The Old Man

'I promise to you, I would take care of you as long as you reach out to me,' were Rafan's words just before the day they were about to get married, and those were the exact same words that kept on repeating in his head when he was waiting for her to speak.

Jeena was ogling at the floor, trying to comprehend how a simple mistake let her secret out in the open. It took her some hard time to hide when she needed someone close to her; so she would not cry about her fears.

"Jeena, I have never thought you would lie about something so big. How could you!" Murat was barely hanging with concern and worry.

Rafan could only stare at her manikin state while he felt paralyzed. He wanted to know what was going on, yet he feared what if he could not handle it? Rafan has already lost so much he cannot watch her die too. Even the mere thought killed his existence on the very spot.

"I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer." As if a mere whisper came out of her mouth. Murat stopped pacing around like a mad man, and Rafan closed his eyes as if something broke inside of him.

"When?" It was Rafan, but Jeena never glanced up at him, neither did he open his eyes.

"Six years ago... the day we were supposed to get married." Rafan's fist was covering his mouth as his eyes turned red. He was close to shedding some tears, but he held them back.

"And, do you have it now?" Rafan asked, but Murat knew she did not because the medications they saw are used after the thyroid gland is removed. Yet Murat did not say anything as he waited for her to explain herself.

"No." Rafan could finally feel that he could suck some air in his lungs.

"Why the hell did you not tell me this? I was in Turkey, wasn't I?" Murat was trying his best to sound as if he was not angry over her immature behavior when he was.

"You just came back from Palestine with a wife and her family. Trying to help them out to settle back then in a new country. Do you think I could be that selfish?" Jeena sounded as if she was offended by him. Murat actually felt bad after listening to her.

"I would have figured something out," Murat spoke, defeated.

"I have always figured it out for myself, and that is what I did." If Murat was not feeling bad already, now he felt worse. The guilt was showing off his face as her words registered to him.

"What about me?" The guy who was watching the siblings argue for a few minutes had it. Rafan wanted to know why she did this to him. Why leave when he had promised to be there with her and for her, even when she did not.

As if she realized his presence again, her mouth went dry. She gulped to form a word, but her mind refused to answer back. She was staring at his dark hair tied in a high bun as his head hung low and his fingers clasped together.

"What? You do not know why you left me?" By now, he was not even trying to hide the anger he felt.

"I... I was, I..." Her stuttering indicated that Murat should give them space because he did not want to witness their personal fight.

"I am coming." He did not even try to be discreet about it and ran to Zeynep's room, where she was peacefully playing with her toys probably, without the knowledge that hell was about to burn downstairs.

"Tell me, what excuse have you stored for me?" Rafan wanted to shake her up to get an answer, but he restrained himself.

"I had some symptoms that I really noticed the next day we got our nikkah. I had them before I even came to Pakistan, but I ignored them." She thought starting from the beginning might put things into perspective for him, and maybe, just maybe, he could see what she did and why she did it.

"I went to the doctor there. They ran some physical and blood tests. I got the results on the same day we were officially getting married again." She explained. Trying to prove that she found out about it after they got their nikkah and that she never lied to him.

"Why did not you tell me?" Rafan, for once, did not feel like shouting. He was calm, but his silence was as if a lock on the door, behind which a storm anticipates her, but she had to come clean.

"I was changing into my wedding clothes..." She had this gentle expression as if that moment still mesmerized her. With tears burning her eyes, she spoke again, "when, Farkanda aunty came and gave me the reports. She told me it was better if I left... that I could save you and me both the embarrassment. You were just starting off your career and everything," she sighed in frustration, "you did not need such pieces of baggage." Rafan did not know what to assume her words as. To him should not have never thought about herself like that when he was in consideration.

"But that was not the only reason that I left," Rafan swallowed as he stared up at her again, waiting for her to continue.

