Two Rivers - pt. 4

Alam Zawar
32-A Sarwar Shaheed Rd, Icchra
Lahore, Punjab
Pakistan

14th December 2005

Dear Alam,

What's Lahore like? What school are you going to? How many classmates do you have? What are you learning? Did you make any friends? Can you speak Punjabi yet?

Everyone here is fine! It's gotten cold now, and it snowed yesterday.

We all miss you so much. Especially Bilal. He was really angry and sad when he found out you were gone. Don't tell him I told you, but he was even crying. Didn't you tell him you were leaving? Now he's so lonely. I think he's sad you never said goodbye. You should write to him. Oh, Jamal says he's sad too.

Ami is always talking about you. She wanted Abu to call you every day, but he said he doesn't want to disturb Uncle Masood. That's why I asked him to get your address, so I can write to you. Make sure you reply. Send your letter to Uncle Gulzar and he can give it to us when he comes on a tour. I made him write down his address, it's on the other piece of paper in this envelope. Do you remember how to write a letter? Make sure you do it right.

I hope you're behaving. Abu was so grateful to Uncle Masood. He told us that Uncle Zubair tricked us. Did that really happen? He seemed like such a nice man. Anyway, Abu really likes Uncle Masood so make sure you work hard for him.

The glaciers are going to block off the road soon, so I might not be able to write to you again before Spring. Until then, take care of yourself and say all of your prayers.

Much love,
Mina

February 2006

Like every morning, I woke to the crowing of roosters that lived next door. They were so close, and their cries so loud that it was impossible to sleep through. I had tried to, on those first nights after Aunty Asma had taken me behind the house and shown me the old rickshaw. She said that was to be my bedroom and laid out a sheet, a blanket and pillow on the seat, which was covered in something that shone in the moonlight.

I had never even seen a rickshaw before. It was like a small car, with three wheels instead of four. But much softer, and much more colourful. I found out later that they were also much more noisy. I remember wondering how people drove them. The seats were so far away from the steering handle. The next morning I found out that the front seats in my bedroom rickshaw had been removed.

I didn't sleep at all those first few nights. My "bed" was so small, I had to curl up my legs or press them against the wall. And the walls were so close. I felt nauseous and kept imagining them collapsing in and crushing me. The constant churn of a river was missing. The night was silent, until the silence was broken by a car or voices. Though I couldn't understand them, I could imagine what the voices were saying. People laughing together, people shouting at each other, people fighting in groups and throwing glass bottles at one another. All of this was accentuated with the occasional siren, and piercing blue and red lights flashing across the rickshaw roof.

Night in the city was scary.

I stepped out of the rickshaw and wore the over sized slippers Aunty Asma had given me. A fog covered the courtyard. It was only just bright enough that I could tell the sun was about to rise. The street lights were on, and I could see their blurry orange glow, as well as the blinking lights on the electricity tower that was a bit further away.

I walked to one of the courtyard walls and turned on a tap. After a moment of sputtering, cold water started flowing out of the bundled hose at my feet. I picked it up and started washing the floor of the courtyard, directing water from behind the house to around the front and outside the fenced door. I had to be careful not to splash any of the several rickshaws that were parked against the walls. Some of them had one or all of their wheels removed, others had the seats or roof taken off. There was one which didn't even look like a rickshaw anymore. It was just bars of metal with a big black box sitting at the back.

Raja, who was one of the men that worked for Uncle Masood, once called me over and started showing me the box. He kept pointing at different parts, but I couldn't figure out his quick and heavy Punjabi at all.

Punjabi was a weird language. It was similar to Urdu, but with a thicker accent, and I'd be able to understand what someone was saying if they spoke slowly, even if I didn't understand every word. But most people spoke Punjabi so fast that it just flew past me. It was unfair really, they should know to talk to me in Urdu.

I was washing the ground around a pile of tools and wheels when with a crackle, the first azan started. A second later, it was joined by hundreds of others; voices of strangers calling the city to prayer. The first time I heard azan in the city, I had to stop and listen. I'd heard it every day during class in Matiltan, but this was different. There were so many voices, from near and far, slightly out of sync almost like they were echoing each other.

