Fozia and the Quest of Prince Zal Read online

  ‘I don’t want to sleep,’ Amir whined. ‘I want to hear the story.’

  ‘What about when we’re in bed?’ Jehan asked Fozia. ‘Can you tell us more then?’

  Fozia shook her head. ‘You’ve had your bedtime story early tonight. Wait until tomorrow.’

  Jehan moaned, but Fozia knew she needed to stop. Telling the story made her remember so much she thought she would cry.

  3

  Fozia

  Fozia liked playing cricket with Jehan and Amir, but she couldn’t bowl like Jehan, even though he was three years younger than her.

  ‘Bowl down the middle of the pitch,’ he called. He stood with the bat in position, waiting.

  Fozia frowned. The ‘pitch’ was just the bumpy lane outside the house. Her balls always seemed to hit a stone and fly sideways.

  Fozia tried again. She ran up, gave a skip, and threw the ball overarm. Lali barked. The pups joined in with little yips even though they were looking the wrong way.

  This time Jehan lunged and hit the ball – whack!

  ‘A six!’ Amir sang. ‘Can I bat now? Bowl like that for me, Fozia.’

  Fozia shook her head. ‘I have to go. Chacha Izaak is coming soon to take me to my village.’

  Amir raced up to her. ‘Can we come, too?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘Chacha Izaak is almost here!’ Jehan looked out across the flowing Indus River while Amir ran down the lane of their village towards the riverbank.

  Jehan held Fozia’s hand as Izaak’s boat approached the landing. She steeled herself not to pull her hand away. Jehan still made her tummy flip at times. He brought back memories she didn’t want, and she wouldn’t be able to explain without hurting his feelings. Lali barked and stared up at Fozia, her golden eyes pleading.

  Jehan laughed. ‘See, even Lali wants to go. Can’t we come? We know what it feels like to want to find your parents.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Jehan would be a help if she found anything upsetting. He had asked her to be with him when he was searching for his parents soon after the flood, and look how well that had turned out.

  Fozia sighed. ‘Okay, you can come with me.’

  They strode to Izaak’s boat with Lali bouncing beside them. Lali gave him a welcoming bark and jumped in the boat.

  Izaak patted her. ‘Hoi. You all want to go, I see.’ He raised his eyebrows at Fozia and she tipped her head to the side.

  ‘It’s okay, Chacha,’ she said. If her parents had returned after the flood, it would be good to celebrate together. She mustn’t let herself think about not finding them.

  The boat pulled out from the bank. This was the first time Fozia had been to her village since she had been swept away down the river, in the flood that Saima, her little sister, didn’t survive. The subsiding water still smelt muddy, and people were returning to clean up houses that were still standing. There were many boats, but none quite as bright or as noisy as Izaak’s. Some men rowed, and one old man stood on a huge disk and propelled it along with a long pole. A few men were fishing with a net closer to the other bank.

  Lali sat still beside Fozia as Amir chattered. Spray splashed over the back of the boat. The boys squealed and Lali grinned. Izaak was a fast driver.

  There weren’t many brick kilns along their part of the Indus, and Fozia stiffened when she saw the familiar brick-kiln chimney loom ahead. Black smoke spewed into the sky – so it was working again.

  Lali jumped up and barked. ‘Baitho, sit!’ Fozia sounded harsh, but she remembered the danger. What if the owner of the brick kiln recognised her? He would force her to work, making bricks, in place of her parents.

  Lali sat, but scratched the side of the boat. Jehan put his arm around her. Lali licked his hand.

  Piles of freshly made bricks could be seen from the boat. Children no bigger than Jehan and Amir waved to them, as older boys pushed wooden wheelbarrows of clay. Fozia could see women and men squatting as they patted clay into tin moulds and quickly tipped them out again. Children stacked them into piles ready to be fired in the kiln.

  Izaak cut the engine and poled the boat closer to the bank, where he roped it to a branch. Lali was first to jump out. Her back legs skimmed the water as she bounded up the bank.

  ‘The water is much lower now,’ Jehan said. ‘Your house should be free of the river.’

