Spirit of a Mountain Wolf (15 page)

“I will work to pay off your debt. Mr. Malik said he will put aside money each time I . . .” he faltered, “. . . do a massage.”

Tahira’s face showed the sort of pity given to someone who is younger and doesn’t yet understand the world. “That wagon man who picked me up sold me to a man in a black turban with a huge gun. I was thrown into a room with other children. We were fed once a day, and after a week I was sold as domestic help to a big house here in Islamabad.” How bleak she sounded. “I cleaned the house and washed dishes for two years. Then the son of the house started talking to me while I was dusting. I thought I would get into trouble and I was right. His mother caught him and said I had to go. I wasn’t the right age any more for their family. She put me in a rickshaw and the driver dumped me on the street at one of the markets. I managed to keep away from the men there and met a boy who showed me a safe place to sleep in a gali. He patted my head and said I was pretty like his sister. Later, I found out he worked for Mr. Malik. It only took Mr. Malik a day to find me. He said he would take me to a safer place and promised me a room in his house and dancing lessons. But he didn’t tell me everything.” She shook her head sadly at Razaq. “He will never let us go. I know that now. I thought he loved me as a true uncle, that he might adopt me, but he doesn’t love me at all. I have been a fool.”

Razaq didn’t know what to say to comfort her. Not when he also wanted someone to tell him how to make sense of it all.

Two weeks later, Murad took Razaq and Tahira out to the car. It was night, and they had no idea where they were going. Razaq was pushed into the back, next to Tahira.

“This is the second time I’ve been in a car,” he whispered.

Tahira nodded. “Me, too.”

The driver was the same man who had brought Razaq to the white house—how long ago? Razaq wasn’t sure. A few months? The driver glanced at them in the mirror. Razaq wondered what he was thinking. Did he know about his boss’s business? Razaq knew now what that business was: enslaving children and making money from them. Wasn’t Mr. Malik educated enough to have a proper job?

The driver spoke. “You kids watch yourselves in the Qasai Gali. Lots of china shops there now, but they say it used to be full of chaklas, brothels. I’m telling you, it still is. Just not as respectable. Now they are ordinary kothi khanas pretending to be the real thing.”

Razaq stared at him in the mirror. He didn’t understand everything the man said, but was he warning them? Were they being taken to a brothel? Razaq carefully tried his door but it was locked.

He felt Tahira’s hand on his. “What is the matter?” she whispered.

“We have to get you out of here.”

“Why? Whatever happens it will happen whether we are at Mr. Malik’s house or this new place.”

Razaq hated how her voice sounded so tired. “We could live on the street,” he said, thinking of Zakim.

“It will be even worse. And Mr. Malik knows many people. They would find us.”

“I know a place,” he said stubbornly.

Tahira looked at him. He could see the sadness on her face as they drove under the streetlights. How would he and Zakim keep her safe at the scrap yard? As soon as the bear saw her, he would tell his landlord, and she’d be sold all over again. How long would Zakim be able to keep Moti safe? Why did men treat girls this way? Razaq had a trade now: he could be a malishia honorably if he worked for himself like Zakim did. Whenever a man said, “What else?” Razaq would be able to say, “Sorry, nothing else, just expert malish, janab.” He gave a sad smile in the dark.

He heard the train and knew they were back in Rawalpindi where he’d rescued the buffalo at Farawa Chowk. He leaned forward and asked the driver, “Where is Qasai Gali?”

The driver tooted his horn, then said, “Behind Moti Bazaar. It is as big and busy as an ants’ nest, so remember what I said. Don’t get lost and don’t talk to anyone you do not know. People steal good-looking kids like you.”

Razaq scowled. It was a bit late for that advice.

Murad gave a grunt and the driver shut up. The car turned down a gali barely wide enough for it, lined with adjoining houses. Murad got out and Razaq saw a glint in his hand: he had a gun.

