At two in the morning, the police stopped a young man and woman at a checkpoint. They were on a motorbike, and it didn't take long for the police to understand the situation. They were detained and taken to the police station.
"Who is he to you, miss?" the officer asked.
"H-He's my husband," the girl's voice was barely audible as she answered the officer's stern question. She appeared to be a simple, innocent-looking girl from a respectable family. Meanwhile, the boy, who had been seated in a car outside, was brought in.
"And who is she to you?" the officer asked the boy.
"She's my sister," he replied.
"Oh, really? Your sister?" The officer then slapped the boy multiple times. "Where did you kidnap her from?"
"She came on her own. I didn't bring her," the boy said.
The girl, who had stood with confidence a moment ago, now slumped down, devastated. She had burned all her bridges to be with him, but he didn't even respect their relationship. They were both young, at an age where one is naive, and now there was the fear of police action—a fear they hadn't anticipated. Everything had been planned so simply.
Shahna had planned to give her parents, brother, and everyone at home sleeping pills. When Naeem arrived, everyone at home was under the effects of the pills, fast asleep. As a precaution, Naeem had punched the goat tied in the courtyard to make sure it cried out. When no one stirred, it confirmed that they wouldn't wake up before morning. Quickly, Shahna climbed onto the motorbike with her beloved. They planned to catch a bus to Lahore, where Naeem's friend was waiting with a cleric to marry them. She thought after a few months, she would return, apologize to her parents, and be forgiven. She was their beloved daughter, and her father loved her dearly. Why wouldn't he forgive her?
Everything had been planned, but the police were not part of the plan. This was a disaster that had befallen them. Naeem was arrested, and the police tracked down Shahna's home address. There was a tube well outside her house, and as soon as she got out of the car, Shahna tried to jump into the well. It took several officers to restrain her, and everything happened so quickly that there was no time to call a female constable.
They knocked on the door, but no one woke up, just like the situation that had brought them there. Two of her cousins and her uncle came out after hearing the commotion. They inquired about the situation from the officer. One of the cousins climbed over the wall, opened the door, and let them in. They woke up her parents with great difficulty, and when her father saw his daughter in police custody, it was as if the earth had opened up and was swallowing him whole.
The officer slapped her father hard.
"Papa," she cried out in anguish.
"Your daughters are running off with strangers, and you're sleeping through it? You still want to sleep?" the officer mocked. Policemen's words cut like a double-edged sword. But her parents were in shock, as if caught in a nightmare they couldn't escape.
Her father looked at her with eyes full of blame. "You have brought your own funeral out into the open and hanged it upside down for everyone to see," he said. "Don't cry now, daughter. There are still many lashes to bear, many punishments to endure. This is only the beginning. From now on, generation after generation will have to pay for this. What kind of strange trade have you engaged in, daughter? We will keep paying the price over and over."
The father, with tears in his eyes, placed his soiled, dishonored turban at the officer's feet. "Please forgive me, sir. I just blinked, just took a short nap, and that brief moment of sleep took everything away."
They managed to pay off the police and got her released. But what were they to do with this disgrace now? She was no longer fit to be kept in the house. All the family members who had gathered around after seeing the police car were now looking at her father, expecting him to decide whether he would kill her with an axe, right there and then, so they could tell every young girl at home the consequences of love. But her father's hands no longer had the strength. Holding his crumpled turban, he turned to her brother.
"Brother, my daughter was naive. Consider her your own, and protect her honor," he pleaded.
Shahna, barely breathing, was facing a fate worse than death. Marrying her uncle's son meant living a lifetime in agony. Her father had once rejected their proposal because of her rebelliousness, and now he was offering her to them with folded hands. Her uncle's blood boiled, and he agreed, saying, "Alright, my Rahman will marry her."
But Rahman quickly stood up and said, "Fine, I agree. But after the marriage, I will decide what to do with her. I won't keep her. If she dies, then her death will be on my conscience."
Shahna's father looked at him in fear, and leaning on her uncle's shoulder, he said, "It's late, brother. Take the children home."
Everyone went back, defeated. By morning, the whole village knew what had happened.
She was their darling, and her life was spared. But was it really mercy? It was a life sentence.
He was a potter's son who fell in love and began writing love letters. Shahna would read them and burn them, but slowly, she melted under the warmth of those words. When he became a moth, she naturally transformed into the flame, and light began to spread. The darkness of fate faded away in that bright light. But how did this dim light turn into a fire that consumed the entire house? How did her fate become so tainted?
Her mother would just keep crying. No one would speak to her. Eventually, a matchmaker arranged for her to be married off to a distant village with a warning that she was dead to them, and they were dead to her.
She never looked back. Her husband treated her well. Whenever she remembered Naeem, tears would silently fall. If asked, she would claim she was missing her family.
"Missing a lover, using the family as an excuse."
Naeem was sent abroad by his brothers because his life was at risk. Even if he were the last man on earth, he would never have been allowed to marry a landlord's daughter. It was a rule that could never be broken.
God blessed her with a sweet daughter, but that was all the time she was given. Someone exposed her past to her husband, and disgrace followed her home. Those who had sought a man of honor for her found one who truly was. He wasn't her father, who would forgive. She returned to the same doorstep she had once crossed, carrying the stigma of divorce, with her little Sadaf. Her father begged once more, and she was married off again. The new husband accepted her past but not her living, breathing daughter.
The pain of being separated from her child clung to her like a permanent ailment, eating away at her and her daughter like a termite. Her life was reduced to a single "if only."