‘Are you sure? You had the most to do with him.’
Shahana remembers Zahid’s words in the snow. Amaan knew him, but does he know he is the boy Shahana calls her brother?
Amaan peers into Zahid’s face. It is as pale as bread flour. ‘Nothing like him.’
‘He is my relative,’ Shahana manages to say through her tears. ‘He is just a jawan, a teenage boy.’
Amaan looks over at the army officer. ‘Can you help him? These kids are orphans of the war, they have no money for a doctor.’
The officer looks at Amaan in surprise, but he lifts his hand and barks an order. Two young men carrying a stretcher materialise. Shahana wonders at such authority that can make things happen with just a word.
Shahana is not sure she wants Zahid to go to the army barracks. The militants are kind to help the army dig out victims but she’s heard rumours that the army watches them carefully in case they make trouble. And what if the army finds out Zahid has been with the militants?
The officer comes to kneel by Shahana. ‘I am a doctor. I will bandage your hands.’
She looks down and sees the blood. She hasn’t noticed before.
‘You can feel pain?’ he asks.
‘Nay, janab.’
Amaan is standing close by, watching.
The doctor asks to see her feet. ‘Fortunately you were not buried long enough to lose toes.’
‘Can I go with my cousin?’ she asks.
‘No, you may not come to the army base. You are well enough to return home. Some men from your village are here. Is there anyone you know who can take you home?’
She sees a little bulldozer with a soldier in the seat. Then she sees men from the village leaning on shovels beside it. So they have helped. They have seen Zahid pulled out of the snow. Have they heard her call him her relative? She recognises Mr Pervaiz and points at him. ‘That one.’
An army officer calls him over. ‘You know this girl?’
‘Ji, janab. I will look after her and take her to the village.’
‘How will I know if my cousin is well enough to come home?’ she says softly to the doctor.
He is quiet while he finishes her bandages and she worries why he won’t answer her. Even Nana-ji, for all his honesty, wouldn’t admit if someone was about to die. The doctor looks at her before he answers. ‘We will let you know, when he recovers.’
Shahana hears the way the doctor hesitates over the word when, but she lifts her chin and tries to speak firmly, as her mother would. ‘I will wait for your message, doctor sahib. I will be at the half-widow’s house, Mrs Habib Sheikh.’ She gives Aunty Rabia’s formal name.
Amaan is regarding her, but he waits for the other militants to leave before he speaks. ‘Have you found your young brother? Was he with you—’ He leaves the rest unsaid.
‘Nay,’ she says. ‘I do not know where he is.’
‘Then I will search also.’ Amaan glances at Mr Pervaiz and nods. He is so stern, as if he doesn’t care for her at all, yet he has lied to save Zahid’s life. Why has he helped them?
Shahana cannot walk, so Mr Pervaiz lifts her onto his back. She looks behind her and sees Amaan, like a man carved in stone, facing her way. Behind him, above the mountains, the sky is lightening in the east.
Chapter 21
Shahana wakes in a strange bed yet she can hear Rani bleating outside. Someone is lying beside her. Tanveer? She lifts her head to check. It is Ayesha. She is breathing softly, her mouth slightly open, her shut eyes flickering slightly. How peaceful she looks.
Shahana wonders if Tanveer has woken. What she wouldn’t give to see him breathing softly beside her like this. She squeezes her eyes shut. Where hasn’t she looked for him? The Neelum River? But Zahid said he wasn’t there. It was getting dark by then, could Zahid have seen clearly? Or was Tanveer still on the mountain under a pile of snow or branches? And what of Zahid? She lets out a groan.
‘Shahana?’ Ayesha’s hand is on her arm. ‘How do you feel today?’
What can she say?
Ayesha stretches and rolls over onto her elbows. ‘When Mr Pervaiz brought you last night you were so tired we just put you on the bed. But he said something about a boy. That the army took him. Was that Tanveer? Is that why he isn’t with you?’
Shahana closes her eyes. ‘I lost Tanveer.’
‘Lost him? You mean in the avalanche? They didn’t dig him out?’
Shahana starts as if she’s seen a jinn. Could that have happened? Was he rolled along with the snow too? But the dogs would have found him. She tries to calm herself.
