Nekropolis (22 page)

Akhmim shakes his head. “No, that’s all right.”

“I could look for him for you,” the boy repeats.

I want him to go away. “Let’s go,” I whisper.

Akhmim and I start to walk. “Thank you, but no,” Akhmim says.

The boy shadows us, pedaling slowly. “You want me to look for him?”

I’m afraid of this boy. I don’t know if Akhmim would help me if the boy did anything crazy.

“I could look for him,” the boy says.

Akhmim says softly, “Don’t answer him.”

“What?” says the boy. When Akhmim doesn’t answer, he says, “You want me to look for him?” again.

He shadows us all the way back to the train station, although he finally stops asking us if we want him to look for Khalid.

There’s no train scheduled to come for another forty minutes. The boy rides up and down the platform for a while, then he sits down next to Akhmim on the bench where we are waiting. He doesn’t look at Akhmim, just sits there, with his tangled ratty hair and his black fingernails. I try not to look at him. After a while he starts singing a pop song about a girl who tells a boy no. His voice is flat and hoarse, but he sings with great energy. He gets up and sings to the empty tracks and then sits down again. I’m sitting at the end of the bench and Akhmim is between me and the crazy boy. The crazy boy gets up and picks up his bike where he left it lying on the platform and goes and puts it on the train tracks. “Should I leave it here?” When we don’t answer, he walks away, leaving the bike there. He walks behind our bench so I can’t see him without turning my head, so I’m trying to listen for him and I can hear the sound of my veil rustling. I turn around and he is across the street, peeing against a garage door. I turn quickly back around. I stare at the dirty bike. It has dirt crusted on the sides of the wheels and on the chain and the spokes and the handlebars. He comes back after and picks up the bike and rides up and down the platform for a while. Finally the train comes in. He stands, one foot on the ground, and watches us get on the train.

We sit down, the train pulls out, and I burst into tears.

* * *

The first place we go is Hariba’s mother’s house, to see Nabil. I leave Akhmim in tea shop with a glass of mint tea-I don’t know how Nabil feels about the
harni,
but I know how Hariba’s mother would. Hariba’s mother should be selling wreaths right now outside the Moussin, but who knows? And my mother lives right across the street. I couldn’t explain a strange man to her.

Only Nabil is there. He’s recovered from his beating, except for the yellow bruises. “Ayesha?” he says, standing up. “How are you? Are you coming to visit your mother?”

“Not yet,” I say. “Hariba sent me to see Khalid.”

“You went to see Khalid?” he asks.

“I did. I went to the place she told me.” I show him the paper. “I talked to him, and he said that he could smuggle them to Málaga, but it would cost three thousand. So I went back to tell her. And when I go back to Khalid today, this place is all boarded up. No one’s there.”

“Khalid is always there. He lives with his uncle, and that’s his uncle’s place,” Nabil says.

“He wasn’t there,” I say. “There was no one inside. Ah, one of the boards was loose and I could tell it was empty inside. Do you know where else he might be?”

“You’re sure you were at the right place?” Nabil says. “Those places, they all look alike.”

“It was the right place,” I say. “This number. I walked up and down the street. And I was there day before yesterday.”

“I don’t know,” Nabil says.

“How do you know him?”

“Through Yusef, You remember Yusef? I went to school with him. He had a sister. He knows Khalid, a little, you know? Khalid said he needed somebody to do something for him. Sometimes I do, like, odd jobs for Khalid.”

I can imagine what kinds of jobs. Delivering smuggled goods, probably.

“Would Yusef know how to find Khalid?” I ask.

“Yusef is in Cádiz,” Nabil says simply. “It was that or prison.”

There is nothing to be done there. I go across the street, check in on my mother and Tariam, and lie and say, “I just want to do a few errands. Can Tariam stay a little longer?” Tariam is playing, and she doesn’t fuss. My mother asks how Hariba is, and I put on a sunny smile. “Better every day,” I say.

Then I go back to Akhmim and tell him that there is no way to find Khalid.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

Disappear, I think. “Wait,” I say. “I’ll ask Alem if he can figure anything out.”

* * *

I wait that night until we are in our bed. “Alem?”