Murad looked up and down the gali before opening Razaq’s door. He motioned with the gun for both of them to get out Razaq’s side, then herded them toward a door. There was music coming from an upstairs window, and at ground level, there were windows where they saw women without scarves singing and dancing. Tahira pulled her own shawl tighter around herself. Razaq looked down the gali; it wasn’t a hive of activity, but he could imagine stalls set up there in the daytime. A group of young men entered the lane, laughing together.

Murad pounded on the door. It opened immediately as if they had been expected. A girl, older than Tahira, stood there, her bold gaze taking in Murad and then Razaq. Her eyes widened. “Ji?”

Murad thrust Razaq and Tahira into the house, pushing the girl aside. A woman appeared. “Murad, put that gun away. Do you think you are a movie star?” Murad frowned. “So, these are Malik’s little beauties.”

The woman flowed closer as the girl shut the door. The woman was thin with a hooked nose and wore an orange shalwar qameez that barely covered her chest. Her glass bangles clinked and the sound reminded Razaq of his home. His sisters loved those glass bangles, especially red ones, but they broke so easily.

The woman—Mrs. Mumtaz, Razaq suspected—pulled off Tahira’s shawl and peered at her. She took Razaq’s chin in her hand and lifted his head to see his eyes. “Hmm. Malik spoke truly for once. We should put you to breeding. Fair green-eyed girls would make us a fortune.”

Razaq scowled. How dare someone talk to him as if he were a ram!

Mrs. Mumtaz laughed, then gave Razaq a smack on his cheek with her open palm. Perhaps she meant it playfully, but it still hurt.

“Ow.”

“Ow,” she mimicked. “Is that all you can say, mountain wolf?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. Saleem had called him a wolf, too. His fingers clenched as he breathed in quickly, then he felt Tahira’s hand on his arm. He slowly let the air out.

Mrs. Mumtaz watched them. “So, this is true also. Malik says you are a pair.” She opened her eyes wide at Razaq but still he said nothing. Her face changed. “Even if you do have feelings for this one, you will bury them. She is not for you. And if I find you interfering with her or any of my girls without permission . . .” She grabbed Razaq in the front of his shalwar. He gasped in shock as she made a chopping motion with her other hand, then let him go. “And I can see that would be a big pity.”

Her eyes flashed at him. “All you have to do is obey one rule.” She paused as if telling a joke. “And that is to obey me. I am the naika, the madam. Understand?”

Tahira nodded. Razaq did, too. He could see Mrs. Mumtaz was capable of anything, maybe even of making Tahira’s life hell if he didn’t do what she wanted.

She walked around him, considering him. “You are the only boy I have working here. You are on probation only. Malik tells me you are a malishia. This is good. We have a room for you and also for you, little sweetie.”

She turned to Tahira and Razaq stiffened as her long red fingernail traced a line down Tahira’s cheek to the corner of her mouth. “This is where my knife will cut if you refuse a customer, or if you forget to give me any tips or gifts you receive. Do you understand?”

Razaq could see Tahira blinking, trying to keep the tears at bay.

“She is only twelve,” he said. Even he could hear the challenge in his tone, and he sensed Murad take a step closer to him.

“So, the wolf speaks at last and not on his own behalf. How interesting. She is twelve, you say? Well, that is just how my customers like it.” Mrs. Mumtaz stared into Razaq’s eyes, daring him to say more, but he decided against it.

She waved Murad off then. “Tell Malik they will do fine.”

As the girl shut the door behind him, Mrs. Mumtaz smiled again. “You both are my Eid-ul-Adha gift.”

Her smiles were even worse than Mr. Malik’s, Razaq thought. She looked like a jackal and was just as unpredictable.

She took them past the room where the girls were dancing to the tabla and harmonium. The musicians were playing a love song that reminded Razaq of Uncle Javaid’s wedding. Men lounged against cushions watching the girls. None of the men wore suit coats or fine leather shoes, and they seemed to be having fun. Apart from the fact that men in the mountains didn’t sit around and watch women dance, it looked innocent enough. The house was older, the rooms smaller, and the furniture not as fine as at the white house, but the place seemed warm and cozy in the low light.

