ZEYNA LOST AND FOUND

Excerpt from Chapter One

We step out and walk towards the station exit. I glance back but the man is nowhere to be seen. I search the crowd, stretching my neck to look over the bobbing heads of Londoners racing to get home. It’s very possible that the strange man is gone and I can return to my mundane life. I’m relieved. Sort of.

“There he is!” I blurt out.

“Who?”

“A dodgy man with a knife is walking towards us, Mum! He’s over there. He’s kept his eye on us this whole time—”

“Darling, a lot of people are walking and looking in this direction. It is the exit, after all.” Mum looks at me closely. “Are you pretending to be a detective again, Zee?”

His eyes are glued on us. This is a real threat, not like the time our shed was covered in a royal mess of oatmeal because of the neighborhood stray cat. That was a mystery quite easily solved.

“This is not pretend, Mum!” I nearly shriek.

“Excuse me, excuse me . . .” A stout, bald man in a smart navy suit forcefully parts the crowd to catch the departing train. Mum and I are pushed forward by the swarms of people.

When we finally step out of the station, I see the familiar Southall shops crammed together and overhear aunties chatting about yet another rainy day in London. Two uncles debate in Urdu about the political situation in “East Pakistan.”

“The Bengali people should be independent, bhai. Pakistan has no business ruling them from afar. You watch—this situation is going to bubble over, and Pakistan will regret it. We must let them be.”

The uncle’s words buzz around me, but I can’t make any sense of them. I smell recent rain and fried jalebis, but they don’t seem real. Why is this strange man with a knife following us? I have nothing of value on my person or in my life. In fact, I want to shout, I am anonymous and forgettable, sir! but perhaps that is too much honesty for a public road.

We walk by the clothes shop where Mum often studies brightly colored shawls that could go with her shalwar kameez, the traditional trousers and tunic that she effortlessly wears. Then the jewelry shop where I regularly beg my parents to buy me some chudiyan to match Mum’s gold bangles.

Mum is already inside the sangha shop when I spot the man again. He’s standing across the street with his hands in his pockets, still staring in my direction. The knife glistens near his belt buckle.

A bus drives by, blocking my view for a few moments. Water splashes on my face. Ugh, I just attract bad luck. Maybe there’s a gutter nearby that I can fall into to round out this brilliant situation.

By the time I wipe the grimy water from my eyes, the man has vanished again.