Spirit of a Mountain Wolf (20 page)

Never had she sounded so bitter.

“Surely God will forgive,” Razaq said, but he wondered if he was saying the words as he would to one of his sisters if she broke a glass bangle. Could God truly forgive him for what he willingly did to keep Tahira and himself safe? Or should he be taking more of a risk to escape?

There had to be something they could hang onto. He wanted to say they should fight, but he had lost his fighting spirit, like Ardil had. There was one thing he could say, though he wondered if he could believe it himself.

“We must not let them take our minds as well. Remember who you were. You are still that person.”

She shook her head. “It hurts too much. What I was then and what I am now is too different.”

She sounded so desolate that Razaq did something he hadn’t before. He drew her close and held her against him. It hurt his ribs to stretch his arms around her. He tried to feel brotherly, but that didn’t work: hugging his sisters had never felt like this. He knew that if he could hold her all day, he would have the strength to draw back his spirit that was disappearing.

“I don’t care whether you are a gashtee or a princess, you are still Tahira.”

She stood back a step but he left his hands on her arms.

“Thank you,” she said simply. There were still tears in her eyes but her expression had changed; her eyes were shining. “My mother said that all we have to do is believe in Yesu and we will go to heaven, our sin all gone. But we have to say sorry.” Her eyes clouded again.

Razaq saw what he could say. “Then ask for forgiveness every day.”

Her eyes brightened a little, and he smiled. He wished he could believe something so simple and sure, but he knew he had only the mercy of God to rely on. Maybe he would go to Paradise, maybe not—no one could presume on God’s good will. But if he could help Tahira feel better, it was all he wanted.

It was then he looked up and saw Neelma watching him as she walked past his open doorway. Had she seen him hold Tahira?

“You should go,” he whispered. “Neelma walked past.”

Tahira nodded and adjusted her shawl. She backed out of his room and hurried into the courtyard and to her own room. Razaq watched her go, hoping Neelma hadn’t seen him touch her. He could argue he was just being brotherly, but Neelma was unpredictable like her aunt: if something upset her, he never knew which way she would react.

He didn’t have long to wait. That afternoon there was a bang on his door, and Mrs. Mumtaz burst into his room.

“Neelma tells me you kissed her. On the mouth.” She narrowed her gaze at him. “Where did you learn that disgusting American habit? Films? Or did a customer show you?”

Razaq shook his head. He stood to face her and saw Neelma behind her. What was Neelma’s strategy? Had she mentioned Tahira? It didn’t seem like it. Was kissing Neelma worse than touching Tahira in Mrs. Mumtaz’s eyes, or did Neelma also want to have a hold over him? Do what I say or I will tell about Tahira also? Razaq shuddered. He doubted Mrs. Mumtaz would believe him if he denied it.

“You think you’re a mountain stud ram, is that it?” Mrs. Mumtaz sneered at him.

Razaq found it hard to hold his tongue, but he managed it. He could feel the anger rise.

“A beating will do you no good, it seems. Besides, I need you to start work tomorrow. So, no more dancing with the girls in the evenings.”

Razaq tried not to look relieved.

“And,” Mrs. Mumtaz stared at him so intently her eyes bulged, “no going on the roof or where you can run into the girls, and no more jaunts to the bakery. I’ve been too easy on you.” She stared at him with her face tilted to the side.

Razaq felt the blood rush from his head. How would he cope again stuck in this room all day every day? Not being able to feel the breeze on the roof, or even to go to the latrine; having to do his business before the jamadarni came to empty his bucket? He could feel the walls closing in on him at the thought of it.

He ventured a question. “For how long?” His voice cracked and Mrs. Mumtaz frowned at him.

Then she smirked. “I’ll decide what to do with you and how long it will be. For now it is indefinitely.”

Razaq glanced at Neelma. Her face had fallen, so he guessed her plan had backfired. What had she expected her aunt to do? Turn him over to her? If Neelma came to his room now, surely Mrs. Mumtaz would know it was Neelma’s fault and not his.

But Razaq didn’t feel pleased for long that Neelma had been thwarted, not when he heard the bolt on his door slam across. He lay gingerly on his bed. All he felt like doing was weeping. His anger had faded again.

He wondered what Mrs. Mumtaz would decide to do. Maybe she would think he was too much trouble and cut him like Bilal. How long would he be cooped up like a chicken in a butcher’s cage waiting for the axe?

Javaid let himself into work early and sat at the desk. He took out his notebook and booted up the computer. This was now his daily ritual: to contact those organizations that helped rescue and rehabilitate enslaved children. He sent his usual group e-mail to a collection of government agencies asking if a boy called Abdur-Razaq Khan had arrived in their programs. The answers were always the same: “We are sorry, janab, your nephew has not been found.” Yet still Javaid persisted.

This morning when he called a nongovernment agency, a man told him they could do nothing without knowledge of Razaq’s whereabouts. “If we have some indication of where he is, janab, we can send personnel.”

Javaid ended the call and sat staring at the computer screen. What did the man think he had been doing all these months? He had searched so long for Razaq, but it was an impossible task.

His only hope had come from that boy at the scrap yard. He had looked the streetwise sort of boy who could do anything, but Javaid was a fool for trusting him. It had been weeks since he’d seen him at the yard. Maybe the boy had known nothing after all. That policeman had been right: it was up to Javaid to find Razaq. He couldn’t give up, even if it took ten calls every day. Surely one day a person would have seen his nephew.

He turned a page in the notebook and rang another number. There was just enough time before Waqar came to work. Javaid was waiting on the line when he heard Zaid arguing with someone outside the shop. It was his duty to keep the young salesmen in line when Waqar wasn’t in. He canceled the call, pocketed his notebook and cell phone, and walked to the door.

