Chapter Text
Hamza was sitting on the floor. The cold was seeping through the wall of the sterile hospital corridor into his torn back in waves. His entire body was a mess of bruises and abrasions. His bones were cracking under the weight of his raspy breaths. His usually silky soft hair, now a mass of wild tangled locks matted with gore and filth, fell to cover half his face.
Pain was a muted companion.
He was numb.
There was a small hitch in the air, the sharp intake of breath drawn against a pair of still painfully young lungs. It broke the almost cloying syrupy silence which the hallway had descended into.
Hamza looked up from where he had been staring at his blood stained fingers.
Faizal was standing a few feet away.
His oh so familiar eyes wide like saucers on his little hollowed out face.
“Hamza bhaiyya—”, his whispery voice cracked open at the last syllable.
The look on his youthful visage hit Hamza’s broken chest like a fully loaded freight train. Because he had seen this exact expression mirrored to a frighteningly precise degree on a much older face just a few hours ago.
Rehman Dakait’s younger son had inherited his father’s exact body language and non verbal cues including his expressions to an eerily familiar severity.
The shock slowly transforming into horrified grief was so achingly similar in Faizal’s molasses brown eyes as had been on his father’s wane blood stained face when the realisation of the exact degree of the treachery enforced against him had been finally revealed, that Hamza couldn’t help but gag on the truth.
“You are hurt…”, the ten year old whimpered and stumbled towards him, searching for the safety only the circle of a father’s - a brother’s arms could provide.
Hamza didn’t even have the time to flinch as Faizal threw himself into his chest with the kind of trust only innocent children can have and display.
He didn’t care about the blood drenching Hamza’s clothes which was now imprinted on his small cheek, and his nimble frame.
His father’s blood.
Bile rose acerbic, crawling up Hamza’s throat with an unforgiving vengeance.
He has no right— his hands tightened around the small shaking body clinging to him— he has no fucking right! Hugging the child of the man he— consoling this little boy who was quivering with the heavy weight of terror and still worried about Hamza’s wounds.
Hamza buried his pulsing face into Faizal’s mop of hair.
He smelled like Rehman. His shampoo. The scent of cedar and nutmeg. The distant fragrance of citrus and coal tar and petrichor. It had mixed seamlessly with Ulfat’s perfume of pomegranate and jasmine and yet dominated the fainter scents somehow.
Or maybe that was just Hamza’s sadistic brain torturing him per se.
Chaudhary Aslam’s screams, the loud sounds of gunfire, crashing wheels against the hot tar of the road, the tang of metal and blood and dust raining heavily on Hamza’s tongue. His leg muscles screaming, men shouting and Rehman Dakait choking on his own blood.
The hand which had trembled so violently while it had aimed at the Gangster King of Lyari.
The sneer on the white clad SP’s ugly leering face.
The feel of Rehman’s blood spilling hot and slippery beneath Hamza’s desperate press of quivering hands.
Rehman’s face had fractured for a split second. The infuriated fuelling rage on his white blood stained sooty face had suddenly given way to a horrifying stilted betrayed grief. His usually rock solid aim had wavered, his impeccable reflexes drowning under the press of an inexplicable resignation.
And that was all it had taken.
Hamza’s hands had shaken. The heated barrel had almost slid off aim at the last second and had hit a tree beside. But he had steadied it in the next moment, his old training resurfacing in tandem with the primal urge for survival every creature has.
The way Rehman’s body had jerked back, a thick viscous red bursting out from his abdomen, making him drop his own gun and stagger back a few steps to cater to momentum, hands coming to clutch his stomach, had almost made Hamza throw up on his own shoes.
But it had been the second shot which had shaken him up the most.
The entire forest had trembled with the force of it.
Rehman’s face had lost whatever color had been left, his arms swinging back in a tragic arc as he had dropped back with a grunt, the projectile of the bullet slamming into his chest with virulent rage.
“NO!”
Hamza didn’t even remember when he had dropped his own revolver, covered the distance separating him from the supine man and had dropped on his knees beside him. His hands had automatically pressed on Rehman’s chest, on the weeping wound gushing out all of the blood remaining inside his heart.
There had been so much blood. The ground had been soaked with it. Hamza covered completely. The air was so thick with it that it had felt like the taste had settled permanently on the younger man’s tongue.
Rehman’s mouth had been half open, blood trickling from the corner, almost like the shock had paralyzed him to the ache of the bullets inside his heaving body. His eyes - cloudy, bereft of that brilliant cunning intelligence, that sharp clear gaze completely - wide on that white as a sheet face.
A strand of his usually neatly gelled back hair, now completely free of product, had fallen almost gently over his forehead.
The gut wound had been sluggish as it had supposed to have been.
But the second bullet had ripped through Rehman’s sternum savagely.
“No! No.. no no NO! What have you done!”, he had turned and screamed at Aslam who had been limping towards them, dragging his rifle with him slowly.
“What needed to be done. Or did you forget your mission, Baloch?”, the SP had spat at him unrepentant, his face a repulsive display of absolute glee.
Raw unrestrained panic had overridden every sense of judgement. Every single thought he had nursed jealously, bitter and poisonous in his mind for years had flown right off, at the clear, inanimate yet imminent face of certain death.
Rehman’s breaths had weakened almost to a negligible degree.
“No.. no please…please.. Not like this…I can’t.. Oh God, I can’t—”
Hamza had pleaded to whoever would care to listen, to fate, to destiny, to the Gods who had stopped listening to him a long time ago, his hand sliding off Rehman, with every excruciating struggle of keeping the rapidly growing pool inside the broken gaping chasm which the latter’s chest had become.
“The doctors were saying Abbu might not wake up ever again”, Faizal’s shaking words brought Hamza back to the present, back to that stark white hospital corridor and the endless waiting.
“I am scared Bhaiyya. Will Abbu go to Naeem bhaiyya now? But then I will never be able to see him again! He can’t go! I..”
