Spirit of a Mountain Wolf (12 page)

He looked as if finding out what he had was going to be pleasant, but Razaq only felt ill.

Razaq stared out of the car window. Lights flashed into his eyes as they turned corners. The cinema, bright with lights and painted billboards of half-naked actresses and heroes caked with blood and mud, lit up a whole block. Hundreds of men stood around in the streets. It looked as if the city never slept. It should have been exciting—this was his first ride in a car—but the thought of what might happen to him stole his joy. He had already tried the door handle, but it was locked. Mr. Malik sat in the front seat next to the driver, and Razaq caught him glancing at him in the rearview mirror. He had a small smile at the corner of his mouth that made Razaq more worried.

The car pulled up outside a house with high white walls made of cement. There were numbers on the gate. When Razaq was ushered inside the house, he saw there were many rooms. They walked down a hallway, past a room where children were still awake and watching TV. The place looked like a fancy madrasah and Razaq’s spirits lifted a little. Perhaps Aslam was wrong; maybe he could learn some more English words here. If he didn’t like this job, he could find another. Razaq stopped himself and thought of Kazim’s restaurant. That wasn’t really a job—how long had it taken him to work that out? Too long. He probably wouldn’t have escaped from Kazim again, but was he any better off now? He wasn’t sure. Mr. Malik had paid much money—would he be more strict?

Razaq glanced up at Mr. Malik’s face: it looked hard, like sunbaked mud. He walked tall, his back straight like an army general’s, his hands big.
What are those hands capable of
, Razaq wondered.

“This is where we will start, my mountain prince,” Mr. Malik said.

Razaq looked into the room. It held a huge white trough with taps. He stared at it, uncomprehending, and Mr. Malik chuckled.

“It is called a bath. No doubt you washed in a river?”

Razaq nodded.

“Here we can capture water. We can capture anything in the city.”

He looked at Razaq as if he was thinking he could even capture boys like him. Razaq gritted his teeth. He was sure they would drown him in that bath—he couldn’t swim—and he kept his feet rooted to the floor. Mr. Malik called out and immediately two people rushed into the room. One was a young man, as tall and heavy looking as Nasir Ali but quicker on his feet, and the other was a woman.

“Bathe him,” Mr. Malik said. “Bring him to me when he is ready.”

Razaq fought valiantly, but the young man was so much bigger and the woman surprisingly strong. It wasn’t long before his clothes were stripped off and he was in the bath with only his tarveez on, being soaped and scrubbed with a tough brush.

“Ow.”

The woman grunted. “It will hurt more if you struggle. Hold him, Murad.” Then she murmured, “This one will be trouble. Already he has been beaten, but it seems it hasn’t worked.”

Razaq tried to pull his arms away from Murad’s grasp to cover himself, but Murad was too strong. Never before, not since he was a tiny child, had Razaq been completely naked. The shame daunted him, then suddenly the scrubbing was over.

“A jao, come out,” the woman said. “The boss will be pleased with you, I expect, but do what he says.” She picked up a towel and roughly wiped him. “Do not let his nice words fool you.”

With that piece of advice given, she kneeled to clean out the bath and Murad twisted Razaq’s arms behind his back and pushed him toward the door.

Razaq turned his head toward the woman. “My clothes.”

“You can’t put those filthy things back on, you’ll get dirty again,” the woman said.

Murad gave him another shove into the hallway. To Razaq’s relief, no one else was there to see him naked. He couldn’t hear the TV so maybe the children had gone to bed. He was pushed into a room on the left where Mr. Malik and another man were drinking chai from glass cups.

“So.” Mr. Malik turned as Razaq entered. He raised a hand slightly and Murad disappeared. Razaq glanced behind him at the doorway. How far was it? Perhaps he could run.

“Don’t even think about it,” Mr. Malik said. “Kazim told me he had to beat you, but I see he hasn’t broken your spirit. That is good.” He took another sip of tea while Razaq tried to cover his front. “Now that Farida has given you a bath, I see you are even fairer than I thought.” He looked at the other man who inclined his head and smiled. “I think I have hit the target this time, do you not agree, Bashir?”

