Ep. 2 | IZZAT: The Name of My Cage | A Thriller, A Tragedy, A Family Horror

 

EPISODE - 2 

"Home, sweet home."

Adn glanced at me from the car mirror, his lips curled in a coy smile.

I sniffed and stared out of the window. Plants of corn and wheat swayed in the fields, farmers and their wives carrying barley on their heads. Walking in single file. Kids with and without underwears laughing, playing in dust. Their limbs a rich shade of bronze and sunshine.

It was all too familiar.

I sniffed again.

"Caught a cold, Ram?" Iman said lightly from the passenger seat, but his eyes betrayed how closely he was watching me.

I tried to smile. "Yes."

He tossed his handkerchief at me with a flair and let out a dramatic sigh. "Take care. You get hideous when you catch cold."

Adn coughed. My gaze turned to his back. "What?" I asked.

"Our family is a bit miffed about you, Iman. You may have to.. keep a bit distance from Ramal."

Iman stole a look back at me, like a scolded child, his eyebrow rose asking — really?

I offered a stiff nod. Dread coiling up in my chest.

But I didn't back off from Adn.

"No. Iman will stay with me."

Adn's fingers gripped the wheel hard. "You knocked your brain, Ramal?"

“You’ve knocked yours if you think—"

The words died at my lips. As a figure came into our view. Towering, bulky, old yet still demanding. Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhary. With a lofty turban and mustache as menacing as ever. Just greyed.

The man whose shadow I had once managed to flee from loomed larger and larger as the car rolled towards the haveli. 

The Chaudhary Haveli —

larger than any house in the village, a cemented mockery of peasants and salt of the earth people.

Suddenly I was a young girl again. 

I shrunk deeper in my seat, my face a mosaic of sweat, snot and tears under the veil. 

Iman was whispering something to me but my senses didn't recognise words anymore. 

Fear was a living breathing thing grinding my internals as Ghulam Mustafa, my Taya, my father's elder brother, turned to my window. 

His razor sharp thin lips set in a firm line. His brown eyes bloodshot.

I couldn't breathe.

"Ramal. Ram!"

Someone was calling me but my eyes were sealed shut.

Iman, Adn, car everything evaporated in an instant and there was just two people. 

Me, Taya Ghulam Mustafa , the haveli - a gilded cage - and the night. That night. Gunshots. Heaved breaths. Chasing feet. Screams. Tears. Fear. Fire. Burning.

Two years in between blurred and it all came back, vivid and suffocating.

"Rami, breathe."

"Ram, please!"

And then there were arms around me I tried to back off, to flinch. But their touch was too soft. My eyes opened. Iman. I leaned in.

"Taya's gone, Rami." My head snapped up. Adn was turned to me from the driving seat. His eyes...concerned? For a moment I felt I saw a flicker of protection and love there.

Iman drew soothing circles on my back. "Tawakkal AlaAllah." He touched my tears with the tip of his thumb and whispered. "No one is greater than Allah. Not Adn. Not your Taya. No one, Ram. You're safe. I'm here."

I nodded.

I'm here.

Iman was here.

No! No no no!

I jolted back from his touch. "You need to go, Imaan. Go!"

"What?"

"They'll kill you. I know now. God!" I pulled my hair. "Why didn't I get it before? They called us to kill you, Iman. Go before it's late.!"

"No. We won't." The response came from Adn. "You may not doubt our hospitality, Ramal. You know we can die for our guests and not vice versa." He placed his hand on his chest, his voice soft and steel. "I promise on my honor. You are our guests."

Iman nodded. "He's right, Ram. It's going to be okay. You'll actually laugh later how terrified you were." His finger curled around my pinky. "Are we okay now?"

My stomach was lead. Heavy. Unbearable. I turned my head left and right. My family members stood on the gate of Haveli to welcome us. Their expression grim. But then my gaze fell upon a petite silhouette behind them. Amma.

My beloved mother. Something warmed inside me. She won't let them harm us.

I nodded. And uncurled my finger from Iman's. His eyes confused at the gesture, but I couldn't ...

Adn guided us inside.

Iman offered a loud, cheerful and polite salam. Uncle Mujtaba's eyebrows rose but he grinned. He embraced Iman.

And one by one every male member was hugging him, patting his head, his shoulder.

I was glued to the spot, not believing my eyes. I rubbed them once, twice and -

"Still can't believe?" Adn teased from beside me. I covered my eyes from the sunlight and stared at him. The black of his eyes a pool of velvet tinted with sparks of gold. He flashed his teeth. A rare grin.

Tension released from my shoulders and evaporated from every bit of my being.

I smiled for the first time. Eyes bleary with tears of redemption.

