by Sara Alexi
They talk, the language strange to her ears. She listens for the patterns and cadences which mingle with the heat. The Grinning One talks the most, the Small One answering occasionally. It reminds her that she has some translation work due. Still hot, she drinks some more water before she sets down the glass and returns to the papers in the sitting room, picking the soil from under her nails as she reads.
The murmur of the men ceases and nothing is heard except the scratching noises of their work floating through the back door, the occasional dog barking in the village and the goat bells, now far away. Juliet is lost in her translation, reading and writing. A couple of hours pass.
Thirst awakens Juliet from her work. Her glass needs retrieving from the bedroom. It is cooler in the bedroom, an older part of the house with thick walls of massive stones piled carefully together over a century ago. When she had first moved in, there had been an earthquake. Juliet ran on liquid legs to the gate, the pomegranate trees rustling, the ground quivering. But the house stood sure, unperturbed by nature’s power.
She can see the men still working. The Small One has taken his jumper off. Juliet is surprised it has taken him so long; she is wearing the lightest clothes she has. Retracing her steps to fill her glass in the kitchen, Juliet finds the cat curled up in her seat on the sofa. She picks it up by the scruff of the neck and takes it at arm’s length out of the back door.
She is tempted to drop it to see how easily it will land on all four feet but at the last moment puts it down gently and strokes its head before nudging it away from the door with her foot.
The Mess has definitely decreased in size. There are at least ten rubble sacks by the back wall, and the Small One is pulling up armfuls of bindweed to reveal what is hidden underneath. Juliet steps into the forceful heat of the mid-afternoon sun. Both men look up from their work. The Small One seems to be staring. Avoiding his gaze, Juliet begins to turn away.
“Please?”
Juliet pretends she hasn’t heard and takes a drink of water as she steps back indoors.
“Please?”
Louder this time. Juliet turns sharply, chin in the air.
“What now?” She meets the Small One’s gaze.
“Water.”
Juliet drops her chin and looks at her glass. After the briefest of pauses she finds she is embarrassed by her own thoughtlessness. She hesitates as the number of glasses of water she has drunk during the course of the morning comes to mind, unbidden. Frowning briefly, she raises her head and looks the Small One in the eye.
“Of course.”
Juliet wonders whether they will want glasses or if they will drink from the bottle. She finds two glasses she doesn’t use (she feels the glass is too thick), pinches them together between finger and thumb and takes them and a water bottle to the waiting men. She doesn’t give them to the men but puts them down on the windowsill and walks past the men around the end of the house to see how much of The Mess is piled by the gate. There is an unexpectedly high pile. The cat is there digging a hole in the gravel to relieve itself by one of the rubble sacks.
Juliet flaps her hand at the cat and decides she needs to find someone who will take The Mess away. Turning from the gate, she notices that one of the men has jumped over the garden wall into the next door plot.
Orange groves surround Juliet’s house on two sides at the back, the fence between, high, but pleasantly unnoticeable, a wire mesh rusted into camouflage, a lace work of holes giving footholds to creepers and vines, a canvas for grasses to weave. The patio and the drive are edged by a whitewashed wall that overlooks the tended field and neighbour beyond, but the fourth side is flanked by a piece of disused land with an old stone barn, it’s roof slowly falling in. It is over the old stone wall to this land that the man has gone.
She sees only the man’s leg and foot, the last of him to disappear from view. She has no idea which of the men it is. Nor does it matter, it is a liberty, and for what? Juliet feels her chest swell in indignation and is on the point of calling out loudly to ask what he thinks he is doing when realisation saves her the embarrassment.
Juliet has surprised herself during the morning and feels uncomfortable. Twice it has been completely out of her frame of reference to consider the basic human needs of another. It is not the way she sees herself. She had been—is—a mother. The needs of the twins were her priority for so long. But now she overlooks the obvious needs of another for water and basic facilities. She was a good mother and wonders why she would be missing the skills that were her pride for all those years.
The young twins seem a lifetime away. They’ll be twenty-four this year. The same age she was when she had them. Thomas now content and nearly married, Terrance just finishing a Master of Science degree and ready to rule the world. At twenty-four, Juliet had already been married a year.
Michelle, such a good friend for all those years, had phoned her about Mick on several occasions. She was her usual tentative and sensitive self with each call. But the bottom line to these conversations, and Juliet could hear it loud and clear no matter how Michelle dressed it, was that she thought the match was a bad idea. Juliet was determined that Mick was to be her happy ever after. Michelle’s stance drove a wedge into their friendship, at least in the early days of her marriage.
Now Juliet can no longer see Mick with her eyes from back then. All the traits that seemed so spontaneous and rebellious now seem shirking of responsibility and lacking in intelligence. He had seemed so free and without a care, seizing each day and squeezing out the fun. But when the boys came, the spontaneous pint in the pub became predictable. The carefree taking the day off work irresponsible as his pay was docked or, as in more than one case, he was sacked and their budget tightened even more until he was taken on again.
However, she could still picture the way his dark hair curled behind his ears, the pout of his upper lip when he looked at her. The way his eyelashes made his blue eyes look permanently eye-lined. His accent was a tentacle from the old country, her childhood home, early memories of simplicity and safety. In those early days, he made her feel as if the world couldn’t breathe without her.
