Page 96 - Till the Last Breath . . .

from defunct arms deals. Her mom was drunk and playing poker with the

other aunties. Dad was, as usual, drinking and discussing paltry pay
cheques and cursing the government for being soft on Pakistan. All the
army kids were too old for her, and they were all trying out vodka and rum

and anything else they could get. The older kids were snogging behind the
bushes.

She felt bored. Her tummy felt strange after the gallons of aerated drinks
she had gulped down out of boredom. A little later she couldn’t hold it in

any more. At the far end of the farmhouse, there were washrooms for guests
and she walked towards them. There were drunken generals, colonels and

other rank holders all over the farmhouse grounds. She felt awkward and
strange. Just a few yards away from the washroom, she felt a rough,
overpowering hand on her mouth and another hand across her waist. She

saw two men with demonic expressions on their faces.
She only remembered partly what happened next. Over the years, she had

tried to slowly erase that memory from her head and had succeeded to an
extent. Her rape on that fateful night now seemed like a figment of her

imagination. Something that had happened in a parallel universe. Though to
this day, she still woke up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat, the

faces of those old men—as old as her father—staring down at her, between
her legs, scratching her bare body, grunting and moaning as they inflicted
pain on her. They took turns for about half an hour. She still remembered

the pain, she still remembered the curse words, and she still remembered
the egging from one old man to the other, urging each other to violate her

harder. She still remembered lying in her own sweat, urine and blood,
crying and waiting for help. Her screams were hollow and soundless. No

one came. She remembered how she had put herself together, looked at
herself in the mirror and felt dead inside. She wondered if she had done

something to deserve it. More than that, she clearly remembered how they
had threatened to kill her family if she ever told anyone about what had
happened. She had lived in fear ever since. For more than a year, she stayed

quiet. But one day, she tried.