Juliet rolls onto her back and feels the sun on her face. The cat jumps on her chest and she strokes it. It is time to get back to doing translation work.
After some days of intense translation, Juliet feels she is on top of the recent glut of work she has received. With no structure to the day, she often finds herself working into the night and getting up too late to enjoy the next day. When Aaman had been around, the day had structure, work got done earlier, which meant she had time to make progress on the inside of the house. Work on the house has ground to a standstill.
The paint tin is stiff to open, and Juliet looks around for a piece of paper to stand it on to catch accidental spillage as she prizes open the lid. All her paper that she uses for translation work is in the bedroom on the desk. There was a slightly scrunched piece next to the telephone. Juliet puts down the paint tin and the screwdriver and crosses the room to the telephone. The paper has Michelle’s name written at the top and her number written below in bold handwriting with the word RING HER in capital letters at the bottom. It is Juliet’s handwriting.
She recalls the way Aaman had smiled when she had last been on the phone to Michelle. She wipes her hands on her painting shirt, just in case, and picks up the receiver.
“Michelle? It’s the evening!”
“Yes, it is. How nice of you to call.”
“Is it a lonely evening or one in which you are busy and I am interrupting you?”
“It is not a lonely evening. It is amazing how quickly that seems to be wearing off since I spoke to you. However, you’re only interrupting me from painting the office, so I am glad you have called.”
“I was just about to paint the door to the guest room. White. How about you?”
“Shocking pink! He had that room dowdy colours for so long I decided to openly overcompensate. How’s your house boy?”
Juliet’s tongue dries, her heart beats a little faster.
“Are you still there or have I said something to make you slam the phone down? Juliet?” Michelle is giggling.
“He got arrested.” Juliet rubs her eyes with the finger and thumb of her free hand.
“What? What did he do? Are you all right? Did he steal from you or hurt you? Oh my God, are you all right?”
“Stop, stop. I’m fine.” Juliet sighs. “He was taken because he was illegal. I tried to find where they have taken him to try and help, I don’t know, help him get his papers or something, vouch for him, something. But they couldn’t find him. They have shipped him from one detention centre to another but the paper trail got mixed up and no one knows where he is.” Juliet can no longer hide her tears, and she sniffs loudly.
“Juliet, are you crying? Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m OK, I’m all right, I’m fine.” There is a pause, Juliet looks around, sniffs again and reaches for tissues from the table.
“So this house boy… come on, I can’t keep calling him that. What’s his name?”
“Aaman.” The word brings peace to Juliet and her crying stops.
“Aaman got taken for being illegal, you have tried to find him but haven’t had any luck, and you’re crying because you haven’t found him. That’s what it sounds like. Is that what is going on?”
“Yes.”
“Are you crying over Aaman because he was a great gardener or did something happen between you guys?”
“No, yes, no, not really. We just talked. He is, or rather was teaching himself to programme through the Internet in the evening on my laptop. He works all day in the garden. He built shelves at the back for the garden tools. He put the vines on poles ready to build a pergola.”
“Juliet, have you fallen for this guy?”
“No! He’s married. He loves Saabira. He plans to go back to Pakistan as a programmer. He’s going to buy a harvester with the rest of the village. He wants to have children with her.”
“That’s a lot of personal talking you guys have been doing if he is just a gardener. Can you hear yourself?”
Juliet sobs and blows her nose.
“Yes, I can hear myself. I can hear how it sounds. He is my friend, Michelle. He was in a fire when he was eight, he lost his brother. I care about him.”
“Ahh, that sounds heavy. Have you no idea where they took him?”
“I spent days trying to trace him. I went to the Pakistani Embassy. I even went to the British Embassy to see if anything could be done from there or if they could tell me what to do. I have been to the police station where they first took him and then every police station from here to the northern suburbs of Athens. I have even rung Fylakio. That’s a jail up near the border of Greece and Turkey.”
“Can he write, I mean does he know how, in English?”
“Yes, but if he is in a detention centre, are they allowed?”
“I don’t know. How long has he been gone?”
“It’s a month now.”
“That’s not so long, Juliet. Do you know what the usual routine is? I presume they will want to deport him. How do they do that? Do they fly them home, or just hand them over at the nearest border to their home countries? If they have sent him home, it may take time. He is bound to write when he gets home if he feels the same way as you.”
“I have no idea how he feels. He is kind and considerate and cautious and thoughtful. But he could just be doing it for the job, I don’t know.”
“People don’t talk about trying for children with their wives to keep a job, Juliet. That goes way beyond.”
“I think he thinks I am a good friend who is lending her computer. I shared some of my life with him, and he shared some of his life with me.”
“You shared about the fire?”
“Yes, and my dad. Which, by the way, reminds me, due to him, I owe you an apology.”
“Apologise to me? This is too confusing. Because of Aaman?”
“He made it ‘visible,’ I suppose that is the word, that I have not been, well, very nice to you over the years. When my dad went and my mum being the way she is and then finding Dad had died and, well just the whole everything, I realised I was scared of you so I pushed you away.”
“Scared of me? Why would you be scared of me?”
“Not scared of you exactly, scared that you might… like Dad did, or become a bitch like my mum or that girl at college who went off with John. It just felt, well, safer, I suppose, not to be friendly, and I am sorry. I am really sorry. You have stayed by me through all of this and even through my Huge Mistake with Mick.” Juliet hiccups out a laugh at the thought of the Huge Mistake with Mick. Michelle mirrors the laugh back.
“Juliet, this guy has really shaken you up a lot, hasn’t he?”
“I miss him so much. I thought he was a gardener, then I thought he was a friend, then, well, then he was gone and my reaction has left me not understanding myself. I was just so comfortable with him, I loved him being around. Oh, and I went to see where he used to stay. He said it was a barn, and I thought of an old English barn with little beds and comfy chairs at one end like a hostel and, oh my God, Michelle, it was awful. It was made of mud brick, it had a mud floor. A tiled roof that you could see the daylight through and no doubt mocked the rain. No comfy chairs, no chairs at all. And the beds! They weren’t beds, they were shelves in the wall. Just enough room to lie on. They were all worn smooth on the edges and there was so much graffiti carved and written. Names and dates and days counted off like a prison cell. And he lived there! Whilst each night, I spread out in my double bed with clean sheets and a duvet and my cats.”
“Cats? More than one now?”
“Two. By accident, I found the bunk he must have lain on. He had carved the name Saabira, his wife’s name, and then under that, in capitals, he had carved JULIET and now he is gone.” Juliet breaks into tears anew.