Repeated knocks at the door forced Zarmeena to get up from in front of the stove. Every joint of her bruised body was aching as she walked toward the door. She had hardly unbolted the door when her neighbor, Gulzareen rushed in “Zarmeena”. Gulzareen was short of breath by excitement. “You know, some women from city have come to our village. They say that they are working for women rights and collecting data about our mores like honor killing, exchanging women to end feuds, selling daughters for marriages etc. They say that thee are not traditions but social evils”. She paused for breathing. “Social evils! Can you imagine? Look at the word”. Gulzareen laughed hilariously. “And they say that their aim is to uproot these traditions form NWFP and from the whole of Pakistan”. Without paying any attention to whether she was being listened to or not, Gulzareen continued her brattle.

“Zarmeena, I wish you were allowed to go out of the house. They are interviewing women. You were also given to Hassan lala to end up a feud. We would have gone and gotten your interview recorded.” What Gulzareen’s enthusiastic narration got in reply was an empty stare from a pair of eyes devoid of any emotion.

“What happened, Zarmeena?” Gulzareen came nearer and looked at her carefully for the first time since she had come. “Why are you all black and blue?” The next moment, she realized the absurdity of her question. As if she had never been black and blue all her life. “ Zarmeena, don’t stand for too long. Come here and sit down. It’s not two months since you had your miscarriage.” The word made her glacier like friend melt and burst into tears. “I am sorry, Zarmeena. I did not look at your condition and kept babbling about stupid things.” Zarmeena’s head came to her friend’s shoulder. Gulzareen patted her affectionately. “Nothing matters to me know, nothing”. She said amongst sobs. “Not the pain. Not the battering. I am so used to both of them.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “My hopes have been shattered so many times that I don’t want anything form life. I don’t want love. I don’t want happiness. But the baby, Zareen! The baby!” She moaned. “Can any man be cruel enough to kill his baby with his own hand”. Zarmeena’s question met with silence form her friend. Men can and men do. She thought. There were so many instances of miscarriages due to battering in the village. Almost every woman had undergone the trauma at least once. Zarmeena is worrying maybe because she is too young and her husband is too old. Zareen sighed and tried to calm her. For her, a child was no valuable treasure. At the age of twenty four, she was a mother of six children and sick of her perpetually pregnant life. “God will give you children. He is very generous in giving children to the poor”. Zareen laughed mirthlessly. “Zarmeena, try to get used to your life.” Gulzareen said in a low voice. “I am used to with my life.” Zarmeena replied. “You are not. You are not internally satisfied”.

Internally satisfied with what? Thought Zarmeena. No girl in the world would be “ internally satisfied” if she is married to a fifty seven year old man at the age of sixteen, and that also, to a man like Gul Hassan Khan. Ruthless battering, verbal abuses and hatred all came to her in retrospect. Gul Hassan Khan had been married twice and both his wives had died. He visited the local brothels regularly. For him, there was nothing new in a sixteen year old except virginity, which she had lost on the first night of her marriage. He thought that she was like all other women he had slept with and deserved the same brutal treatment to keep her disciplined. “Women are born idiots”. He used to say whenever he was in a good mood. “Like cattle, you have to beat them regularly to keep them disciplined. Otherwise, they get out of their way.” He always laughed at this evaluation of his. These words kept echoing in Zarmeena’s mind, “Like cattle, like cattle”. She thought that her worth in her husband’s or maybe in the whole society’s esteem could be best described by these two words “ Like cattle.”

Zareen left but Zarmeena was absorbed in thoughts for hours. Preparing meal, sweeping the house, washing clothes, whatever she was doing, she was doing with a mind wandering into the past. Her thoughts wandered to her life eight months ago, when she was full of hopes and dreams. She thought of the days of her maiden life when her only apprehension was that nobody would buy her and she would die an old maiden. She belonged to a frontier tribe that sold their daughters for marriages. Whenever she was too worried, she would stand in front of the mirror and carefully looked at herself. Her long hair and emerald green eyes gave her some satisfaction. “I am pretty.” She always thought. Prettier than Meenagul who was sold for Rs. 50,000. Prettier than Gulrukh whose price was Rs. 60,000. But I am certainly not as pretty as Mahgul.

