Ticket to India (9 page)

11

From the Frying Pan

into the Fire

R
UN!
SCREAMED A VOICE
inside her head as the boys lunged for her. Sharp branches scraped her face as she bolted farther up the hill through the bushes, clutching her backpack. Realizing that they'd catch her if she ran back toward the train station, she surprised them by plunging headlong into the hedge. As she pushed through the dense bushes, she felt the ground slope down again. She glimpsed bright-colored lights and heard the din of activity. Heart pounding, she burst through the bushes onto the edge of the city. A bazaar loomed ahead—shops strung with bright neon signs—bustling with shop
pers, peddlers, beggars, and families out for a stroll.

Disoriented, she stood a moment, uncertain which way to go. She couldn't go back into the bushes toward the station and her sister—the boys were in there somewhere. She'd have to find an alternative route.
But which way? Left? Right?
The rustle of leaves behind her forced her to make a quick decision. She dashed toward a line of sari shops and then ducked between a jumble of elbows, seeking cover. Glancing back, she spotted the boys emerging from the bushes: Babu, who seemed to be the leader, Ladu in yellow, and the skinny, weasel-­faced Pinto. Babu paused on the curb, cupping a cell phone to his ear, apparently having an animated discussion with someone on the other end, while pointing to the boys to split up.

Not wasting a second, Maya slid past a girl haggling over a pair of red sandals and ducked into a side alley packed with traditional leather and silk shoe-­vendors. Zigzagging past shopkeepers and customers, she reached an intersection. She stood wild-eyed and sweating, wondering where to go next.

An auto rickshaw sputtered to a stop across the street, unloading a group of young women. As Maya debated what to do, a shrill whistle sounded at the other end of the alley. She glanced back, breath catching in her throat; it was the one in yellow, Ladu, alerting the others.
He's seen me!
she thought. Instinctively, she slipped behind a stack of beaded slippers, trying not to panic, weighing her options.
I can't outrun them. I have to find another way.

She glanced over at the girls paying the rickshaw driver, and without thinking twice, dashed across the street. “Go,” she ordered the driver, jumping inside.

“Eh,” said the old man, owl-eyed behind thick, Coke-bottle glasses.

Maya peered back toward the alley and her blood turned to ice. The boys had made it halfway through, shoving aside an elderly man, overturning his stall.

“Just drive,” she said in Urdu, huddling in the backseat. “Please!”

With a shrug, the driver revved the engine and bucked forward, the rickshaw emitting a smelly plume of diesel from its tailpipe. Maya twisted around on the slippery vinyl seat and peered through the flaps covering the back window. The boys had skidded to a stop at the curb. They were staring at her, fists clenched, as the rickshaw careened around the corner and disappeared from their view.

Maya slumped forward, gripping her backpack.
It's
okay . . . it's okay . . . breathe . . . I've lost them,
she told herself.

Hunched over his steering bar and muttering to himself, the driver followed a taxi down a wide, open road while behind them rattled a bullock cart, laden with laundry. Her relief soon evaporated as traffic snarled, slowing to a halt. The area ahead had been cordoned off: hundreds of laborers lugged bags of concrete and metal pilings toward a hotel undergoing renovation.

“Where do you want to go?” the driver asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Train station,” she blurted. “Please take me to the train station.”

“Which one?” he asked, scratching a wart on his chin.

“Agra Cantt Station.”

The driver harrumphed. “You should have told me before,” he said. “We're going the wrong way.”

“Sorry,” Maya said. “Please, just get me there as fast as you can.”

“There is a lot of construction,” he grumbled. “I'll have to go around it.”

“That's okay,” she said.

As she sat in the safety of the rickshaw, the reality
of what had happened hit her like a ton of bricks. She slumped, clutching her backpack, tears blurring her vision.
How did that happen? We should have been more careful,
she thought. This wasn't San Francisco, where she and her sister knew their way around. This was India, where things were much more unpredictable . . . and, frankly, dangerous. But as the shock eased, an un­expected feeling of pride buzzed through her veins. She'd outwitted the boys! Wait till she told Zara. . . . Remembering her sister, she realized that she must be out of her mind with worry.

