As he watched the hands count the seconds and minutes, Saleem told his story. He said it plainly and quickly. It was surprising how many days and years mattered not at all. His story, the heart of him, was really made up of only a handful of seconds or minutes. The rest was empty road, an expanse that only prolonged the travel from one point to another.
He told her about his father. He told her about leaving and Polat’s farm in Turkey. His voice softened when he talked about Madar-jan’s worries and Samira’s silence and Aziz’s broken heart. He talked about Attiki but left out Saboor and the stabbing, a moment he was still ill prepared to accept. He told her about Patras and Naeem’s mangled body.
“You are just a boy,” Mimi said finally. “Your family wait for you. You go to them.”
“But I can go to France?”
Mimi was thoughtful.
“Maybe I show you—but maybe is bad idea.”
“Tell me,” Saleem urged. Any idea could be a good idea.
“People go to France every day. Some people, they take a box and go to France. Easy work, only important police not catch you because take you to jail.”
“Only for taking a box? I can do this,” Saleem said hopefully.
“I do not know. I take you to man—he know. I ask him for you.”
He and Mimi made arrangements to meet again the following night. When the rain stopped, Mimi told him it was best if he left and found a place to sleep until morning. Saleem understood and walked into the night, grateful to have met Mimi, the girl-woman.
CHAPTER 48
Saleem
SALEEM SPENT THE DAY WANDERING THE STREETS OF ROME. HE watched tourists, cameras dangling from their craned necks. With glossy pamphlets in hand, they had a characteristic rhythm to their walk—stop, focus, shoot. A few steps more, then again—stop, focus, shoot.
He made a mental map to track his path. Cars honked and the sounds of a city drowned his morose thoughts.
Saleem rounded a corner and an earth-colored building loomed ahead, a relic rising above a crowded street. The lopsided building opened to the sky and looked oddly familiar to a boy who’d been in the country for only a day. He walked toward it, a flood of memories returning as he gawked at the structure.
He could not have been more than seven or eight years old, huddled with his family in the back living room of his aunt’s home. They were one of a few to own a video player and one of his cousins had borrowed an old copy of a kung fu movie from a friend. What was it called? Something about a dragon. This was the setting of one of the fight scenes, one that left Saleem chopping his fists into the air and flexing his spindly biceps for weeks.
He closed in on the Coliseum, his step quickened by nostalgia and curiosity. He followed the thick rope of people that circled the building. People were buying tickets to go inside. Saleem sat on a bench across the street. He could not afford to spend what he had on a ticket, nor could he bring himself to walk away. He could imagine those shirtless men, glistening sweat outlining their muscular forms—skillfully striking, ducking, and flying through the air.
Saleem thought of the truck drivers, the police officers, Saboor. His battles were nothing like those of the movie.
He wondered what Roksana was doing at that moment. Probably sitting in class, listening to the teacher with a skeptical ear. He went back to the day she’d taken him home. He pictured her leading him into the living room and talking over lunch. Her soft hand slipping his aunt’s address to him. The way her T-shirt narrowed at her waist.
His mind jumped to Mimi, a very different girl, if she could be called that. Her skin, her legs, her chest. It was more than he had ever before seen of a woman. A woman of innocence and shame. Beyond the smoky eye shadow settled into the creases, the smell of cigarette smoke on her clothes, and the tossed-about look on her face, Saleem could see a sweetness to her. He saw it in the way she pursed her lips or sat with her chin propped on her palm.
Saleem had not known girls like these. Just thinking about them made him feel like more of a man, as little sense as that made.
NIGHT CAME AND SALEEM FOUND HIS WAY BACK TO THE DIMLY lit street. He did not see Mimi. He saw other girls, girls of all hues, wearing short pants or ruffled skirts, masking their ennui with coquettish postures. He kept his distance.
He sat on the front steps of an abandoned building. His watch read nine o’clock. A few cars drove by, slowly. From where he sat, he could see the streetlamp under which they’d met. He would wait, he decided.
