Free The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi

seemed unremarkable when compared to those of other landowning families, had been gradually acquired and were safe.
    Daadi encouraged Seema, and Seema arranged a meeting between the women of the two families. And it was decided then that Chhoti would wed Uncle Fazal in a small nikah ceremony, with just the families and the qari present, and would go away to live with him and his family in the village.

    “Then what happened?”
    Daadi said, “Then buss . She went to live in the village and is living there still.” She had placed the lid on the oval box of photographs and was holding it in her lap.
    I said, “The End?” It was the sign that appeared in large white letters on the TV screen when the story had run out and the last action or gesture of the actors was held in a trembling stillness.
    Daadi thought about it and said, “Yes.”
    I said, “Happy ever after?”
    And Daadi said, “That was our intention. But who knows what tomorrow will bring? Good things happen and they go bad from neglect, and bad things happen and sometimes they lead to good things. There is no ever after in these things. One can only do one’s work. And one can pray. One must always pray.”

    I told my mother.
    She said, “Who told you?”
    “No one.”
    “Tell me, Zaki.”
    I gave no answer.
    “You are seven years old,” she said. “You will behave like a seven-year-old.
    I will not have you snooping around.”
    “Sorry.”
    “And she has no business,” said my mother, “putting these things in your head, because she is an old woman and you are a child. There is a difference. And she bloody well ought to know it.”
    When Chhoti next came to the house she was taken to my mother’s room and engaged there in tones of cheery indignation. In the course of their meeting Chhoti’s language grew coarse and her jokes became bestial, and the laughs these drew from my mother were appalled and also joyful, since for her a sharp tongue in an older woman of that background was a sure sign of victory. They stayed in these roles until Chhoti began to speak of her daughter. She said that she worried because hers was an only child, a girl, and was being raised so far away from her. It was necessary to keep her away from the village but no less troubling.
    “There is no need,” said my mother, “for you to worry. We are here. And you have done the right thing by sending her to the city. She goes to a good school, she has exposure, and these are good things. You are opening up her future. You must look at it like that.”

    It was an afternoon in October. My mother was sitting cross-legged on her bed and was writing on typed sheets of paper that were piled in her lap. She was editing: the articles were due at the office before the end of the week, which had almost ended, and the notes she was making now were hurried and illegible.
    “Do your work,” she said.
    I was writing My name is Zaki Shirazi along parallel dotted lines in the school notebook.
    “I don’t want to anymore.”
    “You have to.”
    The windows in the room were open, and the smell of burning rot from somewhere in the neighborhood was sweet and distinct.
    “I want to go outside.”
    She frowned at a long sentence in her lap and crossed it out, and made a note beside it. She said, “You can’t.”
    “Why?”
    She didn’t answer.
    Then she said, “What’s happened?”
    Samar Api was standing before her with her arms stiff by her sides.
    “What’s happened?” said my mother, and put away the papers.
    Samar Api said, “I went to the bathroom.” She closed her mouth and looked at me.
    My mother said, “What happened?”
    “There was blood.”
    “Come with me.”
    They went into the bathroom.
    And they returned.
    “It’s nothing,” said my mother. “It’s normal.”
    Samar Api stood near the bathroom door and kept her hand on the doorknob.
    “It’s not normal,” I said. “I’ve never had blood in the bathroom.”
    Samar Api was crying.
    “Zaki!” said