“Do you have a phone?” she asked the driver, desperate to tell her she was on her way back to the train station.

“No,” he grunted.

Disappointed, Maya looked down at her watch. There was still time to catch their train. . . . And this time she and Zara would hide in the waiting room, as the conductor had advised. They had a promise to keep.

She leaned forward in her seat, mentally urging the rickshaw to move, but they sat idling at the bottleneck. The poor bull still stood behind them, his long-lashed eyes resigned, swishing his tail, ignoring the honking horns. Maya turned to scour the road behind them,
spotting a cycle rickshaw barreling up the asphalt. She squinted . . . and caught a flash of yellow. It was Ladu, legs pumping on the pedals; Babu sat in the back with Pinto, who was grimacing into his phone.

Before she could yell at the driver to go, he found a gap between two trucks and shot forward. Maya's last glimpse of the boys was of them jumping out of the cycle rickshaw behind the bullock cart as Maya's driver maneuvered past the construction site and entered a residential neighborhood, tightly packed with narrow, tin-roofed houses.

As he slowed to let a group of kids get their soccer ball, Maya turned in her seat and peered out the window.
Hurry . . . hurry . . . hurry,
she urged silently, but from around the corner the bull came running, the boys clinging to the back of the cart, its driver and laundry gone.

“Hurry!” shouted Maya, turning to the driver.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered, stepping on the gas, increasing the gap between them and the snorting bull. A few blocks ahead loomed a sign, the image of a car with an
X
marked across the top. The driver slowed and pulled into a large parking lot.

“What are you doing?” asked Maya.

“No autos beyond this point,” said the driver. “It is
a government rule to control the bad air. . . . Pollution. So I need to turn around here.”

“Okay,” panted Maya. “Just hurry.”

The rickshaw chugged past a line of parked cars and was about to make a U-turn, when a van pulled out in front. As the driver slammed on the brakes, Maya peered back and her blood ran cold; the bull stood panting at the entrance to the parking lot, cart empty. Frantically, she looked between the cars. There was no sign of them. Then she glimpsed a face reflected in a side mirror of a small hatchback. One of the boys was hiding a few cars down. She wondered where the others were but didn't wait to find out. She bolted from the rickshaw, running at full speed.

“Girl!” shouted the driver. “You need to pay for the ride. . . .”

Pushing aside a feeling of guilt for cheating him, she bent low, weaving through parked cars, desperately trying to shake the boys from her trail. She passed a shuttered tailor's shop and ducked into a narrow lane lined with shuttered shops with signs for pottery, wood furniture, and metalware. Backpack thumping against her spine, Maya turned left onto a wider street, empty of cars—no rickshaw or taxi she could flag to get to the train station.

At the faint whisper of thunder, she looked up; clouds were collecting in the distance, closing over the fat moon perched on the horizon. Within its silvery circumference rose a familiar sight: a tall, thin minaret.
A mosque,
she thought.
Someone can help me there.
She remembered their mosque back home in Berkeley.
Imam
Jackson's gentle face, framed by a ­grizzled salt-and-pepper beard, flashed in her mind. The religious leader of their mosque, he was a kindhearted soul who provided counseling in addition to leading prayers and serving as their Sunday school principal. Breathing a sigh of relief, she ran toward the welcoming beacon.

Out of breath, she reached the faded brick structure, a mishmash of columns, arches, and domes, straddling half the city block. Beyond the rusty gates, she found the courtyard empty. Her heart sank. Evening prayers had ended and the place was deserted. Just about to depart, she heard the murmur of voices coming from inside. She ran up the cracked steps, pausing just inside the doorway, where the murmurs grew into shouts. Startled, she hid behind a set of lattice screens that ran the length of the cavernous hall. Assembled at the center of the threadbare carpet sat a group of men.