Razaq was given a room facing the gali. Mrs. Mumtaz stayed in the hall as he entered. He turned at the sound of the door closing and a bolt shooting home. He raced to the door and pulled at it, but it wouldn’t budge. He checked the window, but it had bars—there would be no getting out of that.

The room was small and filled mostly by the bed, but there was a wash bowl and a bucket of water, plus another bucket—no doubt the toilet, for there was a lota, a small plastic jug, beside it to wash his bottom if needed. Razaq sank onto the bed. It was a dump compared to his room in the white house but still a palace compared to Zakim’s cardboard Rag Mahal.

In the morning, Razaq was standing at the window when his door was unbolted and the girl from the night before stood there with a tray. It held chai, a chapatti, and some leftover potato curry. So the food wasn’t the same as the white house’s either. Razaq sighed inwardly as the girl sidled in and dumped the tray on the bed. The chai spilled onto the tray.

“You are very handsome, Mr. Green Eyes,” she said. “Like Hrithik Roshan.” She smirked at his incomprehension. “The Bollywood actor—you see his latest movie?”

Razaq looked at her thin face and frowned. What sort of girl said something like that to a boy? She came closer and if Razaq could have taken a step backward, he would have.

“My name is Neelma, and I am Mrs. Mumtaz’s niece.”

Razaq felt a cold mist rise over him, as if a jinn had flown through the window. If Mrs. Mumtaz found her here she’d get her knife out, he was sure of it.

“You must leave my room.” It came out as a croak.

She pouted. “I am not frightened of my aunt if that is what you are worried about. I do not work here; I live here. One day I will be the madam.”

Razaq wasn’t taking any chances, but he didn’t want to offend the girl either. She had a petulant look, as if she could be spiteful when crossed. He’d seen that expression on a boy’s face at the madrasah when Ardil had quoted all his verses correctly. On the way home, the boy had tripped Ardil, and he’d hurt his ankle.

Suddenly, the girl smiled. Razaq let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“You are still new,” she said. “There is time to get to know each other.” Then she paused. “Today is a special day—Eid-ul-Adha— but you will not be celebrating since you are locked in here.”

Razaq couldn’t decide why she was pointing out the obvious: was she sorry about it or being mean? She left the room with a wink. He’d had no idea girls could be so forward.

“And,” she put her head back in the room, “you empty that bucket in the latrine in the courtyard. When you are allowed out, that is. In the meantime, the jamadarni will do it each morning.” She grinned, shut the door and shot the bolt across.

Razaq ate the curry using the chapatti to scoop it up as he always did; it was cold. So was the chai, but he drank it anyway. In the mountains, he had helped his father slaughter the goat for the sacrifice of Eid-ul-Adha to remember Ibrahim almost sacrificing his son Ismail, but God provided a ram in time. Last year, Razaq’s mother had divided the meat for their neighbors, and he took some to Ardil’s house. His mother made a delicious curry from the goat, and they ate well for three whole days. His father had praised not only his wife’s cooking but also Razaq for raising such tasty meat.

Razaq stood and paced the length of the room. He had never been locked in such a small space. Even though he couldn’t get out of the white house, he could still walk down the hallway, sit in the dancing room, watch TV. Now he did feel like a wolf. A wolf in a cage would yearn for the mountains, the freedom to run and hunt. It would snarl and fight the bars at first, but eventually the futility would kill it as surely as a bullet would. The freedom of the mountains was so much a part of Razaq that he was frightened of what he would become without it.

Each morning, the door opened and a woman in rags came in to take Razaq’s latrine bucket. She must be the jamadarni, Razaq thought. He had never seen one before, but he’d heard that they swept the streets in cities and emptied commodes and garbage bins. He curled up tighter under the cotton-filled quilt like he used to when he was little. He would have done anything right then to see his mother come into the room, bend over him, and pull his ears to rouse him up to take the goats to a new field.

He woke later to find a tray of food on the floor by the bed, but he didn’t bother to eat it. A cockroach crawled on the rim of the curry dish; orange oil congealed around the edges. Perhaps he could stay asleep forever. He closed his eyes.