“Hmmm?” he says. Alem usually goes to sleep faster than I do. It usually takes me a long time to go to sleep.

“Do you remember you said you might be able to find a way to help Hariba?”

“Yeah?” he says, a little more awake now.

“Can you find out if two people could get to, you know, Cádiz or Málaga?”

“Two people?”

“Hariba won’t go unless the
harni
goes with her.” My heart hurts when I say this and his silence frightens me more.

“The
harni,
“ he says.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m so mad at her I could spit in her face. But she says she won’t go unless the
harni
goes.”

He sighs. “She’s a disaster, isn’t she?”

I feel as if I can breathe a little. “She is,” I say. “She’s crazy. I hate to go over there.”

“I wondered what was wrong,” he says.

“I just want it to be over,” I say. It is so nice to be able to tell him that. “I just want her gone and out of our life. Can you check?”

“I can check,” he says.

“Be careful, Alem,” I say.

“I’ll be careful.”

“I love you,” I say, my voice sounding tentative and hopeful to my ears.

“I love you, too, Ayesha,” he says, and puts his arm around me so I lay spooned against his side. I still find it hard to go to sleep.

* * *

It’s two days before Alem finds anything. But finally he comes home and says, “I found someone.”

Tariam is outside, playing with her cousin. I’m watching my sister’s son, six months younger than Tariam. I can look outside and see them there. I don’t like them playing outside, I keep expecting to see the
harni,
but he never comes here and I know it’s just nerves.

“It will cost them money,” he says.

“They have some,” I say, thinking, More than Khalid?

“It will cost them eighteen hundred.”

“Apiece?” I say. Ahkmim has borrowed enough to have 3,000; can he borrow 600 more?

“No,” Alem says. “Eighteen hundred for both.”

“Oh, good, they’ve got that.”

“They have to go to Tangier, and then they are to wait in a tea shop called” -he looks at a piece of paper-“the Cockatoo.” Someone will meet them there. I have it all here. I’ll go with them.”

“Why do you have to go with them?” I ask.

“Because I’m the one who set it up.”

“Let them go by themselves,” I say.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

* * *

The next evening I take Alem to the
harni
. Alem is a good-looking man, and in his djellaba he is quite distinguished. But he is not as tall as the
harni
and not as beautiful, of course. Men aren’t supposed to be beautiful, not like that.

Alem says, “This is the
harni
? It looks really…human.”

The
harni
puts his hands together and says formally, “I am called Akhmim.”

Alem is nonplussed. After a moment, he says, “Let’s go get Hariba.”

The
harni
waits at the end of the street while Alem and I go to Zehra’s. Hariba is ready, all packed. Everyone is there: her mother, her sister Rashida, Rashida’s husband, and their new baby, Nabil, and Zehra and two of her sons. The little clump of death houses is full, with people spilling out into the street.

Zehra is weeping. She takes both of Alem’s hands into her own and kisses them. Alem is grave and dignified.

Zehra kisses me and hugs me. “You are too good a friend,” she says. If she only knew how I really felt. Hariba’s mother cannot speak. Tears brim in her eyes, but she doesn’t cry. She just holds my hands wordlessly.

It takes forever to leave. The street is dark, but light spills out of the houses all around us. I wonder how many of the neighbors know about Hariba and how many know it’s Alem who’s helping her.

Finally we can leave and at the end of the street, where we turn to go to the train station, the
harni
is waiting. I’m afraid Hariba will make a fool of herself, but she doesn’t, thank Allah. She’s quiet, but there’s a happiness inside her that infuriates me. She has to realize the risk Alem is taking.

I have insisted on going to Tangier with them. I can’t stand waiting at home. We don’t have the money, I don’t know what we’ll do. I have to have us ready to move. But I can’t. Everything waits on Hariba’s troubles.

Riding the train is as bad as waiting at home. I want to be with Alem, but I can’t say anything to him because Hariba and the
harni
are here and they’re all I want to talk about. What kind of life does she think she’s going to have? Does she think she’s going to live with the
harni
like a wife? It’s insane, all of it.

I fall asleep in the train.

