Yaqeen ka Safar - The Journey of Faith

5

The next day she met nurse Razia with trepidation, but there was no sign of anger on her face. 

"You sent me away last night and an emergency occurred. You could have called me, you know." Nurse Razia broached the topic herself.

Zubia couldn't stop herself from asking, "Did Dr. Asfandyar say something?"

Nurse Razia smiled. "He said a lot of things, but none of them wrong. You're new and I shouldn't have just up and left without notifying the doctor." The scolding didn't seem to have upset her.

She was surprised. Maybe these people were so used to getting scolded, it didn't even bother them anymore. They went to see the patient who had been the cause behind their fall from grace. She looked much better than last night.

"What happened to you?"

"I fell down." She replied briefly.

"But I don't think falling down the stairs could have bruised you this badly."

"I just said I fell down, didn't I?" She sounded annoyed now but there was a hint of defeat in her voice.

"Look, you have to be honest with me. Have you been abused? Did someone hit you? Who was that man with you, your father?" She took the girl's hand and asked her a series of questions in a friendly way.

She replied bitterly, "He's my husband."

Zubia stared at her with open-mouthed surprise. Husband...? The girl was hardly fifteen years old and that man looked at least fifty.

"Yes. My husband. You're so eager to listen to my story, right? Fine, I'll tell you. Yesterday, my mother-in-law and husband beat me up together because I didn't give her dinner on time. I had been praying. My husband dragged me by the hair to his mother and they both beat me up together. I get beat up everyday, whether be it my fault or not. I didn't get this head injury by falling down the stairs but because that woman bashed my head with a pair of scissors. All while my husband repeatedly kicked me in the stomach and back. They slapped me in the face. If I try to stop them or protect myself, I get even worse beatings. So I've stopped fighting. I fainted soon after, and woke up right here. He must have thought I was about to die and so he brought me here." She was speaking so calmly, without a single tear in her eye, as if the story was about some other young girl instead of her own. 

Zubia was almost trembling. Such cruelty on this little girl? Dear God, these were her days to enjoy life and play around. These were her days to talk about colors, and makeup, and friends. Instead she had been living in a hell on earth.

"What about you parents? Why don't they say anything to their son-in law?" She found her voice again after a long pause.

"What could they say? My father was indebted to Bahadur Khan, and that too for a whole ten thousand rupees. Where could he have gotten the money from? Even selling himself wouldn't have been enough. Bahadur Khan was already tired of his first wife, so when they sat down and discussed the matter, Father presented me instead of the money."

Seeing the pain in the girl's eyes made Zubia's heart wrench. The girl had started crying, and for so long she kept talking about every torture she had been through. That beautiful girl didn't deserve any of this, she thought, all while her chest burned with anger at her husband, mother-in-law and father. She felt like she could have crushed their heads if she saw them.

*********

"These are the blood-test reports of the child admitted on bed number four yesterday." She placed the files on Dr. Asfandyar's desk. Just a while ago, the doctor had asked her to bring the reports via intercom.