When the Moon Is Low(98)

“I have nowhere to go. I have no papers. My family do not want me. And if I leave, he find me.”

Saleem had no words of comfort or encouragement. He was thankful the darkness hid the expression on his face. She was a used girl, the kind of shame people could not speak of in polite company in Kabul.

He had only one question, which Mimi answered without his having to ask.

“I do not know why I tell you. You say you need help. But you are boy. You are free. You do not need help.”

Her assumptions angered Saleem. He wanted to hate her. Part of him did. He hated her for telling him things so horrible that his own troubles paled. He hated her for making him feel sorry for someone other than himself. He hated her for making him feel all the more helpless—useless to himself and useless to others.

Saleem took another sidelong glance at her. It was not hard to imagine that a family would turn her away. A girl who left her husband and then ran off with another boy, only to end up as a prostitute. In Afghanistan, she would have been put out of her misery long ago for the dishonor she had brought upon her family.

Saleem looked out the window. Out of the many, he watched one raindrop, followed it as it ran down the glass and disappeared into the night. He could not hate her. Despite her brusque tone and lurid exterior, she was just a girl. The best he could do was to say nothing.

“You do not have papers?” she asked.

“No.”

“Hm.”

Saleem toyed with his watch. He wondered if it was safe to be here with her, but it was raining harder now and he had no desire to seek other cover.

“Your watch . . . it is nice.”

Saleem stopped playing with the wristband and sat straight up in the seat. After a few moments, he heard his voice break the silence.

“This was my father’s watch.”

As he watched the hands count the seconds and minutes, Saleem told his story. He said it plainly and quickly. It was surprising how many days and years mattered not at all. His story, the heart of him, was really made up of only a handful of seconds or minutes. The rest was empty road, an expanse that only prolonged the travel from one point to another.

He told her about his father. He told her about leaving and Polat’s farm in Turkey. His voice softened when he talked about Madar-jan’s worries and Samira’s silence and Aziz’s broken heart. He talked about Attiki but left out Saboor and the stabbing, a moment he was still ill prepared to accept. He told her about Patras and Naeem’s mangled body.

“You are just a boy,” Mimi said finally. “Your family wait for you. You go to them.”

“But I can go to France?”

Mimi was thoughtful.

“Maybe I show you—but maybe is bad idea.”

“Tell me,” Saleem urged. Any idea could be a good idea.

“People go to France every day. Some people, they take a box and go to France. Easy work, only important police not catch you because take you to jail.”

“Only for taking a box? I can do this,” Saleem said hopefully.

“I do not know. I take you to man—he know. I ask him for you.”

He and Mimi made arrangements to meet again the following night. When the rain stopped, Mimi told him it was best if he left and found a place to sleep until morning. Saleem understood and walked into the night, grateful to have met Mimi, the girl-woman.





CHAPTER 48


Saleem


SALEEM SPENT THE DAY WANDERING THE STREETS OF ROME. HE watched tourists, cameras dangling from their craned necks. With glossy pamphlets in hand, they had a characteristic rhythm to their walk—stop, focus, shoot. A few steps more, then again—stop, focus, shoot.

He made a mental map to track his path. Cars honked and the sounds of a city drowned his morose thoughts.

Saleem rounded a corner and an earth-colored building loomed ahead, a relic rising above a crowded street. The lopsided building opened to the sky and looked oddly familiar to a boy who’d been in the country for only a day. He walked toward it, a flood of memories returning as he gawked at the structure.

He could not have been more than seven or eight years old, huddled with his family in the back living room of his aunt’s home. They were one of a few to own a video player and one of his cousins had borrowed an old copy of a kung fu movie from a friend. What was it called? Something about a dragon. This was the setting of one of the fight scenes, one that left Saleem chopping his fists into the air and flexing his spindly biceps for weeks.

He closed in on the Coliseum, his step quickened by nostalgia and curiosity. He followed the thick rope of people that circled the building. People were buying tickets to go inside. Saleem sat on a bench across the street. He could not afford to spend what he had on a ticket, nor could he bring himself to walk away. He could imagine those shirtless men, glistening sweat outlining their muscular forms—skillfully striking, ducking, and flying through the air.

Saleem thought of the truck drivers, the police officers, Saboor. His battles were nothing like those of the movie.

He wondered what Roksana was doing at that moment. Probably sitting in class, listening to the teacher with a skeptical ear. He went back to the day she’d taken him home. He pictured her leading him into the living room and talking over lunch. Her soft hand slipping his aunt’s address to him. The way her T-shirt narrowed at her waist.

His mind jumped to Mimi, a very different girl, if she could be called that. Her skin, her legs, her chest. It was more than he had ever before seen of a woman. A woman of innocence and shame. Beyond the smoky eye shadow settled into the creases, the smell of cigarette smoke on her clothes, and the tossed-about look on her face, Saleem could see a sweetness to her. He saw it in the way she pursed her lips or sat with her chin propped on her palm.