In the Sea There are Crocodiles (4 page)

About what?

I can’t give you work here and pay you, pay you in money, I mean. There are too many of you. I can’t give work to everyone. But you’re a well-brought-up boy. So you can stay here, if you like, and eat and sleep here, until you find a place where you can really work, work and earn money and everything. But until that happens, you’ll have to work hard for me from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep at night, whatever I ask you to do. Do you understand?

I smiled with all the teeth I could find in my mouth. May you live as long as a tree,
kaka
Rahim.

Khoda kana
, he said.

But even though I was happy, happy and relieved, I can’t pretend that everything was fine right from the start. I can’t not mention that my first day working at the
samavat
Qgazi in Quetta was hell. Firstly, they immediately gave me lots of things to do. Secondly, when they asked me to do those things they didn’t explain how to do them, as if I already knew everything, when in fact I didn’t know anything, especially not how to do the kind of things they asked me to do. Thirdly, I didn’t know anyone. Fourthly, I couldn’t chat or joke with people I didn’t know because I was afraid that the jokes would be misunderstood since I spoke their language very badly. Fifthly, there seemed to be no end to it. I wondered what had happened to the moon, because I didn’t see it rise. I wondered if in Quetta the moon only came out from time to time, when the bosses wanted it to, in order to make people work longer hours.

By the time I went to sleep at the end of the day, I was much more than
khasta kofta
. I was feed for the hens.

I sat down on the mattress before stretching out to sleep and realized how ugly the
samavat
was: the flaking walls, the smell, the dust everywhere and, in the dust, the
lice. I compared it with my house, but only for a moment, because the thought was too depressing. My instinct told me I had to forget my house. That my mother had left me here for a reason. So I waved the thought away with my hands, the way a great friend of mine, in Nava, who liked to smoke plant roots in secret, used to wave away the smoke to stop the smell clinging to his clothes.

Enaiat, Enaiat, come here, quick …

What is it?

Get the bucket, Enaiat. The sewer in the street is clogged up again. Bucket, rags and sticks.

What are the sticks for,
kaka
Rahim?

Bucket, rags and sticks, Enaiat. Run.

I’m running.

Enaiat, I need help.

I can’t,
kaka
Zaman. The sewer is blocked, and the sewage is coming in through the door.

Again?

Again.

Lanat ba shaiton
. We’re always walking in shit. But the kitchen has to keep going and we’re out of onions and watermelons. You have to go to the market and get them, Enaiat
jan
. As soon as you can. What’s that smell?

Can you smell it,
kaka
Zaman?

What do you mean, can I smell it? It’s terrible.

It’s the smell of the sewage, it’s coming in here.

Run, Enaiat. Rahim
agha
will be waiting for you, holding his nose.

Enaiat, where are you?

Here I am,
kaka
Rahim. Bucket and rags.

Not the new rags, stupid. The ones hanging in the yard.

I’m running,
kaka
Rahim.

Enaiat, what’s happening?

The sewer, Laleh. The sewage is coming into the
samavat
.

So that’s what the stink is.

I’m sorry, but I have to go and get the rags.

Come and see me after that, Enaiat, I have to ask you something.

Enaiat …

Yes, I’m coming,
kaka
Rahim.

I ran to get the old rags, which were hanging on a line at the far end of the yard, and the sticks. We used the rags to stop up the gap under the door, but I had no idea what the long wooden sticks were used for. I found out when
kaka
Rahim ordered me to wade into the sewage and help him push away all the stuff that had blocked the sewer. I refused, because there are certain things I’m not prepared to do. He started yelling at me, saying that if he, a grownup in charge of an important
samavat
like the
samavat
Qgazi, could do it, then so could I, a small child who was only there thanks to him. Yes, I replied, I was small, so small, in fact, that there were pieces of rubbish floating in the sewage that were bigger than me. In the end, other men came and helped
kaka
Rahim. But for the next few days I avoided him.