Mahgul, the eldest of Zarmeena’s four sisters was the prettiest girl in the whole area. She was sold for Rs. 300,000, hitherto the highest price for a girl. After her marriage, her middle aged husband took her to the faraway area where he loved. They never heard from Mahgul again. It was not unusual. After marriage, the husband retained full rights over his purchased wife and the wife’s meeting with her parents was subjected to the husband’s permission.

The thought of Mahgul brought to Zarmeena’s mind the reason of her corporal punishment the night before. “Guess what became of your eldest sister?” Gul Hassan had said at dinner. “ The bastard took her to Dubai and sold her there She became a prostitute.” He laughed loudly. “You are so dull. At least you should have learned something from your sister.” He laughed again. “Everybody says that she was very pretty. I would have gotten her instead of you if your idiotic family had decided to end the feud earlier. Tough luck.” He laughed again “How pretty was she? Can you describe her for me? I mean her features, her hair and her figure?”

This indecent talk had made Zarmeena livid with rage. Although Gul Hassan was a womanizer and talked about ever woman as if he was seeing her naked, this insulting way of talking about Mahgul was unbearable for her. Mahgul was her eldest sister and had brought up Zarmeena because her mother was too tired after bringing up seven kids. She could not listen to such remarks about a person who was like her mother. “Hold your tongue, Gul Hassan”. She shouted. “What are you, a man or a wolf? Don’t you have any conscience to bother you before barking such rubbish about your sister-in-law?” This had made him furious. “You tell me to hold my tongue, you bitch.” A tight slap on her face made her feel as if the sky had whirled before her eyes. “You are getting out of your limits because I have kept you in respect. You are a prostitute’s sister and could have been satisfied in a brothel. You do not deserve the respect and status of being a wife.”

The physical and verbal abuses went on and on until Gul Hassan was too tired. She had gotten up from the floor in the morning where she had fallen unconscious in the night. The miscarriage has made me too weak, she thought. Otherwise, I never remained unconscious for the whole night after his battering. She had to hold the table to get on her feet. Her image in the mirror on the wall stunned her. Frozen blood drops on a bruised face, ruffled hair and all black and blue. “The respect and status of being a wife”. Gul Hassan’s remark looked so absurd to her that she started laughing. She laughed until her eyes were filled with tears ad she could not suppress her sobs.

When she finally came out of the room into the small veranda, it was almost midday. She was trying to prepare meal with whatever energy she could muster when Gulzareen had come and left her absorbed in thoughts for hours.

Gul Hassan had come to the house in the evening. He was accompanied with a group of friends who sat in the veranda while he came to her. “Cook this chicken and bring it with the drink.” He handed her a shopping bag. “Immediately.”

The dinner of chicken with alcohol was a luxury for person like Gul Hassan Khan, whose primary source of income was selling inherited lands. Although some villagers said that he “ supplied girls” also, Zarmeena knew too little of him to affirm or deny the statement.

Pouring alcohol into glasses, she was thinking of the strange turn her life had taken. Believing in a religion that forbade even touching alcohol, she could have died some months ago at the thought of serving it to a group of libertines.

She had remained too busy in her work to listen to her husband and his friends’ discussion. But when she carried the tray to the other corner of the veranda where they were sitting, she couldn’t help overhearing them.

As always, her husband had only one subject to talk about- the women he had bedded. “I could see that she was not very womanly but when she took off her shirt I was seriously disappointed.” A fit of laugh interrupted the course of his narration. “Can you imagine, her breast were like…… like a bottle cap.” The group fell into a fit of laughter on the funny simile. “There is an undeniable fact about this person.” One of his friends remarked. “God has written what a variety of women in this pauper’s life. So lucky.” The loud laughs of the group were interrupted by Zarmeena’s arrival. She was clad in a veil and fully covered from head to toe as she was not allowed to show her face before a man. She almost dropped the tray in her husband’s hands and rushed to her room. On reaching there, she shut the door and stood with her back onto it. Her husband’s licentious talk about a woman was giving her a nauseating feeling. She thought that she was no better than the inexpensive prostitutes her husband visited. She also had a feminine body to be compared with funny similes and had nothing else that could render her a status higher than that brothel woman.

She left the door and almost fell on the bed.

