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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