by Sufiya Ahmed
After you left all hell kinda broke loose here. Your Taya-ji stormed over to Mom’s house and threatened her with all sorts unless she gave details of where you were. Your parents were with him. Mom said she didn’t know, which was the truth. They left after that, vowing never to set foot in her house again. That promise didn’t last very long – they returned the next day, or at least your parents did. I’m sure you can guess why.
Asif had returned home after letting you go to demand what Taya-ji’s plans were for him. Your dad explained that shortly after the marriage it was expected that you would both move to England. Your poor dad tried to convince Asif that he could run the grocery store for him. You can imagine Asif’s horror at seeing such a future for himself. Of course he was having none of it and shouted at the top of his voice that he would never leave Pakistan. In turn your dad made it quite clear that you could not be expected to remain in Sindh. It was crazy. Your dad was still assuming that you would marry Asif. He seemed to believe that the issue was not about convincing you to marry, but rather to persuade Asif to move to England. To cut a long story short, Asif said he refused to marry you now that he knew the arrangement had been all about getting him to emigrate. There was no shifting him and he left for Islamabad the very same day.
Anyway, your Taya-ji then turned on your parents. He demanded that after the shame you had brought on the family, you needed to be publicly disowned. You’ll be pleased to hear that your dad finally developed some backbone against his older brother. He said you were his daughter, his child, and he was not going to do anything of the kind. He publicly acknowledged that he had only agreed to the marriage arrangement because of Taya-ji’s fears for Asif. He had wanted to help, but now that Asif had made it clear that he would not move to England the agreement was void. Hey presto, your parents were kicked out of Taya-ji’s house! They stayed here at Mom’s until their flight home was rearranged.
Since they got back your mum has been calling me desperate to find out where you are. They cannot locate you. Nighat says she’s been crying to some friend of yours called Susan to get her to reveal where you are, but the kid insists she doesn’t know anything. You might not want to hear this, Zeba, but Mom and I think you should get in touch with your parents. They just want to meet up and reassure themselves that you are all right. When the time is right perhaps you can also go home. I think you can trust them now.
I couldn’t believe it. My parents wanted me to come home? After everything they had put me through, they thought they could just turn the clock back? Before I could think too much I pressed reply to the message and started typing:
Wa alaikum salaam, Nusrat-kala,
I am well and safe. Please don’t worry about me. I am not ready to meet them, let alone go home to Mum and Dad.
Please respect that.
With much love
Zeba
Later that day Tara came to see me.
‘Hey, I’ve got something you might be interested in.’
I looked up half-heartedly; she held out an A4 brown envelope.
‘What is it?’ I asked, fumbling with the opening. Of course I could have ripped it apart but for some reason I was afraid of what I would find. Finally I reached inside and pulled out two sheets of paper.
My breath caught in my throat. It was my GCSE results.
My eyes scanned the grades. I couldn’t believe it: eight A-stars. Overwhelmed, I burst into tears.
‘Hey, they can’t be that bad,’ Tara said hurriedly. ‘And so what if they are – you can always resit and …’ Her voice trailed off as her eyes stared down at the paper. Suddenly she exclaimed, ‘What are you crying for, you silly girl! You’ve topped it.’
I cried even harder.
‘Oh, you silly girl,’ Tara beamed, reaching out to hug me. ‘You should be proud. You are one very, very clever girl.’
I hiccupped against her shoulder. I didn’t know why I was crying. I should have been happy. These results were what I had worked so hard for. Susan and I had slaved over revision charts and guides. My bedroom wall had been covered in notes to help me memorize maths formulae, French phrases and diagrams of the human heart. It had all been worth it, and yet somehow, looking at my surroundings and feeling the emptiness inside me, I couldn’t help thinking that somehow it had not. I should have opened my results in front of my parents, not a charity worker, and they should have been proud of me.
Tara seemed to guess my thoughts. ‘Hey, look, I’m not your family, but let me take you out to celebrate tonight,’ she offered. ‘It will be my treat. We’ll take Surjit too.’
A feeling of shame immediately took over me. I had to be the most ungrateful human ever. Tara had gone to the trouble of getting my results, and now she was offering to take me out to celebrate. She had also just hugged me with genuine warmth and concern for my feelings – something I couldn’t recall my mum ever doing. I nodded my head in agreement. ‘That would be nice, thank you, Tara.’
‘You know,’ Tara said gently, ‘it’s OK to miss your parents and your home.’
‘I don’t,’ I lied, not convincing either of us.
That evening Tara, Surjit, Nasreen and I tucked into a lavish Chinese meal.
Nasreen had been sitting by herself in the TV room when Tara had spotted her. Although Tara didn’t work with her she had kindly invited her anyway. Nasreen never spoke a word, but seemed content to be with us, heartily eating every fish and vegetable dish that Tara offered. I thought Tara would treat the dinner like a counselling session, but she didn’t. Instead she spent the entire evening talking about her favourite Bollywood movies. Surjit, another film buff, joined in with her own list.
‘What about your number one movie, Zeba?’ Tara asked me.
