Dusky light from the other side filters through the planks over the jagged hole in the wall. Anu squats low in the gathering shadows, sorting the debris into two bins.
She speaks without looking up. She’s seemed afraid of me since that afternoon in the kitchen. “Patthar.” She points at the pail as a small stone clangs into the bucket, and then to a pile at the base of the wall, readied there for when the proper repairs will be done. The other bin contains the muck and trash of the household.
I nod, join her on the ground, and start sorting. I steal glances at her from time to time. Even with her hands caked in dust and grease, even with the sweat standing on her forehead, she is beautiful. Beautiful as she cleans up after someone else’s mess. My mess.
Suddenly I want to tell her that I tried to stop it, that had I known it was an actual bomb instead of just a snake, like I thought, then I would never have left it for later. Would she believe me? Would she believe that I had no idea anybody would be hurt?
I glance around. Only hours ago there were crowds three people deep on either side of the alley, but now no one. We’re alone. I could tell her. Right now. I could tell her that it was all a terrible accident, that I didn’t do anything wrong. Somehow, if she would believe me, I could get through this.
But I don’t get a chance to find out. For rounding the south corner of the compound is Sameer. And following behind him, his two gundas.
“No, no, no,” I whisper, before I catch myself.
Anu looks sharply at me, confused.
Why now? Why in front of her?
Before she can ask a thing, I stand, run to intercept Sameer.
Sameer gives me a look of disgust, then points at the wall. “Not what I had in mind,” he says to me.
I clench the stone I’d been about to deposit in the pail hard in my fist. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He steps forward, jabs my chest with his finger. “No,” he seethes, “it is you who should not have been there.” He points toward the front of the house. “You took the parcel—”
“I always carry deliveries for Mr. Darnsley—”
He puts an arm around my shoulders, ignoring my excuse, steering me around to face the damage of the blast squarely. “You know how hard it is to get explosives? How expensive?”
“Sameer—”
“What will I tell the men who organized this? How would you explain to them that the bomb they so carefully built was wasted on a useless stone wall, behind the house, no less. . . . ”
He’s so calm. I think it scares me more than if he were yelling and punching me. But he’s so in control, with his arm across my shoulders, his words like he’s some sort of schoolmaster chastising the stupid schoolboy.
How could I not have seen how dangerous he was before?
“I didn’t know it was a bomb,” I whisper.
He lifts his eyebrows. “Really? Would we send flowers to the good Mr. Darnsley for a job well done? Is that what you believed?”
“N-no . . . ,” I stammer. “I thought—”
“Ahh,” he says coldly. “You thought?” He clamps his arm down tighter across my shoulders and digs his thumb into the muscle. “That is a problem, friend. Tariq, always thinking, always first in the class. But this was not something for you to think about.”
“Someone could have been killed,” I say, knowing it is stupid to point this out to Sameer, who wanted someone killed, but I don’t know what else to say. “There was a beggar boy who nearly was—”
“A beggar?” he asks, disgusted. “The bomb was built to go off when the box was opened. Tell me how the package I had delivered came to find itself in the hands of a beggar boy?”
“I—”
“All you had to do was give it to him,” he fumes, “and you shouldn’t have even had that much to do. I suspected you had no stomach to go with all those brains. You impressed me that day at the gurdwara, the way you dropped that Sikh. But maybe that was a rare lapse of courage for you.”
I feel—truly feel—the blood drain from my face as I force myself not to look at Anu, pray that she doesn’t understand what Sameer has just said. I could handle almost anyone else knowing, just not her.
“We thought at first to have you deliver it, but we used the wallah instead. Let us just say we were worried we could not count on you. And we were right, weren’t we, you interfering ghadda.”
“You should go,” I say, trying another tack. Anything to get him to leave. “Someone might hear you. The policemen are still out in front.” But they are too far to hear us, and there is no one around to fetch them. No one but Anu, who crouches frozen, a few yards away.