“Hush hush..little one. Your Abbu is a very strong man. If anyone can defeat death, it will be him. Have faith…”
The words felt rehearsed in his mouth. Foreign. Empty.
Rotten.
“Faizal! What are you doi— Oh my god! Hamza bhai! You are bleeding! We need a nurse here! Right now!”
Meher.
She was kneeling in front of Hamza, hands hovering uselessly in front. Her beautiful face, ever glowing with hidden mirth looked like an ashen canvas. Those vibrant grey eyes always twinkling with mischief were swollen and rimmed with an unforgiving red.
She looked wrong.
It was all wrong.
Meher Baloch was supposed to be bubbly and cheery and make everyone around her laugh helplessly. She was supposed to snip at her husband and joke with Hamza and Faizal and jump around like an energetic firefly.
“Ye bacchi ekdin phurr karke udd hi jaegi, dekhna—”
Rehman’s voice had been brimming with both his characteristic exasperation and then again with enough fondness to fill the vacuum of space itself while Meher had bustled around him one late afternoon, laughter ringing clear in the Baloch mansion.
It felt like a different lifetime.
When everything had been golden and good. Warm and loving.
When Hamza could forget his cold reality and exist in the space created for him by the people who had taken him in with such tenderness that it had been overwhelming to say the least.
Instead Meher looked like someone had hollowed her out with the blunt edge of a butter knife. Carelessly and cruelly. Her silky black hair fell limp in a hastily tied braid, a few strands free, not a hint of that perennial delight visible on her face.
She took Faizal from Hamza with heart breaking care.
“Bhai, aapko bohot chot lgi hain, marampatti ho jaane ke baad, ghar chale jaana. Yalina has called me at least ten times by now. Uzair will be here in a moment”, she said.
“I can’t Meher Bi.. I have to— I need to know. I can’t..”, Hamza’s throat dried up as Meher’s tired eyes welled up with unshed tears, yet again.
“The doctors said it will take at least a few more hours. They had to….”, her voice broke, she tightened her hold on her nephew, almost as if to shield him from the rest of her words, “they had to transfuse another batch and the blood count is still too low…”.
She closed her eyes for a moment, straightened up and steadied with a strength that was awe inspiring to say the least.
Hamza had always admired Meher.
Uzair’s wife of three years and a lawyer of great repute in the city.
It had been a whirlwind romance straight out of a teenager’s favourite fantasy book for Uzair Baloch and Meher Zarvari. Hamza had never seen Uzair behave so erratically before than he had in Meher’s presence.
They had clashed like sword blades. And along the way the edges had dulled till the war had turned into a playful duel.
Then one evening, Uzair had come to the Baloch house, rosy cheeked and bright eyed, smelling of sweet sharbat and frangipanis, collars suspiciously unmade and pulled up and Hamza and the boys had burst into laughter.
Rehman had come running out to witness the commotion.
He had taken one look at his red faced younger cousin and had sighed like a great old lion, then looked upwards as if begging for strength and had gone back inside to call up old man Zarvari.
Meher had fit into their group like she had been specifically made for it.
Her words sharp enough to cut steel intrigued Rehman enough that they could be often found bantering with such visceral fervour that it would have left anyone else bleeding. Ulfat had taken one look at a five foot one Meher struggling to put Uzair in a headlock and had promptly imprinted on her like a mama duck.
“That one is mine”, she had informed everyone pointing at a visibly confused Meher and walked away.
Rehman had just sighed again.
Hamza had befriended Meher with an ease that had been almost astounding to behold. She was almost his age, only a year younger and went along with him like a house on fire. Almost literally. If there was a fire somewhere in the house, it most probably was the result of something Meher and Hamza had cooked up.
Always ready to defend Hamza to Rehman and Uzair, trying to unsuccessfully steal Ulfat’s world famous kheer from the kitchens, teaching Faizal to spy on his parents so they could get out of the house for impromptu parties - there was nothing they hadn’t been able to achieve together.
And here she was, brilliant and beautiful Meher, reduced to a husk of a woman waiting for a news which seemed capable of either making or breaking her.
All because of him.
Because despite her playful verbal spats with Rehman, Meher loved her brother in law with a fiery devotion that only a rambunctious daughter can for a father.
Meher’s relationship with her own father had been a cool estranged familial bond made due to blood. Her father didn’t care for his daughter’s outrageous boldness and Meher had never received the unconditional love that a girl wants from her parents.
So when Rehman had extended his quiet protective tendencies and silent affection to his little brother’s wife, Meher had soaked it all up like a starving sponge.
Hamza wanted to curl up into a ball and become invisible.
But it was impossible with the nurses bustling around him and Meher seated opposite on the waiting chair, Fazial wrapped tightly in her arms, her sky blue dupatta enveloping the kid like a shield of armour.
Hamza hadn’t even noticed when Uzair had come stumbling through the corridor like a man functioning on nothing but empty air and collapsed beside his wife. His face was a travesty written in barely held grief, fury and a messy agony.
Uzair Baloch was a simple man. Whatever was in his heart would be clearly visible on his face. And it was evident enough from the dark circles under his reddened eyes that he had not slept the entire night.
Maybe he was still swamped from managing everything from the nervous gang members to the hassled politicians to the frenzied media.
Hamza hadn’t even thought about the world collapsing outside the hospital.
The truth was, he could care less.
“What a charming sight!”
Hamza stood up immediately, inescapable rage and a small spark of fear darkening his now cleaned face as the new presence in the empty hallway made the hair at the back of his neck stand up.
How dare he! This greedy manipulative swine!
SP Chaudhary Aslam came almost swaggering inside, two policemen trailing behind their boss, faces twisted in ugly mirth. Hamza’s fists had been itching since the moment Aslam had fired the second bullet.
He was right on Aslam’s face before he could come close to Meher and Faizal.
“You shouldn’t have come here”.
Donga and Basheer, who had been kept on guard, were nowhere in sight. The bastard had most probably arrested them or had them restrained somehow.
