Razia

by Abda Khan

  ‘But the question is, how do we make sure this doesn’t happen again?’ asked Karim. He rolled his thumbs around, and placed his crossed hands in his lap. ‘I mean, we are at the brick kiln all day. Either she stays with us there, in which case she is likely to bump into that boy, or someone stays at home with her, but then we won’t make our target. The girl has put us in an impossible position.’

  Javed gently placed his left hand on his father’s right shoulder. Karim turned to look at him.

  ‘Don’t worry, Father, I’ve sorted it,’ Javed assured Karim. Nusrat remained silent throughout the exchanges between father and son; she listened to the conversation with one ear, but her mind was fixed on trying to listen for any sounds that might come from her daughter. But the small room was eerily quiet.

  ‘I don’t understand. How?’ Karim asked.

  ‘I was speaking to Munshi when he came around the other day to sort the books. He said that Choudhry Sahib’s brother, Zaheer Sahib, has been posted to work in London, and they are looking to take a maid with them from Pakistan. They need someone who will work hard at household chores, cook all the desi food and generally look after the needs of Madam. I suggested Razia, and he said that he would mention it to Choudhry. Anyway, he came back to me this morning and said that if we are agreeable then they will take Razia with them. She will live and stay with them at all times; they will provide her with sleeping arrangements, food and other necessities. He said they won’t pay her directly, but instead they will take whatever she would have earned and put it towards the debt we owe. It seems like the best solution to me.’

  ‘Best solution for who?’ piped up Nusrat. ‘What about me? She is my daughter, and you are thinking of sending her to some foreign land, thousands of miles away. When will I see her again?’

  Nusrat wiped the tears from her face with the corner of her pale green chaddar. She couldn’t imagine her life without Razia; her daughter had never been away from home, not even for a single day or night. Razia was her closest companion, the one she shared everything with; whenever she needed to air her hopes, her thoughts or her fears, Razia was the one she turned to.

  ‘Amee! I can’t believe you are talking like this. Look at what she has done! She has left us with no choice!’ retorted Javed.

  ‘He is right, Nusrat. Let it be. It has been decided,’ added Karim.

  Nusrat didn’t say another word. She swallowed her tears in silence and grieved inwardly for her daughter, for her precious child, who was still so young and innocent, but who had now been catapulted into the world of self-important, angry men, who would try desperately to defend their so-called family honour, and do whatever it took to prevent it being tarnished in any way.

  17

  Razia struggled to drift out of her state of unconsciousness for some time. She didn’t know if she was dreaming, or if she really could hear her mother muttering the words ‘wake up my child’. The sounds and words seemed to be floating towards her from somewhere far away. When she finally did open her eyes, her mother was sat beside her in the room that was devoid of anything other than the one manji on which Razia lay, and a high wooden shelf that was sparsely decked with a few bits of mismatched crockery, and five tall, proud steel drinking glasses, which sparkled even in the dimness. They were her mother’s finest possessions; she polished them regularly and not a speck of dust could be found on the inside nor the exterior of the shiny vessels. Their glimmer danced in Razia’s eyes.

  Nusrat was sat with a chakor in her lap; the round, basket-like object contained two chappatis, and atop was a small clay plate with some masoor dhal in it.

  Razia’s eyelashes flickered as she tried to come out of the slumber that had taken hold of her being.

  ‘Wake up and eat something. You haven’t eaten anything all day,’ Nusrat said. Razia could feel the warmth of her mother’s caress as she gently stroked Razia’s hair away from her face.

  ‘I don’t want to eat anything. My arms and legs hurt. And my back hurts too. Everything hurts,’ Razia said. She clutched at her back with both her hands. She clenched her teeth hard, although this did nothing to alleviate the pain that she was feeling. The physical soreness was the least of the trauma, for the emotional punches ran far deeper. To have been so brutally beaten by her own brother, and for her father to have just stood silently outside and not intervened, made Razia feel as though she had been cut slowly into pieces with the sharpest of daggers. She wondered if those pieces would ever mend back together again.

  Nusrat hugged her daughter gently, and began to cry.

