by Sara Alexi
Chapter 5
The sharp metallic sound stabs through the layers. Levered out of the depths, dreams falling away, she rouses herself to make sense of it. The sound continues. Juliet tries to work out where she is. She opens her eyes to the exposed beams and, with a rush of pleasure, remembers she is in her little stone cottage under blue Mediterranean skies.
She kicks back the sheets and jumps into her jeans. The metallic noise continues intermittently. Someone is tapping on the gate. Images of the bearded postman on his motorbike bring excitement at the thought of letters from Thomas or maybe even Terrance. Pulling on her t-shirt, Juliet bounds out of the bedroom, strokes the cat who is curled on the sofa and heads to the gate. The sun dazzles her.
The puddles have all sunk into the drive, and the air is warm. There is not a cloud in the sky. A bird sings, a gecko basks on a stone by the gate. The cat has joined her, and he stops to sprawl on his back on the gravel, paws flopped over, eyes closed.
Juliet looks past him. Her step falters and she stops as the glare gives way to focus. Her bounce melts.
“I wasn’t expecting you today.” She is ready to turn away.
“Juliet?”
She is shocked at the sound of her name on his tongue. Loud, sure, confident.
“Go away.” Her briskness overcompensates for too many years of no voice. She turns and re-enters the house. The metallic tapping resumes for a while and then stops. It is quiet for a long time. She makes some coffee, the aroma filling the room, promising relaxation, satisfaction. The sun coming in the kitchen through the back door invites her outside. The Mess is looking less like A Mess and more like an unruly garden. It makes Juliet smile. There is still much to be unburied and disposed of, but it is better. Many full rubble sacks line the back wall like melting candles sagging on their bases.
She balances her coffee on the window ledge to lift one of the sacks. She hugs it and braces her back to bend from the knees. It is so heavy it is immovable. Her back jars at the lack of give. Slightly annoyed that this is a job beyond her strength, she scuffs it with her sandal. Picking up her coffee and leaving the sack, Juliet wanders round the end of the house to see how much is now piled by the gate.
Aaman still stands there. He says nothing. Just stands on the other side of the gate. The cat is meowing to be stroked, and Aaman bends to caress him. As he strokes the cat, Juliet notices how flaky the paint is at the bottom of the gate. It needs painting.
Juliet moves slowly, with indecision. The cat comes to her. She picks it up and walks to the gate. Aaman reaches through the rusted metal gate bars and strokes the cat. One stroke on its head and then a longer stroke the length of its body. His hand stops as the very tips of his fingers accidentally touch her arm. Her t-shirt is short-sleeved, the skin of her arm is puckered thin, translucent blue in places. He looks at her quizzically.
“It’s a burn.”
He nods his head in recognition, as if he understands, as if burns are familiar, a softness in his manner.
“Come on then, you’re here now, you might as well come in. I can’t move the rubble sacks by myself.”
Aaman takes off his jacket and strides his way to the back garden, long sure steps.
“I will find someone to haul the sacks away.” Juliet goes inside.
It takes him just a few minutes to move the sacks to the front gate whilst Juliet is on the phone finding a man with a lorry to take the debris away. After finding a man who can come today, Juliet looks for Aaman. She leaves the house by the back door and finds him cleaning off a rake.
“Aaman, will you move the sacks to the …” She stops in her tracks as she sees the sacks have gone. She marches to the end of the house and sees them by the gate.
“I put them by the gate.”
“Aaman, we need to talk.”
“Yes ma’am, Juliet?”
“You are here to do a job. It isn’t that you are not doing this job, it’s just ... well ... I expect that I have to tell you when to do things. Don’t get me wrong. It is not bad that you do them before I ask it. I mean, things need to be done and I cannot stand over you every minute of the day, otherwise I may as well do it myself. But I think it is better if I tell you first then you can do it. Someone has to oversee what is happening, else we won’t know where we are. It is better that I tell you. So I know what you are doing, when you are doing it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Aaman waits. Juliet says no more. “No. Ma’am, Juliet, I don’t understand. Are the bags in the wrong place?”
“This is my home!”
“Yes. Your home?” Aaman eyes dart here and there searching for understanding.
“I know what I want!” Her voice becomes louder. Aaman takes a step back. “Ι can make my own choices.” The cat comes to her legs and pushes his head against her for attention. She doesn’t pay him any attention.
“Yes.” Aaman begins to rock, ever so slightly backwards and forwards. His head is nodding side to side a familiar Pakistani movement. He is drowning.
“Have you any idea what it is like for me to have you come here and do this?” She is now shouting.
“To do this? What ‘this’? Clear the garden?” With tears ready to spill, Aaman leaps on the chance to get an explanation and the words come overlapping the end of her sentence and they sound loud and strong and aggressive.
“Exactly! You haven’t a clue, or maybe you have and it is a game.” Tears flow down her cheeks.
Aaman remembers tears flowing down Saabira’s cheeks. He could not forget. She was so strong for so long and then, days after she lay still, she began to weep and she didn’t stop for days. He held her for hours, his mother held her, even his grandmother sat and patted her hand. But no-one could bring back what had gone. His grandmother said he was lucky not to lose Saabira too and that he must be thankful for his blessings. Aaman was thankful. He was so, so grateful that he had Saabira.
