Amal Unbound(10)

I was allowed a few moments of peace without any of my sisters yanking at my sleeve, wasn’t I? Just this once?

I slipped past Seema and out the house.

It was only a trip to the market, but I would cherish this time to myself.

The sounds of tractors, bicycle bells, and children playing cricket in the street filled me with a sense of calm.

I knew each store owner and vendor I passed. I knew their wives and their children. But today, traveling the same streets I’d walked hundreds of times before, without little hands to keep out of fruit stands, without tiny feet to steer around idling rickshaws, I noticed it all as though for the first time. The sun was hotter than usual for the time of year, but I even enjoyed this.

Shaukat’s store was bustling. My neighbors filled the aisles, sifting through the vegetables and fruit.

“Why is it so busy today?” I asked my neighbor Balkis.

“New arrivals. Pomegranates. Coconuts. Apples,” she replied. She waved at the shoppers with one hand and fanned her face with a newspaper with the other. “Needed some turmeric but didn’t know I’d have to fight these crowds. You’d think Shaukat was giving things away for free.”

I squeezed through the aisle. Two pomegranates rested in the crate perched next to the onions and apples. Red, sweet, delicious pomegranates. I counted my money. I had enough to buy one extra item. Something small. Just for me.

I snatched one up as a woman grabbed the other.

One of my neighbors argued with Shaukat over bruised zucchini and squash. I grabbed a handful of onions and some ginger and leaned past her to pay.

Slinging my satchel over my shoulder, I stepped back onto the dusty road. I gripped the red fruit in my palm. Maybe this pomegranate was the sign of hope I needed. A bit of sweetness after all the bitterness. I would share it with Omar and Seema. It didn’t make everything better, but the thought made me happy.

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.