by Sara Alexi
“Hello. May I help you?” His English is fair, and he enjoys his opportunity to show off to the guard.
“Yes, I understand you have my house boy and I would like him back!”
“We have many house boys. Which one you want?” He shows no sign of being serious, apparently delighted by this break in his tedious day. He looks at his colleague before recalling he cannot share his joke in the foreign tongue. Juliet remains stern.
“I have been given to understand that he was brought here yesterday.”
“We had thirteen men brought in yesterday. None of them had papers on them, so we presume all of them are illegal. Here is where illegal people are put, so he is in the right place.” He finishes his speech with a grin.
“I will make him legal.”
The man thinks this is highly amusing, but tries to keep a straight face and turns to repeat Juliet’s sentence to the guard in his native tongue. He too is amused.
“It does not work like that.” He turns back to Juliet and barely manages not to laugh out loud.
“It can if you want it to. Just hand him over, I will take all responsibility.” Juliet’s ground is turning to quicksand. She forces her facial muscles not to quiver. She puts her car keys in her pocket to stop herself fiddling with them.
“I cannot do this.”
Juliet considers bribing him, but is not sure how to do it. If she is obvious and he takes offence, she could be arrested. It is out of her sphere of experience.
“Can I talk to him?”
The man sighs and strokes his moustache, long and curling at the ends. It is not so amusing now he has to do something. He searches on a shelf under his desk, which is at right angles to the window, and pulls up a large, dark blue ledger. He drops it onto the top of the desk, causing a breeze of papers to escape from under it at either end. One paper floats off across the room. The man watches it and sighs again. The man with the gun makes no effort to retrieve it even though it lands near his feet. Moustache returns to the book, which he opens at yesterday’s page. A long ribbon attached to the spine marks the place. The ribbon is pink and Juliet finds this incongruent.
“What is his name?”
“Aaman.”
“Aman what?”
“I don’t know, but Aaman is spelt A-A-M-A-N, if that helps.”
The man sighs again. The effort is exhausting him. He runs his finger down a list in the ledger.
“Yes, Aaman, no surname, no, you may not talk to him.” He seems relieved.
“Why not?”
“He has gone.” He is smiling now. Sitting back in his chair, relaxed. The guard behind him picks up the paper by his feet and returns it to the desk.
“Gone where?” She tries to hide her tone of desperation.
“He was taken to Athens or maybe Fylakio this morning.” He runs his finger along the line puzzling over the destination. “He will be sent back to his country. Did he steal from you?”
“God no! So was he taken to Athens or Fylakio?”
“Who knows? If he didn’t steal from you then consider yourself lucky and find another house boy. There are many.” He shakes his head, blowing through his nose at the size of his endless task. He wishes her good day and closes the window. The armed guard strolls out from the side door and walks with her to the outer gate, his eyes assessing her figure. Juliet wants to run. He unlocks the outer gate and holds it open just enough for her to squeeze through. Juliet forcefully pushes it open wider and the edge of the gate nearly hits the man in the face. He jerks his head back in response and the lecherous smile drops from his face.
Juliet remains rigid. She marches back to her car, drives a mile, stops and deflates.
There are hundreds of Pakistanis clustered outside their embassy in Athens. The building stands back from the road. Solid bars divide the pavement from its courtyard; a thick, barred gate set in pillars of stone offers the only entrance. Some men hold the bars high above their heads resting their weight. Some stand unaided, some sit, one relieves himself against a much-stained wall. Some are in their traditional dress, some in Western shirts. Most hold papers. They fill the pavement, lean against parked cars, talk in groups in the middle of the road, moving slowly in response to horns and shouts. Juliet weaves up to the gate. Some of the Pakistani boys sense that something may happen and they gather round, hoping it will benefit them.