The boys were a product of their spontaneous delight. But within months of nappies, food preparation, burping, and bedtimes, it was Juliet who felt she couldn’t breathe under Mick’s gaze. He became at first demanding, then critical, then dismissive. The boys took her focus, her own needs lost in mounds of washing and meals to make. Homemaker and mother for two years, with never a moment off. Until Mick’s mother came over from Ireland, and Juliet took the holiday to Greece that ignited her passion for this country and this language. The holiday she took, not with Mick, but with Michelle, the first time she had seen her since school. In fact, it had been the last time too.
The holiday was fantastic. Juliet laughed until she ached. They were kids again without a care in the world. But towards the end, Michelle began to suggest that Juliet should leave Mick. Somehow it grew to an argument that encompassed the events of their childhood and forced Juliet to look at things she had buried. The argument became the sole topic of conversation and it continued from the hotel to the airport, finishing with Juliet storming off once they reached home ground.
Twenty-two years Michelle had been calling her, keeping that relationship alive, but not once apologising.
Lost in these thoughts, Juliet is startled by the Grinning One coming round the corner.
“Is madam pleased so far? You must excuse my bad English. Here, in this country, it is difficult to learn English.” He is grinning between his words and his head is never still.
Juliet is well aware that he is trying to ingratiate himself because he needs the work, but she is also aware that his ingratiation technique is stopping him from doing this work.
“Yes, I understand, you do not need to speak English to do this work.” She points in the direction she wants him to return to his labour.
He grins. She turns away towards the house.
“It will
be beautiful when we are finished, madam, have no fear, no fear at all,” he calls after her.
Juliet leaves them alone for half an hour before asking them if they would like an iced coffee. They are both very pleased. She takes the thick glasses she gave them for water by their bases and carries them into the kitchen where puts them in the sink and washes them with hot water and soap. The iced coffee fills them to the brim and she presents them on a tray. She wonders if she is overcompensating.
After the coffee, Juliet returns to her translation work. Low volume music comes from the back garden. Bollywood music. She smiles and stands up and puts her arms out to her sides and wiggles her hips, images of colourful saris and nose rings and hennaed hands completing the transformation in her mind. As she wiggles, she gathers her notes and takes them all into the bedroom and lays them on the desk before the window. The music will be a little closer and therefore louder working here.
The music seems so happy to Juliet, and after a short while she stares out of the window, watching the men work. The Grinning One has a serious face now. He works slowly and is talking quietly to the other one. He looks cross. The Small One stops his hauling of the larger pieces and stretches and then rubs his stomach and pulls a face. Juliet wonders if he has a stomachache.
Returning to her work, she feels fidgety until homing in on the sensation of hunger. At the same moment she recalls the Small One’s face whilst rubbing his stomach and realises he must be hungry too. She feels happy to have thought of this and goes outside to ask them.
“Are you hungry?”
The look on their faces as they meet her eye makes her feel foolish for asking in the first place. She doesn’t wait for an answer but returns indoors and lays out two plates with bread, tinned sardines, a salad of fresh tomatoes and cucumber and a couple of apples apiece. She has emptied the fridge; there is no more to offer. Juliet wonders when she can shop for food if she is going to have someone helping in the garden. She shouldn’t leave them alone even if the house is locked.
Not sure where to lay out the food, Juliet hovers with a plate in each hand between the kitchen table, repainted and transformed from when she moved in, and the cheap folding table on the porch. After putting the food on the porch table, she covers each plate with some kitchen paper to keep any flies away. She checks the front garden and over the wall for the cat. There is no sign of him.
Juliet tries the tap on the porch. It doesn’t work. She considers getting them a bowl of water for their hands but then decides that would be ridiculous.
“Come and eat.” She beckons them to the kitchen and shows them the sink and a new bar of soap she has just unwrapped. They both wash their hands thoroughly and Juliet lays out a hand towel each on the edge of the sink. The men seem to feel awkward about the towels. The Small One gently wipes his hands before replacing the towel carefully and the Grinning One uses the same towel. Juliet indicates the front door, the table and food can be seen on the table beyond, the paper covering being caught by the slightest of afternoon breezes.
Juliet tries to be discreet whilst they eat, but her curiosity is heightened. What she keeps expecting isn’t how events unfold. They used a towel between them, as if a towel is something other people have but not them, but then they didn’t thank her for the towels, which if it was an unusual or special event she would have expected. Nor did they thank her for the cold coffees earlier, or the water. They wanted the drinks, but they accepted them like it was their right.
She imagines they will dig in to the food in an appreciative fashion. She looks forward to seeing them eat with gusto. So much of their behaviour has left her at a loss. Their responses unexpected, their manners are so different. What she will enjoy when they eat is seeing expected behaviour. She needs some normality, something familiar.
But they both stand beside the table and talk whilst looking at the food, indicating what they are clearly discussing. Juliet feels sure she hasn’t put any foods that they wouldn’t eat on their plates. No pork for Muslims, no beef for Hindus. Juliet is unsure which they might be, but as she has neither in the house, she is at a loss to explain their hesitation.
