Spirit of a Mountain Wolf Read online

  First, he saw a woman, younger than his mother, but with strange reddish-brown hair as if she had put henna in it. Her shawl kept falling off her head. Even Layla, his youngest sister, could keep a shawl on. The woman smiled at him, but he didn’t smile in return. He was definitely too old to be smiling at young women; her husband may beat him. He’d seen a man kill a stranger for speaking to his wife.

  The woman said something, but he didn’t understand. A white-skinned man joined her, and Razaq stiffened. Would he think he had been talking to the woman? She said the strange words to the man, and he turned to Razaq and smiled as well. This time Razaq allowed a tentative smile back.

  “You are welcome,” the man said in Urdu. “We have programs for young people like you since you have lost your school. Come tomorrow—we will teach you Angrezi, English. It will help you get a job.”

  Razaq took more notice when he heard the word “job,” though he didn’t think much of the rest of what the man had said. How young did they think he was? He hadn’t been to the madrasah since he was twelve, and even then his attendance was sporadic. He checked the animals, milked the goats, and only then went to the madrasah if he had time. He used to memorize his verses while he was working; if he got them wrong the teacher would beat him with a stick. The old teacher always called him by his full name: Abdur-Razaq. It was as if he thought it a sin to shorten it to Razaq as his family had done.

  “Here’s some food for today.” The Angrez man gave him a small bag of flour and some salt and tea. “Small bags are best,” he said, “then no one will notice.”

  Razaq wondered what he meant until he saw a man beaten up on the path and his big army bag of flour snatched. He managed to deliver the food to Mrs. Daud intact. She was weeping again and still hadn’t started a fire, so Razaq went to find wood. When he returned, Mrs. Daud sniffed.

  “If my husband were here . . .” She broke off, then said, “But you are here now, beta, thank you.”

  Razaq was uncomfortable with her calling him her son. Older women often called boys his age “beta,” but Mrs. Daud sounded as though she truly believed he was her son. What if he needed to return to his land and rebuild the house? Would she let him go?

  That day, Razaq’s time was spent collecting wood, bringing water from the river, and jostling in lines for more food. The army didn’t stay but appointed an elder in the village to administer the food they had brought. Razaq found it had been easier to get food at the Angrez tents, even though he knew many of the men distrusted them.

  The following day, he ignored the Angrez man’s invitation to learn English and helped search for bodies instead. The local khan estimated more than half of the people in the village and surrounding tribal areas had died in the earthquake. Since the maulvi had also died, his son, Wazir Ahmad, led the prayers outside the mosque. Although the building still stood, it was deemed too dangerous to use because of the aftershocks.

  “Almost everyone died in Balakot,” Wazir Ahmad said. “Allah be praised not all of us have died here, but winter is coming soon. We must help each other to rebuild.”

  “But how?” one man called out. “We have no materials, no money.”

  “We can use the stone from the broken houses,” another man said.

  “If you have a stone house. Mine was mud.”

  “Kharmosh, quiet,” Wazir Ahmad said. “The government is sending supplies and money. The tribal leaders have asked for aid.”

  There were grumblings. Razaq knew why. His father, like all tribal men, had put no hope in the government. The khans didn’t want militants in their tribal area; they governed their lands themselves with jirgas, local councils. Would the government help people who did not recognize the government’s power? Razaq thought not. The army truck had only stayed a day; the soldiers hadn’t ventured into the mountains to check if anyone was still alive up there, and they hadn’t left enough tents.

  That night, Razaq woke to the sound of stealthy footsteps around their tent. He heard the sound of a tent peg being pulled. He shot up from his blanket, grabbed the shovel, and burst outside. Two men were in the act of dismantling the tent.

  “Have you no shame?” Razaq cried. “A widow lives here.”

  “We are cold,” said one, but the other punched Razaq in the face. Razaq staggered, but he still had hold of the shovel. He lifted it just as the man tried to hit him again. The man’s hand struck the shovel instead. He grunted. “You little shaitan.”

  Razaq aimed the shovel as if he’d strike him with it. “Leave us alone.”