Thirty minutes later, a car pulled up. The passenger-side door opened, and one pale leg after another, Mimi emerged. She closed the door behind her just as the car began to peel away. She adjusted her skirt and stepped back onto the sidewalk gingerly, her ankle still tender.
She wore a jade-colored top and white skirt that shimmered under the glow of the streetlamp. Saleem stood and walked toward her. She saw him approaching from afar but acted coolly.
“Mimi,” Saleem said nervously. He kept his hands in pockets, not knowing what else to do with them.
“You come back.”
By the way she said it, Saleem could tell she had not expected him to nor was she particularly thrilled that he had.
“Yes. Your foot. Is it okay?”
She nodded. Maybe she regretted telling him to return.
Saleem spoke quickly, before she could tell him to leave. “Can you take me to this man? The man who can send me to France?”
“It is bad idea. Sorry. Maybe is better you find your way.”
The hope she’d kindled in him last night had grown into a full blaze. She was hesitant. Saleem was not.
“Please, I need help. I must go England . . . for my family. For my mother, my sister, my brother.”
Mimi winced at the mention of family. She put a hand on her hip and took a quick glance behind her.
“I do not know what happen. These people sometimes in dangerous places. You have come to Italy alone. I think you go now and find your way, like everyone. You can. No one watch you or hold you here.”
“Mimi, please,” he beseeched.
“It is not good idea,” she said softly.
“I have nothing,” Saleem said simply. “I need this.”
He had more than she did, Mimi knew. She envied the chance he could take—the chance she, as a caged bird, could never take. She relented, having given him ample warning. Whatever happened after this moment would not be on her conscience.
“I show you. But you not say my name.”
Saleem agreed readily. A ring. She hurriedly reached into her small handbag and pulled out a mobile phone. She spoke with someone briefly, her eyes roving the street as she talked. She sounded nervous, obedient.
“We go quickly.”
He followed her lead. She told him she would lead him to an apartment building and, from there, Saleem would have to approach the man and ask for assistance on a passage to France.
Finally, Saleem thought, I am getting somewhere.
His relief was short-lived.
They had walked but a few moments when a steel-gray car whipped around a corner and screeched to a stop in front of them, nearly hopping the curb. They jumped back and Mimi went toppling over, her foot already unsteady. Saleem reached out to help her, and she took his hand.
“You are customer,” she whispered quickly. Her voice trembled.
“What?”
But there was no time for her to clarify. A man in a black leather jacket stormed out of the car, slamming the driver’s-side door as he came out. He grabbed Mimi’s arm away from Saleem and asked her something in a language Saleem did not understand. Unsatisfied with her answer, he tightened his grip and tried to rattle the truth out of her. She pleaded with him.
“What are you doing with this girl?” the man snarled, turning his attention to Saleem. His dark, cold eyes narrowed. He stood a few inches taller than Saleem and was a good thirty pounds heavier. His unshaven face only intimidated Saleem more.
“I . . .
I . . . I was talking,” Saleem stuttered, before remembering what Mimi had whispered to him.
“Talking for what?”
“I want to ask her . . . because I want to . . .” Saleem faltered.
“Do you want her?” he said casually.
“Y-y-yes,” Saleem said with as much conviction as he could muster. Mimi looked nervously from Saleem to the man.
“Good. Let me see money.”
Saleem panicked. His money was in the pouch hidden at his waist. He could not take out a few bills to show this man without having the man see that he had more and he could not risk losing everything.
“I . . . I do not have . . .”
The man had let go of Mimi and was squeezing Saleem’s chin and cheeks with a single, pressing hand, a viselike grip.
“No money?”
“No,” Saleem squeaked through his mashed lips. The grip tightened.
“No money, eh?” He turned to Mimi and yelled something at her. Before she could begin to explain, his hand clapped against her face. She reeled backward. Saleem thrust his hands out toward her, but he now had the man’s full attention.
