The Seven Keys of Balabad Read online

  “Let's go talk to him,” said Oliver.

  There was a pause as Zee considered the proposal.

  “I don't know,” he said. “I already feel like I am betraying my father's trust just by telling you.”

  “Yeah, but if we tell Mr. Haji, he might have some idea what's going on. We might even be able to help your father.”

  “I guess that's true,” said Zee. “But how could we make sure he doesn't tell anybody?”

  “We could always threaten to reveal his trade secrets,” said Oliver. “There would be a riot if all those foreigners found out the carpets he sells them aren't worth half what he's charging.”

  Zee took a final sip of tea, then held the cup upside down so that the last drops fell into the deep end of the empty pool.

  “All right,” he said finally. “We'll tell Mr. Haji tomorrow. But nobody else! Is it a deal?”

  “Absolutely,” said Oliver. “My lips are sealed.”

  he hands moved forward slowly, deliberately, like milk gliding over a marble countertop. The skin was so white it was almost translucent. The fingers were long and slim, with manicured nails. They trembled as they reached for the object on the table in front of them.

  It was a large iron skeleton key of unparalleled workmanship, about the length of a paperback book. The bow that formed its top half was a loop closed by two etched snake heads, their forked tongues locked in a reptilian kiss. At the end of the shank—the part that goes into a lock— were two L-shaped teeth that faced each other from a distance of about a quarter of an inch, like two dogs sizing each other up.

  “Magnificent,” said the voice. It was the kind of voice you'd expect to find at the other end of appendages like these: reedy and refined. The accent was difficult to place.

  The speaker turned the key over slowly, holding it with the care a jeweler might take with a diamond. He ran the tips of his fingers over it, taking in every contour, feeling the weight of its history, enjoying being alone with its beauty. He held it in the palm of his hand and let his mind wander.

  Wealth. Fame. Power. There are worse things to which to dedicate your life, he thought. He imagined a mansion overlooking Lake Como, or perhaps a penthouse on Central Park South. He would soon be able to afford either, or both. Dreams were for dreamers. This was real, and he was close enough to taste it.

  Carefully, he placed the key down on the heavy wooden table.

  “Suavec!” he said. “A moment of your time.”

  A spotlight from a gas lantern hanging from a hook in the ceiling over the speaker's shoulder shone a warm light on the table, leaving the man's face completely in shadows. There was a cigarette burning in a glass ashtray, sending a string of smoke wisping up toward the lantern.

  Next to the key lay two nearly identical cousins. Each had the same interlocking snake heads at their top ends, but their shanks were slightly different—one had teeth that looked like small fish, another featured a series of notches that rose up like a crown.

  A short, squat man appeared in the dimly lit threshold at the far end of the dank and cavernous room. He walked slowly, his footsteps echoing against the walls.

  “Yes, sir?” said the man. He was about forty years old, with a disjointed nose that betrayed a life on the streets, and coarse blond hair that stuck out of his head at all angles, as if he'd just put his hand in a light socket. His eyes were as blue and cold as the deep sea.

  “There are only three keys on this table,” said the voice. “I thought you told me this morning that we had four.”

  Suavec looked at the keys calmly, then raised his half-dead eyes to his boss.

  “The fourth key is on its way,” he said. “My people assure me it will be arriving on the flight from Chicago this evening.”

  “Thank you, Suavec,” said the voice. “You've done very well.”

  “Tough one, that,” Suavec went on, rubbing the side of his mouth with his meaty fist. “I hear our man there didn't want to part with it. We made him an offer he couldn't turn down.”

  “And the Hamburg operation?” said the voice. “How is that going?”

  “Sehr gut!” Suavec smiled. “Very good.”

  “What about the guide?” said the voice.

  “Ah, we're in the process of, uh, persuading him to help us,” said Suavec with a snicker. “Funny old guy, actually. Very high strung. So far, ah, he denies he knows anything at all about Agamon. Says he's just a carpet salesman. Can you believe that? He's very stubborn.”

