“It is bad enough to be trapped here, but to be trapped here with him . . . God have mercy on us. I’ll warn Hassan and Jamal at least. If you start telling everyone, you never know what that animal will do. We’ve got to watch out for ourselves, Saleem, and for each other. That’s the only way to survive in a place like this.”
Saleem nodded. He needed a way to protect himself. Now, he realized, he was truly on his own and defenseless. In the months before he’d disappeared, Padar-jan had taken to sleeping with a knife under his mattress. He thought the children didn’t know, but Saleem had seen it and wondered what Padar-jan was afraid of so he could fear it too. But, with the privilege of childhood, Saleem could close his eyes and feel reassured that his father would defend them from whatever it might be. Maybe that was the moment a child became an adult, he thought—the moment your welfare was no longer someone else’s responsibility.
He had to watch out for himself now, as Abdullah said.
He would get a knife, just like Padar-jan. He would find something heavy and deadly, not a trinket.
He could have slept, but he walked instead. He worked his way through the market shops, browsing from windows and wandering into a few stores that looked promising. He found a few kitchen knives, an antique dagger with a decorated metal sheath, and a pocketknife bearing the Greek flag. None of these would do.
In a tiny shop set off in an alley, he found precisely what he was looking for. The shop window was a dense display of goods, heralding the mess inside: a sewing machine, a stool, a stack of books, kitchen utensils, children’s clothing, a pair of work boots, and an old globe. Saleem walked in, a door chime signaling his entrance. Somewhere in this pile of items had to be a reasonable blade. He was right. The shop owner was an older man with wire-framed glasses. He had a miniature screwdriver in his hand and was probing the insides of an antique clock whose pieces had been dissected out and spread on the glass countertop. A row of antique clocks sat behind him in various stages of disrepair. Saleem gave him a nod and began to weave his way through the three narrow aisles.
Bowls on top of pillows, a thermos surrounded by old cassettes, used reading glasses next to a box of lightbulbs—there was no rhyme or reason to this store. Saleem’s eyes scanned until they landed on the bottom shelf. Buried beneath a stack of table runners was a bronze handle. Saleem pulled it out and saw that the handle inserted into a decorated, bronze sheath. He slid the nicked cover off and found a six-inch blade singed with rust. It was old but more beautiful than any knife Saleem had ever before seen.
This was exactly what he wanted. Saleem touched the blade lightly. It felt bold and intimidating against his palm. The tip was still sharp enough to prick the pad of his finger when he pushed against it. He slid the knife back into the sheath and held it up to his waist. It would fit inside his jeans, heavy but he could secure it. Saleem walked it back up to the front, where the man was still fiddling with the clock’s gears.
“I want to buy please. How much?”
The old man looked up, his lenses nearly falling off the tip of his nose. He looked at the dagger and then at Saleem.
“Twenty euro,” he said and returned to his tinkering. Saleem shifted his weight and considered how much he was willing to pay.
“Mister, I give you ten euro. No problem.”
“Twenty euro.”
“Mister, please. Ten euro.” The man looked up again to get a better look at Saleem. He took his glasses off and laid them on the table.
“Eighteen.”
Saleem paused. He thought back to last night and the hand on his knee.
“Fifteen euro, please,” he offered. The man nodded. He held out his palm as Saleem counted out bills. He tucked the handle into the waist of his pants. Just as he was walking out the door, he paused.
“Mister, you fix the clocks?”
“Mm-hmm.” The shop owner had already gone back to work and didn’t bother to look up.
“You . . . you can check my watch?”