by Colm Toibin
One day he explained his fears to Super that he could not seem to learn as the others had learned and he noticed how attentively Super listened, how much he wanted to know the names of all the barbers and what each one had done or said. He waited for Super to give him advice, or predict what was most likely to happen, but Super said nothing, just looked out the shop window into the street. Since the supermarket was open late, he went there sometimes for a few minutes after work but Super was not always free to talk to him, as there were other men who looked up in surprise when Malik approached and grew silent as Super indicated that he was busy and suggested that Malik return some other time. The men, most of whom had beards, did not seem like customers and Malik wondered who they were. They were older and seemed serious, like businessmen or mullahs.
Malik did not move beyond the street and he liked how gradually he was becoming known as he made his way to the supermarket to buy milk or soft drinks or tea. He enjoyed being greeted and saluted. And there were other things too that made him feel comfortable. Even though eight of them shared the room, for example, he learned that he would not need to lock his suitcase, he was assured that no one would touch it. One night, when one of the other lodgers wanted to move his suitcase for a moment, he came and asked permission. He realized that they all kept money and photographs and other private things in their cases, fully confident that no one would go near them.
He noticed too that each of them had something special, a camera, a Walkman, a mobile phone, a DVD player, that set them apart and that they lent out as a special favour, or at particular times. Only Mahmood owned nothing. Mahmood worked hard and spent no money because he wanted desperately to go home. Some of the others, he told Malik, spent half their earnings on phone calls home. He had never called his wife even once, he said, not even for a second. He would not waste the money and it only made him sad.
Each morning, except Saturday and Sunday, Mahmood left early to deliver butano. He carried the heavy bottles of gas up narrow staircases. And then in the afternoons he took care of all the laundry in the house, leaving clothes clean and folded on each bed, never making a mistake. And in the evening he cooked, charging less than even the cheapest restaurant in the street.
Malik liked Mahmood from the beginning and liked having his clothes washed by someone he knew, and laid on his bed as though he were equal to the others. He also liked the food Mahmood cooked. But more than anything he was intrigued at how single-minded Mahmood was, how determined he was to go home.
It was Super also who warned him not to wander in the city. The locals were not the problem, Super said, and not even the tourists. It was the police you had to be careful of. In this street and the few around it, Super assured him, they would stop only blacks, but in other streets they could easily mistake you for a Moroccan.
‘Why do they not like Moroccans?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, but they don’t,’ Super said. ‘They just don’t. And they don’t like Africans either. They like us because we just do business, that’s all we’re here for.’
Under the counter Super had a collection of magazines with photographs of the prisoners the Americans held in Iraq. Malik had seen the pictures on television; he had noticed that no one wanted to talk about them. Each time the television in the house had shown the naked figures being tormented by the American guards, for example, his fellow lodgers had watched in complete silence. When the news moved on to some other item, they still did not speak but simply stared straight at the television for a while.
When he went through the pages of the magazines with Super, neither of them said anything either; instead, they looked at each picture slowly, letting their eyes take in every detail. It was the one with the big black dog that Malik remembered most; that was what made him most afraid. At night sometimes he thought about it, and the sharp teeth of the dog and the crouching prisoner tied up made him shiver.
Super reminded him of men in his village at home who could be found after prayers at the mosque gathered in a small group having earnest discussions, or who would visit a house if someone was in trouble. He had a way of becoming quiet and looking serious.
One day as Malik and Super observed Mahmood banging a piece of metal against the butano cylinder to let customers know he was in the street, Malik told Super how great it was that Mahmood would have plenty of money when he went home because he worked so hard. Super listened and said nothing for a moment.
‘No, he won’t have a penny when he goes home,’ Super said. ‘Not a penny. They did all the paperwork for him and got him his visa and paid his fare. He is saving to pay them back so he can go.’
‘Pay who back?’
‘The same people who paid for you,’ Super said.
