Chapter 2

* 

Barely a few minutes after joining her mother in the kitchen, Afrah began to smell like the spices and seasonings she was using in the food. For this precise reason, she had chosen to leave the veil in her room, having wrapped her favorite and very casual-looking black scarf around her hair instead. 

"Allow the stew to simmer for a few more minutes before you add the spices," her mother called from the counter where she was chopping the carrots, green beans and onions. 

Afrah lifted the lid and peeked into the pot, noting the reddish colour of the stew. She closed the lid once again, leaning against the kitchen island so that her back was turned to the stove. 

"Are you planning on roasting yourself as well?" Umma asked as she briefly glanced at her over her shoulder. 

"No ma'am," Afrah shook her head. 

"Then move away from that stove at once," she said. 

"Umma," Afrah groaned as she moved towards the cabinet instead, "I'm an adult, you know. Legally, I'm allowed to do whatever I want to do." 

"Not as long as you're still living under our roof," she replied. Afrah opened her mouth to speak, but she fell silent instead. The only sound in the kitchen was coming from the covered pot. 

"Your aunt Safiya told me last night that Fahad has returned from Malaysia this week," Umma said quietly, testing the waters. 

"Oh," Afrah replied simply. 

"He has finished his Masters, and has already secured a job in the Ministry of Finance," she continued. "She says he plans on buying a house in Katampe, which should be about twenty minutes from here." 

"I see," Afrah shrugged. 

"Do you remember what he looks like?" Umma glanced at her briefly, though she avoided meeting her eye. 

"Not exactly," Afrah said nonchalantly. 

"Well, I think he's going to drop her off today," she said. "You should say hi to each other, as I'm sure you haven't spoken in ages." 

Afrah ignored the sudden irregularity of her heartbeat and nodded stiffly. 

"When are you going back to school?" Umma asked after nearly ten minutes had passed. 

"Ten days from now," she replied. 

"And then?" 

"Our graduation is coming up in three months," she said, feeling a mild tingling sensation up her spine at the thought of finally leaving school. it had been fun, but she was ready to start a new chapter of her life. 

"And after that?" 

"Well, Abba said he'll talk to a few people and find out whether I can get an internship as soon as possible, which will hopefully lead to a job offer," she said, staring at her mother's back curiously. 

"And then?" she asked again. 

"And then life goes on," she said. "I'll get a job with a decent salary, save most of it, then use the rest to take care of my wants and needs." 

"And is that how you plan on spending the rest of your life?" Umma asked. Afrah turned towards the fridge and opened it, picking a bottle of water. 

"What else am I supposed to do?" she asked as she opened the bottle and began to gulp down the water. 

"Oh, I don't know," Umma said, "but what about getting married?" 

Afrah froze so suddenly that the water she had been drinking poured down her front. The sound made Umma turn, narrowing her eyes at her. 

"Is something wrong?" she asked. 

"I... I don't want to discuss this now," she said, setting the water down on the counter. 

"Did you think you'll be spending the rest of your life here in this house?" she asked as she set down the knife on the chopping board. "Aren't you going to start a family of your own? You'll need to find a man very soon, whom you'll get married to and have children of your own." 

"Umma," she said weakly, "I..." 

"I know what you are about to say," Umma raised her hand, "but you need to forget about the past. Forget about him. For how long are you going to let what happened in the past control your life? You need to forget about it... You need to forget about him. It would do you some good, you know." 

It sounded as though she was hearing her from the other end of a very long tunnel. Afrah stared into her mother's eyes, though she wasn't actually seeing her. 

What she saw instead was the face of the man leering over her, his face mere inches from hers, so close that she could smell the garlic in his breath and the horrible scent of dried sweat. She recalled the smile on his face as the tears streamed down hers, before he climbed off her quietly. 

"Do yourself a favour and forget this ever happened," he had said. "It would do you some good, you know." 

Umma suddenly screamed, rushing towards her as she felt the ground slipping out from underneath her, before everything turned black. 

