“Hello. You are working on farm?” he asked, his voice crossing an octave. Saleem felt his face warm with embarrassment.
The men watched him inquisitively. One nodded, a man dressed in a lime green shirt and loose navy slacks, who looked to be the eldest of the three. Saleem was surprised to hear him speak in Pashto.
“Are you Afghan?”
The Waziri family spoke Dari, but Saleem was able to recognize and understand basic conversation in Pashto as well. He nodded emphatically.
“Yes, yes I am!” he affirmed in Dari.
“You have come to work?” one of them asked in amusement.
“Yes, we’ve been here only a few days.” Saleem combined Dari with Pashto. The men seemed to understand.
“So you are traveling with people?”
“Yes, with my family. My mother, my sister, and my brother.” One of the men took out a half-smoked cigarette and relit it. His brows perked at the family inventory.
“Where did you come from?”
“From Kabul. We went to Herat and then to Iran. From Iran we came to Turkey, but we are trying to get to England.” Saleem was relieved to have found Afghans, as if he’d come upon a street sign confirming his route.
“England, huh?” They all chuckled. “With a mother, and two more kids? Hard enough to travel alone. If you’re smart, you’ll stay here and find a way to make money without getting arrested. That’s all you can hope for.”
Saleem did not appreciate their pessimism. He decided to shift the conversation.
“How do you find work at the farms?”
“You’ll see, and you’ll wish you never asked. Trucks come and take you to farms bigger than you’ve ever seen. You go to the farm-houses and see which farmer will pay for a day’s work. They’ll offer you pay that will stink worse than the animal dung you’ll clean.”
“How much will they pay?”
“Does it matter? You’re not in any position to negotiate. If you can get something to eat from them, do it. It’s the next best thing to money.”
The man with the cigarette finally spoke. He’d been wanting to ask something.
“Where is the rest of your family now? Are they here?”
“Yes, we’re staying with a Turkish family — a husband and wife. They’ve given us a small room, but I don’t know for how long.”
“And you have a brother and a sister?”
“Yes, and my mother.”
“My friend, what is your dear sister’s name?” he said with a wink.
Saleem clenched his teeth. “Thanks for the information,” he muttered. He gave a nod to the man in green and ignored the other two. Saleem walked away and fumed at the way his own people would treat him, as if he was incapable of defending his family’s honor. He cursed his stupidity for being so loose lipped with strangers.
Saleem turned the corner and found himself staring through the window of a ceramics store, the glass so smudged it felt as if he were gazing into a different time. Inside, a man in his forties swept the floor slowly.
Everywhere he turned, Saleem saw his father.
He’d even seen him in Hakan. Something about the way he’d stepped out of the masjid, the look of peace on his face, fresh from prayers, had been reminiscent of Padar-jan. He was everywhere and nowhere.
The sound of engines brought Saleem back. He returned to the crowd and piled into the back of the three trucks idling on the corner. He made sure to stay clear of the Afghans he’d met.
THE FARMS WERE JUST AS THEY’D DESCRIBED. EACH HOUSE SAT on its own plot, separated from its neighbor by acres upon acres of green rows. When the trucks stopped, the medley of passengers disembarked with their small satchels and scattered toward their respective farms. Saleem stood in the dirt road, unsure. He watched the able-bodied workers disperse, going left and right. One older woman plodded down the road, the tap of a cane setting her pace. She seemed to be headed toward a run-down yellow home. Saleem followed.
In the front of the house, a boy no more than eight or nine years old brushed the flank of a dusty-brown donkey. The sprawling house was in worse shape than its neighbors but surrounded by gridded acres of ample crops. Surely this house, whose only field help seemed to be an older woman, could use a helping hand.
Saleem let her lead the way.
About halfway to the house, she shot a look over her shoulder without pausing her step. She was round and scowled. Saleem quickened his pace until he was near enough to make out the lines of her weathered face. He cleared his throat and said hello. She did not look Afghan. She had choppy, black hair cut like a man’s and wore a floral print dress, the material so stiff it seemed to hover around her legs without touching them.
She looked at Saleem and mumbled something in response. Saleem pointed at the yellow farmhouse ahead of them and asked her if they needed more people to work. She frowned and shook her head. Saleem, unsure if she’d understood his question, continued on.
In his best English, Saleem offered his services to Mr. Polat, the lanky landowner. Mr. Polat looked him up and down, shrugged his shoulders, and introduced him to farm labor.
At the end of the first day, Saleem lingered, thinking the farmer would pay him for his labor. But Mr. Polat shook his head, refusing to pay for a day of learning. He told Saleem to return tomorrow and earn his money. Saleem bit his tongue until he was back on the dirt path at sunset. He kicked and spat at the ground. The woman who’d worked alongside him watched without comment. As they waited for the trucks to take them back to the village, Saleem reached into his pocket and strapped the watch back on to his wrist. How would he explain to Madar-jan that he had worked from morning to evening without receiving any wages?
SALEEM BEGRUDGINGLY WORKED FOUR FULL DAYS WITH HIS ONLY compensation being a piece of grilled chicken between two slices of bread. He picked tomatoes until his back ached and his fingers had numbed. The woman he’d followed to this house was Armenian, he learned later in the week. Though she spoke no English, she managed to communicate two important things to Saleem: first, how to distinguish the ripe tomatoes from the unripe by the flesh and weight; and, second, that Polat would pay him eventually. Saleem tolerated the unpaid week because he had few options and feared going through another probationary period if he tried another farmhouse.
At the end of the week, Polat handed Saleem a few crumpled bills. There was no discussion or negotiation. Saleem stared at the money in his palm, nothing much to speak of, and nodded. It wasn’t even enough to buy his family a meal.
From that day on, Saleem was paid at the end of the day, but the amount was inconsistent and unrelated to how many buckets of tomatoes he was able to fill from the fields. When the Armenian woman saw Saleem fingering his bills in dismay, she griped alongside him in her own tongue.
SOON SALEEM’S NAILS BECAME RAGGED AND RIMMED WITH DIRT. He developed calluses on his palms and on the pads of his fingers. His face was salty with perspiration, but he felt good. He worked like a man. Like his father might have. The money wasn’t much, but he turned it over to his mother with pride.
Hakan didn’t ask Saleem about his wages. Hayal accepted the few bills that Madar-jan quietly tucked into her hand every week, but soon after she would spend it on food they shared with the Waziri family. They seemed happy to have children in the home and Madar-jan did what she could to look after the house. She swept the floors, washed dishes, and did laundry while Hayal tutored a silent but inquisitive Samira. She would tap her pencil and look to Hayal when she filled in the answers to the arithmetic problems.