Amal Unbound Read online

  Even now, I can remember how happy I felt in that moment.

  That moment before my world changed.

  One second I was standing.

  The next, slammed backward onto the ground.

  A car. Black with darkened windows. How did I miss it? How wrapped up in my mind was I not to notice a car?

  The door opened and footsteps approached.

  I took in the clean-shaven face, the closely trimmed hair, and the eyes hidden by dark sunglasses.

  People began to gather by the side of the road. Balkis, Hira, Shaukat, customers from the market. Why didn’t any of them help me? Why did they stare at this strange man and say nothing?

  I stumbled to my feet. My hands were scraped and bloody. My leg throbbed when I put my weight on it, but I could stand. I gritted my teeth and gathered the bruised ginger and onions lying scattered along the road and tossed them in my satchel.

  “You should pay better attention,” the stranger said. I saw his hand reach down and pick up my pomegranate.

  He stepped closer to me. “Are you hurt?” he asked. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home.”

  He was smiling. His teeth were so white, the whitest I had ever seen.

  “I’m fine,” I told him.

  I reached up to adjust my chador, cloaking myself from him. I was about to walk away when I realized he was still holding my pomegranate.

  He followed my gaze.

  “My mother loves these,” he said. “You won’t mind if I take this for her, will you? Of course I’ll pay you for it and you can buy more.”

  “It was the last one.”

  “Will this do?” He pulled out a handful of money.

  What was he doing?

  Did he think I was a beggar?

  That everything was for sale?

  My mother’s voice told me to let this go. Something was off with this man. Let him have the fruit and walk away. But all I could see was the red pomegranate and how he grasped it in his palm as though it was already his.

  I thought of my father, who had no time for my dreams. My little sisters and their endless demands. Suddenly I felt tired. Tired of feeling powerless. Tired of denying my own needs because someone else needed something more. Including this man. This stranger. Buying me off. Denying me this smallest of pleasures.

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “So you’ll give it without charge?”

  His smirk taunted me. My scraped hands burned.

  “You hit me with your car and want to take my things?” My voice trembled; I heard it growing louder, as if it were coming from someone else. “I’m not giving it away.” I snatched it from his hand.

  The crowd murmured. I started walking away.

  “Stop!”

  His voice was so loud, it echoed off the buildings.

  I didn’t stop.

  I walked quickly until I turned the corner toward home. Only then did I break into a run.

  The farther I ran, the sicker I felt.

  Who was that man?

  What exactly had I done?

  Chapter 11

  The knock on the door the next morning sent my heart racing. I opened it slowly, half expecting to see the man with the dark sunglasses, but it was Fozia. She came empty-handed today. I waited for her to ask me about yesterday—if there was gossip, Fozia would have been one of the first to hear it—but she barely glanced at me before going to see my mother.

  I lingered by my parents’ door while my mother and Fozia talked about the baby. As they discussed what to do about Lubna’s sniffling, I stood there and waited for the words to leave Fozia’s mouth. To tell my mother what happened.

  Finally, Fozia said, “I’ll pick up the baby’s medicine for you. I was on my way to the market anyway. Glad you’re doing better.”

  She stood up. She walked past me, and I watched her leave.

  Why didn’t she say anything? Maybe I made a bigger deal out of what happened.

  Either way, I learned my lesson. I would follow the rules from now on. I would never step so much as a toe out of this house without one of my sisters with me.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Read to us?” Rabia asked me that afternoon. She brought a book and pulled on my arm.

  I had spent the day working as hard as I could. I mopped the floors and scrubbed the walls. I folded and put away all the laundry and chopped up the onions for dinner.

  I sat down on the sofa with her and Safa. I smiled at the story she chose. My father had bought it years ago for me when he went to Lahore.

  “You know this was my book once?” I asked.

  “We know,” Rabia said. “That’s why we love it!”

  I read them the story about a kitten who decided to adopt a basket of mice. I laughed along with my sisters when the kitten scolded the mice before they scattered, running in every direction.

  I was so engrossed, I didn’t hear the door swing open and Seema charge in until she grabbed me by the arm and ushered me into the kitchen.

  “They’re talking about it,” she said before I could say a word.

  “Who is?”

  “Everyone! They’re talking about yesterday.”

  Before I could ask her more, the door opened again. My father.

  “Tell me it’s not true.” Sweat trickled down his forehead. “If you tell me it’s a lie, I will believe you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Amal.” His hands fell to his sides. “Talking back to Jawad Sahib, of all people . . . What have you done?”

  Jawad Sahib?

  My mouth went dry like the dusty earth.

  Fozia called him worse than his notorious father.

  And I yelled at him. In front of everyone.

  “He wants a word with me. This Friday. One of his officers dropped off this note.” He held up a crumpled piece of paper. “Didn’t know what was going on until the workers told me.”

