The Illegal Gardener gv-1

by Sara Alexi

  “Juliet, you want to come and help?” he shouts as he transfers the mixed cement into a waiting bucket. He turns his back on the window and Juliet breaks her gaze. Scrambling to her feet, she grabs an apron as she passes through the kitchen.

  “Where do you want me?” Juliet asks.

  Aaman lifts a beam, using its central point for balance. He carries it to the farthest hole and tips the beam’s weight until the end sits in the hole. He walks away, holding the beam, and then when he is a good distance away, pushes the beam towards vertical, walking in as it gains height. Juliet runs to help. As the beam makes it to upright, Aaman’s hands are half over Juliet’s. Aaman looks her in the eye.

  “Would you like to hold the beam or get the cement?” he asks.

  “I’ll hold. It seems balanced.”

  Aaman carries the cement bucket to the pole and pours it in around the base. He gathers some short pieces of timber and wedges them around the pole for support. He claps the dust and cement off his hands.

  “One!” He smiles.

  Juliet lets go, smiling.

  They complete six uprights before Aaman thanks her for her help, and she decides to pop to the nursery for some climbing plants to train up the poles.

  She returns with a selection of border plants and only one climbing plant in a wooden box. Aaman jogs up to help her unload it from the car. She seems excited and Aaman presumes it is from having the garden done. Out of curiosity, he asks why she hasn’t bought climbing plants. She is completely distracted.

  “Aaman, how good are you with the programming?”

  “I am further on than I thought. I am learning php which allows queries to search a database and perform other server side processing tasks. Why?”

  She shields her eyes from the sun with her hand.

  “The man in the nursery says he needs a website. I said I knew someone who would do it and he said to ask how much!” She is grinning.

  “I will not charge him.”

  “Why ever not?” Juliet drops her hand.

  “It will be a good way for me to learn. It will take time and it may not be perfect.”

  “You will charge him and you will use it to learn and he will give you a reference which I will officially translate into English!”

  “But I will be slow. I will be learning as I go.”

  “He does not know how long it takes to write a website. Besides, he said he would like it ready by next year. Nothing happens with speed in this country.” Juliet laughs.

  “I must talk to him to find out what he wants exactly.”

  “I took the liberty of asking him, and he has written it out for you, what he wants it to do and so on, I will translate it for you and if there are any questions, I have his phone number. Isn’t it great?”

  Aaman looks nervous. Juliet reads the signs: he is already inside his head, thinking, working.

  “I think it might be an idea if you left the cement to dry, do extra tomorrow, and go start work on the website now. What do you think?”

  Aaman is already tidying the tools, pulling on his shirt.

  Ιt takes just over six weeks to write the website whilst juggling his time with finishing the pergola and keeping the garden and house perfect. He declares it is not a complicated site and that he has been slow to learn.

  Juliet is amazed. She ensures that the nursery man pays before taking control of the site, and Aaman spends a few evenings showing him how it works. Aaman practises his Greek in the process, and Juliet stands by intervening when necessary as translator.

  Aaman lies on his bed. He is reading the translation of the reference from the nursery man who was delighted to enter the digital age. He gloats over the roll of money in his hands, which has grown considerably in size following his payment for the website. He is almost beginning to believe that he will be able to pay for more than his share of the harvester, help out his village, his distant, faraway, dreamlike village. He expands his chest, the returning hero. The thought slices through him. His yearning to see his mother, Saabira, his father, his grandparents, even the oxen, pulls hard. But then here and now is strong, Juliet, her garden, the house, her world, its kindness, ease, comfort yanks his senses. Juliet, who is so much older, and yet not. She understands. He almost allows himself to think ‘like an equal,’ but he recoils. It does not seem right. She is doing all the giving, he the taking. That is not equal. This hurts.