Before it was over, I heard shuffling from inside the small building next to the main house. Naveed and Raja lived there. I could hear the tap inside and soon enough, Naveed stepped out, his face and hair wet from wudu. He smiled and said "As Salam Au Alaykum," and I responded in kind. Putting on his topi, he walked out of the courtyard and joined the crowd heading to the mosque to say their morning prayer.

The fog was clearing and the sun was coming up as I finished washing the ground. I picked up the newspaper that had been slid under the gate and walked around to the back of the house, where the strong smell of cooking roti filled the air. The backdoor was open, so I walked into the kitchen and put the newspaper on the kitchen table, in front of Uncle Masood's chair. Most of the land that Uncle Masood owned was used for his repair shop, so his actual house was pretty small. Even then, the kitchen was a little bit bigger than mom's.

"As Salam Au Alaykum, Alam." Nabila, who was Uncle Masood's daughter, said. She was standing by the stove tossing dough.

She wasn't wearing a hijab, and her braided brown hair flowed down to her waist, swinging gently as she moved between the dough and stove. Her kameez was golden, with little blue flowers spread throughout. How did she toss and make rotis without getting flour all over it? I caught myself staring and shook my head.

"Wa Alaykum as Salam," I said, and started to walk across the kitchen to where the brooms were stacked against the wall.

"Talk louder honey,"

"Sorry..."

"Did you say sorry? That's adorable!" She turned around and squinted. "Why are you so red? Is it cold outside? I keep telling mom it's too cold to make you sleep in that horrible rickshaw. I'm sure you can share Danish's room." She pinched one of my cheeks with her fingers bent. "So cute!"

I shook my head. "It's not cold at all..." It hadn't even snowed all winter.

"You're lying." She flicked my nose, winked and returned to the stove. "It's so cold! But summer is going to come and then we'll be complaining about the heat."

I nodded, then grabbed one of the brooms, squatted down and begun sweeping. I started in the small hallway outside the kitchen. This hallway had doors for two rooms: a bathroom and the room where Uncle Masood did his work (I'd never been inside). At its far end, it opened into the room with stairs, big chairs and cushions on the ground. There was even a television. Before coming here, I'd never seen a television.

Danish spent a lot of time watching television. And late at night, after locking the front gate and closing the repair shop, Uncle Masood would sit and watch with Aunty Asma. I'd only ever seen it on through the window. Often it showed people sitting on chairs and talking to each other or talking to you. When Danish watched, it looked like there were paintings of people or animals running around and fighting each other. There were so many colours.

I was sweeping the kitchen when Uncle Masood came in, grumbled salam and sat at the table. He opened his newspaper. I put away the broom, took a cup out of a cupboard and handed it to Nabila.

She smiled and poured in tea from the pot on the stove. I gave the cup to Uncle Masood, then took out a tray and two more cups. She filled these up, and I took them outside to Raja and Naveed's house. Raja was in the bathroom and Naveed had just returned from prayer. "God bless you," he said as I gave him the tray.

"Why don't you drink tea, kid?" He asked, sitting cross legged at the edge of his bed, for once in Urdu. Naveed and Raja's house was small; there was one room with two beds and a bathroom. They'd decorated their sides of the room with all sorts of colourful pieces of paper. Naveed's had a lot of Quran phrases, but Raja's had pictures of people. He'd told me they were movie stars.

I thought their house was convenient, because if they stepped out of their door they were in the repair shop where they worked.

"My mom said I'm too young."

Raja left the bathroom then, wiping his wet face with a towel. Naveed laughed and shouted something in Punjabi to him, pointing at me. Then they both started chattering away and I didn't understand them at all.

By the time I got back to the kitchen, Aunty Asma was awake and cooking. Now Nabila was sitting across from Uncle Masood, chin resting in palm, brown eyes scanning as she flipped lazily through a magazine.