  Fozia couldn’t speak. Izaak helped her out of the boat and she scrambled up the bank with Jehan and Amir.

  ‘This was all underwater when Lali and I came in the tin bath,’ Jehan said.

  ‘Wah,’ Amir said. ‘Did you row here in the bath you found in the flood?’

  ‘Ji,’ Jehan said. ‘Lali sat still so we wouldn’t capsize.’

  Lali barked from the top of the bank before dashing off. She sat outside her old house as Fozia and the others trudged up the dirt lane towards her. Wherever Fozia looked, she seemed to see the huge brick-kiln chimney. It dominated the village landscape behind their house, like always. She could hear the heavy wheelbarrows creaking behind the wall.

  Fozia had walked this lane every day to get water from the well or vegetables from the shop. The shop wasn’t there anymore.

  But her house was. She stopped in front of it. It was one of the few still standing, probably because it belonged to the brick-kiln owner and had cement walls. Lali scampered up the steps to the roof and sniffed around.

  ‘That’s where she took the pups,’ Jehan said. ‘The water was so high it almost reached the roof.’ Fozia felt Jehan take her hand again as they walked to the doorway. The door was gone, and so was the outside kitchen.

  Fozia stumbled as she stepped inside the room. She couldn’t see her family’s charpais, table or any of their things. All she could see on the floor was grey, oozing mud. It looked alive.

  ‘Nai,’ she whispered. ‘How could it still be here?’ The mud had dried halfway up the walls.

  Amir didn’t say a word as he looked inside. Fozia knew no one had been here. If her parents had returned, they would have washed away the mud.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Izaak said.

  Fozia couldn’t reply. She had seen a shoe poking out of the mud on the floor. One of her father’s sandals. She inched slowly towards it, her heart pounding harder and harder. Something glinted beside it. Was it the buckle? No. She picked it up. It was still covered in mud. When she held it closer, she could see gold.

  It was one of her mother’s wedding bangles. She had never gone anywhere without wearing them. Fozia couldn’t bear to think what finding it might mean.

  ‘I’ll clean it for you,’ Jehan said. He took the bangle and ran outside.

  Fozia looked up above the shelf where her mother kept her dishes. The hole in the wall was still there.

  ‘Chacha?’

  ‘Ji, Fozia.’

  ‘Could you please reach up to that hole? My mother kept special things in there.’

  Izaak reached it easily. He brought out some papers and handed them to Fozia. They were letters, but the water had ruined them. The papers were stuck together, but dry now, so Fozia slipped them into the pocket of her shalwar.

  Fozia left the house in a daze, mud stuck to her ankles, Amir’s hand clasped in hers. Outside, where the courtyard would have been, she saw the carpet, the small one they had sat on when her mother had told them stories. It was covered in dirt, but she picked it up and shook it. Maybe she could wash it.

  ‘Ahem.’

  Fozia looked up. A man was standing in front of the house. It was the brick-kiln owner. He looked older – slumped over. He used to stand tall and proud, but she could see he was still powerful.

  Fozia’s hand on the carpet shook while Izaak stepped beside her. She needed to ask the brick-kiln owner a question, but did she have the courage?

  ‘Janab,’ she said. ‘Are Danyal Masih and his wife working in the br
ickyard?’ Perhaps they had come back and were just living in another house.

  He narrowed his gaze at her. ‘All my workers who survived the flood returned this month.’

  She opened her mouth to say her father’s name again, but he cut in. ‘They are not here, and if any of their family can be found, they will need to work in their place.’ He scrutinised her face before moving on.

  Jehan raced back from the river and held out the bangle. He had done a good job, but Fozia couldn’t smile or thank him. She pushed the bangle onto her wrist. When she was younger, her mother’s bangles were too big for her. But it fitted her now. She stood staring at it, remembering her mother scream as Saima fell into the raging water.

  Izaak shifted his feet. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again.

  Fozia stifled a sob. Her parents had never returned.

  4

  Prince Zal

  ‘I know how to cheer you up, Fozia,’ Amir said that evening. ‘You’re our sister now and you can share our abu and ummie.’ Amir was becoming as kind as Jehan.

