“Dad, quit sweating on me,” laughed Manish as his father tried to steal the
soccer ball from him.
Bikash smiled at his son’s confidence and sense of humor, and then he shook
his long black hair side to side, spraying the much too fast teenage boy with
drops of the offending bodily fluid. “If I can’t catch you, I’m going to drown
you.”
Manish groaned, put his foot on the ball, teasingly lifted his left foot as
if to push the ball around his father on that side, and then exploded to the
right and past the only thirty-five year old man in the world he trusted.
Bikash was beaten. He watched with pride as his son weaved his way past
Bikash’s best friend, Kumar, and rolled the ball into the goal made from old
fence posts. Manish spun around, high fived his teammate, Kumar’s son, Sunil,
and weaved left then right, arms raised in imitation of a soaring bird, back to
his own end of the worn dirt field.
Bikash and Kumar smiled inside, while frowning feigned disapproval, lest
their sons’ egos grow to proportions greater than their limitless teenage
dreams.
The two men looked to the west. The sun was dropping behind the mountains of
the Annapurna range. The deep pride and love for their sons was replaced with sobering
thoughts of being far away from their homes and families. Each father knew this
would be the last night, for at least a year, that they would see a sunset in
their home country of Nepal. The chance to share the late afternoon chasing their
sons on such a perfect March day was bitter sweet. In the morning the two
friends would board a plane and begin their journey to Qatar.
Bikash and Kumar were construction workers. Both men possessed Annapurna
mountain stamina and an almost supernatural ability to work at great heights,
on narrow beams, with seemingly no effort or fear.
What the two men did fear was the journey to Qatar. Neither man had ever
left Nepal. But the promise, in just a year’s time, of wages equal to five
year’s earnings in Nepal was enough for the two lifelong friends to swallow
their fear like the Annapurna Mountains swallow the sun’s light each night.
“Come on, dad, let’s play another game to three. Maybe you and Sunil’s dad
will finally win,” kidded Manish. Sunil pointed at the two thirty-something
year old men and grinned. “Never happen.”
Bikash and Kumar looked at each other. They knew they should go inside for
supper. They knew they should sit around the dinner table with their children
and wives until the mountains to the east spit out the new day’s sun. But there
had to be time for one more game. Bikash wished for only one thing right then,
a lifetime of one more game.
A space inside Bikash’s soul, a space growing by the minute, was threatening
to swallow his Nepalese heart and any thoughts of family, mountains and games.
He and Kumar were going to build some of the most magnificent soccer stadiums
in the world. They had been telling their soccer loving sons stories about all
the people, from all over the world, who would be sitting in the stadium’s
their fathers would build. This was how they convinced their sons that leaving
for an entire year was worthwhile. This was how they tried to keep the
cancerous growth in their souls from poisoning the blood of Annapurna in their
veins.
Bickash gritted his teeth and then spat on the ground. Kumar looked at his struggling
friend and realized his own hands were balled into fists. Neither man moved.
“Hey, dad, are we going to play one more?” said Manish softly, while looking
at his father’s distant stare.
Bickash focused on his son. The smile returned to his face. “One more game,
but this one is to twenty-two.” Manish and Sunil cheered.
#####################################################################
The flight, on a plane emblazoned with the logo
Emirates had
been crowded with many men like Bikash and Kumar. Eighteen to
thirty-something-year-olds, all hiding nervous anticipation, chasing a dream of
money that would allow them to return home and start a business or build a new
home. Some of the men had never been on a plane before. Some could not help but
be sick. Good-natured laughter followed each man’s failure to be tougher than
the rising and falling plane.
Now, Bikash was sitting on a cot, his bed for the next year. His new bosses
had walked smartly down the middle of the long building which housed the
stadium construction workers. Each new man from Nepal was assigned a bed in a
room which slept four. Two small dressers were pushed up against the whitewashed
walls. Two men would share each dresser, two drawers per person. Bikash eyed
his surroundings as a tiny drop of sweat rolled off his forehead and slipped
past his right eye. He could make do. For a year, he could make do.
The walk across the compound to the sleeping quarters included a glimpse of
the stadium site. Dirt and sand had already been shoved this way and that.
Piles of equipment, steel beams and concrete block waited patiently for the men
from Nepal.
There wasn’t much in Bikash’s new bedroom to keep his attention. His mind
began to replay the sights he had seen after the plane had landed. Busses with
Budweiser,
Castrol and
Johnson and Johnson
painted in giant letters from nose to stem pulled up to the
Emirates
plane. The Nepalese men walked directly from the plane onto the busses. The air
in Qatar, hot, even in March, surprised the mountain men.
Driving through the streets of Doha, the capital of Qatar, the Nepalese men had
stared through the windows trying to find something familiar. They were
unsuccessful. People dressed in white walked the streets. No mountains
anywhere. The trip to the construction worker’s compound was short. Bikash did
recognize one sign near the entrance to his new home, a giant yellow
M on a tall
metal pole. Bikash had seen this on television before. It was the sign of an
American restaurant. His stomach had rumbled, and he had elbowed his friend
Kumar. Kumar had absently nodded without turning away from the bus window.
