Two Rivers - pt. 5

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

18th April 2006

Dear Alam,

I’m sorry this letter is late! We only just got yours from December. Uncle Gulzar was taking two tourists (from Karachi) to the mountains in the North and he dropped it off on the way. The road is still blocked by the glacier and he said his car almost fell off the mountain trying to get around it! Can you imagine??

We were so excited to see your letter! We all sat together and I read it out loud before dinner. Bilal and Uncle Rehmat were there too! Everyone misses you so much! Especially Ami, she cried and cried and I had to massage her legs before she felt better.

I wish you would’ve told us more about your school! “School is fine” doesn’t mean anything! I mean, you’re going to school in Lahore! You’ll be able to do anything you want to afterwards. Are you going to become a Doctor? Or an Engineer? Or a Businessman? Or maybe you’ll be a Politician? No don’t do that, Abu says politicians are slimy. What are your Punjabi classmates like? Did you make any friends yet? It’s been so many months, you must have made a lot of friends by now!

It’s so exciting that you’re working in a rickshaw shop. What are rickshaw’s like? How fast do they go? Are they loud? Do they smell bad?  There must be so many of them in Lahore! 

Everyone told me to tell you something, so I should do that now. Let’s see…Abu said to thank Uncle Masood again, and to keep working hard. Ami said to take care of your health, be careful and don’t trust strangers. Nano said to keep praying (and then she started praying for you). Bilal said Lahore sucks and you should come back here (he misses you so much!). And I asked Jamal to say something, but he said you’re mad at him. How come you’re mad at him, Alam??

Anyway, I’m running out of space so take care of yourself and keep working hard!

Love,

Mina

P.S. I should be able to reply much sooner next time!

July 2006 

Sitting under the shade of one of the courtyard walls, behind the house and away from the morning sun, I sorted through a pile of scrap metal. A lot of the pieces were held together, so I found the screws, took them out and put them in one of my cups. I only had two screwdrivers though, and sometimes they didn't fit. At first, I had tried jamming in pieces of metal or whatever I could find to try and turn them. Sometimes, even if the screwdriver fit, they got stuck and wouldn't turn. I'd have to twist really hard to get them out. The first time I sorted scrap, I filled one and a half cups with screws. But when I showed them to Raja, he yelled at me because apparently, I'd ruined them all. Screws I had learned, were surprisingly delicate.

I was smarter about it now. I took out the ones I could and put aside the rest of the metal. When Raja and Naveed didn't need their toolbox, I could find other screwdrivers and use the right one for the right screw.

There were noises on the other side of the wall - voices of kids playing games on the street. I say kids, but I figured they were probably my age, and they'd been there every day since school ended. Maybe they even skipped school. Maybe they played on the streets every day, and I just didn't know because I wasn't here. I wouldn't be surprised. It's the kind of thing that Bilal and I would've done if he lived in Lahore. It sounded like they were playing cricket today - one of them kept yelling about no balls.

As if on cue, I heard a gasp and then a thud as a black ball hit the house, bounced off and rolled across the courtyard to stop under my rickshaw bedroom. There was silence across the wall. And then someone yelled, "out! you're out!"

"We're not playing with that rule!"

"Of course we are! We're always playing with that rule."

"We're not playing at all because Kamran lost the ball."

"It was an edge, I didn't mean to."

"So you would've been out anyway!"

"No!"

"Yeah! If you edge you're out."

"Only if someone catches it, you idiot."

"Oi let go, I'm still batting."

"No you're not, give it to me."

"We don't have another ball, I'm going home."

I'd reached under the rickshaw and retrieved the ball. The tape was starting to rip, revealing patches of the green underneath. I tossed it over the wall, careful not to throw it too far.

"Hey look!"

"Thank you, Uncle!"

"Ew it's in the canal."

"So what?"

"Okay, Kamran you're out."

"Aw come on!"