‘You mean Baldy?’
‘Baldy works for them too.’
At night sometimes Malik lay in the dark thinking of the vast city that lay around him, its night sounds seeping in. He had learned some words of the language and wondered how he might learn more. Even if he never became a barber, he thought, they would always need someone to sweep and clean. He would never go too far beyond these few streets, he was sure, but he relished the idea that other, different people lived in the city, people whom he would never meet or even see. Maybe in a while he would try just the next street. He imagined taking one street at a time, just as he imagined learning a few words every day. And maybe after a month or so, he would summon up the courage to ask Baldy which half-day he could have. It was not too bad, he thought, as he curled up in the warm bed and waited for sleep to return.
Once a month he went to the locutorio the others used and phoned Fatima, as he had arranged to do before he left. She owned the stall that sold live and dead chickens in the market and she knew his father, who often passed by. Malik asked her always if there was any news and she said no, and then he told her what news of his own he could think of, but it was never much. Then he said that she must be busy and she said she sometimes was. And then he asked her to pass on the news to his father and his sister that he had phoned and that he was well. And she agreed that she would. The phone call cost him less than five euros if he stayed on for under three minutes.
Malik looked forward to the quiet time when everyone was asleep and he was woken by some stray noise. It could be anything: the noise of a motorbike on the street below and then that noise fading into the distance, or one of the others who shared the room groaning in his sleep or saying a few words that made little sense, or someone talking or shouting below the window, or the men who came to hose down the streets or the truck that came to collect the garbage. On nights like this he thought that, despite the trials of training to be a barber, he was glad to be in Barcelona, happy to be among strangers and away from everyone he knew.
And when the morning broke in Barcelona the eight in Malik’s room, and the three in the room at the back, had to use the single bathroom. They never queued, and there was never a rule about who went first or who waited until the end. If someone was in a hurry or late, however, he could make that clear to the others and he would be let go next. No one ever stayed too long in the bathroom, just time enough to use the toilet and the shower and maybe shave and then dry off and come back and dress. Everyone kept their underpants on, or their pyjamas, or a towel around their waist, as they got ready for the day.
Some of them had their own prayer mats and they prayed in the mornings while everyone moved busily around them. But Malik did not pray. Since his mother had died, there had been no one in the house to tell him to pray and so he had got out of the habit.
But Super, he knew, prayed and sometimes Super would read him a few lines of the Koran and ask him to repeat them and he would do so. He liked the words and often tried to remember them.
Some days were slack. There was usually a strange empty hour in the morning when there were no customers and they all had to watch out in case Baldy pounced on the place. He would demand that the barbers stand behind their chairs as though waiting at that
very moment for the arrival of a customer. But mostly Baldy was too busy, they all said, selling mobile phones at the lowest price.
Malik usually kept his eyes on the door and the window. Although he knew some of the people who passed, because they were customers at the Four Corners or they came to buy groceries at the supermarket or consult with Super, he was careful never to greet them with anything more than a nod of recognition. He did not want to be seen not working even though he had nothing to do most of the time.
They had given up for the moment, it seemed, trying to teach him to cut hair; he was hopeless, they said. The fun of watching him make a mess of someone’s hair and the pleasure of laughing at him as he grew more nervous and agitated had lost its initial charm. One or two of the barbers treated him now with blunt indifference or mild irritation and soon, even Super agreed, his utter uselessness would come to Baldy’s attention and no one knew what might happen then. But, for the moment, Baldy seemed to notice nothing and when Malik waylaid him one day and asked him if he could have Tuesday afternoons off as his half-day free, he agreed immediately.
Although Super had warned Malik not to go too far beyond the street, to stay close to where there were other Pakistanis, Malik worked out that it was safe to wander one block on each side. He moved carefully, often doubling back and stopping, noting the number of stores selling mobile phones, hoping not to bump into Baldy and ready to veer into the shadows if he did. He wished he had a phone of his own, because no one minded you standing on the street staring at them or their store as long as you were talking on a mobile phone.
