Sara Alexi - The Illegal Gardener

“Goodnight, Juliet.”

“Monday?” Juliet asks.

The sound awakes him. Some sounds have no call of alarm, some do. It is a deep, guttural, wet cough coming in spasms. Aaman opens his eyes. A clean shaft of light streams through the doorless opening onto the mud floor. The bunks topped with inactive dark lumps. Sunday, a day of no pay. A black shape on the floor pulses to the coughing rhythm. Aaman shifts his position, turning away, onto his back. The underside of the bunk above provides a canvas for the passing of endless seas of unused lives. Carved, burnt and scribed dates, names, loves, obscenities, anything to make an indelible mark, an anchor to existence.

Aaman turns another quarter turn to face the wall. Carefully, with little movement, he pulls out a loose piece of mud brick. With finger and thumb, he pinches the paper that peeps from behind. His rolled savings emerge. He replaces the piece of mud brick and, spitting on his fingers smoothes the surface, his night safe hidden. His money pocketed.

The coughing subsides. Aaman rolls from the bunk and stretches. Mahmout is still asleep. There are new men on the top bunks, lying on their stomachs, talking quietly, nervously, their smoke curling up in the stillness, around under the tiles, finding many easy exits. The air is stale and hot by day on the top bunk and cold and, if it rains, wet by night. It is never a bunk of choice for someone who has spent even one night here.

But the new men are always tricked. The farmer sells the top bunks for five cents more than the others. That gives the illusion of value. It makes him over five euros extra a week. He runs his Regen, a cross between a motorbike and a truck, on it. Better privacy he tells them, more head room, no one climbs over you, lets everyone else know you are a man of standing. The new men think it over and, with hope on a high, part with money that would be better spent on food. They never spend more than one night on the top if a lower bunk is free. Aaman never even spent the first night there. He did not con himself that he is here for comfort.

Through the doorway, in the brightness of the sun, the Nigerians are loading up for the day. One balances a carved elephant on one finger, another tries to retrieve it without a breakage. They laugh, the burden not so heavy for them, they have no wives, it is an adventure. They are tall, they are young, they are strong, and they help each other. Their trade is to make banter with the tourists and run fast from the police. Street sellers have no days off and no guarantee of pay.

Aaman steps past the bearded man curled on the floor whose sole-less shoes provide a pillow. The sunshine warms Aaman’s sleep-stiffened muscles. The Nigerians ignore him. There is a hierarchy even here. Aaman understands and walks past them into the orange grove to water a tree.

Oranges from the surrounding trees, his breakfast staple, are pocketed for the walk. The mud-brick barn drags all ambition from Aaman on a Sunday. The men talk of home, families they are not supporting, jobs they haven’t got. He can understand their talk even if the language is not his own. No, time passes too slowly on Sundays at the barn. He sets out for the village.

No hope of work to rush for, no cold to keep at bay, the pace slow, steady, he throws his peel into the lush weeds and flowers by the roadside. Unseen tiny beasts make the high grass quiver as he makes his way by the edge of the road. A dog runs past, looking back, fearing reprimand, wishing for company. Aaman clicks his fingers, and the dog circles to approach from behind. His tail wagging and haunches lowered, he sniffs at Aaman’s sticky fingers. He licks his submission. They walk together, both happier for the company.

Juliet sprawls in her cotton-sheeted double bed. Sunday! A national habit of a lifetime frees her worries on this day. She stretches and yawns as noisily as she can before bounding out of bed. The cat resents the disturbance of the duvet, but pulls himself to standing. He greets Juliet by allowing her to stroke him before finding the warmest indentation in the bed she has left and, owning it, tucks all his extremities out of sight and closes his eyes.

The clean kitchen cupboard, which needs a coat of paint, Juliet muses, holds fresh, local organic eggs for breakfast, local olive oil bread, and a fantastic marmalade Juliet found online and paid through the nose to have delivered to Greece. But it was worth it. She flicks the kettle on and readies the coffee pot. There is just enough water from one kettle to boil the eggs and make coffee.

It is only when she lays the patio table that she realises she has no milk. She would like to be someone who could drink their coffee black, but, for Juliet, giving up milk in her coffee feels harder than giving up smoking did. She had achieved the one but not the other. She half enjoys her boiled eggs, but decides to go for milk before relishing toast and marmalade with her caffeine fix.

After covering the coffee pot with a tea towel and two cushions to keep it warm, Juliet slips into flip-flops. The door opens to the brilliance of the day. The village is alive with sound, the smell of roasting lamb coming from all corners. Music blares across the valley like a duel, whining, discordant, unfamiliar clarinet solos competing with hysterical bouzouki riffs. The music mixes with children laughing, dads shouting jovially, a background of clattering plates and women chattering excitedly.

The neighbours down the lane wave Juliet to join them. She motions “Later.” Greetings come from every doorstep and Juliet smiles from ear to ear. Her life is becoming complete, her dream realising.

Marina has left the shop open; she is in the back garden which spans the distance to her house behind. Between the two is an open fire pit with a lamb on a spit. Her family and friends spill from every corner and cover every chair, crowding in the kitchen beyond and creating a spellbinding cacophony of happiness.

“Come, join us!” Marina has rubber gloves on, holding a dyed red egg in each hand.

“Later. I need milk for now.”

“Take it, pay another time!” A child pulls Marina by her skirt into the kitchen. She’s gone.

Juliet walks back through the untended shop. Someone has been in and bought something, leaving the money on the counter. Juliet does the same.

Leaving, Juliet smiles at the sun, closes her eyes and focuses on the sounds of Greek Easter. The clarinets are still howling, the bouzoukia still manic. Someone has burnt something and the smell is acrid but drifts away. The milk feels freezing to her fingers. She thinks of her jug of coffee going cold and heads for home.

There is no one in the square. Everyone is with loved ones, everyone happy without a care in the world today. Juliet is happy for their joy. Content in herself, she turns onto the road. There is a man in the distance. She estimates they will cross at her lane end. She rehearses Easter day greetings and suitable responses in her head. She swaps hands with the milk. It is too cold. She walks and looks up.

“Aaman!”

“Hello.”

“Are you working somewhere today?”

“No, just walking.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“No.”

Juliet feels prized like a winkle out of her Greek Easter fantasy. His loved ones are far away. No-one will invite him to eat with them, he does not own a house, and he does not contribute to village life. He takes and sends what he gets to his own village, his own life. He does not belong here. She knows that is how they see him.

“Do you…” Juliet looks at the milk, starts to read one side of the carton, shifts her weight and gently shakes the milk before looking up. “Do you want to come to the house? I’m not roasting a lamb, but I was going to have toast and marmalade for now.”