Tears fell from her eyes at the tragic end of her much envied married life. There was a time when becoming a bride was the only ambition she had in her life. A faint smile came to her lips as she recalled her feelings a year and a half ago, when her third sister was sold to the village shopkeeper. She had thought that it was her turn to tie the knot had finally arrived. In those she used to spend her time either standing in front of the mirror or thinking of a handsome husband who would care for her like a wax doll. She would imagine him praising her beauty and pictured herself in his arms. Her covert thoughts always gave her a sensational pleasure and had become her favorite pastime.

And then….. then her dreams were shattered due to the happenings of one day. That day that decided her fate was fresh in her memory as if all had just happened the day before. The tribe she belonged to had a dispute with a neighboring tribe over a piece of land. As the tribal men usually went out of the houses armed, the two tribes normally had skirmishes that sometimes resulted in the losses of blood and lives.

That day, her brother Shahnawaz had come home breathing heavily and sweating terribly. “What happened”? He mother rushed to him. “Zarmeena, bring him a glass of water.” Her mother shouted as if Zarmeena was far away. “Amma, I have killed Gulraiz Khan.” The glass of water fell from Zarmeena’s hands. Her mother’s hand was on her mouth, her eyes wide open. They had had a verbal dispute and Gulraiz had cursed Shahnawaz’s grandfather. Livid with rage, Shahnawaz had bulleted him. The twenty five year old had died on the spot.

As per the tradition, a jirga was called to settle the dispute. The wise of the jirga had decided to end the feud forever. A sum of five hundred thousand rupees was to be paid as a ransom by Shahnawaz’s parents. This sum for too huge for them and they requested to pay the amount in installments which was granted by the aggrieved party.

There was another and lesser important provision of the decision. Shahnawaz’s sister, Zarmeena’s hand was to be given in marriage to Gulraiz’s father, Gul Hassan Khan. This giving of daughter was a traditional gesture of ending the dispute forever.

Within a fortnight, Zarmeena had become the third wife of fifty seven year old Gul Hassan who was a father of eight children, all older than Zarmeena .His first wife had died while giving birth to their fifth child during the sixth year of their marriage. The second had fallen prey to a cholera epidemic. Even if both were alive, the jirga wouldn’t have been bothered.

The first month of her marriage had given her a fair idea of her future life. The insulting remarks of Gul Hassan meant to remind her that she was one of the “various” women in his life had started a week after their marriage. He made sure to remind her every now and then that she was his son’s murderer’s sister and had no worth in his eyes. Battering was equally essential in his view to keep “ women and cattle” disciplined.

Life had been a chapter of miser ever since her marriage. Her pregnancy was the only thing worth looking forward to in the eight months of her married life. That hope was also crushed by the ruthless battering of a night.

She had remained absorbed in her wandering thoughts for hours and couldn’t recall the next day when she had fallen asleep in the night. She was preparing breakfast when Gul Hassan Khan woke up. “Zarmeena, bring me a glass of water.” Zarmeena got up like an obedient servant and handed him the water. He took the glass in his hands and eyed it scrutinizing. She was going back toward the stove when he grabbed her hand and seized her toward him. “ Look at this glass.” He shouted as if she had committed a crime. “Look at its rim. It’s muddy.” “ I had washed it.” She said in a low voice. “You have got the guts to reply me back.” He smashed the glass on her feet. Some drops of blood oozed out. “I can never comprehend why God created creatures as silly as you women- incapable of doing even simple things. Now what are you doing here, standing and staring at my face? Go and bring me breakfast.” He shouted again. She lifted the pieces of broken glass in her hands and went back to bring his breakfast.

“You know what I have been thinking about for the past ten minutes.” He said while eating his breakfast. Zarmeena lifted her eyes inquisitively. “I was thinking about Shireen and how funny her death was.” Appalled Zarmeena could not figure out what could possibly be funny in a death. “There is just a single purpose of a woman’s creation. To have sex, get pregnant and deliver babies. Shirreen was incapable of even doing that. She died in child birth.” He laughed loudly, got up and went out. He never told her the time on which he would return, neither was she ever interested in knowing that.