One day when Baldy arrived in the Four Corners, he came right up to him as all the customers and barbers watched.
‘What are you looking at?’ Baldy asked him.
‘I’m not looking at anything,’ Malik replied.
‘Well, don’t. Don’t look at anything, you little maggot. Get on with your work! What do you do anyway?’
Malik did not reply.
‘What do you do anyway?’ Baldy repeated. ‘I don’t know why we have you here. We’ll have to deal with you one of these days. Do you hear me?’
Malik did not reply.
Later, when he told Super what had happened, Super said that he thought it sounded serious. He or one of the other men would try to talk to Baldy, he said, but he was not sure what the result would be.
Malik concentrated on small things so that he would not worry too much about Baldy. He made sure now that he did not linger in the streets even on his half-day free in case Baldy spotted him.
One day soon afterwards Baldy came into the Four Corners looking for him.
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘I am here,’ he said.
‘I know where you are,’ Baldy replied.
Baldy went over and checked the ledger and the drawer where the cash was kept.
‘Super says you are intelligent,’ Baldy said. ‘But I have never seen any sign of it.’
If Baldy had called him lazy he would not have minded. He might seem lazy because he usually had nothing much to do. But he did not want Baldy to say that he was not intelligent.
‘I don’t see the slightest sign of intelligence,’ Baldy said. ‘In fact, I see only stupidity.’
Malik moved closer to Baldy and looked at him steadily, evenly.
‘I am not stupid,’ he said.
‘Can you count?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many pockets do you have?’
‘In my trousers I have two at the front and two at the back.’
‘Right. So I am going to give you phone cards to sell. You put the cards in your left pocket at the front and you put them nowhere else. And you put the money in the right pocket at the front. And these cards work only for mobile phones and they are the cheapest anyone will get. Five hours’ talking for ten euros.’
He handed Malik a bunch of phone cards. Malik immediately put them in the left-hand front pocket of his trousers.
‘If I find you cheating, you won’t have any trousers,’ Baldy said. ‘I’ll use your trousers to wring your neck.’
Malik did not reply.
‘Do you understand?’
Malik nodded.
‘And be here when I come.’
Malik was going to ask how anyone would know he had the cards but he decided to say nothing.
Baldy left the Four Corners as though in a bad humour.
Salim came over and slapped Malik on the back.
‘You’re in business,’ he said and smiled. One of the customers smiled as well. Even Abdul, the most serious of the barbers, smiled.
Later when Malik went to the supermarket, Super said that he would work out the terms with Baldy, but he thought that Malik might soon be on a percentage of the money he took in if the sale of the cards went over a certain figure. By the time he said this, Malik had sold only two or three cards, and these to the actual barbers in the shop. They might have bought them just because they felt sorry for him. But in the days that followed, people began to stop by the Four Corners asking for Malik, saying that Baldy had sent them, and by the end of a week he was able to inform Super that he had sold more than thirty phone cards at ten euros each.
‘Did Baldy take all the money from you?’ Super asked.
Malik nodded.
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Super said.
A few days later as Baldy was collecting the money, he spoke to him again.
‘Keep an account of how many you sell every week. And you’re on ten per cent. You get it every Friday.’
Malik understood that this was business so he knew it was important not to smile or say anything in reply. He nodded his head gruffly in a way he thought Baldy might appreciate.
It was clear to him then that Baldy might realize that he was both intelligent and honest. And he had something more to do than sweep the floor and keep things clean and get sheets and towels. Men came looking for him by name, and a few women too, and they recognized him on the street and they saluted him if they saw him.
Sometimes when he woke in the night he no longer worried about the possibility of being sent home, or of being given even more menial work. He liked selling phone cards. As he lay in bed in the dark in the great strange city, taking in the rank air of the room, the thought came into his mind for the first time that maybe everything was going to be OK.
