The Seven Keys of Balabad Read online

  “Well, somebody has to stop them!” said Oliver. “They can't get away with it.”

  “They have gotten away with it,” said Mr. Haji, taking a long sip from the bottle. “And not just this time. Have you not heard about the break- ins in Kishawar and Jenghi? A painted vase taken here, some ancient coins there. Slowly but surely, these robbers are taking everything. Still, something is different about those who took the Sacred Carpet. There is the smell of someone powerful behind it.”

  “Like who?” said Zee. “And do you think the same person who stole the carpet kidnapped Aziz Aziz?”

  “I do not know,” said Mr. Haji. He glanced from Zee to Oliver with a look of hatred in his eyes. “But whoever did this is a terrible traitor.”

  Oliver felt a shiver up his spine.

  This was not the usual fun-and-games Mr. Haji he had come to know, the one who would issue little winks and let him in on carpet-trading secrets. This Mr. Haji was starting to freak him out.

  “Why don't they just flood Ghot- e- Bhari with police?” said Oliver. “They are bound to catch them. A fifty- foot-long carpet would be pretty hard to hide.”

  “That part of the country is too remote. There is no army, no police up there!” Mr. Haji exclaimed. “In any case, it would be a waste of time. Anyone who knew anything about the theft would have vanished from Ghot- e- Bhari by now. They'd be better off looking for clues in the Thieves Market.”

  “The Thieves Market?” said Zee. “Do you really think they would know something about it there?”

  Mr. Haji stared from Oliver to Zee and back again.

  “My boys, there are always answers in the Thieves Market,” he said. “That is, if you know who to talk to.”

  bdullah Atafzai pulled the metal grate down to the sidewalk and bent down to lock it shut. He held a copy of the Chicago Tribune under his right arm and a white cardboard box marked “World Famous Original” in his left hand.

  A large neon sign flashed the words TONY‘S PIZZA above his head. Abdullah checked his watch in the red glow. It was two a.m. Time to get home.

  Abdullah had opened the pizza shop on Pulaski Street when he'd arrived in America ten years earlier, and his insistence on only the finest, freshest ingredients had made him a minor celebrity over the years. Tony's Pizza had been named “Best Slice in Chicago” five years running, and Abdullah had gotten his face on the cover of Chicago Today each time, always posing with a beaming smile and a slice of extra- cheesy pizza poised tantalizingly close to his mouth.

  After he'd won the award for the third time, somebody finally realized he was from Balabad, not Italy. And of course, he wasn't really named Tony.

  “So sue me!” Abdullah said when the story broke, waving his finger at the gaggle of cameramen that gathered outside the shop. “But one thing you can't deny is that I make darned good pizza.”

  He was right. Nobody sued him, and if anything, the publicity made Tony's Pizza even more popular.

  “You gotta love America!” Abdullah would say when people asked him about the scandal, but the truth was he missed Balabad. He missed the smells and the colors of the marketplace. He missed the food and the sweet green tea. He missed his family and his childhood friends.

  There was almost nobody in Chicago to talk to about his country; nobody who knew the first thing about the traditions that were so dear to him; nobody who asked about the terrible war that had driven him, and tens of thousands of other Baladis, from their homeland to the four corners of the earth.

  Who here in Chicago cared that he could trace his family's lineage back two thousand years? Who would believe it if he told them that royal blood coursed through his veins? Okay, so maybe the family had fallen on hard times in recent centuries, but that didn't change who he was.

  Abdullah stood up and shook the gate to make sure it was really shut.

  “I am an Atafzai,” he mumbled to himself. “The pizza prince of Chicago.”

  The thought made Abdullah smile. He would share it with his wife when he got home. Maybe it would make a good slogan for the restaurant.

  The pizza man crossed the deserted street and headed for his car. He pulled out his keys and glanced up at the darkened streetlight on the corner. He could have sworn it had been on a few hours earlier.

  Abdullah opened the door and got into the driver's side, placing the box of pizza down on the passenger seat next to him. It wasn't until he had strapped his seat belt on and turned on the ignition that he realized he was not alone.

