Spirit of a Mountain Wolf (9 page)

Moti followed close behind him. “One day we will be rich.”

“Like princes,” Raj added.

Hira took his hand. She looked about four years old. “You do look like the moon,” she said.

Razaq felt his face grow hot. Chandi was going to be an embarrassing nickname. He blew out a breath. “What do you do all day?” he asked.

Moti took his other hand. “We find good rubbish and Zakim sells it. Sprite bottles are the best. But sometimes we just have to pick up paper and rags. Zakim says someone uses them again.” She scrunched up her face.

“Zakim picks up metal scrap,” Raj said.

“Is it dangerous?” Razaq was thinking of accidents with broken glass or the little ones falling off the dump and wasn’t ready for Raj’s answer.

“We just have to watch out for the slavers.”

Razaq looked quickly at him. “The what?”

“The men who want to take us away from Zakim,” Moti said. “They will tell us they have a nice place for us to sleep, but really they want us to be slaves and beg for them. Here we are free. So we watch out for each other. If you see any men, run away.” Razaq let her pull him forward. “Just find nice things to sell,” she went on. “Then we can have tasty khana tonight. Usually we just have chapatti and chai, and boiled potatoes if Zakim is lucky.”

“Ji,” said Hira, “but last night we ate shami kebabs. The meat in them was tasty.”

“They were cold and moldy,” Raj reminded her.

Hira pouted. “I still liked them.”

Moti found Razaq a huge plastic bag, and he soon learned what was salable: soft-drink bottles and jars, rags for car shops. If he brought anything back that couldn’t be sold, Moti looked at him mournfully. He couldn’t stand it. He imagined how he’d feel if he had to find things to sell so Seema and Layla could eat that night and worked so hard he didn’t notice Zakim come up behind him.

“You’ve taken to the scrap yard, I see.”

Razaq spun around. Zakim had a canvas bag over his shoulder and a jacket in his hand. It was green and looked like it belonged to a cricketer.

“This is for you,” he said. “You were shivering in your sleep last night. I found it in Landar Bazaar.”

Razaq didn’t immediately take it so Zakim held it out. “You can pay me later.”

“Shukriya.”

Zakim watched him trying it on, then said, “You must have left quickly from where you were not to take a coat.”

Razaq nodded, not sure how to explain Kazim in the freedom of the morning sun. He took the jacket off and tied it around his waist. Zakim wasn’t smiling today, he noticed. “Is anything the matter?”

Zakim glanced at the children picking up garbage. Moti’s voice carried up the dump, telling them what to do. “I want to keep them safe,” he said.

Razaq was silent with respect.

“But there is someone who doesn’t want that.”

“Who?”

“The bear.”

Razaq stared at him, crinkling his eyes.

“Nasir Ali,” Zakim explained. “He works the other side of the dump. He wants my section, too.”

“He will not treat the children well?”

“No.”

“Then he must be stopped.”

Zakim grunted. “And you have an idea how to do that, mountain boy?”

Razaq thought of his and his father’s rifles buried under the destroyed house. “Do you have a gun?”

Zakim gaped at him. “A gun?”

“It is how we protected our family and herds from wild animals. Everyone in the mountains had one. It was very effective.”

Zakim glanced at the cardboard shelter and back to Razaq. “The bear has a knife.”

“You do not?”

“It is my knife he has.”

“So you have fought before.” It was a statement not a question. “How much is a knife?”

“I know where to get a used one for twenty-five rupees.”

Razaq thought a moment. Did Zakim know how much money he had? He glanced at Moti and Raj, who were cajoling Hira to keep picking up papers, then lifted his chin just as his father did when he had made a decision. He pulled the money out of his pocket.

When he looked up, Zakim was grinning. “I knew I hadn’t picked you up for nothing, Chandi.”

When Zakim returned that evening, he had two knives and dinner in a square plastic box.

“How—” Razaq began.

“Don’t ask, Chandi.” Zakim passed him a knife.

The little children sat in an eager circle around the box of curry, and Zakim handed out chapattis. Razaq suspected his money had paid for the food so how did Zakim get the knives? Zakim saw him watching him and made that curious gesture with his eyebrows and nose. Razaq grinned. He guessed he was never going to find out. He joined in with the others, scooping curry up with pieces of chapatti.

“Just like my mother used to make,” Zakim said with a sigh.

“I say it is not,” Raj said.

Zakim looked at the boy with mock sadness. “You need to use your imagination more, Raj.”

The cardboard shelter had been made with the same care that Razaq’s father had taken when building their house. Part of it was a box that some sort of machine had been sold in, which Zakim had tied together with another box. Over the top were sheets of plastic, then more scraps of cardboard held down with wire.

“Welcome to our palace,” he said and ushered Razaq inside, where he lit a candle.

Moti put the other two and herself to sleep on a cardboard mat at the back of the box. Zakim laid a thin blanket over them then came to sit with Razaq near the opening. He pulled a tube from a small bag.

“What is that?” Razaq asked.

Zakim squeezed something out of the tube onto a piece of dirty cloth and handed it to Razaq. “You sniff it.”

“Why?”

