MRS. KHAN

* MRS KHAN - CHAPTAR 2 : THE ROOF*

*MRS. KHAN - Chapter 2: The Roof*

Darkness. That was all Zain remembered.

Then cold. The kind of cold that burns your skin. He opened his eyes.

He was on a roof. Mrs. Khan’s roof. The moon was directly above him. No wind. No sound from the gali below. It was like the whole world had been switched off.

He tried to move. He couldn’t. His hands and feet were tied with something soft. Like cloth. But it was ice-cold.

In front of him stood Mrs. Khan.

She was no longer the quiet aunty from across the street. Her white shalwar kameez was moving, though there was no wind. Her hair floated around her face. Her eyes were black now. No white. Just black.

“You’re awake,” she said. Her voice echoed, like two people were speaking at once.

Zain tried to scream. No sound came out.

Mrs. Khan sat down cross-legged in front of him. She placed the old album on the floor between them.

“Do you know why I stayed silent for 8 years, Zain?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Because grief is a quiet thing,” she said. “It waits. Kamran was my world. He bought this house for me on our wedding day. One week later, your father came with his men. He said the papers were fake. He said the house was his.”

She opened the album. Page two. Kamran’s bloody face.

“He didn’t die in an accident,” she whispered. “Your father’s driver pushed his car off the Malir Bridge. At 12:03 AM. The police wrote ‘accident’. Because your father paid them.”

Zain’s eyes widened. He remembered. He was 16 then. His father came home late that night. Drunk. He had mumbled, “One problem less. That house is ours now.”

Zain had thought it was about business. He never asked.

“I watched your father for 8 years,” Mrs. Khan continued. “He became rich. He bought 3 more houses. He died last year. Heart attack. But his sin didn’t die. It passed to you.”

“No,” Zain managed to say. His voice was a rasp. “I didn’t do anything.”

Mrs. Khan smiled. It was not kind. “You live in his house. You sleep on his money. You are his blood.”

She stood up and walked to the edge of the roof. She looked down at the street. “The first night I saw you, I thought you were him. Same eyes. Same walk.”

Zain felt tears run down his face. “Please, Aunty. I’m sorry. But I didn’t know.”

“Sorry doesn’t bring Kamran back,” she said without turning. “But there is a way. The old way.”

She turned. In her hand was a rusted knife. It looked ancient.

“What… what are you going to do?” Zain asked. Panic hit him hard now.

“Balance,” she said. “One life for one life. Your father took Kamran. I take you. And your soul will stay here. On this roof. To keep me company for the next 8 years.”

She started walking toward him. Slow. The knife was down by her side.

Zain pulled at the cold ropes. They cut into his skin. “Ustaad! Someone! Help!”

No one heard. The gali was silent.

Mrs. Khan stopped a foot away from him. She raised the knife.

Zain closed his eyes. He was done.

“Stop.”

The voice was not Mrs. Khan’s. It was a man’s voice. Deep. Familiar.

Both of them froze.

From the shadows near the staircase, a man stepped out.

Zain’s breath stopped. It was Kamran.

Not a ghost. Not a memory. A real man. Older. Beard. Scars on his face. But it was him.

Mrs. Khan dropped the knife. It clanged on the concrete. “Kamran?” Her voice broke.

Kamran walked to her. He didn’t look at Zain. He only looked at her.

“I told you not to do this, Ayesha,” he said softly.

Zain couldn’t speak. His brain had stopped working. Kamran was dead. He saw the file. The accident report.

Mrs. Khan was crying now. Real tears. “You… you were supposed to be gone. 8 years…”

“I didn’t die that night,” Kamran said. “The car fell into the river. I was caught in the mud. A fisherman saved me. I had no memory. No name. For 7 years I worked on a boat in Gwadar.”

He touched her face. “Last year my memory came back. I came to Karachi. I saw you. From far. You wouldn’t talk to anyone. So I stayed in the shadows. I watched.”

Mrs. Khan collapsed into his chest. She sobbed like a child. “I was going to kill his son. I became a monster.”

Kamran held her tight. “No. You became a widow who was lied to. That’s different.”

They stood like that for a long time. Zain forgot he was tied.

Finally, Kamran looked at him. His eyes were not angry. They were tired.

“Untie him,” he said to Mrs. Khan.

She hesitated. Then she bent down and touched the cold ropes. They turned to water and disappeared.

Zain sat up, rubbing his wrists. “You’re… alive?”

Kamran nodded. “Yes. And your father is dead. Revenge is done. Killing you won’t bring back the 8 years we lost.”

He walked to the edge of the roof and looked at Zain’s house across the street. “Take your things. Leave this gali. Don’t ever tell anyone what happened here. Let her have peace.”

Zain nodded fast. “I will. I swear.”

He stood up, legs shaking. He couldn’t look at Mrs. Khan. She was still crying in Kamran’s arms.

As he reached the stairs, Kamran called out.

“Zain.”

Zain stopped.

“Write it,” Kamran said. “Write the truth. Not to expose. But so you never forget. And so no other son pays for his father’s sin.”

Zain didn’t answer. He ran down the stairs.

He packed one bag. He left 10,000 rupees on the table for rent. He didn’t look back.

He rented a new room in Nazimabad. Far from Liaquatabad.

For one week he didn’t sleep. Every night at 12 AM he heard it. Tak… tak… tak… He would sit up, sweating. But no one was there.

On the 8th night, it stopped.

He went back once, after a month. The house across was locked. A new lock. The curtains were open. Inside, he saw movement. Two shadows. One tall, one shorter. Sitting together.

He smiled for the first time in weeks and walked away.

That night he started writing.

The first line was: “It was June in Karachi. The heat was brutal…”