“Come outside,” he said.
There was a garden and a high wall. Some of the younger children were already there, playing soccer. Sounds of the traffic—rickshaws and cars—floated over from outside but seemed far away.
Tahira was watching him. “Razaq,” she said, “thank you.”
He felt his face grow hot.
“I am glad you were able to escape, too.” She put a finger on his cheek—he knew he had a scab there—and glanced at the cast on his ankle. “I heard you jumped off the roof.”
He grinned. “Sort of. All that jumping I did in the mountains chasing goats helped.” He didn’t say how much form he had lost from being cooped up so long.
“When I feel better, I am going to study at the Christian Girls College in Rawalpindi,” Tahira said.
Razaq wondered if they would ever feel better, but he made an effort and said, “I am happy for you.” He wished he could touch her. She looked prettier than ever.
“What will you do?” she asked.
Razaq thought of his uncle. They had talked that first night. “I shall live with Uncle Javaid and go to school. Then,” he searched her face, “I will return to the mountains, work the land like my father did. Maybe start a different sort of school where girls can learn, like you.”
Tahira nodded, and he hoped it would not be difficult to persuade her to join him there. He sighed inwardly; first he needed to tame the dark shadows that lurked in every corner of his mind. Tahira’s face clouded as if she were seeing those shadows, too.
“What is the matter?” he asked gently.
“We are getting older. We will not be able to see each other.”
Razaq frowned as he thought. “Could we write? Will that be permissable?”
“I hope so. I will live at the school since I have no relatives.”
“We know how to send secret messages.”
She smiled and her eyes lit her whole face. Razaq caught his breath at the beauty of it. She had never smiled like that before.
“Do not worry about anything,” he said. “I am from the mountains, and just as those mountains cannot be moved, I will never forget you.” He paused, gazing at her eyes, then quoted a proverb his mother told him. “There is always a way from heart to heart.”
Tahira’s eyes filled and she put her hand in his. She didn’t say a word but the look in her eyes and the warmth of her hand was enough.
Razaq climbed out of bed smiling at the memory of Tahira’s eyes promising him all he wanted. Today something else good would happen: Uncle Javaid was coming to take him home. But what if his uncle changed his mind? He’d had a month to decide what a bad idea it would be to bring a boy like Razaq into his house.
When Javaid strode through the door, Razaq almost wept. So many men had come through his door over the last nine months. What he would have given to see his uncle stride into Mr. Malik’s house or Mrs. Mumtaz’s chakla. A scar on his uncle’s face was still red, and there was a crescent on the side of his head where part of his hair had been shaved. Those wounds had been for Razaq.
“I have come to take you home,” Javaid said simply.
Razaq stared at him, then voiced his fear. “I thought you wouldn’t want me. I am nothing now.”
Javaid made a noise with his tongue and Razaq wasn’t sure if he was angry with him. Javaid drew closer and laid a hand on Razaq’s head in blessing.
“You are Abdur-Razaq Nadeem Khan, my flesh and blood.” His voice was strong, just like a mountain man’s, even though he had no beard. “And to honor the memory of your father, you will be as my very own son.”
Razaq had no words in the face of such love. He gazed at his uncle in disbelief. There were so many things he would never be able to tell him, so many things he’d never forget and wished he could, and yet, looking into his uncle’s eyes, it was as if he understood it all.
Nothing had changed with Mrs. Daud. When Javaid brought Razaq to the mud house, she raced toward him and hugged him. “Oh my son, I’ve been so worried about you.” It was as if she knew she had done wrong in letting him go.
“Just call her Auntie-ji,” Javaid advised. “Perhaps in time she will become used to being an aunt.”
Sakina was the next person Razaq saw. She looked so like Seema that his eyes watered. Now that he was no longer bonded to those evil people, he was thinking more about his family, especially his sisters and his mother who he couldn’t save. Tears came more easily now he was safe than they had when he was a slave.