I got back to the scrap pile. There were other things to sort, not just screws. A lot of pieces had a little hexagon thing you could put on a screw. These went into another cup. And sometimes the metal wasn't all brown and ruined, instead it was painted and shiny. And these pieces were valuable so I kept them in a separate pile. Often you could find pipes that weren't browned. Or maybe they were browned but they didn't have any holes. These were also handy, apparently.

"Alam!" Nabila was standing in the backdoor of the house. Her hair wasn't braided today. It was long and curly, brown but golden when the sun caught it. "Zain's here, come on."

"Okay!" I dropped the screwdriver, ran to my rickshaw and got out the notebook and pencil that I kept underneath the seat.

"Oh honey, you need to wash your hands." She said, tutting as she turned my hands over in hers. She took me to the bathroom near the kitchen. "And use soap, okay?"

I nodded. And as I washed my hands, she stood behind me and used the mirror while putting on her hijab. It took her longer than it took me. And when she finally finished, she smiled at me and said, "how do I look?" I wasn't meant to answer, and didn't get a chance to. She pinched my cheek. "So cute!"

Nabila walked to the kitchen, and before picking up a tray with tea and biscuits on it, she adjusted her hijab again. This time there was a bit of hair showing. "Come on," she led me to the living room, knocked and entered.

Zain, who had been sitting at the table, stood up quickly and knocked over his chair.

"Oh!" He floundered, desperately trying to stop it from falling. It didn't work. He turned to Nabila and I, "Sorry! As Salam Au Alaykum." His hands were folded behind his back and he did a little bow, looking at nothing but the ground.

She smiled, "Wa Alaykum As Salam," and as she put the tray on the table, a lock of hair fell out of her hijab and swept across her face.

He stared stupidly after her as she left the room. Then he coughed and picked up his chair properly. Zain was stupid. He even looked stupid, with his thin glasses, and his hair always wet and combed carefully. His shirts were stupid with their little square patterns tucked carefully in his pants. And that silly belt. Why didn't he just buy pants that fit? Why did he need to wear a belt? Why not just wear a kameez shalwar like an ordinary person?

"Okay, so why don't you show me how you did on those questions I gave you for practice."

I opened my notebook to the right page and handed it to him. Without even trying to solve any of the questions, he started making big cross marks and circling numbers. He tutted and shook his head as he turned the page, turning back and forth for a second.

“You didn’t even finish.”

“I didn’t understand those ones.”

“Really? It looks like you didn’t understand any of them. We reviewed these last week! Were you even trying?”

“Yeah.”

“These are all long division, but you tried adding them. And you didn’t even do that right.” He took his pen and marked a circle next to a few of the questions. “Do these again right now.” Then he took out his stupid textbook, the one with a picture of a plane and weird shapes on the cover, and started reading it.

I looked at the questions, which were now hidden behind a mess of scribbles, and tried to figure out what I did wrong. I had been pretty sure I was right. One plus nine makes ten so you write ten there and then in the next column two plus three makes five so that goes next to the ten and you keep going until you run out of numbers.

“My answer was right.” I said, after redoing the first question.

Zain glanced up from his book and rolled his eyes.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing. Keep going.”

“Fine.” I started on the next question.

“I was just thinking that it’s no wonder you failed your last term.”

“I didn’t fail anything.”

He laughed. “My Ami told me you did.”

“No…She told Aunty Asma I’ve improved and passed everything.”

“Really? I don’t believe it.” He started rummaging through his bag and pulled out a bunch of papers. “She gave me your math tests.” He picked out one of the booklets and started going through it.

“Wow. You got every single question wrong. Wait, but you still ended up with a 54%? How on Earth? Oh, I guess my Ami's being sneaky. Well, I guess you got lucky because I’m your tutor. But when you have a different teacher next year, you’re going to fail pretty badly.”

“So what?”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter, they’ll just kick you out of school.”

“Wait, they’ll kick me out?”

“That’s what happens when you fail.”

“I can’t get kicked out of school…My dad will kill me!”