  He ran the tips of his fingers over it, taking in every contour…

  “Well, raise the offer,” said the voice. “But make it crystal clear that this is his last chance. It would be unfortunate if he let some outdated sense of honor lead him down a supremely foolish path.”

  “Right, sir,” said Suavec. “And if he still doesn't accept?”

  “Oh, he'll come around,” said the voice. A trembling hand reached out for the cigarette on the table and drew it back into the darkness.

  The speaker took a long drag on the cigarette, and for a split second, the contours of his face were illuminated in the glow of the tobacco.

  “You know what they say about heroes,” said the voice.

  “No,” said Suavec. He raised his eyelids as high as he could but still looked half asleep. “What do they say?”

  “They say that the graveyards are full of them,” the voice said flatly. “You tell our carpet salesman that, in language he'll understand.”

  he little chimes on the dusty glass door of Mr. Haji's shop sounded Oliver and Zee's arrival, but the lights were dimmed low and the carpet salesman was nowhere to be seen.

  “Anybody home?” Oliver called out cheerfully.

  Slowly, the edge of a gray turban poked out from behind a large pile of colorful throw pillows in the very back of the shop, followed by a pair of startled brown eyes and the carpet salesman's long white beard.

  “Oh, it's just you,” Mr. Haji said, getting to his feet with a great deal of huffing and grunting.

  “What were you doing back there?” asked Zee.

  “Long story,” said Mr. Haji, waving his hands dismis-sively.

  “So, uh …. what have you two been up to? Getting up to mischief, no doubt,” Mr. Haji said, managing a carpet salesman's forced grin.

  Oliver noticed that his chest was heaving under his shal-war kameez.

  Suddenly, the black rotary phone behind Mr. Haji's counter began to ring. It was one of those loud, alarming rings that only old- fashioned phones can make. It pierced every corner of the tiny carpet shop.

  Mr. Haji didn't move a muscle to answer it. When the ringing finally stopped, the old man clasped his hands together and said: “Wonderful day for a picnic or some kite flying, don't you think? Not a good day at all for sitting indoors.”

  “Are you trying to get rid of us?” asked Zee, flipping up his sunglasses.

  “Don't be ridiculous,” said Mr. Haji, and he led the boys to their usual spot on the floor.

  “Sit! Sit!” the carpet salesman said. “I'll just make us some green tea.”

  Zee raised a quizzical eyebrow at Oliver, who shrugged his shoulders in response.

  “What's going on with him?” Zee whispered. He stuck his finger in the collar of his shirt and twirled the gold chain absentmindedly—a favorite Zee move, particularly when he was thinking.

  “No idea,” said Oliver.

  “I think he is losing his marbles a little,” said Zee.

  After a few minutes, Mr. Haji came back with a plate of dry butter cookies, a bowl of almonds, and a thermos of steaming-hot green tea. He sat down between the two boys.

  “So, what can I do for you today?” he said. “Perhaps you'd be interested in a story about my great- uncle Salwan, the first Baladi ever to cross the Ghozar Mountains by camel and live to tell about it. Or my great- great-grandmother Fatisha, whose beauty was said to have brought down the government of President Maloosh?”

  “Actually, we need your help,” Oli
ver said. “It's very important.”

  Before Mr. Haji could say anything, the phone behind the counter rang again. The carpet salesman continued deliberately pouring out the tea as if nothing was happening.

  “Aren't you going to answer it?” asked Oliver.

  “What?” Mr. Haji replied.

  “The phone,” said Oliver.

  “Oh, right you are,” the carpet salesman said, laughing nervously. “Silly me.”

  Mr. Haji got up extremely slowly, walked over to the counter, and picked up the heavy black receiver. He began speaking excitedly, and within seconds he was barking into the phone.

  “What is he saying?” Oliver whispered.

  “I don't know,” Zee replied. “I think he's speaking in Mensho.”

  “Mensho?” Oliver whispered. “What's that?”

  Mr. Haji glanced over at them from the counter, holding up two fingers to indicate he would only be a minute.

