Iqbal

by Francesco D'Adamo

  “They didn’t believe him. They took money,” I explained. “I saw them.”

  We looked unhappily at one another. We were sitting around Iqbal’s pallet. He was still weak and very pale, and all the speaking was tiring him even more.

  “If we can’t trust the police, who can help us?” I asked, putting into words what everyone was fearing.

  “The men from the Liberation Front,” answered Iqbal. “They’ll help us.”

  “Maybe. But how can we find them?”

  Iqbal smiled knowingly and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

  “What is it?”

  “They were handing them out. There must be something written to tell us how to get to them.”

  The paper passed from hand to hand. We touched it and looked at it, perplexed.

  “Yeah, brother,” said Salman, “maybe you’re right. But you’ve forgotten something. No one here knows how to read.”

  Silence fell.

  Then a small voice spoke from behind the group, a voice we had never heard before. It was a strange voice. It sounded rusty.

  “That’s not true. I can read.”

  With our mouths hanging open in surprise, we all turned around to look at Maria.

  Ten

  A new spring arrived.

  The wind began to blow down from the mountains. At first it was cold, but then it softened and swept away the clouds, the smoke, and the dust of the city. The arrival of spring’s breeze made us smile.

  Strange flowers and weeds came up in the broken pavement of the courtyard. When we came out of the workshop at lunchtime, we were greeted with that good fresh-air scent. Mohammed lay in the sun and stammered with simple happiness. Karim lay in the sun and grumbled because he was afraid the master was mad at him. Twig was more sticklike than before, because his hand had healed and he had to work like the rest of us. Little Alì had grown like a mushroom over the winter, so he was no longer really our “little” Alì.

  And this was our big news of that spring day: Iqbal ran away again, and this time we knew he’d make it to freedom.

  We had worked throughout the winter. Every night, by the light of pieces of candle Karim and Twig had managed to steal from the master’s house, Maria taught us how to read. She wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. Even reluctant Salman and lazy Karim were subject to her drive to teach. Our blackboard was the dirt floor, smoothed over with our hands. Our pencil was a pointed stick that we used to draw the letters of the alphabet, which we then had to repeat over and over.

  “I don’t understand anything,” Karim complained. He’d gotten confused after the first three letters. “I’ll never learn.”

  “Be patient, you. You have to know how to read to ever be free,” insisted Maria, and she made him repeat everything again.

  She taught us how to read, and we taught her how to speak again.

  Maria’s father was a schoolteacher in Faisalabad province. Her mother died when she was very young, and she had always played with dusty old illustrated books. She had learned to read almost by herself. Her father was almost as poor as the poor farmers who sporadically sent their sons to him.

  “Your children mustn’t be ignorant,” the teacher always explained, “otherwise they’ll end up as poor and downtrodden as you. Do you want that for them?”

  “No, sir,” the farmers answered.

  They did respect the schoolteacher and they did believe what he said. But times were what they were and children had to help out at home or in the fields, or in service to the master. There was no time for school.

  “Go teach rich people’s children,” the farmers suggested. “Schooling is for the rich.”

  But Maria’s father never wanted to go to the rich. That is, until he finally had to ask for help from the village moneylender. And then he had to ask again. The second time he came home and didn’t say another word, and the next morning some men came to take Maria away. Her father didn’t even lift his head from the cot where he was lying. From that moment Maria stopped talking and reading. Now she was teaching herself again, as she taught us the strange symbols of the alphabet.

  “What’s your real name?” we asked her immediately.

  “My name’s Maria,” she answered slowly, bringing out the right words one by one. “You named me. You’re my family.”

  A year had passed since Iqbal’s arrival, and something had changed. Before we were a group of children facing the same sad fate, each of us just trying to survive. Now we were united, strong, friends and something more.

  Maria’s efforts were greatly rewarded one night, when we finally managed to decipher the handout Iqbal had brought back from his first escape. It seemed as if suddenly and miraculously, all those little marks we had drawn on the sand, those strange, incomprehensible pothooks, assumed meaning. We saw a sentence form on the paper, all by itself—I swear, we didn’t do anything. It just came together, and it told us things.

  I remember my heart beating like crazy. I couldn’t believe my eyes! This, then, was reading. I looked at something dead and suddenly it came to life and it spoke to you, like a person.

  We yelled “Hooray!” and then we scurried back to our beds, because of course we had awakened the mistress.

  We read the flyer out loud so many times that I can still remember what was written.

  STOP THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILD LABOR!!!

  In Pakistan more than 700,000 children live like slaves, forced to work in the fields, in the brick-making kilns, in the carpet factories, for greedy and unscrupulous masters.

  They are chained, beaten, tortured in every way.

  They work from sunrise to sunset!

  For their work, they sometimes receive one rupee a day—more often not even that.

  Their masters get rich selling their prized carpets to foreign buyers.

  The police know what’s going on and don’t intervene because of corruption.

  But now there’s a law in our country that makes these clandestine factories illegal.

  Their owners should be arrested. Let’s make them comply with the law!