Juliet presses the bell push at the top of the pillar by the gate. Nothing happens. She presses again and waits. One of the Pakistani boys tells her it has been disconnected. His English is good. Juliet asks how she can get in. The boys shrug. She draws out her mobile and calls the directories enquiry, who puts her through to her requested number. The Pakistani Embassy has an automated service to select between Pakistani, Greek, and English. She selects English and waits for an operator. And waits. One boy asks what she is doing. She explains, and they all start talking at once. She will never speak to anyone that way, they have all tried it, no-one ever answers. One says the only way in is by helicopter. Another says by parachute. They grow excited by the possible ways to gain entrance. Arms start flying with ideas, the chatter becomes loud. Juliet puts her hands to her ears. They are so excited they talk over her, forgetting she is there. She is buffeted. Within a minute, a guard comes to the gate. All the men who were sitting stand when they see him and thrust their papers through the railings at him. He ignores them, opens the gate and lets Juliet in. She is escorted into a room with three reception windows, each with a chair for the enquirer. No-one is in the room, no-one queueing at the windows, no-one serving. The guard opens the door at the far end, and lino gives way to carpet. She is shown into a room with a desk.
“Hello, Mrs?”
“Please call me Juliet. I am here about my house boy.”
“Your house boy?”
“No, actually my friend. He was taken by the police to a detention centre. I want to help him. I thought that you might be told where they are taking him. His name is Aaman, two A’s at the beginning.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, you have lost your friend. A great shame, a great shame. He will be lost now in the Greek system. If only you had come sooner.”
“I didn’t need to come sooner if he wasn’t detained!”
“No, but if you are his friend, as you say you are, then coming sooner we could have got him papers maybe. If you were willing to employ him full time, we could have got him a blue card, a work permit. And maybe, depending on how much of a friend he was, for a little money, a passport.” He licks his lips until they glisten before he smiles. “Such a shame. Such a shame. Would you like some tea?”
Chapter 14
The lane is flooded. The water seeps from under the gravel of Juliet’s drive and runs toward the village. Juliet unlocks the gate in haste to find one of the watering connections for the garden has popped apart, the timed water no longer reaching its intended destination.
The beans look all but dead. Juliet lifts a sad leaf and lets it flop. She crouches to the seedlings. They have shrivelled to nothing, and some of the flowers have slug holes in their leaves, flowers gone. The lettuces have melted. Juliet drops her bag by the seedlings and scrabbles in the dry soil for the water connector and pushes it home. She stands and stretches her back. The vegetables need weeding. The grass needs cutting. The edges by the wall need trimming. The vines need a pergola. There are no tools poised for action. No trowel waiting in a flowerbed. No lawn mower momentarily left halfway to the lawn. The garden looks back at her blankly.
A glass of wine and a cold tin of beans. She forks the beans straight from the tin and balances her wine on the back windowsill. Her stomach fills, the wine relaxes her but does nothing to relieve her emptiness. Just since she left, the garden is full of weeds and budding trees, the late April rain and damp giving the wilder side of nature an adrenaline shot. But her tender vegetable plot has suffered from the lack of care and regular watering.
To Juliet, the garden looks bare. Her body is glad her travels are ove
r. She sits slouched, bottom on an upturned paint bucket, legs stretched out before her.
Too tired to move, she drops the can of half-finished beans on the floor beside her. They land on a stone and balance. She pulls her high ponytail free and rests her head back against the wall. The bean can tips over and the juice puddles on the floor. She wonders where the cats are. But she has been gone a day longer than she planned.
Greek bureaucracy and red tape! Officials who found her funny, officials who didn’t have the time, computer systems that failed, logs that hadn’t been filled. Men who didn’t know their jobs passed her from department to department, from people who didn’t care to other people who didn’t care. Juliet is glad to be home even though home has a piece missing.
Aaman is gone. Juliet doesn’t know if the Greek system is as bad as has been apparent or whether each and every one of the people she came into contact with blocked her progress to save themselves work, to stop further hassle, use of their energy. The laid-back ease that attracted her to Greece is now the very thing that frustrates her.
