled shopkeeper.
“Yes, yes.” The man slid out of his arms and waved him off. His spirits lifted, Saleem set out again and found a strip of fabric outside a clothing store. He looped the material around the knife’s handle and tied the band around his waist, knotting it by his belt buckle to keep it in place.
Saleem looked to his left and saw a road that led to the hotel. He looked to his right and saw signs for the area of the food market where he’d stolen their first meals. He bit his lip in shame to think of all he’d taken. It was not something he would do again, he vowed.
A man,
he thought,
would find a more noble way to feed his family.
It became important to Saleem not to feel desperate and criminal.
And there was one more thing Saleem would do to restore the Waziri family. Madar-
jan
would have warned him against being so rash, but Saleem decided, in one impulsive flash, to walk eastward. This was not something he would have discussed with her anyway. Maybe having survived this long with empty pockets gave Saleem the audacity to act impractically.
A bold plan in his head and purpose in his step, Saleem listened to the reassuring tick of his watch and grinned.
“HURRY.” ROKSANA TUGGED AT HIS ELBOW. “WE HAVE NOSY
neighbors.”
Saleem took a nervous step into Roksana’s home. He could not begin to imagine what might happen if her father came home to find an Afghan refugee sitting in his living room.
“Maybe I should . . .” he mumbled.
“It’s all right. Just come in.”
She closed the door behind them, stealing one last peek into the hallway to be sure none of the other apartment doors were open. Satisfied, she led him from the foyer into the living room.
Saleem’s eyes swept across the room, taking it all in. Neat beige sofas huddled around a low, espresso-stained coffee table atop which sat a few books. Old, sepia-toned photographs hung on the walls. Backlit linen shades gave the room a soothing feel. Their apartment was probably the same size as the Waziri home in Kabul but looked much more modern and spacious to Saleem.
“My parents have just gone out for the afternoon so we should be quick. I just wanted you to get a proper bath to use.”
Her voice was different. She was not her usual cool self. She fidgeted and averted her eyes. Saleem was not sure if Roksana was uncomfortable to be alone with him or worried that her parents might return earlier than expected.
“Roksana, maybe I go . . .”
“No,” she said, understanding how unwelcoming she’d sounded. She took a deep breath and started over. “Everything’s fine.” She smiled, her composure restored. Saleem was impressed and quietly envious. His anxieties had full rein over him, he thought.
From the living room, Roksana led Saleem down a narrow hallway and pointed at a door. “This is the washroom and here’s a towel. Shampoo and soap are there. I’ll wait for you in the other room, okay?”
It was more than okay. It was wonderful. The washroom was unlike any he had seen. Lemon yellow walls made the space bright and cheerful. The sink was a glass bowl anchored into the wall. A row of mint green miniature ceramic urns sat on a floating shelf, a wisp of baby’s breath propped in each. A frosted glass door slid open for the shower.
Saleem felt awkward and out of place in the most beautiful washroom he’d ever seen. He fumbled with the faucet. He took off his clothes and folded his knife and money sack into his jeans. He stepped into the shower and let hot water run over him, a murky swirl disappearing down the drain. Saleem scrubbed his body until the water ran clear, washed his hair three times, and then reluctantly turned the water off. He stood for a moment, the room steamy and warm.
Water,
he thought with a new appreciation,
is most certainly
roshanee.
Saleem towel-dried, re-dressed, and stepped into the hallway. To his left, half-open French doors led to an office. In the center of the room was a heavily carved wooden desk. Three sides of the room were bookshelves made of the same cherry-colored wood. So many books! It reminded Saleem of the time his father had taken him to
his office in the Ministry of Water and Electricity. They’d visited the ministry’s library and its stacks thick with texts, feathered pages, and dusty bindings. Saleem was keenly aware at the time that no other five-year-old would be allowed to wander through the rows, a fact that was more interesting than any of the books in the enormous room.
For years after, Saleem’s father would chuckle and remind him of the most memorable part of that day.
And then the chief engineer came in and asked if you would like to work in the same building one day and you said, “No, sir. My mother gets angry sometimes because she says Padar-
jan
gets lost in his books. I don’t want her angry with me too.”
Saleem wondered how Padar-
jan
had never tired of repeating such a simple childish comment. At the same time, part of him had never tired of hearing it either. With a sigh, he returned to the present.
This must be her father’s office,
Saleem realized.
Saleem took three steps into the office to get a closer look at the shelves with books perfectly arranged by the height of their spines. He touched the glossy book jackets. Many of the books were in English, some in Greek. There were books about medicine and philosophy, from what Saleem could gather. He turned to the shelf behind the desk. On the bottom row, something caught his eye—Farsi lettering along the spines of one entire row of books.
Saleem hunched over to get a better look. Sure enough, the titles read,
Afghanistan: A Nation’s History; Afghanistan: The Fallen Empire;
and
Collection of Afghan Poetry
. Why would they have so many books on Afghanistan? Did Roksana’s father speak Dari?
Saleem thought back to days in Attiki when the guys would make snide and often lewd comments about her, the cold glares she would shoot their way, almost as if she understood. Saleem looked around the office, confused. On another shelf across the room sat a small statue, no taller than five inches. It was an eagle carved out of a brilliant chunk of lapis lazuli, a blue stone as unmistakably Afghan as the similarly colored
burqas.