Eventually they sit and eat slowly, selecting what they choose with care and attention whilst making quiet conversation. They savour everything that is on their plates, using the bread as a scoop. There is a pause to talk a little and sit a little before they change plates and begin on the fruit. The Grinning One pushes his shoes off the back of his heel with his other foot. He picks up some gravel that has made its way onto the patio and throws it to scare the cat away. Juliet’s lips tighten.
When they have finished, they do not sit. They stand and walk around the house to begin working again.
Juliet collects the dishes. The Grinning One’s plates are empty but the Small One has left an apple. He has balanced it on the peel of the second apple to leave the bruised side upper most. It had been carefully placed so as not to roll, the imperfection on display. Juliet feels affronted. Is her food not good enough? She would eat the apple in that condition. It wouldn’t occur to her that it was anything but edible. Is it a comment? Has she offended them by offering imperfect produce? Are they in a position to choose?
Juliet stacks the dishes in the sink, but leaves the apple plate on the side to contemplate.
Having started so early and lunched so late, the working day is nearly at an end. Juliet, stationed behind the gauze curtain in the bedroom, sees the taller one again squatting on the ground, filling another rubble sack. The other has worked his way through to the back of the garden and has cleared a track, causing a division. He is pulling something from the ground. It looks like weeds, but his care is greater. He pulls not to harm. After a struggle and many pauses to release the plant in places, he pulls free a tendril, green and leafy, over ten feet long. Juliet is curious. He has left it and walked out of view, and she anticipates his return. He comes back into view with a post which he hammers into the ground with the adze that he must have taken from the wheelbarrow.
The post reverberates with each blow, the solid ‘thunk’ echoes off the back wall of the house, movement in several places in the undergrowth, tiny creatures running for safety. His muscles flex and relax. With no self-awareness, concentration distorts his mouth, creasing his eyes.
Once the pole is up, he shakes it to check its firmness and then winds the green tendril around it to keep it off the ground.
He doesn’t stop to admire his work. He moves on to more pulling and freeing; he lifts a decomposing plank and smiles. He takes out a rotting shoe, followed by another, and another. He pauses to take a rubble sack and then fills the sack with the endless haul of rotting shoes he has found. The sun masks some of his movements with glare. He leans down with a different movement, and Juliet sees the cat’s tail in The Mess. He seems to stroke the cat before returning to his cache of footwear. After the sack is full, he stops. He stretches; he looks up, his mind broken free of the work. He walks towards the window and retrieves his thin, grey, shapeless jumper. As he puts it on, Juliet sees the split under each arm and down the V at the front. With this detail just the other side of the gauze and the window, Juliet moves away, snaps into action and looks for her handbag so she can pay them.
She finds her purse on the sofa, and the Small One is at the front patio walking towards the wheelbarrow.
At the back is the other man.
“A very good day’s work, Madam. Very good indeed. Aaman is my very best friend and we work so hard together, like a team of six. So much done today, but much to do ...” He grins, waiting for the following day’s invite.
Juliet is still considering what she should pay them. She has heard the rate is anything between twenty euros and thirty-five euros for hard, unskilled work.
“Thank you for today’s work. I will not need you tomorrow.” Juliet hands him twenty-five euros, which he pockets uncounted whilst searching her face. She doesn’t wait for any more of his reaction, but walks away, around the end of the house,
leaving him slowly rolling down his sleeves.
The Small One is by the wheelbarrow, cleaning mud off the adze.
“Thank you for your work. What is your name again?”
Juliet notices that they are the same height.
“You are welcome. I am Aaman. At the back, a grape tree, not a weed. Tomorrow?”
“Ah, it is a grape vine. Yes, tomorrow, eight o’clock, here. OK?”
“One or two peoples?”
“One, you.”
Juliet gives him twenty-five euros. He takes it without acknowledgement and puts it in his shirt pocket uncounted.
His very best friend appears from around the corner.
Chapter 4
The gate is thick with paint, the top layer the colour of mustard. Mustard over a darker brown, over yellow. The strata are exposed where time and weather has flaked pieces away. Aaman is at the gate at five minutes to eight. Mahmout had tried to talk him out of coming. He said the woman obviously needs their help so if they stick together they would both get paid.
When Mahmout had come from the back of the house the previous day, his face was angry. He spoke some words Aaman didn’t like to hear. Mahmout believed he had ingratiated himself and worked hard enough to deserve work the following day. Aaman didn’t see life in those terms. In his world, no one deserved anything. Life was a privilege and what came your way a blessing. Mahmout had become Western in his thinking. Aaman didn’t seek his company.
He stands for a moment by the gate. It is already warm. A bird sings from the garden. The wind machines were not switched on the night before, and he feels rested, his shoulders limp, his limbs gangly. He also feels an ease that, with his pay from the day before, he has secured his bed for the week at the mud brick barn. He has faith that his work with this lady will also last a day or two at the least. He has hope. He can hear many birds singing now. The cat is at his feet and he bends to stroke it. It purrs before it jumps through the gate towards the approaching lady.