Sara Alexi - The Illegal Gardener

Some teenagers come and stand at the bus stop opposite the square. Backpacks ready for school. They call hellos to the kiosk lady before settling into nodding their heads to unheard beats. They don’t see Aaman. A younger boy runs to join them; they smile and reach to tickle him, teasing and familiar, gentle.

One evening at the chopal , the evening meeting of the villagers, Aaman was tickled like a child by one of the elders. He was taken for a child even though he had turned sixteen. Aaman snorts and pushes the thought away.

Another man shuffles onto the square. It is only when he moves that Aaman realises the man had been curled up in the opposite doorway, motionless until now. He is tall, but his bony frame shows despite his oversized coat and layers of thin jumpers. He is bearded and looks Middle Eastern. His eyes reflect his surprise and powerlessness at the nearness of his own death. His shoes have no soles. His socks worn on his hands. He has no energy to move, to warm himself.

The children opposite chorus a ‘Good morning’ and smile as an old man shuffles by them. He wears thick cotton trousers, jumper, solid boots and a shepherd’s crook. He lifts his crook in answer and hobbles on towards the cafe.

A woman pulls up in a car. The men ignore her. Aaman watches as she surveys them from the safety of her metal box. He wonders if she might be looking for a labourer and takes his hands from his pockets. Mahmout seems to recognise her and smiles and waves in a vaguely hysterical manner. She lowers the window. Her jumper is thick and warm, and she wears a hat that covers her ears. Her cheeks glow and she looks healthy.

Aaman pulls himself to full height next to Mahmout. The woman looks him up and down. Mahmout grins widely and jabbers.

“Hello, you remember me? I help with water.” Mahmout interrupts her silence, his accent makes his English barely understandable.

The woman seems to quickly tire of his chatter. She says she remembers him from the day before when he had offered to carry a six-pack of water bottles from the kiosk to her car, a distance of about five feet. Aaman closes his mouth firmly as he hears the exchange. He will get a job based on his merits, not from ingratiating himself with petty tasks. He is a man who needs work. Not a handout.

The woman looks at him. She seems inclined to talk to him even though she has met Mahmout before. Aaman is surprised. He has presumed her choice had been made for her. He draws himself up as she scans his face.

“Do you speak English?”

Aaman nods, a little taken aback. She hesitates; Aaman tries to think of something to say in English.

“Yes,” he flounders in a state of panic. But he is too late. He reads her face, her look of eager anticipation is exchanged for closed decision.

“You are too small,” she says and signals to Mahmout to get into the car with her.

Mahmout grins as he leaves, but Aaman knows that domestic labourers don’t always get food, which is only assured on the larger building sites. The sun is up now and Aaman takes off his gloves and hat. He sits on the bench and leans back against the palm tree. It is unlikely that anyone will come for workers this late.

Aaman falls into a half sleep. His hope keeps one eye alert. The bakery opens its doors for business and there is an intermittent stream of customers. The kiosk and the corner shop both do a steady trade in cigarettes. The pharmacy unbolts its doors, the orange rug now dissolved by the sun.

The man with the soleless shoes has wedged himself between a wall and a tree and remains motionless, soaking up the sun.

Aaman considers whether or not to walk all the way back to his home. He laughs at the thought of where he sleeps as his ‘home.’ It is a farmer’s small storage barn made of mud bricks in the middle of his orange grove. The farmer has put shelves all the way around from floor to ceiling, each with just enough room for a man to lie. Sixteen of them sleep there. Most have had steady work picking oranges for a few weeks and have made themselves into teams. Romanians, Albanians, Bulgarians working together.

It costs thirty cents a night to sleep on the shelves. No covers, only boards. The farmer makes 120 euros a month and keeps his oranges safe from gypsies who come in the night with trucks to steal his crop. Some of the illegals who have been there longer have found themselves blankets from somewhere. Some men stay for a while, others pass through. Nothing is safe to leave there. What you have you keep on you. No one has much more than a packet of cigarettes and each, down his trousers at night, a mobile phone. A tool for finding work.

Aaman drifts off in the warmth of the sun. The helicopter fan for the oranges abutting the sleeping barn had been switched on at two in the morning the previous night. It had been hard to sleep after that. A motorbike backfires by the kiosk and Aaman jolts awake again.

The cafe is now full of men smoking and sipping morning coffee. The snippets of subdued conversation quietly ricochet around the room. The bakery has a queue of four people. The schoolchildren waiting for the bus have gone. Shutters are being opened all around the village. Glints of sun reflect on gleaming glass.

Aaman recognises the red car before he recognises the woman who had hired Mahmout earlier. She has taken her hat off and has dyed blonde hair. The world of the West. She glances over to him and makes fleeting eye contact as she drives on. She also sees the bearded man who has wedged himself between the wall and the tree. She looks twice.

The woman stops her car outside the bakery. Aaman watches her inside as she talks and points. He looks away as she comes out. She walks across the road toward him. She smiles. She walks past him a few more steps to the man with the beard, who wakes with a start. She hands him what she has bought from the bakery and walks away without a word, climbs in her car and is gone.

Aaman glances at the bearded man in disgust before staring with relish at the sandwich. His gaze follows the route her car took. Westerners with so much wealth they can just give it away. He waits to see if the bearded man will eat the sandwich or if his pride will dampen his hunger.

The bearded man inspects the sandwich. A cat appears from nowhere, hopeful for discarded ham. The bearded man tears off a piece of sandwich, turns his face towards the wall and puts it in his mouth. He repeats this process in quick succession. Aaman stares blankly, watching him eat, until the sandwich is gone and the bearded man looks up and makes eye contact, embarrassed. Aaman turns away.

The bearded man unwedges himself from between the wall and the post and scuttles away. His day is done. He has eaten.

Aaman shifts his position. She, a woman, can afford to give food away and he can’t even make enough to feed himself. She has money for a car and the irrelevant, unnecessary vanity of hair dye, and he doesn’t even have the thirty cents for his next night’s sleep out of the frost. He starts the long walk to the barn.

The car pulls up in front of him. The door is flung open and, before Aaman has shifted his thoughts from his internal dialogue, she is standing in front of him.

“Who speaks English?”

Aaman quickly looks around to see another Russian-looking man has joined him. Aaman feels disoriented but embraces the opportunity and tries to smile.

“I speak English, Madam.” Aaman waits for the Russian man to speak, for the battle, for the defeat.

The Russian man, tall and strong, shrugs. He has no English. He admits defeat.

She smiles at Aaman and pulls the passenger door open and motions him in.

Aaman doesn’t hesitate. He climbs into the car feeling like a king. She puts the car in gear and they move.

“What is your name?”