Living In Contrast (ON HOLD)

I4I

If you were to take away the scowls, the sneers, the smirks and the stern stances from Ammi, she would be left with not many other expressions to express with. A reason to why she opted to not express.

Anger wasn't as common for her as others may think to if to be. Sure there were the bickering, the snide remarks, the harsh words but a total outburst of fury, such had only eclipsed a few times.

A smile, not the demure kind, not the sadistic kind but the honest ones were rare as if endangered. Same went with laughter.

What was rarer than all of the emotions were the shedding of tears, in fact any sign of sadness, vulnerability, any sign of weakness wasn't tolerated by her.

'' Don't you dare let a single tear out Zehra,'' she commanded my 8 year old self as I was dispensing my mourns to her. Crying those dense tears. It was the very first time anyone had called me a harami. "Not in front of anyone. Never. These people are predator, all they need to see is a sign of fatigue and then they will strike until there is no life.''

Ammi however had principles. Respectful rules that she followed and lived by, which otherwise made her a strong woman or so it seemed. But it also made her a whole bundle of contradiction towards herself. Why had she done it? Why had she committed such betrayal to her family, to that family, to herself? Why?  Was lust that power? Perhaps it was, no in fact it was, but that was just too much of a simple answer for someone as complex as her.

What was the story behind it all? I knew there has to be one. These questions had rotated around my mind for years and years. Answers, they yearned, but answers they didn't get even as I asked myself or her. Repeatedly. So eventually they stopped yearning and I stopped asking.

The morning after the argument with her about my marriage, I woke up with a familiar bitter taste of guilt. Something I got every time we fell into our mostly petty disputes, because every time I tried to hurt her for the ways she knowingly and unknowingly hurt me. How dysfunctional but that's how we were.

''And remember,'' she looked me straight into my eyes, '' that all you have in this world is me.'' The very last thing advice she gave me that day, and I believed it and still had for it was the very truth. All I did have was her. And Mehreen. Or so I believed. 

"Ammi,'' I approached her as I placed a cup of lime tea in front of her, a ritual before leaving for work. "About last night, I am sorry for going on that way, maybe we could―''

"No, no, no,'' she takes a sip, ''no.'' A simper comes from her. '' I was clearly wrong yesterday night. Times hasn't changed that much, clearly not enough for people to accept you,'' she said in an overly sweet monotone. "It was my bad for thinking otherwise.'' And the mask of indifference was back on. As to why did I think her reaction would have be any different was indeed beyond me.

"There is that car waiting for you outside for a while.'' There was a car indeed, I saw it as I looked out the window. One that I had been familiar with.

'Oh, what did he want now?' I thought.

"By the way,'' Ammi called out as I was about to leave, "the tea is too sweet for my liking, no hint of bitterness.''

Like everywhere else, cars could tell thing or two about a person's status in the society in Karachi. The pewter Lexus SUV that stood by the gate then was very simple to decipher. Elite class. Corporate manager or something equally important. Probably not the only car they had. Facts that anyone would have known without knowing the person.

As I came close to the car, the left rear door's tinted window got lowered revealing a thin man reading The Daily Urdu Express, possibly the stocks sections knowing him. His long stark black gelled into a sleek back, a branded glasses perched on his pointed nose, and his stubble not hiding the smoking induced darkening of his pursed lips.