we have deflowered your girl in return. We’re even.
‘Why do so many women commit suicide in Batman?’ they ask.
Instead, you should ask: Is a man’s blood sweeter than that of a woman?
Then an agreement is made to avoid a vendetta, so that guns are not fired in our peaceful, exemplary villages, so that the dear blood of the men would not spill from their precious veins on to the earth, so that no disgrace is brought upon the clan, with court appearances and newspaper coverage and all, so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the gendarmes or the journalists: the sister of such and such a youth married her rapist who raped her near the fountain, and the maid-no-more is given to the poor wretch who allegedly raped her on this and this date.
‘Why do so many women commit suicide in Batman?’ they ask.
My Daughter
When I looked for my daughter one morning, I realized she was not around. I thought to myself, where’s she bleeding gone again, at the crack of dawn? She was always out, and never listened to me. I went into her brothers’ room; all three were sound asleep. I woke the eldest up, telling him he was late for work. I was surprised; he’d gone to bed with his clothes on, just like that, just as he’d come home from work. ‘Do you know where your sister is?’ I asked.
He just stared. ‘Mother, come, there’s something we have to tell you,’ he said. He woke up his brothers too. ‘Go and pour us some tea,’ he said. I was scared of the way he sounded. I went into the kitchen and poured some tea for the three of them.
‘Mother, we killed our sister, there was no other way out, she was bringing shame upon our family,’ he said.
Suddenly my blood pressure rose, I felt I was about to collapse. They gathered around me, rubbed my hands and arms with cologne. When I came round, I started repeating: ‘Oh God, please let it be a dream, let me wake up... Oh God, God forbid.’
Repeating bismillah over and over again, I ran into my daughter’s room. She wasn’t there. I went back to the kitchen. Her three brothers were staring intently at my face. The youngest started sobbing.
‘Mother, you keep our secret,’ said the eldest.
I sat there and cried my eyes out, oh God, what else was I going to do. But there is no escape from fate. In the end I decided, what could I do, I’m a mother and I’ve lost my daughter, let me at least not lose my other children. And so I have not said a word to anyone for nine years. I’m so very sorry.
Baby Girl
Some kind-heart had brought us a whole load of leftovers and we were full. In good spirits, I mean. Us stray dogs can’t always find something to eat. Some days we just cannot, you understand, but that day we had; lucky us. And as we had nothing else to do, we were chillin’.
We found ourselves in the cemetery. Suddenly Abhi, he’s the one with the strongest sense of smell among us (now, I am the leader, but give credit where it’s due), started barking for no apparent reason. He never barks for nothing. On my command, my pack trotted over to where he was. The smell of the living! Impossible! Now, we are able to distinguish the smell of the newly buried from that of a person buried two days ago, that of a five-days buried from that of a one-month buried, five years from ten years; we’re good like that, you see. But this smell coming from under the earth was clearly that of the living!
Immediately, on my command, my pack started digging with all four paws. Imagine, eight dogs, all barking and digging the earth in unison. Thank God we managed to attract the attention of some passer-by; otherwise, the smell of the living was coming from deep below and who knows how much longer we’d have tried. There’s no telling if the human being would still have been alive by then. That man who saw us from a distance and suspected something fishy came near us. Thankfully he got suspicious at our anxiety and attitude. He ran out of the cemetery and came back with the police. A swarm of policemen, picks and shovels in their hands, they wanted us to stand aside: On my command, my pack all stepped aside. In a flash, they dug the earth we’d been pawing.
And what d’you think they found? A tiny human puppy! How happy we were. The police chief tagged me as the leader, and gave me enough bones to feed my pack. That was some lucky day.
Number 5
I am Han. I must admit it’s an ironic name, King, for someone whose life was threatened even in his mother’s womb.
Here is what happened: apparently my mother and father were members of the Gene Purging Programme, under which, my gene tests were carried out as soon as it was understood that I had been conceived. The device did not give out a signal. Everyone was happy: ‘Your fifth seed is pure, there, you may give birth.’ But I fooled you there, didn’t I!
The pregnancy was uneventful; I made sure of that. I didn’t make the slightest noise in there so that I wouldn’t cause any suspicion. I gave my mother neither morning sickness nor a single sleepless hour: In fact, I didn’t even grow to my full extent, so that she would remain totally comfortable. Oh, how happy my mother was, how happy everyone was. Well, after all it was a pure gene, and these pure genes are really something. Good thing we joined this programme. Look at Ayşe, poor woman, how plagued by flatulence she is.
I waited. To tell you the truth, I waited quite a long time. I believed that if I waited for nine months I would be sure to get out no matter what. After all, by then I would officially be considered a human being! By the end of the ninth month my hands were slightly overgrown, and I was tired of making them into fists so that my mother’s belly would not swell too much; so I loosened them a little bit. Not entirely, mind you, just a little bit, just to get a little more comfortable. How I wish I hadn’t! My mother, who’d been having a really easy time of it, like a princess, suddenly rushed off to the doctor at this sudden discomfort in her belly, ordering my father to ‘Come quickly!’ over the phone. Those white-shirts, they love pontificating on such matters, they can’t get enough of it; so they got together at once. That a baby with purged genes should cause discomfort! Impossible! The white-shirts became suspicious. ‘No’, they said, ‘no, there is something wrong here’. That famous
device was brought in straight away, the belly was listened to, glances were exchanged secretly and words were exchanged openly. There has been a terrible mistake! A one-in-a-million kind of thing. You must have understood by the fact that the device gave out a signal; your baby’s genes are not pure!
My mother was furious, with that huge belly of hers! ‘How could such a thing happen? A bagful of money was spent on this programme!’
‘We are very sorry, madam, you will get a refund immediately.’
They went on coaxing her for hours to no avail; my mother would have none of it. While she was storming at the doctors I suddenly realized that my father had already slipped away. That’s what he does, my father gets lost whenever things get messy, I have observed it over these past nine months. When my mother finally noticed his absence she jumped into her car in a panic, naturally she did not listen to the doctors’ orders about not driving. She started driving and calling my father on her mobile, but there was no answer. Now she cannot stand that, she cannot stand my father ignoring her; but it’s not because she adores her husband, it’s because she has to keep up appearances. ‘Sweetie,’ she often tells her friends, ‘I can’t remember a single night when we didn’t sleep cuddling, hand in hand. In all these years we’ve not had a serious argument or disagreement.’ There is bound to be no disagreement if you keep being such a witch!
But this time she’s in deep trouble; the baby is flawed, the husband
