by Sara Alexi
Sara Alexi
THE ILLEGAL GARDENER
oneiro
Chapter 1
Aaman forces his hands deeper into his pockets, pinning his arms to his sides for warmth. He tucks his chin to his chest and wonders if he will eat today. His toes curl for some relief from his pinching trainers. He closes his eyes and allows himself to drift for a moment, the bright moon not dispelling his need for sleep.
The grumble of a tractor jerks him awake. He looks up. The tractor hauls a flat back of crates, ready for the casual labourers to fill them. The tractor passes and Aaman’s head sinks to his chest again.
The flick of a light in the pharmacy shop lays a rug of orange across the road. There are muffled noises within, buried in the depths of tinctures and bandages. Aaman rocks onto his heels and back, snorting warm air down his jumper, the heat giving him a momentary sense of civilisation.
The baker and his wife, next to the pharmacy, begin their work before Aaman arrives in the morning. The strong smell of bread gives him a time check. The oven door opens at the same hour each morning so the day’s staple can be presented to the trickle of locals for breakfast. It will be an hour or so before the first of them appears.
A cockerel crows, its raucous call irritating a dog into barking. Their cries echo around the village above the noise of the wind machines that have been switched on to keep the oranges from freezing on the trees. When it hits below zero, it sounds like helicopters surround the village.
There is one such machine mounted on a pylon next to the building where Aaman sleeps. Aaman wishes the season would hasten, so cold at night, only warm by day at this time of year. Last night had been three below zero. Cold and noisy.
The kiosk’s fluorescents stammer their way to life beside him. The awning blocks his view. The protective metal shutters clang as they are taken down from the front of the drinks fridges, and glasses chink as crates of empty bottles are stowed away. The kiosk lady never speaks to him. Day after day they share this space, the village square, with its dried-up fountain and a lone palm tree surrounded by a circular bench. Aaman presumes she has seen illegal immigrants like him come and go for years. He is faceless to her.
A bitter aroma drifts from the kiosk. Her daily flask of coffee readies her for her shift. Aaman, unwillingly, recalls morning cups of tea with his father and mother after morning prayers, full of buffalo milk, heavy and rich and warm. Chasing the cold away in winter.
The rumble of another tractor. He looks up as it shudders to a halt. Aaman pulls himself as tall as he can. There is a chance; he is the only one here so far today. But the farmer has not stopped for workers. He greets the kiosk lady by name, chats for a while and leaves with cigarettes in one hand, the other hand helping to bring the conversation to its amusing end. He chuckles as he climbs back onto the tractor’s metal seat. He pulls his coat under his bottom to fight the cold.
The smell of bread percolates through the neck of Aaman’s jumper, where he has buried his nose. Aaman didn’t eat the day before. No work, no food. A deathly cycle. No work, no food, no energy, no work, no food until, until what? Aaman shuffles from foot to foot to warm himself and to keep his mind distracted from his stomach. He glimpses a movement behind him.
“Hi.” It is Mahmout.
“Hello.” Aaman doesn’t sound friendly. It is his intention. He is not here to make friends even if Mahmout is the only other Pakistani looking for work in this village. Aaman is from the North, the Punjab, a small village close to Sialkot. Mahmout is from the south, a world apart. Friends are irrelevant to his quest. Mahmout is grinning, as always.
Mahmout slumps, yawning, onto the circular bench. The temperature climbs above zero. The wind fans stop. The waking movements of the village can be heard in the ensuing silence. A woman chastises. A door slams. Dogs dotted across the village bark randomly. Another cockerel crows. Soon the sun will be high enough to heat the day, making work a sweaty, mouth-drying job.
Two tall men walk up and stand next to them. Aaman judges their height and manner and decides they are Russian illegals. Their dialogue confirms this. They do not acknowledge Aaman or Mahmout. The Russians will get work first. They are tall and look strong; they stand with authority. Their clothes look shop-bought, not passed on as his and Mahmout’s do. They look like they have had a good night’s sleep.
