The odor of her henna made me cover my nostrils in disgust. I remember when I came to my village three years back; my arms and my feet were covered in gorgeous henna swirls, and I loved sniffing it then. Abu had made both my little siblings paint the newest designs on my feet making sure that the color never dripped out of its floral boundaries. I was not quite mature for my age, but the idea of going back to my homeland to my prince was not at all daunting for my sisters and I. Bari Ammi despised the idea of having me sent away. When Abu would tell us stories of princes in faraway lands, Ami would always look away. Abu would make all three sit on his lap and tell us that he had saved the best presents for our seventeenth birthdays. He said that we’d get our own prince in our very own land where we would rule. My eyes would gleam with anticipation, and I would guffaw when the little ones would look at me with envy because I would be the first of them to turn of age.
Whenever it would be Eid, Abu would bring us dolls dressed in desi dresses to play with. We would dress them up, bathe them and tell them that they had to get ready for their faraway kings. Sara accidentally put henna on her doll’s face when I was sixteen, and she had wept for days till I had handed her my well-kept doll.
Three days after I turned seventeen, Ami refused to come out of her room, and when Abu persuaded her to, I saw that she had been sobbing the whole night. Her eyes were swollen, and she did not look at me in the eye. I went and sat down next to her, but she turned her head away. I remember that even then I could not wipe the plastered smile off of my face. I was incredibly content. I would get my own prince. He would bring me sweets dipped in ghee not just on Eid but every day and I would be allowed to roam the streets in my veil. Abu’s childhood stories would be coming to life. I had promised my mother that I would come to her every six months and get my hair braided by her and that I would write to her and tell her about my prince and bring achaar for her.
It’s been eight years, and I still have to fulfill that promise. That was the last I ever saw of my parents and my sisters. Five years ago I had thought of my Abu as a deceiving monster but such a long time had passed that I had forgiven him. The day I had left had been the last day Ami had braided and oiled my hair. I had no hair left to be played with anymore. The acid had washed them away. Sara and Mariam had dolled me up to be thrown into a never ending torture; I wept night and day imagining that they had been dragged into a similar one as well.
The new bride’s henna made her look even younger than she was. Her eyes looked at me with pity that was overshadowed by the excitement of her bright red bangles.
“It’s okay,” she whispered under her breath, as I combed back her corkscrew curls. “The only reason he punished you was because you could never nestle a child for him.”
I looked at her and smiled -the smile that I had given to my prince’s last two brides. We were all his dolls after all.