Tangier smells of ocean. In the dark all I can see are white buildings. At least Akhmim pays for our two rooms at the hostel. I expect Alem to comment on the fact that Akhmim says to the clerk that he is Hariba’s husband, but Alem just looks at me, then looks away. I should never have brought him into this. I should have let Hariba solve her own problems.

In our room we lie down on a strange bed, not touching, and pretend to sleep.

It isn’t until afternoon the next day that the three of them go to the tea house, the Cockatoo. Alem says I can’t go. Alem so rarely puts his foot down. I think about arguing, but I don’t, although I don’t know how I can stand it. I sit in our room and watch out the window. I watch for hours, until finally, around dinnertime, Alem comes back with a dinner of shaslik. He looks tired.

“Is it done?” I ask.

He nods. “They leave tonight.”

I cry. He doesn’t comfort me or anything. He just sits on the bed, holding the shaslik and waiting. I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m not sad. Tension, maybe. It’s embarrassing, and I’m afraid to scoot over next to him. I manage to stop crying and we eat without talking about anything but the train the next morning. I wonder what this has done to us, to our feelings about each other. You get over things, I know. My mother says marriage is work, that you work through bad times. This is certainly one of the bad times.

After dinner, he says, “Do you want to walk around a little? You’ve never been to Tangier.”

We walk around and pretend we’re on a holiday. I look at the sea. It’s big, but I don’t feel anything. “Everything will be normal now, won’t it?” I ask.

“I hope,” he says tiredly.

They’re gone, I tell myself. At least they’re gone.

Finally we decide we’re tired and go back to the hostel. Lying in the strange bed, I can hear other people walking and talking through the walls. Death walls are so thick, but the walls of our new apartment are like these, will I go to sleep every night listening to my neighbors? Maybe moving is a mistake. Look what happened to Hariba when she left the Nekropolis.

In the dark I wonder, Are they gone yet? Are they on the water, on their way to Málaga?

When it finally starts to get light, that’s when I can really be sure they are on their way, and I can finally sleep for an hour until we have to get up for the train.

* * *

“When we get home,” I tell Alem, “we’ll both take a long nap.”

We are walking home from the train station. I feel as if someone poured sand in my eyes.

“I’ll go get Tariam after we’ve had a nap,” I say.

Alem takes my arm and stops me. He isn’t paying attention to me, and I look up and see people outside our house. “What?” I say.

Some of them are in police uniforms. Oh, my heart.

“Go to your mother’s,” Alem says.

“No,” I say, “it’s a mistake-”

“GO TO YOUR MOTHER’S,” he says.

They’ve seen us.

He pushes me away, back up the street. I can’t figure out what direction to move, but Alem walks toward them, dignified in his white djellaba.

Will I ever see him again?

5

In the Land of the Infidel

Alem is our savior. In the tea shop he’s as gentle as a brother, holding my elbow to seat me. When Ayesha married him, I was happy for her. “Hariba,” she told me, “he’s a good man.” But he’s the last person I would have expected to be able to arrange something like this.

Still, here we are in a tea shop, waiting to meet the man who will get Akhmim and me out of the country. I’ve said thank you so many times that Alem is embarrassed. He’s a blessing from Allah. Allah watch over him for what he’s done for us, because I know that Ayesha didn’t want to be involved, I know I cajoled and guilted her into it.

The tea shop has a real bird in it, a white cockatoo with a headdress of feathers and scaly gray-blue feet. It shreds paper and screeches while we sit and sip tea, a harsh, shrill sound that makes me cross my ankles tight around each other and draws my shoulders up toward my ears.

A man comes in and sees us. It’s easy to tell we’re who he is looking for. He comes to our table and says, “Ahmad Shipping?”

That’s the name of the company that Alem works for. Alem nods.

“Please call me Carlos,” he says.

I thought the person we met would look like a sailor, worn skin from sun and weather, or like a tough guy, but he looks young and smooth and his teeth are very nice. He’s not E.C.U., he looks Arab, like us, but his name is foreign. Maybe he’s from Málaga? Maybe he’s a foreign? Or maybe he’s like us, and he’s not using his real name?

“You have money?” he asks.

“Half now and half on the ship,” Alem promises.

Akhmim gives him 900. So much money. Akhmim won’t say where he got it, just that he borrowed it from friends.