  It is only days after the completion of the nursery’s website that Juliet is approached by Stella who runs the village takeaway. Her best seller is souvlaki-meat on a stick, chips and salad wrapped in flat bread, tatziki dripping from the wrap. She needs to expand, she tells Juliet, to welcome tourists. Her husband is not content with the business they are doing. Juliet asks if there are a lot of tourists in the village, not having seen any. Stella replies that there are not but a website will change all that. Juliet is not convinced, but Stella insists and also neatly corners Juliet into promising English lessons once a week.

  Juliet feels Aaman did not charge enough for his last job and this time quotes more. Stella seems very happy. Juliet suggests a more modest sum for the lessons; it is important to become part of the community.

  Aaman completes the task in two weeks. Stella’s English will take much longer. Aaman has learnt now. His skills flow. Besides, this site is easier. It needs a way for Stella to alter the prices and update the menu. She loves the design. Aaman studied many English websites for cafes and restaurants before designing his own.

  His bankroll grows. He keeps it behind the boards that line the built-in cupboard where the gun had been. He reflects on this. Things change. He must change with them. He looks down at himself. He is lying in the jeans Juliet has given him and the oversized t-shirt. He needs to change. He pulls the door to the guest room open with his toes whilst remaining lying on his bed.

  “Juliet, I have a very big favour I wish to ask of you.” There is no need to shout as Juliet is on the sofa in the sitting room.

  “Yes is the answer.”

  “No, you must not say that. It might be too big a favour.”

  “OK, what?”

  “Next time you are going into town, please may I take the time off from the garden so I can go and get some new clothes?”

  Juliet closes her book.

  “Aaman, I am going into town now. Is there anything you want? Would you like a lift?”

  “No, you are being too kind. But the next time you go?”

  Juliet stands up and pushes her feet into her flip-flops. She walks to the door and picks the car keys from the hook. The hook Aaman had put up to stop her from losing them.

  “So are you coming?” She does not wait for an answer but goes through the open door, the heat lapping from all sides. She opens the gates and returns and sits in the car.

  Aaman has not moved. She starts the engine. He is standing by the front door. She turns the car around to face down the lane. He runs to the car and jumps in.

  Aaman asks Juliet to leave him whilst he shops, which suits her as she has some dry cleaning to collect and a hard copy translation to send. There is always a queue at the post office so she has her book with her, with which she is still struggling.

  When they meet up, Aaman astounds Juliet. She had expected he would, that or he would have bought something too garish on which she would not be able to comment. He has bought a lightweight jacket, a starched white shirt and some dark trousers. He has even bought some summer shoes. Nevertheless, what impresses Juliet the most is that he has also been to the barber, his floppy fringe gone, the back, which over the time she had known him had grown to shoulder length, is short. The barber has gelled it, and Juliet wonders how it will look after a day in the garden. Juliet notices that she also feels a curious sense of jealousy, as if the world can now share her view of him.

  “You look amazing! Let’s go to a cafe and sit in the sun and watch the world go by.”

  Aaman has watched people sitting at cafes and watching the worl
d go by for, how long, a year, longer, shorter. Time seems to escape him. At the beginning he counted in days, then in weeks, for a while in months, but now? He casts the thought aside. He does not want to think in those terms, how long he has been here, how long he has not been there. Nonetheless, to be one of those people sitting watching the world go by feels like huge step.

  “Is it very expensive?”

  “My treat.”

  “I would not like that.”

  “Sorry, Aaman, I know I can be very insensitive. Look, this cafe shows the prices.”

  Aaman looks. He covers over a sharp intake of his breath with a small cough and wonders how people manage. He is grateful more than words can say to Juliet. If it cost even a whole day’s pay it would be no more than if he gardened free and he would gladly do that for Juliet, every day.

  “My treat!” Aaman takes Juliet by the elbow and leads her to a table.

  Aaman orders coffee and Juliet the same, and just as the waiter is leaving their table Aaman orders ice cream.

  “Strawberry, vanilla, chocolate?” the waiter asks.