Those of us who worked in the kitchen had a room to ourselves. There were five of us, and among the five there was an elderly man I liked immediately. His name was Zaman. He was kind and gave me good advice about how not to get myself killed and how to do my work in such a way that I’d keep
kaka
Rahim happy.

In the
samavat
there were single rooms for those who had more money, big rooms for families with children, which was where I’d stayed with Mother, and the men’s dormitory. I never went into the single rooms, not even later. Other people cleaned them. People came in and out constantly, speaking languages I couldn’t understand. There was always smoke and noise. But I wasn’t interested in all that coming and going and kept myself out of trouble.

When they saw that I wasn’t someone who made a mess of things—not all the time, anyway—I started taking
chay
to the shops. The first few times I was scared of
making a mistake or being swindled, but then I learned, and it became the best thing that could have happened to me. There was one place in particular that I liked: a shop that sold sandals, where every morning, about ten, I took
shir chay
, tea with milk, with
naan tandoori
made specially for
osta sahib
, the owner. The shop was close to a school.

I would go in, put the tray on the little table, greet
osta sahib
as
kaka
Rahim had taught me to, and take the money, counting it quickly, without making it too obvious that I was checking every coin, so
osta sahib
wouldn’t think that I didn’t trust him (it was
kaka
Rahim who had trained me to do that). Then I’d say goodbye, leave the shop and instead of going straight back to the
samavat
, I’d walk around the block until I came to the wall outside the school yard and wait for break time.

I liked it when the bell rang and the doors were flung open and the children came out into the yard, yelling and starting to play. As they played, I would imagine myself yelling and playing and calling out to my Nava friends. In my head I would call to them by their names, and kick the ball, and argue that someone had cheated in our battle to break each other’s kite strings, or that it wasn’t fair if I had to stay out of the
buzul-bazi
tournament for too long, just because the bone I needed was still boiling
in the pot and I’d lost the old one. I walked slowly on purpose, so that I could spend more time listening to the children. I reasoned that if
kaka
Rahim saw me walking, he would probably not be as angry as if he saw me standing still.

Some mornings I was early taking the
chay
to the shop, and I would see the schoolchildren going in, all neat and clean and well combed, and I would feel bad and turn my head away. I couldn’t look at them. But afterward, at break time, I liked hearing them.

You know, Enaiat, I’d never thought about that
.

About what?

About the fact that hearing something is very different from looking at it. It’s less painful. That’s it, isn’t it? You can use your imagination, and transform reality
.

Yes. Or at least that’s how it was for me
.

I write in a room with a balcony that overlooks a primary school. Sometimes, I take a coffee break about four, and I stop and watch the parents coming to pick up their children. I watch the children coming out into the playground when the bell rings, and lining up just inside the gates, and getting up on tiptoe to peer into the crowd of adults, trying to see their parents, and the parents waving their arms when they spot them and opening their eyes and mouths wide and
puffing out their chests. Everything holds its breath at that moment, even the trees and the buildings. The whole city holds its breath. Then all the questions start—how was their day, what homework do they have, how was the swimming lesson—and the mothers doing up the zips of their children’s jackets to protect them from the cold and pulling their hats down over their foreheads and ears. Then everyone bundles into their cars and off they go
.

Yes, I used to see them like that sometimes, too
.

Can you look at them now, Enaiat?

Clothes. I had two
pirhan
. Whenever I washed one, I would wear the other and hang the wet one up to dry. Once it was dried, I would put it in a cloth bag in the corner, next to my mattress. And every evening I would check it was still there.

As the days, weeks and months passed,
kaka
Rahim realized that I was good (and again I’m not boasting), that I was good at delivering the
chay
, that I didn’t drop the glasses or the terra-cotta sugar bowl, that I didn’t do anything stupid like forgetting the tray in the shop, and, above all, that I always brought back all the money. And even a little more.

