Page 6 of The Circle of Exile
Life.
His life.
She gasped. She had stolen not only his children but also his life…
“Jannat?” A soft-knuckled rasp made her stuff the sob back inside her mouth.
“Jannat…” the voice softened.
“Yes?” She croaked.
“The house is waking up. Faiz is coming for breakfast with some officials. You will need to be downstairs…”
“Yes. I’ll come.”
“I am so sorry…”
“It’s ok, I am just getting up. One minute.”
Iram rubbed her eyes clean. Setting the blackboard down from her lap, she stored the chalk inside the small drawer of the bedside and craned her neck. It was stiff from sitting with her back to the bedpost all night. Her bum was cold and stiff from the naked wooden floor. In spite of the dim fire burning in the old fireplace, her finger joints were frozen.
A shrill cry of a child sounded from somewhere and her breasts felt heavy. She knew what was coming next even before it happened. Her pheran stuck to her chest, the wet, cool trails slithering down to her stomach. Iram turned to get up and clean herself but stopped, caught by the chalk lines on the board.
Then, breasts wet, breath heavy, for a person who would have screamed bloody murder if even one word as much as vanished in a computer crash, Iram simply took the edge of her dupatta and wiped the slate clean. Including his name.
She glanced back — mad rain pattering on the window, Atharva standing alone, empty onesies left out of the hospital bag she had stolen for herself. Iram kept staring. Joy had passed, sorrow had passed. Nothing remained inside her. But, even this nothingness belonged to him.
“Jannat? Are you coming?”
Iram did not turn away from the rainy window — “Yes.”
————————————————————
The house of Soni Mehrunisa was alive at dawn, the kitchen its epicentre as her servants prepared a feast for breakfast. The Mir, her younger brother, was coming here with some ‘officials’ after their night hunting trip.
“You don’t have to come in front of them,” Mehrunisa informed her, sitting her down on the edge of the platform built outside the kitchen. “But in case they ask, I needed you to be ready. Cover your face if you have to come, ok?”
Iram nodded. A warm hand came to her forehead — “Do you have fever, gurun?”
Iram lifted her eyes to the soft, concerned ones of her sister. Her elder sister. She was so beautiful. Her face was round, her cat eyes gleaming hazel green with kindness spilling out, her smile just like a mother’s. Any mother’s. Right now, her brows were knitted in a frown. And her eyes were wide, like they always were with her own little daughter.
“Jannat, is it happening again?” She lowered her voice. Iram snapped out.
“No,” she felt the word come out of her mouth but not loud enough. She cleared her throat. Mehrunisa took her hand and pulled her up. They crossed the kitchen and the alleys and the vast hall of the house that was a palace that the Mir had given to his sister to live in. Her husband wasn’t around, having married again after stealing her jewellery and swindling her to sign over her offshore bank accounts. Mehrunisa, in her own words, was happier with that outcome.
She opened the door of her bedroom and walked Iram in, then closed it. Iram glanced at the small lump on the wide bed. Her 8-year-old daughter. Gul. A smile pulled at her lips at the drool running down the side of her mouth. Iram reached down and wiped it. Then pulled the double duvet tighter around her.
“Jannat?”
She turned. Mehrunisa’s small, rotund body was barring the door and her hands were on her waist. Iram had always thought that if one wasn't a certain shape, one wasn’t beautiful. Soni Mehru challenged that claim silently and came out looking so glorious. Or maybe it was Iram’s own bias.
“Gul will wake up,” Iram whispered.
“She sleeps through earthquakes. Sit down and tell me if you are ok.”
Iram wanted to nod and lie that she was. She lowered herself to the edge of the bed and was about to do just that before she stopped. What was the use of lying? She had confided in Mehrunisa about her condition. About her circumstance. Not the full name of her husband or father or their profession, but she had told her everything she could without names. Sensing the delicacy of her situation, Mehrunisa had never questioned her on anything else.
“It’s different today,” Iram croaked. Her sister stepped close and sat beside her. “Different how?”