A bearded young man stood, body rigid. “You
don't understand!” he cried in Urdu, waving a pamphlet. “This new report says that we Muslims are the poorest, most illiterate community in India.”

Beside him, a bespectacled, gray-haired man nodded. “Sadly, what Hashim says is not untrue. Over the past fifty years, our community's prospects have fallen—even behind the poor untouchables.”

“It's impossible to join the army or get a decent job. I was told in an interview to go to Pakistan, a ­country for Muslims,” said another young man. “Can you believe it? My grandfather fought for India's independence beside Gandhi!”

“That's
exactly
what I'm saying,” Hashim said. “We're at the bottom of the heap—left behind as the rest of India prospers and modernizes!”

“Modernity?” barked a plump, white-bearded man in a crisp white cap. “Modernity has brought nothing but immorality, greed, and ungodliness to our beloved India!”

Maybe this isn't the right moment to interrupt,
Maya thought as the bespectacled man spoke again.

“Now,
Imam
Farooq, let us not confuse modernity with progress. Progress is achieved through education.”

“Indeed,” warbled an elderly man. “Even before Partition, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, founder of Aligarh
University, emphasized the study of science and mathe­matics.”

“Our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, urged his followers to seek knowledge, even if it led them to China,” shouted a squeaky-voiced boy.

Maya glanced down at her watch, growing more and more anxious. She had an hour to get to the train station—otherwise she'd miss the train. She stumbled forward. “Please,” she croaked in Urdu, “I need help.”

A wizened old man near the
imam
gasped. “Who dares interrupt our meeting?”

Maya froze, surprised by his angry tone.

“What is she doing out alone this late?” grumbled a voice. “She shouldn't be here—tell her to go home.”

As two men beside the
imam
rose, Maya stumbled back. In Pakistan, women didn't usually visit mosques either, not like they did back home in San Francisco, but she hadn't expected such an unwelcoming response.

“You shouldn't be interrupting an important meeting,” sputtered the
imam
.

“She's only a little girl,” interjected Hashim. “Ask—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Maya ­stumbled back into the courtyard. If Zara had been there,
she would have yelled at them to help, but she just couldn't.
I'll find a rickshaw myself. . . .
Back through the gates, she merged with the dark shadows casting their veil over the deserted street. She skirted a growling dog nosing through a pile of garbage and ran, feeling the wetness of raindrops spattering against her cheeks. Hearing footsteps ring out behind her, she picked up speed, sprinting parallel to a towering wall built from wide blocks of red stone.

Seconds later, she caught the echoes of furious barking as an ominous rumble echoed above. She ran harder, hugging the wall around a corner, where she stumbled upon two uniformed guards carrying heavy machine guns. Startled, she instinctively ducked behind a lamppost. She ignored the rain, eyed the burly guards patrolling past a sign for East Gate, and wondered what to do. Maybe they could help. As she debated whether to approach them, a bright set of headlights turned onto the street and careened toward them.

A sleek silver bus pulled up beside the arched gateway, and through the rain-streaked windows, Maya could make out the ghostly faces inside. The bus door swung open, and a suited Indian man got out and stood at the curb.

“This is not good,” he complained loudly, shielding his head with his arms. “We won't be able to see anything with the clouds covering the moon!”

“Yes, sir,” said one of the guards as they hurried over. “This is not a good night for sightseeing.”

Maya bit her lip, peering past the bus, hoping to see a rickshaw. But there were no rickshaws or taxis, just a line of garbage cans. About to look away, she saw a hint of movement. Then a flash of yellow.

Oh, no . . .
She swung around, staring back at the path she'd come from. Standing at the corner, about forty feet away, stood Pinto, breathing hard. Beside him was Babu, slipping his cell phone into his pocket, lips twisted in a victorious smile. They'd been tracking her all along . . . and now they had her cornered.