Razia

by Abda Khan

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘so the first thing I must do is speak to the prosecution and the court, and see exactly what is going on with regards to the charges and potential hearing dates; see how far the case has actually progressed. In the meantime, I will arrange for us to visit her in the prison as soon as possible.’

  This all made logical sense, but it made Farah feel a little out of control. He wasn’t asking her; he was telling her what was going to happen. However, on the flip side, she had to acknowledge that she was out on a limb here, out of her own territory and comfort zone, and she had to allow him to get things sorted, because helping Razia was most important.

  ‘Yes, that is imperative. She will be feeling alone and frightened, so we need to see her as soon as we can,’ said Farah, and she then poured herself another glass of iced lemon water.

  ‘We will go first thing in the morning,’ Ali continued. ‘I will come and collect you from outside the hotel at eight a.m, unless you hear otherwise from me. In any event, here is my card with my mobile number.’

  ‘What about your fees?’ she asked him.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ replied Ali dismissively, with a shake of the head.

  ‘But you have to get paid; you can’t live off fresh air,’ Farah protested. However, as she looked at the state of him, Farah felt that he looked as though that was exactly what he must have been doing.

  ‘Seriously. Don’t worry about my fees.’

  Farah thought this was most odd. A lawyer not worried about his fees? Should she be worried? she asked herself. Who was this guy? She knew nothing about him; she only had the word of the receptionist as to what a great guy slash lawyer he was. How did she know she could trust him?

  Ali was beginning to sense her hesitation and unease, thought Farah, for he jumped in straight away before she could ponder for too long.

  ‘I think the High Commission feel partly responsible for not keeping a closer eye on Zaheer Mansur,’ Ali added. ‘I think you will find they will help out on the quiet, if they can. Let’s not worry about money at this stage. Let us just concentrate on getting an innocent young girl out of prison.’

  Farah hoped his words would ring true, but she had to wait and see. She recalled the words of the taxi guy at the airport: ‘This is Pakistan, and anything goes.’ She couldn’t just assume that everything was as it seemed, especially after what had happened to Razia. She knew she had to proceed with caution.

  26

  Exactly as he had promised, Ali was waiting in the car outside the hotel entrance promptly at eight o’clock. The long white saloon car, a Toyota of some description, had a driver in the front; Ali was sat in the back, busy shuffling through some papers.

  When Farah stepped out of the air-conditioned building into the already intense morning heat, the blast of hot air almost took her breath away. She hadn’t expected this kind of all-consuming heat so early in the day in April. She was thankful that the car had been parked right outside, just steps away from the hotel.

  Soon they were on their way.

  ‘What’s the prison called? And where is it?’ asked Farah.

  ‘It’s called Central Jail, in Rawalpindi, locally known as Adiala Jail, as it’s off Adiala Road, which is just a few miles away from Adiala village. The prison has a very interesting history,’ said Ali.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was built in the seventies and eighties, during a particularly problematic period, although it would be fair to say that there’s rarely been a time in its history when Pakistan has not endured problems. Have you heard of General Zia-ul-Haq?’

  ‘I’ve heard his name, but I must confess, I don’t know much about him,’ was Farah’s honest answer.

  ‘He presided as the self-declared leader of the country after his audacious coup d’état. This prison replaced the old District Jail, and there was a very particular reason as to why General Zia had decided that the old prison must go: it was the jail in which the previous leader of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, had infamously been executed. General Zia ordered that the District Jail be demolished and turned into a recreational park. He most likely feared that the old prison building would have become a shrine to the former leader, to which people no doubt would have flocked in their droves – something he wanted to avoid at all costs.’

  ‘Wow; shrines are a big deal here, right?’

  ‘Oh yes, shrines are commonplace. The biggest one is Data Darbar in Lahore; the devotees attend in huge numbers, day and night. And there’s Khari Sharif, which is not far from here. The shrines of people regarded as saints, you could say. And that description can extend to politicians too. People still flock to Mazar-e-Quaid, the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, in Karachi. You have to watch the pickpockets, mind you.’

  ‘I see.’

  The journey to the jail took over an hour, during which time Ali explained to Farah as best he could the intricacies of the Pakistani criminal justice and court system. His talk of procedural delays, embedded corruption, administrative oversights and the like didn’t fill Farah with much hope, and in fact it irked her a little.

  ‘You paint a very gloomy picture; what happened to your plan to get an innocent girl out of prison?’ she asked Ali, as she pushed her sunglasses off her face, and perched them on her head. She wondered if this level of doom and gloom was really necessary or appropriate; it appeared as though he was hinting at failure before they had even got started.

  ‘I know it all sounds very pessimistic. But you must realise that things here don’t work like they do in the UK. Believe me, I had the shock of my life trying to adjust to the legal system here after working in the States. In Pakistan there are two different systems that operate side by side – one for the rich, and another for the poor. If you’re wealthy, the chances are you can get away with pretty much anything, even murder, for if you have the money, then all doors are open to you. You just have to speak to the right people, hire the best lawyer, identify the correct loophole, throw the right people the adequate amount of cash, and there you go. Job done. If you’re poor, on the other hand, as our client is, then it’s a totally different story. Without power, money or influence, you will be stuck in the system for years – a system that comprises delays, ineptitude, inequity and, quite frankly, a total disregard for the underprivileged in this society. If you happen to be female, then your fate will be even worse. Women are, to put it bluntly, often simply left to rot.’