“You should probably work a bit harder then.” He went back to reading his book.

“Zain please! I need your help! The only reason I’m in Lahore is so I can go to school…”

“So do your practice.” He said without looking up.

I stared at the questions and the numbers for a few minutes. “I never learned how to do this…”

He tutted. “Okay, look. You obviously don’t know anything. I can try and teach you from the very basics but I don’t know if it’s worth bothering because you’re not going to learn in an hour from me. You have to put in at least five times as much work when I’m not here.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“What do you mean okay? You have a job here. And I know you don’t have time to study, which is why I’m not going to bother teaching you.”

“No, I can study! I swear. I'll just do it after everyone's gone to bed. Give me a chance. I can't get kicked out!”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You’re not doing long addition and subtraction right. You have to carry the one.” He leaned over and started writing on my book, and then we got started. 

That afternoon, the sun was high in the sky and the streets were quiet – the city asleep. There was nowhere to hide from the heat, and I squatted by the house, drenched in sweat as I sorted through the scrap pile. Every piece burned to the touch, and if I couldn’t sort it with a quick flick into one of my buckets, I dropped it and winced.

My head hurt and vision blurred. Swat never got this hot. And if it was ever hot, we had the river to play in. How was the river always so cold? It was like ice, even in the middle of summer. Rushing by in an avalanche of green and white, it’s roar was the only thing you could hear. Bilal was always laughing and jumping straight in. The amount of times he dragged me into the pools and puddles, and that feeling when the freezing water would hit you and you weren’t expecting it.

I woke to the same feeling. There was something wet and cool on my forehead. And I was inside. I must’ve been...It was so nice and cold. A fan on the ceiling turned slowly and surely. And a box high on the wall by the window noisily blew cold air into the room. Covered in paintings and decorations, the walls were red - cast in that light by curtains. I was on something soft, so soft.

“Aww sweetie, you’re finally awake.”

Nabila was there, kneeling on the ground next to me and wringing a cloth into a container of water. I tried getting up, but she gently pushed me back down.

“It’s okay honey, get some rest.”

And I did.

When I woke again, it was dark. I lay for a few minutes, enjoying the cool breeze of the fan. And when I looked around the room more carefully, I realized it was Aunty Asma and Uncle Masood’s bedroom. I was on a bundle of pillows on the ground. It was hard to get up, but I knew I had to. As I left the room and into the hallway outside, I had to squint because the lights were so bright. I’d never been up the stairs in this house. The room I left opened into a hallway with several doors. At the end of it was the stairs.

As I was walking towards them, a door opened, startling me. Danish was just as shocked. We stared at each other for a second before he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked at me and then at the door to his parent’s room. “I’m going to tell Ami.”

“Okay.” And I walked down the stairs. Passing Uncle Masood’s office, I noticed his door was ajar and I could hear voices inside. I tried to be quiet.

“Alam, is that you? Come in.”

I opened the door slowly. Uncle Masood’s office was a lot plainer that I thought it would be. There were a few grease covered boxes in one corner, a fan on the ceiling and a wooden desk with a thing that looked like a small, white TV. Aunty Asma was standing near the desk, her arms crossed.

“Are you feeling okay, Alam?” She asked, and I nodded. “Okay good, get back to work tomorrow.” And then she left.

Uncle Masood was behind the table and he gestured me to come closer. I’d never noticed how many wrinkles he had on his forehead.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. Lahore is a hot city. It’s much hotter than where you come from. In the summer, you need to pace yourself. So take some breaks and drink a lot of water. If you’re ever too tired and hot, take a break and go to Raja and Naveed’s room.”

I nodded.

“Okay.” He opened one of his drawers, took out a pile of money and started sorting through it. “You’ve been working hard.” He handed me a ten-rupee bill. “Now you’ll be earning. Ten rupees for every day of work. Spend it wisely, okay young man?”

I took the money and nodded.

“Good, I’ll see you tomorrow.”