  “Mensho is one of the rarest languages in Balabad,” said Zee, leaning in close. “It's only spoken in a few villages in the north, and even there not everybody would understand it. It's a very complicated and ancient language, older even than Baladi.”

  “Gosh, I never heard of it,” said Oliver.

  “There are hundreds of languages in Balabad,” Zee explained. “And most people can only speak four or five of them.”

  Oliver couldn't fathom it. In America, almost everybody spoke English, and those who didn't could at least speak Spanish. He tried to imagine what it would be like if people in every state spoke a different language—like Arizonish or Ohioese. What a strange country it would be if you needed a translator every time you drove across the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey.

  “How do you make sense of one another?” he whispered.

  “I guess we don't,” Zee said with a shrug. “If you hadn't noticed, we're always at war.”

  While the two boys spoke, Mr. Haji was growing more and more agitated. He pulled at his long beard. He waved his fist in the air. He shouted what sounded like the same thing over and over again. Finally, he slammed the phone down.

  “Who in the world was that, Mr. Haji?” Oliver exclaimed.

  The carpet salesman whirled around with the fakest of smiles on his face.

  “Who was who?” he said.

  “Who was that on the phone?” Oliver insisted.

  “On the phone?” Mr. Haji replied, nodding his head up and down. “That was just my mother. It's her eightieth birthday today, and we were trying to arrange a party.”

  “Your mother?” Oliver said. “It sounded like you wanted to kill her.”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” the carpet salesman chuckled. “It only sounds like that because we were speaking Mensho. It's a very emotional language.”

  The carpet salesman sat back down next to Oliver and Zee, grabbed a handful of almonds, and offered them around as if nothing had happened.

  “So, you say you need my help?” he said between munches.

  “Well—” said Zee, who was clearly having second thoughts.

  “Go on, Zee!” said Oliver. “The thing is, Mr. Haji, this is very, ah—”

  “Sensitive,” said Zee sharply. He brushed the hair out of his eyes. “It is very difficult for a Baladi son to give away his father's secrets, Mr. Haji, as I'm sure you are aware. I hope I am not making a mistake in entrusting them to you.”

  “My boy, whatever you tell me will be kept safe in here forever,” Mr. Haji said, placing his hand on his chest. “You have my word.”

  “Very well,” Zee said gravely. “It is something I overheard my father saying on the phone the other night. It was quite late at night, actually, when I should have been asleep.”

  “Listening in on one's parents’ conversations can never lead to good things,” Mr. Haji chuckled. “But go on, you've done it now. What did he say that has you so worried?”

  “He was talking about some burglaries,” said Zee. “At the homes of important Baladi families.”

  “Really?” said Mr. Haji. “What kind of burglaries?”

  “I don't know,” said Zee. “But he seemed to think they were all related.”

  Mr. Haji pulled the amber prayer beads from his pocket and started fumbling with them nervously. Zee turned his head from side to side, though there was nobody else in the shop.

  “And then he spoke in a way I've never heard him speak before. He spoke of something called the Brotherhood of Ara—”

  Even before the last word was out of Zee's mouth, Mr. Haji had jumped to his feet. He waved his hands in the air frantically.

  “Do not tell me any more,” he said emphatically. “This is not something to discuss here.”

  “But we were hoping you might be able to help us,” Oliver protested. “Since you know so much about Balabad's history.”

  Mr. Haji crouched back down and pulled the two boys toward him.

  “I must forbid you from saying any more,” he whispered. “This is not for my ears.”

  Oliver started to protest, but Zee raised his hand to cut him off.

  “We should go,” he said calmly, climbing to his feet and tugging Oliver by the arm. “I am sorry to have upset you, Mr. Haji.”

  Zee turned toward the door. The two boys were about to step out into the street when Mr. Haji cried out behind them: “Wait!”

  Oliver and Zee spun around, in time to see Mr. Haji rushing toward them.

  “You are indeed in great need of help, my boys, but this”—he waved his prayer beads toward the inside of the shop—”this is not the place.”