  ‘I know, my beautiful one. I know. And I am sorry. I couldn’t do anything to help you. I am helpless, my child. Simply helpless.’

  Razia, with her eyes firmly clamped shut again, placed her aching and bruised arms around her mother. She didn’t blame her mother. She never could. She savoured the warmth of her mother’s embrace, and wished she could just stay here, and never have to move. This was the the one place where Razia felt safe.

  ‘Nusrat, where are you?’ shouted Karim from the yard outside.

  Nusrat pulled away, and held her daughter’s face in her hands for a minute.

  ‘I have to go. Your father needs me. Eat the food, please,’ Nusrat implored her daughter.

  Nusrat placed the food next to Razia, who lay back down on her side. As her mother left the room, Razia felt all alone in the world, until the noise of the azan slowly seeped into her ears. It emanated from the mosque that was situated in the centre of the village. She opened one eye slightly; she had noticed from the momentary gap in the door as her mother left that it was not dark yet, so it must be Maghrib time, she thought to herself. The back end of the call to prayer recited melodiously by the muezzin continued to drift into Razia’s ears:

  Hayya ‘ala-s-Salah, Hayya ‘ala-s-Salah

  Hayya ‘ala-l-Falah, Hayya ‘ala-l-Falah

  Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar

  La ilaha illa Allah

  Hurry to the prayer, Hurry to success, God is Great, There is no god except Allah; Razia repeated the verse to herself as a whisper. Where was her God now? she thought to herself.

  Nusrat carefully locked the door from the outside, under her husband’s vigilant eye. She looked at him as he stared at her like a hawk, and despite her anger and exasperation she said nothing. Instead, she entered the other room and picked up her prayer mat, which she brought out into the courtyard, by which time her husband had already left for the mosque to say his prayers there. Nusrat lay her simple janamaz down in the corner, facing the direction of Mecca; the head of the red and green prayer rug had a large image of the Ka’ba. She began reciting her intention to pray, and commenced her namaz.

  Razia lay still on the manji, and felt as though if she moved even an inch she might break. The muezzin’s voice had now ceased, but the whispers of the azan continued in her head. Her eyes were sore, and her vision was bleary. Her head felt as heavy as a rock. She didn’t touch the food that her mother had brought to her. She could not move, other than to curl up into a ball, and push away the cruel world by wrapping her chaddar over her entire head until she could see nothing.

  18

  LONDON

  On the drive from Zaheer and Aneela’s apartment to Farah’s home, Razia sat quietly in the rear of Mr Amin’s car, and thought back to how everything had been prepared for her departure without any knowledge or effort on her part. She had failed to pick up on the signs. Two weeks before she had been caught with Ahmed, at Javed’s request she had accompanied him into town to have her photograph taken. He had told her it was in order for her national identification card to be prepared. Razia took him at his word. It was only after the beating that it had become evident that the photographs had been used for her passport. Her brother had been plotting this for some time. Javed must have been in talks about the possibility of Razia’s going to London for a few weeks at least. Razia never saw the images, or the passport itself; this was always in the custody of Mr or Mrs Mansur. And know
ing she would have to travel soon, her brother had been very careful during the beating not to mark her face; she could hardly believe this level of cold calculation on his part.

  And now, Razia could barely believe that she was being driven to freedom. She had only ever known life as a bonded slave making bricks, or lately as a slave at the beck and call of the Mansurs, expected to fetch and carry, scrub and shine, cook and iron, at any hour of any day or night. But this passage of hers, this weaving of a tumultuous path for Razia into yet more servitude, only thousands of miles away from home, was one in which she’d had no hand, no say and no right to object to. She had begrudgingly but silently stepped into the unknown, and borne whatever it was that fate had held in store for her. And she had borne it alone, without the company of her mother, and with no knowledge of when she would see her beloved Ahmed again.

  During that solitary week between the beating and leaving for England, Razia was locked away in the small room. Her mother visited her regularly, as only a mother could; to provide her with food, and water, and above all to give her some love and comfort. Her mother did her best to provide reassurances: London was not going to be forever, she would be back with her before long, and the work couldn’t possibly be as difficult as working at the brick kiln. But Razia could find no reassurances about Ahmed; he was still away at present, but what would happen when he got back? Would Javed go after him? And how would Ahmed feel when he found out she had left the country?

