When the Moon Is Low

  Saleem looked close to tears. Roksana shifted her weight and looked away, uncomfortable.

  “I’ll see you around.” She gave his arm a light squeeze. “Be careful, Saleem.”

  SALEEM RETURNED TO THE SQUARE EXHAUSTED FROM HIS DAY AS A tourist. Abdullah had teased him when he returned. Despite having put on the same worn clothing, Saleem did look much refreshed from his shower.

  “Well, well, well, is this Saleem or some movie star? Is it your wedding day? How did you manage to get your hair so clean?” He ruffled Saleem’s hair for good measure. Saleem ducked and grinned.

  “I found a bottle of shampoo. Took it to one of the public rest-rooms and stuck my head in the sink. You should have seen the way people looked at me,” he fibbed.

  “I bet they did!”

  It was night. Most of the guys had tucked themselves into a corner to get some rest. Saleem, Abdullah, Hassan, and Jamal were in the same corner, having lined up their cardboard sheets. The need for security was balanced against the need for personal space. It was the unspoken code of the park. Saboor had been away from the park all day and seemed to have returned worn out. He was one of the first to retire to his spot under a tree.

  Good, Saleem thought. Just sleep and leave us alone.

  He dreamed of Roksana again. She was walking in a park with Madar-jan, Samira, and Aziz. Aziz was walking, his cheeks fat and pink, his bowlegs barely keeping up with the others. They were laughing, chatting. Samira bubbled with excitement, her hand in Roksana’s. Then Roksana turned to him, her eyes twinkling flirtatiously.

  And suddenly he was awake. It was pitch-black. Everything was invisible. His senses were on edge. He could smell something . . . was it sweat? Saleem concentrated on being perfectly still. He heard nothing and saw nothing.

  You’re imagining things, he told himself. Go back to sleep.

  Saleem closed his eyes again and willed himself to return to his dream. He had just started to drift off when he felt it. A hand on his thigh. Saleem jerked in fright. Another hand slapped against his mouth. Saleem grabbed the wrist with both hands, but the grip was firm and callused. Hot breath in his ear.

  “Be still, dear boy. Be still. Just relax and we can be good friends.” Saboor was fumbling for Saleem’s buckle. Saleem tried to wriggle out from under his grasp, but Saboor’s massive weight held him down. He could barely breathe.

  “Quiet or you’ll regret it.”

  No, no, no! Saleem tried to get the hand off his mouth and nose. His legs kicked but hit nothing. He clawed at the hand, but it was heavy and unmoving. No, no, no! His stomach turned to feel the hand reach into his waistband.

  Saleem reached behind him and fumbled for the handle that lay against the small of his back. He twisted left and right and finally felt it come out between his fingers. He could barely make out the silhouette above him, but he could feel the rancid breath on his face.

  He had the handle. In one swoop, he pulled out the knife and thrust it into the dark space above him. He heard a gasp and something push back against him. The hand on his mouth released, the one on his crotch retracted.

  “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!” Saleem yelled out.

  Saleem could see the shadow move, stumble, and fall backward. The others had woken.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Who’s yelling? Everybody all right?”

  “What’s going on?”

  Saleem was on his feet. His eyes adjusted, and he could make out Saboor’s outline as he limped away, holding his left side. Saleem felt someone grab his arm and jumped back.

  “Hey, hey, Saleem! It’s me, Abdullah! What happened?”

  What happened? Saleem was not sure. Was this real? What had he just done? He felt numb, dazed. He looked down and could now make out the blade, still in his tight grip.

  “Oh God. Oh my God. Oh God.” Saleem was crazed. “He was here! He was on me!”

  “Hey, it’s Saboor! Saboor has been hurt!” Voices called out in the darkness.

  “He’s bleeding!”

  “What happened to him? Who did this?”

  Abdullah was at Saleem’s side. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and flicked on a flame. The rusted blade glinted in Saleem’s hand. A drop fell from its tip.

  “Did you stab him?” he whispered in disbelief.

  “I . . . I . . . he was on me! His hands were . . .”