Bikash stopped daydreaming about busses and
McDonald’s.
He set his backpack on the floor and sat down on his bed. Night was near in
Qatar. The morning would bring work. Bikash tried not to think, too much, about
his family and home.
######################################################################
Despite the long and exhausting trip the previous day, Bikash had found
sleep hard to steal from his new surroundings. He, Kumar and their two new
roommates tossed and turned. Late in the unfamiliar night, Bikash sat up on his
cot. He stared at the white wall, his strong leathery hands resting lightly on
his knees. Finally, he stood, quietly exited his room, and walked the long
hallway. Bikash counted the doors he passed. There were twenty-two, eleven on
his right and eleven on his left.
At the end of the hallway he paused to look out the windows in the double
door at the end of the building. Bikash pondered the meaning of the windows.
There were none in his room. And there were no windows in the rooms he had
looked inside the day before. The meaning escaped him.
He tried to open the door. It was locked. “It would be easy to break the
door open,” thought Bikash. “It is so fragile, why lock it?” He was tired. He
turned around and began counting bedroom doors once again.
When he reached the other end of the narrow hallway, having counted a total
of thirty-two bedroom doors this time, he stared out the window and rattled the
door handle, locked. Bikash wondered once more about the locked door. “Silly,”
he thought. “Reminds me of the tiny cemetery back home.” A smile found its way
to his lips.
When he and Kumar were children, they would sneak out of their houses late
at night and slip through the metal gate at the entrance to the cemetery. The
gate was always locked, but was simple enough to slip through or jump over. The
two friends would race in the moonlight, up and down the narrow pathways
between the graves, counting the gravestones.
A hand touched Bikash’s shoulder. He almost screamed as he spun around.
Standing inches from him was a man he did not recognize. “This man must have
already been here when we arrived yesterday. He has probably been working with
the crews digging the foundation of the stadium,” reasoned Bikash. The man
stared blankly at Bikash. After a few seconds of silence, the man spoke.
“You’re new.” It was a statement, not a question. Bikash nodded. The blank
faced man tilted his head slightly to one side. “Go back to your room and go to
sleep. Do not ever wake me again. The moments of rest here are like diamonds
you cannot touch, and they are the only treasure you will ever find in this
desert.” Before Bikash could respond, the man turned and slipped silently back
into the bedroom closest to the doors with the windows.
Bikash stood for a moment longer and then walked as quietly as possible back
to his room.
#####################################################################
Bikash lifted a concrete block from the pile nearest the deep trench that
would become the foundation for the east end side of the stadium. He walked a
few steps, bent over, and handed the block to a workmate who was standing in
the trench. Bikash immediately walked back to the pile of cement blocks and got
another. The heat was intense in the middle of the day. “Funny though,” thought
Bikash. “I don’t seem to be sweating.” He handed off the next block.
A loud scream startled Bikash as he reached for the next block. All the
workers on the site stopped what they were doing and looked over to the area
the scream came from. At the north end of the stadium, near a large billboard
showing a man drinking
Coca Cola, a
bulldozer idled in a shallow trench. A crowd of workers stood along the edge of
the trench near the dozer’s large blade. Bikash walked quickly towards the
crowd. Kumar joined Bikash, and they reached the crowd together. No one spoke.
On the ground, pinned under the bulldozer’s blade was a man that Bikash and
Kumar had flown with the day before. Both of the man’s legs were crushed under
the blade. The skin, muscle and tendons of both thighs, below where the blade
rested, had been ripped away from the shattered bone. Blood spilled freely from
the man’s torn legs and seeped into the dirt at the bottom of the recently
begun hole. The man was either unconscious or dead. Bikash turned away as the
stadium foreman yelled for the men to get back to work.
Bikash and Kumar huddled together. They had seen men injured, and even
killed, on work sites before. It was usually very easy to determine what caused
an accident like this at a work site. They mumbled to each other about what
they had just seen.
“It looks like one of the trench walls crumbled,” whispered Kumar. Bikash
nodded. “The poor man must have been watching from the edge of the trench when
the ground crumbled beneath his feet,” he replied. Both men pawed at the sandy
ground with their work boots.
“This should not have happened,” said Bikash.
“You men, get back to work! This is not your concern,” came a shout from
behind the friends. Bikash and Kumar looked around. Most of the other workers
were already back to work. Bikash didn’t like it, but he walked back to his
pile of concrete blocks.
######################################################################
For three months, Bikash and his friend toiled under the ever increasing
heat of Qatar. Both men had lost at least twenty pounds, and neither man had
been overweight when they arrived. The ten and twelve hour days were devouring
all the men who worked in the unforgiving desert. Two months earlier, Bikash
had complained, but the men who had been there longer told him to keep quiet.
They told him he would be lucky to get paid, let alone get a shorter work day
or a break during the hottest time of the day.