I thought of the doomed dancer Umrao Jaan, and Sehar’s pain over the heroine’s unhappy ending. ‘Pakeezah,’ I replied, ignoring the image of the beautiful Umrao in my mind and opting instead for the dancer whose dreams did come true. ‘I loved how she got her happy ending.’
‘Good choice,’ Tara said. ‘Into classics, are you?’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled. ‘But it was a friend’s favourite. She kept making me watch it again and again until I fell in love with it too.’
‘Well, your friend’s got good taste,’ Tara laughed.
‘Yes, Sehar had the best taste,’ I said, biting my lip. I knew I had just turned a corner. This was the first time I had spoken Sehar’s name out loud without bursting into tears.
Tara smiled at me and I could see something in her eyes. She had never known Sehar except for that rushed telephone conversation when she had urged her to escape. I wondered what Tara felt about my dead friend.
Unaware that a sensitive moment had just passed, Surjit moved the conversation on to her fascination with a certain actor’s biceps. Once that topic was exhausted, Tara asked if I’d thought about her suggestion to go to college to do my A levels. I knew I should, but I just couldn’t will myself to enrol at the local college. Tara, however, didn’t let up. She bugged me about it and by the end of the meal I’d given in.
The next day Tara didn’t let me forget, and she took me down to the college first thing to enrol. History, law, politics, English … But within days I was glad that I had done it. Surjit, meanwhile, had enrolled in Year Eleven at a local school. She instantly made friends whereas I had none at my college. But that was how I wanted it. The textbooks were my escape from the boredom at the hostel, and the only friends I wanted were my old ones.
The emails from Nusrat-kala were constant and repetitive. She begged me to meet with my parents who were still searching for me. I couldn’t understand why she was pushing this on me when she’d been instrumental in my escape. Surely she could understand that I couldn’t just forgive them. After another email to tell her that I wasn’t interested, I began to ignore her emails and delete them along with the rest.
I wasn’t a fool.
/> Chapter 31
I was going to my first pop concert. Some of the other women at the hostel thought it was amazing that I was a sixteen-year-old who had never been to a music concert. I’d just shrugged, not bothering to explain the reason. My parents had never allowed it because they were convinced concerts were an epicentre for drugs, alcohol, boys and, above all, the ultimate in Muslim parental reasoning: what would people think of a young Asian girl allowed out past seven in the evening?
I was so excited. Susan had been going to concerts since we were fourteen and she always told me about how amazing the live performances were. I couldn’t wait to experience it for myself. I was dressed up in black skinny jeans and a red sequinned top I had bought from the market after an agonizing deliberation. Surjit, on the other hand, went to the extreme with her gothic style: black lipstick and nail polish completed her black ensemble. Standing next to her, I was sure I looked like a disco queen.
The concert was incredible and I loved it, but going to sleep later that night I was struck by a bolt of guilt. My parents had been very clear about the rules I needed to follow. Until this bizarre marriage proposal with Asif had popped up, I’d led a carefree life within the boundaries set by my religion and culture. There were certain things that were not allowed: alcohol, drugs and boyfriends, but I was fine with that. I’d never wanted those things anyway. But what about the endless opportunities that were available to me now? I could come and go as I pleased. I could do whatever I wanted and nobody could stop me. But did I want to do all the things that I could?
I decided that just because I could didn’t mean I had to. The only thing my parents would’ve disapproved of was the pop concert. Other than that, I was still behaving appropriately, and boys were the last thing on my mind after what I had just been through with Asif.
No, I thought, falling asleep, those aunties will have nothing on me to gossip about at their weekly tea parties … Well, apart from the fact that I had run away from my wedding. Actually, I didn’t think the auntie-jis needed anything else. That bit of information was enough to last them a lifetime.
My nannyma was a woman of words. She also thought that the tragedy of the Muslim world was that there were neither enough writers nor enough readers. She asked me once when I was in Pakistan: what was more important, reading or writing? I answered that we needed to have writers in order to have material for readers.
‘But if the writers thought there were more readers, Zeba, they would write more,’ she’d pointed out.
Pushing my feet against the ground to sway the swing on that lazy afternoon, I could not see what the fuss was about. ‘Readers, writers, what does it matter?’
‘It matters,’ my nannyma had said, noting my dismissive expression, ‘because written words articulate history, tradition and thoughts. Without the reflections of society captured by writers, we cannot learn about the past, we cannot make sense of the present and we cannot improve our future.’
So that was why my nannyma kept a diary, and that is why Nusrat-kala posted me a package: a hardback journal, written with dried black ink. She sent it from Pakistan to the Forced Marriage Unit in London, and through Tara they passed it on to me.
When it arrived, I held the precious item in my hands. I flicked through the pages lovingly, knowing it had belonged to my nannyma. I remembered sitting with her on the swing, watching her fountain pen scrape across the handmade paper as she drew the script of her language. I had never asked what she was writing. It had never occurred to me.
