A DAUGHTER'S HEART

It was a long awaited day. My father was finally coming home, after spending a two months long summer vacation in Switzerland with his youngest brother and my favourite Uncle, Sarfraz. I was all set to leave for the airport to receive him with the rest of my family. Our house bearer Yousaf Lala was having last minute checks of Daddy’s room and his welcome dinner arrangements under my mother’s hasty instructions. It was late afternoon around 4 pm and as we were just about to leave, the telephone rang. Someone picked up the phone and gave it to my mother. It was my father’s sister, Aunt Mussarrat from Lahore with an unexpected, if not bad news. She informed us that Daddy had slipped at Dubai airport and had a minor foot twist. He was alright but could not travel immediately, though he would catch the next flight to Islamabad and will be home by mid night. My mother was visibly down when she hung up and broke the news to us, bursting our bubble as well. We were even more disappointed because all of us, the children had especially dressed up for this day. Daddy was coming home after being away from us for the longest period ever, two months had lingered on without him very slow. We started comforting ourselves and telling each other that it must have been a minor foot muscle injury and he obviously needed to rest his twisted foot. He would inevitably be home by the next morning or worst case scenario by tomorrow night. We all sat together in our rectangular drawing room while my mother’s sister Aunt Bilquees comforted us by saying that slipping on a marble floor could be extremely dangerous. We should be glad that he just had a minor fracture without any major injuries. But somehow we were not glad and as the hours passed by, we began growing impatient and restless. There was nobody we could contact to get an update about him so we tried calling Aunt Mussarat back in Lahore, to find out who had told her. Nobody answered the phone. Where had everyone gone? When was the next flight from Dubai supposed to arrive? My father’s best friend Uncle Zia had been calling to get updates as they were also coming to the airport with us. Suddenly people started gathering in our house. My maternal grandparents Baray Abu and Bari Aunty walked in. Their unexpected arrival and unusual quietness worried me. Why is nobody saying anything? This silence was killing me. My mother’s worry intensified, she was now panicking. ‘Zulfiqar always calls home, from everywhere. How come he hasn’t called today? He knows that we were all anxiously awaiting him’. It was when Aunt Mussarat made a sudden appearance in our drawing room that I completely lost my control over the situation. The cities of Lahore and Rawalpindi are at a three hundred kilo meters distance from each other and in those days, a serious bit of logistical planning was required, if one was to commute between these two cities. What is she doing here? Something has gone wrong, something much more than what we know. I followed her to the kitchen. She looked obviously pale and as I went close to her, I saw that she was trying to hide her eyes from me. I held her arms, tight. ‘Please tell me that my father is all right.’ It just came out of me immediately. She avoided making eye contact with me. ‘Please tell me that nothing has happened to him, please don’t say anything else. I don’t want to hear anything else.’ I started shaking her uncontrollably, nervously. She hugged me and in between tears said that if I prayed to God, my father will be alright and be back amongst us very soon. God, no God but God became my lifeline. Suddenly in a situation of nerve wrecking uncertainaity, when the environment was filled with the fear of the unknown, I felt compelled to do what the Muslims always do in desperation; to seek refugee by connecting to the superior divine power somewhere above in the skies. ‘Alright Aunty. I will go to say a prayer, now.’ I ran upstairs to grab my grandfather’s prayer mat and spread it on the terrace. Out in the open, under the dimming stars of that chilly October night, I offered my prayers. It seemed to be taking longer than the usual. Mosquitoes ruthlessly bit my arms and feet but I remained engrossed in the important task at hand. I believed that my prayers were always answered and in that moment, I only needed my father back. I begged God for my father’s safe return home. I cried for mercy on him, on me, on my family and on everyone around him. There could not be any other way, I needed my father back. I started arguing with God. Little did I know that it had already been twelve hours to his death. Downstairs, Barray Abu was sitting in the guest room, making telephone calls to his contacts in Dubai. He had locked the room from inside. It was around midnight that my mother, who had kept her cool since evening and was sitting with other women in the drawing room praying for Daddy’s recovery, instinctively threw her rosemary away and stood up. She rushed towards the guest room and started beating the door hysterically. ‘Open the door. I want to know where my husband is.’ I have seen my mother’s composure in very testing times but by now, she had enough of this suffocating silence. By now everyone was tense and the uncertainty was becoming too much to absorb, too heavy to breathe. We joined her at the door, equally fearful of what was to come. If there was one person who ought to know about the exact state and location of my father, it was Barray Abu. He finally opened the door, with features dimmed in the smoky white, defeated color of his face. His cry was louder than my mother’s. ‘Be brave my daughter. Zulfiqar is no more.’ He held my mother, pressing her head against his chest. My head and heart became still. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ A bundle of knots aroused in my throat as I screamed at him, as if he was responsible for this. ‘No, no, no…this cannot be true.’ I fell on the wooden maroon sofa, screaming with such force that my entire frame shook. What happened after that I don’t know. I just know that our house which was full of life and festivity only hours before turned into a sight one had never imagined. People, hundreds of people gathered in our house over night. Furniture pieces were pushed next to the walls to make room for the people flooding in our house. White bed sheets were spread over the carpets, which had been washed in the morning to thoroughly clean up everything before Daddy was home. My mother fainted and remained unconscious for hours. I kept screaming from the top of my lungs. It felt like trying to breathe, it felt like begging for oxygen. I vividly remember falling flat on my face in the slopped doorway, to be pulled by somebody. That night we saw what hell breaking loose meant. Screams and cries did not stop all night. We were all shell shocked, in a state of denial. The suddenness of the shock had probably been more devastating. Slowly, bit by bit details came in. Daddy had travelled from Zurich to Dubai safe and sound and was on his way to catch his onwards connecting flight to Islamabad. Tragedy had struck at the Dubai airport, when he was boarding, climbing the stair case of the air craft that he suddenly fell down and collapsed. Within less than three minutes, he died of cardiac arrest. There had been a death on board that fateful Emirates flight. By the time he was taken to the airport medical emergency unit, he was dead already. A passenger died on his way home. Too cruel to be true. Sarfraz uncle was bringing his dead body to Pakistan the next morning. How and when the time for his funeral was fixed at 2 noon, I don’t know. I don’t know how Madiha, my courageous sister called up the world to break this tragedy that had struck us with full force right in our faces, right in the spring of our lives. I only recall Yousaf Lala crying loudly but still trying to convince us sisters to nibble some bites and prepare ourselves to receive thousands of people