Typhoon Read Online Free Page A

lifted an eye at a young woman, let alone a married man committing adultery with a virtual stranger – no matter how attractive the woman happened to be. It just didn’t make sense.
    Hajra recalled the curtain of silky raven hair draped seductively around the woman’s shoulders and back. At no time had she bothered to tie it up, even though she could see very clearly that hardly any adult woman hereabouts sported a bare head, let alone allowed her hair to tumble provocatively all around her shoulders. She appeared not to care that this was a village, and not the cosmopolitan world of Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad.
    Hajra didn’t feel the cold in her shivering body, as these thoughts darted through her head. Briskly she reached the fields and followed the path leading to the old village well and the banyan tree.
    As she turned the corner, Hajra’s breath caught in her throat. The stars and the moon beamed light over the fields, illuminating the two figures sitting on the edge of the well. To Hajra it was as if the earth gave way from under her feet. She watched with horror as Haroon leaned over and touched the woman on her face. ‘Allah pak!’ Hajra moaned aloud. She craved to shove both of them in the well.
    Blindly she turned and traced her way back to her home. So it was all true! Her heart bled for her beloved, innocent daughter. How could Haroon do this to her? Was Gulshan not enough for him? In one night, in a few swift seconds, Haroon had betrayed them andturned their world upside down. Hajra wept, tears of impotent rage gushing down the sides of her face.
    Once inside the gate, she bolted the outside door, grazing her hand against an old sharp nail in the process.
    ‘He will have to break down the door if he wants to get back inside!
Haramzada! Haramzada
!’ Hajra bitterly swore. ‘Just you wait and see what I’ll do to you!’
    Filling a glass with water from the tap in the courtyard, Hajra gulped it all down her parched throat. Attacked by a sudden menopausal flush, her body became a hot torch. Turning the tap on fully, she scooped water into her hands and sluiced her face and chest all over with the cold water. The night’s chilly wind blew through the open courtyard, but Hajra’s body remained a furnace of hate – aflame. Her wet night kurta stuck to her. With her night shawl carelessly thrown to the back of her shoulders, Hajra entered her daughter’s bedroom.
    Her body tall and erect, she stood next to her daughter’s bed but anger suddenly deserted her. ‘Gulshan?’ she whispered. Crouching down on the bed, Hajra gently turned her daughter’s face up to her own.
    In the semi-darkness of the room, mother and daughter stared bleakly at one another. There was no need for words. They shared the betrayal and the brutal loss of their world. Hajra bent and kissed her daughter on the forehead.
    ‘Did you see them?’ Gulshan whimpered. Needing to know, yet afraid of the answer.
    Hajra held her daughter’s gaze. Her beloved only child had indeed lost a husband – stolen from her very arms, in the middle of the night, by another woman. She averted her face, not wishing to answer.
    The image of her son-in-law caressing the woman’s cheek danced before Hajra’s eyes. What had her daughter seen? Something worse? ‘What are they doing now?’ The bitter question darted in her head. It was as if she was talking about a stranger. In one night Haroon had neatly sliced his world apart from theirs.
    Mentally she shook herself. Her daughter’s home was indeed
barbad
, ruined; there was no doubt about it. Two pairs of eyes had witnessed his adulterous action. ‘But I will not let those two get away with it!’ she vowed to herself, her dark eyes glittering menacingly in the night. Aloud she promised her daughter, ‘I will have them punished and humiliated before the whole village, if my name is not Hajra. Adultery is a sin of the highest order. You go to sleep in my room, my daughter. I will deal with these