Sara Alexi - The Illegal Gardener

When Mahmout had come from the back of the house the previous day, his face was angry. He spoke some words Aaman didn’t like to hear. Mahmout believed he had ingratiated himself and worked hard enough to deserve work the following day. Aaman didn’t see life in those terms. In his world, no one deserved anything. Life was a privilege and what came your way a blessing. Mahmout had become Western in his thinking. Aaman didn’t seek his company.

He stands for a moment by the gate. It is already warm. A bird sings from the garden. The wind machines were not switched on the night before, and he feels rested, his shoulders limp, his limbs gangly. He also feels an ease that, with his pay from the day before, he has secured his bed for the week at the mud brick barn. He has faith that his work with this lady will also last a day or two at the least. He has hope. He can hear many birds singing now. The cat is at his feet and he bends to stroke it. It purrs before it jumps through the gate towards the approaching lady.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, ma’am.”

“Please do not call me ma’am. I am not the Queen. Call me Juliet.” The cat winds around her legs as she opens the gate.

Aaman immediately takes off his jacket and leaves the lady to begin work. The lady, Juliet, returns indoors.

He works for a while and, as his activities and the sun begin to make him hot, he senses movement by the house and turns to see the lady putting a bottle of water and an iced coffee on the windowsill. He continues his labour until she is gone.

It is not buffalo milk coffee, but it is good. A slight breeze lifts his flopping fringe. It is more peaceful without Mahmout’s constant talk. The ground is beginning to take shape. He decides which piece to clear next. He wonders if he should clear each area more thoroughly as he goes or move all the big debris first and then clear the whole area more exhaustively. A lizard darts.

A rumbling from across the valley catches his attention. He has heard the same rumble in Pakistan. The sky is dark grey in the distance, the wispy clouds in the blue overhead tell him the wind direction will bring the grey towards him. It will rain within the hour.

The rain comes in teasing, intermittent, warm dips. A deep grumble directly overhead causes the clouds to heave. The ground responds with a breath of ozone before the sky unloads its weight in a torrential sudden roar.

Aaman runs for the back doorstep to stand, looking out at his work, the covering growth bowing under the weight of the downpour. The light green has turned to deep emerald, the darker hollow to black. There is a whiteness to the light, like moonlight.

“Come in, you will get soaked.”

They stand in the kitchen. Juliet looks out at the rain. Aaman looks round the kitchen.

“Inside needs work too?”

“Yes, I need a woman to come and help me clean and organise. Do you have a wife here who could come?”

“Not here.” Aaman does not wish talk to this lady about his wife. Saabira is back in Pakistan, waiting. He was nineteen when he married her. They had met twice before her hands were hennaed and she entered maayun . She had been so timid, like a trembling jasmine. The thirteen years since passed with many sorrows, but Aaman feels proud of his relationship with his wife. He has been gentle, conscientious. He waited for her to come to him. Now she adores him; she treats him like a prince. It is her belief in him that has brought him to these foreign lands.

“For inside work I will do it, I do woman’s work.” Aaman’s frown is sudden and deep, he drops his head, his hands twisting on themselves, the tension grows visible across his shoulders. He is not proud of his words. The rain is increasing its pace, cool air blows in from the open back door. Looking up, he is surprised when his eyes meet hers. He has not stood this close to her before, nor looked her so boldly in the eye. Saabira was the same height as him; he was a man at home. He feels himself grow, empowered, as he meets his employer’s eyes on the same level as his own. A man not a child.

“Would you really want to do inside work?”

“Ma’am, Juliet, I am your house boy.”

Her lower lip raises into her upper lip, between her eyes creases; she pushes her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, lowering her gaze to the floor.

“Oookay…” She drawls the letters out slowly and looks back up. Aaman wonders if he has chosen the right title for the job he is trying to secure. He searches his memory for another English phrase to express himself. He feels much gratitude toward Saabira who taught him the English he knows, but feels much frustration in drawing all he learnt to the surface. He decides to take a risk by constructing a sentence of which he is not sure, such little practice.

“I am your man, all jobs for the house.” He meets her gaze, level with his own. By the look in her eyes, he feels sure he has used the right words. He pushes his shoulders back to breathe in the cool moist air filtering through the house. The rain continues to pound. He looks past her and sees the cat sitting on the sofa in an indentation beside some fluttering papers.

Juliet follows his gaze.

“Off.” She darts across the room, shooing the cat. Aaman steps forward and picks the cat up, takes it to the front door, puts it down gently and closes the door. He feels disquieted as Juliet steps away as if the door is no longer her own. She looks away from him; Aaman shifts uncomfortably. He feels unwelcome, but she says she wants to put the house in order.

“The kitchen. Mice. I bought the place just as it stood.” She leads the way and opens a cupboard door. Old plates and cups are stacked in dust and mouse droppings. She begins to take things out and put them in the sink. Aaman sees the work to be done and gently eases his way between her and the cupboard and takes over the job. She begins in another cupboard, but Aaman quickly realises that if she helps, she will take his work. Also, she will get in the way. She stands with some pots; he moves to her and takes them from her, looking her in the eye, unblinking. He is aware that such eye contact is challenging but he needs the work to last, he needs her to need him. She stares back for a moment, shifts her weight, tightens her lips and retreats to the sofa. Aaman feels ashamed of his behaviour. He fears he is becoming like Mahmout.

He cleans each cupboard and the contents. The floor now has dust and mouse droppings on it. Aaman is aware that she is watching from the sofa. Saabira would have found other work around the house. She did not sit during the day. He finds a broom and sweeps then mops. Saabira swept the house many times a day, and kept it very clean. She took the work from his mother when they returned to live with them just as he had tried to relieve some of the work from his father in the fields.

But the village was dying. The young no longer wanted to work the land. Everyone in the village had a son, even a daughter in the city working. With their help gone, the family needed to employ labour when harvest time came. The children in the cities sent money home to help. Saabira felt that this was not the answer; she saw this was a trap. The more people who left the village, the more people the village needed to employ at harvest time. The price of the labour was so high, it needed to be subsidised by the children working in the cities to make the whole system, how had she put it, “economically viable.” She saw it as a cycle that would only make them unhappy because families were forced to be apart.

It was Saabira who first said they needed a harvesting machine. Aaman had suggested it at the chopal one evening. It was discussed by the village. The discussion went on for weeks. A new machine could never be bought. They were many, many thousands of rupees, but there was a big trade for secondhand machines. Someone said a New Holland was the best. The useful working life of these secondhand machines had expired, which is why the cost was so cheap to the importers. The importers then sold them to the farmers. The farmers sold them on to other farmers when they could afford better. It was possible to buy one collectively.