Because some of the shopkeepers I went to regularly, every morning about ten, and then again in the afternoon
about three or four, were kind to me and gave me tips, which I could have kept for myself, but at the time I didn’t know if it was right, so I handed them over to
kaka
Rahim. Not that there was much I could have done with the money. It was better that way, I think. If I’d made a mistake in counting and taken more as a tip than I should have done,
kaka
Rahim might have stopped trusting me, and I didn’t want to lose a place where I could sleep and clean my teeth.

But on a day full of wind and sand, one of these shopkeepers, the
osta sahib
who sold shoes, a
sandal
or
chaplai
in my language, and who liked me, motioned me to sit down with him for a moment and have a little
chay
myself, which I wasn’t at all sure I should do, but seeing that he was the one who asked me, I thought it would be impolite to refuse. I sat down on a rug on the floor, with my legs crossed.

How old are you, Enaiat?

I don’t know.

More or less.

Ten.

You’ve been working at the
samavat
for some time now, haven’t you, Enaiat?

Nearly six months,
osta sahib
.

Six months. He looked up at the sky, thinking.
Nobody’s ever stayed that long with Rahim, he said. That means he’s pleased.

Kaka
Rahim never says he’s pleased with me.

Affarin
, he said. If he doesn’t complain, Enaiat, that means he’s very pleased.

I believe you,
osta sahib
.

Now I’m going to ask you a question. And you have to tell me the truth. All right?

I nodded.

Are you pleased with your work at the
samavat
?

Am I pleased that
kaka
Rahim gave me work? Of course I’m pleased.

He shook his head. No, I didn’t ask if you’re pleased that Rahim gave you work. Of course you are. Thanks to him you have a bed, something to eat in the evening, a cup of yogurt for lunch. I asked if you like the work. If you’ve ever thought of changing.

To do different work?

Yes.

What kind of work?

Selling, for example.

Selling what?

Whatever you want.

Like those boys with their wooden boxes down in the bazaar,
osta sahib
? Like them?

Like them.

I thought of it, yes. The first day. But I didn’t know the language well enough. I could do it now, but I wouldn’t be able to buy the merchandise.

Haven’t you put any money aside?

What money?

The money Rahim pays you for your work at the
samavat
. Do you send it home or do you spend it?

Osta sahib
, I don’t get any money for my work at the
samavat
. Just the chance to live there.

Really?

May I be struck dead.

That skinflint Rahim doesn’t even pay you half a rupee?

No.

Lanat ba shaiton
. Listen, I’m going to make you a proposition. At the
samavat
, you’re paid with food and a place to sleep, nothing else, but if you work for me, I’ll give you money. I’ll buy you the merchandise, you sell it and then we share the profit. If you make twenty rupees, I take fifteen and you take five. Your money. What do you say? You’ll be able to do what you like with it.

But
kaka
Rahim won’t let me sleep at the
samavat
anymore.

That’s not a problem. There are plenty of places in the city where you can sleep.

Really?

Really.

I was silent for a while, then I asked
osta sahib
if I could stand up and take a walk around the block, to think it over. It was break time, and maybe the children’s cries would help me find the right answer. The only thing that made me hesitate was that I was very small, as small as a wooden teaspoon. It would be easy for anyone to rob or cheat me. But in Quetta there were lots of children working on the streets, who bought merchandise wholesale and sold it again, so it wasn’t as if the idea was a strange one. And then there was the fact that I’d have money of my own, which wouldn’t be bad at all. True, I didn’t know where I’d sleep, but
osta sahib
had said it wouldn’t be a problem, and anyway all those other children had to sleep somewhere, and as for everything else—food, for instance—I could use the money I earned. And I could always go to a mosque to wash myself.

So, that morning, I didn’t even have to go all the way around the block. I went back to
osta sahib
and accepted his proposition. Then I went to
kaka
Rahim and told him I was leaving and why. I thought he would lose his temper, but in fact he said I was doing the right thing and he would find another boy if he needed to. And he said that, if I ever needed something, I could come and talk to him. I really appreciated that.