Only a week later, Bikash found out that his wages were not being sent to
his home in Nepal, as they were supposed to be, neither were Kumar’s. They had
threatened to leave, but were told they could not. Their passports were being
held, and they would have to honor their one-year contract. Promises to send
wages, soon, were made by the bosses. To make matters worse, small plastic
cards with the word
VISA stamped
on them were given to the men. The men were told that a portion of their pay
was on the cards and was deducted each month for their housing and food. In
Nepal, Bikash and Kumar had been told that their housing and food were free.
Bikash missed his family.
Some men, “too many” thought Bikash, got to go home to Nepal or India early.
Those men were either shipped home in a box or without an arm or a leg. Bikash
was keeping track of all the accidents at the building site. It was a gruesome
way to occupy his mind, but there were so many. He felt someone must make a
record.
In just three months twelve men had died building their stadium. Another
eighteen had been seriously injured. Many men collapsed from heat exhaustion.
Half the men who died, died from that very cause.
Despite the stress, from fear of wondering if he was next, Bickash
occasionally found escape from his plight. Sleep was deep. Dreams were vivid.
He cherished the moment each evening when his head found the pillow on his cot.
Those nights were precious.
More so, because, every two weeks the men would change shifts and work under
the lights at night. Construction was most dangerous at night. Men were tired,
shadows fooled the usually sure footed. Sleep was not as deep during the day. It
was hot in the tiny, windowless rooms. Dreams rarely came to Bikash when he
worked the slender metal beams at night.
The things that the bosses thought amused and entertained the workers: rides
into the city in
Hyundai cars;
television on
Sony TV’s;
and supposedly free
Adidas
clothing did little or nothing for men who knew tomorrow might be their last.
Bikash didn’t want his last memory to be of his friend, Kumar, looking down
on him while Bikash’s life-blood soaked into the shifting sand. He wanted to go
home. He wanted to see his family and chase his son around the makeshift soccer
field in the back yard. He wanted to tell his son that the stadium he was
building was not so special. If Bikash died, he didn’t want his son thinking
that this particular stadium was such a meaningful place, not when it was built
upon the blood of so many.
####################################################################
A cold front had swept over Qatar during the night. It was only 100 degrees.
The construction workers joked about mountain winters and needing coats.
Bickash was once again working the day shift, as was Kumar. Kumar was high
above Bickash, guiding beams into place. The beams would support the stands in
which the soccer fans paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket would sit.
Bickash was moving supplies on the ground. He would much rather have been
walking the high beams with his friend, but the bosses split-up the two at the
beginning of their shift. Bickash hated the work on the ground. There was no
breeze and breathing in the dust kicked-up by the big machinery made his nose
bleed at night when he was trying to sleep.
Despite the bloody noses, Bickash was sleeping better. He knew the reason.
In his pocket was a letter from home. The letter, when it arrived, was
obviously months old.
In all the months he’d been in Qatar, it was the only letter he’s received from
Nepal. In the note, his wife told him that everyone in their town was okay after
the earthquake. Homes were damaged, but their town was lucky compared to
Kathmandu. She told him she loved him and hoped he would return soon.
Manish had also written in the letter. “Hey, dad! Hope the stadium looks
cool. Maybe we can go to a game when it’s finished. I got to see a Champion’s
League game on the TV at Sunil’s a couple days ago. Those guys are so good. Do
you think I can be that good some day? Anyway, I miss you. Love, Manish.”
Bickash patted his back pants pocket. He did that often, just to be sure the
letter was still there.
As he sat down for his break, he took the letter out and began reading it
for the twentieth time. A scream pierced his moment of relief.
Bickash looked up. The men always looked up when they heard a scream. Only
fifty feet away, Bickash saw a man falling. The man seemed to be in slow
motion, his body twisting and his arms and legs flailing. Bickash didn’t want
to look, but he couldn’t turn away. Kumar was up there somewhere.
Without knowing it, Bickash stood and began walking toward where the man
landed after striking the edge of a concrete structure on the ground. Bickash
began running.
Kumar was dead. Bikash could not speak as he held his lifelong friend’s
lifeless hand in his own.
A beam, poorly welded, had come loose. It had knocked Kumar from his perch
near the top of the west stands. Kumar’s fifty-foot fall ended with his head
striking the concrete structure that would someday be the locker room in which
the world’s finest and richest athletes prepared to take the field.
Despite loud orders from the bosses to leave,
many of Bikash’s fellow workers lingered around Kumar. Bikash picked up his
friend and carried him all the way back to their windowless room. Bikash
counted the doors as he walked. Ten. He placed his friend on his cot and
thought, while looking down at Kumar’s body clad in Adidas sweat
pants and t-shirt, “I hope you find one last dream my friend. Maybe a dream of
mountains and dirt soccer fields.” A small bead of sweat slipped from Bikash’s
forehead and landed on his friend’s chest. The letter from home, soaked with
Annapurna blood, still clutched tightly in Bickash’s scarred fingers.