Aslam laughed raucously, his eyes glinting dangerously as he saw Hamza from his toes till up his roots, like he was searching for some invisible blot on him.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I am part of the LTF which is working with the Karachi Police. I need to get statements regarding today’s events.”
“You godforsaken asshole! How fucking dare you! You shot my brother, you blathering, simpering weasel! I will rip your limbs apart with my bare fucking hands—”,
Uzair had launched himself right at Aslam and would have actually gone through with his claims had it not been for Meher who had left a shocked awakened Fazail to grab her husband’s massive six foot four body. Still she hadn’t been able to get his hands off the SP’s throat.
“Uzair let him go! It will only make his job easier. Leave! Hamza!”
Hamza immediately understood what Meher was trying to say. In his current mental state, Uzair had gone berserk, completely forgetting how easily Aslam can arrest him on the pretext of assaulting an on duty officer and throw him in jail, or God forbid, try to kill him too.
“Uzair! Chod! Goddamnit!”
But it was easier said than done. The two policemen accompanying Aslam were also trying to pull the two men apart along with Hamza but to no avail.
Uzair’s monstrous hold on Aslam’s throat was a dead weight which was nearly impossible to break. Hamza could see the SP’s eyes bulging out, his face turning an alarming shade of bruised purple.
He would strangle the man to death.
Hamza wouldn’t lie, it was immensely satisfying to watch, as that had been all he wanted to do since that ill fated day he had met the older man.
But right now, the consequences would be too great to let Aslam die. At least he had to wait till he could reveal his own part in all of this and Uzair could strangle him to death too.
It would honestly be a relief.
Anything else other than this choking suffocating agony lighting a fire inside Hamza’s soul will be a relief.
Yalina’s pretty face swam in front of his eyes and grief struck him mercilessly across the face like a stinging slap.
“Uzair! Let him go this instant! And that is an order!”
The voice cut through the commotion like a whip splitting the air open with a resounding crack. The sheer power behind the voice made Uzair drop Aslam immediately. Or maybe it was the long ingrained instinct inside him to obey that voice no matter what.
Exactly like he followed his brother’s orders.
Aslam choked and gasped, heaving precious air back in his burning lungs, no doubt.
Ulfat Baloch was a vision in pearl pink, her long hair tied into a messy bun, some strands falling in almost artful curls framing her chiselled face.
The color complimented her milk white skin like a sheer satin silk on cream. She was a lotus blooming in the filth. Her presence was so starkly different to the world around her that it had always felt oddly otherworldly to Hamza.
She walked up to them, her gait lionine, exactly matching her husband’s notoriously arresting walk, eyes dried and crystal sharp. She didn’t demand the deference which automatically suffused in the otherwise pulsating surrounding.
She commanded it.
Her face was totally dry and perfectly blank. No hint of an expected anguish or even the aftermath of it was visible on her expression, unlike the rest of them. She moved and the very air in the corridor seemed to make space for her simultaneously.
It shouldn’t have come across as a surprise to Hamza.
Ulfat had always baffled him with the sheer strength she hid under delicate hands and luminous eyes. She was the soft light of the oncoming dawn in contrast to Rehman who was the darkest shade of the night. She reared and nurtured while her husband slaughtered and killed.
And yet they were forged from the same fires. Made of the same steel. Housed the same power and pain and loved with the same violent ferocity which could put the very Gods to shame.
Ulfat Baloch was an unbending wall, her will equal to starlight and she guided Rehman Dakait and his world like a sun does to the sunflowers.
SP Aslam and his lackeys were nothing in front of her.
The policemen immediately stepped aside to let her through, almost as if in a trance themselves. She passed Aslam’s bent form, caustically uncaring about his condition and came and stood turning with her back to Uzair. And to the rest of them. Facing the LTF officers unperturbed.
Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, her spine ramrod straight and her feet placed with a span of distance perfect for shooting a long range target. She didn’t say a word, didn’t shout or scream or accuse or allege.
She just stood.
Eyes hard and empty.
A sentinel. A guardian. A queen.
A lioness protecting her pride.
A mother standing like an impregnable wall in front of her children.
Hamza could see Rehman in her at that moment. That same fierce protective fire burning in her veins like a hurricane. At that moment, nothing would pass through her and reach any of them. Not words nor bullets.
And certainly not SP Chaudhary Aslam and his gang.
Aslam may have realised that as well as he stared at the woman in front.
“You want a statement? Here it is. Write it down. My husband was returning from a political event with his convoy when he was ambushed by the LTF. He was hunted and shot twice and is now battling for his life behind those doors while the officer who did all of this is standing in front of his wife and family and laughing at their faces.”
Her voice was sharp and tore into Hamza like a barrage of venomous arrows.
The statement was near perfect except for one tiny detail. A detail that would break Ulfat’s sturdy heart harder than seeing her husband bloodied and fighting for his life ever could.
Aslam as if on cue laughed raspily. Uzair’s fingers had dug into his throat in violent bruises.
“Nice story Ulfat Bibi. Lets see what the media spins out of this. Don’t you worry, I will make sure the perpetrators of his heinous crime are caught post haste—”, his sneering words were almost spat on Ulfat’s face.
Uzair had almost leaped across and caught Aslam by the throat again but Meher had caught him successfully this time, her eyes razor sharp, revulsion pulsating beneath them as she glared at the Head of the LTF.
“Get out SP sahab and don’t test a lioness protecting her cubs. She will tear your throat out with her teeth before you can manage to even blink.”
The truth in Ulfat’s voice, more than the ice, made Aslam take a step back even as he smirked at her.
“Maybe look in your backyard once in a while, Marium-Uz-Zamani. Spiders have been known to eat their mothers after being fed.”
Hamza swallowed the blood filling his mouth with how hard he had bit his tongue. Aslam’s beady eyes had flashed upon him once before he had turned and stormed out, his boys practically fleeing behind their master.