On Fridays and Saturdays he usually went to the supermarket after the Four Corners had closed and sat listening to Super or helping him if he needed help or having some food with him. Sometimes Super spoke about the Koran and picked a longer passage from the book and ran his finger along the lines of the page, reading out the words as Malik listened. If anyone came into the shop, however, he put the book away immediately. One evening a man came to buy some razors and soap; Super spoke to him politely for a while before he left the supermarket.
Super seemed worried for a moment and then told Malik that he should look out and not be seen talking to that man because he was a police spy.
‘He tells them everything,’ Super said, ‘and they pay him and that is how he lives. He will tell them we were reading the Koran. He saw it before I put it away. No one in the street minds him because there’s nothing wrong here. It’s just business here. We make sure of that. As long as he doesn’t tell them lies, we are happy. But you have to watch what you say, and what you let him see, all the same.’
‘Where does he live?’ Malik asked.
‘Near you,’ Super said.
‘But does he sleep in a room with other men?’
‘He does everything the same as us, except for his job. When the bomb went off in Madrid he was gone for a week. We were all worried in case he might make up things just to please them, might tell them things that weren’t true about people in the street. They would arrest anyone. It wouldn’t matter to them. We don’t know where he went or what he said, but nothing happened here. He just came back and things were normal.’
‘Where did he go?’
Baldy instructed Malik to tell anyone buying the phone cards that he also sold mobile phones from a booth in a side-street and from a larger shop that had all the newest models. A few times Malik went and looked at the shop windows, one on each side of the entrance door. He noticed the lights, how bright they were, and how each model of phone appeared perfect and beautiful.
At the end of each day, he was able to tell Baldy how many cards he had sold and then how much money he had taken in. There was never a problem with the money. It was always exact. Sometimes, he also mentioned to Baldy that he had directed customers to the booth and the shop, but he was careful not to do this too much as Baldy often grew irritated if he spoke out of turn. Baldy preferred him to speak only when he was asked a question.
One night he could not sleep, because Abdul in the bed opposite him was coughing. He asked himself how the others could manage to sleep because at times Abdul’s cough was rasping and loud. Maybe they were awake too, he thought. Abdul gasped for breath and wheezed and then became quiet before the coughing started again. Malik wondered if Abdul smoked and tried to picture him with a cigarette, but of all the barbers who worked in the shop he was the one who paid closest attention to his work, concentrated hardest on shaving or cutting hair, and seldom looked out the window, or even joined in the conversation in the shop, except to ask them sometimes to change the music. It was impossible to imagine Abdul taking time out for a smoke. Abdul was the oldest of them, Malik realized, and maybe there was a period in the past when he had smoked, or when he had damaged his lungs, or maybe it was just a cold he had now and it seemed worse because of his age. Malik tried to think what age Abdul might be, but he was not sure; he thought that he could be forty.
As the coughing continued, Malik quietly left the room and went to the kitchen on the floor below, where he found a flask of cold water in the fridge. He filled a glass from the flask and tiptoed back, approaching Abdul’s bed and whispering to him that he had brought him a glass of water. When he put his hand on him, he felt Abdul’s skin covered in sweat and realized that he must have a high temperature. As Abdul reached for the glass, he touched Malik’s hand for a moment and then held it briefly as a way of thanking him. He sat up then and drank the water. Malik could hear him gulp. He did not know whether he should wait and retrieve the glass or let Abdul put it on the floor when he had finished. He whispered to him that he would get him more water if he needed. Abdul did not reply, but squeezed his arm and then moved his hand down and caressed Malik’s thigh. It was just two or three seconds, but as Malik made his way back to his bed, it made him feel warm and comfortable, more than if Abdul had said anything to him. Soon, he fell asleep, but in the morning, as he heard one of the others say that Abdul was too sick to go to work, he felt a bond with him, felt that something had happened between them.