“You wasting my girl’s time?” He struck Saleem with the same vicious blow. Saleem staggered and tried to get his bearings, but the second and third blows came too quickly.
There was no arguing with his rage.
Pointed boots landed on Saleem’s back, his stomach, and his ribs. He heard Mimi scream. He tried to cower, to cover his stomach from the blows. His breath was short. He felt pavement against his cheek, cold and rough. And then it stopped.
Saleem crawled away, coughing and sputtering on his knees. Mimi’s cries faded. He dragged himself to a corner and lay behind a pile of cardboard boxes.
Please let it be over.
Saleem closed his eyes and gave in to the dark.
CHAPTER 49
Saleem
WHY DIDN’T I FIGHT BACK? WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?
Saleem was almost as furious with himself as he was with Mimi’s pimp. It was morning. His body screamed in protest as he hobbled his way to a corner store and bought something he could sip through his swollen, split lips. The store owner, taking him for a hooligan, took his money scornfully. He shook his head, disappointed in his country for not keeping the troublemakers out.
After finding his way to the train station, Saleem looked for schedules and routes that would take him into France. He felt the eyes of a police officer on his back. In a moment, Saleem had expertly melted into the crowd, leaving the officer to shake his head and return to the opposite side of the station.
SALEEM GRAPPLED EACH DAY WITH THE POSSIBILITY THAT HE might not make it to England. Taken with his experience within the first few days of arriving in Italy, he felt desperate to try something. But he was tired—fatigued as if his veins carried lead instead of blood. He was tired of having nothing to eat and tired of worrying about money. He was tired of watching over his shoulder. Leaving Kabul may have been a mistake after all. Things might have gotten better.
Saleem did not hear the click of heels nearing him. He’d nodded off with his back against the side of a building. In the recessed streets of Italy’s capital, someone recognized his battered face.
“Saleem.”
He opened his eyes to spy two knees with scrapes like skid marks. Mimi crouched beside him, her voice hushed.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” His voice was low and insincere. He looked around.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes,” she said. “Burim is not here.”
His name was Burim.
“You are hurt bad? Oh, your mouth!”
“I’m all right. It’s better now.” Saleem admitted to himself that it was his fault he and Mimi ran into Burim that night and it was because of him that Mimi had been dragged away. From the looks of it, Burim hadn’t let her off easy. There was a bluish hue below her left eye and a small scab on her lip.
“I . . . I am sorry, Mimi,” he said. “I did not want for you to be hurt.”
Mimi slumped to the ground and sat beside him. “I know. Burim is a crazy man. I know him. Nothing new.”
“You need to get away from him.” It seemed uncomplicated to Saleem. Why linger here when the money she earned was not hers and she lived in a perpetual state of fear? Why did Mimi not leave?
“I can do nothing. Not now. Maybe one day but now . . . now I have no choice.”
They contemplated in silence, Saleem wondering why Mimi did not walk away today and Mimi knowing Saleem would never understand.
“I take you to the man now,” she said. “Maybe you can leave. You have better chance than me.”
“But Burim? What if he finds us again?”
“He is far now. He has two girls far from here. New girls. He go to meet them. We have time.”
He nodded and followed. While he did not feel up to the meeting, he wanted desperately to leave Rome. Mimi led him down the same streets, watching to be sure he kept up the pace. They reached an apartment building with a broken knob and first-floor windows taped together. Saleem shook his head, knowing he was ignoring his instincts by entering.
“Inside door, press for apartment B3,” Mimi instructed. “A man answer. He ask who you are and you tell him Mimi send you. Say you want to go to France and maybe he have job for you.”
“Tell your name?”
“Yes. This man, he not Burim friend. But you do everything he say. Everything, understand? He is dangerous man but possible he send you to France. You come here in two days,” she instructed specifically.
Saleem was relieved he had time yet before he was to meet Mimi’s contact though it was disappointing that it would be at least another two days before he could leave this city.
