In the Sea There Are Crocodiles - Fabio Geda [48]
Isn’t there an Afghan restaurant that can give us food? we asked.
Look, we’re not in Kabul. We’re in Greece. In Athens.
Thanks, anyway.
The park was their home. And it became our home. That first morning we woke up early, about five. Someone mentioned the name of a church where they gave you breakfast. We went there and I had some bread and yogurt. For lunch there was another church. But there, the priests had laid out a whole lot of Bibles in every language—even mine—in full view, next to the front entrance, and before eating you had to read a page of it or they wouldn’t give you any food.
No way, I thought in a burst of pride. I’d rather die of starvation than be forced to read the Bible for food.
Except that, after a while, my stomach started rumbling loudly, louder than my pride. Damn that hunger. I wandered around for half an hour trying to hold out, until I felt as if my belly button was being prised open with a corkscrew. So I approached the church and stood in front of the Bible in my language, looking at a page and pretending to read for what seemed like a long enough time, making sure the attendants saw me. Then I went inside.
I ate bread and yogurt. Like breakfast that morning.
You were lucky last night, my neighbor said.
Jamal was trying to get another piece of bread from the priests or monks or whatever they were. I was licking the bottom of my yogurt pot.
Why? I asked.
Because nothing happened.
I stopped licking. What do you mean, nothing?
No police, for instance. Sometimes the police come and kick everyone out.
Do they arrest people?
No. They just kick us out and make us move on.
Where to?
Wherever we like. It’s just to make life even harder for us. I think that’s why they do it.
Ah.
But it’s not just the police, the boy added.
Who else?
Older boys. Men. Who go with little boys.
Where do they go?
Men who like little boys.
Really?
Really.
That evening, Jamal and I looked for the darkest, most hidden corner of the park in order to be safe, although if you’re forced to sleep in a park, you can’t expect much in the way of safety.
———
The most incredible thing I got involved in during that summer in Athens was (in Greek) the XXVIII in other words, the Games (listen to this) of the Twenty-Eighth Olympiad: Athens 2004. To be specific, the big stroke of luck for me and all the illegals who were in Athens at the time was that a lot of running tracks and swimming pools and stadiums and sports complexes and other things were still unfinished, and the games were going to start soon. So, in order for the city not to lose face, there was a big need for undeclared laborers, and even the police turned a blind eye, I think.
Every now and again, migrants are a secret weapon.
I didn’t even know what the Olympics were. I didn’t find out until I went with other Afghan boys to a little square where they’d said we could find work and a car picked me up and took me to the stadium. There I discovered that, if I wanted, there was work for two months, every day, including Saturdays and Sundays. The work was actually well organized. Each task was given out on the basis of age. All I had to do, for example, was hold the little trees in the avenue while others dug holes to plant them in. In the evening you were paid in cash: forty-five euros. An excellent wage, for me at least.
———
I remember that one night, in the park, a man came and sat down next to Jamal and started slowly stroking him. A Greek guy with a beard and a flashy shirt. Jamal gave me a little kick to wake me up (the two of us slept side by side, to protect each other). Listen, Ena, he said, there’s someone here who’s stroking me.
Why? I said.
How should I know? He’s stroking me, but I don’t know why.
Is he bothering you?
No, he’s just stroking me. He’s stroking my hair.
Then I remembered what that guy had said