  The distant voices continued to call out. People were confused and panicked.

  “He’s hurt. Someone should do something!”

  Saleem’s fingers felt moist, sticky. He looked at his right hand.

  “Saleem, stop! Where are you going, Saleem! Wait!”

  Saleem’s feet pounded against the ground as he wove through small side streets and in and out of alleys. He stumbled and fell in the dark, tripping on loose stones. There was no mistaking the blood, now dried by the breeze, on his right hand. He could feel it. He could smell it, the metallic smell of life. Saleem remembered Intikal. He saw the bride’s brother, his clothes bloodied, his face twisted with pain.

  Saleem wished he could run into his mother’s arms, bury his face in her shoulder, and listen to her soothing voice tell him that he had done the right thing. He wished his father had been sleeping beside him, so that Saboor never would have dared to come near him. But Saleem was also thankful that neither of his parents was here at this moment, to see their son, a fugitive in the night, blood on his hands.

  CHAPTER 42

  Saleem

  SALEEM HELD THE ALUMINUM POT OVER THE MAKESHIFT STOVE, with its bricks laid out in a square, kindling burning within. The handle was hot and getting hotter. Flames licked the blackened bottom. Saleem wiggled his way closer to the fire. A chill in the air made his jacket feel especially thin.

  The water was starting to boil.

  “Is it ready yet?” Ali called out from inside.

  “Yes, just now.” Ali came outside and looked inside the pot. He opened a tea bag and carefully let half its contents tumble into the pot.

  “Take it off the flame now. I’ll get the bread so we can have our breakfast. It looks like it might rain later today. What do you think?”

  Saleem slipped his sleeve over his hand and used the cuff to grip the handle. He ignored Ali’s last comment. Ali had said the same thing every day for the last two weeks, no matter what the appearance of the sky. Saleem hadn’t noticed on the first day, but on the second, when they were inside listening to raindrops pelt against the plastic tarp overhead, Ali again predicted that it would rain later in the day. Saleem thought he was joking but turned to see Ali’s face looking grim and pensive.

  Ali had to be close to Saleem’s age, but he was much shorter. Saleem had spotted him when he found the Afghan camps in Patras and was drawn to him specifically because he seemed young and unthreatening. He was Hazara, a different ethnicity than Saleem. Had they been in Kabul, this would have mattered a great deal. In the refugee camp of Patras, where the men all ate and slept in the same squalor, it mattered very little.

  The refugee camp in Patras was very different from Attiki Square. Attiki was a forsaken corner of a city, bordered by buildings and within meters of a normalcy. Patras was a shantytown—better in some ways and worse in others. Instead of cardboard sheets, thin blankets and shopping carts there were actual walls and roofs. One man had even opened a barbershop of sorts, having found a stool and some scissors. Thick tarps functioned as roofs for those who had not found sturdier materials. And the hundreds of people who lived here, mostly Afghans but some wandering Roma and Africans as well, made small stoves from stones and bricks to cook simple meals. The housing was better, but it was bigger and attracted more attention from the surrounding neighborhood. It was a blemish in their city, a place where vagrants huddled in desperate filth. Greeks didn’t know what to do with Patras—raze it to the ground or make it better because it was inevitable that the refugees would just come back.

  Patras was supposed to be a transit point. Even before the A
fghans, others refugees had come there en route to Italy and the rest of Europe. There was a long tradition of finding ways of sneaking across to Italy, either on trucks or cargo ships. Saleem had become one more person in that shared history.

  He was a more seasoned traveler by the time he arrived in Patras. He’d been there for months now, probably having passed a birthday at some point but it was hard to know and even harder to care. The days and weeks had blurred in his travels.

  I need to get out of Patras, Saleem thought as he watched the tea steep, the amber leaching from the leaves and into the hot water.