Mahmout will also get work before him. Aaman is short. He looks like a child. He was so thrilled, at the age of five, when he was given the job of fetching the jugs of water home. The jugs were heavy and for a long time it was a struggle. He saw it as following his brother, the beginning of manhood. He got up early and relished the chance day after day to prove his worth. It took nearly two years before the jugs were no longer a struggle. He was proud the day he noticed that. His mother was proud of him too, and his father ruffled his hair.
Aaman’s father has two bullocks for ploughing, which he keeps at the back of the house in the village near Sialkot. Like his brother Giaan before him, Aaman would bring them grass and water. It was a peaceful household. The only time anyone raised a voice in his family was once when Giaan argued with their father. He said honour and status came from hard work, not from turbans. His father, who had worn a turban all his life, believed turbans said much more than that. They denoted his position in life, his point of view, his outlook. Soon after that, Giaan went to work at the factory, leaving Aaman and his father to till the soil. Aaman felt very alone.
Aaman worked alongside his father and his grandfather in the fields until, at the age of eight, he tried for a job in the factory where Giaan worked. He thought he was a man. The factory made footballs. Aaman worked for a week with no pay to show his ability. He spent time in the storage room where roll after roll of cotton was stored. He also worked in the laminating room where the layers of cotton were coated with liquid vinyl, another layer of cotton smoothed on top, layer after layer to the thickness of leather.
At first, his brother worked in the noisy cutting rooms where the booming rhythm of the stamping machines stipulated the speed his die cut the hexagons. Aaman was impressed by the rate at which the men in this room worked, the floor thick with hexagons. Giaan had later progressed to the printing rooms. These rooms were much less noisy than the cutting rooms with their echoing presses. They were still. Each man to his colour. Giaan screen printed the colour red. Each hexagon printed individually.
That fateful factory.
The village cafe opens its doors, and two waiting men enter and sit on the hard wooden chairs, one on each side of the open dimly lit room. His own seat, his usual metal table. One lights a cigarette. The owner takes them unordered coffee, the routine of years. No one speaks.
A van pulls up. All the men stand stiffly on the edge of the pavement. Aaman takes his hands out of his pockets, tries to grow, letting his pride fill his chest. Mahmout fixes a grin on his face. The two Russians look assured, hands in pockets, no smiles. Serious.
The van driver doesn’t hesitate. He points to the Russians and waves with his thumb for them to get in the back of the van. The Russians smile now. They will eat today.
He didn’t get the job at the factory where his brother worked. Not long after, he stopped growing. His body stunted at ten years old, never to catch up with his pride or his conscientiousness, both large to compensate his diminutive stature. Eventually he managed to get a job at a carpet factory. No questions were asked of his age or ability. The hours were very long, and it was hard on his father and grandfather who were left to till unaided by youth.
Some teenagers come and stand at the bus stop opposite the square. Backpacks ready for s
chool. They call hellos to the kiosk lady before settling into nodding their heads to unheard beats. They don’t see Aaman. A younger boy runs to join them; they smile and reach to tickle him, teasing and familiar, gentle.
One evening at the chopal, the evening meeting of the villagers, Aaman was tickled like a child by one of the elders. He was taken for a child even though he had turned sixteen. Aaman snorts and pushes the thought away.
Another man shuffles onto the square. It is only when he moves that Aaman realises the man had been curled up in the opposite doorway, motionless until now. He is tall, but his bony frame shows despite his oversized coat and layers of thin jumpers. He is bearded and looks Middle Eastern. His eyes reflect his surprise and powerlessness at the nearness of his own death. His shoes have no soles. His socks worn on his hands. He has no energy to move, to warm himself.
The children opposite chorus a ‘Good morning’ and smile as an old man shuffles by them. He wears thick cotton trousers, jumper, solid boots and a shepherd’s crook. He lifts his crook in answer and hobbles on towards the cafe.