“Uzair, get Donga and Basheer and secure the house. Meher, take Faizal back. He is exhausted as it is. And Hamza—”
Ulfat had turned to look at him finally, orders slipping past her lips as naturally as it came from Rehman, the exhaustion of holding onto an unbreakable mask finally wearing down her defenses low enough for the agony to peek through.
But her words stopped in their tracks when her eyes fell on Hamza properly.
He must really be looking like a sight.
“Ya Allah, ye kya haal banake rakhha hain, baccha? Gaadi kitni buri tareeke se crash hui thi? Doctor dikhaya kya? Chot toh bandaged hain… dard ho raha hain kahi zyadaa tumhe?”
Ulfat’s gentle hands caressed the wounds on his face and his neck with her usual maternal tenderness. Hamza could feel his heart literally thumping outside his ribcage in a mad scramble to explode, if only that would stop this sickening feeling from erupting out.
He wanted to scrub a layer of his skin off.
Ulfat was still examining him with concerned eyes.
Longing hit Hamza so hard it almost made him dizzy. The longing of feeling his mother’s touch, skittering over his forehead in affectionate approval, cupping his face. Memories sparked clear in his muddled mind.
Memories which then transformed into the ones he had formed in the Baloch household.
And with it, it brought such an acute flood of shame that it made his eyes sting.
Hamza had just entered the living room.
Uzair had taken one look at him and burst out in unashamed laughter. He was laughing so hard he had almost taken a tumble off the chair.
Rehman, startled out of his inspection of an old file in his hand, had looked up in shock. His piercing eyes peered from above the reading glasses Hamza had never seen the so monikered Sher-E-Baloch wear before and his lips pressed in a line Hamza knew was from an effort of holding back his own amusement for the sake of looking dignified.
Yet his eyes always gave him away. Or rather the crows feet crinkling just that way, trying to hide behind the glasses yet starkly visible under the golden lighting of the room, spread like mirth on his chiselled face.
“Yes okay, I know I look funny but—-”, he had begun only for Uzair to start wheezing, tears rolling down his handsome face in tandem.
“Oh God.. you.. Hehe.. you look like… a baboon who has gotten an electric shock!”, as if picturing his own statement, Uzair fell into another burst of laughter on his own.
“I know! I tried everything! That stupid Donga made the jeep go through a fucking mountain of sand bags and then the wind picked up and now my hair is a mess.”
Hamza knew he was pouting but he couldn’t help it. His hair had tangled so hard and had been filled with such grit from the sand that try as he might, he could do nothing but tear it all out.
“Maybe try getting a hair cut?”, Rehman suggested finally when he was sure he could speak without bursting into laughter like his cousin who was still red faced and wheezing.
“And get murdered by Yalina. No thanks.”
“Your girlfriend is five foot and twenty.”
“You are married Bhai.”
“Touche. Fair point.”
Ulfat as if being magically summoned had just entered the room, “Is someone dying here, who is wheezing like an out of breath seal—”, stopped short and stared at Hamza.
“Hamza. You look like a cartoon character. On drugs.”
“Thank you, Bhabi.”
Uzair was definitely dying at this point. Rehman had taken pity on him finally and was patting his back as if that would help bring the air back inside his lungs. Ulfat smiled and beckoned him with a gentle hand.
“Come with me. I’ll straighten it out—”
“Don’t cut it! I—”
“I know baba. Yalina will murder me along with you if I do that. And why should I cut such beautiful hair? Don’t worry. You’ll be back to your handsome self in just a few minutes.”
Hamza had blushed furiously, muttering nonsense under his breath and followed behind Ulfat like an obedient duckling leaving his traitorous friend still croaking on the couch, wishing Uzair would die already.
“Sit here”, Ulfat had made him sit on the ground while she sat on the chair in the dining room.
She had already brought some things from the kitchen. It was a small bottle of oil, what appeared to be water, another expensive looking cosmetic bottle, a large toothed and a fine toothed comb.
Thus began the operation.
Hamza had thought it would be torture, getting his hair pulled this way and that but nothing of that sort happened. Instead he almost fell asleep with Ulfat’s gentle fingers softly untangling his messy stubborn locks, using oil and water almost simultaneously.
He was blinking awake when the comb untangled the bigger knots and Ulfat used the fine toothed comb to brush his now blissfully free hair more gently than was strictly necessary. Then she poured something incredibly expensive smelling on her hand and then massaged it on the lower half of his hair expertly.
“There.. All done.”
Hamza looked at the hand mirror Ulfat held in front of him and almost jumped up in shock. His hair had never looked this good before. It was bouncy and shiny and almost felt like silk along his fingers.
He also saw Rehman leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, spectacles still perched unassuming on his aquiline nose, in the reflection of the mirror.
The fond affection in his usually blazing eyes was unmistakable and at first Hamza thought it had been directed towards Ulfat. But Rehman removed his gaze the moment Hamza straightened, coming inside almost casually, as if he had just entered and knew immediately.
He had been looking at Hamza.
Warmth spread uninvited inside him.
Ulfat’s hand on his shoulder was a steady blooming anchor.
“You always did want daughters. It's all coming out now”, Rehman joked teasingly.
Hamza pouted and Ulfat laughed mellifluous.
“Bhai…”, Hamza groaned but Rehman didn’t respond. He only patted his head with one scarred heavy hand, taking the opportunity to run his long fingers through his hair once.
It made Hamza’s eyes sting for no good reason.
“What makes you think I don’t have daughters? I have two very beautiful ones, okay”, Ulfat said nonchalantly. Rehman raised a perplexed eyebrow.
“Meher and Yalina. You should see them squabbling over my dresses, jewellery, books, food and absolutely anything they can think of.”
“Hey!”
Meher’s offended voice filtered through from somewhere inside but was almost lost in Rehman's bark of laughter.
“Yes. Those two remind me well enough, that sometimes, it is good that all your wishes don’t come true.”
“Double Hey!”, Meher yelled again.
Hamza joined in their laughter now, the sounds of home, familiarity and love weaving around him in a tight warm embrace.