Amina enveloped him in a hug. “You are a gift from God, Razaq. I have always wanted a son,” she whispered into his ear. He wept openly for the first time since his release. She would be his mother now. No one could replace his real parents, but he would be a good son to Amina just as his mother had taught him.
Razaq wiped his eyes and let Sakina take his hand. She led him to the courtyard, bent down to a box, and lifted out a chick. She held it out to him. “It is for you.” Then she added solemnly, “You are my brother now.”
He took the chick and kneeled to hug her. He closed his eyes at the fresh smell of her hair and saw the mountains rising up from the Indus, his mother banging the rug outside, his father cutting grass, his sisters chasing the goats among the wildflowers on the mountain slope.
When he opened his eyes, Sakina was staring at him. She touched the tear rolling down his cheek. “Are you sad?”
He managed to smile. “No. I am happy—happy to be here with you.”
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Asialink and ARTSA for the opportunity to research and write in Pakistan where I got the idea for Mountain Wolf. Thanks also to Murree Christian School, which was my host during most of the fellowhip and where I found recent research on the trafficking of children in Pakistan.
I wish to thank the following for their excellent help in the research and writing of Mountain Wolf: Sarmad Iqbal Khan, Programme Manager Advocacy & Urban Programmes, World Vision, Pakistan; Habib Ahmad, Advocacy Coordinator, World Vision, Pakistan; Matthew Stephens, Regional Anti-Trafficking Coordinator, World Vision, Middle East/Eastern Europe/Central Asia; Rebecca Lyman for help with research, contacts, and photographs; Frank Lyman for the firsthand information on Kala Dhaka and for reading the manuscript and giving it the thumbs up; Catch Tilly for reading an early draft and giving helpful suggestions. I am grateful for the inspiration gained from viewing photos of Kala Dhaka by Andy Goss and Frank Lyman.
Thank you to my agent, Jacinta di-Mase, and Lisa Berryman’s wonderful team at HarperCollins, as well as Nicola O’Shea. I wish to thank those who have supported and helped me, especially in thinking of titles: my fellow eKIDnas at the SA Writers Centre, and my colleagues at Tabor Adelaide.
Resources that were helpful in writing Mountain Wolf include the following:
Asian Human Rights Commission, Pakistan: the Cases of Missing Children Continue to Rise, www.humanrights.asia, accessed 18 January 2011.
Bickerstaff, L, Modern-Day Slavery, Rosen Publishing Group, New York, 2010.
Child Prostitution in Pakistan, http://gvnet.com/childprostitution/Pakistan.htm
Child Protection and Welfare Bureau, www.cpwb.gov.pk/index.htm
ECPAT: End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, www.ecpat.net
Jawadullah, “Health Hazards of Working on the Streets,” Discourse, SPARC, Issue no 22, 2006.
Mortenson, G, Three Cups of Tea, Viking, New York, 2006.
Muhammad, T & Zafar, N, Situational Analysis: Report on Prostitution of Boys in Pakistan (Lahore & Peshawar), ECPAT International in collaboration with Pakistan Pediatrics Association, 2006.
Pakistan Government, Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance, 2002, www.protectionproject.org/ wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Pakistan_TIP-Acts_2007.pdf
Saeed, F, Taboo, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2002.
Tahir, Z, “Trafficking of Punjab”s Children to Europe: The Case of France”, Discourse, SPARC, Issu
e no 22, 2006.
Terminal Life: Pakistan’s Street Working Children, http://meero.worldvision.org/frontline-focus/ terminallife.html
World Vision, Child Rescue, www.meero.worldvision.org/humantrafficking
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First published in Australia in 2012 under the original title Mountain Wolf by HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited
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Hawke, Rosanne.
Spirit of a Mountain Wolf / Rosanne Hawke.
Summary: After Razaq’s family is killed in an earthquake, a man preying on orphans lures Razaq to the city with the promise of finding his uncle. Instead, Razaq is sold into slavery. Razaq meets Tahira, a young girl suffering just like him, and hopes to help them both escape before it is too late.
ISBN 978-1-62324-033-2
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Spirit of a Mountain Wolf Page 17