  His mind shifted back to Attiki, as it often did during the day and even more inescapably in the nights. He thought of his last night there, Saboor’s heavy hand over his mouth, Abdullah’s astonishment to see the blade, and the way he’d run through the night to get as far away as possible. Saleem had washed the blood off his trembling hands and cowered in an alley until daylight. He had not said good-bye to anyone, not even Roksana. He hadn’t bothered to go back for his knapsack, since it held nothing more than a few extra clothes. He had boarded the first bus he could find to Patras, where it had not been difficult to locate the refugee settlement.

  He wondered if Saboor was alive. It was not that he would have regretted killing him, but it mattered because it changed the definition of Saleem. Flesh wound or fatal wound—it would remain a mystery. Though he was far from Afghanistan, the war and bloodshed followed him still. Refugees didn’t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they’d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day.

  Saleem’s nights were tortured. He woke often and saw figures in the shadows. He was returned to his childhood, that time when the brain has matured enough to shape creatures and dangers from the dark. He was increasingly restless and felt his personality changing. People irritated him or scared him. There was little else they could do.

  “Did you see Wahid’s leg?” Ali asked. “They stitched him up like a rice sack! He’s been limping around telling everyone it didn’t hurt, but I heard he cried like a baby when they did it.”

  “Yes, I saw it.”

  Wahid had been chased away from one of the trucks headed into Italy, and the metal fence he had scaled had torn into his shin. He’d been cared for by a paramedic from a humanitarian organization that had set up post near the camp. Wahid’s injury was not unique.

  “Do you not know what today is?” Ali asked. “It is Da-Muharram. I’ve been keeping this sugar and rice for today. I’ll make sheerbrinj tonight and we’ll pray.”

  Da-Muharram was the anniversary of the day that the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson was martyred in battle. Ali’s family followed Afghan tradition and marked the day with sheerbrinj, or rice pudding, distributing food to the poor, and prayers.

  “Today? Really?” More interesting than the holiday was the promise of sheerbrinj. Saleem’s mouth watered, recalling how the creamy sweetness of Madar-jan’s rice pudding, topped with ground pistachios, would melt in his mouth. “You know how to make it?”

  Indeed, Ali knew very well how to make rice pudding. They shared the sheerbrinj that night with three other young men who lived in the adjacent shelter. Huddled inside, they laughed and teased one another, taking a few moments to bow their heads in prayer. No one got more than a few spoonfuls but it was enough to sweeten their mouths.

  “You know what they say,” Ali joked. “Even the oldest sandals are a blessing in the desert.”

  Other than that holiday, Saleem kept to himself. He had little interest in making friends here. He kept quiet and listened. Everyone in the camp had a story, but Saleem was in no mood to share his. Nomads had no business forging relationships, he told himself.

  Patras reminded Saleem of Izmir. It was on the shores of Greece, an exit point, and offered the same treacherous passages to the next body of land. Saleem had made a few attempts at sneaking onto trucks but failed miserably and only narrowly escaped getting caught. He watched the other stragglers and tried to learn from their failures.

  All the while, he kept his two safeguards on his body—his money and his dagger. He was careful not to let anyone see a shadow of either and kept them within reach even while he bathed in the makeshift shower area. He eyed everyone with suspicion. He needed the shelter that this camp provided, and unassuming Ali was the best roommate for him under the circumstances. Ali liked to talk and seldom asked questions. It was a fitting arrangement.

  Saleem was eager to leave before anything happened. Even the Greek medical staff had been targeted in the growing conflict for being vocal in their criticisms of the government. The refugees were on edge. Police were increasingly present and stopped them more often to ask for documentation.

  Each day was a repeat of the one before. Saleem woke and felt for his money and knife. He would scout the transit points and try to find an opening to get to Italy.

  IT WAS MORNING AGAIN. SALEEM HEARD ALI WALK OUTSIDE AND relieve himself behind their room. He came back in grinning.

  “You’re awake! Good morning to you. I had such a good dream last night. We were walking, me and you, in these streets with big buildings, like the ones in the movies. There were people all around dressed in such fancy clothes and driving such fancy cars. We asked someone what country it was and guess what they said—America! Can you imagine that? I guess if you walk far enough, you will eventually hit America, eh?” Ali chuckled.