“What’s his name?” he asked. Mimi was already leading him back down to where they had come from. “What is this man’s name?”
“No name,” she said firmly. “No questions. He not like to talk.”
“How you know him?”
“He work with Burim one year but they fight for money. Now they not talk but I know man sends people from here to other countries. He tell you how you do.”
Saleem nodded, understanding some but not all. Mimi was neck deep in a world of unsavory characters. Saleem wondered if he was one of them.
Maybe I am like her. Like the people she knows. Maybe I’m not an innocent boy on the run anymore. Maybe if I accept that, I’ll be better off.
She walked ahead of him, her thin ponytail beckoning him to follow. Saleem, still sore, suggested they sit down and eat the half sandwich he had in his pocket. Mimi nodded up ahead.
“Come with me,” she said and he followed.
She led him back to a dimly lit, one-room apartment in a building not far from where she’d found him. A simple sheet covered a twin-size mattress on a metal bed frame. A lamp sat on a wooden chair, and two other chairs were up against the opposite wall. The walls, painted what was surely once an inspiring red, had cracked with time. The galley kitchen was a few feet away, divided from the main room by a half wall. The appliances looked rusted and unused. The door to the bathroom was half open, and Saleem could see a chipped porcelain sink and a narrow shower stall with blackened grout.
The apartment was in miserable condition and if Saleem had seen it before he’d left Kabul, he would have turned up his nose at it. But his perspective had changed. As Padar-jan often said, in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Saleem’s more pressing concern was whether it was a good idea for him to be here. Mimi looked over and read his thoughts.
“He will not come. Burim has new girl. He stay with her and come back in morning. The first night is very, very bad.” Mimi sat on the bed, and Saleem pulled a chair to sit across from her. He took the flattened sandwich from his pocket, unwrapped it, and offered her half. She took it from him with a soft thanks.
“You live here?” he asked.
She did. Her skimpy dresses and m
esh shirts hung limply in the closet, looking as tired as she did. Mimi filled a glass of water from the kitchen tap, took a sip, and passed it to him.
The lamp did not provide much light, and the one window faced another building, not allowing for much street light to come in. Saleem sat forward in his chair. His knee grazed Mimi’s.
“I am sorry, Mimi. Burim hurt you too. You ask me to leave but I . . . I am sorry.”
Mimi stared at the floor.
“Is okay. Forget it. He not change. He tell me I go free if I make money. I make money for ticket to Albania and I can go home. But now seven months and nothing. Other girls, they work two, three years. Nobody make enough money to be free. This is my life now. If you are here, if you are not here . . . it is same.”
She looked up. Like the raindrops he’d watched on the car window, two tears slid down Mimi’s makeup-covered cheeks.
“But you . . . you can go from here. Your family is wait for you and when they see you they will be happy.” Her eyes widened as she pictured open arms welcoming Saleem. She wiped away her tears and smiled weakly.
Saleem wanted to offer her the same encouragement. He wanted to give her the same kindness. He faltered, then reached out and put a hand on her knee.
“You are strong, Mimi. You’ll find a way. Something good come for you too. People help me to come here. You help me. God give the same help for you. Somebody will help you.” Saleem heard the hollowness of his words.
“There is no one to help me. He take my money. I know he never let me go. He control everything.”
Saleem felt his body tighten. Mimi, in all her frailty, still found a way to share. He could be more than what he was. Empty pockets did not mean an empty soul.
“He does not control me,” Saleem said. “Help me find Burim, Mimi.”
She covered his hand with her own and looked at him. She wanted to believe him, to believe every word of what he was saying even if only for a moment. She touched Saleem’s cheek. His stomach dropped to feel her cool, thin fingers on his face. She touched his other cheek and his eyes closed. He imagined Mimi of long ago, a young girl who smiled and laughed with her sisters. He pictured a girl unsullied. He pictured the girl she’d been before the world had crushed her.
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