“And seize him?” Juliet laughs.
“Too right! Everyone has potential, even Mr Medallion Man.”
“Michelle, you are doing me the world of good. Do you fancy coming over for Christmas? We’ll find you another medallion man.” The cat jumps up on her knee. “Hello Aaman. I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Is he back?”
“No, no it is the cat. I thought it was about time he got a name. His lady cat has had kittens.”
“Let me guess. She is called Saabira and what have you called the kittens?”
“No, she is called Juliet.”
“I’m not sure if that isn’t a bit sick.”
They agree upon dates over Christmas that Michelle will visit and they both get excited and giggly. They finally say a protracted goodbye, before Juliet wanders, Aaman on her shoulder, into his room. She has not been in it since he moved in. The door no longer squeaks. It vaguely smells of him. He has changed the sheets and everything is neat. There is a book of Greek verbs by his bed, the one she bought when she returned to England after her first trip to Greece. She opens the built-in cupboard. It is empty, the board at the back not quite in straight. She saw him once, when he had left the door ajar, using it as a place to hide his money. She takes a five euro note from her back pocket and slips it behind the board. For Aaman. The cat jumps off Juliet and onto the bed. He sniffs and settles down to sleep.
Juliet wanders through the sitting room and kitchen to the back door. The garden looks beautiful. She makes a decision to get a bench for under the pergola. No, better still, a hammock. Actually what would be really nice would be a pond, a natural, overgrown-looking pond next to the pergola, and behind maybe a summer house. It could be her office, way in the back corner behind the vines, looking back at the house.
The tools are all lined up on his homemade shelves, his thick gloves on top. Juliet strokes the gloves. She picks them up and slips her hands inside and hugs them to her face. The gloves dangling on her small hands, she meanders to the vegetable plot. It needs weeding. She bends and pulls some of the weeds. They come out easily. She sits in a squat like Aaman would do and weeds the row. It is a pleasant job. With the sun on her back, time becomes irrelevant, the afternoon passes and the vegetable plot looks better for the attention. Juliet drops the gloves on the ground, but thinks better of it and picks them up and returns them to his shelves.
The gravel drive needs a bit of a weeding too but she feels she has done enough for today. She trips over the kittens battling in the doorway. The wine opens with a worthy pop and glugs loudly into her glass.
Aaman finds the aeroplane a little bit frightening, and it takes a long time to get to Lahore. They serve food on little plastic trays with knives and forks in plastic bags. Aaman feels like he is in a film. He looks about to see if the other passengers are equally impressed with their individual portions, but most are asleep, others are reading, no-one shows much interest in the food offered.
Aaman carefully unwraps the food and lays it on the ingenious drop-down table in front of him, which he raises and lowers several times for the joy of it. However, he is soon disappointed by the food as it does not taste of anything. Pushing it to one side, he takes comfort in being surrounded by people mostly speaking his mother tongue and he rests his head back, catching familiar conversations here and there. He closes his eyes for the landing.
The open space inside the airport building at Lahore impresses Aaman equally to the one in Athens, but here the ceiling is lower, supporting it are strong hexagonal pillars at regular intervals. The other difference, which helps Aaman feel he is home, are the people sitting on the floor everywhere he looks. Family clusters, groups of businessmen, people waiting in line for boarding passes. It is natural, it is acceptable to use the floor here.
There is a mix-up at the airport with the bags and the weary travellers move three times to different places to await their luggage.
The last time Aaman was in Lahore, he had been overwhelmed by all he saw and the pace of life. He had longed for his village, the open spaces, the wandering animals. This time it doesn’t occur to him he is in a city. It is just part of his journey.
He feels a pang of loneliness as the other passengers are greeted with hugs and handshakes from waiting friends and relatives. Maybe he should have told them he was coming? He catches a bus into town and walks to the hotel he has booked online at Juliet’s. It will cost him six euros a night.
The hotel looks a lot like the immigration centre where he was detained but without the fence. Concrete, square, encompassing a courtyard of cars. It is very central, which is most important for the many interviews he has lined up.
There is noise all night. People shouting and banging doors. The city doesn’t sleep. He is reminded of his days on the streets in Athens and takes pleasure in the width of the bed and plumps the pillows, smiling into them.
The next morning, he dresses carefully and arrives at his first appointment half an hour early. He waits in a glass hall on an aging leather sofa. He runs through in his head the questions they may ask and is startled when his name is called.
He is offered this job with a hearty handshake. The man declares that it isn’t often international programmers apply for jobs with his company and that his English employers spoke very highly of him and how travelled he must be to have worked for a British company in Greece. Aaman momentary thinks he has him confused with someone else but when he mentions Greece and A.J. Software House he feels his cheeks colour. The man chats on switching from Urdu to English in the same sentence and Aaman realises that, despite his dual tongue, his view of the world is confined to Lahore. Aaman thanks him for the offer, tells him he feels very honoured to be given such a chance but would he mind if he takes a day or two to think about it. The man laughs heartily, shakes his hand again and tells him to take all the time he needs.
In the following days, he goes to all of the interviews he and Juliet have pre-arranged to see what the different places are like. Many times he is greeted in the same way as the first interview. As the offers of jobs grow so does Aaman’s confidence. Some ask if he would keep in touch as all positions are currently filled but they would be very interested in him in the future.
Near the end of the week, Aaman is sitting in his hotel room trying to decide which job he will take when he thinks of his family. They are still some distance away. It is a three-hour bus ride to Sialkot alone and then farther to the village. If he takes any of these jobs in Lahore, he will not be able to return to his family home at the weekends.
He takes Juliet’s laptop down to reception where he is able to access the Internet and sets about emailing software houses in Sialkot. There are five that he finds online. One replies immediately and offers him an interview the following day.
As he cannot afford any of the hotels with Internet access in Sialkot he briefly wonders if he had made a rash decision whilst on the bus that takes him there that evening.
On arrival, he finds his budget room is next door to a shiny, glass-doored five-star hotel. He books into his hotel and then sits on the wall outside, his laptop under his arm and watches the porter at the hotel next door. The porter opens the door for a lady who is being led by a small dog. The dog takes her onto the immaculate narrow lawn that slopes down to the road. Once it had finished its business, it takes the lady back inside. A man draws up in a car and jumps out. He hands his keys to the doorman without even looking at him. The doorman times the opening of the door so the guest does not miss a step. A young man appears and takes the keys from the porter and drives the car around the back of the hotel. Someone comes out. They too do not acknowledge the doorman.