  Their mother looked up from kneading dough for chapattis. Fozia was chopping onions for the curry, but couldn’t answer. Her eyes were streaming and she dashed the tears away.

  The boys’ mum put an arm around her. ‘You are always welcome in our family, you know that.’

  Fozia nodded, ‘Shukriya, thank you, Aunty Meena.’

  ‘Why don’t you call her Ummie, like us?’ Amir said.

  Fozia glanced at Aunty Meena. ‘Because she isn’t my ummie.’

  Jehan said simply, ‘We love you.’

  Fozia tried to smile. They had all been kind. But she felt guilty loving them, as if she were being disloyal to her own family.

  ‘If you tell us more of the story, Fozia,’ Amir went on, ‘it will make you happy. You’re good at telling the story.’

  ‘Ji,’ Jehan agreed. ‘And we’ll help, won’t we, Amir?’

  ‘Zarur, of course.’ Amir ran to hug her around her waist. ‘Don’t be sad.’

  Fozia wiped her eyes on her scarf. ‘It’s just the onions,’ she said.

  Aunty Meena took the onions to cook the curry as Fozia sat on the boys’ charpai. Lali padded in quietly to sit by Fozia’s feet, and Fozia scratched behind her ears.

  Through the door she could see the courtyard, where her old carpet was hanging to dry after Uncle Akram had washed it. It was a bit faded, but she could still see its maroon and green pattern, and the pink, blue and white flowers around the edges.

  ‘Wait.’ Amir ran out to the courtyard and brought in the pups. ‘Here’s Nala, Jehan. I’ve got Lal.’ Lal yipped but Nala growled at him to be quiet. ‘Don’t be bossy, Nala,’ Amir said.

  Fozia settled onto the charpai. ‘So, Prince Zal knew he’d need help to find the princess. He had called her name, “Na-ji-ya”, a hundred times. He had hurried to the river and into the jungle as far as he thought a little girl could walk. He went north and south. But there was no sign of her. Not a ribbon, a hairpin, a scrap of her dress on a branch – nothing at all.’

  Amir’s eyes were big. Since the flood, everyone knew what it was like to lose someone or be lost.

  Jehan frowned. ‘He limps, doesn’t he? Prince Zal? Because of the leprosy?’

  ‘Zarur,’ Fozia said. ‘But Zal never let his limp stop him from doing the things he needed to.’

  ‘Wah,’ Amir said.

  ‘Accha, this is what happens next …’

  Just as Prince Zal thought he’d need to call for his big brothers to help in the search, he saw a tiny house in between the trees. His leg ached, but he trudged closer. He couldn’t see anyone around, but a branch of the nearest tree had fallen on the roof. Whoever lived here would need help with that. He spied an axe by the woodpile, so he strapped it to his back with his belt. Then, though it took a while, he managed to climb the tree.

  He dropped to the roof, pulled out the axe and chopped off the smaller branches. He pushed them to the ground. Finally, the central branch was bare, and he rolled it off the roof and climbed down. He cut the branch into fireplace-sized pieces and stacked them on the woodpile.

  All the time Zal thought about Najya and what he could do to find her.

  ‘Hoi, what are you doing?’ called a voice.

  Zal looked up to see a woman carrying a bucket of water.

  ‘This is my house.’ She narrowed her gaze. Then she noticed the roof. ‘The branch is gone. I was going to ask the woodcutter to deal with that.’

  Prince Zal showed her the woodpile. ‘Wah,’ she said. ‘The woodcutter would have taken the wood for himself.’

  ‘Ji,’ Zal agreed. ‘Now you have wood for next winter.’

  She put the bucket by the door and searched in her pocket. ‘I must pay you.’

  ‘Nai.’ Prince Zal laid his hand across his chest. ‘I do not need payment, just advice. I am looking for my sister, Najya.’

  The woman frowned. ‘She is in the jungle alone?’

  Prince Zal tipped his head miserably.

  ‘You must find her soon. There is a rogue leopard roaming this jungle who likes to eat small children.’

  ‘Can you tell me where to look?’ Prince Zal couldn’t keep the panic from his voice.