“It makes you feel better. Helps you forget you haven’t eaten or are only a prince of a small part of a rubbish dump. It can even make you feel warm—no need for blankets. Magic.” He grinned.

Razaq frowned. “It is like hashish?”

“Hash is too expensive.”

“In the mountains, men who smoke too much hash cannot fight.”

Zakim lowered the cloth. “What is it you are meaning?”

Razaq ignored the threat in Zakim’s voice. “What if the bear comes tonight? He would finish you off.”

Zakim brought the cloth to his nose. “This will make me forget about him.”

“Then you will not realize when he kills you. I would rather know when I am being killed.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe the two of us can overpower him.”

Zakim shook his head. “He is a bear.”

“Bears still have blood like we do, and it pours out like ours. Even a bear feels pain when a ring is put in its nose.”

Razaq watched Zakim put the cloth away. A gun or a knife was no protection against an earthquake, but the bear surely couldn’t be as strong as the earth in a rage.

When Javaid arrived home from the tribal areas, Sakina jumped into his arms as soon as he entered the courtyard. “Abu, why were you away so long? I missed you.”

“I missed you too, beti.”

Javaid held her close against him. How good it was to smell her freshly washed hair and feel her vibrancy. Amina laid her hand on his back, and he dropped his head to her shoulder and let out a sob.

“It was bad?” she whispered.

He lifted his head and gave them both a watery smile. “I have brought someone to stay with us.” His voice broke, but he carried on. “She is the only relative I could find alive.”

Amina’s eyes filled and then she saw her aunt behind him. “Auntie Latifa?” She enveloped her aunt in a hug, then looked back at Javaid, a question on her face.

“There was no one else,” he said. “Her brother hadn’t come. Perhaps he couldn’t—he lives in Azad Kashmir. They were hit worse than Kala Dhaka. And it’s getting cold up there.”

“My uncle? Their sons? Feeba?”

Javaid shook his head. “All of the children were in the madrasah . . .” He choked back another sob and glanced at Latifa, but she seemed unperturbed.

Sakina stared intently at his face. She put a finger to his eye. “Abu is sad.”

He was loathe to put her down, so he kept her in one arm as he brought in his bag and Latifa’s few things.

Latifa was talking to Amina inside the house. “My son will send me money soon, so do not worry. It is very kind of you to have me.”

Amina frowned at Javaid. He put Sakina near Latifa to say salaam and took Amina into the second room.

“She speaks of Razaq,” he told her. “He is still alive, and she thinks he is her son. It is the grief. She cannot bear the burden of it so I humor her. But I have to find Razaq and bring him here.”

He searched her face, and she nodded.

“We will have a houseful,” she said.

“It is our way.” He smiled. “The best way to live. When Razaq gets married, we can build another room.”

“Where is he?”

Javaid sank onto the charpoy. “Auntie Latifa says a man took him for a job here in Rawalpindi.”

“But he could have been anyone.” Amina glanced out at her aunt. “No one gives a job for nothing.”

“She didn’t know what she was doing. But I fear for Razaq.” Javaid glanced at Amina before he said the next sentence. “The man may have been a slaver.”

Amina laid a hand on Javaid’s. “Then Razaq could be anywhere by now. How will you find him?”

Javaid closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them he said quietly, “I don’t know.”

During his lunch break the first day back at Fazal Clothing Emporium, Javaid sat at the computer and keyed in the words “slave trade.” He was appalled at what he found. Hundreds of thousands of children were sold each year, and it was even happening in Pakistan. Many were sold into domestic positions or carpet or brick factories. Some were even forced into prostitution. The given cause for this one? Segregation of the sexes. He swore under his breath. This was a Muslim country. Any decent man wouldn’t hurt a child surely?

He searched government sites. Trafficking was illegal, Programs were in place to help, even a government bureau to help eradicate child beggary and to rescue trafficked children. There were nigeban, government-run shelters, for kidnapped or lost boys. He would check those, and the bus terminals heading north. Nongovernment organizations were also set up to rehabilitate children. He took down the details in a small notebook and popped it in his qameez pocket.

Winter would set in soon. He hoped Razaq was still in the city and hadn’t been sent to the Gulf States, though he was too old to be a camel jockey. Javaid had read how some boys were sent there and even to Europe. He would have to search quickly for he had no finance for overseas travel.

First stop: the bus adda where the bus most likely to have brought Razaq down from Kala Dhaka would have terminated. Was it too obvious? Would he have been taken elsewhere? The information Javaid had read showed the bus terminals were rife with crime. He logged off. He would start searching the biggest bus adda that night.

The busiest and most northern bus adda in Rawalpindi was like an ants’ nest when Javaid arrived. It was the same bus station from where he had traveled north after the earthquake. Twelve thousand buses passed through the dusty grounds in twenty-four hours. He climbed out of the rickshaw he had hired, paid the man, and stared around him. How did he think he could do this? There were hundreds of kacha stalls, teashops, boys walking around selling drinks or washing buses even at this time of night. He had never noticed before how many young boys were employed here. It had all just been part of the scenery. But that was before he had to find Razaq.