‘Nay, he went to gather wood just like he always does. We found Rani, but not Tanveer. We went everywhere – the rivers, I even went right up the mountain. That is what Zahid and I were doing when we were caught in the snow. We were looking for Tanveer.’
The tears roll down her face and Ayesha sits up to put her arms around her. ‘I am so sorry to hear that.’
‘He must be still out there. There were trained dogs at the snow, but they didn’t find Tanveer.’ She says this aloud for her own benefit, to stop thinking of useless possibilities. ‘I must keep searching for him.’
‘Your hands need to heal. And you were cramped up for so long in the cold that you’ll need practice walking.’
‘I can do that searching for Tanveer.’
Ayesha sighs. ‘I will come with you. Though if there were dogs wouldn’t they have found him if he was on the mountain?’
‘What if he wasn’t in their path?’ Then a frightening thought came to her. What if the wild dogs found him?
She pulls back the quilt. She is wearing a clean shalwar qameez. Ayesha smiles at her. ‘You were so wet last night that Ummie and I washed you with hot water before you fell asleep.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘I am not surprised.’
Then Ayesha says, ‘So it was the boy, Zahid, the army took. Why? Did they think he was a fugitive?’
‘I hope not. He was unconscious. The army doctor took him to their clinic.’ What if the army does find out Zahid was being trained as a militant? Would they put him in prison or in the refugee camp? She won’t tell Ayesha what he told her in the snow. Shahana has noticed how she hesitated over his name: Ayesha doesn’t trust him. But did she herself trust him in the beginning? Wouldn’t she have sent him away if he told her at the start he was a boy militant?
‘Shahana? I am so sorry for your trouble. It is very difficult for you, and I will help you.’ Then Ayesha says thoughtfully, ‘What about Mr Nadir?’
‘What about him?’ Shahana turns to look at her. She doesn’t want to think about him right now; there is too much to worry about. The dupatta. She touches her bandages. ‘I won’t be able to finish the dupatta now. Will you tell him?’
‘We could both go.’
It is Ayesha’s tone; it is as if she knows something. ‘What are you thinking?’ Shahana asks.
‘Did he ever offer Tanveer work?’
‘Yes, knotting carpets, but I refused. I would never be able to pay him out again.’ Shahana pauses, watching Ayesha’s face and following her thoughts. ‘Surely he wouldn’t just take him?’
‘Maybe not him, but someone else may have abducted Tanveer and taken him to Mr Nadir. Times are hard because of the conflict, especially in winter.’
‘But Mr Nadir would have to ask me, give me money. Nothing like that has happened.’
‘He might have if it wasn’t for the avalanche. Now everyone will say Tanveer died in it.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Don’t be upset with me, I don’t think he died. But do you not think it is strange that he went missing not far from your house?’
Shahana remembers the men who came past the house. Was it possible they weren’t militants, just some men in need of money? Has she mistaken men for militants, just as the Indian soldiers did with her father? Just like the king who acted first and asked questions later in that old story.
If Ayesha is
right then Mr Nadir would have paid the men for Tanveer to work on his loom. ‘Would Mr Nadir think I sent the men?’
‘That is possible.’
‘If it’s true, how will we free him?’
‘First we have to find out if he’s there.’
Shahana’s thoughts are raging like the river in flood after the snow melts. If it is true, then Tanveer at least is alive. She won’t have to worry about him being eaten by wolves or leopards or dying of cold because she couldn’t find him in time. But if it is true, will she be able to release him? He’ll be so frightened he won’t be able to breathe. What if Mr Nadir doesn’t know what medicine to give him? One thing Shahana does know: Mr Nadir will never give Tanveer back just because she and Ayesha ask him to.
‘Let’s hope Mr Nadir does have him,’ Ayesha says.
‘Why?’
‘Because we at least know Mr Nadir. If he has sent Tanveer somewhere else, it will be harder to find him.’
Somewhere else? It is too awful to consider. ‘Maybe he fell in the stream.’ She wishes she didn’t sound so hopeless.
Ayesha says gently, ‘You have already looked and there was no sign.’
