The Anthem of the Rebels | ✓

[21] Mending hearts and hurt toes

Chapter Twenty-One

How could she have missed it? Reading the articles now, Amal realized that it made complete sense. Hafsa's last name... the victim of the murder case.

On being confronted, Hafsa had gotten very silent, but when Amal had given her hand a squeeze, Hafsa had told Amal her story.

Her husband, Daniyaal Ali had been a reporter; a man who dreamt about doing something for the greater good. After a few plots in his village were wrongfully taken over by Raza, Daaniyal had made up his mind to do something about it, and started gathering information on Raza's corruption.

Hafsa claimed that Daaniyal's research was proving fruitful. He was interviewing the many people affected by Raza's corruption and gathering all intel. Just before he was supposed to take this information to the media, however, he was murdered.

Hafsa took this case to court, of course, but neither did she have the connections and nor the money to win against Raza. Thus, when she lost the case, Hafsa was forced to retreat to a small town and live quietly.

"Sometimes, justice-" she said, "-is limited only to the rich. I'm so happy Syed Manzoor's wife appealed to the court. She displayed the strength I lacked. "

After that, Amal felt her stubbornness begin to crumble. The extent to which Raza could go to make sure that his name wasn't harmed trembled her to the core.

Years ago, Amal was of the belief that no one could be entirely evil. Everyone has a heart and conscience, she would argue in her innocent view of the world, but soon, she had started to realize how wrong she had been. Most people aren't evil, true, but bad people did exist. They might have once had a conscience but they ignore it so much, it becomes numb.

Now, Zahid's warnings seemed to her as important, and in spite of herself, Amal began to understand his view a lot better. Amal stayed alone at home- which made it all the more dangerous for someone to attack her, and because of this, Zahid would come back home as soon as he could. Amal realized then, that due to her stubbornness, Zahid couldn't work properly either, and after finding out that Hafsa was a victim of Raza as well, Amal wanted more than anything for Zahid to win the case.

Sitting on her bed, her laptop in her lap, Amal's head was resting on the headdress, a faraway look in her eyes. She had opened up a docs document, a couple of words carefully strung together:

She said, "That man is the reason my Baba can't come home."

A seven-year-old. A girl who's eyes twinkle with dreams, who is yet to live and make a future for herself. She holds her brother's hand when their mother is not home, and when he misses her, she tells him that their mother is busy working for their sake.

She goes to bed at night, without a father to kiss her goodnight, and she questions the sky every day. Is my father there? Is my father in Jannah?