* 

It was nearly twenty minutes later before Afrah opened her eyes slightly, a dull throbbing in her head. She looked up, squinting at the ceiling while she began to hear voices just outside her door. 

"Don't ever try something like this again, Halima," Abba's voice came, booming and terrifying. "You may do whatever you like in this house, but don't you dare mess with my daughter's health ever again." 

"Don't raise your voice at me, Aminu," Umma retorted loudly. "What did I say that is wrong? I was merely telling her the truth." 

"Keep your truth to yourself then," he said. "I will not have you frightening her anymore than you already have." 

"She is not a child anymore," Umma said exasperatedly. "How long are you going to protect her from the world? How long are you going to keep her away from the truth? Why shouldn't I tell her the truth as it is? She's not getting any younger, and Amina is going to get married next month already. Do you expect her to spend the rest of her life in this house, eating, sleeping and wallowing away the best years of her life?" 

"Do not lecture me," he replied. "All I want you to understand is that I do not appreciate you putting her in situations like this. What if something bad had happened to her?" 

"I merely brought up the topic of marriage, Aminu," Umma snapped. "I merely brought it up. I never said anything to instigate her. And the next thing I know, she's slumping to the ground from a panic attack. What am I supposed to do?" 

"Afrah is delicate," her father dropped his voice slightly. "Our top priority should be how to take care of her. You can't go about telling her that she needs to get married after every few minutes. She will do so at her own time, when she is ready. Besides, after what happened..." 

"It's been eleven years, Aminu," Umma said, dropping her voice as well. "Eleven years of her living in fear of facing the future. Eleven years of her being afraid to even mention the culprit's name. We can't keep her like this, Aminu. We need to do something, and we need to do it quickly." 

"Afrah will do things at her own time," he said. "And I warn you, Halima, the next time you cause this girl to have a panic attack, you're leaving this house before she loses consciousness." 

The sound of his receding footsteps told Afrah that he had stormed off. A few seconds later, she heard Umma's hands on the door. She immediately shut her eyes, hastily wiping the tears in her eyes. 

Umma stepped into the room quietly, staring down at her still-unconscious daughter. She moved towards her, sodden with tears and weighed down by the feeling of helplessness. 

Afrah felt her sink onto the bed slowly, and a second later she pressed her hand to her forehead. 

"I'm sorry, Afrah," she muttered under her breath. "You deserve better. And I'm sorry I can't give you just that." 

It was an enormous effort to keep her lips from trembling. The last time Afrah head her mother this broken was the day she found out what happened to her. It was painful to even remember it, but even more so as she heard her now, hopeless and lost. It was nowhere near how she felt herself, as though she would never know happiness ever again. 

She never wished to be like this. No one would ever wish to live the way she was living now, constantly being reminded that she was stained, dirty, tainted by the past which she so desperately sought to forget. It didn't help that everywhere she went, she still remembered him, and the way she felt before, during and after everything had happened. What wouldn't she give to forget? What wouldn't she do to put everything behind her and live life the way everyone else did? Life had dealt her a heavy blow, and the only thing she was capable of doing was to accept it and bear the burden. 

"Everything will be fine," Umma whispered. "Trust me. One day, all of this won't matter. You will smile one day, Afrah." 

With that, she stood up and walked out of the room, towards the safety of her own room where she would be free to drown in her own misery as well. 

It was only after she left that Afrah opened her eyes once again, finally succumbing to the tears. Her father's words kept echoing in her head, round and round like a slow wheel of torture. 

Afrah is delicate. 

How many times had she heard that exact statement? How many more times would she hear it again? It was a constant reminder that she wasn't normal; that she could never hope to live the normal life which everyone else seemed to be living. Instead she was treated like a fragile flower, shielded from the harshness of the world by the hands of her parents, who had both taken it upon themselves to protect her from reality. 

She closed her eyes once again, banging her head slowly on the pillow. If only there was a way to extract her thoughts, like the pensieve in the Harry Potter books she had read nearly a thousand times. 

How wonderful would it be to forget the day it all happened? The day she was changed forever. 

*