A woman pulls up in a car. The men ignore her. Aaman watches as she surveys them from the safety of her metal box. He wonders if she might be looking for a labourer and takes his hands from his pockets. Mahmout seems to recognise her and smiles and waves in a vaguely hysterical manner. She lowers the window. Her jumper is thick and warm, and she wears a hat that covers her ears. Her cheeks glow and she looks healthy.
Aaman pulls himself to full height next to Mahmout. The woman looks him up and down. Mahmout grins widely and jabbers.
“Hello, you remember me? I help with water.” Mahmout interrupts her silence, his accent makes his English barely understandable.
The woman seems to quickly tire of his chatter. She says she remembers him from the day before when he had offered to carry a six-pack of water bottles from the kiosk to her car, a distance of about five feet. Aaman closes his mouth firmly as he hears the exchange. He will get a job based on his merits, not from ingratiating himself with petty tasks. He is a man who needs work. Not a handout.
The woman looks at him. She seems inclined to talk to him even though she has met Mahmout before. Aaman is surprised. He has presumed her choice had been made for her. He draws himself up as she scans his face.
“Do you speak English?”
Aaman nods, a little taken aback. She hesitates; Aaman tries to think of something to say in English.
“Yes,” he flounders in a state of panic. But he is too late. He reads her face, her look of eager anticipation is exchanged for closed decision.
“You are too small,” she says and signals to Mahmout to get into the car with her.
Mahmout grins as he leaves, but Aaman knows that domestic labourers don’t always get food, which is only assured on the larger building sites. The sun is up now and Aaman takes off his gloves and hat. He sits on the bench and leans back against the palm tree. It is unlikely that anyone will come for workers this late.
Aaman falls into a half sleep. His hope keeps one eye alert. The bakery opens its doors for business and there is an intermittent stream of customers. The kiosk and the corner shop both do a steady trade in cigarettes. The pharmacy unbolts its doors, the orange rug now dissolved by the sun.
The man with the soleless shoes has wedged himself between a wall and a tree and remains motionless, soaking up the sun.
Aaman considers whether or not to walk all the way back to his home. He laughs at the thought of where he sleeps as his ‘home.’ It is a farmer’s small storage barn made of mud bricks in the middle of his orange grove. The farmer has put shelves all the way around from floor to ceiling, each with just enough room for a man to lie. Sixteen of them sleep there. Most have had steady work picking oranges for a few weeks and have made themselves into teams. Romanians, Albanians, Bulgarians working together.
It costs thirty cents a night to sleep on the shelves. No covers, only boards. The farmer makes 120 euros a month and keeps his oranges safe from gypsies who come in the night with trucks to steal his crop. Some of the illegals who have been there longer have found themselves blankets from somewhere. Some men stay for a while, others pass through. Nothing is safe to leave there. What you have you keep on you. No one has much more than a packet of cigarettes and each, down his trousers at night, a mobile phone. A tool for finding work.
Aaman drifts off in the warmth of the sun. The helicopter fan for the oranges abutting the sleeping barn had been switched on at two in the morning the previous night. It had been hard to sleep after that. A motorbike backfires by the kiosk and Aaman jolts awake again.
The cafe is now full of men smoking and sipping morning coffee. The snippets of subdued conversation quietly ricochet around the room. The bakery has a queue of four people. The schoolchildren waiting for the bus have gone. Shutters are being opened all around the village. Glints of sun reflect on gleaming glass.
Aaman recognises the red car before he recognises the woman who had hired Mahmout earlier. She has taken her hat off and has dyed blonde hair. The world of the West. She glances over to him and makes fleeting eye contact as she drives on. She also sees the bearded man who has wedged himself between the wall and the tree. She looks twice.
The woman stops her car outside the bakery. Aaman watches her inside as she talks and points. He looks away as she comes out. She walks across the road toward him. She smiles. She walks past him a few more steps to the man with the beard, who wakes with a start. She hands him what she has bought from the bakery and walks away without a word, climbs in her car and is gone.