“What is the matter?” he asked Zaid, barely keeping the annoyance out of his tone.

“It is just another beggar. He says his name is Zakim, and he knows you.” Zaid frowned at Javaid. “I am just getting rid of him, but he is most insistent.”

Zaid moved and Javaid could see who the beggar was. It was the boy from the scrap yard.

“I’ll handle this,” he said to Zaid. “You look after the shop.”

Zaid brushed past him, grumbling about beggars, and left them alone.

At first, Javaid didn’t speak. Zakim was staring at him, the outrage at being called a beggar evident in his stance and raised chin.

“Have you found Razaq?” Javaid finally said. He held his breath, not daring to hope.

Zakim inclined his head and Javaid let his breath out with a whoosh.

“Where?”

The boy looked troubled. “Qasai Gali.”

“But that is near here,” Javaid said, feeling a rush of excitement. Then he frowned. “Wasn’t that once a street of brothels?”

“Ji, janab, and Razaq is in a very difficult situation. It is too dangerous to free him.”

Razaq’s afternoons and evenings were soon busy again. He was inundated; it seemed his customers had missed him. It still hurt to bend over the bed during a massage, or to work hard on a man’s back, but his ribs were gradually healing. Bilal had been given the job of cutting his stitches and pulling them out. Razaq wondered if Bilal spoke to the customers before they came in because for weeks no one asked for “whatever.” It gave Razaq more time to heal.

One customer said how sorry he was to hear an evil man had beaten him. “You shouldn’t be working here,” he said. “You should work on your own, and you can decide which customers you want. If you do this, let me know, and I will come to you there.”

Razaq said nothing. It was a good idea, but he realized the man didn’t know his circumstances. How many of his customers didn’t understand he was a slave? Did they think he chose to live this way?

If Mrs. Mumtaz had wanted to wound him even more than a beating, she had succeeded. Razaq hated being a prisoner in his room. If he woke too early, he paced the small area beside his bed. Then he stood at the window and stared out between the bars. At least he had that, even if he couldn’t see the sun rise or set. He watched the food wallahs pushing their carts filled with vegetables, saw Bilal head off toward the bazaar. Once Bilal glanced back and lifted an arm. Could he see Razaq there?

Razaq searched the gali for Zakim, but there was no sign of him. He thought about what Zakim had said about a man asking for him. Would Zakim make up such a thing? Why should he? He didn’t answer to anyone like Aslam did. But what could be done?

Razaq picked his pakol off the hook on the wall and turned it in circles in his hands as he thought. This hat showed who he was and where he came from—a mountain boy, free and strong. He closed his eyes. He was neither of those things any more. He was the shadow a wounded wolf made as it slunk through the jungle, an ill-treated dog with no spirit even to wag its tail as it sat sad eyed with its nose on its paws. Razaq groaned and threw the hat in the corner. It just missed the latrine bucket.

He sat on the bed, stood again. He had to keep off the bed. If he lay down, he would curl up and sleep like a baby until his first customer came. He had to make himself think. He thought of his father and the day he had taken him to a forest up the mountain. It took half the day to trek there. It was cool; Razaq had a shawl wrapped around him, and he carried his gun over his shoulder like his father did. They were tracking game when Razaq saw two men in the distance. He heard a shot, but when he and his father reached the place, there was a dead bear left on the ground.

“Why did they kill her and not take the carcass?” Razaq asked.

His father told him men killed mother bears to capture the cubs.

A year later, a man had brought a young bear into the village. It had a rope through its nose. It danced during the day, but after dancing it had to face two ferocious dogs. Razaq’s father forbade him to watch. Uncle Javaid said bear baiting was wrong. So did his father.

“I may be uneducated, unlike your uncle, but I am not ignorant,” he said to Razaq.

Razaq remembered the bloody nose of the bear. He had seen the cage that the bear had to sleep in. To a bear it would have seemed as small as this room did to him.

Razaq heard the bolt drawn back. His door opened and Bilal stood there, a grin on his face. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.” He pushed a boy into the room.

Razaq started in surprise. “Danyal?”

The boy didn’t smile.

“Is it you?” Razaq took a step closer and the boy flinched. Razaq stopped. Where was the cheeky boy full of Punjabi jokes from Mr. Malik’s house? He glanced up at Bilal.

“He has been trained as a malishia, like you,” Bilal said. “Mrs. M has found malish is good for business.”

Razaq tried not to stare at Danyal. What had happened to him? Had he himself also changed that much? Then a thought struck Razaq. Now Ismat was gone, a room was spare. Was Danyal his replacement should he cause Mrs. Mumtaz any further trouble?

As if Bilal could read his thoughts, he said, “Mrs. M told me to bring him so you know he is here. Maybe you have some malish tips for him?”

Razaq blew out a breath. What hadn’t he known at first? “Whatever,” but by the look of Danyal, he had been taught that lesson already. What would he have liked someone to tell him? He knew Mrs. Mumtaz would want him to explain the rules: to not cause trouble, do “whatever,” don’t touch the girls or you get locked up.

Instead, he said, “Do not let them take your whole self, Danyal—remember your jokes in your mind.”

Danyal spoke then. “What good will that do? Will it help me escape?”

Razaq thought about that. “No, it won’t change what happens to you, but it could make you think differently about how you feel. They are the ones who have given us these feelings of dirt and shame. We have mushkil, difficult feelings, now, but we are the same inside.” He thought of Zakim saying he answered to no man and laid a hand over his chest. “Don’t let them break you in here.”

Danyal stared at him as if he were crazy.

Razaq suddenly grinned. Perhaps he was. Would he have been able to say that if he didn’t have Tahira to think about? But he knew he was truly telling himself these things. Certainly, he was locked in a room, but he wasn’t dead yet. He may still think of something.