HONOR.

She tried to scream, but couldnt.
A slap flew across her face, leaving her breathless with the suddenness of the pain. Her left cheek was stinging now.
“Now you be still or I’ll beat you black and blue do you understand?” he hissed.
She whimpered in reply and he paused only to hear that it seemed.
He forced her clothes off, pushed her on the floor hard, and continued to sustain his beast-like sexual appetite as he had done every day since the past three months.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Again there was blood today. It had stained the carpet below and she saw it with a passing glance as she limped to the back room. She was tired, exhausted and fatigued and could do nothing. She felt only shame and guilt and felt as if burning heself to death seemed to be the only plausible thing to do at this moment. But she did not.
It was time that her mother would be getting home and maybe her father would be late. She hoped he would be late. She was frightened of him, his thick black mustache, and his shifty blue eyes, calculating her every move, so he could leap up at her like a hungry vulture if she dared do anything. It was the blue that gave him a cold, insensitive appearance. No one in the village had eyes like his and it was said that he had inherited them from his Pathan father.

Her entire body ached as she bent down to clean the carpet with a wet cloth. Slowly the reddish brown stain of blood was hidden by a random mess of black dots that came in front of her eyes, and her ears started to tingle with the high pitched, piercing sound of something…what was it...a scream?...no…she fainted.
When the doorbell rang, she had just awakened out of her black sleep, and she tried to get up groggily. Again, not being able to walk she limped towards the front door, and asked in a weary voice who it was.
"Open up", said a gruff voice from outside. It was her father.
She almost shivered with fright, but opened the door hastily, then stepped aside to let him in. He strode in followed by another man from the neighborhood. Stopping by the blood stain, he asked her what it was.
“…I hurt myself…”she said, frightened of being watched by the man who was with her father. She dared not glance up at him.
“Well clean it.” He said brusquely, then left the room.
The next day, she fainted again. This was the second time she had fainted in two weeks, but this time; she vomited, right beside her bed. Her mother startled to find her looking so unwell, told her to stay in bed today.
“I’ll be back soon today. There are not many clothes to stitch, and anyway I shall tell Mariam Bibi to give my work to the other women to finish. I’ll tell her you’re ill.”
She was surprised that he didn’t come today. Surprised and relieved to the extent that she actually felt better. Yet the very next morning she vomited again. This went on for three days before her mother said that she needed to be checked.

*** *** *** *** *** ***
“Pregnant!” shouted her mother, “You’re pregnant!”
She strode towards her grabbed her hair and pulled her head back.
“Who was it? You whore, you would bring shame to the family, I just knew it. You never were like your sisters were you? Couldnt you have also just gotten married and made your husband happy? Didn’t you think about any of us? Who was it? You will tell me or die.”
And with that she took her slipper off her foot and started to beat her with it.
“Wait till I tell your father this.”
‘Oh no,’ she thought ‘My father, please, not him.’
From a faraway distance she could hear her mother sobbing and crying for a honor that their family had now lost forever. Her sobs meant nothing to her, for she was too saturated in guilt and shame to even feel.
Her father of course beat her up ruthlessly. He hurled abuses, his eyes shrunk into slits of fiery rage. He stopped beating her only when he got tired. She sobbed helplessly now, all the indifference and disconection from this world, melting once again into repentance and fear, coming out in the form of tears. She didn’t know when they would kill her. But she wished they would do it soon.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

No one spoke to her after that, there was always a chilly silence that followed her around the house, and the only time she heard someone addressing her was when she had done something wrong. Then she would get a severe thrashing from her father. She tried to tell her mother more than once who it had been, but at times, she had no courage and in any case her mother refused to have anything to do with her ever.
A thought often struck her when she felt this happening. She wondered how easy it was to disown your child.
Then the cramps came and an old mid-wife was brought in to help with the delivery.
After two hours, the baby was born.
The mid wife, unaware of the situation held the illegal child lovingly in her arms, and announced.
“Congratulations! It’s a boy. And he’s got the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Just like his grandfather’s.”

She met her mother’s eyes then for the first time in this time.
There was no warmth in them, nor was there an icy bitterness that she had grown used to feeling. all that was replaced by a look of shock and alarm; terror, and helplessness.

The girl died the same evening of severe blood loss, while her mother sobbing violently by her bedside took the baby in her arms.

The next morning in one of the rubbish heaps in the village, two small children found the body of a baby, wrapped in a cloth, limbs stiff, and blue.

No one knew whose child it was.

The eyes were closed.