  “I cannot explain right now,” he went on. “Believe me, it is not safe here.”

  “I believe you,” said Zee. His voice was serious and remarkably calm.

  “I believe you, too,” said Oliver, who was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.

  Mr. Haji leaned in close, so that Oliver could smell the green tea on his breath and feel the coarseness of his beard against his cheek.

  “Go tomorrow at noon to the buzkashi pitch in Maiwar,” the carpet salesman said. “A friend of mine will be waiting for you there. He is a man who I trust with my life. His name is Halabala.”

  “Halabala?” said Oliver.

  “Hamid Halabala. One of the bravest commanders of the last war and a great scholar as well,” said Mr. Haji. “He can help you with what you speak of, and he is in, uh, a better position to guide you than I.”

  “How will we spot him in the crowd?” asked Zee.

  “You can't miss Halabala,” said Mr. Haji. “He is a mountain of a man, with the chest of an ox and a beard like the mane of a lion.”

  Mr. Haji patted the two boys on the back and ushered them into the street.

  “Oh,” he said. “One more thing. He's missing his left eye.”

  he bells in the tiny church tower tolled midnight, breaking the silence on cobblestoned Werderstrasse street. The man in the black trench coat took a drag on his cigarette, then flicked it to the pavement. He had tried many times to quit, but his was a supremely stressful job.

  The man looked up and down the street. He was all alone. Nobody was likely to venture down this way from the trendy restaurants and clubs around Innocentia Park at this hour, particularly not on a rainy night like this one. All the same, he kept to the shadows, his face hidden.

  In a grand redbrick town house halfway up the street, Sharti Alani, founder of the world- famous Alani's department store chain, stood in front of his wide bay windows, sipping a cup of mint tea and watching the rain fall through the light of a streetlamp on the other side of the road.

  It was how the sixty- five- year- old bachelor ended most evenings, alone but happy. Alani could not complain. He was married to his work, and it had been a particularly successful union. Alani's department stores stretched across Germany, and he was branching out into France and England, and then maybe even America.

  Not bad for an immigrant from one of the world's poorest countries. How far he had come from the days
he used to run around as a child in the dusty streets of his Baladi village. What a long way that was from his current residence in Harvestehuder Weg, one of the fanciest neighborhoods in Hamburg.

  Mozart's Requiem wafted softly from speakers tucked away in the corner of the room, and the businessman hummed along with it. Alani was feeling particularly content this evening, his belly full from the dinner he'd prepared himself: grilled German lamb sausage covered in a delicious apple chutney.

  The chutney had been a gift from a businessman he'd met earlier that day, somebody who'd popped up out of the blue with an offer to invest serious money in the department store chain.

  Life was like that, Alani thought. Full of surprises.

  Alani put down the tea and stretched his arms over his head. It was getting late, and tomorrow would be another long day at the office. He decided to turn in for the night. The businessman took a step away from the window and was surprised to find that his legs were wobbly. He put a hand on the back of a brown leather armchair to steady himself.

  “My gosh, but it is warm tonight,” Alani thought. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and patted his forehead. It was covered in sweat.

  Suddenly, Alani felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and then another. He belched and the sickly aftertaste of stewed apples surged into his mouth. Alani's eyes were watering now, and his vision was blurry. He doubled over in agony.

  “What was in that chutney?” Alani thought. It was all he could do to crawl over to the phone and dial emergency services.

  “Help!” he said, his voice breaking. “ Pl- ease, come quickly.”

  Down the street, the man in the trench coat glanced at his watch. There was a siren wailing in the night, and it grew louder and louder. After a few minutes, an ambulance swung onto Werderstrasse, its lights blaring. It screeched to a halt in front of the town house.

  “About time,” the man in the trench coat mumbled to himself from the shadows.

  There had indeed been a little something extra in Mr. Alani's dinner that evening. Nothing too terrible, just enough darmetrium- 12 to send the old codger to the hospital for a few crucial hours. He'd be no worse for wear in the morning, except perhaps for a splitting headache.