Nadia Hashimi - When the Moon Is Low

“Most people do not understand our system. How did you get here?”

Saleem did not want to answer. He twisted the cap back on the bottle of water and shrugged his shoulders cheerfully. His playful elusiveness made Roksana laugh.

“Tell me what happens here,” Saleem said instead.

“Yes, yes. Okay, forget the question. This is what happens to most people who come here. They are arrested and the police take them to detention centers. They should be clean and safe places for people to stay, but there are too many people. There is no room. People say it is like a prison, even for children. They say it is worse than the place they came from. Sometimes they stay there for months.

“One day, the doors open and they get some papers. The papers say you have one month to leave Greece. Some people even get a ticket to Athens so they can leave from there.”

“But asylum? There is no asylum?” Saleem was once again grateful for the false passports and the good fortune they’d had not to be stopped in Piraeus. They’d breezed through checkpoints without a second glance. According to what Roksana was telling him, their story was an exception.

“There is no real asylum. You must have work to get asylum. How can people find work?” She waved in the direction of the park. “First, you need a work permit. And for a work permit, you must apply for asylum. You see the problem?”

“Why are your friends here talking to refugees and writing these papers?”

“We volunteer. We want to be here. No one is giving us money to come. We come because we want to help.”

Saleem looked at Roksana and wondered what kind of person he would be if he were in her shoes. He tried to picture himself as a high school student in a peaceful Kabul, coming home to his mother and father. Would he take up the cause of strangers? Would he care enough about how people were being treated that he would spend his time handing out food and filling out applications on their behalf?

He hoped he would. But it was very possible he wouldn’t.

Just picturing himself in that utopian snapshot was painful, though. It was possible he would never be restored to the person he once was, the person who’d been able to laugh and dream and call a place home. It was possible that person, like his father, lay in an unmarked grave somewhere in Afghanistan.

ON THEIR SECOND ENCOUNTER, A DAY AFTER SALEEM’S FAMILY left their room in the Attica Dream, Roksana was more direct.

“ Ela, you want to apply for asylum or no?” Roksana was in no mood to mince words today. They sat on the concrete steps leading to the park. He wanted to ask her if she knew of a place his family could stay. Tonight would be their first night on the streets.

“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.”