
Early next morning I heard quite a commotion. I could see faintly through the fabric placed over the small window. Someone was trying to come in through the door at the other end of the courtyard. Someone was speaking in English!‘Yes, but I’d like to check all the same…’‘Help! In here – behind the green cloth on the window!’ I howled.A few tense moments passed; the door opened, and in came a tall English man, and a Pakistani woman.My father and mother, and various relatives all followed.‘Are you Leyla Ali?’I nodded, my body trembling profusely.‘I’m Roger Ellis, from the British High Commission, and this is my assistant. We’re here to help, if that’s what you want.’I looked at my father’s face, dark with indignation, his nostrils flaring. My mother stood behind him, fear casting a gloomy shadow all around her.I nodded again.My father spoke coldly, but steadily, ensuring I heard every single word. ‘If you leave now, you’re dead to us. You’ll never see your family again. Think carefully before you take this huge step. It can never be undone.’Why did it have to be like this?If I chose my family, I chose a marriage I didn’t want with a man I didn’t love.If I chose not to marry him, I had to leave, and be a stranger to my family forever.That was a choice? Some choice!‘I love you both, but I can’t sacrifice my whole life to a marriage I don’t want, just so you can please your biradari, over and above me, your child. Am I so insignificant? Do I matter so little? Abbu you can’t really love me if you’re prepared to do that. I won’t stay.’I turned to Mr Ellis.‘I am ready.’On the drive to Islamabad, I was told what would happen next; where I would stay, where I would be housed when I got to the UK, what support I would get – but it didn’t help me feel any better. I was petrified of how I would survive alone. The last twenty-one years with my family was all I had known.A spasm of painful sombreness jolted through my body.I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t ask to be treated so unjustly, yet I had to live with the consequences. I had taken the lonely path; and it was loneliness I feared most.
Source: The Lonely Path – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.
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