Razia

by Abda Khan

  ‘Do not reproach yourself, beti. He managed to deceive just about everyone, including me. I was his superior, remember, and I had no idea whatsoever about what he was up to. You at least raised the alarm about his mistreatment of Razia, but I was clueless about that as well as everything else. If I’d had even an inkling, I would have taken action immediately. I must also be allowed to have my own regrets; I should have been more aware of the sort of man he was, and what he was capable of.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing more we can do about this case. I couldn’t help Razia in time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help others like her who are suffering in the world today. Modern-day slavery is an insidious evil, and someone has to do something.’

  Farah got up to leave.

  ‘There is just one more thing. I’ve had a request. From Aneela,’ said Mr Amin.

  ‘Really? What kind of a request?’

  ‘A request to meet with you. She’s back in London, and she really wants to see you.’

  Farah thought back to the last time she had seen Aneela; she could picture her now, stood over her, threatening her, telling her to stop meddling.

  ‘Why would I want to see her? She should be locked up alongside her husband. She’s just as guilty as him.’

  ‘I don’t blame you for not wanting to see her …’

  ‘I detect a “but”,’ remarked Farah.

  ‘She cannot harm you. If nothing else, you can give her a piece of your mind and bring some closure to the whole sorry affair.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Farah murmured, but her mind was already drifting.

  As Farah left the office, she thought about Razia once again; how despite having a voice, she had been voiceless. Farah couldn’t dispel the thoughts of how alone and helpless Razia must have felt, and she promised herself that she would make it her mission to help others like Razia and try to ease their suffering.

  43

  Aneela answered the door. She wore a plain navy blue salwar suit today. She had very little make-up on and looked about ten years younger for it. Her hair was scrunched up into a simple ponytail, and her nails were naked today.

  She showed Farah into the lounge, which was now almost bare of all its fancy showpieces, paintings and ornaments. The sofas were still there. How the mighty have fallen; perhaps a bit of a cliché, but Farah couldn’t think of a better phrase.

  Farah sat down in the single seater.

  ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ Aneela asked.

  ‘Nothing, thank you. I’m fine.’

  Farah was taken aback by the hospitality shown by Aneela, especially when she thought back to her earlier hostility.

  Aneela walked over to the mantelpiece and picked something up.

  ‘Your earring,’ she said, as she handed it to Farah.

  Farah couldn’t believe it; she had given up all hope of ever seeing it again.

  ‘I found it in the pantry,’ Aneela added.

  The pantry, thought Farah; the place where she had secretly first set eyes on Razia. She couldn’t think about that moment without a mix of grief and anger bubbling up inside her, although she told herself that she needed to try and stay calm.

  ‘Can I fetch you a cold drink, perhaps?’ asked Aneela.

  ‘I’m good.’ Farah let out a pent-up sigh. ‘This isn’t really a social call. I probably wouldn’t have come had it not been for Mr Amin. Anyway, I’m here now, and perhaps we can get this over and done with.’

  Aneela sat down slowly.

  ‘You must think it strange my asking you to come here.’

  ‘It did cross my mind.’

  ‘I— I wanted to explain,’ said Aneela hesitantly.

  Farah rolled her eyes; she could feel the fury towards Aneela simmering inside her, and she wondered if she would be able to restrain herself from launching a full-on attack.

  ‘Explain, huh? I don’t think you could say anything that would ever “explain” what you and that rotten husband of yours did to poor Razia. You beat her, imprisoned her, starved her, and ultimately you killed her.’

  Farah could see that her words had wounded Aneela, who fought back the tears and then inhaled a few sharp breaths.

  ‘It is not how it seems.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Farah; just like her husband, Aneela was refusing to take any responsibility for her actions. ‘I saw you; I heard you. The evening of the dinner party, I was watching you both from the pantry, listening to your abusive tirade against poor Razia, who was crouched over in the kitchen. You were threatening her!’

  ‘What exactly did you see and hear? Did you see me hit Razia, or even threaten to? No! What you actually saw was me pulling my husband away before he could make contact with Razia. Yow saw me intervening and stopping him from hurting her. I always tried to whenever I could. It wasn’t always possible. How do you think Razia got that scar on her face? That happened on one of those days when I couldn’t stop him.’

  Farah held her breath for just a moment and thought back to the scene in the kitchen.

  ‘I know you think you have possession of all the facts, but believe me, you don’t,’ said Aneela. She joined her hands in her lap and interlocked her fingers.

  ‘I am actually Zaheer’s second wife; or should I say, much younger second wife. Did you know that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ This really was news to Farah. Aneela had agreed to be a second wife; something Farah herself had refused to do for Tahir.

  ‘I am twenty-one years younger than him. His first wife lives permanently in the family haveli in Pakistan; I am the one who stays with him wherever he is; his full-time wife, if you like. I travel and stay with him wherever he goes, and I see to his every need, if you know what I mean.’

  Farah was genuinely surprised to hear this. She had noticed that Aneela looked younger than Zaheer but had never guessed the age gap to be so vast. She must have been very young when she married him, thought Farah – in which case, would she have had much say in the matter?