“I am fine Bhabi.. It looks worse than it is. I just..”, Hamza began, his voice thick and hesitant only for Ulfat to sway for a moment.
“Bhabi!”, terror lashed anew in his heart and he steadied her with gentle hands.
“Sorry. My head spun for a moment. I am fine.. Its just that, I realised most of that blood on your shirt is probably Rehman’s…”
Ulfat’s voice broke and for a second her mask cracked and a wife peeked through a queen’s body. Hamza’s guilt was a living breathing fire dragon inside his chest.
“Yes!”, he wanted to scream, “Yes it is your husband’s blood. The blood I spilled. The blood I was allowed to spill because he trusted me enough not to— I am a cad and a destitute ingrate and you should despise me!”
But he stayed mum, watching Ulfat pull herself together through sheer will and stand up again, spine slightly bent under the weight of her husband’s absence but holding the weight of her own body.
The night was long and hadn’t ended yet.
Hamza only wished someone would take mercy on him and knock him out already.
_____________________
It was almost dawn when the surgeons found the time to breathe and meet them.
Hamza stood just a little apart.
“He is going to live. Allah be praised but I have never seen another man fight like that.”
Ulfat broke quietly. Almost collapsing on the ground, steadied only by Uzair’s arms around her. The younger Baloch cousin had refused to leave them here alone. He, in a completely shocking move, caught the surgeon’s hand and pressed his eyes to it in overwhelming gratitude.
“You don’t know what you have done, Doctor Sahab. You have saved us all. My brother is the beating heart of our family. Without him, we would have all keeled over like dried leaves scattered by the wind.”
His words rang wobbly but impossibly, painfully true and who knew it better than Hamza.
The surgeon shook his head, a tired smile breaking on his lined face.
“It was my duty sir. I am only glad I could service the family that has serviced the town for so long. Mind you, it will be a long and painful road to recovery but your brother is the most willful stubborn man I have ever gotten on my table. He will recover. Slowly but surely.”
Ulfat straightened up from her slouch in Uzair’s arms, wiped the corner of her eyes tremulously and clutched her dupatta tight in shaking hands,
“Can we see him Doctor. Please… just one glance. We won’t disturb him..”
The surgeon nodded.
“It would be cruel to refuse you Ulfat Bibi, but be careful. Just five minutes and try not to touch him. Too much jostling might rip the stitches.”
Ulfat nodded and walked shakily towards the ICU.
“Bhai, main chalta hoon phir”, Hamza whispered as Uzair shook slightly where he stood.
“Yes yes.. I.. you don’t want to see him? I guess we can see through the glass. I don’t want to disturb Bhabi but I am sure she wont mind us taking one look”
Uzair practically dragged Hamza through the corridor. The ICU felt like the gaping jaw of the gates of Hell and the staircase of Heaven at the same time. The storm inside Hamza had stopped but the wreckage it had left behind was immense.
Does he even deserve to lay his eyes on him?
The door creaked open gently and Hamza and Uzair stepped in. Till the threshold at least.
Hamza heard Uzair’s faint hitch of breath and could commiserate well enough with the sentiment.
Rehman looked dead.
The hospital bed and the various wires attached to his lean frame had drowned him. His face was lax in medically induced sleep, the ever present frown lines on his severe expression had been smoothened away by unconsciousness.
His usually effervescent face was as pale as the white sheets he was laying over.
He looked unnervingly small.
Fragile and swallowed by the world.
Ulfat was kneeling by his bed, her face pressed into an IV infused hand, the small hitches of her breaths signified her suppressed sobs.
Hamza turned almost violently and stumbled out. His eyes were so blurred he could barely see anything, his heart was hammering so hard he could barely hear Uzair through the incessant ringing in his ears, his chest so tight that he could barely breathe.
He had almost killed Rehman.
Murdered the man who had given him a family, sheltered him from the loneliness and dangers of an empty life on the streets, almost kept him clutched to his chest. And he had turned around and stabbed him right there.
When the blood had been spreading too fast and Hamza had not known what else to do Rehman had raised his fingers to his cheek.
His hand shaking so violently, it had been a sacrilege. Hamza had expected fury, disbelief, betrayed grief, a last attempt to choke him but Rehman had only caressed the bridge of his cheekbone, eyes horrifyingly soft and resigned.
“Hamza…”
He had whispered, the voice fractured under the massive boulder of betrayal yet the fondness had been too great, the affection too big, the love too deep for it to have been sucked dry, even through the gut wrenching treachery.
“No.. Bhai.. no.. I am sorry.. I am.. I didn’t.. This was not supposed to happen. Not like this.. This was.. Please.. Bhai..”, Hamza had cried, his tears dropping on Rehman’s face like a rueful shower.
Rehman’s hand had dropped then, his eyes shutting close.
The following stillness had been strangling and had ripped a scream out of his throat finally. Aslam might have said something but it had been lost in the sheer rage of his grief.
Hamza had buried his face in Rehman Dakait’s cold throat and howled like a child. It had been an ugly, unrestrained, almost a violent display of raw panicked grief and denial.
A beat of him struggling through his tears and another wail trying to tear out of his chest and Hamza had felt the weak press of a pulse against his wet cheek.
Death had not claimed his prize yet.
Maybe the Gods weren’t as deaf as Hamza had thought.
“Hamza! For God’s sake! Where are you? Uzair Bhaiyya told me not to go out so I stayed put. He said something about work.. You weren’t even picking up my phone. I called Meher so many times, I am sure she would eat my head the next time I see her and— Hamza, say something.”
Yalina’s voice was like a cool shower after a walk through the desert. Hamza’s hand trembled where the mobile was held to one ear. He wanted nothing more than to hold her right now. Her smaller body tucked close to his chest where he could feel her heart beat against him.
He needed to feel alive. He needed to feel a person breathe against him.
He needed his wife so damned much it made him want to scream.
“Hello? Hamza meri awaz aa rhi hain kya? Kahaan ho..”