Washing utensils under a tap in the veranda she was thinking that if Gul Hassan Khan could not spare his first wife, dead long ago and a mother of his five children, why would he spare any other woman. She wondered if all men had the same views about women. She thought that her father was not like that or maybe she was too young when she got married to have an idea of the kind of person he was. Although he sometimes hit her mother, it was a norm in the society. But she had never listened to him talking about any other woman. On the thought of her parents her eyes filled with tears. It was so log ago that she had seen them last. She wondered when she would get the chance to see them again, if she ever gets it. A loud knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. A smile came on her lips as she recognized Gulzareen’s knock. Gulzareen came in with her two youngest kids whom she put to sleep in a corner of Zarmeena ’s bed. As usual she started talking about the happenings of the whole village. Who was saving money to purchase whom for marriage, who was pregnant, who had an affair with whom, who was selling land and who was buying it, Gulzareen knew it all.

It was past noon when she went home. Zarmeena rushed to work as she had a lot to do. She swept the house, washed clothes and had just prepared the meal when Gul Hassan came with a man. While the guest went to wash his hands, he rushed to Zarmeena. “Zarmeena, It’s my cousin Gulnawaz.” He said “Bring our food in the veranda.” So his rich cousin, who, according to Zareen’s information was about to come for buying some land in the village , had come. Gul Hassan never told her about why and for how long had the guests arrived. He thought that women were too silly to have an understanding of “irrelevant” things.

Fully veiled, Zarmeena brought the meal of okra curry and wheat bread. Gul Hassan was raged at the sight of the meal. “Is this the kind of food served to guests?” He shouted. “Couldn’t you prepare some chicken dish for my cousin who comes once in years?” And Zarmeena couldn’t say that good meal costs money which was always scarce. “It’s OK Hassan lala. Don’t shut at her. Don’t you know that I like okra curry better than chicken? I am so happy to eat it after a long time.” The calm voice of the young man astonished Zarmeena who had never seen a man taking the side of a woman. Her husband smiled at his cousin. She looked at the man with thankful eyes, which he couldn’t see through her veil, and left.

The next day, Gul Hassan didn’t come home till late in the evening. Sometimes, when he went to brothels, he didn’t come home for the whole night. But what about the guest? His young handsome face came in front of her eyes. She couldn’t imagine him going to a prostitute. Just then repeated knocks at the door caused her to rush and open it.

Gulnawaz and another man, whom she had often seen in Gul Hassan’s company, were supporting her staggering husband, who was too drunk to walk by himself. After putting him to bed, his friend left. Gul Hassan was fast asleep when she entered their room after some time. “Lala, shall I bring food for you?” She asked Gulnawaz. “No, thanks. We ate at the hotel.” He was referring to the inexpensive hotel near the village, which, along with meal, covertly offered alcohol too. The fact that Gulnawaz was not drunk enhanced his esteem in Zarmeena’s heart. She went back to the other room and was thinking about the only wonderful man she had ever seen in Gul Hassan’s company when he suddenly came in. “ Oh, I am sorry. I should have knocked.” He was confused on seeing her unveiled. “Can I have a glass of water?” He asked sheepishly. But he couldn’t take her eyes off her. His long gaze followed her as she went to fetch water for him. It kindled a strange pleasure in her heart. No man had ever looked at her like that. If only he were her husband instead of Gul Hassan Khan!

When she handed the glass to him, his fingers touched hers and she blushed. He sat down beside her on the floor. “ Zarmeena, I am so sorry for you. It’s so tragic that a beauty like you is married to a beats like Gul Hassan.” Zarmeena felt as if there was one person in the world who understood her predicament. He sat there beside her for a long time, looking at her lovingly, talking about the cruelty of her fate, about what a wonderful person he thought she was and cursing his cousin. She listened to him, her eyes down to the floor, too blushed to meet his staring eyes. She had forgotten to take her meal and her veil. When he got up, his lips brushed her cheeks and the soft touch ran a shudder of pleasure through the whole of her body. He went to Gul Hassan’s room and went to sleep but she couldn’t sleep the whole of the night. Sometimes, she cursed herself for being unfaithful to her husband, but then, had he been loyal to her? If he could bed every woman he wanted to, why couldn’t she just talk to a well wisher? Inadvertently, she compared her husband with this man. He was bigoted alcoholic, adulterer, narrow minded… there was no evil that was not there in Gul Hassan Khan and despite being his first cousin, Gulnawaz was so different! The brush of his lips and the touch of his hand brought a smile on her face. Suddenly her dream prince came back to her mind and he thought that if there were a person on earth who was the man of her dreams, it was Gulnawaz.

