Beneath My Mother's Feet by Amjed Qamar

Author:Amjed Qamar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2008-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

Nazia washed her hands in the outside basin. Thankfully, none of the vomit had splashed on her. For the rest of the evening she worked in the kitchen, washing, serving, and answering to the beck and call of every guest. Long after the last one departed, Nazia worked late into the night beside her mother, cleaning up the house in the aftermath of the party. By the time she was finished, Nazia was too tired to eat the succulent food that had been set aside for the servants.

She carried her plate of rice, chicken tikka, and sautéed cauliflower along with a glass of warm cola to Sherzad’s room. Empty chairs, dirty glasses, and discarded paper napkins were strewn across the yard. As she passed the debris, she made a note to herself to clean it up before she went to bed — it would be one less thing that the servant boy would get scolded for tomorrow.

Sherzad was staring up at the ceiling and lying on the charpai, an arm and a leg hanging carelessly off the bed. Nazia stayed by his door. “Brought you some food.”

He did not look at her. “So many stars out tonight,” he murmured. “Have you noticed?”

Nazia peered up at the dark ceiling and wondered if he’d lost his mind. “I’m in no mood to play.”

Sherzad finally tore his gaze away from the ceiling and looked at her. “Come see.” Gingerly he moved to the far edge of the bed, where the bamboo frame pressed up against the wall. A fine stream of crumbling cement fell like loose sand onto his kurta, and he brushed it away. “You can see the stars through the hole in the roof. There’s no light in here, so they shine even brighter.”

Nazia wanted to ask how anything could look brighter or more wondrous from such a dismal vantage point. Instead she put the plate on the ground and entered the cramped room. She sat on the edge of the bamboo frame and craned her neck upward, seeing nothing but blackness.

“You can’t see it from there. You have to scoot down a bit.”

Nazia glanced at him. His fever had broken. His hair was matted with sweat, and his shirt stuck to his chest. The air in the room was still, and she wondered how he survived sleeping in the dark, alone, night after night with no one to comfort him. She placed a hand on his forehead and was glad that his skin felt cool. “You cold?” She looked about for his blanket, then stopped when she remembered that she had used it earlier to wipe the vomit from the memsahib’s shalwar.

He shook his head.

She ran a hand across her cheek, recalling the stinging slap she’d received when she had tried to tell Seema that Sherzad was sick. The boy didn’t know what she had endured in order to find him help. One of the guests — a doctor — had eventually taken pity on him and informed the sahib of Sherzad’s condition.

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