“No, no game, it’s very serious.” Aaman sees her react, and realises he must expand on what he is saying.
“How you feel, it is no game, it is very serious. You are not happy, this is serious.” Aaman can see another wave of emotion taking hold of Juliet. Almost imperceptibly her head moves back, her chest rises like a wave until she comes crashing down in tears, all self-consciousness lost.
“Stop it, just stop it,” between breaths and tears. Her hands brought up, splayed, tense, creating a wall between them.
“Stopping is not the problem, but please tell me what it is that you wish me to be stopping. I am trying to be a good worker but I can see I have not pleased you. Please tell me how I can do better.”
Juliet has made half a step backwards and with the distance she grows calm.
“Forget it.” Juliet wipes her face on her arm, turns to go back indoors.
“Sorry, but no. I need to be stopping.”
Juliet’s eyes are shining, pupils dilated, her arm muscles sprung tight as her fists clench. Aaman’s darting eyes rest on her burns. She turns her body to hide the scarred arm from him. Aaman looks back to her face, her eyes staring, indignation.
“What?” It is more of a hiss then a word.
Aaman wavers. Saabira shouted at him. She needed to shout. She shouted blame, she shouted unfairness, she shouted for release. He needed to be strong, allow her to shout, to hear what she said but most importantly, he found, was to let her know that he heard her.
“I said no, I cannot be forgetting it. You are not happy. It is my fault. I cannot forget. Tell me what I must be stopping.”
Juliet turns as if she wishes to go inside, away from him, away from this emotional scene. She wipes her eyes again. She begins to step away. Aaman sees his opportunity for several days work leaving with her, and he is also drawn to her distress, to Saabira.
He steps to the side and reaches out and touches the arm she tries to hide. He calms himself.
“Tell me. Much in life is pain. I wish to be no pain for you, only good work. I need this work. Tell me so I
can have work and you can have a good worker.”
The touch of his fingers on her thinned skin draws her attention. She looks at his hand on her skin, brown against blue white, and he responds by carefully taking it away.
He waits.
She sighs, she is settling, in her calmness she seems more controlled. Aaman can see that this is all very tiring for her. She sits on the doorstep. Aaman looks around him and pulls forward a large empty paint tin and sits down, quietly, respectfully. Knees together, neatly. Like he did when he was a child. Juliet alters the way she is speaks to him.
“Yesterday I didn’t like what you did. You overstepped the mark.” She uses small hand gestures to demonstrate over stepping a mark.
“What does it mean, ‘overstep the mark’?”
“It means to do more than you should.”
Aaman’s brows furrow. It makes no sense to him. He is here to do as much as he can. Being a worker is not enough. He wants to be an exceptional help to her. He is planning to seek out jobs before being asked, and to do them with speed and care. Aaman wants to become so useful that he will have a job for a long time. He wants to be indispensable.
“Look, when I went to chase the cat out yesterday, you picked it up and put it out and closed the door. My door. Not your door, my door. It is not your place to put the cat out in my house and close my door.”
Aaman lifts his brow. He can feel his eyes widen in surprise.
“It wasn’t helpfully?”
“If it had been just that event. But you gave me such a look when I was going to do some of the cupboards in the kitchen that I felt I should not be in my own kitchen, that I was a nuisance in my own home.”
Aaman searches for words, but Juliet has not finished.
“And what was all that with the clothes? If you don’t mind me saying, you are in no position to be quite so proud. The first job you get mixing concrete, and you’ll be glad of any shoes going. Just look at the shoes of someone who has mixed concrete for a day and you’ll see they are hanging together by a thread, or the soles have fallen off, trousers disintegrate in the dust where it has splashed. You wear clothes you expect to throw away when you work as a concrete mixer! I have seen it, here in the village. I offered you something for nothing, and you didn’t even have the manners or the sense to just take it and say thank you.”
Aaman looks down and begins to pick paint off his upturned seat. His surety and calm are disturbed, which gives her momentum.
“And I didn’t ask you to clean the fireplace out, although I was quite pleased when I saw it was done, but I definitely did not ask you to clean my bathroom. That is my bathroom, I keep personal things in there and I would like to think that some places in my own house are just for me. I felt your actions were comments about my life. I don’t know why or how, but I just sensed it. I almost felt you were saying I was sitting down all day when I could be cleaning my house. To be honest, I have had enough of being judged and being told what to do in my life, someone taking over, playing the boss. So although you probably didn’t mean anything by all these things, it just felt too much.” She begins crying again, no noise, just long streaks of shine down to her chin. In the space between words the sun dries them to white lines.
Aaman understands part of what she is saying. He doesn’t need to understand all the words to grasp the meaning, to understand the feelings. He has seen many women who were suppressed in Pakistan; they all had the same look. A look somewhere between no hope and the need to be heard. He had much sympathy for them. When he was told he would be marrying Saabira, he made up his mind that he was not going to be the sort of husband who has a sad wife. He kept his promise in all respects, but sometimes life takes its own route. He could not save Saabira from the sadness that made him sad too.
