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Sara chewed on her lip. She played with the single long thick black hair sticking out of her round chin, and sat down on a tiny stool, deep in thought. Her jaw was set tightly, determinedly, while her eyes betrayed her face as they reflected fear, pain, sorrow. A bitter smile played along the corners of her mouth.

“Tomorrow is my big day! My wedding!” she thought out loud and then clapped her hand over her mouth. Leaping up, she looked around quickly, terrified that somebody had heard her.

Finally when she was sure nobody had, she took a deep breath and sat down again, relieved. Not a couple of seconds had passed and she was again drowned in thought. Scenes of the recent past flashed in front of her. Incomprehensible roars reverberated in her ears but gradually some howls rang louder and clearer, thus making a fat, kajol-laiden tear escape from the corner of her lovely brown almond-shapes eyes, leaving a trail of black particles.

She roughly brushed away the treacherous tear and looked at the tiny clock Husayn had given her. As smart and educated as she was, she just could not ever get the hang of clocks and watches so Husayn had told her that when the smaller and the larger needles would simultaneously point upwards toward God, she should quietly creep out of her house and meet him near the rice-field. The larger needle was crawling its way up to God and was almost there.

She checked her ‘bag’ for the hundredth time. She had tied her few possessions and the special clothes she had been working on for so many days now, in one of her shawls and now had the guttri safely beside her.

Feeling extremely restless and trying not to succumb to panic, she got up and noiselessly tiptoed into the next room. She peeked in, one last time, she told herself, to gaze at the face of the doll she had had for seven years now; her jan as she called her, her baby sister, Sajida.

Sara smiled wistfully as she saw the corners of Sajida’s mouth turn upwards into a smile and her round plump face glow even as she slept. “Sleep, my darling, sleep! And dream of angels and fairies and huurs as beautiful as you!” Sara could not resist curling her finger around one of Sajida’s tight black curls.

Sara stroked the hair that was strewn beautifully over the rough pillow (”Don’t I look like an angel when I spread my hair like that, Sara Apa?”). She looked at her pretty girl’s face and matched her own breaths with Sajida’s as she sat thinking. What would her darling think when she woke up in the morning and found her Apa gone?

A tear trickled down Sara’s pale cheek. The hyper-active, excited laughing Sajida was dancing in front of her eyes as she played “The Kitty-Cat” game with their scrawny black cat, Chooni. Sara had invented the game for her so that the little baby would be at a safe distance from the troubles at home when she would bathe and brush and nurse the ugly Chooni from the riverside.

But Sajida had found out soon enough.

Sara stroked the black curly head as she remembered how terrified Sajida had been when she had heard the words “kill” and “guns.” And how quickly she had understood everything and how sensibly she had handled it.

Suddenly, a tiny yelp involuntarily escaped from Sara’s mouth as she saw Sajida cough a little and then open her sleepy hazel eyes to peer at her, blinking rapidly to clear her vision. She looked at Sara’s face in puzzlement.

In the blink of an eye, realization dawned on her. She sat up straight, all sleep disappeared from her tiny, crunched up eyes, her face a mask of shock, terror and anger.

“Apa” The word escaped from her mouth and then died in her throat.

Sara nodded several times and placed her finger over her lips. Sajida copied her. Neither spoke a word.

Sajida’s questioning eyes searched Sara’s frantic, guilty brown orbs. Look at me, Apa, they seemed to say. Do not turn your eyes away and let me look deep deep deep into them so that I can ‘drown in your soul.’

As the rules of the game had been laid down by Sara herself, she reluctantly looked up.

Back in the days when their broken home wasn’t a cranny of the raging Hell, Husayn had brought her books from the city. There were all kinds of books. Love stories, fairytales, cartoon strips, social commentaries and even books on mind games. It was the pride of Sara’s life to think that she must be the first, (and probably the last) village girl in the history of all the villages in Southern Punjab to even have heard the words ‘mind games’ or ‘drowning in your soul.’ Knowing that she could not show off her knowledge to her friends, lest she roused any suspicion, she had taught Sajida little games where they both tried to read each other’s eyes and to drown in each other’s soul. (Her books said eyes are the windows to the heart and mind.) Being the exceptionally bright child she was, Sajida had mastered the games and was even better at them than Sara. Secretly Sara believed Sajida was the Genius, the Talent the city books praised.