The paint bucket begins to feel small and hard. The temperature has dropped a fraction as evening takes hold. She looks at her glass of wine, which, since she sat, has been just out of reach on the windowsill. A slight movement in the grass at the edge of the lawn calls her attention. A snail peeks out between the blades and begins its slimy trail to the upturned beans. Its ommatophores extended, waving muscles make slow progress. Juliet pushes a tiny twig in its path with her foot. The snail glides smoothly over, unimpeded. She determinedly stretches for her wine, the bucket creases on one side under her redirected weight and she slithers onto her hip on the floor. Slowly standing, she brushes her jean leg, gathers her wine and fork, and carefully steps over the feasting snail to return indoors.
The laptop sits open on the expanse of kitchen table. The screen unblinking, black, useless, no-one giving it purpose. Juliet pours a second glass of wine. She will have to mow the lawn herself. But, by the power of wine, she will ensure herself a good rest tonight.
Aaman turns on his mattress. His legs itch. Knees to chest, he looks and scratches his ankle where there are many pinprick bites. The man on the mattress to his right is restless, glottal sounds on the in-breath, wheezing on the out-breath, a minor part in the symphony of sleep that fills the room. The dawn sun hits the farthest walls, wakefulness following its spread across the room.
He lies on his back, in his head the rich, thick smell of coffee with buffalo milk, the quiet of sitting at Juliet’s kitchen table, the cool of the computer under his hands, the aromas of Saabira’s cooking promising lunch, a perfect existence. A boy of no more than eight pads his path across Aaman’s mattress to the sole toilet, shared by eighty men and boys.
He doubts he will see either Saabira or Juliet again. His savings tucked in a hole in a mud barn miles away. There are whispers of people remaining in these detention centres for years. The man next to him wriggles in sleep to face him and exhales loudly. Aaman turns from the fetid smell of his breath. The boy pads back from the toilet; an old man stands from his mattress and shuffles to replace him. Someone passes wind loudly.
There is no sound of the outside world. No dogs barking, no cars on the road, a strangled, hushed silence of hundreds of men sleeping, grunting, snoring, scratching.
The old man returns, another takes his place. Aaman realises that soon all will be waking and the one toilet will become awash. He stands and picks his way to the cubicle, across the uneven mattresses, avoiding limbs under spread blankets. The toilet stands surrounded by thin, half-height metal walls in the corner. The smell is obnoxious. In his hesitation, an Albanian pushes past him, his bare feet slipping in the wet as he stands rigid, unconcerned if he hits his mark.
Aaman wonders if there is a corner outside where he can relieve himself. There is no door to the yard. There are no doors and no windows anywhere, only gaping square cavities in the cancer-ridden cement. The only cavity with a door is the one that brought him in. Aaman wanders into the yard.
There are several men on their knees silently bowing and praying, facing Mecca. Two men stand talking in hushed tones by the fence between two of the blocks. There are no guards visible in the tower but faint sounds of the television betray their presence. Aaman steps towards a corner between block and fence. As he nears, the stains of a thousand before him are noticeable before the lingering stench invades his nostrils. The consensus of a thousand like minds before him. Aaman looks, as he stands, between the blocks, out through the double fence to the scrub land, barren.
He finishes and turns to find another man walking towards him, his hurried steps announcing the need for the corner.
No alarms sound, no bells or klaxons. The men wake when they like, rubbing eyes, stretching, scratching. They seem to gravitate towards one of the blocks. Aaman treads carefully, manoeuvres to observe, waits. Men leave the block with cups and bread. He joins the growing queue. The man in front smells acrid. Aaman folds his arm across his face. Inside the block there is an internal window with a hatch. They shuffle by, each receiving a cup, and a grubby hand offers something that looks like crumbly bread. The man in front snatches his piece and eats quickly and it is gone before he takes his cup. Aaman is hungry and eats slowly. He steps to one side, out of view. Watching the big men return for seconds and, after a while, the window is boarded before the line is all served. Those not served do not complain.