  Razia never blamed her mother for not being able to change anything, for she knew her mother was as much a victim in all of this as she was.

  ‘Are you OK, Razia?’ asked Farah, noticing that she was distracted. Mr Amin was focused on the road ahead.

  ‘Ji,’ replied Razia simply, and turned her head to stare back out of the window again.

  She could vividly picture the day she had left home; Razia had stood in the yard with her mother. Nusrat’s asthma had been so bad that day that she couldn’t manage to walk the few minutes from their house to the lane on the edge of the village where the car sent by the Mansurs had parked up in readiness. Razia’s father and brother had gone on ahead, and waited by the car.

  Razia remembered sobbing wildly. She had rushed towards her mother and embraced her tightly. She had whispered into her mother’s ear. She had wanted to try one last time to see if there was any way she could stay, even if deep down she had known that her mother was powerless to make such a wish come true.

  ‘Please, Amee ji, please don’t send me! I don’t want to go! I’m frightened. I don’t want to go on an aeroplane. And I don’t want to go to London. I won’t know anybody there. Amee, I will be all alone. I will miss you.’

  She recollected how her mother had shed feeble, futile tears, as she had struggled, both physically, with her heavy, laboured breath, and emotionally; she had opened her mouth and tried to utter something to try and take the fear away, but Razia remembered her mother being unable to finish her sentence. All she could say was how sorry she was.

  ‘Meri bachi, I am so sorry. Please forgive this useless mother of yours. I have no power. I have no control. I am of no use. If I could swap with you, if I could be in your shoes, and take your pain, I would do it in less time than it takes for my heart to beat and for my eye to blink. But I can do nothing for you, my child. Nothing. Except pray for you, and pray that I see you again soon, safe and sound.’

  The banging of the gate had caused them both to tear away from their embrace.

  ‘What are you still doing here?’ Javed had shouted. ‘Come on!’

  She remembered him grabbing her by the arm to take her away.

  The last vision Razia had of her mother was of her being glued to the spot. Her mother’s tears had continued to trickle down her face, but she had been unable to move.

  ‘Please, Amee. Please! I will miss you. Please don’t make me go! Please don’t let them take me. Amee … Amee …’

  Razia remembered being dragged by her brother down the alleyway towards the lane; her home had started to disappear from her sight. After she had been bundled into the back of the car, Razia’s village had then slowly disappeared from her vision. That was the last she remembered of her home in Pakistan.

  Now, Mr Amin parked his car on the cobbled street outside Farah’s apartment, and Razia looked up at the building through the window.

  ‘Welcome to your new home,’ said Farah.

  Razia clasped her carrier bag close to her chest, and disembarked from the car.

  19

  The next morning, when Razia came out of the bathroom, she looked different. This was the first time Farah had seen her without her chaddar swathed around her. Her long, dark brown hair was still damp, and extended so much further down than Farah had imagined; it tumbled to below her hips, although the ends were split and scraggly. This was also the first time that Farah fully saw Razia’s face, without obstruction. Farah observed that she was quite an unusually pretty girl. Her skin was a warm tone of brown, and perhaps in happier and healthier times it would exude a fresh, golden hue. Although her face was gaunt, it was nevertheless entirely free of any blemishes, aside from a vivid scar that lay to the right of her chin, on the jawline. Her eyes were not completely brown, but rather they appeared to be different shades of brown tinged with little flecks of grey. They seemed sad and tired-looking.

  Farah asked Razia to come and join her for breakfast. Razia went over and sat on one of the two chairs at the small, round table.

  ‘So, what shall we do today?’ Farah asked her, placing a plate of toast and eggs before Razia, and then going to fetch two mugs of freshly brewed tea. This had only taken about ten seconds, but when she got back, she found Razia sobbing.

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ Farah asked. She quickly put the mugs down, went around the small table and placed an arm snugly around Razia. She gently rubbed her back.

  ‘No one has ever made food for me before, except my mother of course. I miss my mother so much!’