‘I am being foolish, but it is a terrifying thing to think of Mr Nadir having Tanveer.’ Shahana stands up and wobbles on her feet. She ignores the pain shooting down her legs and thinks of what her mother and nana would say. Her mother would say God will help her. Then she hears Nana-ji’s voice in her head. Once you have faced the impossible, there is only the possible left. Hasn’t she faced the impossible in the snow? She thought she would die.
She turns to Ayesha and holds out her hand. ‘Can you help me walk to the kitchen? I will make roti for breakfast with you.’ She wants to be strong enough to stride into Mr Nadir’s shop like an army colonel when they go to find Tanveer.
Chapter 22
When Shahana was born there was fighting across the Line of Control. It was near the end of the first sister of winter and the fir forest caught fire from the shelling and rockets. Her father called her his fire queen, for Shahana means ‘queen’. ‘Precious things are made strong in fire,’ he would say to Shahana. It was to remind her to be strong and not despair. ‘One day you will be Shahana on fire and you will shine for your family.’
Shahana can’t think of anything she has done that she would consider being Shahana on fire. Looking after Tanveer is a good thing to do but losing him isn’t. Right now Ayesha says it is a good thing just to practise walking around their house. The pain in her legs is getting less and she can now walk without Ayesha holding her hand. She wonders how Zahid is and when the doctor will tell her he can come home. She will have to stay at Ayesha’s house but Zahid could live in Nana-ji’s house. Every time she thinks about Tanveer her heart shudders and bangs. There is nothing she can do to stop it.
After some days Ayesha takes Shahana’s bandages off and replaces them with special tape. Now Shahana has the tips of her fingers to use. She manages to go down the steps to milk Rani. Aunty Rabia has a hut that Rani sleeps in. The milking is soothing and gives Shahana time to think, though some things are too difficult to contemplate. If Ayesha is right about Tanveer, what can they do? Mr Nadir is an important businessman. What if Zahid doesn’t get better? And Amaan? If he knew about Zahid the whole time why did he lie to save him? Was it only because she had asked him to protect the boys?
Shahana brings the milk inside and puts it by the stove. She stands there, wondering what to do next. Without embroidery to sew or Tanveer to look after she can’t think of anything constructive to do, so she keeps Aunty Rabia company watching TV. A Kashmiri documentary begins, showing women sitting in a park with signs written in Angrezi.
‘Ayesha,’ Shahana calls, ‘come, look at this.’
She checks that Aunty Rabia is watching too. ‘Aunty-ji, this is a special program.’
A young Kashmiri woman, not unlike the one Shahana saw on the TV in the teashop, tells how there are so many missing persons. She talks about the stigma of having a missing family member and then shows the women in the park in Srinagar. She explains that they sit there once a month to ask the government to do something about the missing people.
‘See, Ummie-ji,’ Ayesha says. ‘There are many people like us. They are sad but they are not ashamed to sit in a park to let the world know about this injustice.’
The young woman interviews a mother with a sign. ‘I have lost all my sons and my husband,’ the mother says in Kashmiri as Urdu writing on the bottom of the screen translates what she is saying. ‘I do not have their bodies – I cannot bury them. Why are there so many missing people? If they are in prison, let them out. If they have died in prison, tell the families.’
The interviewer sits in a car and is driven almost to the Line of Control near Azad Kashmir. She gets out of the car and speaks to the camera. ‘There are many unmarked graves here.’ The camera shows an unkempt grave. Aunty Rabia gives a cry. ‘Families have not been told where their loved ones are. We shall ask the right government groups to act on this.’ There are thousands of graves, derelict, as if all the people in the country have died and there is no one left to tend them. To Shahana it looks like the end of the world. ‘Even though many people do not put a special stone on their loved one’s grave,’ says the interviewer, ‘at least they mark where it is with a simple name plate.’
Aunty Rabia sobs. ‘Yes, everyone should know where their loved ones are.’
‘Abu may still be alive, Ummie-ji,’ Ayesha says softly.
‘And he may not be,’ Aunty Rabia says. ‘But we will do something about it now.’
‘What will we do?’ Ayesha asks.