The day settles into the expectation of nothing. They are weary before they begin, bored before sleep has left them. Men in twos and threes but mostly in groups of five or more squat on haunches, knees in armpits, waiting for the heat of the day to build and the inevitable overcrowding in the shade of the blocks as the temperature soars and the sun burns. Aaman keeps to himself, watching and learning about his surroundings. No-one approaches him.
The day progresses slowly. One of the guards in the tower comes out and stretches. His arms clasped above his head, his mouth wide, he leans backwards, showing all the signs of being equally as bored as the prisoners. There is the sound of a vehicle on the road, and the guard unclasps his hands and points to it and turns to talk to another guard who also comes out stretching, crucifixed, in the sun. Lungs filled, limbs limbered, they stand, side by side, arms across bulletproof chests, discussing the vehicle, which changes down gear and grinds to a stop.
A scuffle. In the yard corner, like rats skirmishing. A Russian is pushing an Albanian. The Albanians gather. Back their man. The Russian puffs out his chest. Towers, to show his size, but backs off. Boredom returns.
Some areas of the yard still have shade. These areas are taken by the big rats. The big rats stand. Out in the sun squat the Indians and the Pakistanis. They are used to temperatures of over thirty-eight degrees. Aaman does not notice the heat of the sun. The temperature had often reached fifty when he used to work on the land with his father. He nods if the Pakistanis look to him, but he does not join them. A single man can sit where he likes.
The two guards on the tower nonchalantly take out their guns and stand ready. Aaman looks around to find the cause of their caution. There is a stirring by the huts nearest the gatehouse. A whisper runs through the yard. One of the Albanians pulls one of the Indians up by his arm. The Indian looks surprised but does not protest. It is the man who was worried about his wife awaiting his return in the next village. He is pushed by the Albanian towards the gatehouse block. The other Indians stand to ask why they are taking him. The Albanian’s answer is heard by those nearest him. The remaining Indians are pushed towards the block that leads to the gatehouse. Aaman stays quiet.
The Albanian who has taken the lead role returns to the yard and looks around. He organises the rounding up of a group of Pakistanis. The compound then turns on his neighbour, each looking for an Asian, a moment of power. The man next to Aaman nudges him and Aaman walks to the block, shrugging off his escorts.
Huddled by the door that leads to the reception building are the Indians and Pak
istanis, Afghans, and one Uzbeki. There are several armed guards at the door. They do not enter the compound. They wave the group through with their guns. Aaman keeps to the middle of the group. The door shuts behind them. The men left behind cheer and jeer and bang on the closed door.
None of the guards speak to them. They re-house their guns in low-slung holsters, momentarily standing like cowboys, enjoying the perk. They chat for a while with the gatekeeper and the gate guard. Aaman understands the words ‘Indians, easy, simple, good.’ His Greek has not improved since taking the job with Juliet. He wishes he had learnt more. He cannot dwell on his lacking; the tension within the group has ignited his fear.
“Please to tell us what is happening?” he asks a guard without becoming visible from the group.
“English!” The guard laughs and turns back to his conversation, ignoring the question. They say their goodbyes, a slap on the shoulder here, a handshake there, and four of the guards herd Aaman and his group to a waiting van. Grilles at the windows, smelling of piss and cigarette smoke. Aaman wonders if he smells; the man in front does.
The van rattles as it starts, the clutch shrieking its reluctant consent. The journey winds along small roads, and the truck sways. The other men try to predict the outcome of the journey. The consensus is Fylakio, a large detention centre near the Turkish border. Those who have not heard of it grow fearful. Those who know are resigned. The road grows straight. The truck falls into a rhythm. Aaman sleeps.
He wakes with a start to someone banging once, very hard on the side of the van. He orientates to a cacophony, horns blaring, people shouting, the drone of heavy traffic, motorbikes buzzing, and the van no longer moving.