“Our mother.”
Iram lowered her gaze again.
“Have they helped?”
Iram nodded. It had been heartening to know that one part of her parentage was kind, that these two women had loved the girl who was lost, lamented her, waited for her. But Iram had listened to it all like she was listening to a story. Of a girl named Noorie, but a Noorie who was somebody else. The dichotomy was strange. One part of her had been soothed, that there had been some good where she came from. But the nothingness inside her had only been gaping larger and larger with every passing day.
Until this morning.
What a wonder this mind was! Sparking only when it felt like it.
A knock jolted her. Mehrunisa answered in their local Burushaski. The maid responded quickly.
“Come now, Faiz and his men are here. Cover your face, stay inside the kitchen. If Faiz insists on meeting you again, do not say anything in front of him. Just like last time. Hmm?”
Iram nodded, recalling the first and the last time she had met her younger brother — the Mir of Nagar. At the time, she had been even more lost. All she remembered was Mehrunisa doing the talking, telling him a story so fictitious that it was true.
My friend…
Married to Indian Kashmiri…
Had a miscarriage…
Is here to recover…
All fiction, all true.
————————————————————
Iram sat inside the kitchen, the servants and maids hustling to fill bowls and platters, carrying the full ones out to the table, sending the empty ones into washing. Their pandemonium was loud, she was quiet. She didn’t remember speaking words in many days. Except to Mehrunisa, and Gul.
Rahim Chacha carried a pail of milk inside from the garden door and set it by the fridge. He panted, meeting her eyes from his half-bent stance. His head nodded, as if in question. Iram nodded back. His hand rose halfway and he waved quietly, leaving the kitchen the way he had come. Iram stared at his back. He had thrown himself into this punishment with her. And not uttered a word.
“Jannat?” Mehrunisa’s quiet voice broke her out of her reverie. Iram held her shoulders from breaking into a shiver. The sun was going higher up in the sky. She knew it was coming.
“Yes?” She looked up.
“Mir wants to meet you.”
The servants were around, and Mehrunisa kept her poised command smooth. Iram got to her feet, throwing the shawl over her head and covering the lower half of her face like she had seen so many women do around here when they appeared in front of the Mir. It wasn't a rule; some younger ones broke it. But Iram tightened her shawl over her jaw.
“The officers are gone,” Mehrunisa whispered to her on their way out. “It’s just him. Don’t worry.”
They walked down the alley, and the quiet voices of the Mir and his secretary rose.
“…leeches, the lot of them. Power and anti-India plots, they see nothing else.”
“All you have to do is offer them a little of both once a month and we are good, Mir.”
“For how long, though? Abbajaan has left this sycophancy as his legacy. My land, my people, my rule, and yet I get no say in who crosses it?”
“Dilshad Khan is coming tomorrow.”
“With his own commands, I’m sure. Tell me, Farhan, am I the slave of Azad Kashmir’s CM, Pakistan’s military or the great ISI?”
“Low, low, they just left.”
Iram’s ears stood to attention. She knew from her time here that Faiz, the Mir of Nagar was young. He was a puppet in the hands of many. His father… their father, had made it a custom to be subservient to the Pakistani forces. Faiz wanted to fight it, or so Mehrunisa told her. He was a topper from the Harvard Business School and wanted to work on their town’s economy and tourism. But his image was that of a slow, eccentric, unhinged Mir who knew nothing of how to run what little he had left in the name of property. Even the people of Nagar turned to Mehrunisa in times of need. He was just a ceremonial head, a mad antique, placed on the throne.