“Yalina.. Main aa raha hun. Wait for me a little more? I am coming—”, he cut the call before she could reply.
The sun wasn’t out yet. Even the birds seemed afraid to start singing. He could still hear the heart monitor’s grating sound in his mind, Rehman’s raspy breathing as his heart stopped, his voice calling out to a son who had driven a knife through his back uncaringly and twisted it for good measure and left him bleeding on the ground.
Hamza, having just come out of the hospital, ran. The streets of Lyari empty in the darkness of the first hour of dawn was a backdrop of despair mirroring his own heart perfectly.
______________________
Hamza was lying awake, staring at the ceiling fan rotating hypnotizingly abovehead. Yalina was sleeping contentedly curled on top of his chest, her smaller body rising up and down with each breath.
It would have been adorable if the violent nauseating guilt building within him hadn’t tossed his insides around like a raft caught in a thunderstorm.
Memories were encroaching on his mind in a mesh of bittersweet pain.
He had tried to tell himself that it was deserved. The deceit, necessary. The betrayal, justified. But his heart rebelled so hard against his mind that it made him feel sick to his core.
When he had agreed to the mission, he had expected Rehman Dakait to be exactly how everyone knew him to be - a ruthless merciless bloodthirsty warlord who would sell his firstborn for a better deal.
He was supposed to have infiltrated the gang, gotten close to their all powerful leader and manipulated him to his own ruin. A violent death had been just an added bonus.
He should’ve known better than to have trusted SP Chaudhary Aslam and his poisonously sweet manipulative words.
But he also shouldn’t have gotten attached.
That was a cardinal mistake for a mole.
But who would’ve thought how his life, after coming in close proximity to the Balochi mafia, would have altered so dramatically from what he had expected.
Rehman Dakait had been an enigma. A complete disaster for a pattern analyst. A violently unpredictable man. He had thrown all of Hamza’s carefully crafted notions about him into the wind with that Devilish charm and that cigarette dangling smirk with reckless abandon.
Yes, the man was dangerous. Yes he was also a bloodthirsty psychopath.
But what the cautiously maintained files of the ISI hadn’t mentioned was that he was also a protector. The people of Lyari feared him because of his absolute control over the city but they also respected him because he did what no politician or policeman had ever done for them.
He cleared the streets. Opened hospitals and schools and wellness centers. He stopped property dealers from cheating the poor people out of their houses. He had hammered down on petty crime like never seen before.
He helped anyone who would throw their hands in front of him regardless of blood, ethnicity and origins.
And the thing which had taken Hamza totally aback was that he cared.
The Bastard King of Lyari and the chosen King of the Balochs - he actually cared.
Cared almost too much.
He cared about the children studying in the schools he built. He cared about the people getting free treatment in his built hospitals. He cared about his family. He even cared about the boys in his gang.
He cared so much that it had ultimately turned out to be the architect of his own ruin.
No one had told Hamza about the dangers of being cared for by a man who could very well crush you beneath his boot like you were nothing but an insignificant insect.
No one had warned him about how it would feel to have Rehman Dakait’s large hand on top of his head. Grounding, steady, almost a touch playful but guided, directing, protective and most importantly, loved.
He had taken one look at Hamza and decided that he would be part of his family.
It had not happened all at once. It had been a slow measured process. But it had been inevitable. He had believed Rehman to be exactly like Aslam had told him.
Cold and aloof. And that is how he had been at first.
After Naieem’s death, he had worked himself to his bones.
At first Hamza had thought the man simply hadn’t cared enough. It had been a sobering chilling thought. A man who could murder his own mother. Why would he care about his son?
But then once Hamza had to come late at night to the Baloch mansion to get a file, Uzair had predictably forgotten about it and he had passed by a room searching for it and had almost given himself whiplash.
Rehman had been sitting on the bed, the usually proud line of his back bowed like a mountain had been kept on top of him, his hands were clutching what could have been a scrap of fabric, or an infant’s clothes.
He was trembling. His breathing was uneven and heavy. Silent convulsions wracking his powerful frame almost mercilessly.
Hamza had walked out discreetly and almost in a trance.
That had been the first crack in his armour and after that it had just slowly and steadily unravelled till he had no shield left to cover his exposed vulnerable parts.
He remembered that one night he had been raging sick.
Hamza had felt the first stirrings of fever in the morning. But it had been light enough to ignore. By midday, he had cursed himself thoroughly. The fever had been slowly climbing till he could hear nothing but his own heart beat and the sun overhead was giving him a migraine.
Nausea and pain had covered him head to toe and he was sure he was seeing three copies of Uzair as the latter kept striding in front with his too-long legs.
“Are you feeling quite alright?”, the ever vigilant Donga had asked and Hamza had nodded.
A mere fever won’t stop him from doing his work.
By evening, he was almost delirious with it and pretty sure by the way Rehman was looking at him, looking pretty shitty as well. It had been one year he had worked in the gang and Rehman had spoken directly to him exactly six times.
And one time had resulted in Babu Dakait’s unfortunate end and such a violent vengeance that it would go down in the history of Pakistan as one of the most gruesome public executions possible.
“Hamza, you look like one can boil an egg on your head”, Rehman had drawled almost bored, finally bringing Uzair’s attention to him.
“I am fine, Bhai. Just a flush—”, and he staggered only to be caught by the hand in Rehman’s vice-like grip. God but the man was deceptively strong.
“Yeah, no. I will be the judge of that. Sit down before you fall down, idiot.”
Hamza doesn’t remember much after that, except faint voices and oddly gentle touches. One moment of clarity had been a mortifying second, his fever had spiked so high he had almost called for his father. His absent philandering father who was most probably dead in a ditch somewhere.
The touch on his forehead had suddenly softened impossibly.
Then fingers had gone through his sweat soaked curls almost affectionately and he doesn’t recall much of anything else except a very faint whisper of something like ‘idiot’.
The next morning had brought with it Uzair and Donga’s gentle teasing, the most delicious khichdi he had ever tasted and an off day in what had felt like forever.