  Two more men appeared behind the attackers. Razaq’s heart sank. He couldn’t fight off four of them. Then one of the newcomers spoke. “Having trouble, Razaq?”

  It was Hussain and Abdul. They held their guns casually in their hands, and the two thieves quickly disappeared.

  Hussain eyed the shovel. “You should learn to fight properly. You need a gun.”

  Razaq thought of his prized rifle: a British Lee Enfield .303—more expensive than the boys’ AK-47s—with two yellow stripes and flowers painted around the butt. It had been his grandfather’s, and now it was under a hill of stones along with his mother and sisters.

  “You will make a good fighter,” Hussain said. “The government wants to rule our lands—do you want that?”

  Razaq shook his head, but his heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t wish to fight unless it was to protect his sheep and goats and Peepu. Then he thought of Mrs. Daud and managed to grin at his new friends. “Thank you for coming. Now Mrs. Daud still has her tent.”

  Razaq knew he would need a job to get food for Mrs. Daud. He couldn’t see any goats around to mind—they must have drowned in the river. It would be good if he could have a ram of his own, but they were expensive; it had taken his father most of his life selling goats to raise the money to buy Peepu, the special ram he was using to build up their own herd. Thoughts of Peepu and his family always made Razaq stop still even if he was walking. Would the image of his father dead on the ground ever fade from his mind? He pushed it aside and thought of Mrs. Daud instead. She didn’t have any money, and he didn’t want to use his father’s purse if he could help it. Maybe he would find his uncle later on, though minibuses to Rawalpindi or Peshawar were expensive. But he couldn’t leave Mrs. Daud yet. He thought again of the Angrez and their offer. They’d talked about English lessons; he would see what they meant.

  When he returned to the tents set up by the Angrez, a village man was stringing up a green banner. Razaq couldn’t read it but the man saw him staring. “It means you have a right to play. It is Angrezi.”

  Razaq frowned; when had he last played unless he was minding his sisters, but even then they were looking after the goats. “Play?” he said aloud.

  “Ji. The Angrez are crazy—their children do not work, and they stay babies all their lives.”

  “Truly?” Razaq could not imagine a family where the children didn’t work. “They must have much money.”

  The man spat. “The Angrez are filthy rich.” Then he added, “They will not last here—the tribals do not accept them. And the woman is bad—why is she not wearing a burqa?”

  Razaq’s mother always wore a burqa if she went out, but she hardly ever left the house—only if a friend had a baby or there was a wedding.

  The man continued his tirade. “That man isn’t her husband or brother, and why did her father let her come by herself? See, even he has washed his hands of her. If women are not daughters, mothers, sisters, or wives, they are gashtian, whores.”

  Razaq stared at him in shock. He’d heard of whores. He knew it was haram for a woman to do bura kam, bad work like that, but once his mother had told him that a woman would do anything for her children, even sell herself if she had nothing, just to feed them. He imagined his mother doing anything for him and his sisters; not that she’d sell herself, but when the roaring came she would have gathered his sisters and covered them with her body, as she had done with him when he was little. But this time a rock
had fallen off the mountain. He closed his eyes. Perhaps he hadn’t tried hard enough. What if they had been still alive like those boys under the teacher’s table?

  “All Angrez women are gashtian,” the man was saying. “I have been to Peshawar and seen the Internet. You should see what they do for money.”

  Razaq didn’t know what an Internet was, but he knew he was tired of listening to this man’s evil talk. “Why are you helping them then?” he asked.

  “They are paying me. I need a job.”

  So do I, thought Razaq and pulled aside the flap of the tent.

  “Ao, come.” The henna-haired woman had learned an Urdu word. She gestured to him in the way he would call a dog, then he realized she didn’t know it was offensive. He walked toward her, the village man’s words ringing in his ears. She didn’t look poor enough to become a whore.

  “My name—Rebekah,” she said, proud of her new words, but they sounded strange.

  The Angrez man smiled too. “I’m Karl. I’m from Australia, and Rebekah is from Canada. We came to help.” His Urdu was easier to understand.