  Farah popped a tissue out of the box that was luckily at the centre of the table and passed it to Razia. The girl’s sadness jolted Farah into thinking about how fortunate she was; she had to acknowledge that she often moaned about things without thinking, but they now seemed frivolous, and tedious. And far too often she took her parents for granted; she complacently assumed that they would just always be there.

  ‘I understand,’ said Farah. ‘You must miss her terribly; my mum isn’t even very far away, and she can be trying at the best of times, but I miss her too. Before long, you will be back home with your mum. I promise. Now come on, dry your tears and eat your breakfast. You have to eat. Shabash.’

  Just as she was about to take her first sip of tea, Farah’s mobile phone started to ring. She went over to the kitchen worktop to grab it, and saw it was a call from Mr Amin. She answered it straight away.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Farah. How is Miss Razia doing?’

  ‘Good morning, Sir. She’s OK, I guess,’ replied Farah, in a slightly muted tone. She looked over to see that Razia had now stopped crying and started to eat her breakfast. She didn’t use her knife and fork. She tore bits of toast off with her hands and scooped pieces of the fried egg into the bread. She stared into space as she ate. ‘I think perhaps she is a bit confused, and she is definitely pining for her mother.’

  ‘Well, there is good news on that front; her ticket has been booked for tomorrow evening. She will be on a direct flight from Heathrow to Lahore. The flight leaves at six p.m., so we will send a car to your apartment for three p.m. The tickets have been emailed to you, along with the details of the travel agency that arranged the flight. Printed tickets will be given to Miss Razia when she is taken to the airport. I have given your telephone number to the travel agents as the point of contact, seeing as she is staying with you. I hope that’s OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course. That makes perfect sense,’ replied Farah.

  Farah was relieved to hear that the travel plans had been sorted. She t
hought back to Zaheer’s acrid threats, the complete lack of co-operation from Paul and Aneela’s efforts to get her to change her mind; but none of these things mattered now, as she had done it. She had freed Razia, and soon this young woman would be on her way back to her family, and away from Zaheer’s grip.

  ‘Also, we are making arrangements to settle the family’s debt, and have them rehoused in the city of Lahore, close to their relatives. My people went out to see her father and brother; we have all the details now, and this should all be actioned within a few weeks of Miss Razia arriving back in Pakistan.’

  Hearing this made Farah feel even more satisfied with the outcome of her intervention: freeing Razia would now mean freedom for her entire family. This was something Farah had never envisaged when she had first made the decision to help the girl; this news made the victory all the sweeter.

  ‘And another thing,’ added Mr Amin. ‘I have Razia’s passport. I will give it to the driver with strict instructions for him to hand it to Razia tomorrow.’

  ‘OK. Thank you,’ said Farah. She reflected on the fact that this was going to be the first time that Razia was going to hold her own passport; and not only hold it, she was now going to have the freedom to use it to get herself back home.

  Farah put the phone down and went to the table to relay the information to Razia, and for the first time, Farah saw her smile; she had a beaming, effervescent smile and Farah thought it a terrible shame that, firstly, she had never seen her smile before, and secondly, she could only imagine that at least recently, she’d had so little cause to smile.

  The rest of the day was spent in the only way that Farah could see fit – shopping. She had settled on taking Razia to Green Street. It was mild and sunny outside, and so they were provided with the perfect day for their walk from store to store up and down the road. Razia took in all the sights and sounds, pausing at shop windows to look at the mannequins, and turning her face away, bright red with embarrassment, when they stumbled across a mannequin with no clothes on. Farah’s comment that Green Street was a bit chaotic didn’t seem to resonate with Razia at all; she could only see and comment on the civility of this place, the orderliness and thoughtfulness of things such as traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, bus stops with shelters and seats and clear signs, large clean taxis that were not overloaded, and buses that did not have people perching on the tops of them or dangling perilously from the sides. Seeing her like this made Farah feel a little guilty about just how many of the comforts and freedoms of her life she took for granted, day in, day out. She had never come across a girl like Razia before. Although they shared a sense of mutual cultural heritage, there were not many similarities between them beyond the ties to the land that Razia lived in and that Farah’s parents came from.