Spirit of a Mountain Wolf (10 page)

He started with the boys standing around selling shoelaces. “Do you know a boy named Razaq?” he asked one. He got only a blank stare; the boy looked drugged.

An older boy walked up to him. “Malish, massage,” he said in Javaid’s face, rattling his oil bottles in a tiny steel crate.

Javaid shook his head.

“I do good malish, janab.”

Javaid tried to ignore him.

“What you want?” The boy lifted his chin. “I do whatever you want.”

Javaid was appalled. How old was this boy? Fifteen at the most.

The boy smiled at him and tilted his head from side to side. “Ji, janab. Come with me. You will be happy.”

“No,” Javaid managed to say. “I am busy looking for someone.”

“Who you looking for? I can help. Anything I can do.”

Javaid realized he wasn’t going to get rid of this boy easily. He looked Afghan. Was this what Razaq would be like if he didn’t find him soon?

“A boy,” Javaid said. “A boy with green eyes.”

The boy laughed. “You want a boy? I am a boy. You want green eyes. I can find the contact lens, na?”

“No, not any boy.” Javaid closed his eyes a moment. “I am looking for my nephew.”

It was the way he said it; it made the boy put a hand in front of his chest in concern. “Teik hai, janab, I understand. Please, ask the bus boys, they see everything.”

“Thank you,” Javaid said and handed the boy ten rupees.

The boy didn’t take it. “Nay, janab. I wish someone had looked for me when I was young.” Then he grinned again. “But now it is too late, and malish business is very good. Someone will give me five hundred rupees tonight. Keep it for the bus boys.”

Javaid didn’t have much success with the bus boys. Some were so tired they simply ignored him. Others looked at him in fear as if he was propositioning them. As more time went by, the sadder and sicker he felt. Surely something could be done for these children.

He stood still, catching his bearings. Perhaps he should try the buses that only traveled north. Didn’t the buses always park in the same place? He was directed to two different stands before he found the place where he’d caught the bus to Oghi. He approached a boy with a bucket and cloth washing the windscreen of a bus with “Oghi” painted above it. “Have you seen a boy named Razaq? A mountain boy with green eyes.”

The young boy took no notice until Javaid mentioned green eyes. Then he put his cloth in the bucket and stared at Javaid. “I met a boy with green eyes,” he finally said. “I had never seen such a one as him. He looked like a pari, a fairy.”

Javaid grinned. “Truly?”

The boy nodded solemnly. “I never knew his name, but he was kind. He shared his bread.”

Javaid didn’t dare hope. There must be many boys with a sense of decency and hospitality, surely. But green eyes? “Where is this boy?”

“I do not know. I have not seen him for a time. Maybe he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Javaid’s echo was hollow and the boy shrugged.

“Boys disappear all the time. Try the teashops, just in case.”

“Why?”

“I think he worked in one. A man called Kazim has a teashop. He saved him from a skewer.”

Javaid’s eyes nearly popped. “Is that what it sounds like?”

The boy narrowed his gaze at him, defensive now.

“Okay,” Javaid said quickly. “Thank you for helping me.”

He handed the boy the ten rupees. The boy looked around quickly before he whisked it under his qameez.

It took Javaid more than an hour to scour most of the teashops in the area. He even found a man called Kazim, but he hadn’t heard of Razaq. He was on his way back to the main road when a boy caught him up.

“Excuse me, janab.”

Javaid turned. He was tired; he had to go home and think of a better plan. “Yes?”

“I know a boy called Razaq. He was working for Kazim. You were at his restaurant.”

“He said he didn’t know a Razaq.”

The boy didn’t comment on that. “Razaq ran off. I am doing his shift.”

“Was he from the mountains?”

“Ji, he said he was going to find his Uncle Javaid.”

Javaid put both hands on the boy’s shoulders. The boy flinched and Javaid let his arms drop. “Where did he say he was going?”

“Raja Bazaar.”

“What is your good name?”

The boy hesitated. “You will not tell Kazim?”

“No.”

“My name is Aslam, janab. Please find him. He knows nothing. He will be eaten up on the streets.”