  “A-Abu,” I stammered, “I should have told you right away. But his car. It hit me. I was minding my own business walking home from the market. But he wouldn’t let me be. He wanted to give me a ride home. He took my things and wouldn’t give them back!”

  “I don’t care if he wanted your entire satchel of things!” my father snapped. “You give it to him. You drop everything at his feet, apologize, and walk away! Don’t you have any idea the lengths that family goes to just to satisfy their egos? And Jawad Sahib especially! Don’t you know what he could do to us now?”

  “Malik, enough. You’re scaring the little ones.”

  It took me a second to recognize my mother out of bed. She stood at the archway of her bedroom door, the baby in her arms.

  “Do you have any idea what your daughter’s been up to?” he shouted.

  “I didn’t know who he was,” I whimpered.

  “Did it matter? Have we not taught you how to act in public? Bite your tongue one minute and prevent a lifetime of burden.”

  “And yelling won’t solve this,” my mother said. “Let’s talk again once we’ve calmed down.”

  “It’s not fair.” Tears slipped down my cheeks. “His car hit me. He took my things. Why am I the one in trouble?”

  “Since when has life been fair?” He shook his head. “You can read books and tell me the capital of China, but you have no idea how the world works. God only knows how he will find it fit to punish us.”

  “He wouldn’t do anything serious over something so small, would he?” I asked.

  “He’s done far more for far less.”

  All this over a simple pomegranate, still lying uneaten in my satchel buried beneath my bed. I thought of the person from the car, the gleaming white teeth, the close-cropped hair, and the way his voice went from sweet like honey to cold and dark within seconds.
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br />   I thought of the stories I’d heard all my life, the way Shaukat’s jaw clenched at the mention of his name. The way Fozia said he loved to dole out punishments and had personally burned an entire village to the ground.

  So what kind of punishment would he dream up for me?

  Chapter 12

  I got out of bed as the sun peeked its head over the horizon. I hadn’t slept in two days. Jawad Sahib would be here tomorrow.

  Stepping into the kitchen, I blinked: My mother was out of bed again. She perched on a stool on the ground, kneading dough for buttery breakfast parathas like she used to. Her waist-length hair fell unbraided in waves around her shoulders.

  “You’re up early,” she said. Her eyes were red. Her cheeks blotchy.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Guilt pooled inside me, liquid and dense.

  She wiped her floured hands with a rag and stood up.

  “I’m the one who should apologize,” she told me. “I haven’t been a good mother lately.”

  “No, Amma, please don’t say that.”

  “You’re my eldest, but you’re still a child,” she said to me. “I don’t know—it’s like I’d fallen into some kind of well the last month. Everything was so dark. It happens for a while each time I have a child.”

  “Because we’re girls,” I whispered.

  “What? That’s not true.” She gripped my hand in hers.

  “I was there. You were crying. You wanted a son.”

  “Yes, we did want a son,” she sighed. “But it doesn’t mean we don’t love our daughters. You’re part of me; how can I not love you?”

  “Why is having a boy all anyone can talk about?”

  “Who else will care for us in our old age? Who will run the farm and keep your grandfather’s dream alive?”

  “I could,” I told her. “Seema and I both would.”

  “You will get married one day. Then you’ll belong to a new family.”

  “But I’m part of this family!”

  “I wish it wasn’t this way, but this is how the world works. It doesn’t mean I don’t love my daughters. I love each and every one of you.”

  “What are we going to do, Amma?” I whispered. “I made such a huge mistake.”

  “Don’t you worry. We’ll fix it. We will.”

  I used to sit with my mother most mornings as she made breakfast in the early hours while everyone slept—it was the only chance I ever had to be alone with her. I would tell her what I learned in school, the latest drama I might have had with my friends. If anyone could come up with a way to fix this, she could. She always knew how to make things right.

  * * *

  • • •

  When Omar and Seema returned from school, we gathered by the wire chicken coop in the backyard, obscured from view.

  “I’ve been running it over and over in my head,” I told them. “I still can’t figure out what he’s going to do tomorrow.”

  “He’s not going to do anything,” Seema said. “If he wanted to do something, he’d have done it by now. Everyone knows he doesn’t think—he acts.”

  “The things he’s done, though . . .”

  “Rumors,” she said. “They’re just rumors.”

  I looked at Omar, but he twisted the heel of his sandal in the dirt. He didn’t meet my eyes.

  I didn’t want to tell Seema about Munira’s blackened fields. I couldn’t bring myself to correct her.

  Afraid if I said it out loud, it might come true.

  “Don’t worry.” She put her arm around me. “By this time tomorrow, this will all be behind us.”

  Chapter 13

  The hard-knuckled knock on our front door sent a chill through our household early the next morning.

  Seema and I sat up in bed. Safa and Rabia had slept with us last night. Safa began to speak but, upon seeing our faces, stayed silent.