He laughs. “You are concerned for my safety now? How loyal—”
He stops abruptly as I see Anu rise and begin to run. “Grab her!” he barks at his two friends. They move quicker than I thought possible, overtaking her before she can reach the corner of the house.
And suddenly the nightmare gets worse.
“Did you hear something that upset you, girl?” Sameer asks as he pulls me over to her.
Anu is struggling against the bigger of the two men. He has one hand over her mouth, his other arm locked around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides. The other gunda stands a few steps behind, smirking, checking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure that no one is coming.
Sameer seems to have forgotten how furious he is with me as he examines Anu. “And who is this, Tariq?” he asks, reaching for the end of her braid, lifting it and letting it fall back down from his fingers. The beads she keeps woven there rattle against one another.
“Let her go,” I say, hating how weak I sound. “She’s just a rag picker. I’ve never seen her before.” The lie is a good one. Nearly all the garbage that comes from the house is sifted through by beggars and paupers, some collecting bits of fabric or paper or anything else that can be used or sold. “She doesn’t know anything.”
Sameer chuckles, shakes his head. “Oh, Tariq,” he says, tracing Anu’s nose with one finger. He can’t touch her. Not her! My hand goes to my hip, hovering over the hidden knife. I can’t let him—
“You lie to me now. Before you only interfered, but now you lie?” He wags a finger at me as though this disappointment is somehow more serious than the bomb. “She works in the house with you. I was only asking for her name.”
How am I so stupid? Of course they recognize her. They’ve been watching me, so they’d have seen her at some point as well. I’m a greater fool than Sameer says I am.
“I followed her once, a couple of months ago,” he says, “but she was with some tall haramzada. They lost us in the market. But”—his eyes cut toward Anu—“I’ve often dreamed what might have happened had we caught her.”
I can tell by the way Anu’s eyes widen and her feet stop kicking for a moment that Sameer is telling the truth. A new wave of panic rises in me.
“Let her go,” I plead.
Sameer laughs now. “Surely you’ve finished with her by now, haven’t you?” He’s challenging me. The way he used to dare me to throw a stone at the window of the gurdwara.
I know what he means, and fury burns inside me to hear him talk about her that way. But I’m ashamed, too. Ashamed at the thoughts I’ve had about Anu. I let my silence answer for me.
“I see,” he says, almost cordially. “Best not to soil your own bed. Right, my friend?”
I want to shout that I am not his friend. That I am nothing like him. But instead I just say, a little louder this time, “Let her go.”
“This may be a stroke of luck,” Sameer says, without even seeming to hear me. He lets go of my arm, steps closer to Anu. “The failure of the bomb will disappoint the men I answer to. But if I bring them such a prize as this one,” he says, tugging on her braid, harder this time, jerking her head backward, bringing his face closer to hers, “then all the better.”
“You cannot—” I say, the words choking in my throat. I’m so enraged, my hand itching for the knife at my hip. I
stare at his neck, want to rip it open, yank that gold chain he’s wearing from it, see his blood spill out on the dirt. I’ve done it before, I think, killed a man. At least this time it will mean something. It won’t be an accident.
“Quite right,” he continues, turning his back to me, inching toward Anu. “Not before we’ve had our fun with her. Stand watch and we might even give you a turn—”
Enough! I lunge at him, releasing the knife from its sheath. The tip of the blade is at his throat and I wrap my other arm around his chest before anyone else realizes what’s happening.
It is hungry, this knife, having waited long years since last being used for its intended purpose. A drop of blood rises up under the tip of the blade before I steady my hand.
I think of Arish. What would he say if he knew that this was the way I was using his gift to me? To protect a Sikh girl. And I think of my parents and worry for a moment that what I’m about to do will reach them.
They would want me to do the right thing. Even if it means killing Sameer.
But maybe I won’t have to.