  Let’s end this shameful and terrible crime, which exploits our children and dishonors our country!

  Our children have the right to be free children!

  And at the bottom of the flyer there was the address we had looked for, too. Now the problem was how to get there.

  The brawl broke out without warning, while everyone was calmly enjoying the sunshine. When explaining the brawl to Hussain, some said that Mohammed, who was clumsy, had bumped into Salman, spilling Salman’s bowl of lentil soup. Others said that Salman, who always tended to bully people, had started to tease Mohammed about his big feet, and the boy from the mountains had lost his temper.

  Whatever the cause, within a minute they were really going at it, and before Karim could say “Stop!” the fight had drawn in all the children. Some were on Salman’s side, some were on Mohammed’s, and some just enjoyed the opportunity of screaming and acting out. We girls played our part enthusiastically, running around the courtyard screeching like fools and raising dust.

  The mistress dropped the big pot of soup she was carrying, spilling lentils every which way, and moved on her big, fat legs toward the house, calling her husband. Hussain Khan appeared at the door in his undershirt, his mouth and mustache greasy from his lunch.

  “Stop it! Stop!” he shouted.

  It took more than ten minutes to calm everyone down, and another ten minutes for the collective scolding, complete with the usual threats. Hussain sentenced Mohammed and Salman to a day in the Tomb, and dragged them down those familiar steps, while they continued to insult each other loudly. He then returned to his interrupted meal as the rest of us cleaned up the courtyard.

  When we finished, Karim made us line up like so many little soldiers to go back into the workshop. After we started work, he slowly checked on everything. Then he went outside, thought for a moment, scratched his head, and spat in the dust two or three times. Takin
g his time, he strolled across the courtyard, hiking up his pants as he walked, and knocked on the master’s door. Then, to a shocked and angry Hussain Khan, he broke the news that one worker was missing.

  Iqbal had taken advantage of the confusion to climb over the wall at the back of the courtyard. He took the path through the gardens and escaped again. He had just a small lead over his pursuers, but it would be enough.

  Eleven

  Iqbal came back the next day, and he wasn’t alone. We recognized the man with the clean white shirt as the man Iqbal had seen giving a speech at the market for the Bonded Labor Liberation Front. His name was Eshan Khan. He was a tall, thin man who gave the impression of force and determination. His beard and his mustache were well groomed, and he was again wearing those immaculate white clothes. He had dedicated his life to the liberation of the child-slaves. He had been threatened, beaten, imprisoned; yet after each time, he had started afresh, driven by enthusiasm and perseverance.

  He was stubborn, that’s for sure, but above all, his faith in his ideas and his mission were unshakable.

  We had never met an adult like him. Our parents were tired and unresisting. They lived in the same way their parents and grandparents had lived. They thought things would never change and that there was nothing to do to make them change.

  Their masters took part of the harvest, the buffalo got sick, and the moneylenders took their lives and the lives of their children.

  “This is the way it’s always been,” they said.

  Before meeting Iqbal, I thought that it was true, that being chained to a loom was part of the natural order. Eshan Khan opened my eyes even farther. It didn’t matter that I didn’t really understand everything he said. Eshan Khan became a second father for many of us, while never trying to take the place of our natural families. He was especially a father for Iqbal. It was inevitable. They were both reckless, determined, and convinced that the world needed changing.

  When Eshan Khan and the two men from the Bonded Labor Liberation Front of Pakistan arrived at Hussain Khan’s house, we realized that nothing could stop them. There was a policeman with them, too, but this one had a neat uniform and all kinds of things on his sleeves.

  “He’s an officer,” somebody said.

  There was also a tall, thin man, who looked grim and severe. He said he was a magistrate.

  And then there was Iqbal, with bright, gleaming eyes, jumping and making great signs with his arms.

  “He did it!” we shouted. “This time he really did it!”

  Hussain threatened, argued, and begged. He twisted his hands and attempted to show the roll of banknotes he kept hidden in his sash. No one paid attention.

  Iqbal took them into the workshop.

  “Look at these children,” Eshan Khan said to the magistrate. “Look at how thin they are. Look at their hands. Look at those cuts and blisters. And the chains.”

  Then they crossed the courtyard and went down to the Tomb, reemerging with Salman and Mohammed, who squinted their eyes against the light, but who still managed to clown around and shout for victory.

  The policemen took Hussain Khan away and the mistress shut herself up in the house, sobbing. They unlocked the chains, threw open the big front door of the factory, and said, “Children, you’re free. You can go now.”

  Shyly, we all approached the door and looked up and down the street. A small curious crowd had gathered. Some people shouted. We went back in, bewildered.

  “We don’t know where to go,” someone said at last.

  I felt lost, and so frightened.

  “Let’s take them to Headquarters,” Iqbal said to Eshan Khan.

  They shuffled us into three big cars. As we drove away I managed to peek through the rear window: I saw Hussain’s house, the workshop, the courtyard with the well, all becoming smaller and smaller in the faraway dust of the street. I had spent several years of my life there. Had I ever known another home?