  He heard the click of something metallic behind his head and felt a heavy hand grip his left shoulder.

  “Drive!” said a voice behind him. “And don't you dare look back.”

  o say that Zee's parents’ house was spacious would be a gross understatement. Space was spacious. Zee's house was downright enormous, with enough rooms to hold twenty visiting relatives and a rambling backyard big enough to train a small army.

  The first time Oliver had been invited over, he'd found the whole scene a little intimidating. He'd stared moon-e yed at Sher Aga, a stooped, white- bearded servant, who'd offered to take his coat. He'd pointed to himself quizzically when Hassan, another member of the staff, called him “sir.” He'd found his eyes wandering over people's shoulders at the dull oil paintings of Zee's ancestors, which graced the walls in the downstairs living room.

  The paintings of Zee's father and grandfather showed smiling men dressed in smart Western business suits. The older portraits featured a sterner lot in the green flowing robes and conical fur hats that marked them as ul- Hazai nobility. There were ancient governors, and warriors atop horses, and Muslim clerics with big, bushy beards.

  “I know. I know. They look ridiculous,” Zee said dismis-sively when he noticed Oliver's amazement. “But that's what they wore back then. I'm going to pose for my portrait in a Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans, but I have to wait until I turn eighteen.”

  Oliver didn't know anybody back home who had oil paintings of their ancestors, or servants, or even a backyard. But in Balabad, if you had any money at all, you usually had a lot of it, and the ul- Hazais had been in that category for centuries.

  On this day, Zee's mother and father had invited Oliver over for Sunday brunch. The four of them sat together at a round table on the porch while Zee's three- year- old sister, Amara, and five- year- old brother, Ghalji, ran around the trees in the garden, trying unsuccessfully to get their small kite into the air.

  The garden was surrounded on all sides by a high wall made of mud and brick, and the lawn was crisscrossed by narrow dirt paths lined with geraniums.

  There was a rose garden kept alive by the ul- Hazais’ industrious gardener, and a clutch of almond, pomegranate, and fig trees along the edges of the property. The gardener had constructed a lattice arbor over the porch, which had been duly covered by indestructible vines, the kind that could survive Balabad's dry, oppressive heat.

  Like all of Balabad, the place had seen better days.

  White paint peeled off the outer walls in giant sheets, a wide crack had nearly split the concrete back porch in two, and most of the grass on the lawn was dead. At the back of the garden was a long, narrow swimming pool, drained of all of its water because Balabad simply could not support such a luxury.

  Brunch at the ul- Hazais’ was a mixture of East and West. There were scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice, as well as traditional Baladi dishes like pistachio- scented rice, red stew, and mantu, a local delicacy that looked a bit like a Chinese dumpling. There was so much food that it took two servants to bring it over in steaming-hot serving plates that they carefully laid out.

  The mantu was stuffed with spicy lamb and topped off with tomato sauce, cream, fresh mint, and paprika. It was one of the only foods in Balabad that Oliver actually liked.

  If Oliver could have picked, he would have preferred the dumplings at Szechuan Balcony on Seventy- eighth Street and Amsterdam Avenue, but of course, he couldn't pick. He was living in Balabad, and mantu was about the b
est thing he could hope for.

  Even after six months, Oliver couldn't help comparing everything he found here to his life back home, and the comparison was never very kind to Balabad.

  Of course, he didn't say any of this to the ul- Hazais, who were about the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet. Zee's father and mother talked about their time in London and how difficult it had been for them to leave all their friends.

  Zee's father was a bear of a man, with big hands, a barrel chest, and a round face that always seemed to be smiling. He had come back to Balabad to work at the Foreign Ministry, but he clearly missed the fine shops, beautiful buildings, and manicured parks of his adopted city.

  “It was my duty to come back,” he said. “But, oh, what I wouldn't give to be strolling on Hampstead Heath on a sunny afternoon, or having a cappuccino at Carluccio's Deli!”

  “I know what you mean,” said Oliver. “I'd gnaw off my right arm for a decent slice of pizza!”