“Tell them to let her go,” I whisper in his ear. And I pray to Allah that if the knife is not enough to scare him off, maybe what I am about to say will be.
CHAPTER 24
* * *
ANUPREET
No, no, no, no.
Oh. Hey Rabba, no!
Please.
Not again. Why is this happening again?
How?
But it is. And it’s all so much like it was that day in the shop. The smell, tobacco on his fingers. The feel of someone so close, too close, close enough that the sweat off his chest is soaking through his shirt, through the back of my kameez.
Only, this time there is no Mr. Singh there to hit him on the head from behind.
Only Tariq.
Against three.
Tariq and a knife. Where did he get a knife? Oh, thank Rabba, he at least has a knife!
He keeps the blade at the one they call Sameer’s neck, the point digging into his skin. Tariq’s holding him like the big one holds me. But Sameer doesn’t look afraid. I kick, try to scream, but the hand across my mouth is mashing my lips against my teeth and I can barely breathe let alone make a sound. “Let her go,” Tariq is saying.
Yes! Let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t even know what to tell. Just don’t take me. Don’t . . .
I can hear music from inside the house. Margaret’s harmonium. Margaret! Margaret, come and look out the back window. Look out the window!
“Tariq with a knife,” Sameer says. His voice edges higher, like he’s surprised but not afraid.
I should have recognized Sameer from that day in the market with Manvir. I should have run before it was too late. Stupid!
Hey, Rabba. Please. Don’t let it be too late. I’m sorry for all the times I thought Manvir and Papaji and Biji silly for warning me. Sorry for thinking they were being too cautious. If only you’ll make them let me go, I’ll listen to them always. I’ll be careful.
Just don’t let them . . . please. Please.
“I said let her go!” Tariq’s voice grows deeper, almost a growl. He presses the knife a little harder into Sameer’s neck. Blood seeps up from the wound. Tariq’s hand is trembling.
He’s as scared as I am.
We’re both going to die.
I kick again. The one holding me clamps down harder. I can hardly draw a breath. My vision goes fuzzy at the edges.
“Consider, Tariq,” Sameer says. “You may kill me, but one knife against three? Think on it, brother.”
“I’m not your brother.” Tariq’s face is like stone. “And I won’t need to kill you.” He pauses, then adds, “You’re going to walk away.”
What?
Sameer laughs. “Walk away?” The others laugh as well.
Tariq is pagal. They won’t just leave. Why would they?
I have to do something. I kick backward at my captor, trying to land my heels sharp on his legs.
The policemen—at the front gate—Rabba, make them hear us. Make them know something is wrong. Why won’t Margaret stop playing? Why doesn’t she come and look?
Please!
But no one comes.
Tariq swallows hard.
The knife stays locked on Sameer’s neck.
“Even if you manage to kill me,” Sameer is telling him, “and then go for one of my friends, the girl is sure to get hurt.”
“Better she die than what she might suffer with you,” Tariq says quickly. Unexpectedly, a wave of fury surges through me. I hate that dying is the only way some people can think of to protect a girl.
“You love her?” Sameer is smiling coldly now. “Is that it?” He looks me up and down appraisingly, then his eyes find those of the one who holds me. “He loves the little Sikh girl.” Only he doesn’t say girl, but something in Urdu that I don’t understand but sounds so nasty on his tongue that I know enough of what he has called me.
“Let . . . her . . . go,” Tariq repeats, but he doesn’t deny it.
Why doesn’t he deny it?
Tariq?
Me?
I think of his looks.
Of that day in the kitchen.
It can’t be.
I’ve been scared of him. Everyone’s tried to protect me from him.
It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.
“Let me go,” Sameer hisses, losing his composure for a moment.
“The girl first,” Tariq says, adding quietly, “or I tell your friends how you come to have gold to wear.”
There is only a moment where Sameer’s eyes give him away. But I see it.
Fear.
The tiniest spark of it flashes there, eyes flitting sideways to try and get a look at Tariq.
