“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.”
CHAPTER 29
Saleem
SALEEM WOKE TO THE FEELING OF PINS AND NEEDLES IN HIS LEG. It took more than a moment for him to realize what he was feeling. He’d only been asleep an hour or two. He’d been too anxious to close his eyes for most of the night.
Roksana had told him about this playground, nestled in among the apartment buildings that housed the middle class of Athens. In the evenings, the area was serene. It was off the busy street and had no pedestrian traffic after the nearby shops closed. The Waziris tucked their bags out of sight behind the corner of a building, and Saleem pushed Samira on the swing until it was dark enough. The entire family climbed into a small wooden playhouse and huddled tightly. His mother had taken a wool blanket from the hotel before they’d left and used that to cover them as best she could.
Madar-jan sat with her head against the side of the playhouse. Her eyes were closed, but by her breathing Saleem could tell she was awake. She opened her eyes when she felt his leg brush against hers.
“Sorry, Madar-jan,” he whispered. “I did not mean to wake you.”
“Good morning, bachem,” she said. Indeed it was. The sky was just starting to lift from black to a midnight blue. “I hope you got some sleep.”
“I think I did.” A jarring pain shot through his neck as he turned his head. He rubbed the knotted muscle. Samira lay with her head on Madar-jan’s side. The bundle of layers that was Aziz lay in Madar-jan’s arms. It looked as if she had not moved since last night.
But she will not complain, Saleem thought. She leaned in closer to Saleem.
“Bachem, I’m going to step out before people start to rise and walk about. I’ll sit on one of the benches by the swings and leave you and Samira to sleep for a bit longer. Once I start to see people walking around, I’ll wake you as well.”
Saleem nodded. “I’ll come with you, Madar-jan.”