Chapter 10
Answering the doorbell to his cousin's ring, Zain stood for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, not allowing Rizwan to enter. "You touch her, Qureshi, and you'll never be able to breed any children."
Without a smile, Rizwan nodded, acknowledging what Zain meant: He had claim on Aaliya.
Turning away, Zain left the room, for he didn't think he could stand to see Aaliya smiling at another man. But in spite of his noble intentions, he found himself standing at the front window the moment he heard the door close behind them, standing there watching the two of them walk toward Central Park. Physically, Zain thought, they were wrong for each other. Aaliya's small curvy body didn't match his cousin's tall, thin, scrawny body.
Zain looked away from them in disgust, disgust as himself. Maybe Aaliya was right and he was crazy. Never before had he been eaten with jealousy as he was right now, and frankly, he didn't much like the feeling. Nor did he understand why he felt jealous, for Aaliya had certainly never given him any encouragement to think that she belonged to him.
Her father had, he thought in his own defense. Her father had asked Zain to take care of his precious daughter after he was gone. The first month he had done a poor job of looking out for her, but since then he'd tried to make up for lost time.
Sighing, Zain thought of the lonely afternoon ahead of him. Who was going to be here to take delight in something as ordinary as ordering from a deli? Who was going to ask him questions and take an interest in his research? Who was going to smell the roses in the garden? Who was going to look him up and down whenever she thought he wasn't looking?
As Zain started to turn away from the window, he saw a man step from the shadow of a building across the street and start walking. In New York one saw people every everywhere, but something about this man made Zain notice him. For one thing, he had been standing in that same place yesterday. Zain had noticed him because all men who worked out noticed other men whose triceps strained against the back of their shirt sleeves. This guy wasn't that big, he wasn't so big that his lats kept his arms from touching his ribs, but he did indeed know which end of a barbell to pick up.
Unlatching the window, Zain pushed it up and stuck his head out. After watching for a moment, he didn't know why, but he was ninety-nine percent sure that the man was following Aaliya and his cousin.
Zain didn't lose a moment, and was out the door in seconds, following the man across Park Avenue, Madison, then Fifth, and into the park. At the park, Zain was sure the man was following Aaliya when he stepped behind the statue of General Sherman while Rizwan bought Aaliya an ice cream and a couple of balloons.
For a moment, Zain's attention strayed from the man, because Aaliya was looking up at his string bean of a cousin with a face drippy with sentimentality. From the look on her face a person would have thought that no one had ever given her anything as wonderful as that half-thawed ice cream and the cheap balloons. His stupid cousin was grinning back at her as though he'd presented her the head of a dragon.
"Give me a break," Zain said in disgust.
The next moment the two of them went strolling through the park, not aware that anyone other than themselves existed, while Zain stayed back until he saw the man who was following them move. The man made no attempt at secrecy and at one point even walked ahead of them, sat on a bench, and watched them walk past.
As he stayed hidden, Zain didn't allow the man to see him, because if he'd been watching the house, he would recognize Zain.
For the next forty-five minutes, as zain followed the man, he watched Aaliya and his cousin. To give Rizwan credit, he never laid a hand on Aaliya, but every time she so much as smiled at the bean pole, Zain wanted to smash him in the face. It was when the two of them stopped at the children's playground that Zain thought he was going to be sick. Deftly catching a swing with one hand, Rizwan helped Aaliya onto the seat as though she were an invalid, then gave her a little push, while Aaliya laughed in utter delight, as though he'd accomplished some great feat.
"I should have killed him the summer we were both twelve," Zain muttered.
Zain did have a moment of pleasure when Aaliya stopped the swing and started to get out, because when Rizwan put out a hand to help Aaliya out of the swing, she moved away from his touch.
"It isn't just me," Zain said in satisfaction.
After the swings they walked along through the twisting paths and every time they disappeared from his sight, the hairs on the back of Zain's neck rose. It was when Rizwan stepped away from Aaliya to retrieve a baseball and throw it back to some kids that Zain realized the man who was following them was nowhere in sight. Zain's attention had been on whether or not his skinny cousin was touching Aaliya and had strayed from the real reason he was playing private eye.
For a moment, Zain looked about in panic, knowing that something was wrong. Where was the man? Who was the man?"
Zain saw Aaliya standing in the shade of some trees watching Rizwan with a syrupy expression on her face, and behind her, coming down the hill slowly so he wouldn't make a sound was the man.
Zain began to run. He ran across a blanket spread with food, causing the picnickers to yell at him; he leaped over a bench filled with people and they shrieked at him. When he hit the clump of trees he was still running, and when he hit the man with all his two hundred pounds of muscle, he flattened him. For several moments, hidden in the shadow of the trees, the two of them struggled, but it was no contest. Zain was much stronger than the man and soon had him pinned to the ground.
"Who are you?" Zain asked, holding the man down. "What do you want?"
The man had a look on his face that said he'd die before he said a word, and suddenly Zain knew the answers to his questions. "Taha sent you, didn't he?"
There was the merest flicker in the man's eyes that let Zain know he was right.
"Why?" Zain asked, truly puzzled. "Does he want to know about his granddaughter?"
He never received an answer, because the man took advantage of Zain's puzzlement to pick up a rock and hit Zain on the head with it. The pain of the blow, as well as the unexpectedness of it, sent Zain reeling, and the man lost no time in disappearing. For a moment Zain sat on the ground, his hand to his head, his vision unclear.
"Zain Abdullah! How could you do this? How could you spy on me?"
Looking up, he saw Aaliya standing over him, hands on hips, and he thought her face was angry, but his vision was too blurry to be sure.
"This is really too much," she said as she went back down the hill.
As Zain blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, a handkerchief appeared before his eyes. Taking it, he pressed it to his head in the general vicinity of the pain.
"Are you all right?"He recognized the voice of his cousin and as Zain tried to stand, there was a strong arm placed under his to help him up.
"Zain?"
"I'm okay," he managed to say when he was standing and holding the handkerchief to his temple, feeling the warmth of the blood that was beginning to trickle down through his hair.
"You want to tell me what happened?"
"No," Zain said, not looking at his cousin. "Is Aaliya all right?"
Rizwan looked into the sunlit field where Aaliya was watching some children play. "She's fine. Is there a reason she might not be all right?"
"I don't know. I don't think anyone wants to harm her. There's no reason to hurt her." He looked at his cousin. "Watch out for her, will you?"
Rizwan nodded, then watched Zain walk away through the trees and saw him stagger once and catch himself on one of the many boulders in the park. After a moment, Rizwan went down the hill to Aaliya and told her he had to make a telephone call. If he knew Zain, he'd not go to a doctor with his head wound, so Rizwan was going to call a doctor and request a house call.
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
Fan Fictions
Anupamaa