  “One day Balabad will be as beautiful as New York or London,” Mr. ul- Hazai said, his eyes sparkling. “Perhaps in your lifetime, Zee, or in your children's lifetime.”

  Oliver had a hard time picturing it, but then he remembered a book he'd read in school about the history of New York City. Back in the eighteenth century, most of Manhattan was farmland, and getting out to Brooklyn or the Bronx involved a day's travel each way by horse and buggy, including a risky ferry ride across the river. There were constant squabbles among feuding tribes, like the Dutch, the Native Americans, and the English, and most of the people were dirt-poor.

  It wasn't all that different from today's Balabad, when Oliver thought about it.

  The ul- Hazais were the exact opposite of Oliver's own parents, who always seemed to be working too hard to talk about anything. Zee's parents asked Oliver all about his life back in New York, and what sports he played, and what movies he liked.

  In fact, Oliver was so busy talking about himself that it took him half the meal to realize that Zee wasn't saying anything at all, and that he had barely touched his food. He was staring out toward the lawn where his younger siblings were playing, his hand on his chin and his eyes hidden behind his dark sunglasses.

  Zee might have been a cool, laid- back sort of guy, but he was not broody. Zee's father noticed something was wrong just a moment after Oliver.

  “You are like a statue this morning,” said Mr. ul- Hazai. “What is that famous statue called? The Thinker. You are The Thinker with sunglasses, son.”

  Zee looked up slowly.

  “Sorry, Father,” he said. “Did you say something?”

  “What has gotten into you today?” Mrs. ul- Hazai chimed in.

  “Me? Nothing. Why would anything have gotten into me?” said Zee, picking at a mantu dumpling with his fork and forcing it into his mouth. “I'm absolutely fine. I'm just not very hungry. Don't worry about it, Mother.”

  “A mother's job is to worry,” Mrs. ul- Hazai said. “Isn't that right, Oliver?”

  Oliver's mother never seemed to be all that worried about him, and neither did his father, what with all their work. If they had been, Oliver thought, they never would have uprooted him from his perfectly happy life in New York and brought him halfway around the world to Balabad. But Oliver didn't want to be rude.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “How are your parents, anyway?” Mr. ul- Hazai asked, but before Oliver could answer, he felt a tug on his arm. It was Zee.

  “Ol, this is probably a good time to tell me about that problem you were having,” he said, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly over his shades.

  Oliver stared at him, trying to figure out what he was up to.

  “What problem?” he asked.

  “You know, the problem,” Zee insisted. “The problem … with that girl.”

  “I don't have—” Oliver began, and then he caught himself. “Oh, yeah. The problem … with the girl. Yeah, that's a big problem. Really a big one. Could we talk about that, Zee?”

  “Of course,” Zee said. “What are friends for? Mother, Father, could we please be excused?”

  “Girl problems! Marvelous,” said Zee's father with excitement. “Excellent! Off you go.”

  Zee's mother looked a bit more skeptical, but she nodded her approval.

  “I'll have the servants bring you some tea and cookies,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mother,” said Zee. He tilted his head and gave his father a short nod, then he led Oliver away. When they got off the porch, Zee put his arm around Oliver's shoulder and leaned in close.

  “I thought you would never catch on,” he said. “I have something to tell you, and it is far more important than any girl.”

  Zee and Oliver walked to the deep end of the empty swimming pool and sat down, dangling their legs over the side. The bottom of the pool was covered in a thick layer of dirt, and there were several balls and a broken tennis racket that had fallen in and never been retrieved.

  “This is really big,” Zee said. “But you have to promise me you won't tell anyone.”

  “I don't know anyone except you!” Oliver replied. “Who would I tell?”

  “I don't know. But you can't tell anyone! Not even your parents. Do you promise?”

  “Yeah, I promise,” said Oliver. “I'm very good with secrets.”

  “It's something that happened last night,” Zee said. “Something very strange.”

  Zee took a deep breath and stared back up at the house, as if he were considering whether to tell Oliver his secret after all. Then he shrugged his shoulders and began.