  Farah didn’t know what to say to that, at least not to Ali. She felt perturbed by what he had just said. This was all so alien to her. She began to think about all the times in the past when she had complained about the British judicial system, moaned about court delays, or the attitudes of certain judges, or the never-ending rises in court fees. However, having heard Ali’s take on the legal system in Pakistan, she swore to herself not to take the legal system for granted when she got back to the UK, and to actively appreciate all those aspects of her life which were so privileged when compared to Razia’s. But the thing that really niggled her was her realisation that things were far worse for Razia than she had thought, merely because of her gender. She felt responsible for having placed Razia in a precarious position in the first place, and now she felt compelled to get her out of it. Whatever it took.

  She felt a little overwhelmed by her private thoughts of Razia, so she pushed her large sunglasses back down over her eyes, and looked out of the window. The landscape was very dry in parts, and yet quite lush in others. They drove past tiny villages and farms. She could see women walking along the edges of their villages, going about their daily routines, dressed in traditional salwar kameez with dupattas swathed around them. She could see some with gharas expertly perched on their heads; each one of the round clay pots in which they fetched water from the wells would be very heavy, yet some carried two or three. The car passed alongside men toiling away in the fields with their bare hands, digging the soil with the most basic of tools or tending to their crops that were now begi
nning to take shape. Other men were stood on the roadside by their carts, selling traditional fast food; there were freshly fried spicy samosas and pakoras, chana chaat, and there were stands selling kulfi, a cardamom-infused milky ice cream. Other men were sat next to their carts with their donkeys parked up a little way behind them. The carts were weighed down with various fresh fruits and vegetables, including tiny spotty bananas, slender pale red onions and bright plum tomatoes. There wasn’t a burger joint or a pizza shop in sight.

  Farah thought about these men and women fetching water, or digging fields, or selling their goods at the roadside, all in the baking heat of the unforgiving sun. She had found taking just the few steps from the hotel door to the car door difficult this morning, and the heat wasn’t even at its peak yet. These men and women would work in these fields and stand on the side of roads like this up and down the country, for hours, just so they could earn enough to feed their family dhal and roti. She felt a sudden pang of sadness, a strong feeling of grief, such as she had never experienced before; a fierce and unexpected sense of attachment to these people, and their struggles, even though they were all perfect strangers to her. Then her mind turned sharply towards Razia. Razia was not a stranger. Razia was someone she had opened her home to, someone to whom she had made a promise to keep safe.

  ‘I guess what I need to know is, what are you thinking in terms of how you are going to get Razia out of there?’ Farah asked Ali. ‘She hasn’t done anything wrong, and I think you are already convinced of her innocence.’

  ‘I hear what you say, and I have no reason to doubt you,’ said Ali, allowing a smile to escape as he did so. ‘But I still need to speak to her. I have to make sure I hear as much as possible from her, first hand. Once I’ve heard what she has to say about it all, then I will be able to give you a better idea of what we should do.’

  Farah was beginning to relax now; despite finding him a little irksome initially, she had to acknowledge that he was in fact not a severe, draconian Pakistani man, which was the preconceived image that had been fixed in her head. She was starting to warm to him.

  ‘How come the American accent, and not a Pakistani one?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s because I went to high school and university in the US.’

  ‘Really?’

  Farah was surprised; it was rare for men, or women, to return to Pakistan once they had gone overseas. The country suffered massively from the ‘brain drain’.

  ‘Yes, really. My uncle lives there with his family. I went over to live with them as a teenager. After school and college, I studied international law at New York University, and after that I started work at one of the top attorney’s offices in the city. I was doing well. My family used to come out and visit me every year. I was there about fifteen years in all. I only came back to Pakistan five years ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did you come back?’

  ‘Well, my parents and sister still remained in Pakistan.’

  ‘Yes, but you say you had a really good job. And your family visited you.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘So, why did you return?’ Farah probed.

  Ali looked away for a moment and started to fiddle with his hair.

  ‘It’s kinda complicated,’ he replied. His face clouded over and Farah could see that she had hit a raw nerve, although she hadn’t meant to. Nevertheless, she was intrigued. The generally composed Ali had exhibited a tiny chink in his armour. She wondered why.

  Farah could now see the prison in the distance; it was a large fortress in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing surrounding it for miles. There was vast open rural land in every direction as far as the eye could see; patches and swathes of dry, barren territory that was mainly flat, although some hills could be seen further in the distance.

  ‘OK, we’re almost there,’ Ali said.

  Now Farah could clearly see the intimidating prison building looming. And as the commanding jail came into focus, so did Farah’s fears about the task ahead.

