“This is Qaiser Apa. Salam alaikum, Qaiser Apa. Meet Fouzia.”
She nodded primly and let an overgrown matron squeeze her chin and cheeks. “Chashm e baddoor, Raza Mian. What a lovely girl.”
“She’s one of the few women in my family I actually like,” Raza muttered to her under his breath. “One of the few people who didn’t leave my father’s side when the entire clan was pointing fingers and doing ‘shame shame, you married a girl who left you with a 5 year old boy’ song.” Qaiser Apa began talking to someone else. “It makes me respect her for that, if nothing else.”
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
“She is separated from her husband. Left him because he didn’t earn too well.”
She started. “Really?” she said, louder than she had hoped. Qaiser Apa turned to look at her in mild surprise.
“Yes, yes, we’re all a crazy family,” Qaiser Apa chuckled. “But then – who doesn’t have a crazy family nowadays huh?” she bit off a gulab jamun and walked away smiling.
“I like her,” Fouzia said softly. “She doesn’t seem to care about so many things that are just social bullshit.”
He squeezed her hand. “See, when you say stuff like social bullshit, it just makes me fall in love with you more.”
She patted his hand and slid off her own out of his clasp so that people wouldn’t notice the embarrassment on her face.
They were sitting with his family, the nikah was a simple affair. Just dinner. None of the extended family, no friends, just their immediate relatives. Quiet evening. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Except that this is my second marriage.
Earlier, when she had said those exact words, Raza had laughed. Her family had managed to get her to accept what she wanted to but couldn’t bring herself to, mainly because it ‘didn’t feel normal’. He had laughed his characteristic laugh. It would ring out like a huge bell, like a lunch bell. Something that bore a lot of good and kindness instead of the regular cacophony and empty echoes that bells usually have. “What makes you think I care?”
“I care. People care. Everyone will say I – bagged you or something.”
“Like a murder? Like a body? Something like CSI? Oh, that sounds interesting.”
“Shut up, you know what I mean.”
“I do.” He fidgeted. “And when I said I don’t care, I don’t care. Please. Let’s not talk about this bagging business. Unless you want to talk about CSI.”
There they were, three weeks later, sitting next to each other. Forging another relationship, am I. She was wearing a silk dress of cherry red and would never have chosen the color if it hadn’t been for her mother’s insistence. “And what is this brown lipstick business? Do you think you’re at some business dinner?” She was handed a lipstick. Brilliantly red and round about the same color she was always teased about.
“I can’t. I hate this color.”
“Oh come on. Wear this and hurry up. The phone’s ringing. It must be Adil asking me about what to buy for Raza. Go. Hurry. STOP STARING AT ME LIKE THIS, GO.”
At that very moment, her own phone rang. It was Raza.
“Hi there. All set?” his tone was as if they were about to go play cricket on the streets.
“Yeah. I’ve got my running gear on.”
“Oh you can run. But you can’t hide. I’ve got special powers.”
“Sure but can you fly?”
“Nah. I can do better. I can walk at an alarmingly fast pace if you talk about running.”
She smiled at the memory of that conversation as the dining hall grew emptier and the few guests began to leave. It was just them and Fouzia’s family and Raza suggested everyone should go out and get fresh air, leaving the house for the servants to clean up. They agreed and Fouzia decided to go change first.
She was in her room when her phone rang again. Raza was incorrigible.
It wasn’t him. It was him.
“Got on with your life, huh, whore?”
She slammed phone back on the dresser. It rang again and she cut it off. It rang again and she pulled out its battery and flung it aside. She locked herself in the bathroom once again, wishing everything outside of it would never reach her. Suddenly, while her tears were ruining the beautiful red dress she was sobbing into, she had an image of Hina. She must be playing around in playgrounds. Was she alive? She let out a scream. She didn’t care how Adeel found out. She didn’t care how he got her number. She didn’t care why he decided to call her today, she didn’t care what went through his sadistic mind to screw with her head like that. All she knew was that everything that she had been trying to say goodbye to was coming back and she knew, with all her heart, that it would never, ever go away.
(end of part eight)
