They were comfortable in Intikal, but Saleem still worried.
“Madar-jan, it will be forever before we are able to save up enough money to get us to Greece. Maybe we can ask some family for money? Maybe we should call England?”
Madar-jan dried her hands on her apron and sighed.
“My son, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ll try to phone them, but I don’t think they have much to send. Last time I called, your uncle said they were barely able to pay for their daughter’s school supplies. Maybe things are better now. I don’t see what options we have.” Fereiba began to think out loud. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to London. Maybe we should start elsewhere.”
But there was nowhere else to go. The rest of the family had dispersed to India, Canada, and Australia. India offered little opportunity for a better life while Canada and Australia were simply unreachable without a visa.
Madar-jan leaned against the counter and stared at the ceiling tiles. Yesterday, she had started cleaning some of the neighbors’ houses, thanks to Hayal’s referrals, but it was not enough to keep Saleem home. She looked at her son.
“It’s very bad there, isn’t it? On the farm?”
He had started to tell her about the farm after his second day there, but the look on her face made him stop short. He smiled and shook his head. Her face relaxed. They would survive in this way, telling each other that things were better than they were.
CHAPTER 20. Saleem
MR. POLAT MADE SALEEM’S FOURTEEN-HOUR DAYS LONG AND hard. It was August and the height of tomato season. Work was plentiful, even on the ramshackle Polat farm, with its soil rockier than all the neighbors.
Saleem learned to tell the hour by the sun’s position overhead. From morning, he willed his shadow to grow longer and longer so that his workday would come to an end. He got a fifteen-minute break when Polat’s wife would bring out sandwiches. Every day, a thin sandwich with a glass of lukewarm water. As monotonous as it was, the food soothed his growling stomach, and the water put out the burning of his dry throat.
Mr. Polat and his wife had four children. The young boy who had watched Saleem in the front yard that first day was the middle child, Ahmet. Behind him were twin girls, around three years old. The oldest child was a girl, Ekin. Her name meant harvest in Turkish.
Ekin was around Saleem’s age, lanky like her father and with similarly drawn features. She was unattractive, even to a sheltered adolescent boy. Her skin was freckled and her hair a stringy mop of curls.
Ekin watched Saleem from a distance as she helped her mother hang laundry on the clothesline behind the farmhouse. By the end of August, she was free of her studies and lingered around the farm. Bored, she spent more time around Saleem and the Armenian woman. She especially liked to saunter about when Saleem cleaned out the barn.
This was a new chore that Mr. Polat had assigned to Saleem as it required more effort than the woman could have mustered. The barn sheltered two donkeys, three goats, and a few chickens. The air was heavy and rank with the smell of dung and wet fleece. Saleem had never tended to animals before, and the odors seared his nostrils. He dreaded those days when Mr. Polat tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the barn, a rake in his hand. Polat took a few moments to point out what needed to be done and walked out.
Saleem raked the moist hay and soil into the wheelbarrow and carted it off to a corner of the farm where the manure would eventually compost. The stench clung to his clothing and skin. Saleem kept to himself on the bus in the evening, knowing he turned noses on his way home.
While Saleem breathed through his mouth, Ekin would wander idly past the open barn doors, again and again. She began to clear her throat as she passed by. Soon, she began to sit on a crate in the corner, a casual observer to his work. How or why she stomached the smell baffled Saleem. One day, she began to speak to him in broken, elementary-level English.
“Not good,” she observed. “Still dirty.”
“I am not finished,” Saleem answered, keeping his eyes on the ground. He doubted a Turkish father would be much different from an Afghan one when it came to his daughters. He wanted no problems with Polat. Ekin had a tall tumbler of water in her hand. She gulped loudly.
The barn’s dust had dried his tongue and airways. The sound of her drinking made him furious but he said nothing.
“What is your name?” When she did not get a response, Ekin repeated her question, louder and annoyed. “I said, what is your name?”
“Saleem,” he mumbled.
“Saleem?” Ekin played with her stringy hair. She picked through the ends, her fingers getting locked in the knots. “This is name for old man. Why you have old man name?”
Saleem’s lips tightened.
“Why you not clean there? It will still smell if you do not clean this. The animals will be sick. My father will not be happy.”
Saleem remained tight-lipped, finished as quickly as he could, and returned to the fields where the Armenian woman raised an eyebrow and nodded in the direction of the barn. When he shook his head in frustration, she smiled. They were beginning to understand each other.
A WEEK LATER, EKIN SAW SALEEM MAKE HIS WAY INTO THE BARN. She followed after, turned the crate over, and sat on it, stretching her legs out before her.
“The summer is too hot. I am in the house all day. It is too long! School is better. Better to see my friends.”
Saleem’s silence was not a deterrent.
“Here, there is nothing. I cannot talk to my friends. I am alone.” She paused. “You do not go to school so you do not know. Have you been to a school?”
Saleem raked harder.
“I know the work people do not go to school. But my father and mother say I must learn so I will not be a worker. They say I must be a schoolgirl and be clean, have a nice life. Why you do not talk? It is good you are not in school. In school the teachers say you must talk!” She laughed, tapping her heels on the straw-covered floor.
Mrs. Polat’s voice rang out. Ekin stood with a heavy sigh. She brushed the straw off the seat of her pants and left the barn, throwing Saleem a curious look on her way out. Saleem was thankful for the reprieve. A few moments with Ekin was more exhausting than a fourteen-hour workday. But before he could fully enjoy the silence, she returned with his lunch sandwich in her hand.
“Here,” Ekin called out from the barn door. She paused and looked down at the sandwich in her hands. She brought it to her face, so close that Saleem could see her nose brush against the meat. “It is good. We can eat together?”
Ekin sat on the crate and just as Saleem walked over to claim his sandwich, she carefully pulled it into two pieces and handed him half. Saleem watched angrily as the bread and chicken disappeared between her teeth.
“This food is for me,” he objected.
“But we eat together,” Ekin replied, confused. “Like friends, okay?”
“No. No. No. Not okay!” Saleem’s back ached. His fingertips burned, and his stomach growled angrily.
Ekin seemed surprised by his reaction. After a moment she stood, reached into her dress pocket, and pulled out a packet of two small sugar cookies. She tossed the packet onto the crate and walked out of the barn without saying a word.
Saleem, furious, could think only that he would be hungry for the rest of the day. The half sandwich she’d left him was not much sustenance, and there was no use complaining to Polat or his wife. He threw the rake to the ground and shoved the half sandwich into his mouth. He looked the sugar cookies over and wondered what they meant as he scarfed them down.