Aaman continues to sit in silence, his learning from the past mingling with his needs of the day.
“I haven’t anything more to say,” Juliet concludes.
Aaman considers what she requires. Misunderstandings always need honesty. His father taught him that. When both sides can clearly understand the other’s point of view then they can work together to achieve harmony. He adjusts his weight on his bucket seat.
“I am proud. I am stubborn. I need to do the work well. Not just for the money. Can I say?” He looks at Juliet for the go ahead. She nods.
“My brother. He was big, he was strong. We loaded wood into the cart for the fire. We raced. He was always stronger and quicker. I was always trying to be as him. But I am smaller. I need to do everything good, to be more than I look. To not need any help. To race my brother. Difficult to say in English. Maybe it is not a good thing.” He drops his head and picks some more paint off his seat.
Juliet sits listening; he wonders if he should have said so much.
“OK. Right then. Well that’s how it is then. Best get on with it.” She slaps her thighs as she stands.
He takes his cue and stands at the same time. He turns to go back to work and Juliet goes into the kitchen. She returns with a glass of water and walks up to Aaman and hands it to him. He takes the water and his fingers enclose her scarred fingers briefly as the glass is exchanged. She smiles like his mother used to. He remembers she has two boys.
He watches her back fade into the darkened interior as she enters through the back door. He misses Saabira. He drinks the water in one and puts it on the windowsill.
The land is down to ground level, so Aaman begins to dig pieces of rag and plastic and batteries out of the top soil. He thinks of Juliet. He had in his mind a very clear image of Western women, blonde, beautiful, rich, immoral, and happy. This woman didn’t fit half of his picture. How could she be unhappy with such a big house and so much money? Aaman presumes from what she has said that she has been married and that he was not a very considerate husband. But it seemed that he was gone now so where was the problem? Western women don’t mind changing husbands, so if she was lonely, why didn’t she just get another Western husband?
The image of her salt-lined cheeks brings him sadness. She was like Saabira in her tears. What must her husband have done to her for her to fight so hard for her independence? These things never come easily, so the struggle may have been very hard or very long, or even both. It is always sad when a marriage is lost. But if she wanted her freedom then she has that now.
And yet she seems lonely.
He pulls at a bit of black rubber which turns into bicycle inner tube as it comes out of the ground. In the hole that is left is a playing card. The seven of diamonds. Aaman picks up the card, which seems so well preserved and yet useless on its own. He throws it into the rubble sack.
He struggles to fully comprehend what Juliet had been talking about. She said she needed to be the boss. But as she is the boss, this didn’t make sense. He wonders if she would rather do the garden by herself but cannot because she lacks the strength. Craving independence is very frustrating if being small makes it impossible. He knows. But at the same time he has the feeling that she does not wish to be alone, not completely. That is what confuses him. It feels like she is pushing and pulling. She wants him there, but she doesn’t want him there. She wants him to do the work, but she doesn’t want him do the work. Aaman wonders if she is afraid of him being there. That is not good.
Aaman makes the decision to be gentler in his steps in the Western woman’s house. She needs someone to tread softly no matter what the work requires. He must put his pride in doing well secondary. If she does not ask him to finish a job, then he must leave it undone if by leaving it undone is better for Juliet. He will tread as carefully with Juliet as he did with Saabira.
“Food.”
Aaman takes his time to wash well. There is hot water here, and soap. He scrubs his nails with the little brush and uses soap all the way up to his elbows. He quickly wipes over his face but feels it was not right to take advantage and have a full wash here.
Feeling fresher, Aaman walks out onto the patio and relaxes. The consequent shock of f
inding that Juliet has laid the table for two people to eat may be exaggerated by this fact.
He looks over the table with no hurry. Goat’s yogurt, fresh bread made with olive oil, stuffed vine leaves, beans in a tomato and oregano sauce, and a salad of cucumber, tomato, and olives. He reflects that he would be happier to eat alone, but he understands her gesture in eating with him and is a little surprised that she wants to close the gap to that degree.
The same food, at the same table, the two cultures, the two statuses. It is not immediately comfortable. The cat circles for scraps.
Aaman does not offer conversation, nor does Juliet. They sit in silence and eat slowly, in Aaman’s case carefully, listening to the birds all around, the cockerel who still doesn’t know the time, and the goat and sheep bells as a herd moves from meadow to stall.
It is only when they have finished eating and they watch the cat washing itself on the sun-soaked step that he realises they are both enjoying the silence of each other’s company. The cat stops licking and curls up, the unity of the stillness. The three of them balance between their expectations and the difficulty of making themselves understood.
Chapter 6
Juliet is up and dressed, deciding to work alongside Aaman in the garden. With two of them working, side by side, it will be a quicker job. It might even be fun.
The cat slides off the sofa as Juliet opens the front door to greet the day. There is no post in the box hanging on the gate, but she decides to leave the gate open for Aaman’s arrival.