Today is the first day that Boy is helping with the poppy harvest. He does not know how long it has been since his mother died, but Nazook, who takes care of him, says it was years ago. He and Nazook are working alone in a mud hut near the field. He can hear the wind rustling through the red, purple, and white flowers and he likes to see them when he looks out the door. He has been living with Nazook for a long time now. Many New Year’s Days have passed. He is proud, because at last Nazook trusts him enough to let him help in the field. Boy takes the poppy bulbs from a basket, and with a small knife he slices them and coaxes out the sticky sap inside. The blade has to be cleaned between bulbs or it will stick. Some people just lick the blade, but Nazook says not to do this because you can get addicted to the sap. They dip the knives in water.
Nazook says that at the end of today, if Boy has done well, he will help him choose a new name. A real name, one fit for a young man who does important work. Boy asks what happens to the resin after they are finished. Nazook tells him it will one day become “poder,” a powder that is brown, although the best “poder” in the world is white. People smoke it or put it in their veins in England and America. People who hate themselves enjoy such horrors, and it is all right if the infidels want to poison themselves. Boy does not understand how a person can hate himself when there are so many other people to hate, like people who would chase and beat up a boy for stealing a single orange.
The mud shack is warm, and Boy wipes the heat from his forehead while he works. They don’t stop until it is dark. Nazook hums a song through his teeth as Boy’s stomach growls. There are blisters on his fingers, and he needed to go to the bathroom a hundred poppies ago. But he keeps working, never looks up. Slice the pod, get the resin out, put it in the basket. Slice the pod, get the resin out, put it in the basket.
When the day is over, the bosses come to inspect. They feel the sticky brown stuff with their fingers and smell it, look at the pods to make sure everything has been scraped out. They give Nazook one green bill after another. These are not afghanis; this is the currency of foreigners. “Real money,” people call it.
“Don’t worry,” Nazook says, stuffing the cash in his pocket. “For now, you share in mine. Later, they’ll pay you, too, when I tell them you are valuable.” Nazook throws his arm over Boy’s shoulder, and they walk to the Opel.
This is the car Nazook was driving when he and Boy met for the first time. Nazook had seen Boy stealing grapes from a cart. “Hey, thief!” he shouted. Boy ran. He could almost feel the heat of the car on his back. He ran as fast as the day his mother died, his bare feet pounding the sidewalk and the street. The city was a blur of colors flying past him as he twisted and turned. He dove into an alley too small for a car and crouched behind two donkeys tied to a post behind a teahouse. “Hey, kid,” a man’s voice said gently. He looked up and saw the man he’d soon call Nazook walking toward him. The Opel, engine still running, blocked off the other end of the alley. “I’m not going to get you in trouble,” the man said. He squatted next to Boy. “You’re very fast.”
Boy nodded. “I know the streets.”
“You shouldn’t have to steal for food,” said Nazook. “If you come with me, I’ll buy you a good meal.”
Boy was wary at first, but the man took him to a restaurant and bought him kebabs and rice and naan and cucumbers and talked to him about all kinds of things, laughing and asking questions. Nazook watched as he ate all of it, then bought him a big cookie.
From that day on, Boy lived in Nazook’s house. He had never been inside one before and wondered if they were all like this. It looked like somewhere a king would live. Nazook said it cost a lot. Boy decided that day that he wanted to work with the poppies, too. He would never sleep in the alley again. He would live with walls. He would always, always live with walls. Sometimes he dreams that he lives in a garden with the children he used to run in the streets with as Boy. A wild, beautiful garden with tall walls around it.
Boy is almost a man now. He tries to rub the resin off his fingers as they drive away in the Opel. Nazook stops at a very fancy restaurant to celebrate Boy’s first day in the fields. Before the meal comes, he says, “You did well. What shall we call you from now on?”
Boy shrugs because he can’t think of any names. Nazook’s name means thin, but thin like a thing, not a person. They teased him for being skinny when he was a little boy, and the name stuck. “It’s too late for me,” Nazook said, “but not for you. What do you want to be one day?”
Boy laughs and says, “I want to be king.”
“Very well, then. Your name will be Taj Maleki. Your first name means crown, and your last name means king in Arabic.”
“I could never be king! There’s already a king, and when he dies, then his son or his brother or his cousin will be king.”
“Taj, any man can be king. He needs only to find people who are looking for one.”