Aaman glances at the bearded man in disgust before staring with relish at the sandwich. His gaze follows the route her car took. Westerners with so much wealth they can just give it away. He waits to see if the bearded man will eat the sandwich or if his pride will dampen his hunger.
The bearded man inspects the sandwich. A cat appears from nowhere, hopeful for discarded ham. The bearded man tears off a piece of sandwich, turns his face towards the wall and puts it in his mouth. He repeats this process in quick succession. Aaman stares blankly, watching him eat, until the sandwich is gone and the bearded man looks up and makes eye contact, embarrassed. Aaman turns away.
The bearded man unwedges himself from between the wall and the post and scuttles away. His day is done. He has eaten.
Aaman shifts his position. She, a woman, can afford to give food away and he can’t even make enough to feed himself. She has money for a car and the irrelevant, unnecessary vanity of hair dye, and he doesn’t even have the thirty cents for his next night’s sleep out of the frost. He starts the long walk to the barn.
The car pulls up in front of him. The door is flung open and, before Aaman has shifted his thoughts from his internal dialogue, she is standing in front of him.
“Who speaks English?”
Aaman quickly looks around to see another Russian-looking man has joined him. Aaman feels disoriented but embraces the opportunity and tries to smile.
“I speak English, Madam.” Aaman waits for the Russian man to speak, for the battle, for the defeat.
The Russian man, tall and strong, shrugs. He has no English. He admits defeat.
She smiles at Aaman and pulls the passenger door open and motions him in.
Aaman doesn’t hesitate. He climbs into the car feeling like a king. She puts the car in gear and they move.
“What is your name?”
“Aaman.”
“I am Juliet.”
They drive in silence just around the corner and up a lane. A private lane that needs weeding. Aaman sees opportunity. The lane ends at a whitewashed stone farmhouse with faded blue shutters. The gates stand open onto a weed-filled gravel courtyard. Mahmout heaves a sack full of rubble around from the back of the house.
The car comes to a stop. Juliet springs out, and Aaman quickens his speed. He takes off his jacket, puts it on the ground and rolls up his sleeves. He needs to show her he is a good worker.
With
a sweeping gesture she indicates the garden to the rear of the house. She hands him a rubble sack from a pile.
“Please clear this. Put the full sack by the gate.”
Aaman sees enough work to last weeks. He also sees Mahmout trying to smile at the lady. Aaman pulls a pair of seam-split leather working gloves from his back pocket. He will work harder than Mahmout.
The lady leaves them to go inside the house. Her hair shines like gold in the sun. She turns, and Aaman realises he has been staring after her and quickly averts his gaze. She seems to be about to say something but changes her mind and goes inside. There has been no agreement about wages. Aaman does not feel it is his place to raise the subject. On a good day he has been paid twenty euros and been fed, on a bad day five euros and no food.
He still wonders if he will eat today.
A phone rings in the house.
Chapter 2
“Hello?”
“Juliet? Where are you?”
“Michelle?”
“Yes. You OK?”
“Yes, of course, I feel great!”
“Where are you?”
“In a village.”
“In a village in Greece?’’
“Yes.”
“Thomas said Greece, but I thought I must have misunderstood. What are you doing there?”
“I live here.”
“You live there?”
“I bought a house! It took ten days to complete. It needs work and the garden is unbelievable.”
“Juliet, are you serious?”
“Apparently Albanian refugees had been renting it for ten years and, by the looks of the garden, they never threw anything away.”
“Albanian refugees?”
“I have counted three mattresses out there so far and that’s just what’s visible!”
“Juliet? What on earth are you talking about? I had to call Thomas to find out where you were. He gave me this number and said you had left the country. He said Terrance knew and that you had to ‘get away.’ I thought it was some elaborate joke. What’s going on?”