Razaa ran a hand through his thick, black hair and knocked on the hotel room door. He scanned the hall of the five-star building as questions flooded his brain. What if he had the wrong address? Or for that matter, what if he had the right one and the man turned him away? He answered each question the same: Those were risks he had no choice but to take.
Over two and a half years ago, the life he considered blessed vanished. His father was murdered, and he and his fourteen brothers were ripped apart, scattered across the globe. Forced to live with strangers and take on new identities, he had no contact with the rest. But if their situation had turned out even half as bad as his, he could only imagine the brutality they endured. Marks of his one year with his foster family were forever imprinted not only on his body but seared into his mind.
A few yards down, a door slammed shut, making the nervous young man jump. He sucked in a breath and knocked a second time. If he could survive the past two and a half years, he could survive the next few minutes. Somehow, he managed to escape his hell only to enter another. He traveled the world as a migrant worker searching for the familiar faces of his family. Food and money were scarce and the beatings plentiful. The memories of pain flooded him, making his eyes prickle and burn with emotion. He blinked to cool the heat and kept his gaze fixed on the hardwood surface in front of him.
When the deadbolt slid, his heart tried to leap out of his throat. Razaa swallowed it down and rolled his shoulders back. Very soon, he’d come face to face with his only hope.
A man well over six feet tall opened the door, naked, except for a towel wrapped around his waist. His deep black curls hung to his light brown shoulder. Drops from the damp hair spilled onto his muscular, bare chest.
“Can I help you?” His words were spoken with an English accent.
Razaa’s hopes fell, as did his face. “I am sorry, I must be at the wrong place,” he stammered and walked away.
“Aap kaon hain?” The question made him stop in his tracks. He asked the same question as before, but this time in Urdu. The sound of it sent a jolt of calm through Razaa’s anxious soul. It felt like home. He turned to face the stranger. “I have lost my family, and I need your help finding them.”
The man leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed. A smile tugged at his mouth. “And why would I help you?”
He fisted his hands to hide the way they shook and said the words he’d practiced. “Because I am Razaa Irfani. Your brother was my father.”
The man’s smile dropped but he didn’t move.
The young boy crossed his arms, matching his uncle’s stance, trying hard to be the man his father raised. Inside however, fear squeezed his throat, making it difficult to breathe much less speak. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing by showing up at the man’s hotel room, but he was desperate. This wasn’t just about saving himself, it was about saving his family.
As if reading his mind, the man nodded and pushed away from the wall. “Come in, Razaa Irfani.”
He gulped down his excitement and followed. Razaa learned long ago to never get his hopes up. Like the sun, they were fleeting.
The hotel room was enormous. A sofa bigger than the cots he’d slept on most of his life sat in the middle of the space, along with two matching armchairs. At the far corner was an open door. Razaa caught a glimpse of a woman asleep on the bed inside.
“Excuse me for a moment while I change,” the man said before entering the dark backroom and shutting the door behind him, leaving Razaa alone.
He stayed glued to the floor until his uncle returned a few minutes later. Thankfully, he now wore pants and a shirt. The man sat on the chair and rested his bare feet on the coffee table in front of him. “We both know my brother did not have a son your age, and I don’t have a lot of time for this nonsense. So tell me quickly what you want and be off.”
“I may not be his blood, but he will always be my father.” Razaa stuffed his fists in his pant pockets and cleared his throat. “Sayeed Babba adopted me and fourteen other boys from an orphanage in Islamabad a few years before he died. He loved us as his own.” The man rested his elbows on his chair and pressed his chin on the tips of his fingers. “I am aware of the boys my brother adopted. I am also aware they died two and a half years ago with him.”
“Nay, Chacha. We did not die.” Razaa noticed the way the man’s brows lifted as soon as he called him uncle. He ignored it and continued, “We were separated, given new names, and sent to live with different strangers.” His face warmed with emotion. “I have searched for the others, but I don’t know where they are. If their lives are as hard as mine, I must find them.”
“And what makes you think I’d believe you, much less help you?”
Emotion filled Razaa’s eyes. “When my brothers and I would fight, Babba would tell us about you two and your lives together in Karachi. He told us you never fought with him but that you admired him. He wanted us to be like you and him.” The young boy’s throat tightened. He cleared it and forced out the words. “And we were. We may have been adopted, but we were as close as brothers could be. Chacha, I need your help finding my family.”
“Don’t call me that,” the man snapped.
The tone startled Razaa, but he tried not to show it.
“Call me Shariff.” He waved at the sofa. “And sit down.”
He slid on to the edge of the couch, keeping his focus on the man.
“So tell me, Razaa, if you and all your brothers are alive, what happened to your Sayeed Babba? Did the As-Sirat not kill him?”
Heat prickled at the back of his neck. Memories of that day, and of his father’s bullet ridden body, tortured him. “He is dead but not by the As-Sirat.”
Shariff sat motionless for a long while, making Razaa wonder if he should repeat what he said.
“If the As-Sirat did not kill him, then who?”
Razaa cleared his throat. “His wife.”
Shariff laughed. “My brother was killed by his wife?”
The disbelieving smirk on his face made the young man shift in his seat. “Yes, Cha...Shariff.”
“What was her name?”
Muscles in his body tightened at the prospect of uttering the name of the woman he’d tried to block from his mind since the murder. “Sara.”
Shariff’s brows. “Sayeed Irfani was murdered by his second wife?”