  “Juliet?”

  She forms her lips to say ‘no’, but looks at Aaman. He is offering half a day’s wage. She reshapes her lips into a ‘yes’, and smiles. He is delighted, they are now equal.

  “Vanilla, please.” She smiles. "It has been a long time since I have had ice cream."

  “Two vanilla, please.”

  They arrive in glass dishes with wafer straws, strawberry syrup poured over them, and a sprinkle of nuts. Aaman wonders how much the extra things will cost and tries to remember how much money he brought with him and how much is left from his shopping trip. He excuses himself to the lavatory and makes a quick check. He has plenty. He returns relieved.

  The afternoon glides into evening. They talk of gardens and people and perceptions, the West, the concept of work, how unfair the world is, colours they like, one topic merging into another.

  A tall Nigerian man approaches their table. He opens a case showing row after row of watches. Aaman looks in the man’s face. He does not know this individual man, but he feels he knows him. Aaman shrinks inside himself, the pecking order. The Nigerian addresses them.

  “Nice watches, good quality, very good price to you, sir. I can see you are a man of taste and distinction, it would look very nice a watch on your wrist. Madam?”

  Juliet pulls a face and turns her head from him.

  “No, thank you.” She sounds almost cross at the interruption.

  “You, sir,” he turns his back on Juliet to face Aaman, “you look like a successful man. You should have a nice watch to show your success.”

  Aaman’s mouth opens and he readies himself to speak, but words are lost to him. He glances at Juliet for guidance. Her head is turned away, watching children at play in the square. He looks back at the man, recalibrating their relative social positions. He is aware of the uncertainty of his life, but to this man he appears successful. He feels the unease of being a fraud, and he looks down only to be reminded of his new clothes. He is wearing shop-bought clothes, head to foot, and he is sitting at his leisure in a cafe. Aaman looks around him. He wonders if all the people sitting at this cafe all struggle in some way, as he is, and if the clothes and the casual postures are as thin a veneer as his. The watch seller looks at him with expectancy. Aaman shifts his weight as he realises that he could, if he wanted, afford one of these watches. A waste of money, but to be in a position to buy one! Maybe he is who the vendor perceives him to be.

  Aaman straightens his back and pushes himself farther back in the chair, growing in height. He is aware that he has nothing to draw on to know the correct verbal response in this situation. Nevertheless, his muscles relax and he begins to smile. He looks in the man’s eyes and is startled to see the hunger, the fear, the loneliness. He sees the possible brutality, tempered to fight for his survival. Aaman swallows and tries to settle the stir of feeling this ignites, but his struggle takes time. The man moves on. He is at the next table now, same watches, same words, and same smile.

  “Are you all right?” Juliet asks. “You look like you have seen a ghost.”

  “Yes. I am fine, really fine!” Aaman comes to terms with the side of the fence he is on.

  Juliet smiles. He shakes his head to himself and snorts a chuckle before his attention is taken by some children jumping to catch bubbles blown by a street vendor.

  They sit a little longer people-watching, enjoying the sun. Juliet puts her hand on his and gives it a squeeze before letting go. He smiles, and they get up to go home.

  Chapter 18

  August shrieks its presence every morning at dawn with the voice of a million cicadas and builds an oppressive wall of heat by nine a.m.

  Juliet concedes defeat and joins the rest of the country that seems to have taken the month off, the only exception being those civil servants who have drawn the short straw and who sit immobile under the air conditioning units in their dingy offices, mopping pools of sweat, stunned into submission by the heat and who, if it were possible, are even less inclined to get on with any actual work than in the cooler months.

  It’s been a good year so far with plenty of translation work, and her bank balance is healthy. Juliet tells herself she deserves some time off.

  The cafes and beaches overflow with Athenians and foreign tourists, both equally conspicuous, and Juliet begins to feel like a proper local in the presence of these intruders.

