Sixteen days and still no passport in the mail. Saleem was having trouble sleeping. Hakan had tried calling the hotel again, but the owner said the family had left long ago. Saleem could only hope that meant that they’d boarded the train successfully and possibly with Roksana’s help. Maybe they’d even made it to England by now, though he wasn’t sure Madar-jan had a plan for getting from Italy to England.
The passport was a whole other matter. Saleem had no way of knowing if the documents had been mailed or if they’d made an error with the address. Maybe they’d been confiscated by the postal system. He would wait. That precious booklet with his grim-faced photograph and invented birthday was the only way he could avoid the death traps the Attiki boys spoke of. He remembered the dark figures who had transported them across the border into Iran. He’d heard the man push his mother for more money, and he’d heard worse stories from others. The underground world was one without laws or codes or safety nets. Some people were transported successfully. Others never made it. No one knew what really happened in the shadowy world of smuggling beyond the few stories that bubbled to the surface.
ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON, EKIN SAUNTERED BEHIND THE HOUSE where Saleem was tilling the soil for a new crop and wondering what he would do if the passport didn’t arrive by the end of the week.
“I bet the water runs black when you bathe,” she said with a grin.
Saleem kept his head down and dug the hoe heavily into the dirt. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t laughed.
“You do not speak much. I don’t know why you are so quiet. Did you work on a farm where you came from? I’ve lived on this farm all my life, but I bet you’ve picked more tomatoes in a day than I have in a lifetime.”
Saleem, in a different state of mind, might have been able to realize that she meant some of what she said as flattery. To him, she was as soothing as sandpaper.
Ekin was wearing a calf-length pleated skirt and a blouse. She leaned against the rail of the fence and began to play with the cuff of her socks, pulling one up to her knee and then the other. Saleem thought of Roksana. The two girls were so different.
“Does your mother work too?”
“No.”
“What about your father?” She was bullish. Saleem’s fingers clutched at the handle of the hoe tightly enough that he made himself nervous. He shook his head.
“I have work.” His words were stretched taut and ready to pounce. Ekin paid no attention.
“I know. You are a good worker and that’s why Baba took you back. He said at least you’re not like the others.” Ekin pursed her lips. “I’ve heard some of the immigrants bring drugs with them. Baba says that’s what makes so many people lazy and slow.”
“Ekin, leave me alone! I am working!” he thundered. He could not bear a single sentence more from her. Ekin’s jaw dropped.
“You yell at me?” She sounded stunned.
“You don’t know anything about my family or why I have to work here on this farm. I’m tired of listening to you!”
“I know more than you do!” she cried defensively. “You don’t know how to talk to someone who’s trying to be nice to you. You only know about tomatoes and animal shit! At least I go to school and don’t stink everywhere I go! Maybe you should learn about a few things before you start screaming!”
“You know so much? You know nothing! I went to school too, but schools close when rockets fire on our homes. We leave and come to this country and here I work for almost no money. I work to be with my family . . . to have food for my family. You know how it is to be alone? No one to help you?” Saleem’s voice faltered. He still had the hoe in his hand and was working it into the soil with a concentrated fury. He’d nearly forgotten Ekin was there, making her mostly unimportant.
“I do not know where my family is,” Saleem said in a melancholy whisper. “Your baba thinks he gives too much money but I work many days for nothing. I work here again because I have no choice.”
Ekin was quiet. Finally.