  Razaq saw Pakistani people in the tent, but they were not from the mountains: they had darker skin. One woman was teaching a few girls, which Razaq thought odd. Karl took him to another tent where a man was teaching boys. They were having an English lesson. The boys didn’t look as old as he was, and Razaq hesitated.

  Karl said, “You can sit in the back. Later you can help the teacher. If you do this as a job we can give you food.”

  That made up Razaq’s mind. He was sick of standing in food lines for hours to get a few potatoes. It made him feel useless that he couldn’t do a day’s work, and then there were the fights. He sat on the floor behind the other boys.

  “Say it again,” the teacher said. “How are you?”

  All the boys chorused, “How are you, Mr. Harish?”

  “I am fine,” the teacher said.

  “I am fine,” copied the boys.

  Razaq found himself joining in. It would impress his uncle if he could speak Angrezi. Uncle Javaid had told Razaq’s father that Razaq should go to the city and stay with him and Amina so he could go to school to learn English and math. But Razaq’s father didn’t agree. He hadn’t even gone to the madrasah; it was Uncle Javaid who had attended and look what it did for him. Razaq’s father had said: “It took him away from the mountains.” He had said to always stay in the mountains, so Razaq found it confusing that his father had told him to find his uncle. Had it been death talking or should he act on his father’s last wish?

  At the end of the lesson, Mr. Harish asked Razaq to help him. “The younger boys need to play soccer—to have a time of forgetting.”

  Razaq nodded. He didn’t know how to play, though his uncle had given him a ball once. He’d kicked it around until his father told him it might frighten the goats.

  Mr. Harish divided the boys into two teams. “You take that team,” he said to Razaq. “Just tell them to keep their eye on the ball, and break up any fights.”

  Razaq watched Mr. Harish carefully and did everything the same. “Kick the ball,” he shouted after he’d heard Mr. Harish say it. Razaq even got to kick it himself. Mr. Harish was right: when he and the boys were running after that ball, it was all he could think of. His mind wasn’t filled with images of his bloodied father, of Peepu and his broken horns, his responsibility for Mrs. Daud, and whether he should find his uncle. He just heard the singing of the wind in his ears.

  After the game, he grinned at Mr. Harish. “Accha hai.”

  “Can you say it in English?”

  “It is good,” Razaq said.

  Mr. Harish laid his hand on Razaq’s head. “I am glad for that,” he said, and Razaq recognized the concern in his eyes.

  Being at the Angrez tents made Razaq feel almost carefree, and he went again in the afternoon. Mrs. Daud didn’t seem to care or even understand where he went as long as he brought food. His father would have said to be careful of Angrez people—they were immoral and worshipped three gods—but Karl had told Razaq he worshipped one god, too, so Razaq knew he must be Muslim.

  That evening, after another exhilarating game of soccer, a man approached Razaq. “I saw you playing soccer,” he said. “You’re very good.”

  The man was his uncle’s age, dressed in a clean shalwar qameez, and Razaq stood still in respect.

  “You could get a job in the city playing soccer.”

  Razaq grinned. The man was joking.

  “No, it’s true. Haven’t you seen games on TV?”

  Razaq stayed silent. He had never seen TV, though he’d heard of it, nor did he know what the man’s business was. Men did not stop you on the path to talk about nothing. They visited your father and drank tea and . . . Razaq sighed inwardly. From now on, he had to work things out, make decisions, himself.

  “I could take you to the city. Do you know anyone in Rawalpindi?”

  Razaq looked at the man with more interest. “My uncle lives there.”

  “I might be able to take you to him and get you a job. What can you do here?” The man lifted his arm to encompass the broken village.

  Razaq bit his lip. He needed a job, but there was Mrs. Daud. He couldn’t leave her yet—she still didn’t remember who he was.

  “I will think about this,” Razaq said politely and moved on.

  When he glanced back, the man had taken out a cigarette, and he blew smoke in his direction. Razaq knew then the man wasn’t a good Muslim: no one was supposed to smoke during the Ramadan fast.