  Aaman is finding August less restful. Two more people have come forward, having heard of his reasonable prices, and have asked for websites. Stella, after one of her English lessons with Juliet, asks if Aaman can do another site for her. She wants to re-open her father’s candle factory and sell to Greek communities abroad. “There are more Greeks,” she says, “living abroad than in Greece. Melbourne, Chicago. We will make international businesses. “But please,” she adds, “not to be telling my husband.”

  Aaman tells Juliet, after Stella has left, that he thinks this is the beginning of the Internet boom for Greece. America is first in all things he says, followed by Britain, followed by the countries of Europe taking their turn, the farther to the east, the later to catch on. He says he is delighted that his speed and skills are growing quickly. But he also says he has explored other programming languages and begins to see the breadth of his chosen path.

  Juliet points out that every new skill he masters increases his scope for employment. He says there is something new to learn every day, and each new thing he learns serves to show how much more there is to learn. It is a happy Catch-22 he says, pleased with the Western term he has picked up. He lets the words roll around his mouth as he says them.

  Juliet is washing out the brushes and Aaman is bringing the furniture back into the sitting room. The kittens get under his feet.

  “That’s the last room!”

  “Your bedroom?”

  “No, I did that first before you came.”

  “So that’s everything?”

  “Pretty much. The kitchen cupboards and the built-in cupboard in your room are done. The wardrobe in my room is wooden and just needed polishing. The bathrooms are ‘usable by local standards,’ as they say, and the garden is absolutely perfect!”

  “So I have no job now.” Aaman is not sure if she is joking.

  “Oh no! Now it needs maintaining. Round and round every year. Actually all the shutters will need painting, after the summer, ready for the winter, so we are not finished yet.”

  “You have paint in your hair,” Aaman says, picking the kittens up one after the other to give them all a stroke. The mother cat is crunching noisily in the kitchen. The male cat is on the sofa.

  “I’ll wash it after I have done these brushes.”

  “I’ll do the brushes.”

  “They’re done now. I’ll go do my hair.”

  “I’ll do your hair.” Aaman laughs.

  “OK.” Juliet laughs and goes into the bathroom and runs the shower. When th
e temperature is right, she takes the showerhead off the wall and kneels over the bath. She is getting all her hair wet when his hands take the showerhead from her. She laughs.

  “I was only joking!”

  “I know, but I would like to do something for you.”

  He massages her head; his hands feel stronger than the force he is using. He puts the shower in the bath to pick up the waiting bottle. The shampoo is cold against her head. His fingers work from the base of her neck up, picking out knots of tension, working slowly, deliberately up to the crown. His fingers hypnotic, making small slow circles down towards her ears, the pace steady, rhythmic, stimulating follicles, relaxing thoughts. Juliet can feel herself transported, drifting.

  Juliet’s hair feels silky and smooth, soft and feminine. Aaman is not sure where his gratitude ends and his masculine feelings begin. She has been so kind to him. Without her, he knows how different his life could have been. He thinks of the bearded man, alone, in the moonlight, lifeless. He had no Juliet. Aaman feels strangled with indebtedness towards her. But appreciation did not make the angle of her chin, nor did it make her stride, the whites of her eyes, her conversation, the thoughts in her head, this head under the slow caress of his fingers. The head whose thoughts create the possibility of a new life for him. Her thoughts were part of a world that he wishes to conquer, win, and return to her on a plate. But how much of these thoughts and feelings are thanks and how much is his own ego? If he removes his thanks and his ego, is there anything left that might just be the golden glimmer of something so precious for which men are willing to die? Aaman allows his fingers to dissipate these thoughts into the skull at their tips. He passes the golden glimmer, the feelings that men have died for. His breathing quickens, his heart beats faster and tears trickle down his face.

  “Juliet,” he murmurs.

  “What? I can’t hear you I have shampoo in my ears.” She tries to raise her head but Aaman’s hands push her head under the shower.