“Zarur, certainly.” The other man finally spoke.

Razaq stared at him in surprise. He spoke like a mountain man, but he wasn’t dressed like one.

“Tell us about yourself, prince of the mountains.” Mr. Malik put a biscuit in his mouth. Razaq watched him slowly chewing. When had he last eaten?

“Hungry? Here.” Mr. Malik passed the plate and Razaq hesitated. Would he be allowed to take one? “Khao, eat,” Mr. Malik said.

Razaq reached out and popped one in his mouth. It was such a long time since he had eaten anything so sweet. His father had brought biscuits home from the village one day when Uncle Javaid and Auntie Amina had visited. His cousin Sakina was still a little child toddling around their one-roomed house. He had picked her up, given her a biscuit, and shown her the goats. Seema and Layla came, too. The three little girls had shrieked with laughter at everything Razaq did. It had been a good day.

“Beta, what was life like in the mountains?”

Razaq didn’t like Mr. Malik calling him “son.” The shop owner who had said he could be a chowkidar had called him that, too, yet he must have known slavers would come in the night. How much would the man have been paid, he wondered.

Mr. Malik flicked at a fly and Razaq said, “Accha hai.”

“Accha? Just good? What did you do?”

Mr. Malik looked impatient and Razaq remembered Farida’s warning. “I looked after goats, our sheep, fetched water. Helped Abu grow grain, my mother to grow vegetables.”

“Did you go to school?”

“Sometimes.” No need for them to know he could read and write a little.

Mr. Malik appraised him. “You look about twelve or thirteen.”

Razaq stayed silent. Some instinct made him let the men think he was younger than fourteen.

Mr. Malik sighed. “Have you ever been with a man?”

Razaq thought of Ardil. Was it like this for him? Then he remembered Saleem. If Kazim hadn’t saved him, he may have a different story to tell. He shook his head and the two men smiled at him. The warmth from the bath was wearing off. Didn’t the men know he was cold, or was this their way of showing him who was boss?

Mr. Malik called and Murad appeared. “Take him to the room.” Then he said to Razaq, “Have a good rest, beta. Tomorrow we shall see what you are good at, and you can start your training in your new job. We have no goats and sheep to look after here in Islamabad, but there are many things you can do. Can you dance?”

Razaq lifted his chin in affirmation.

“Then we shall see.”

Murad took Razaq to a room down the hall. There was a bed with a folded white shalwar qameez on it. Razaq pulled on the shalwar with relief. Then Murad pushed him toward a small adjoining room. In it was a white seat. Razaq stood looking at it until Murad shoved him aside, untied his own shalwar, and peed in it. Then he pushed a shiny button on top and water flushed his pee away. Realization dawned: it was a toilet. Razaq remembered his uncle telling him about them.

“How long have you been here?” he asked Murad, but he was met with a stony silence. Razaq realized with a jolt that Murad would not be his friend.

Razaq woke to his first day at the white house, as he thought of it. Everything was white: the room he slept in, the bath and the room it was in, even the walls. Murad marched him to another room with a table and benches, not unlike Kazim’s restaurant. Aslam was right about the food: there were parathas and puri halva and chai. There was plenty on the plate, too; Razaq hadn’t eaten so well since before the earthquake.

The children he had seen watching TV the night before sat around the table. There were six, and all seemed younger than Razaq. Most looked about twelve. One of them was a girl. Razaq stole a look at her. She was very pretty with big eyes the color of almonds. Would Feeba have looked like that, he wondered. The children seemed happy enough, although a few looked tired. Maybe Aslam had been wrong and this was a proper job, or a place that looked after fatherless children. Yet Mr. Malik didn’t seem like a religious man intent on doing good deeds.

After breakfast, a man came to the house carrying a tabla, a pair of hand drums. With him was a woman. She was tall and looked much like the woman who had pinched Razaq’s cheek in Moti Bazaar. They went into the room with the TV. The children followed them in and Razaq brought up the rear, curious. The pretty girl spoke to him but he couldn’t understand her words. She switched to Urdu.