  ‘He and his first wife, they have three children; all boys. The youngest is in his early teens now,’ said Aneela, although Farah noticed that her voice choked up a little as she did so.

  Farah thought back to her visit to the Mansur mansion. The teenage boy who she saw fleetingly in the hallway, and the woman who addressed her and Ali briefly, before she disappeared as well. It all suddenly made sense now.

  ‘I think I might have seen him when we went to the haveli. And his mother too. Of course, I didn’t know who they were.’

  ‘She is the traditional, plain, stay-at-home, run-the-house, see-to-the-children wife. I am the younger, prettier, glamourous one. The one who travels around the world with him, who goes to all the parties with him, who entertains all the guests for him; the one who looks good on his arm. I am the trophy wife.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Farah. She thought about the glitzy life Aneela had obviously led, and what a contrast this was to the life of the plain, traditional wife she had seen back in Pakistan. She doubted very much if the life of glamour had been any hardship for Aneela.

  ‘Me and Razia were never all that different, you know,’ Aneela continued. ‘We were both slaves.’

  Hearing this comparison really rattled Farah; she was tempted to give Aneela a piece of her mind, but somehow held her tongue and allowed her to continue.

  ‘The only difference is that I’m still alive and she is dead. But there were many times when I wished that I was dead.’

  Aneela cleared her throat before continuing.

  ‘I come from a middle-class family in Lahore that fell upon hard times. My mother used to be a teacher, and my father was the principal at the same school. They also taught local children privately. I only have one sibling; a brother who is younger than me, and severely disabled, mentally and physically. But we lived comfortably in a small apartment in the city. My parents always managed to provide for his needs and to see to my education.’

  Farah thought about how tough it must have been to have
a severely disabled child, especially in Pakistan, where the healthcare facilities were nowhere near as good as in Britain.

  ‘That is, until our lives turned on their heads, when my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and my mother’s health deteriorated very quickly. Her diabetes was out of control, and with my father gone, we struggled to pay the bills and to feed ourselves, let alone pay for much-needed medicines and treatment for my mum and brother. I finished university and started to look for a job. Our savings had dwindled away, and we were certain to lose our home because of our mounting debts. The apartment itself was in desperate need of repairs.’

  Farah tried to imagine what this must have been like. She had never experienced any such difficulties; she’d had amazing support from her parents throughout her studies and during her training before she qualified. She couldn’t imagine doing all that and being responsible for looking after others as well.

  ‘Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a marriage proposal came from Zaheer. He had seen me at my university when he had come to make some presentations at an awards ceremony, and apparently, he was smitten. He enquired after me and someone mentioned my circumstances; he didn’t waste any time. He saw and seized the opportunity. He pounced on my vulnerable situation.’

  After getting to know Zaheer so well, after seeing for herself the predatory nature of his character, Farah could have some idea of Aneela’s situation.

  ‘He asked my mother for my hand in marriage, and in return he said he would move my mum and brother to better accommodation and see to all my family’s expenses. I would never say that my mother forced me into the marriage, but I didn’t really have much choice. We were crippled financially, and about to become homeless.’

  Farah could only conjecture as to the sort of pressure that Aneela must have felt at the time to agree to the proposal. She could feel some sympathy in this regard, but at the same time, it did not excuse Aneela’s complicity with Zaheer’s treatment of Razia. In fact, in some ways it made it worse.

  ‘Even if I had found a job straight away, I would never have had a salary that would be able to meet the medical needs of my family,’ continued Aneela. ‘So I agreed to the proposal. We got married. And to this day, my mother and brother want for nothing. They, and Zaheer, all had everything they needed; the only one who lost out was me.’

  ‘What do you want from me? Do you want me to feel sorry for you? You stood by and let your husband beat an innocent young girl,’ said Farah.

  ‘I too was trapped; my family’s welfare depended upon my staying in this marriage. But it was more than that. I was petrified of what he would do if I ever left him; to me, to my family. I’m not like you. I was never brave enough. I wasn’t even brave enough to fight for my children.’

  Farah could see that Aneela’s face was troubled, as though she was trying to push away something too painful to talk about.

  ‘Your children? I thought you didn’t have any kids.’

  ‘I became pregnant twice. I was so happy. The only thing that could have made my existence tolerable, pleasurable even, was to have a child or children of my own. But you see, the scans showed that I was expecting girls. And Zaheer did not want any girls. I had to have them aborted; both of them. My beautiful girls. The older one would have been seven this year, and the younger one five.’

  Farah didn’t know what to say. She looked closely at Aneela and tried to visualise the horrors that this woman had been through. Farah knew she could never stand in her shoes, but she could imagine the abuse that Zaheer had inflicted on her, on both her body and her mind. Her thoughts flashed back to the day that Mr Mansur Senior had simply held his hand up to silence her; she could only imagine the way that Zaheer and his family must have treated Aneela.

  ‘Because of the complications of the second abortion, I have been told that I will never be able to have children.’