  “I was lying in bed, and I just couldn't fall asleep for the life of me,” Zee said. “I stared at the ceiling until I don't know what time it was—maybe two or three in the morning. Finally, I decided to get up and get myself a glass of juice.

  “I crept down the hallway so I wouldn't wake up Amara and Ghalji, past my parents’ bedroom, and down the stairs to the kitchen,” said Zee. “I got some juice out of the fridge and was standing there drinking it when I heard my father's voice coming from his study.”

  “At three o'clock in the morning?” asked Oliver. “That's weird.”

  “Yeah, and particularly for my father,” said Zee. “He gets up very early, and he's always in bed by eleven o'clock at the latest. Anyway, I tiptoed down the hall and put my head against the study door to see what was going on. I thought maybe there was somebody in there with him. But in fact he was on the phone, and he had that tone in his voice that he has when he's discussing something important. He sounded upset.”

  “About what?” Oliver asked.

  “Well, it was hard to make out everything, but they seemed to be talking about several robberies. My father kept repeating the names of some of the most important Baladi families, both here and abroad,” Zee said.

  “It sounded like one had happened at the home of a tribal leader in Gosht, and another at a large cattle farm in Kishawar, and something else happened a few days ago in Chicago.”

  “You mean in America?” asked Oliver, surprised.

  “That's the only Chicago I know,” said Zee.

  As Zee spoke, his voice got lower and lower, until it was just above a whisper. Oliver had to lean in closer and closer to hear him, until their heads were practically touching.

  There was a sudden crash, and Oliver nearly jumped out of his socks. Hassan, the servant, was kneeling behind them on the dirt lawn, a tray of tea and cookies in front of him. He was trying to balance his enormous potbelly as he leaned over and was clearly concerned about the prospect of tipping over the side of the empty pool.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said in a thick Baladi accent. “Your tea is ready.”

  Oliver and Zee had been so involved in their conversation they hadn't seen the man as he made his way across the big lawn toward the pool. How long had he been there?

  “Thank you, Hassan,” Zee said, quickly composing himself.

  Hassan poured a few drops of tea into one of the cups, swirled it around
to warm the glass, and tipped it onto the lawn. Then he filled the cup with steaming-hot green tea and handed it to Oliver. With agonizing slowness, he repeated the ritual for Zee before getting up, bowing slightly, and scuttling back toward the house. There was always time for tradition in Balabad, Oliver thought.

  “Go on! Go on!” Oliver hissed as Hassan walked away. “What else did he say?”

  Zee waited until the man was completely out of earshot before he continued.

  “My father was very concerned. He kept saying things like ‘God help us!’ and ‘How can this be?’ He told the caller that he would guard something with his life, but he didn't say what it was. I was about to go back to my room when he said something that stopped me in my tracks.”

  Zee looked from left to right to make sure nobody was nearby. Then slowly he cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered: “He said, ‘I understand my responsibility to the Brotherhood. Long live Arachosia.’”

  “What the heck does that mean?” Oliver asked excitedly.

  “I don't have the faintest idea,” said Zee. “In my entire life I've never heard my father speak like that. He's never mentioned a Brotherhood or anyplace named Arachosia. Right after that, he hung up the phone and I ran back to my room. I lay there awake the whole night.”

  “Holy cow!” said Oliver. “That is unbelievable!”

  “I know it,” said Zee.

  “Have you asked your father what he was talking about?” Oliver asked.

  Zee looked at him like he was crazy.

  “What am I supposed to do? Go up to my father and say ‘I just happened to be passing by your study at three a.m. and had my ear pressed up against the door, and would you believe I overheard you saying the darndest thing?’” said Zee. “My father may seem like an easygoing guy but I can assure you that that is not the kind of thing a Baladi son asks his father.”

  “Good point,” said Oliver. “Okay, scratch that.”

  “The whole time I was standing outside the study, I kept thinking about what Mr. Haji said the other day about dark clouds forming on the horizon. Maybe these are them,” Zee whispered.