"As Salam Au Alaykum Aunty." I said, bringing back the tray and tea cups. I started washing the cups.

"Alam, here." She took the tray and piled on a cloth bundled up with rotis and a big plate filled with omelette. "There's two rotis for you, okay?"

I nodded, but two rotis was too much really. I'd probably give one to Raja or Naveed. I took the tray back to their little house and sat with them as we ate the omelette.

After eating, I put on my school uniform - a light blue shirt with dark blue pants, packed my bag and waited by the front gate. I could hear Danish arguing loudly before charging through the doors, followed by Aunty Asma who was holding his bag.

"And tuck in your shirt, you look like a mess." She said.

"Leave me alone!" Danish shouted when she tried tucking his shirt in for him.

"Danish!" Aunty Asma cried, then stood back with an arm on her hip as Danish stormed out of the courtyard. "Alam, take this for me would you?" I took Danish's bag from her and followed him.

Danish was bigger than me - taller and rounder. He'd already walked across the small street in front of Uncle Masood's shop and was turning a corner as I left the house. The street wasn't anything like what Uncle Rehmat had described. It must have been made of bricks, with little rectangles missing or jutting out here and there. And it was wide enough for maybe two rickshaws, or just one big car. There were two thin, dirty canals that ran along the edges, next to the rows of houses.

Uncle Masood's was the biggest house on the street, the only one that had a large courtyard and was painted. The other houses were smaller, a collage of jammed together bricks. It had taken me a while to figure out where one house ended and the next started.

There were two boys wearing the same uniform as me a little bit further behind, but otherwise the street was empty. I could hear life inside the houses though. A little boy was standing on the roof of one of them, stark naked. He stared at me as I walked by, then he started peeing.

A left, then right turn led me to the main road, whose noises I could hear from afar. This was more like what Uncle Rehmat had described - wide, gray and smooth. But the road was covered in people, cars, rickshaws, cows and carts. It all seemed to blend seamlessly with the side of the road, where carts piled high with meat, vegetables, fruit, trinkets, and anything else you could think of attracted hordes of people in little clumps. Behind them and in between, in buildings, butchers sat cutting and grinding stacks of meat, bakers were already tossing giant circles of dough, sticking them without pause to the sides of ovens dug out of the ground, tailors were feeding cloth through their machines, staring intently, and carpenters were hammering away at wooden posts.

Occasionally, the line of brick buildings with their opened shutters would be interrupted by a painted building with glass doors - a sweet shop or a convenience store. Occasionally they would be interrupted with an empty space - a lot filled to the the brim with trash. Little children without shoes would be sorting through it, looking for anything valuable.

Electric lines crisscrossed the road overhead, winding between the tall metal streetlights in the center. Colourful posters, smothered in urdu adorned the sides of all of the buildings, which were tall and dotted with windows. The Pakistani flag was every where - flying proud on rooftops or painted on the back of cars.

I kept my head down and waded through the crowds, turning left after four roads. The school was a large building fenced off from the street with a playground in front. Kids were playing; running and shouting or hitting a ball with a pink plastic bat. Others were just arriving, walking through the gate with their parents or friends.

Danish and his friends were standing outside the fence, huddled in a circle.

"But I'll give you two cards for that one." Danish said, holding out two pieces of paper with English writing, some numbers and pictures that looked like a horse on one and a bird on the other.

I'd never seen the boy he was talking to. His uniform was for a different school.

The boy shook his head. "Look, this one is rare." He held up a card with a picture of a round, yellow mouse.

"Liar! I have one right here!" Feroz (one of Danish's friends) said. He started to sort through the stack of cards in his hand.

"Yours isn't shiny!" Another of Danish's friends said.

Then they all started talking fast and aggressively in Punjabi, and I didn't understand anything.

I tapped Danish on his shoulder, even as he was arguing with the strange boy.

"Danish, your bag." I said. He took it without turning around, but the other boy paused and stared at me.

"Who're you?" He said.

Every one else stopped arguing and looked at me.