  27

  The front entrance to the prison was very distinctive; it had an extravagantly designed arch built around the prison door, reminiscent of Mughal-type architecture, which she had seen in television documentaries back home. If you were ignorant of what the door opened up to, you could be forgiven for thinking that it might lead you to somewhere far nicer than a prison, but once inside, the grandeur of the exterior soon slipped out of your mind.

  Farah and Ali were shown to a small, grey-looking meeting room. It was windowless, dimly lit, and completely bare, save for a small table and four chairs. It had a very particular stench. Sweat, urine and tears came to Farah’s mind, as she struggled to breathe. She felt sick, and she swallowed hard to fight the feeling.

  Razia was brought in by a female guard. Ali and Farah had already seated themselves on one side of the table; Razia came in quietly and sat opposite them. She folded her arms under her chaddar and didn’t speak. The guard left and locked the door behind her. The sound of being locked in startled Farah; she felt the room close in on her.

  Razia’s eyes were sunken, and she had her chaddar wrapped tight around her head and most of her face, right up to her nose, so that it was only her sunken eyes that were visible.

  ‘As-salamu alaykum, Razia,’ said Farah.

  ‘Wa alaykumu as-salam, Bibi ji. Sorry, I mean Farah ji.’

  ‘You know you can just call me Farah. This is Ali Omar; he is a lawyer, and he is going to help you.’

  Razia’s eyes shifted wearily towards Ali. She suddenly sat up straight, and her eyes opened wider. She looked at him for a few seconds, but she didn’t say anything.

  Ali gave a small nod of the head, and a faint smile.

  Razia stared at him with an increased intensity for a few moments and then she looked down.

  ‘That’s right, Razia, I’m going to help you, but I need you to tell me everything you can.’

  ‘Everything?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, anything and everything that helps me to understand why you have been put in jail. Please, don’t be afraid. Talk openly and freely and try and tell me everything that you can remember; every detail, however insignificant you may think that detail may be,’ said Ali.

  Most of Razia’s face was still hidden under her chaddar, but her eyes welled up, and then she started to shake a little. This reminded Farah of the very first time she had seen Razia, cowering in the corner of the kitchen in London, cornered and scared. This wasn’t what she had expected today. She knew Razia would be upset, but she had expected her to look more hopeful once she realised Farah and Ali were here to help her.

  ‘Please, don’t be worried,’ said Ali.

  ‘Ji, Ali Sahib.’

  ‘And there’s no need to call me Sahib. Ali is just fine.’

  Farah shot a glance at Ali. The look was enough for Ali to soften his tone a little.

  ‘You can call me Ali bhai if you like; would that be better?’ Ali said to Razia gently, obviously trying his best to sound as reassuring as he possibly could. It was the first time Farah had heard this soft tone in Ali’s voice.

  Razia’s face was still tense, as though she was there in body, but her mind was somewhere far away, thinking about her mother, perhaps, whom she still hadn’t seen. Razia nodded her head, but she didn’t seem to be present.

  ‘I understand your family work at the brick kiln for Mr Mansur’s older brother? Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Razia. Her voice was low, and she trembled a little as she spoke.

  ‘For what reason were you sent to England, if you normally worked at the brick kiln alongside your family?’

  ‘My family, mainly my brother, wanted to get me away from someone. A young man from a neighbouring village, who also works at the brick kiln with his family. His name is Ahmed. We want to marry each other. Ahmed and I love each other.’

  This was the first time Farah had heard about Ahmed; she thought about Razia’s
tender age, and yet how certain she was that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this man. Farah was now thirty, and was nowhere near this point. She wondered if it was naivety or true love on Razia’s part.

  ‘OK, so what actually happened?’ Ali asked.

  Razia’s chaddar had now slipped below her chin, but it still covered all of her head. She continued to sit with her arms crossed under the chaddar, and went on.

  ‘Ahmed and I love each other and want to get married. Ahmed was going to speak to his family about asking for my hand in marriage. He was going to break off his betrothal to his cousin, and marry me instead. But before he could do that, my brother saw us together. He was absolutely furious. After he beat me, he locked me up, and it was he who decided that I should come away with Mr and Mrs Mansur, because I might bring shame to the family honour if word of my relationship with Ahmed got out. I know that in the eyes of my family I behaved dishonourably, but that was not my intention, nor Ahmed’s. We just want to be together, as husband and wife.’

  Farah felt a bit numb. She had known nothing about the reasons why Razia had been sent to London. If she was honest with herself, she hadn’t really bothered to find out. She had no idea about how much this girl had really suffered at the hands of not just Zaheer, but her brother also. And yet, all she had wanted was to marry her love. Farah had the freedom to marry and couldn’t find her way there; Razia knew who she wanted to marry and was denied the freedom to see it through.

  ‘I have been through the details about the abuse you suffered at the hands of the Mansurs with Farah, and she told me how she came to your rescue. But I would like you to tell me everything in your own words,’ said Ali.

  Razia recalled all the gruesome details of London once again. Ali scribbled the information down on his notepad as fast as it emerged from Razia’s mouth; he showed no emotion as he did so and barely looked up throughout the whole of Razia’s narration. Although what she was saying was very familiar to Farah, it wasn’t any easier for her to listen to it all over again.