I raised the journal to my nose and breathed in the scent of my grandmother. It was her Lilies of the Valley talcum powder mixed with the aromatic smell of the cloves that always swam in her tea. Lowering the book, I turned the pages more slowly. The writing was in Urdu and I could not read it. But Nusrat-kala had included a letter for me in English, in which she had translated a part of Nannyma’s diary, dated July.
Tuesday, 3pm
Zeba is sitting on the swing with me. I grow to love this girl more every day and it breaks my heart to think about what they will do to her. Of course what they have planned for her is nothing different from what has been planned for centuries for the girls born into these ancient parts of our land. But times have changed. She is not a product of her ancestors; she is not what her own mother is: a subordinate of the men surrounding her.
I see myself in Zeba when I was young. In the stubborn set of her chin, her flashing eyes when she is angry, passionate and even very rarely … happy. She has a mind of her own that cannot fathom the traditions of this village. And that is what the practices are: tradition, not religion.
The tradition of a father choosing his daughter’s husband.
The tradition of marrying cousins to keep land and wealth within the family.
The tradition of a woman never voicing her own likes or dislikes – her own desires.
The tradition of this rural, feudal land has nothing in common with the modern world.
My heart aches for my Zeba and it literally cries when I see her friend Sehar. Sher Shah’s family have been relentless in trying to break the spirit of this beautiful, bright young woman and I think they are not far off. How much more will she be able to take? Does her mother never wonder what is happening to her child? Does the same fate await my Zeba?
Sometimes I think women without daughters are the worst culprits against the daughters of others. They treat them so badly because karma cannot come back round to them. They will never shed tears knowing their own precious daughters are being abused. This invincibility strengthens the malice and spite in their hearts, eroding the compassion and love that should reign there.
My Zeba is my child now. She means more to me than she does to her own mother. Nighat is an empty shell, devoid of the protective instinct she should feel for her baby. So the task falls to me. I shall do what I can, but I do not have much hope. How to stop a man like Mustaq Khan is a matter that haunts my sleep. This charade is happening because he wants it. A British passport for his son now that the angel of death hovers a few paces behind the soldiers of our army. What has happened to our country? Suicide bombs in our cities placed there by our own citizens. The threat of an American invasion unless our army takes control of the growing insurgency. It is a daily worry for us all, but more so for the parents of a beloved son.
And Asif? The soldier, the hero, who is oblivious to his parents’ concern about his welfare and even more ignorant about the reasons behind the choice of his bride. He is brave or foolish depending on perspective, but he will never leave Pakistan. He will never abandon his comrades to flee his homeland. And my Zeba. What will become of her? She will wither away in this village and before long she will become the young widow of a man she was forced to marry.
I spoke to her father before he left for the UK. I told him plainly what I thought and he listened quietly and then broke down in tears. He reminded me of the little boy he’d been all those years ago, constantly in the shadow of his older brother. Their father had been right to organize his younger son’s passport and residency visa to the UK. He had wanted his youngest to build his own life, away from the intimidating older son. But this village hasn’t changed over time. The people have grown older, but the power structures have not changed. My son-in-law is still as much in the shadow of Mustaq as he was when growing up. I know he does not want this marriage for Zeba. He is a man of words and dreams and he wanted more for his daughter, but he says his hands are tied. Obligations to the family must come first, he insists. I objected. No, I said. Your daughter is not a possession to give away. She has her own life, her own desires. She is not a lifeless doll. Would he be able to live with her unhappiness on his conscience? He replied that he would have to. After all, what choice did he really have? It was either to give Zeba up or to be banished from his family.
He has made his choice. It is slowly killing him to do this to his only child, but he is tied to helping his
brother. But I am not tied by these male bonds of obligation. I have to do something. My Zeba cannot be the sacrifice to save Asif from his fate on the battlefield. I will find the right time to speak to the imam. I will appeal to him to intervene. I will beg him to make Mustaq Khan understand that a sin cannot be committed against this young child because of a father’s fears for his son.
When I had finished reading, I wiped away the tears that were streaming down my face. Could I believe this and find a way to forgive my father?
The next day I felt strong enough to read the translation to Aisha during our private counselling session and she advised me to try to understand the significance of what my nannyma had written. Aisha said my dad had acted out of obligation rather than lack of love for me. It was important for me to understand that his love as a parent had always been there, but he had come under immense pressure – the kind that we might never comprehend – to do the bidding of his older brother. In a way my dad had also been oppressed by Taya-ji. It didn’t mean that what he’d done was OK, but that things were never as simple as they seemed.
I listened to Aisha calmly, but the words echoed in my mind constantly.
Dad had acted out of obligation rather than lack of love for me.
Dad had acted out of obligation rather than lack of love for me.
Dad had acted out of obligation rather than lack of love for me.
Chapter 32
I felt safe now. My world moved along like clockwork. I studied, I ate and I slept. There was nobody telling me what to do. I could almost say I was my own person. I was independent … but I still wasn’t happy.
Alice was up at the crack of dawn with me every day. While I moped around the kitchen, Alice would do stretches in preparation for her morning run.
One day she smiled at me and said, ‘Why don’t you come for a run with me instead of staring at the kitchen wall?’