SALEEM TRIED TO PICTURE AZIZ’S HEART. HE COULD FEEL HIS own beating, pounding sometimes, in his chest. Saleem had seen an animal heart once. He had gone with his father to the butcher shop for chicken, a rare treat to mark the Eid holiday and the culmination of a long month of fasting. Their household budget had tightened when Padar-jan’s wages became inconsistent.
Saleem had watched as the butcher wiped his bloodied hands on a cloth and came over to speak with his father. They exchanged pleasantries before Padar-jan asked to see what chickens the butcher had. The butcher raised an eyebrow, and Saleem, the young son, felt his chest swell with pride. The Waziris were not the average customers asking for the cheapest cut of meat. They were here for the best.
While his father and the butcher haggled over the price, Saleem looked to see what the butcher had laid out on display. A skinned lamb was strung up on a hook. Chunks of meat and shiny organs were lined up in short rows. They fascinated and nauseated Saleem. He remembered tugging on his father’s sleeve.
“Padar-jan, what are those?” he had whispered, not wanting to draw the butcher’s attention but unable to stifle his curiosity.
“Those are chicken hearts.”
Padar-jan and the butcher chuckled to see Saleem with one hand to his chest, trying to feel his own heart beating, his eyes glued to the apricot-sized hearts on the block.
THE SCHOOL DOORS OPENED AND THE STUDENTS SQUEEZED out in a boisterous flood. Saleem envied their schoolbags, their notebooks, their lack of responsibility.
Boys his age headed onto the field, a group of about eight or nine. Saleem looked down at his watch as they neared. He did not want to be caught gawking. The watch hands had stopped turning last night. Saleem tried winding it again though he did not expect it to help. It was an engineer’s watch, an uninterpretable dial within the dial. Padar-jan probably would have been able to repair it. Saleem kept it on, hoping it would spring back to life spontaneously.
One of the boys on the field, the lankiest in the group, pulled a soccer ball out of a satchel. Saleem felt his feet fidget for the feel of the leather. He couldn’t bring himself to get up and walk away.
They probably won’t even notice me, he reasoned. He turned so that he was only half facing the boys who had begun to pass the ball around, their feet tapping as they crisscrossed the field. Their voices rang out, undoubtedly shouting obnoxious comments to one another in Turkish slang that Saleem did not understand.
They came together in a loose huddle for a moment, two boys shooting glances in Saleem’s direction. Feeling like a trespasser, Saleem brought himself to standing, brushing his backside. He was about to walk away when he heard a yell in his direction. He turned reluctantly. The lanky ringleader repeated himself loudly. Saleem did not know how to respond and simply shrugged his shoulders.
“No Turkish.”
“No Turkish?” The boy laughed and switched into English. “You like to play football or you like to sleep in grass?”
Saleem felt a rush. He followed the boy over to the others who had already broken into two teams. One team was short a player.
“You play with them,” the lanky boy declared. He paused and looked Saleem up and down. “You have a name?”
Saleem paused, wanting to be sure he was not being mocked.
“Saleem,” he finally answered, taking his watch off and placing it in his pocket.
“Saleem? You talk slow. I hope you move fast.”
Kabul had been full of boys like this. Saleem sauntered over to his designated team and greeted the guys with a quick nod. They looked him over in turn and began to assume their field positions.
As the ball tumbled from boy to boy, Saleem was transported. He was in Kabul, catching a quick street game with neighborhood friends before light fell. He ran after the ball, kicked it away from boys whose names he did not care to know. He tapped it, passing it to his new teammates, boys who otherwise in the marketplace might shun him as a foreign migrant worker. He was not an outsider here. The ball came his way again. Saleem dribbled to the goalpost, watching for defenders and trying to stay ahead of the others.
His team lost by a point but he’d played well enough to have won the respect of the group. The lanky boy gave Saleem a sidelong glance, panting and sweaty.
“Where are you from?” he asked, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Afghanistan,” Saleem answered hesitantly. The boy seemed unfazed.
“My name is Kamal.”
KAMAL AND SALEEM BECAME FRIENDS, AS MUCH AS A NATIVE AND an immigrant could in Intikal. From that day on, Saleem joined the boys once a week for a soccer game, returning from the Polat farm to play for an hour or two and sometimes going back to the farm to resume work. He was exhausted and ravenous on those days, but it was worth it to feel the grass under his feet, the pats on the shoulder, and the wind on his face. Polat grimaced but tolerated Saleem’s absences since he made up for the work he missed.
At home, Saleem kept his new activities to himself. He could not bring himself to tell his mother that for an hour a week he felt free. He saw his mother’s anxious face when he came home. She spent every moment fussing over Aziz and scrounging for any work to pad their pockets. Samira continued to pitch in, either watching Aziz while Madar-jan worked or helping out around the house for Hakan and Hayal. Though it felt dishonest, Saleem kept his sport to himself.
On the field, Saleem was too tongue-tied to make smart replies when the boys tossed around the usual jeers. He hoped his silence came off as cool indifference. Kamal continued to poke at Saleem and didn’t seem too disappointed that he didn’t get much response.
In the evenings, the boys sometimes gathered in town to have a soft drink and ogle the scantily clad women in magazine ads. Saleem only met up with them on occasion, self-conscious about his sweaty work clothes and vine-chafed hands. Unable to keep everything from his mother, he told her he’d met some nice local boys and would join them for a soda. She was encouraging, which only made him feel worse that he’d kept so much from her.
Kamal, having walked Saleem home once, knew where they lived. Still, Saleem was surprised to come home from the farm one evening and find his friend sitting in the kitchen with Hakan. On that night, Saleem learned that Kamal was as adaptive as a chameleon. It was a quality he admired for its usefulness.
“Saleem, good timing. You have a visitor,” Hakan announced with a smile.
“Hello, Saleem,” Kamal said jovially, rising from his chair.
“We were just chatting. I’m happy you are getting to know the neighborhood boys. And as it turns out, I know Kamal’s father.”
“Hello. .” Saleem was caught off-guard. He was not thrilled to see Kamal at home. “You. . you know his father?”
“Yes, isn’t that interesting, Saleem? I had no idea that this was dear Mr. Hakan’s home!”
“It is Intikal. We are bound to know each other. But I haven’t seen Kamal here since he was a young boy, just barely the height of this table,” Hakan said with a chuckle. Kamal grinned, looking remarkably wholesome.
“Yes, it turns out that my father and Mr. Hakan taught at the same university,” he explained.
“Indeed, but Kamal’s father is much younger than me. He was new — a very bright professor. The students loved him then and now. Although I’m sure his son misses having his father around during the semester.”
Saleem’s surprise must have been obvious in his face. He had a lot to learn about Kamal. Hakan stood up and took his teacup to the sink. He tousled Kamal’s hair on the way. Saleem could understand most of their conversation but had to focus. Kamal’s Turkish was a cleaned-up version of what Saleem usually heard him speaking.