  Iqbal was crowded in next to me.

  “Do you think we’ll ever see it again?” I asked.

  “No. Never,” he answered.

  After a bend in the road, the workshop disappeared, but that little bathroom window of almonds, open sky, and hope would stay with me forever.

  The headquarters of the Bonded Labor Liberation Front of Pakistan were in a big, old, two-story colonial house, with lovely pink paint peeling off its walls. There was a tall fence enclosing a small garden. The house looked onto a busy narrow street just behind the market. Despite its age and untidiness, it seemed beautiful and comfortable from the first moment. It felt like a true home, warm, free, and protective.

  We entered a big room on the first floor, full of tables, wobbly chairs, and stacks of newspapers. We could see books and handouts piled here and there, plus signs and banners, and three stray dogs wandering in and out. Two ceiling fans did their ineffective best to cool the air, while telephones rang incessantly and men and women spoke loudly, waving their arms to emphasize what they said. When we passed through in single file, silence fell and they all applauded. We were so embarrassed that we could have sunk through the floor.

  “This is the home of the Liberation Front,” Iqbal explained, “and they’re all volunteers. They’re our friends. You mustn’t be afraid.”

  “Why are they clapping?”

  “They’re applauding us.”

  “Us??”

  On the second floor there were lots of rooms. We could see some women working in an enormous kitchen that smelled irresistible. The “little place” for our needs was bigger than a town square, so clean, and with a mysterious gigantic tub. Three women ran to embrace us and touch us, chattering among themselves:

  “Just look at these poor creatures….”

  “How thin they are….”

  “And their hands, take a look at their hands….”

  “What about their feet? Look at their ankles…. Such wounds …”

  “And they’re covered with lice….”

  Before we could catch our breath, we learned what the big tub was for. It was filled with boiling-hot water, and despite our lively protests, one at a time we were caught, immersed, washed, scoured, scrubbed, brushed, and deloused. The women gave us clean clothes. Then they filled us with food and prepared beds in nearby rooms.

  That evening at sunset, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed the feeling of a full stomach, a clean scent, and fresh bedding. The sounds from the street were closer than ever before: motors roaring, cars hooting, donkeys braying, voices exclaiming and laughing, a siren wailing, and from far away, a muezzin.

  I’Il never be able to get any rest, I thought, but then promptly fell asleep.

  The next morning I woke up at sunrise, as usual, and looked around without realizing where I was. My first thought was: I’d better get to the loom. It’s late and the master will punish me.

  I got up and dressed as fast as I could, then went out on the empty landing of the silent house and peeked down the stairs: no looms, no master, no work.

  I sat down on the top stair and burst into tears. I hadn’t cried in so long. I hadn’t cried when I felt lonely and lost, a prisoner in Hussain’s workshop. I hadn’t cried when my hands bled after a long day’s work. But now I couldn’t stop sobbing. One of the women we had met the night before left her cooking and took me in her arms.

  “Don’t be frightened, little one,” she said. “It’s all over.”

  But I wasn’t crying from fear. It was something else.

  Gradually everyone else woke up, feeling as dazed as me, judging from their expressions. We had breakfast and then scattered around the big room downstairs and the garden. We didn’t know what to do.

  The woman who had comforted me said, “Children, play! The morning is yours.”

  We broke up into small groups, feeling awkward. We hadn’t played any games for years.

  Eshan Khan came up to us in his white clothes, smiling. He gathered us around him and asked us the names of our villages, so the F
ront could trace our families.

  “You’ll be able to see your parents again,” he said.

  Most of the children cheered for joy and crowded up to him, shouting names of strange, unknown places, but some stayed on the sidelines. Like Karim, who muttered, “I don’t have a family anymore. Where will I go?”

  Little Maria sidled up close to me and whispered in my ear, “I’m afraid they’ll discover that my father’s dead. I have only you. Where will you go, Fatima?”

  Yes, where would I go? I wasn’t so sure I could remember the name of my tiny village, and I had only the faintest memory of my mother, and some faded impressions of brothers and sisters. I couldn’t even remember their names. Sometimes I felt I had only imagined them, that they had never really existed.

  Iqbal approached me.

  “You’ll be going away, won’t you?” I asked, remembering his determination to keep his memories, all the small details of his family life. He turned his face away, as if he didn’t want to look me in the eye.

  “Yes,” he muttered, “I guess so.”

  “You’ll want to see your parents.”

  “Yes” he muttered again.

  “And aren’t you happy?”

  He paused.

  “I don’t know,” he answered at last.

  That was something I couldn’t understand.

  “You see,” he explained slowly, “I really want to see my family, after all this time. I want to see my mother and my father, but I don’t want to live their life.”

  “Do you think they might sell you again?”

  “That’s not the reason,” he said. “My parents, like yours, didn’t sell me because they’re bad. They had no choice. It was a terrible decision for them. No, it’s not that. It’s that I want to do something different.”

  “What?”

  His eyes fell on Eshan Khan.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured.

  We stood there in silence, discouraged. Then Iqbal held out his hands to me and Maria.