“Roksana, you ask me this again? I do not want to stay in Greece. I want to take my family to England. And you tell me Greece does not give asylum. These papers are for what?” Saleem felt terribly clumsy speaking in English, but he was thankful he could have even this much of a conversation. There was much he would have said had he been able to speak in Dari. She would have looked at him differently, he thought.
“But they do grant asylum sometimes. It depends on the story of the person or the family. Everyone is different.” She looked off in the direction of the square pensively. “I think you have a story.”
“A story? What do you mean?”
“A story. The reason why you and your family left Afghanistan. Some people left because there was no work or because they were tired of war. But I think you have something a little different. Maybe you do not want to say it, but maybe it can help you to apply for asylum.”
“We left for many reasons.”
Roksana looked at him patiently. After a long pause, Saleem started talking, his voice subdued.
“It is true, there was no work and the war was terrible. People were waiting. . for peace or to die.” Saleem looked off toward the street, the buildings. He had not talked to anyone about his life in Kabul, the things he saw. He hadn’t wanted to rehash those dark times any more than he already did. In his mind, they were like the sound of a dripping faucet, a relentless sound that amplified in the quiet. And yet, he continued.
“My sister could not go to school. My mother could not teach. My aunts, uncles, and cousins — everyone left. My family stayed. We listen to rockets in the sky and pray the rockets do not fall on our beds. There was no music. There was only life the Taliban way. Sometimes we think maybe the Taliban is better than fighting. Maybe the Taliban make the fighting stop but they bring more problems.
“My mother cannot go outside without a man. There was only me. I go to the market and find food but we have only little money. There was no job. We understand that soon there will be no food and no money and no life.”
Roksana listened intently. Her eyes stayed on the ground.
There was silence. Saleem wandered through his broken memories. He had been only thirteen or fourteen at the time. Looking back now, he appreciated much more just how desperate their situation had become — especially now that the burden of feeding his family fell on his shoulders.
“Saleem,” Roksana started, her voice barely above a whisper. “What about your father?”
Saleem twirled the watch around his wrist.
“My father. .” he began slowly, feeling his chest tighten as he spoke. “My father was an engineer. He worked for the Ministry of Water and Electricity. His work was with water.”
What an injustice to his father’s work to not be able to relay it in more detail. Saleem felt inadequate.
“My father, he believed. . he believed some things are important for the country but some people. . One night, three men come to our house. I hear them talk with my father. I never see my father after that night.”
Saleem pressed his fingers against his eyes to plug the tears. He kept his head down.
“I am sorry,” she whispered with a hand on his shoulder. “I did not mean to. .”
“No, no,” Saleem said. He resented her hand on him and the pity in her voice. Resentment hardened him, and the knot in his throat released. He took a deep breath and continued, his composure regained. “We left Kabul. We were afraid these men, maybe they will come back. Or we will die hungry in our house.”
“Saleem, let me help you with the application for asylum. Your family deserves to have this story heard. You have a good case.”
“But there is no help here. We have nothing. In England, we have family. Other countries, they will give us something. My mother, my sister, my brother — they need food and a home.”
Roksana’s eyes softened. She did not disagree with him.
“What will you do in England?”
“What will I do?” Saleem laughed. His shoulders relaxed. “I will drive a red car and eat in restaurants and watch movies!”
Roksana said nothing. Saleem’s smile faded as he thought about what he really wanted to do in England. He wanted to go to school with his sister. He wanted to take Aziz to a doctor. He wanted to see his mother working as a teacher again.
Saleem turned to Roksana, a twinge of resentment at the privileges she enjoyed.
“What do you want here? You go to school, yes?”
Roksana attended an international school in Greece with instruction in English. Her parents wanted her to be around people of different nationalities, she had explained.
“Roksana, why do you come here? You have a nice school. You can go with your friends, your family. Why do you want to be with Afghans in a dirty park? You are Greek. For us, it is different. We are Afghans, lost from Afghanistan.”
She turned away, avoiding his pressing gaze.
“We are not so different, Saleem.”
CHAPTER 29. Saleem
SALEEM WOKE TO THE FEELING OF PINS AND NEEDLES IN HIS LEG. It took more than a moment for him to realize what he was feeling. He’d only been asleep an hour or two. He’d been too anxious to close his eyes for most of the night.
Roksana had told him about this playground, nestled in among the apartment buildings that housed the middle class of Athens. In the evenings, the area was serene. It was off the busy street and had no pedestrian traffic after the nearby shops closed. The Waziris tucked their bags out of sight behind the corner of a building, and Saleem pushed Samira on the swing until it was dark enough. The entire family climbed into a small wooden playhouse and huddled tightly. His mother had taken a wool blanket from the hotel before they’d left and used that to cover them as best she could.
Madar-jan sat with her head against the side of the playhouse. Her eyes were closed, but by her breathing Saleem could tell she was awake. She opened her eyes when she felt his leg brush against hers.
“Sorry, Madar-jan,” he whispered. “I did not mean to wake you.”
“Good morning, bachem,” she said. Indeed it was. The sky was just starting to lift from black to a midnight blue. “I hope you got some sleep.”
“I think I did.” A jarring pain shot through his neck as he turned his head. He rubbed the knotted muscle. Samira lay with her head on Madar-jan’s side. The bundle of layers that was Aziz lay in Madar-jan’s arms. It looked as if she had not moved since last night.
But she will not complain, Saleem thought. She leaned in closer to Saleem.
“Bachem, I’m going to step out before people start to rise and walk about. I’ll sit on one of the benches by the swings and leave you and Samira to sleep for a bit longer. Once I start to see people walking around, I’ll wake you as well.”
Saleem nodded. “I’ll come with you, Madar-jan.”
“No, stay. Samira will feel better if she wakes up to see her brother with her. You didn’t really sleep much. Stretch your legs a bit and see if you can get a bit more rest.”
Saleem was too exhausted to argue. His heavy eyes closed again. It felt like only minutes later that he heard his mother whisper into the playhouse to wake them. People were walking their children to school. The family had survived their first night on the street. Saleem wondered how many more nights would pass before they had a real roof over them again.
SALEEM COULD NOT DO MUCH IN THE EARLY MORNING. HE needed the cover of crowds to run his unlawful errands. Roksana was in school. She promised to meet him in Attiki in the afternoon. She was his only hope at this point, but when they met, he could tell from her expression that she did not have promising news for him.