Let me look, Apa. Sajida stared straight into Sara’s eyes. Sara pleaded. Can’t you see Sajida why? You were there, you saw everything.

Yes I did. I can still remember Abba’s roars.

“In love? IN LOVE! Sara’s mother, do you know what your daughter is saying? She’s in love? Who is she to fall in love? Better it would have been if she had fallen into the well and drowned! How dare she think she can fall in love? I am her father, I feed her, I clothe her and I control her! Yes, I control even her feelings and emotions. And I do not permit any such ridiculous useless feelings such as love! Tell your daughter, Sara’s mother, that it is not the custom of our family and our village to raise a hand at their daughters, but we can raise guns! And we do! Why do you weep now, you unworthy mother of shameful child who could not raise her daughters decently enough so that they knew not to disgrace their families in front of the entire village! Why do you weep now? You know we do raise guns! We may be poor but we still carry our honour and our integrity. Girls of our respectable family do not go and get seduced by good-for-nothing smooth talkers who they think are Quaid-e-Azam if they have gone to some bullshit city to become bullshit doctors! Tell your daughter that fathers of such ungrateful disrespectful wretches feel proud to finish off kids who dare raise a voice against us!” The bellows had become thunderous and had made Sajida cry out with fear. “What will the people say? What will my family say? I’ll be the laughingstock of the whole village! Tell her I’ll kill her! I’LL KILL HER!”

You remember, yet your eyes accuse me! Sara shook her head in disbelief. You do not wish that I go away from this cruel, oppressive dump of a village where the people, my people, demand of me to sacrifice my life just so they can feed their inflated egos and hold their heads high that their ‘honour’ is safe? Where useless values and norms matter more than a child’s happiness? You do now want that I marry somebody who loves me for what I am, who knows what an ignorant being I am, yet treats me like his equal, which is a concept alien to all the men in the village? Someone who is educated enough to understand how worthless and ridiculous the outmoded customs of our village are? You do not wish I take my first breath as a free woman?

Sajida’s eyes burned with tears as she digested these accusations. “I do,” her eyes scremed out.

I am hurt for some other reason, Apa. I overheard you talking to Husayn Bhai near the rice field today. I saw you steal out of the house when you left. I was playing Kitty-Cat but Chooni wasn’t co-operating so I ran after you so that you could give him a good talking-to. I overheard you, Apa.

Yes I know, I saw you when I was coming back. Sara’s eyes prodded.

I heard you Apa! I heard you talk about your wedding! Your wedding, Apa!

Husayn Bhai had said, “Don’t worry, it’s all set! You just arrive here on time.”

You were breathing heavily, I could see. “Let me say it out one last time so that I can digest it. The wedding will be tomorrow night at your Uncle’s house in the city. We will take the night coach and reach there in the morning. I will wear my blue and green dress that I have been making especially for this day. You will wear your black suit and the grey turban I have ‘borrowed’ from Abba. Uncle Masud himself will do the Nikkah, and then treat us to a dinner afterwards. Your friends from the city and your sister and brother-in-law will attend the wedding. Oh, and you know Husayn, last night I took Mama’s golden ring which I know she had been keeping for my wedding. I felt guilty, but then I thought, it is after all, my wedding! MY wedding!” you had repeated, your cheeks flushed red.

But then your eyes had lost much of their glow as you had bit your lip and said, “My only regret in life is that I cannot take my jan, my baby girl who I raised in my very own arms, my precious little Sajida, to attend my wedding.”

Sajida’s eyes seemed to be pleading. Sara shook her heard, once, twice and then rapidly as she realized what Sajida wanted.

No, no, no honey! I can’t. They will kill you. You know they will.

They won’t. I will come back and tell them that when I woke up in the morning and couldn’t find you, I went berserk with grief and went searching for you. They will believe me. You know they will.

No, please ,no. how can…what if…Sara kept shaking her head wildly.

Sajida stared at her, her eyes pleading, begging, praying.

Sara gazed into Sajida’s earnest eyes. She shut her own, trying to think calmly. Finally she opened her resolute eyes and spoke for the first time that night.

“Come, lets go to your Apa’s wedding!”

Sajida yelped in glee. “Only let me just take Chooni so that we can play Kitty-Cat at your wedding.”