“Why don’t you find someone older to help with the work?” Razaq asked Zakim the next night after the children had fallen asleep.

“I work alone. Anyone else you have to pay in more ways than money.” He shifted and recrossed his legs. “Everyone on this dump is in someone else’s debt. If the bear doesn’t earn enough, his landlord whips him.”

“How have you survived without protection?” Razaq thought of the khans in the mountains. His father was a free man, but he had to give allegiance to the khan, give him a portion of the crops and fight for him if asked.

“I won’t pay the price of that protection,” Zakim said.

“They want money?”

Zakim scowled. “The bear wants Moti. Would you give Moti to pay off a monster?”

Razaq shook his head, yet he thought of boys like Aslam. How many children were payments for some debt? How many parents had no choice?

Zakim went on, “The landlord would sell her nath utarwai to the highest bidder—some wealthy fat
pig
.” He spat out the swearword and Razaq blanched.

“Why is taking out her nose ring bad?” he ventured, knowing the word “nath” meant “nose ring.”

Zakim glanced at him. “You don’t know much. Nath utarwai means the first time she is with a man.”

Razaq thought of Feeba waiting to be married to him because she was only twelve. “But Moti is too young.”

He was shocked at the anger in Zakim’s eyes. “There are too many bad men. Their minds are dirty.”

Ardil’s face flashed into his mind. Had he been sold to pay a debt? Surely not. It was said the khan’s friend was helping the family.

“Why do you live here like this?” Razaq asked.

Zakim shrugged. “I have nowhere else.”

“And Moti? Hira? Why do you pick up little girls?”

Zakim stared out the shelter’s opening. Finally he said, “Something happened to my baby sister. My mother couldn’t look after her, and she left her in the street, hoping a rich lady would take her. My mother died soon after, and I made a vow to find my sister.”

“In this big city?”

A groan escaped Zakim. It was so ragged and intimate that Razaq glanced away. “I know I will never find my real sister, but Moti is her, so is Hira. And any others that I find.” He stared at Razaq as if daring him to challenge him.

“And Raj?”

“I found him here in the scrap yard, wrapped in a shawl. He must have been thrown out for dead, but he was still alive.”

Razaq didn’t say anything for a long time. He listened to the sound of the traffic down the main bazaar, the train, shouts in the distance. All so different from the quiet nights he was used to. Then he said, “Don’t the children need a mother?” He could see his own mother making the food each day and hear how she scolded him and told him what to do. She told stories at night—stories her mother must have told her, about wolves and monkeys, for she had never been to a madrasah like Uncle Javaid.

“That would be good, but Moti bosses them around like a mother already, and she has never known hers.”

Razaq smiled. “Motherhood must be instinctive.”

“Chup, quiet.” Zakim snuffed out the candle with his fingers.

“What is it?”

Zakim whispered, “I heard a noise.”

Razaq was amazed. He could usually hear if a jackal was creeping up on his goats in the night, but here? How could Zakim hear a noise among the clamor from the streets?

Zakim crouched by the doorway. Razaq saw the glint of his blade in the moonlight and felt for his own knife. He crawled out of the house box after Zakim. The attack was so sudden they weren’t ready. Something smashed into Razaq’s head from behind and he landed on the ground. He tried to clear his eyes but they blurred. He wiped them and looked up. He saw a figure silhouetted against the night sky lit by streetlights. He looked massive. Zakim had spoken truly: Nasir Ali was a bear.

If Nasir were a jackal, Razaq would know what to do. He would keep upwind and creep closer until he was near enough to shoot. Before he had a gun, he had used his slingshot. He could fell a jackal at twenty paces. Then he finished it off with his knife.

“Get up, you babies,” Nasir said. His voice was a growl. “I’ll beat you to a pulp.”

Razaq stood. His head was still spinning. He saw Zakim front up to Nasir and smash his fist into his face. Nasir grunted and lifted Zakim as if he were a child. Zakim headbutted him and Nasir threw him to the ground.

“Is that the best you can do?”