Rehman hadn’t come by but the next morning he said smirked at him when he had been present in the meeting, bright eyed and bushy tailed.
He remembered long nights of work, watching Rehman command a room by his mere presence, his sharp business acumen untangling the messy ropes of a vast empire almost hilariously easily.
He remembered his dumb questions being answered with an astounding amount of patience even if it usually was interspersed with an ‘idiot’ more often than not.
But coming from Rehman, the word had always sounded more like an endearment than anything.
Hamza had almost forgotten how good it felt being protected by someone else for a change. He had been alive for so long without any defenses, without anyone to even think about his safety in any situation. The Balochs, he had learnt, had protection woven in their souls.
They always protected their own with an unforeseen ferocity.
And to Hamza it was almost a surreal experience.
Yet, even with their reputation, he had never heard of a gang leader protecting a lowly gang member who was not even his own blood at the cost of his own safety.
Rehman had moved like a shadow demon. So impossibly fast that he had been almost invisible to the naked eye.
Hamza had been so sure that the room was empty that he had not checked the upper level before entering.
A rookie mistake.
“Bhai, looks like they ran—”
His words had barely finished materializing when a gunshot had rung clear in the room. Hamza had by default braced for impact knowing he would be too slow to move in time but no bullet had hit him.
Rehman looked at the slash made by the bullet across his left arm, almost with a bored intensity, as it hit the doorframe behind
“And to think I wore one of my better kurta’s today.”
The attacker hadn’t been able to make a single noise before he had been taken down viciously fast. Rehman had barely flinched. Yet Hamza had felt the slight jerk like a kick to his own chest. He had still been standing gaping like a prized fool when Rehman had cuffed him upside his head like Hamza had seen him do to Uzair on many occasions.
“How many times do I have to teach you fools to check the upper level before barging in like a rhinoceros. Idiot. You could have died.”
“Bhai..”
“What? Why are you standing like a statue? Woh behaya Javed khud toh chalke nhi aayega. Uthake laa, jaa!”
Later Hamza had approached Rehman cautiously. The latter had a bandage wrapped neatly around his left bicep.
“Why did you step in front? Aapko lag gyi.. Agar thoda aur right me hota toh? Seene me lag jaati goli”, he tried keeping his voice steady but it wavered nonetheless. He couldn’t even attribute the shake to his acting.
Rehman had looked him dead in the eye while answering as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
“Main samne nhi aataa toh tujhe goli lag jaati. Aur seene pe hi lgti.”
“Toh lgne dete. Mera kya hain.. Ek aur mil jaega. Aapko kuch ho jataa toh?”
Rehman looked at him strangely for some seconds then abruptly turned away, picking up a tumbler for pouring the whiskey from the bottle kept at the table.
“Ghar jaa Hamza. Bohot raat ho gyi hain. Uzair ko bhej dena jate waqt. Javed ka business sab ulat pulat hoke rakkha hain. I’ll have to straighten it.”
The non sequitur totally threw Hamza in a loop but what could he do. He turned and started to walk away. Rehman’s voice stopped him by the door.
“Next time if you do something so colossally stupid I will let you get shot. Get that through your thick head. Itna baal ugaake rakhha hain, kuch buddhi ghussti bhi hain sir mein ke nhi kya pataa…”
Hamza had no idea when he had been integrated into the Dakait family. One day he was hauling arms into the back of trucks and the next day he was seated at the dinner table fielding a million questions from Faizal as Ulfat looked on indulgently.
“You are so tall Hamza Bhaiyya!”, Faizal had said - his childish curiosity softening Hamza’s heart.
“Yes. You will also get tall if you eat your vegetables”, he had said trying to sound sagely.
“Chachu is tall too.”
Uzair had beamed as if he had been personally rewarded by the President, “Haan, tere Hamza bhaiyya se bhi zyadaa lamba hun. I used to eat all my veggies”. Hamza had given him the stink eye.
“Baba, you are not as tall as them. Did you not eat all your vegetables?”, Faizal asked innocently enough.
Rehman, who had been eating while checking something on his mobile, looked up to stare at his youngest, unimpressed.
Ulfat had giggled helplessly before she could stop herself. Rehman had given her such a heated look that it had made Hamza blush and stare at his plate, forgetting his own delight at Faizal’s question.
“Beta, God balances out His gifts equally between people. When He asked me what I wanted, I took intelligence from his offerings compensating for my height. Your chachas on the other hand seem to have precious little in that department.”
“Bhai! Come on—”, Uzair’s grumbling was lost in Hamza’s helpless snorting, Ulfat’s pearlescent laughter and Faizal’s childish giggles.
It was only later that Hamza had realised that Rehman had addressed him as Faizal’s uncle as well. His name had come in the same line as Uzair’s and no one had seemed surprised at that.
He had felt warm for days after.
The memories were like a bioscope of choice reels, running in front of Hamza’s sleep deprived eyes like an incessant merciless barrage. It was a torture as much as a relief if only temporary.
Hamza remembered that evening as clear as if it had happened just yesterday.
He had messed up big time. He knew he was biting off more than he could chew. SP Aslam had been hankering down on him for some time and he had to give the other man something. So he had sacrificed a big shipment for some brownie points with the LTF head.
But the ensuing mess it had created in Rehman’s plans had made the latter mercurial with volcanic fury. The Baloch leader had ripped them all to literal shreds. It had been a one sided verbal massacre.
The ability Rehman Dakait had, to make anyone feel miniscule in comparison to him despite their actual size, should be studied in criminology classes.
Hamza was sure at one point of time, Donga had been this close to actual tears.
Hamza and Uzair hadn’t been spared from their leader’s wrath any more than the rest. They were his left and right arms, literally, his top lieutenants and thus most of the accountability always fell on their shoulders.
And thus, so did the ensuing blame.
“I swear to God, if you hadn’t been my brother, I would have slit you nose to navel and left you to bleed somewhere!”, Rehman had thundered and Hamza had restrained himself from actually cowering in the face of such unadulterated rage.