Aunty Rabia takes a shuddering breath and stops weeping. ‘We will make our own signs. We will send them by email. We will put one outside our house. No one will say my brave husband is a coward. They will understand he has been taken.’
Shahana thinks of Zahid and wonders if his mother is with those women. Does she believe Zahid is dead too, and that she has no body to bury?
Ayesha gives her mother some paper and a pencil. Aunty Rabia and Shahana sit on carpet cushions and Ayesha brings the computer in.
‘We can work on our stories,’ she says to Shahana.
‘I need to find Tanveer,’ Shahana says. How can a story help her do that?
‘The story may not bring Tanveer back but it might make you feel better and it can let others know what is happening,’ Ayesha says as she waits for the website to appear.
Shahana is not sure she agrees, but she watches the page flicker on the screen as Ayesha starts typing. She is writing a story about her father, saying that half-widows should not be called names and the innocent prisoners should be set free. She reads sentences out to Shahana but Shahana cannot concentrate. She wants to write how hard it is to be a mother and how she didn’t mean to lose Tanveer. But how can she put that shame onto a screen for everyone to see? Ayesha glances at her and Shahana drops her head to write on the paper. She wants someone to help her but by the time her story is ready to go on the website it may be too late for Tanveer. Shahana’s hand stills. She knows what she will do; she is ready. She will go to Mr Nadir’s tomorrow and try to find out if he has Tanveer.
Ayesha puts a CD in the computer and music fills the room. Shahana can’t concentrate on her story now – not with her decision weighing on her mind and the song filling her with memories of a happier time. It is from a movie she saw at Ayesha’s house years ago.
The movie is about a blind Kashmiri girl, Zooni, who falls in love with a freedom fighter, though authorities call him a terrorist. The final scene takes place in the snow. The girl has shot him so he can’t fulfil his mission. Shahana wonders how Zooni could do that.
Shahana would protect Tanveer no matter what happened. She is thinking of Zahid as well. Even Amaan didn’t hand Zahid over to the militants. How difficult it is to make choices, to decide what is right or wrong. If Shahana could find a way to keep Tanveer safe she wouldn’t care what it cost:
it would be the right choice if it saved Tanveer.
Ayesha pulls her orange dupatta off and throws it in the air like Zooni did in the movie. It looks like autumn leaves falling. Shahana watches it billow over Ayesha’s head as she dances around. ‘When you’re close, this world is naught, destroyed in your love, a triumph sought. May my life’s breath find refuge in your heart.’ Ayesha laughs and pulls Shahana up by her waist. She sings the words again and swings Shahana around. Shahana manages to stay on her feet.
She knows Ayesha is trying to cheer her up with the song but it only makes her think about Zahid, how she put her hand on his chest and hardly felt his heart beat at all. If only her breath could have found refuge in his heart.
Chapter 23
Shahana was in the snow, looking for the leopard. She wanted to ask if it had seen Tanveer. She climbed up the mountain near the stream. The water was iced over but she could see the fish swimming underneath, as if the ice was glass. She knelt on the bank. Something bigger was floating by. A huge fish? No, it was a body. She saw the feet first. A child. Then she saw his face. It was Tanveer. He was caught under the ice. His eyes were open and he could see her. His hands were up against the ice, trying to push his way out. His mouth opened wide, as if he were screaming.
Shahana snaps awake, panting.
‘Are you okay?’ Ayesha is lying on her side watching her. ‘You were calling for Tanveer.’
‘I had a terrible dream. I have so many, but this one – he could see me and I could do nothing. I couldn’t break the ice. Oh, Ayesha. What will I do? He needs me, I know it.’ She pauses. ‘I have to see Mr Nadir.’
‘We will go together.’
‘But what will we say? We can’t just ask for Tanveer back.’ And what if he doesn’t have him?
‘We mustn’t say much at all. We will see how he reacts when he sees us. We will just say that you can’t sew yet.’
Shahana examines the tape on her hands. It is less constricting than the bandages. Now she can do everything for herself except sew. ‘I’ll take this off soon, but we’ll leave it on for Mr Nadir.’
Shahana Page 10