Women Dreaming by Salma

Author:Salma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tilted Axis Press
Published: 2020-10-01T13:13:14+00:00

Chapter 37

Sajida longed to be near her mother. Her tongue was dry, every part of her body ached, she felt that she would be much better if only she could rest her head on her mother’s lap and go to sleep.

Just as coconut oil freezes into a far end of the bottle in winter, so Sajida too retracted into a corner of the house. Subaida’s care and her father’s love were not enough. No one could care or love her the way her mother did. She was peeved. In that room where she and her mother and her father and brother had once slept – now there was no one else but her. Everyone was floating in a different direction, scattered. All her anger was directed at her father. She could simply not accept his second marriage which he had entered into for purely selfish reasons. For some reason, now, she drew pleasure from her mother’s anger and her revenge, although she felt that Amma really should have taken the children into consideration. Then she started thinking about her mother’s ears which would now be free from hearing Asiya’s constant complaints. Her mother’s ears would find some respite, there was no denying that.

Not having eaten since morning made her stomach uneasy, and she grew nauseous. Three times Subaida Nanni had come inside and asked her to eat, the gruel and lentil chutney was going dry. She wanted to call her mother, but she wasn’t sure how to talk to her. She couldn’t call from her father’s phone. By now, Asiya would have informed her mother, and she would be in tears. If she had a little physical strength she could go to Asiya Nanni’s house and make the call from there – but that was not possible now. She lay down for a bit and tried to remember her mother’s gentle touch.

All the women of the neighbourhood came and visited her.

Though you have a mother, you are suffering like an orphan, they said. Even in expressing their sympathy, they displayed their anger towards her mother.

That alone was enough to instigate Subaida’s fury. She started scolding the visitors recklessly.

Disease was giving way to all types of thoughts. Whenever Saji went to pick out clothes at a shop or to eat at a restaurant, she encountered other children accompanied by both parents. It made her yearn for her own. One day, she saw a girl of her age try on clothes to display to both her parents. The father liked it, the mother did not – she picked out another tunic and asked the daughter to go and try it on. But the father did not approve this time, his face showed dissatisfaction.

Until they both settled on a dress they liked, this scene kept repeating itself, and Sajida kept looking. Sajida did not want to keep living. She had thought a few times about dying.

She wanted to run away from this village to somewhere far away, without any plan of returning. She did not want anybody’s looks of sympathy thrown in her direction.

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