  She picked up the bucket. ‘Ao, come with me.’ The woman led him inside and gave him a cup of water.

  Zal hadn’t realised how thirsty he was. ‘Shukriya.’ At once he felt brighter and more confident.

  The woman opened a wooden chest and pulled out a thin carpet. It was mainly maroon and smelt of lavender and herbs. ‘This is from Persia,’ she said. ‘It has been in my family for centuries.’ She held it out to him.

  ‘Why should I have a carpet?’ Maybe he would need it to sleep on. Would it take so long to find Najya?

  ‘It will help you find your sister.’

  ‘It is charmed?’

  ‘Ji – it flies.’ The woman showed Prince Zal how to kindly ask the carpet to fly. ‘It is a gift only for as long as you need it,’ she said.

  ‘What if I can’t find my way back here to return it?’

  ‘Do not worry. It will come of its own accord when your quest is accomplished.’

  Zal wondered if she was a pari. The jungle was said to be full of them.

  The woman smiled as if she knew what he thought. ‘Your sister may be in Paristan.’

  ‘The pari kingdom? But how will I find her? I don’t even know where they live.’

  ‘You will discover help along the way, but you must be careful who you trust. If the pariyan have Najya they will want to keep her.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘They can be dangerous, so you must be wise. Now go, and do not fear what you cannot see.’

  ‘Wait,’ Amir said. ‘He can’t leave yet! He doesn’t know where to go or who to ask for help.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Fozia said.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go to sleep.’ She took the pups, floppy and heavy with sleep, under each arm and kissed the boys’ heads in blessing.

  Fozia sighed. The boys made her feel more at home than she wanted to admit. It was like their kindness was magic, making her want to stay.

  5

  Fozia

  The next day, after school, Fozia helped Aunty Meena cut cloth into squares to make a quilt called a razai. She pedalled the machine, making straight rows of stitching to join the squares of cloth together, just as Aunty Meena had taught her. It was usually one of Fozia’s favourite things to do, but today she couldn’t stop thinking of the brick-kiln owner.

  Was he right that everyone who was alive had returned to the brickyard? Fozia thought of the camps where she and Aunty Meena took the other quilts they had made. Lali sniffed every single tent and hadn’t found a trace of her parents.

  Fozia sighed. Would she know in her heart if they had died?

  At aft
ernoon teatime, she finished sewing and took a cup of chai to Uncle Akram’s workshop next door where he built charpais. His eyes crinkled when he saw her. ‘Shukriya, Fozia.’ His words were always few, yet they warmed her inside.

  Jehan was drawing designs on charpai legs to carve later. Besides cricket, drawing was his passion. He grinned. ‘What about me?’

  ‘You can get your own chai.’ She smiled at him in case he thought she was too bossy.

  As she returned through the courtyard, Fozia unpegged her carpet. It was dry enough now to take inside. She put it on her sleeping mat and touched its curved shapes and flowers. She had always done her homework on this carpet. This was where she braided Saima’s hair every morning. At night they sat on it cross-legged for a story. However tired her mother was, she always managed at least part of a story.

  The memories made Fozia feel strong enough to finally look at the letters. As she drew them out from under her mat, Lali padded in and nosed at her hand.

  ‘Ji, Lali, I have his letters.’ She tried to prise the papers apart, but a page ripped. Much of the ink had run, but she could make out a few lines. She read it in a whisper:

  ‘The leprosy is getting better. Shukriya for all you have done. Please give hugs to Fozia and Saima—’

  At Saima’s name, Lali yipped.

  Fozia stared at the letter, her eyes filling. She hugged Lali. How they all had missed him. She wouldn’t see Saima again, and maybe not her parents, but surely someone must still be alive in her family.

  During school on Saturday morning, Fozia could barely concentrate on her work. Miss Parveen even had to ask her a question twice. Fozia and Shakila were the eldest in the girls’ tent school, and Fozia knew that they had to be good role models. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Skyping Kelsey with Shakila after school.

  ‘I can’t wait to talk to Kelsey,’ Shakila said as soon as school was finished.

  Her little brother, Raza, raced up to Jehan and Amir as they walked to their house. ‘Will you play with me?’