"He's Danish's servant." Feroz said.

"Why does he look so weird?"

"Because he's a pathan." Someone else said.

"Pathan? Why'd you get a pathan for a servant?"

"Mom said his parents left him here." Danish said.

"Aren't pathan's really stupid?"

"That's what I heard." Feroz said.

"Oi, can you understand me?" The strange boy said, talking slowly and dragging out his words. Everyone else was giggling.

Before I could reply, he turned to Danish. "Why is he wearing a uniform?"

"I dunno, he goes to school."

"Servants don't go to school"

"Who cares?" Danish said. "Look, give me my card." He scuffled with the other boy, trying to get the card. Then the whole group joined in, shouting at one another.

I walked away, entered the playground and watched the primary students playing cricket.

Danish and his friends were idiots. They'd never had to squat in mud harvesting rice or planting wheat. They'd never climbed mountains or bathed in the river, or even played in snow. Danish just sat around watching TV all day - no wonder he was so fat. He was lucky that Uncle Masood could even buy a TV for him.

As soon as the bell rang, everyone started crowding around the school doors. I joined the crowd walking through hallways lit by long white tubes in the ceiling. There were pictures of students, or trophies all over the walls, which were often painted with happy scenes of a smiling sun or smiling flowers or smiling children waving flags.

Eventually I broke off from the crowd and joined the line up outside the doors to my classroom. I'd counted thirty nine boys in our class, and they were all chatting amicably in the line. Eventually, the crowd died down, leaving behind only classroom doors with lines of students outside. Our teacher, a middle aged lady whose name I had never known, started reading off her register and ticking beside names whenever a student responded with "here!"

When she finished, we followed her to the courtyard and sat on the ground in a neat column behind a sign reading "6C." Soon, the courtyard was filled with all of the students in grades 6, 7 and 8. No one talked. The speakers crackled and the national anthem played; we all stood and sang. Afterwards, the principal took the stage and started talking. Everyone ignored him.

I stared at the birds dancing overhead. Were they vultures waiting for us to be killed by the teachers? No, they were too small...Except that bigger one. Was it fighting with the smaller ones? Maybe it had found their nest and wanted to eat their babies?

In math class, I started drawing the scene. At the top of a mountain, there was a colony of sparrows that always fought one another. One day, a giant eagle invaded. The sparrows got together and tried to fight him, but their talons weren't sharp enough and he didn't even notice them. He kicked their nests down, and screamed so that every bird knew that he was the king. The sparrows ran away, and made their home in human cities. Humans couldn't fly and reach their nests, and they wasted so much food that the sparrows never had to hunt. But with no sparrows around, the eagle got bored and followed them here.

I sat at the back of the class, so the teacher never noticed when I wasn't copying her notes. I could see the whole class from back here, including Danish and Feroz exchanging notes. But because some of the other boys were too tall, I couldn't really see the blackboard. It didn't matter much. This teacher wasn't like Uncle Dogar. She didn't keep teaching the same thing over and over. When she taught Urdu, she wrote long paragraphs in fancy, illegible writing. I could read words, but never a sentence.

I never had to. Whenever she asked for someone to read, a dozen hands shot into the air. Then she'd start talking about the paragraph, and how beautifully it was written and what nouns and verbs were used where and why and so on. Eventually, I decided that she was just making it all up.

When the bell for lunch finally rang, everyone shuffled their seats to sit with friends. We weren't allowed to leave the class room.

Danish and his friends were looking at their cards again. I had guessed that the second sandwich Danish ate every day was actually meant for me. Aunty Asma must have packed both our lunches in his bag. I never made a fuss about it though. While Danish and I weren't going to be friends, it would be easier if we weren't enemies. Also, I was never really hungry after sitting around in the same seat for hours.

In half an hour, another bell rang and everyone had to go outside to play in the schoolyard. It was still winter, but the afternoon was hot in Lahore. I went to the edge of the yard, sat in the shade of a tree and watched the primary students play tag.

