Razaq wondered what had caused that outburst. Then he said, “Bilal, thank you. He couldn’t stop—he would have killed me.”
Chapter 24
It was a week before Razaq could walk without it hurting too much or crouch over the latrine bucket without excruciating pain. Everything seemed to hurt, but at least it wasn’t that jagged red pain he had felt before he passed out. Bilal said it would be a month before he could sneeze or laugh. He had broken ribs before, too. Razaq didn’t think he would ever laugh again. When had he last laughed? On the roof the first time Bilal took him up there? A few times with Tahira? Maybe he could force a smile to make her happy.
Before the ten days were up, Mrs. Mumtaz pushed him to the outside door. “Bilal is busy so you can get my pastries from the bakery. I see you won’t be running away today.” She watched him walking gingerly past her.
Outside on the gali, he should have enjoyed the breeze, the feeling of that small room rolling from him, but his mind was dull. He no longer thought of how he could get himself and Tahira out of Mrs. Mumtaz’s house. He had no interesting thoughts at all. He was a different boy from the one who had charged into traffic he had never before encountered to rescue a buffalo. He winced as his foot bumped against a stone and jarred his leg. Why did his head feel like a wall built of stone and mud? He would give anything to be running wild in the terraced fields on the slopes of the mountain near his home with Ardil. In September, the grass was so thick, the flowers so high, they could hide from each other. But Ardil had stopped coming with him once he moved to the khan’s friend’s house. Now Razaq understood why. He felt the regret of not being a better friend to Ardil, but how could he have known?
He had another thought. If he hadn’t left the mountains, he wouldn’t have seen Tahira. Was it worth it all to have met her? He mentally shook his head, but at least she was a light in a dark place. She was the only thing that had stopped him from shutting off every part of his mind for good. His father would have said she brightened his eyes.
He picked up Mrs. Mumtaz’s order from the bakery and was on his way back when he heard someone call his name. Was it Bilal? He hadn’t done anything wrong that he could think of, unless Neelma was up to her tricks. He glanced behind him and saw a boy with a jaunty cap on the back of his head. “Zakim?”
Zakim reached him and grinned. “Knew I’d find you one day, Chandi.”
“How did you?” Shame that he hadn’t returned for Zakim welled up, and he made to turn away.
“You’re in my beat, Chandi. This is not far from Moti Bazaar.”
Razaq nodded tiredly. “I can’t stop,” he said. “I have to take these pastries back.”
Zakim narrowed his eyes at him. “What’s happened to you?”
Razaq shrugged.
“So you are on the streets now? You should come back. You didn’t get beaten when you were with me.”
Razaq didn’t know what to say. If he was gone too long, Mrs. Mumtaz would question him or send Bilal to find him.
“Someone’s skewered you, haven’t they?”
Razaq’s nod was involuntary.
“That happened to me, too. Twice, by men I didn’t know.”
Razaq wondered what just twice would feel like—he couldn’t remember. He frowned. “You smile about it?”
“What else is there to do? Where are you living?”
“I can’t say.”
“Chandi —”
Razaq turned on him. “I am a slave—don’t you understand? I can’t even piss in the latrine when I feel like it. They only let me go to the bakery because they know I won’t run.”
Zakim frowned. “I find that hard to believe. You fought a bear and won, remember.”
An image of Tahira rose before Razaq’s eyes. She was his Moti.
“There is nothing that can be done now except work to pay them off,” he said.
“Chandi? Is this you? Something always can be done.”
Razaq walked away. “Not this time.”
“Wait. There is a man—he’s been asking for months for a green-eyed mountain boy in Moti Bazaar. Chandi, look at me.”
Razaq turned.
“I saw your uncle. He came to the scrap yard.”
The hollowness in Razaq’s heart should have frightened him, but it didn’t. He had heard about uncle-seeing before, and he wouldn’t fall for that story again.
“It is too late,” he said. Let Zakim decide what he meant.
When he glanced behind him, Zakim was standing where he had left him, watching the way he went.
The next morning, Razaq woke to the sound of wailing in the house. Then came a quiet knock at his door. It was Tahira. She stood there with tears running down her face; she didn’t even bother to wipe them away.
“What is the matter?” he asked. “Why is everyone upset?”
“It is Ismat,” she said. “She died.”
“How?”
Horrible possibilities flooded his mind. If Bilal hadn’t come when that man was beating him, he would have died, too.
“She had a shaving knife.”
Razaq frowned. “How did she get that?” None of them were allowed knives. Bilal even had permission to personally search the girls for forbidden objects if he felt it was needed.
“A customer gave it to her. She told him she wanted to shave for him.”
Tahira looked embarrassed, perhaps at what Razaq would think, but nothing could embarrass him anymore. He didn’t ask how the man had smuggled the knife into the house. Hadn’t a customer got a baton into his room without difficulty?
He sighed. “Afsos, I am sorry to hear that.”
Tahira nodded. “She was nice to me, but she had lost all hope.” She burst into sobbing, and Razaq drew her into his room. After a while, she looked up and touched his face. “Look at you. I heard you had been beaten, and still you have scars. I was sorry I couldn’t come. If I didn’t have you as my friend, I would be as lost as Ismat. She had no one.” Her eyes filled again but she kept talking. “We are disappearing. Every time I dance, it is eating a little more of me away. Soon there will be nothing left. Yesterday Neelma called me a gashtee, a whore, and it is true.”
The force of feeling in Razaq’s chest jolted him. It was the way he had felt when the boar charged Seema. That day he had a gun, but he had nothing to help Tahira.
“You are not a whore. Inside your heart you are pure.” He said it as if he could defy the jinns.
“But they are changing who we are. One day, I will wake up and find that is all I am—a prostitute. Ismat knew this and she couldn’t take it any more.”
Razaq tried something else. “You have your holy words.”
Perhaps he looked worried for she said, “I couldn’t do as Ismat has, but I feel so dirty now. Can God forgive this when I can’t stop doing it? In the Injil there is a prostitute who Yesu Masih forgives, but she leaves her way of life and becomes his devotee. I can’t leave this way of life. I am happy now that my parents are dead—if they knew what I do here they would be heartbroken.”
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: huggi
ng 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?
Chapter 25
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.”
Chapter 26
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?
Ra
zaq 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.
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