"I'm sorry, Addu."

Adn's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. I couldn't decide whether from the childhood nickname or sorry.

"Didn't expect you had the bone of apologising in you."

"I like to be unexpected." I winked. He let out a hearty laugh.

"Will you two just keep chatting together?" A loud voice anchored me back to the moment. Amma.

I took a hesitant step. Then another. And then I was running. Crying. My khimar fluttering from the speed. But my misty vision remained locked at my anchor. My mother.

A part of my heart burst open bleeding, bleeding. Weeping. Melting. A part I had locked for two whole years. That found comfort in those gnarled arms.

And I finally crashed into them, she tightened her embrace. Knocking my flesh, bone, everything. But I didn't care. She didn't care. Her tears fell on my hijab. My tears fell on her bosom.

We were two souls unified as one then.

That night had tethered us, tore us apart. Yet here we were now. Mended. Unified.

"I miss you, Amma. I miss you."

I squirmed into her.

She broke the embrace, steadied me and locked eyes with me.

"I didn't miss you, Ramal Jaan. You were always here in my heart."

"Chachi, if you are done with the melodrama, could you please usher these people inside? I have to sleep."

I turned. Saif. Yawning with his mustache and smoked dark lips. My jaw clenched.

He fixed his turban and stared at me. His eyes trailing down the kimar all the way till my feet. Rage boiled my blood. My fist clenched.

Amma patted my back. "Come, Ramal."

Iman shook his hand with Saif.

"You must be, Saif. But your mustache seems uneven, dude. Longer from the right and shorter left."

I had to bite my cheeks to stifle the laugh.

And behind Saif, Adn also touched his nose, biting his lips.

"Munda pyara chuna hai." Amma smiled as she led me to my room.

A sigh left me. There was a edge in her smile that gnawed at me the most. She too didn't know the truth, did she?

"Chuna nahi hai maine."

"What?"

"They let you belive that ours was a love marriage?"

"Of course why would you then ru-"

"Amma!" I gasped. "No. Not you please."

Amma looked at my pleading eyes, pressed hands, she unpressed them and embraced me in a hug once more.

"Don't cry, beti."

Jingling of bangles broke our reverie. Aunty Sakeena with a

girl carrying a tray on her trail entered the room.

Her eyes mocking as they fell on my face, her hands on her hips. "Tears are destined forever for daughters like you, Ramal."

Amma sighed behind me. But I didn't. "Walaikumussalam you too, Tai Ji." I gave her my most charming smile. "You are still alive?"

"Ungh" Amma grunted.

Humor left Sakina Tai's eyes. "Zaban lambi ho gayi hai bohot teri."

"Yes, Alhamdulillah. I too have grown quite taller, right?" I jabbed at her short height.

She snarled and stomped out of the room.

That's when I heard the giggle.

The girl with the tray, seemingly in her late teens, had a laugh like chiming bells. I smiled.

"Keep the tray here, and out." Amma scoffed at her. She visibly shuddered. The two glasses on the tray shook with her tremble but I clasped her hands.

"Come on, Amma. Don't have to steal the right of laughing too from these servants."

"She isn't a normal servant." Amma crushed her teeth.

"Then what?" Confusion pooled in me. And then realisation hit like a hammer. "God!" I gasped. "Don't tell me she's a-"

"Yes." Amma flickered her wrist. And the girl galloped out. "She's a vani."

"Wh-whose?" "Adn's."

Amma didn't meet my eyes.

"And you let this happen?"

"Was it ever in my hands, Ramal? Do you think this makes me happy? Watching a girl — younger than my own daughter — live like this? Brutally caged?"

"Then why didn't you fight?"

"Fight whom? The Jirga wolves?"

"I don't know!" I snapped. "Look at her, Amma. She's barely nineteen. She should have had the right to say yes or no!"

"And what would that change?"

"You could've rebelled! You could've—"

"—become you?" she cut me off, her voice soft but shaking. "A runaway?" then in a voice, squealed than a mouse' she added, "Not everyone is brave and fool as you, Ramal. Women like me can admire braveness from afar, but to afford braveness our own? No. Can we pay the price? H3ll, no. Never!"

She placed her head in my lap, and put her hand on her eyes. The rhythm of her breath told me she was crying..

"I love you."

"I know."

"Abba still hits you." It didn't came as a question, because deep down in my bones, I know the answer, but I

 wanted it to be a denial.

Amma flinched.

I got the answer.

I dug my teeth in my lower lip and let it bleed so my heart won't, My eyes won't.

"Bete," Amma whispered, "Don't cry."

"I know. Yeah."

•••••

Written by: © Bint-e-Azhar 

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