Islamiat, which was the class after lunch, usually wasn't so bad. I didn't understand everything the teacher wrote down or talked about. But once she started mentioning names, I could remember the story as Nano had taught us. From her, I'd already heard every story of the prophet's life.

Towards the end of science class, right before the bell to mark the end of the day rang, the teacher said, "Is Alam Zarwar here?"

I was drawing in my book and hadn't heard her at first. It wasn't until the room fell silent and I felt eyes on me that I looked up to meet her angry glare.

"Alam Zawar?"

I nodded.

"See me after class."

The bell rang and everyone started chatting loudly as they packed up their books and left the room.

I waded through the crowd to the teacher's desk and waited awkwardly when she held up a finger and flicked through papers with her other hand.

After the room emptied, she put aside her stack of papers and looked at me.

"Alam, this is the second week you haven't done your homework."

"Did you even do it before then?" She flipped through her stack of papers until she found one with my name on it. "Look at this math, you only tried the first question. Why are you adding? Can't you read? It says long division. That's what this symbol means."

"Can you even understand what I'm saying?"

I nodded.

"Give me your hand."

I did so, and gritted my teeth as she took her metal ruler and slapped it across my palm. She slapped harder and harder, and the sting made my eyes tear. When she finished, the shape of the ruler was embedded across my hand in red.

"You haven't finished your math, science or urdu homework even once since starting, and you haven't gotten any questions right either. Are you stupid? Are you mentally retarded?"

I shook my head.

"I need to talk to your mother."

"You can't!" I said.

She stared at me. "I can do whatever I want." She shuffled through one of her drawers and pulled out a clipboard. Tracing a line across it with her finger, she said "Asma Masood...Isn't that Danish Masood's mother? Is Danish your brother? You definitely don't look like brothers. Well? don't just stand there and shake your head like an idiot."

"No he's not..."

She rolled her eyes. "You're probably too dumb to understand me anyway. I'll talk to Asma. She'll discipline you."

I left school in a hurry, knowing I was late. When I reached Uncle Masood's house, the big door was open and Naveed was helping a Rickshaw driver guide his vehicle in to the courtyard. I ran to my rickshaw bedroom, dropped off my bag and quickly changed out of my school uniform. Then I went to the kitchen and poured two cups of tea from a simmering pot on the stove.

Adding a little cup of milk and bowl of sugar with teaspoons to a tray, I took everything outside. The rickshaw driver was already sitting on one of the plastic chairs that was set up in the shade cast by the house. Uncle Masood was with him, relaxing and talking casually. I placed the tray of tea on the small plastic table between them and smiled when the man thanked me.

Raja and Naveed were circling around the new rickshaw. I hadn't noticed before, but now I saw that the right side at the front was dented badly.

"Alam, bring that stool here would you?" Raja said.

I nodded, and ran across the courtyard to bring the grease stained stool that Raja and Naveed often sat on.

"Put it here..." Naveed said, and I obeyed.

"Okay, now help me." Raja said, and he put his hands below the rickshaw. Naveed and I joined him and we flipped the rickshaw so that it's side was resting on the stool. Rickshaws were surprisingly light.

Raja put out his hand and I handed him his rod (the one that made a bunch of noise when he turned it). He used it to take out four screws that were on a cover at the bottom of the rickshaw, then took the cover off and gave it to me. I ran and placed it gently near the house.

When I returned, Raja was looking at the bumps in the rickshaw from inside. He had stuck his head through where the rod connecting the wheels was. "Find a brick for me, Alam." He said.

I nodded and ran to the back of the house, where there was a stack of bricks against the wall. I picked up one that was broken in half and brought it back. Raja took it and started smashing the rickshaw until the dented parts popped back out and retook shape. He took some time, making sure it looked the same as the undamaged side.

Later, when the sun was starting to go down, I was behind the house wiping cigarette burns off a rickshaw's dashboard. I heard Danish calling Naveed and them talking. Then Naveed walked to me and said, "hey, Ma'am Asma wants to talk to you."