  The front door creaked open. Footsteps echoed through the house.

  I pressed my ear against the bedroom door.

  “Welcome to our home. It’s an honor,” my father said. “I’ll call my wife to prepare tea.”

  “I’m not here for tea. I’m here about your daughter.” That voice, the same cold voice from the day at the market. His voice was ice water poured down my spine.

  “Sahib, we are beside ourselves over what happened. Please. Forgive her foolish mistake.”

  “Forgive? How can I forgive when the harm is done? I take some of the blame for this disrespect. I haven’t been as involved with matters around here as I used to be. People forget what they don’t see.”

  “We haven’t forgotten. We are forever in your debt.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “You are. And given the circumstances, I’m left with no choice but to collect.”

  Collect? What was he talking about?

  “Please, Sahib. I have no means to pay you back yet. You know how little we have.”

  No. This couldn’t be right. It was the one thing our mother always said: Never take on more than you could bear. And never be indebted to anyone—especially someone like this.

  “If I had the money, I would lay it at your feet, but I don’t have it.”

  “Then she will do.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I don’t understand,” my father finally said.

  “She will live on my estate and work for me. She will pay off your debts.”

  “She—she’s practically a child,” my father stammered.

  “I would like to let it go, but if I let this pass, who will disrespect me next?”

  “Sending my daughter away like this. I can’t, Sahib.”

  “She will be treated like all my servants, no better, no worse. I’ll even let her visit twice a year like the others.”

  I backed away from the door. I heard wrong. I must have. But why, then, did Seema stare at me like she saw a jinn? She motioned me back to the door.

  “I’ll give you a few days to discuss, but I promise you will like the alternatives far less.”

  The door opened and shut. A car engine sprang to life. Tires rumbled against dirt and gravel.

  The room was shrinking.

  Closing in on me.

  Flinging open the kitchen door, I rushed into the backyard, past the workers in the sugarcane fields, past the tractors, their noise blurring into the distance.

  “Amal! Wait!” Seema raced after me.

  But I didn’t stop. I kept running, as if the farther I went, the farther I could leave my destiny behind.

  Chapter 14

  Over my dead body.” My mother’s voice was low, almost a growl.

  My sisters and I lingered by the closed entrance of my parents’ bedroom. It had now been two days since Jawad Sahib visited our home and my parents began arguing without end.

  “You discuss this as though there’s a choice,” my father said. “Is our daughter not dear to me also? Be reasonable.”

  “So we give up our respect? She goes off to become a servant, and what becomes of her? And what about the rest of our girls? They are young, but think of their futures. Who will marry a girl whose family has been shamed like this?”

  “I spoke with the village elders. Our neighbors feel sympathy, not judgment, toward us. This won’t change anything for the other girls. Besides, it could have been worse. It’s not as if she’ll be out in the fields. She’ll be a servant in that house. And Jawad Sahib gave me his word; he won’t harm Amal.”

  “His word? His word can change with the tides. What need does he have to keep his promises? You’re the one who took loans from a viper without breathing a word to me. You fix it.”

  “Do you hear yourself? When the rains came five years ago and destroyed all the wheat before we could harvest it, or when the drought shriveled the sugarcane to dust last year, how do you think we survived? A
miracle? I did what I had to do to protect this family.”

  “I would rather have died than owe him a thing. And thanks to you, we owe him our daughter.”

  “Who doesn’t owe him money? Make the monthly payments and there’s no problem. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t decided to stop functioning. Children were running this home. What else could we expect?”

  There was a long silence. Then my mother wept.

  I walked away from the door and into my bedroom. I wished Seema was home from school. My stomach hurt more and more these days. My guilt was hollowing me from the inside out.

  The door creaked open. In a place so filled with people, spaces seldom stayed empty for long. But it wasn’t one of my little sisters who walked inside. It was my father.

  He sat next to me on my bed, his eyes fixed on his sandals.

  He had avoided me since we last talked, but sitting next to me now, his eyes damp, his shoulders hunched, he didn’t look angry. He looked like my father.

  “I shouldn’t have taken money from him,” he said. “I was desperate. He preys on people in their moments of weakness. I thought I’d pay it back with the next harvest, but the debt kept growing. I owed money on what I owed. He told me I could take my time. I thought he was generous. Now I know the truth. How else to keep us forever under their thumb?” His eyes locked into mine. “Do you know how hard your grandfather worked to buy this little patch of land?”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “When I was your age, we went hungry for months, saving everything we could. My father wanted us to be our own masters. To have something to pass down to future generations. I’m the only son in my family; it’s up to me to keep this land ours and honor your grandfather’s memory. Does everything our family worked for come to an end now? This isn’t what any of us want.”

  “Abu, I can’t leave. What if I never come back?” I pushed down a sob.