The Answer-Vignette by Ashraf

PS Too much of poetry, non fiction and broken prose. Presenting my first short story. It's a small cog of something bigger

In old age the demons would return to haunt her. When the vigour and strength was gone and she was alone in her room at night she would start believing in all that was not there.

Her first daughter gone for seven years now would play on her mind. She had married her love and knowing there would never be societal acceptance of her marriage had left India for Spain. The mother bound by societal norms and a slave in her own way to others could never accept her son-in-law and disowned her daughter. She could have gained a son but she lost a daughter in the end. The daughter had cried, cajoled and did everything to get her mother to give her blessings as she was her only parent. In the end she had softly screamed, “I never cared about your society but if you won’t bless us, I will accept that job in Spain”. In the first year after her marriage and subsequent migration to Spain there had been calls and conciliatory letters but with the cold response they all stopped. For five and a half years now there had been no contact. The daughter was as good as dead.

But the conscience of the mother was troubling her and now at night when she could not even garner the strength to get up and relieve herself, she would call out to her the daughter long gone. When there would be no answer anger would well up in her heart and then suddenly she would remember her deeds. But then she could not remember her second daughter’s name and she would lie there guessing all possible names failing to remember the name she had choosen for her younger daughter , a score plus years back. Hours later she would remember the name and call the second daughter who would immediately come and help her.

This happened not one night but was a scene that would play out night after night in the same sequence until the mother was convinced a Djinn was in the house. But one night when she called her daughter’s name there was a reply and she in retrospect realized it had been her daughter who had answered her call. Next day she would announce the death of her daughter. But the daughter had done her duty by warning her mother. There was a prophecy fulfilled when the mother answered but the prophecy is another story. That story is about me. This is about the mother.

The Answer

I have not described what happened on the night of Shabraat. The night when Islamic traditions state that the souls of the dead come back to this world to look at what they left behind. That's also when the call of the ill mother was answered. That night when the old mother had called her daughter for the 40th or 50th time there came a reply ,’Yes, mother you called.’ Still believing her daughter was there she replied, ‘Huma , I want to go to the toilet-help me get up’. And in the room would walk in her daughter all in white. Believing her eyesight was fooling her in the dark she said –‘O daughter look what old age has done to me. Now I can’t even see you clearly.’ You are all white and faint to me. But now the apparition seemingly stood there and in a voice that seemed to emnate from every corner of the house said, ‘Mother , leave get far far away from here.’ ‘This and much of the city is going to burn in the fire of human hatred in time to come.

Warn only the first person you meet on the street and get out of here.’ 

And then perhaps like a mirage it all vanished and the old lady blinked her eyes to find there was nothing in the room and it was all normal. It could perhaps be nothing more than a dream except for one small thing- when she opened her eyes she was sitting on the chair near her bed. For the past few months at night she could not get up without help. How had she moved to the chair? 

Next day she resigned from the job where she had long become inept, packed everything possible in a short time and moved with her immediate family to a sister’s house in Bombay because of the warning. She did not doubt for the night the daughter answered, her ailment had also vanished and she was again an old but fit lady.

Months later enquiry in Spain would reveal he daughter and son-in law had died five years back in a road accident. The information got lost because the daughter had put her husband as next of kin and he himself had no family.

Oh and if I didn’t mention, the mother met me on the street next day.