Danish was leaning against the house, pressing buttons and staring intently at a small purple box. As I approached, he turned and walked into the house. I followed.

Aunty Asma was sitting on the couch in the living room, and next to her was my teacher. She had one hand on Aunty Asma's hand, the other holding a cup of tea. They were laughing about something as I walked in. Danish sat on the chair in the corner and continued to stare at his box. I stood awkwardly in front of them until they finished laughing and looked at me.

"Alam, your teacher tells me you haven't been doing your homework."

I looked at the ground. "Sorry..."

"Still, it's so good of you to just take him like that." The teacher said. "You said he showed up one night at your door because a customer had promised his father that you'd take care of him?"

"That's right, I think I've only seen that customer once too."

"I would have sent him back at once."

"Yes, you know, Tariq wanted to. But I just felt that this was god talking to me, giving me a great task."

"Well surely god will reward you. The prophet spoke about helping those who seek help."

"And of course I couldn't just throw him out on the streets. You know the state of the city right now. The poor kid doesn't even speak our language."

"Still, it must be so much more work. To raise another's child as your own, it must be such a burden on you."

"Of course it's not easy, but that is my task. I'm sure you would have done the same if god knocked on your door."

The teacher laughed her shrill laugh. "I don't think so, I'm not as noble as you are."

"Oh, please!"

"Where is he from?"

"Alam, honey, tell your teacher where you're from."

"Matiltan," I said.

"Where?"

"It's in the Frontier. His father has a farm."

"Oh yes of course. It's easy to tell that he's a pathan. I thought he might be from Peshawar or Afghanistan. But it explains a lot if he's from the middle of nowhere in the Frontier"

"How do you mean?"

"Well you know, the education system in that province is a mess."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. I think this boy must be four grades back, he is missing so much fundamental knowledge."

"Oh really? Why didn't the school put him in the appropriate grade?"

"Well he's too old, and those classes are full. Now it's too late, and I don't think you want him in school for the next twenty years. No, the child needs good tutoring."

"Tutoring?" Aunty Asma seemed to hesitate.

"Yes. Actually my son is studying Engineering, he tutors in this area."

"Ah...How much does he charge?"

"Well usually he charges 200 for an hour, but I can tell him to bring it down to 100 for you."

"Oh I don't know..."

"Asma, don't we have a duty to ensure that this child receives a full education?"

"Yes I know. I just think...I don't know if we can afford it."

"I see." The teacher took a sip of tea and there was an awkward silence. Then she said, "anyway, we should talk about your other son."

"Oh yes, how is Danish doing in classes?"

"Danish is doing excellent. I think I've connected with him and I think he understands my teaching methods."

"That's good."

"Yes, I think he received a good grade in all of his papers that I marked." She took another sip of tea. "But you know, he will be moving to the next grade soon. And we never know what kind of teacher he'll have. I don't know if another teacher will be able to connect with him as well as I have."

 "Can't I ask the school to make sure you teach him again?"

"You know, hundreds of parents ask the school questions like that so the school usually ignores them."

"Oh..."

"Yes." She took another sip of tea. "But you know, I could ask to teach his class."

Aunty Asma nodded, then the two of them sat in silence while drinking tea. Finally Aunty Asma said, "I'd really appreciate if you did. It's good to have strong relationships between teacher and parent, good for the children."

"I agree." The teacher said.

"And um, about tutoring for Alam...I think maybe, yeah I'll talk to Tariq about it."

The teacher smiled. "Great, let me know as soon as possible. He has a lot of catching up to do. By the way, I love those shoes you're wearing."

Then they started talking about shoe stores and clothes. I went back outside, and I don't think they noticed.

Author's Note

I wrote this part basically a year ago, and came back to the story now that I have some free time. The result is that major bypass surgery was performed to make something almost decent of my horrible initial writing. Also, a lot of time was spent trying to figure out and remember what all my plans for this story were :)

Just an FYI if anyone's confused by the dates, I include them because this story involves a lot of time skips. It basically just picks up at random moments throughout Alam's life, and spans several years.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think!