Despite passing a sleepless night, Zarmeena was fresh in the morning with her eyes twinkling and her lips ready to smile. Serving breakfast to the two men, fully veiled, she smiled as she thought that Gul Hassan, with his eye lids still heavy would never come to know about the wonderful turn the life of the two people , who were in front of his eyes , had taken. He had called her an idiot so many times that cheating him gave her strange kind of pleasure. He was such a fool for not noticing what was so obvious in his wife’s and his cousin’s eyes. She felt like laughing at his idiocy.

Every night, after Gul Hassan Khan, who was usually drunk, fell asleep; Gulnawaz would come to Zarmenna’s room. They would sit beside each other and talk. He had vowed to take her away from her brutal husband and marry her. He never took any advantage of their being alone in her room. This enhanced his esteem in Zarmeena’s eyes. Once, while telling him about her miscarriage, she had broken into tears. He took her into his arms and kissed her. As soon as they parted, guilt took over him. “I am so sorry, Zarmeena. When I saw you crying, I couldn’t suppress my emotions.” He said in a low voice and left her room. She wanted to say that it was OK has she not been too embarrassed to say that.

The fact that a man loved her gave her a sense of pride. She looked at her sparking eyes, face and figure in the mirror with appreciation after a long time. She thought that she was worthy of Gulnawaz’s attention. It was just a week and half that Gulnawaz had come and that short time period had changed so much in her life that she thought that she was living in a dream world.

The next day, Gulanawaz came home early. “He told me that he wanted to go to the brothel, so I should go home alone. Bastard.” He said with gritting teeth. Zarmeena, free from the sanction to veil herself, brought food for him. “Sit down beside me. Since I have come here, I have never eaten even once without wishing that you were by my side instead of that bastard.” Zarmeena sat beside him with a loving smile. He took her hands in his and looked into her eyes with intent, long gaze. The next moment, she was in his arms. Pressing her head against his shoulder, she couldn’t suppress the desire that those moments be prolonged forever. Suddenly the door opened with a bang. Zarmeena was out of Gulnawaz’s arms instantly. On seeing Gul Hassan Khan, they became terrified. “You had to select my house for gratifying your lust, son of a bitch.” Gul Hassan Khan shouted in full volume. “I was suspicious about you two for some time but I wanted to catch you red-handed.” He said to Gulnawaz and then turned towards Zarmeena. “You bitch! If you wanted to bitch around with every man, you could have gone to a brothel instead of playing havoc with my honor.” Shivering from head to toe, Zarmeena couldn’t even lift her eyes. He dragged her to his room “ Gul Hassan, I implore you. I am innocent. We did not..” The sight of the pistol that he had taken out of a drawer made her more terrified.

“ Hassan, I beg you. I didn’t do anything. I was attracted to him just because of your mistreatments. I’ll be faithful to you for my whole life. I promise that I will….” But the bullet did not let her finish her sentence.

After killing her, Gul Hassan ran for Gulnawaz but he had taken advantage of those few moments to escape.

Gulnawaz was on run, but his family decided that the situation might start a feud within the family and therefore should be taken to the jirga to be resolved. After contemplating on the matter for sometime, the patriarch announced his decision. “This jirga congratulates honorable Gul Hassan Khan who sacrificed his young wife for upholding the honour of the tribe.” The tribe applauded him for showing their proud approval for the deed. He had been receiving congratulations for his deed wherever he went after the event. “As Zarmeena was one of his possessions, and was polluted by Gulnawaz Khan, the damage can be redeemed only by compensating him.” The patriarch looked at Gulhassan Khan. “ As Gulnawaz has no unmarried daughter or sister, so the jirga has decided that his elder sister, who is a widow, should be married to Gul Hassan Khan. Although a woman of thirty six is no substitute for a girl of sixteen, it is expected from a generous person like Gul Hassan Khan that he’ll marry her with a big heart and forgive Gulnawaz.” And the smile on Gul Hassan Khan’s face showed that he would do both.

When Gul Hassan Khan was coming home, humming a song, his friend’s comment echoed in his ears. “ God has written what a variety of women in this pauper’s life. So lucky.” A malicious smile came on his lips. Women have been coming into and going out of his life for a long time….. like cattle. Just like cattle.