The Fallen Widow

Chapter 20: Wail of the Widows

Jahanpur was in mourning. The hours after the battle followed with an evening of wailing of the widows. The battle of Khagarpur scared Jahanpur forever. It would take decades to get over the deaths especially the death of Choudhary Dilawar-Baksh Qureshi. His death was announced on the mosque speakers that he died in battle saving his son and his legacy protecting Jahanpur. Every house was in mourning and a thirty day period of mourning began. Along with him, many homes received a shrouded body of their men. Mass graves were being dug in the cemetery. It was called the month of sorrow.

Shah Nawaz was nowhere to be seen. He rushed Hoorayn to the hospital in the city as she fought between life and death. Dilawar-Baksh's body returned to the haveli where mourners gathered crying, praying and offering their condolences to the widow of Jahanpur. In the bettak, Dilawar-Baksh's body lay covered in a white sheet on the kat. Shahgul sat back in the crowd of mourners staring at the body. It had been hours since the battle. Malaikah and Wajahat Ali returned to a changed Jahanpur. She left the bags in the car along with her children and made her way into the eerie haveli. She'd left the haveli filled of laughter and dancing, but returned to cries, tears and the stench of death. Her heart pounded with fear. She looked at Wajahat Ali.

"What happened?"

He shook his head. He didn't know. Why didn't he know? He felt useless. Hopeless. Angry. Frustrated. He was the chief of security and failed. Inside the hookah bettak, the furniture was removed and the room was filled with woman praying crying and in the centre raised on a kat was a body covered in a white sheet and surrounded by rose petals. Dilawar-Baksh died a martyr a high honour. Malaikah looked at her mother's dead eyes. Fiza kneeled at the head of the kat sobbing her eyes out.
"Baba! Baba! Talk to me! It's me your Fiza! Why have you left me? I have no one." The women held onto Fiza who was distraught.

"Why isn't my baba talking to me? What have I done?"

"You must pray for his soul."

Malaikah fell to her knees by her father's kat. She looked at his body.
"My Baba?" She gasped. The man who refused to look at her after she ran away with a driver. He hadn't spoken to her, talked to her since she returned. She'd lost her loving father after she fell in love and punished by his silence. And now, he was silent forever. There was no emotion. She was frozen staring at his dead body. Fiza made her way to Malaikah and sobbed holding onto her.
"Baba is gone. Baba has left us."

But baba had left Malaikah years ago; now she didn't have the chance to ask why he turned his face away from her?

Wajahat Ali stormed around the haveli for answers. He asked the gaurds, the maids and pieced together the story and one woman was caught in the centre of the storm. Shahgul.

"She plotted this. She killed Dilawar-Baksh."

Wajahat Ali's body charged with rage. Now it made sense why she sent him to the city holding Malaikah's shopping bags. His body shook with anger. He failed the haveli. Dilawar-Baksh was dead. He felt hopeless and angry.

"Where is Choudhary Shah Nawaz?"

The guard informed him Hoorayn was shot and bleeding out and taken to the city hospital.

"Only Allah knows what Shah Nawaz will do, if she dies."

Wajahat Ali glared at the guard.

It was in the bowels of the night Uzayr returned to a changed Jahanpur. He could smell the stench of blood miles away and after informing Baba of Muzamil's plans. He raced back to Jahanpur to protect his uncle but it was too late. Dilawar-Baksh was martyred protecting his legacy. Dressed in white chador, Fiza bowed her head at the feet of the kat, in her baba's feet. She lifted her head when she saw her husband, Uzayr, entering the bettak. Dressed in death black, he'd removed his turban and made his way to the corpse. Rage charged her body. Her blood shot eyes glared at him.