  “Forget about America,” Saleem grumbled, his eyes still heavy with sleep. “We’re having a hard enough time getting to Italy.”

  “That is true,” Ali laughed. “Today does not look like a good day for a long walk anyway. It looks like it is going to rain today.” He opened the door again, stuck his head out, and looked at a brilliant, blue sky.

  Saleem had no interest in being contrary this early in the morning. He hurriedly washed up with the water that had chilled in the brisk night air. The camp was a dilapidated neighborhood of single-room homes, one up against another. Clotheslines were strung from home to home like cobwebs. There was no real supply of water or electricity, but a few refugees had snaked a pipeline from the nearby apartment buildings. One water pump served the entire settlement with an inconsistency the refugees cheerfully accepted.

  Saleem returned to the port and the familiar dance of trucks, ships, and passengers. He watched a few men make a run for it, scaling black metal fences and nearing the trucks cautiously. They inspected undercarriages and looked for footholds, jostling handles to see if they could climb into trailers.

  Saleem looked around, watching the activity from a few meters away. There were three trucks lined up and not a driver in sight. His feet itched to give it a try.

  He scanned the area again while the potential of the moment made his heart quicken and his tongue dry. He darted across the street and climbed onto the fence, swinging his leg over and jumping to the ground on the other side. He jogged to the unattended trucks. A few of the guys from the camp were there, pondering the best way to get on a truck.

  One boy tried to pry at the lock on one trailer. Two others had already slipped under to check out the chassis. Saleem watched their feet dangle on the ground as they readied themselves for the short drive onto the cargo ship.

  He ducked his head down to see what they were grabbing. He saw a boy close to his own age, judging by his facial hair. The boy’s face was red as he strained to keep his entire body off the ground. He caught Saleem peering.

  “Go, brother! There is only room for one person here!”

  Saleem nodded in understanding. He looked around for another truck, another mousehole to crawl through, but saw none. Disappointed, he and four others jogged back to the fence to regroup.

  “Police! Police! Run, boys!” a panicked voice yelled out.

  Saleem turned around. A police car was coming down the road. They picked up their pace and climbed over the fence as quickly as they could. The car pulled up a few yards away and the doors sw
ung open. Two officers sauntered out.

  Saleem jumped over with the others, his ankle stinging from the impact. He scrambled to his feet and ran, breaking off in a different direction from the others. Everyone scattered. The police picked two of the boys to halfheartedly chase for a few meters, enough to make a point. Saleem cut a sharp turn to duck behind some trash bins alongside an apartment building. He panted, his chest burning.

  When ten minutes had passed, he walked back to the camp. Ali was sitting outside the room with four other men. They had overturned buckets and plywood crates for chairs.

  “Where’ve you been, Saleem?” Ali called out.

  “Went to the port,” Saleem replied, taking a seat with the others. They were not surprised. There was nowhere else for them to go in Patras, especially with the rising hostilities.

  “No luck, eh?” Saleem had met these guys before but he could not remember their names. Was this Fareed? Or Faizal?

  “No. The police came and chased us away.”

  Haris shook his head. He was in his thirties, a veritable elder in this community of juveniles. His perspective was a little different from that of the others.

  “Can you blame them? Have you looked at this camp? People don’t want to look out their windows and see this.”

  There was silence. Haris was right, but it felt better to be angry. Resentment was a unifying sentiment among the refugees. It felt good to sit around and agree, to have a common enemy and a shared struggle. It felt good to be understood. Haris’s rationality would not give them the charge they needed to keep going.

  Ali looked at the sky. “It does look like it is going to rain today.”

  “For God’s sake, what is it with you and the rain!” Saleem exploded with the force of an agitated bottle of cola. The talk about the camps and running from the port this morning had riled him and he unleashed it all on Ali in that moment. “Always, every single day!”

  There was a pause. Saleem’s outburst had surprised the others. Ali’s face froze, then turned red and splotchy. Saleem regretted his words immediately, but it was too late. He looked down, ashamed and unable to face Ali.