  Aneela’s façade cracked, and tears began to trickle down her face.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Farah. ‘I had absolutely no idea. You looked so in control, so self-assured. I would never have guessed.’

  ‘Why would you? You saw the glamorous, all smiling, all cheerful, devoted wife. But I was dead inside. I did try to caution you. You mistook my warnings as utterances of blind loyalty towards my husband. I was trying to warn you not interfere in the affairs of this man, for your own sake, and for Razia’s. I knew, more than anyone else, what he was capable of.’

  Farah put her hand to her mouth in dismay, unable to say anything. She remembered how insistent Aneela had been, desperate even, that evening when she had gone to their apartment with Mr Amin. Farah recalled how she had tried her level best to get Farah to put a stop to it all; it had been her way of warning her.

  ‘I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty,’ Aneela added quickly. ‘I don’t blame anyone, except for him.’

  Aneela shifted her weight forward and leaned closer to Farah.

  ‘I asked you to come here not so that you would feel sorry for me. It’s because I wanted to thank you.’

  ‘Thank me?’

  ‘Of course I am desperately sad that Razia is dead; you must believe that. But if it wasn’t for you, I would never have been able to escape him. It’s thanks to you that he is behind bars, and from what I have been told, he is likely to remain there for a very long time, hopefully until the day he dies.’

  Farah undertook the journey back home feeling confounded and astonished; just when she had thought she couldn’t hear any more wickedness about Zaheer, here she was, reeling on the tube journey back to her apartment at the thought of what he had inflicted upon Aneela. And she reeled even more at the fact that she had got it all so terribly wrong; she had assumed Aneela to be complicit, because she was Zaheer’s wife and enjoyed the high life with him. In all of the mayhem, she had completely missed the clues that pointed to her being another silent victim.

  44

  Farah’s second day back at work was almost over, and she had found it hard to concentrate. Thoughts of Aneela had tumbled around in her mind, and she wondered to what extent Paul had known about Aneela’s sad life, about the way she had also suffered at the hands of his best friend. She concluded that he had probably not known a great deal; Zaheer had managed to pull the wool over his eyes on just about everything else, so probably this too.

  She had tried to contact Ali many times since she had got back to London, but he hadn’t picked up or returned any of her calls or replied to her messages. She was anxious to bring him up to speed, to tell him about what she had discovered about Aneela. She really wanted to talk to him, not only about this latest development, but more generally about the aftermath of the whole affair, and about what, if anything, she could do, for she felt she must do something.

  Farah came out of the offices at the end of the day and started her walk to the tube station. When she turned the corner, she nearly fell over with shock. There was Ali, leaning against the wall.

  ‘Hi!’ he said and pulled out a box of mitai from behind his back. ‘For you!’

  ‘Oh my God! What are you doing here? When did you come? Why on earth didn’t you—’

  ‘Forget all that, we can discuss it later,’ he butted in. ‘I saw a really nice halal Chinese place around the corner. What say you?’

  Farah let out a loud sigh, smiled at him, nodded her head, thinking how food always came first with Ali, and they walked to the restaurant.

  Ali took a long time to order, and he wasn’t his quite his usual chatty self, which Farah found strange. They hadn’t really had a proper conversation yet, and Farah had so many questions she needed answering.

  ‘Ali. What’s going on? How come you are in London?’ she asked him.

  ‘Well, it’s nice to see you too,’ he remarked, but his words faded away quietly towards the end of the sentence.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,’ Farah replied. ‘It’s really good to see you.’

  Ali remained quiet. Farah looked at him, but he
didn’t make much eye contact. He checked his phone briefly before looking up.

  ‘Great news about Zaheer; my mate in the police filled me in,’ said Ali.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I wanted you to hear it from me first,’ Farah said. She really had wanted to be the one to tell him what had happened.

  ‘I did see the missed calls, but I was busy trying to sort my flight and then I thought we may as well speak when I got here.’

  ‘He is behind bars still, isn’t he?’ asked Farah, still fearing Zaheer might wriggle out of it.

  ‘Treason is effectively what he’s guilty of by abusing his position to try to act against Pakistan’s best interests. And with the charge of murder in addition, I don’t think he will be going anywhere anytime soon.’

  ‘Good! I hope they lock him up and throw away the key. He should rot in there until the day he dies!’ she replied.

  After this short burst of chatter, Ali went quiet again. His being awkwardly silent was not something Farah was familiar with; nor was his avoiding eye contact.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re quiet, which is unusual for you at the best of times, let alone when you have just hopped off a plane and turned up outside my work so randomly, without a word of warning. And you’re fidgety.’

  Ali put his mobile phone down. His face, although not unhappy, was strained. For the first time since they had sat down together, he looked directly at Farah.

  ‘You must know?’ Ali said softly.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘You must realise why I am here. You must know why I am sat before you just three days before my sister’s big day, why I have travelled nearly five thousand miles to speak to you only to fly back in time for the wedding.’

  With everything that had been going on, Farah had forgotten how close his sister’s wedding was. She looked at him, and wondered why he had actually come; she wanted to believe her gut feeling, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself. She couldn’t put herself through that.