The Tangled Webs We Weave

Chapter IV

Farhaad pushed the door planks hindering the entrance to his tiny space. He looked around hazily. His gaze travelled across the room, while he wondered if was it always so small and congested. He spared a glance at the open kitchen area with a single stove and few utensils comprising of a plate, glass and spoon. He never used any one of them or the spices until Mahpara did a few nights ago. His eyes fell on the unmade bed where she laid some hours ago.

Cold and Numb

Her chapped lips had turned white and her face was stained with specks of blood. Her fingers shivered despite the August heat. He wasn't a stranger to blood and bloodshed. But her devastated sight in front of his eyes had a seemingly crushing impact on his ribs, making him struggle to breathe.

Killing someone could be easy but living with the truth of being a murderer was not an easy baggage to carry for the rest of the life. He never had to bother about it but in that moment, looking at Mahpara, he wondered if she'd be able to cope with this trauma.

He stood by the bedside recalling how his heart raced when she didn't wake up. How he chanted her name in desperation, praying silently for her to open her eyes. Aware of the vulnerability of the situation. He not only had to make her reach the haveli on time, safe and sound, away from prying eyes but also do something about Saleem's dead body.

He kept taking her name, pleading her to open her eyes and look at him. She was here on his bed a few nights ago but this time she wasn't glaring unabshedly into his eyes, her lips were not curved into a smirk, and he could not see the feistiness reflecting from her big deep orbs that unsettled him. He trembled when he could barely feel her breath. Her body felt like a frigid ice slab and the thought terrified him.

He instantly grabbed a glass of water and immersed his fingers in it, sprinkling the water droplets on her face. She needed to wake up. She had to reach the haveli before dawn breaks. He knew she must've taken advantage of the mehfil, sneaked out knowing nobody would have bothered about her when everyone's eyes were glued to other women.

Farhaad thought he was the audacious one, but Mahpara had proved again and again she was way more dauntless unlike him. Tonight, she was fearless enough to kill Saleem and save him. For a fleeting moment, Farhaad saw his fourteen-year self in her. The way her face contorted and her eyes dilated and she killed Saleem without thinking twice, he was reminded of the day of his life that changed the trajectory of his fate.

She was fearless. Unlike him, she dared to run away from Haveli and free herself from the tangled webs of Shamnagar while all these years he had only caught himself among them and never took the step to escape his fate that turned him into this despicable monster. He remembered how unfettered she was that night to leave even if he was unwilling to help her.

That night.

He recalled how he instantly knew when her tiny figure smashed into his that she had run away from Haveli. He was informed and was asked to bring her if found. He hadn't seen her face. But her touch remained imprinted on his flesh.

The trembling. The shaking voice laced with desperation. He remembered it all. She wasn't the first one to attempt an escape but surely among the very few. The ones who came here either killed themselves or accepted whatever the universe chose for them. He didn't see her face that night but he was aware her courage would burn him.

The next day when he visited the Haveli on the pretext of checking on the internal matters as asked by his Seth, he did feel his conscience confronting him. He knew very well that she'd be punished by these people. Who escaped the wrath of these vultures anyway?

He saw her in the room, bruised and wounded, blood still seeping from her lip. She was curled in a fetal position in the far-end corner of the floor, alone and unattended. He knew no one would have dared to object when Saleem thrashed her mercilessly. She was being punished for coming to Shamnagar against her will. When her body whimpered he looked at Nigar Begum, "Sab kuch band krwana hai? Pta hai naa, hum murdon ka bojh nhi utha saktay"