Next part:
---
Seven days had now passed since Ibn's disappearance from home. Today, he was gone from the world itself.
Ibn's wife had also begun to deceive herself by thinking this was just some illness, some disturbance in her stomach. She thought it would get better on its own. But this disturbance was not ordinary. Her internal organs had deteriorated after giving birth to five children in poverty and semi-starvation, one after the other. She often suffered from severe stomach pains, which she had now become accustomed to suppressing. The blood in her body had been drained away through milk by her five children. On top of this, poverty hovered over them like dark clouds.
Ibn's income was meager, barely enough to manage food. Their daughter, who had reached youth, was beginning to wither. Her youth was passing silently, like a winter moon. Two of their children had been enrolled in school, but they could not continue beyond the third grade. Ibn had pulled them out, as his shoulders could not bear such burdens. Now both boys worked in a tea shop for fifteen rupees a month and were paid in bread and clothes. These were Noor's little children. They left home at dawn and returned at midnight. Sometimes, sleep and exhaustion would not even let them reach home—they would fall asleep right on the footpath.
For the past three or four months, some money had begun to appear in their home. Ibn and his wife had begun to hope that perhaps their daughter's marriage could take place soon. They even managed to have two sets of clothes stitched. When his wife asked where he was suddenly earning more from, Ibn told her he was working two jobs. He never let his wife know that poverty and hunger had dragged him into dark paths, and that he had now joined a gang of thieves and pickpockets.
But now, for the past seven or eight days, this impoverished family was in distress. Hunger was not as worrying as the misfortune that had begun when Ibn had disappeared from home. The police had started harassing his family. He was a state witness—the case could not succeed without him. And he had vanished. His wife and children were deeply troubled, wondering where he had gone, for he had never been absent from home before.
Within those seven days, police had raided their quarters twice at midnight. They had overturned the rusty trunks in the house. They had dragged the sleeping children out of bed by their arms. They had kept his sick wife standing for an hour while interrogating her, and even harassed their young daughter. The older boys had been taken to the police station, beaten, and locked up in the lockup for two nights. The sole purpose was to force them to reveal Ibn's whereabouts.
There was hardly a single day in those seven when a policeman had not knocked at their door two or three times, barged in, and searched both rooms thoroughly. Their daughter would be buried in shame—sometimes her cheeks were touched, sometimes a hand brushed her back. Only the children cried out of hunger; the mother and daughter had lost all sense of eating or sleeping.
On the eighth night, around ten o'clock, there was a knock at their door. Mother and daughter were terrified. They did not have the courage to open it. They knew this was not Ibn's knock. The door was knocked again, and the girl got up. The knock was not the police's either—it was polite and composed. The girl took the lantern in her hand and opened the door. A stranger stood there: black beard, cap on his head, silver-framed glasses on his eyes, wearing a kurta-pajama with a shawl draped over.
"Does Ibn live here?" the stranger asked.
"Yes," the girl replied in a frightened tone. "But we don't know where he has gone for the past eight or ten days. He is my father."
"How is your mother now?" the stranger asked.
"Not well at all. There is no treatment," the girl replied, feeling somewhat relieved that his tone and manner were not like the police. She asked, "Who are you?"
"I am Ibn's friend," he said. "I know he has gone to Lahore. He will return in a few days. May I come inside?"
The girl stood silently, looking at him as if to say, It's better you don't come in.
"Is there a message from him?" she asked.
On hearing that, the girl stepped aside—a sign that though she did not want to let a strange man inside, she would, because he had brought her father's message.
When he entered, he saw Ibn's sick wife lying on a cot. Her pale face reflected hunger, helplessness, and fear. Two boys slept on another cot in dirty bedding, and three others lay without bedding on the floor.
The girl placed the lantern on a small table, sat at her mother's feet, while the stranger sat on a stool near the cot. His tone carried sincerity and compassion. The tense nerves of the sick woman and the young girl began to ease.
When the stranger asked Ibn's wife about their condition, she poured out all the bitter details in a flood of tears. She told him about Ibn's disappearance, the wretched state of the household, the police raids, and their harassment. The girl too wept silently.
"Look, sister," the stranger said. "Ibn has gone for some work. Don't worry." He pulled out a bundle of currency notes from his pocket and held it out to her. "This money Ibn sent for you… four thousand rupees."
At the sight of the bundle, the woman recoiled as if a black cobra had struck at her.
"No! Don't show me this money," she said, with trembling dignity. "Take this wealth away."
"No, sister, take it," he insisted.
"This money is used to buy the honor of the poor," she replied in a quivering voice. "You may rob a poor man's daughter's honor by force, just like a thief empties pockets with a knife's edge. Four thousand? Even if you offer four lakhs, I will not.…"
"What are you saying, sister?" the bearded stranger asked, pulling the money back. "Don't you trust me? Shall I swear on the Quran?"
"To one whose hand holds four thousand rupees, the Quran is nothing more than just a book," she said bitterly. "For four thousand, honor is sold. For four thousand, faith is sold."
The stranger grew restless. He looked closely at the sick woman. Her face bore not illness, but the shadows of death. She was destitute, in dire need of even a single grain, yet she refused to accept four thousand rupees. He glanced around the room—it was like a dark cell, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, walls discolored, foul odor lingering as if she had just given birth to all those children there. And yet, in this room, she spoke of honor, dignity, and faith.
"Where could my husband have gotten such money?" she asked. "Even if he sold our entire family, he couldn't gather four thousand rupees."
"That is between me and Ibn," the stranger replied. "I only came to deliver his trust. You too are his trust. His daughter is also his trust. Take it, and I will leave. But I must ask, why did you speak in this way? Has someone troubled you? Tell me."
Mother and daughter exchanged a glance. Tears welled in their eyes.
"You ask about troubles?" Ibn's wife said. "The police have made our lives miserable. They ask us where Ibn is. We ask around to know where Ibn is, but no one tells us. The police won't even say why they want him. People here tell us to bribe the police to make them stop. But what do we have? Nothing. Tell me truly—why has Ibn gone to Lahore? I suspect he has committed a robbery. That is why the police are after him."
"He has committed no robbery," the stranger said. "Take this money, don't be afraid."
"How can I not be afraid?" Ibn's wife cried. "Yesterday evening, for four hundred and fifty rupees, our honor was taken away. And now you come with four thousand!"
The woman's frail body could no longer endure the storm of grief, rage, and humiliation. Tears streamed down her face.
"What did you just say?" the stranger asked, drawing his hand with the money back in shock. "What happened for four hundred and fifty rupees? Quickly, tell me! Tell me at once!"
"May God never let a poor and helpless family bear a daughter," the woman wept. "Go! Leave us! You came here to throw wealth into our misery?"
---
To be continue.....