“It is our dancing lesson,” she said. “Those people are from Qasai Gali.”

The name meant nothing to Razaq. “What language were you speaking?” he asked.

“Punjabi,” she said. “Punjab is where I come from.” Her face clouded before she asked, “Where are you from?”

“Kala Dhaka, the Black Mountains.”

“Where is that?”

“In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. I am a Pukhtun and that is the language I speak. My grandmother spoke Hindko so I understand that also.”

Her eyes widened.

“How did you learn Urdu?” he asked.

“In school.” She said it as if it was obvious.

Razaq stared at her. His sisters never went to school. Nor Feeba. But he was glad this girl had.

The woman called the girl’s name. “Tahira.”

Razaq said the name softly and curled his tongue around the way it sounded in his mouth.

The tabla player started up a rhythm and Tahira raised her arms to dance. Razaq thought she was magical. She turned her head and made her hands tell a story. Her feet tapped on the ground. Razaq could almost hear bells even though she wore none.

Just then the woman stopped her and said, “Do it like this, beti.” She showed Tahira what to do with her eyes. Razaq stared at the woman. He had never heard a woman speak with such a deep voice, even deeper than the lady’s who had pinched his cheek.

Tahira danced again and the younger children clapped in rhythm. A louder clapping came from the doorway as Tahira finished. Razaq glanced behind him and saw Mr. Malik smiling at Tahira. She sank to the floor, looking happy to have danced, but Razaq frowned. Mr. Malik’s smile was disturbing. Were they all in the house just to be fed well and have expensive dancing lessons?

“Shahbash, shahbash. Well done,” Mr. Malik said. “You are a true princess, little one.” His gaze shifted to Razaq. “Now let us see what our mountain prince can do.”

He motioned to the tabla player and flicked his fingers at Razaq to dance. The beat wasn’t familiar, but Razaq held his arms out and danced the steps the men performed at weddings in the mountains. He lifted his feet as if he were dancing between crossed swords. At first he felt self-conscious, but as he turned he saw Tahira watching him. It was her he wanted to impress, not Mr. Malik.

When the tabla stopped, she smiled at him. He was astonished to find her smile was worth everything, even being caged in the white house.

“Shahbash.” Mr. Malik’s praise wasn’t quite as effusive as it had been for Tahira. “Can you do something with him, Pretty?” he asked the dance instructor.

“Certainly, sahib.”

Mr. Malik’s cell phone rang, and he walked down the hallway talking.

Pretty spent the rest of the morning training the children how to dance for an audience. One dark-skinned boy danced in a colored shalwar and a tiny silk vest. If he made a mistake he giggled, but mostly he did very well.

“Danyal, concentrate,” Pretty said, but she didn’t sound angry. Even Razaq smiled when Danyal looked at him and rolled his eyes.

When the dancing class was over, the children gathered again in the room with the table and Farida brought in a bowl of chicken curry and chapattis. Razaq had only ever had chicken at weddings. If they got food again in the evening, it would be three times Razaq had eaten that day. He was lucky to eat twice a day at Kazim’s and that wasn’t just because of Ramadan. He wondered if they were being plumped up like chickens ready for the market.

Danyal sat beside him. “Ramadan finished last night so this is our Eid-ul-Fitr feast. Mr. Malik lets Farida spoil us every now and then.” He grinned.

Razaq was astounded that he hadn’t realized what day it was. His thoughts had been consumed with being brought to Mr. Malik’s house. At home, his mother would have made new clothes for him and his sisters, a new sweater maybe. Sometimes there was a gift, like his grandfather’s gun his father gave him at his eleventh Eid. Or his new lambswool hat when he was twelve.

“Shall we go outside and play a game after this?” Razaq said to Danyal. “Do you have a soccer ball?”

The smile disappeared from Danyal’s face. “We do not go outside.” He looked over his shoulder before he said, “All the doors have special security codes. There is no way out.”