Both boys rushed him. Razaq punched him in the middle, but it was as if they were toothless dogs attacking a bear. Nasir cuffed Razaq, and he flew back five paces.

Then a sleepy voice came from the box shelter. “What is happening?” It was Moti.

“Stay away!” Zakim’s voice sounded like a whip cracking, but Moti kept coming.

“What are you doing?”

“Moti! Go back.”

But she was too close. It all happened so quickly. Nasir gave a laugh like a bark and grabbed her. Moti screamed.

Razaq knew what would come next: Nasir would hurt Moti if they attacked him. Moti would render them powerless. One moment he saw Moti, and the next she shimmered into Seema, Seema when she was chased by a wild boar last year. It was Razaq who had shot it before it reached her.

He leaped onto Nasir’s back, his knife ready, and squeezed his arms around Nasir’s neck. He pulled tighter and the knife edged closer to Nasir’s face. Nasir staggered. He had Moti under one arm and pulled at Razaq with the other, but Razaq held the blade to his cheek. “Let her go.”

“I can kill you both.” But Nasir’s words were wheezy; Razaq’s left hand was tightening on his windpipe.

“Try it. I will cut your throat.”

Nasir dropped Moti and threw up both his arms. He grabbed hold of Razaq and tried to drag him off. At the same time, he pulled at his shalwar pocket. Zakim slammed a fist into Nasir’s stomach in the instant that Razaq lost control of his knife. It sliced down Nasir’s face. Nasir yelled and clutched his eye socket with both hands. Blood poured down his cheek.

Razaq slid to the ground as Zakim pressed the tip of his knife to Nasir’s throat. “This is what you’ll get if you bother us again.”

Nasir backed away. Razaq knew the bigger boy could have overpowered them, but the cut must have unnerved him.

“He’ll probably lose his eye,” Zakim said. “We won’t have tuklief from him for a while.”

“Here, this is yours.” Razaq held out a knife. “He must have been so sure he could win, it was still in his pocket.”

Zakim stood for a second staring at Razaq, then grasped him close. Nothing else was said. Mountain men were the same. They might not always say what they felt, but the gratitude was evident in their actions.

Zakim lifted Moti and held her close as all three of them entered the Rag Mahal.

Razaq was in the dump working, with Hira on his back pointing out good garbage, when Moti found him. “Your friend is here,” she told him.

Razaq turned and saw Aslam. He didn’t know what to say at first. Aslam was one person he had never thought to see again so soon.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“Zakim heard me asking for you in Moti Bazaar.”

Zakim walked up toward them. “He has good news for you, Chandi.”

Razaq couldn’t read Zakim’s expression. He didn’t have his usual grin.

“What is it?” he said to Aslam.

Aslam cleared his throat. “I know where your uncle is. He has come looking for you.”

For a long moment Razaq was silent. Then he said, “Is he at Kazim’s?”

Aslam’s hesitation before he nodded was slight, but Razaq saw it was enough to make Zakim narrow his gaze at him.

Zakim drew Razaq aside. “Does he speak truly?”

Razaq slipped Hira to the ground and faced Zakim. “I believe so and if I go, my uncle will help you. Find a home for you and Moti and the others.” He laid a hand on Hira’s head.

Zakim lifted his chin. “You must do what you have to. If I had an uncle who wanted me, I would go to him.”

“But you would take the children, too,” Razaq said. He took a step forward and clasped Zakim to him in the kind of embrace mountain men gave a friend of their heart. “I will come back,” he said when the hug was finished.

Zakim glanced at Aslam then back to Razaq. “May your eyes be bright.” Then he grinned. “Jao, go. Live your life well. We will live ours.”

Razaq followed Aslam to the main road, where Aslam flagged a bus. “How is it Kazim let you come?” Razaq asked.

Aslam didn’t meet his eyes. “He does not know where I am.”

“Then we must hurry.”

Just before they got off the bus, Aslam said, “Do not tell Kazim about your uncle. It is only me who knows who he is.”

Razaq nodded. “Teik hai, fine.” Then he said, “But isn’t my uncle waiting there?”