She peeked through the gaps in the curtains, catching a glimpse of the sunrise. The sun poured out crimson and orange beams, which became slightly yellow as they spread slowly and gradually, brightening up the post-night sky. She silently stared at the pivot of all this light. Her pupils dilated, trying to find something right there. Tracing the lace on the corner of the curtain, she slowly placed her cheek on the windowpane, trying to get a better view of the dawn. Little dewdrops trickled down the glass and birds sang their hearts out in a Disneyesque harmony.
“Imamah I need a son. I won’t let you stay in this house if it is a girl.” His words roared in her mind. It seemed a little less harsh now thinking about them or perhaps she was now just immune to everything.
“Listen it should not be a daughter or else you know Hamid would leave you.” Her sister-in-law’s words filled her ears now.
“There is something about words,” she thought. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood and numb your thoughts. Inside you, they work their magic.
Whereas, silence is the perfect water; unlike rain, it falls from no clouds to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes, to give heart to the thin blades of grass fighting through the concrete for even air dirtied by our endless stream of words. It is like the sea: graveyard of bittersweet memories, contaminated with saline hurt, losing our words in the calm spin of its tomb of water.
There was fear of her marriage and desperation of a shelter in her back then, which kept her silent. She had craved for a daughter for so long, but it ate her heart when Hamid forced her to kill her unborn daughter for the first time. She was his wife and perhaps this was enough to keep her silent. She had thought that he would realize and it would not happen again, but it did. This time Hamid had threatened to divorce her. Taking her own daughter’s life this time was equal to killing her motherly heart. She knew Hamid would not understand, he was blinded with the desire of a son.
“Choice,” she whispered, leaving her breath on the windowpane.
A wife or a mother? The choice was her own. She chose her daughter this time. Her silence was just like a time bomb set in to motion, some day it was destined to explode and it did that day. She had refused. She knew that a ‘no’ could destroy her marriage, but she had no other choice. She had no respect left for him now and perhaps it was better that she broke her silence, not for her own sake but her daughter’s.
The sun was now in an upright position, pouring out much stronger and brighter in the cloudless skies to wash everything in the golden light of fairy tales. She looked at her daughter, who was now awake in her cot, playing with the little doll hanging over her head. With swift, impatient steps, she walked towards her cot and picked her up in her arms, cradling her slowly. This time the fear and desperation in her was gone. This time there was a smile. The most exquisite smile veiled by memory and tinged by dreams for tomorrow.
