The Fallen Widow

18. Alone and Vulnerable

It was the implicit truth of Jahanpur. Every village knew deep down, but to speak the truth, was forbidden. Meh'r-Bano heard many terrifying stories at the river who spent nights at Peer Haider's darbar (shrine). This man's two prong reputation, one in the main and other complicit within smaller circles preceded him. Peer Haider was trusted, highest spiritual saint, and holiest man that women were terrified of speaking up against him. No one would believe them. Speaking ill against him was sacrilege.

Shafiq dropped Meh'r-Bano outside the brown gate door holding her bag. She reached out and grabbed his arm.
"Please Shafiq. Don't leave me here." She cried.
Shafiq shrugged his arm and dropped her black bag. He struggled making his way to the darbar. But he was under immense pressure at the garage- Meh'r-Bano was a distraction. She needed to be out of the way as he dealt with Mushtaq.
"I'll be back tomorrow to check on you." He turned his back and she followed him.
"You can't leave me here." It was late, darkness was threatening over the sky and there was no way back home walking through the dark, dangerous pathway.
He turned around. "That's your problem. You're stubborn. If you listened to me, you wouldn't be here. You cause all the problems. Now this is your problem, and you need to fix it."

A middle-aged stocky woman made her way to Meh'r-Bano and tugged her. Soon, it would be evening and women must be indoors. Meh'r-Bano called out to her husband one last time to no avail.

Grabbing her bag against her chest Meh'r-Bano was led into the back entrance of the darbar. This was the women's area, walking through a square courtyard towards a veranda were there were a corridor of doors. As she looked up into the sky she could see the marble dome of the darbar. Shiny, regal the place where the peer rested, prayed and greeted guests.
The waddling woman had a limp and scowl across her face. She hawked hard into the back of her throat and spat a mighty pond of phlegm onto the dry courtyard floor.

"Get in!"

Inside the room, the heat hit her. The windows were shut, the curtains were drawn. There were twelve women, all allocated their little space on the floor with coloured straw mat. On the rectangular mat they prayed, ate, slept in a small spot. There were two dim lights on each side of the room. The room hummed in prayer as each woman focused on her holy book of prayers gently rocking two and fro.
The woman pointed Meh'r-Bano to the far corner of the room where a vacant straw mat spread into a corner of the room enough for her to lay on to sleep.
"Have you got wudu?" The woman grunted. "Go wash yourself, it will soon be time for prayer."

Most of the women in the room were focused on their reading as Meh'r-Bano tip toed bare foot through the maze of women. The further she gained into the room, the tighter her throat like she was being strangled. How could she spent fourteen nights here?

Six hours past and Meh'r-Bano struggled to sleep. The sound of mosquito buzzing in her ear, the humid room causing her body to be sticky to the pencil thin mat she slept on. Outside she could hear the howling of wild wolfs and barking of dogs. There was nowhere to run. A woman in the room sobbed silently as she prayed. The evening scandalous meal of mushy chick peas and burned chapatti played in her stomach, rumbling and creating gas bubbles. Meh'r-Bano pressed her stomach. She couldn't go to the toilet, not this late. The toilets were located out of the darbar, in the fields, two cubicles with a hole in the ground were the toilet facilities. Another cubicle with a steel bucket was where women showered, isolated and away from the central darbar. That's where she was last time when Shafiq sent her to. That night she took a plastic lota and filled it with water to complete her ablution. The moonlight guided her to the toilet cubicles. Just as she approached the cubicle she felt a presence behind her, a hand, the crunch of stones. The lota dropped, the water splashed as she jumped and turned around. The clouds blanketed the moon light, she couldn't see.