Sara Alexi - The Illegal Gardener

Juliet skips out of the shop having dealt Goliath a mighty blow. The language is real, her ability to speak fluently is returning quickly. She has the power to be understood, to survive. She dances three steps before quickly returning for her stamps and matches and another enthusiastic departure.

On the lane to her house she meets the cat. He winds between her legs and trots to keep up.

“OK, I cannot stop you walking with me or hanging around, but let’s be clear, cat, you do not come in the house.”

Halfway up the lane, she remembers she has the workmen at her house and she has left all the doors open. Hurrying the rest of the way, she has visions of her laptop, her work gone, and her passport along with it.

The cat chases her.

The front door is wide open. Bugs buzz in and out of the shade and cool. Juliet rushes in to see her laptop safely on the sofa, her handbag hangs, untouched, from the kitchen chair. The house has the chill and silliness of a church after the heat of the sun. She peeps out of the back door. The two men are still working. She smiles, she relaxes. This is Greece .

Watching the two men bent over, up to their knees in weeds and rubbish, she estimates, judging by the amount they have done, that the garden will be clear within a couple of weeks. Then the slow process of digging the rich dense red soil will begin, turning it over piece by piece, taking out the stones. Maybe she will need to add something to make the soil more manageable, drain better, before the fun of planting trees and flowers, sowing grass seed and deciding which vegetables will go where.

Mahmout stops and turns to smile at Juliet.

“Madam appears happy.”

Juliet snaps out of her daydream and looks at him blankly.

“I am thinking Madam is happy to see two such good workers making her home very lovely?”

Juliet is shocked and resents the intrusion into her thinking. She bought the house for the silence it offers, the escape from people, a place where she can choose to be quiet. But here is a man taking that quiet away, demanding answers to unimportant questions. Juliet sees the flaw in the plan of using workmen. She weighs the choice between answering him politely and self-preservation.

“Get on with it.” She returns inside through the back door, eager to make a distance. Flopping on the sofa, the cat looks up at her.

“Out!” She scrambles to her feet and chases the cat through the front door. However, once the sun touches her skin, she is reluctant to return indoors. Her movements slow in the warmth, and she turns her face to the sun, allowing herself to be still. The sound of goat bells come from a nearby hill, a farmer calling to slow them down as the hollow clonking of the bells speeds up, a slope maybe.

After some time passes, minutes, or maybe hours, it doesn’t matter, Juliet looks over her arms to see if she is tanning. She notices a big weed by the toe of her sandal. Lazily she pulls at the weed; it pulls away like a knife from melted butter. She pulls the one next to it, which is followed by another and then another. Energised by progress she begins to pull weeds as quickly as the roots will allow. Some come away with a slight tug. Others, she digs her fingers into the soil to claw away around the tap root, snapping the hair-fine roots as they come free. She waves a lazy buzzing insect away, her nails filled with soil.

After a few minutes, Juliet finds her gardening gloves and wheels the wheelbarrow near where she is working. There is a traditional adze in the wheelbarrow. The more stubborn weeds come up swiftly and smoothly using the adze, and the wheelbarrow fills. Juliet works until sweat drips from her brow and her gloves feel too hot and sticky. The adze is heavy with the clinging red earth.

Pulling the gloves off, she returns indoors, sighing in the comparative cool. She selects a tall, thin, hand-blown glass and fills it with chilled water from the fridge. The water and the cool revive her, and she continues to drink before rolling the cold glass across her forehead whilst she wanders to the bedroom. Here, unseen through the gauze curtains, she watches the men working at the back.

The grinning one is not grinning now; he is squatting and picking at little things which he puts in a rubble sack. The smaller one is pulling large items from the abundant bindweed and manhandling them around the corner towards the gate. He has found an old padded chair with wooden arms. He stops and looks at the house, up to the roof. Juliet tries to follow his gaze but he is looking beyond where she can see. He pulls the cushions off the chair and takes them around the corner. He returns and jumps on what remains of the chair and piles the pieces just the other side of the bedroom window.

He was looking to see if there is a chimney!

Juliet moves to pull the curtain aside and open the window to talk to the men but thinks better of revealing herself. She puts the glass of water down and returns through the kitchen to the back door.

“Yes, any wood you find, please pile it up by that window.”

“Oh yes madam, we will do a good job,” the Grinning One calls.

Juliet cannot bring herself to look at the grinning, squatting man, he reminds her of a toad with his wide mouth. His sycophantic ways are annoying, not pleasing. She returns indoors, back to her bedroom where she shuts the door, her sanctuary, to watch.

As the sun slides its way to its zenith, the Small One has cleared a bigger area than Juliet would have supposed possible in the time he has been working. The Grinning One is still sitting on his haunches, his rubble bag nearly full, a small area of ground before him pristine.

They talk, the language strange to her ears. She listens for the patterns and cadences which mingle with the heat. The Grinning One talks the most, the Small One answering occasionally. It reminds her that she has some translation work due. Still hot, she drinks some more water before she sets down the glass and returns to the papers in the sitting room, picking the soil from under her nails as she reads.

The murmur of the men ceases and nothing is heard except the scratching noises of their work floating through the back door, the occasional dog barking in the village and the goat bells, now far away. Juliet is lost in her translation, reading and writing. A couple of hours pass.

Thirst awakens Juliet from her work. Her glass needs retrieving from the bedroom. It is cooler in the bedroom, an older part of the house with thick walls of massive stones piled carefully together over a century ago. When she had first moved in, there had been an earthquake. Juliet ran on liquid legs to the gate, the pomegranate trees rustling, the ground quivering. But the house stood sure, unperturbed by nature’s power.

She can see the men still working. The Small One has taken his jumper off. Juliet is surprised it has taken him so long; she is wearing the lightest clothes she has. Retracing her steps to fill her glass in the kitchen, Juliet finds the cat curled up in her seat on the sofa. She picks it up by the scruff of the neck and takes it at arm’s length out of the back door.

She is tempted to drop it to see how easily it will land on all four feet but at the last moment puts it down gently and strokes its head before nudging it away from the door with her foot.

The Mess has definitely decreased in size. There are at least ten rubble sacks by the back wall, and the Small One is pulling up armfuls of bindweed to reveal what is hidden underneath. Juliet steps into the forceful heat of the mid-afternoon sun. Both men look up from their work. The Small One seems to be staring. Avoiding his gaze, Juliet begins to turn away.

“Please?”

Juliet pretends she hasn’t heard and takes a drink of water as she steps back indoors.