“Now get out of my sight you fatherless bastard! Don’t show me your face before I can breathe without wanting to tear your worthless head off your shoulders.”
Hamza had actually felt Rehman’s unthinkingly cruel words being carved into his chest like a brand. Everyone in the gang knew about how his father had abandoned him and his mother and older brother to destitute poverty and fled with a woman half his age.
It will always be a sore point in his life, no matter how young he was then and how older he would grow with time.
He had practically fled from the throne room then, afraid that he might do something like try to punch Rehman or worse, burst into tears.
He remembered hearing scratches of Uzair’s subdued unhappy tone. Something along the lines of, “shouldn’t have said that Bhai.. you know what happen…”.
Hamza had tuned it out and walked home, heart strangely twisted in tight coils.
What did it matter what an illegitimate bastard child of a gangster said about him? People he actually cared about had said worse things to him. He didn’t care about what Rehman fucking Baloch thought of him.
At this point Hamza wasn’t sure when he had started lying to himself.
It had been the middle of the night when Hamza had woken up abruptly from a relatively undisturbed sleep when he had felt a presence near his head. His survival instincts should have blared red at this point. An apex predator lounging almost soundlessly, so close to his bare vulnerable throat.
But the body was a strangely intuitive learner.
Hamza knew he wasn’t in any danger.
In fact it was more a blanket of safety he had felt falling over him.
And his olfactory senses had already alerted him to the identity of the shadow. That smell of expensive tobacco, old papers, petrichor and cedar spice.
Rehman could be deceptively quiet when he wanted. Another reason that had made him such a deadly opponent. He was like a cobra hiding in the grass. Can lie still for hours before pouncing on his unsuspecting prey.
But right now, he was more like a lion watching his cub sleep.
Odd but protective.
The words from some hours ago came back to Hamza and he almost snapped at Rehman to get out and let him be miserable in peace. He held back his tongue though.
“Uth gayaa?’, the words were gravelly soft.
“Hmm”, Hamza replied equally low.
The shadow shifted in the dark. An uncharacteristic nervous energy in his movement. Hamza kept lying still on the bed. Waiting. Trying to figure out what would happen next. It was in vain cause he couldn’t have predicted, Rehman actually sitting down at the edge of the bed, his hand hovering over Hamza’s head.
It was almost like he was waiting for permission to touch him.
Which was a ridiculous thought because why would Rehman Dakait need anyone’s permission to do anything. But his hand was still suspended in the air, close enough to touch but far enough to not as well.
Hamza leaned against it slightly and Rehman finally placed it fully on top of his supine head.
His fingers automatically started running through Hamza’s hair. It was like he knew the exact paths on his scalp that would make Hamza want to purr in satisfaction. It was humiliating. To be this exposed to someone else.
Especially to a person who can wield your greatest weaknesses like his sharpest blades.
But Hamza couldn’t deny that the ache which had taken root inside his chest had slowly lifted with each gentle caress on his head by that oh so familiar scarred hand.
“Gussa hain abh bhi?”, Rehman’s words were soft and broke Hamza from his mini nap with a jolt.
“Nhi.. I wasn’t angry”, he said truthfully.
“You were upset”, Rehman said. A statement. Not a question. Hamza didn’t refute it. Knowing a lie will be caught anyway.
A heavy sigh.
“Zyaadaa bol gyaa main. Nhi bolna chaahiye thaa. Maaf kardein?”
Hamza caught the hand still caressing his head gently.
“Aapko mujhse maafi maangne ki zaroorat nhi Bhai. Aap Bhai hain.. Daant sakte hain, haq hain aapka. Aur sahi hi toh kahan aapne. Bass uss baat ka saayaan mere zehn se utaar hi nhi rha. Woh.. mere Abbu dikhte kaise the, wahi yaad nhi aataa aajkal..”, Hamza tried chuckling but his voice broke.
Rehman’s hand had stilled but only for a second, then it started moving again, not breaking a single rhythm which was comforting in its own right.
“One who cannot appreciate what he has been given in life is not a man who is worth anyone’s pain.”
Rehman’s voice was a steady presence. A balm against the puss oozing laceration on Hamza’s chest. An injury so deep it had overshadowed his entire childhood. Or whatever had been left of it.
But it was Rehman’s next words which Hamza now thinking retrospectively realised had ruined everything the young man had known in his entire life, to be. All his practised defenses had been torn down by a simple few words.
“Aur maine galat kahaan tha. You can never be fatherless. Not as long as I am alive.”
The words curled like painful vines in Hamza’s chest wrenching a sudden mortifying sob from his lips and he turned immediately to hide his face, burying half his torso into Rehman’s lap. He clutched the worn out Pathani in tight desperate fists and convulsed silently.
The motion of the hand inside his hair didn’t stop.
Hamza didn't know when sleep had claimed him. And more importantly, he couldn’t be sure whether or not he had dreamt the dry press of cracked lips on his forehead.
Hamza felt fatigued tears roll down the sides of his face as the clock ticked to show midday. He was so tired he felt like he could sleep for a decade. Suddenly his phone rang, breaking his depressed musings cuttingly.
He picked it up immediately, so that Yalina wasn’t disturbed. The poor woman had been awake for him waiting and tensed almost the entire night.
No one had even told her about Rehman yet.
She was almost like the baby of the family. Just before Faizal, if anything. It was evident Ulfat had tried to protect the girl she had started to love like her own, from the painful wait they had all suffered through the night.
But Yalina was nothing if not a warrior and a firebrand in her own right. Hamza knew there would be hell to pay, once she did come to know about what had happened yesterday.
Will she ever be able to forgive him for this betrayal?
What was even the point, when he himself could never be able to do so?
Uzair’s voice was refreshingly jubilant, “Hamze! Bhai uth gye! Jaldi aajaa. By the grace of Allah, he is awake. Come fast”, the call cut.
Hamza stared up at the ceiling again.
Time to face the music.
To be continued…