“It’s funny,” Tariq says, almost whispering in Sameer’s ear, “how some of the stores in the Sikh market weren’t bothered during the riots last week.”
Markets? This is how he will save us? I want to scream and cry and disappear. We’re going to die.
But Sameer hesitates. “You talk of markets? You’re off your head.” But he doesn’t sound surprised. He sounds . . . worried.
“Only, I thought you’d like to know,” Tariq says carefully, “since I saw you shopping there a few days before.”
Shopping? Hey, Rabba. Why doesn’t he do something! Please, God, make him do something.
But what if he is? The one who’s holding me is confused, too. His grip loosens a bit and he turns and asks the other, the one with his head shaved close, what Tariq is talking about. I try to kick free, but he grabs my braid, pulling my head back harder.
“He’s off his head,” Sameer says again, this time to his men. Then he says to Tariq: “You can’t kill us all with one knife, and if we don’t kill you where you stand, we’ll carry the tale of what happened here to our brothers. Our true brothers.”
Tariq narrows his eyes but holds the knife steady.
“I wonder, though,” Tariq says, his voice dropping even lower now, so low I can barely hear, “who will these true brothers of yours kill first? Me? When all I’ve done to anger them is spoil one of their plans and then deny them a girl they may not even want? But you! You have more to answer for, haven’t you? Maybe we should ask your friends here what happens to traitors who take—”
“Enough!” Sameer is livid, panicked. Spittle flies from his mouth.
“Tell them to let her go,” Tariq demands.
Sameer looks at his gundas, maybe checking to see what they’ve understood. Finally, he nods.
And suddenly I’m free. I fall to the ground, land on my hands and knees, gulp air.
Thank you, Rabba. Thank you. Thank you.
Tariq is telling them to leave. I look up to see Sameer nod to the other two, and they move off uncertainly. I half crawl as I scramble behind Tariq and find my feet.
He waits until the others are out of earshot, at the corner of the compound before he releases Sameer, pushing him roughly forw
ard so that he falls in the dirt. But Tariq keeps the knife extended toward him, ready.
“You are a dead man,” Sameer warns, bouncing to his feet. “They will believe what I tell them. We will come for you.”
“It will take time,” Tariq says with a shrug. “Even you might find it difficult to explain how I convinced the three brothers to move off, despite the fact that I had only one knife.”
“I will think of something,” Sameer says, touching the smear of blood on his neck. “And you will lose everything.”
Why do they stand here talking? I reach out, pull at Tariq’s free arm. We should go. Run! But Tariq shakes his arm free, keeps the knife pointed at Sameer.
“I have nothing left to lose.”
Sameer laughs again, “Nothing?” He gestures at me with both hands, palms up, as if offering me to Tariq. “It is for this nothing that you risk your own neck?”
“Go before I change my mind and call them back to tell them about your bribing. How you’re keeping the money.”
Bribing? Is that what he meant about the market?
Sameer backs up a few steps, curses. “Soon every true Muslim remaining in Jalandhar will know of your treachery! And if somehow you manage to escape to Pakistan alive, we’ll find you there.”
One look at Tariq tells me that Sameer is not bluffing.
And if he believes him, then it means what Sameer has said about him before is true. Tariq has already risked his life—once for Mr. Darnsley in bringing the bomb to the rubbish heap, and now again in helping me.
Sameer’s two friends watch from the corner of the compound, the smaller one looking nervously up the lane.
“Sameer!” he hisses. “A sipahi!”
Sameer holds up a hand to his man, a silent order to wait. He glares at Tariq. “We will find you,” he says. “I will find you.”
Tariq doesn’t argue, just stares back as he holds the knife out between them.
Sameer gives an odd little laugh and backs up another step, shaking his head. Then he turns and runs to join the others as they sprint up the alley and into the dusk.
Only then does Tariq let his arm holding the knife drop to his side.
A Moment Comes Page 18