  Chapter 3

  Razaq continued to help in the Angrez tents. He scrutinized Rebekah, even looked in her eyes, for signs of whoring, but all he saw was the way his mother or Mrs. Daud had looked at him before the earthquake. Rebekah looked at him as if she wanted to adopt him. Wouldn’t a gashtee look at you differently, make you feel something that a wife should make you feel?

  He’d decided in the night not to go to Rawalpindi yet. He may need to stay until a house could be built for Mrs. Daud, or at least until her brother could come to claim her. But not all brothers wanted a widowed sister to feed forever. It was too much to think of right now, and he was being paid by the Angrez in food and clothes for his help with the younger boys. It was enough. So he was troubled to arrive back at Mrs. Daud’s tent to find the man who had stopped him on the road sitting outside talking to her. She had her shawl over her face. Poor Mrs. Daud—she had always worn a burqa if she ever ventured outside, but it must have disappeared with her house.

  “Ah, here he is,” the man said when he saw Razaq.

  “Assalamu alaikum.” Razaq said it slowly. The man must have followed him home yesterday. What could he want? Should he stay with Mrs. Daud during the day as well?

  Mrs. Daud smiled at him. “Mr. Ikram has a good proposition for you, beta.”

  Razaq stood looking at her.

  “Sit down, beta.” She motioned to the mat beside her. She was stirring chai in the saucepan over the fire. She wouldn’t have any herself since the fast hadn’t yet broken for the day; she must be making it for the guest.

  The man Ikram spoke. “I’ve been telling your mother about taking you to the city. A good-looking boy like you can get a job and send money back to her.”

  Razaq waited for Mrs. Daud to say he wasn’t her son, but she kept stirring the chai.

  “What do you say, sahiba?” Ikram asked.

  Mrs. Daud smiled to be addressed as a lady. “It is a good idea.”

  “There is nothing here for him, is there?” Ikram said.

  “But I bring her food,” Razaq cut in. When was she going to say she needed him? “How will she get that herself in the lines? The men with families always push in first.”

  Mrs. Daud turned to him. “He will give me money.” Then she smiled again. “Lots of it—three hundred rupees.”

  Razaq was shocked into silence. It was obviously more money than she had ever seen, but it wouldn’t help her build a house. The food was free
at the moment, but it wouldn’t always be so and the prices would rise. And what if he didn’t get a job straight away?

  “That won’t last long,” he said eventually.

  It was as if Ikram could read his thoughts. “I know where you can get a job immediately,” he said. “Then you can start sending money home. You can find your uncle later.”

  “It is very generous, beta,” Mrs. Daud said. “He need not give me anything at all.”

  Razaq frowned. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go yet, and why should he go with Ikram? “I can go by myself when I am ready,” he said.

  “But I know where the job is,” Ikram said.

  Razaq thought he sounded irritated. Then Ikram reached for his money and held it out to Mrs. Daud. Razaq stared at it resting on Ikram’s palm. As soon as Mrs. Daud took it, his destiny would be sealed.

  “Think about this more,” Razaq implored her.

  “I have thought enough.” She reached for the money. “You need to make your own way, beta.”

  Even in that moment he wasn’t sure what meaning she put on the word beta. Did she still think he was her son? He wished he could talk about this in private with her—she wasn’t thinking carefully. Had she considered what the nights would be like without him? How would she fight off tent stealers? He had a squirmy feeling in his gut. He stared at the money in her hands as she counted it. Yes, it was generous of the man, but for some reason, he felt bought.

  “We should go now,” Ikram said.

  “Now? Can’t I say good-bye to my friends?”

  “A jeep is leaving in a few minutes to take us to the bus. We cannot miss it—there are so few buses running up here at the moment. Get your things.”

  Ikram’s voice had a sudden ring of authority, and Razaq frowned as he went into the tent. He already had on his father’s sandals, his knitted vest, jacket, and his pakol, his lambswool hat. He slipped the purse with its one hundred and twenty rupees into his pocket and bundled a shalwar qameez that Karl had given him into a plastic bag. When he emerged, Ikram stood up.