A LETTER FROM THE PAST
Early in the morning, when Begum Zulaikha came to the dining table, the servant brought a letter with a cup of tea. She tried to look at it through her crummy eyes but after staring at it for a while she admitted that without glasses she can’t see even a single word. So she put on her glasses. The letter was from her husband, when she saw his name, her bonny hands started trembling. After going through each line her face color faded away. The growing wrinkles on her forehead were indicating that an unpleasant truth is reflecting from the past and was beating the doors of present lives, waiting for the doors to get open. The servant asked her whether she is fine. She nodded her head and ordered the servant not to let her sons know about the letter.
After a few days, she was in the living room looking for the best Sherwani designer for her elder son whose marriage celebrations were going to be started in a few days. The doorbell rang; again her heartbeats accelerated. Unblinkingly she was looking at the door. The servant opened the door and found an average heightened man, who was in his fifties. Servant asked who he wanted to meet. The man seemed annoyed by the servents questions, ignored him and stepped forward. He saw Zuliakha in front of him, and didn’t dare to take any further step from the anterooms. He was Begum Zulaikha’s husband who left her ten years ago for a French woman. Constantly, after marriage, he was having an affair with the French woman and when Zuliakha knew this, he moved with the French lady to Paris. Although after one year Zulaikha heard from a friend that her husband and the French lady had divorced but she never tried to find more about her husband during these ten years. Now he was in front of her just like an antique painting whose origin and the real story are only known to the painter: others can only guess the feelings and events behind colors. Her eyes caught his first glance and couldn’t find any emotion in her other than observing him. During these ten years he has lost his weight and the fairness of his face. His hair has turned grey and he has lost his refulgence. She looked deep into his eyes to examine whether he has any regret for what he did to her but didn’t guess as he was always a mystery for her. They were still and staring each other, no words were exchanged between them then Ahmed, Zulaikhas elder son appeared in the room. The volcano of hatred that was compressed in his heart suddenly burst out when he saw the man who betrayed his mother and dreams of two sons who dreamed to grow up looking at their father’s face. He was standing still in the anteroom and was intensely looking at the walls. The wall paint, the decor, and the dining table everything was changed. That home was now totally strange for him and he was to that home. He even didn’t find his face on the pictures that were hanging on the wall. The aroma of that home was changed. The aquarium that he brought from his very first salary was not there. He was searching for the past in the present but it seems like his memories were made prohibited for that home.
He left Zulaikhas with two litter boys and now there were men both were like her left and right hand. The lady who he left powerless was now having the support of her two strong sons who even don’t like to use their father’s as their surname. Ahmed in a powerful voice was, again and again, cursing her father and was asking Zulaikha to tell him to leave the home. She was quiet; past and present both were fighting a battle in her mind. She fell to the ground and got faint. The letter that she took out during the disturbance was held by her even after becoming unconscious. Only the introductory line was visible through the half unfolded letter. It was written in bold letters that “I am coming back to hand over the family bangles to the daughter-in-law of this family.”
Author; Fazila Nawaz