Ten Steps To Us by Attiya Khan

Author:Attiya Khan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hashtag BLAK
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Shafqat Aunty turns up for lunch wearing a white salwar kameez that brightens up her soft features even more than her gentle smile naturally does. When I see her, I instantly feel guilty. How can I look her in the eye after all the lies and wrong things I’ve done?

Thankfully, I don’t have to worry too much as Mum and Shafqat Aunty gossip over a huge lunch of biryani and vegetables, dal and roti, without paying much attention to me. We gorge ourselves on Indian sweets and rice pudding and relax in a contented heap over tea in the afternoon.

I’m building up to ask her if she knows any reverts that I can introduce Darren to when she suddenly bursts into tears.

“What’s wrong Shafqat?” Mum asks, grabbing her hands to comfort her.

“It’s my daughter, Zeba,” she says. “She wants to divorce her husband.”

“What?” Mum gasps. “Why? She only got married a couple of years ago, didn’t she? And the baby Zeeshan, he’s only six months old!”

“The man we arranged her marriage to, Sameer, he is not a good man.” Shafqat Aunty sobs. “Zeba always told me that she didn’t want to marry someone from Pakistan, but we couldn’t find anyone from here. But after only one week of marriage, he punched Zeba in the face for not cooking food properly.”

Mum and I exchange a look, both too stunned to speak.

“I don’t know why he is like this,” Shafqat Aunty cries. “He is an educated man, with a good job, and we thought he was from a good family, but he gets so angry.”

Shafqat Aunty tells us that she and her daughter Zeba had hoped things would settle down, but they haven’t. There are periods of quiet, but after a few months, something makes him lose his temper and nothing can stop him from taking it out on Zeba, not even her pregnancy.

The more details Shafqat Aunty reveals about the living hell her daughter is in, the more sick I feel. I can’t imagine how Zeba must be feeling, how desperate she must be.

“Last weekend I had to drive to their house to collect the baby,” Shafqat Aunty says. “Zeba was crying so much. Sameer had left the house after hitting her, and she wanted me to take the baby away. I was so worried she was going to do something to herself, but she just didn’t want the baby to see her like that.”

“Well surely Zeba should get a divorce, shouldn’t she, Shafqat Aunty?” I say. There seems no question about it; the husband sounds like a monster, and neither Zeba nor her child should stay where they are in danger.

“You be quiet, Aisha,” Mum snaps at me.

“No, it’s okay,” says Shafqat Aunty. “Aisha, Zeba has a child now, she has a responsibility to him and to his father, however he may be.”

“But he beats her!” I say.

“That is her fate,” she says, and begins crying again. “It is her bad luck; we are all tested in this life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.