"I loved you... I still do, and despite the scary feeling that you might leave me after you find out, I knew you won't. Despite what your father and relatives say, despite the very problems that had awaited us. I know if we were meant to be together, you would have never left me, and I cannot live with that guilt Rafan. Knowing that you love someone and they have to give up every single thing they worked hard for because of you." She declared, feeling all her physical senses alive. Like the hair on the back of her neck stood the vivid images of the past ran by her. Yet even confessions are useless when the betrayal is too prominent.

It is a known phenomenon in pain to hate and love the very same person in a single moment. Yet, it is near impossible to imagine how it must feel, and it is simply illogical to think that one might understand that without the feeling of the heartbreak of the wordless soul. Rafan was deteriorating. The injury was so firm that he felt shivers run down his arms and spine. He could not hate her thoroughly because he loved her, but now he just felt torn, shredded.

"I packed my bags, left you the note, and took the first flight to The States. Everything seemed messed up when I was waiting at the airport in Istanbul." Jeena was crying with choking sobs, and this was the first time he saw her truly crying in front of him. Rafan wanted to go and console her, but the only thing he could feel was destruction.

"I used my Turkish nationality and disappeared from everyone's life. I know it might sound childish or dramatic, but I knew all of you will come and look for me, and I did not want that. I went to my parent's home, here and for days I did not know what to do. I was scared, sick, and alone. I remember crying myself to bed, not knowing if I would be able to see you again." She glanced up with tears in her eyes with a look of longing.

"I lied to Murat about everything when he called me after he found out from our neighbors that I came to ask for the house keys. It was when he was with his wife at his in-laws after getting them relocated here to Turkey." Rafan scoffed and looked away.

"I am so sorry." Jeena desperately tried to apologize for something that she could not even pinpoint. Jeena was scared of this very misery that he felt.

"Why did not you call me back when you found out that you will be fine, that you will be okay?" Rafan asked, attempting to find the practicality of the situation.

"I was told there was a high possibility of infertility." She responded, and his eyes closed in agony.

"I... couldn't do this to you. The thought of you moving on was very much stirring in my head. I couldn't just barge in your life and tell you everything and expect you to forgive me. What if you married someone else?" Jeena explained as the words bitter-ed her own tongue.

Rafan balled his hand into a fist and stood up. He moved towards the door as he quickly walked out while Jeena called behind him for him to stop but failed after two to three steps. She did not have the right to stop him.

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He walked through the quiet neighborhood as he collapsed on his knees by the wall, either due to being tired or just broken. He wept while trying to breathe the air that refused to enter his lungs. He was rubbing his eyes in the dusky evening. He was a wrecked creature at that very instant.

He loved her, but she left.

She loved him, yet he was not the support she needed.

There was a chance of never having kids with the woman you loved.

The one person that was left almost died as well.

They were the sort of thoughts that were screwing Rafan's inside. He could not talk to her about this again. To go back in that house and face her was like a life sentence. It's not only always the fault of a person who cannot keep promises. Sometimes it's also the fault of the people who don't want to hold you back on those promises.

There was a loud but very clear melodic voice calling out for prayer that was able enough to distract him when the passerby did not cause him to forget what he was suffering.

Allahu Akbar!

Ashhadu alla ilaha illallah, Ashhadu alla ilaha illallah,

Ashhadu anna Muhammadar Rasulullah, Ashhadu anna Muhammadar Rasulullah.

There was an enchantment to those words as they emitted over him. Rafan's tears had stopped. His unconsciousness had diverted his consciousness to spoken Arabic as he swallowed slightly. Rafan's eyes blinked and darted as he kept on listening to the call that never before for once distracted him or his work. After listening to the whole call for prayer he rested his head against the wall he was squatting by.

The serene breeze passed by his body that was useless on the stony road. His slightly long hair flew back and forth as his bun slowly coming undone. He looked up at the empty sky as he rubbed his neck. He huffed out fully as he drew himself up again on his feet.

'Confide in Allah before you lose your way,' his mother's words ringed in his mind.

By now, it was an hour after he had prayed. He was still sitting in the mosque, a bit away from a few other people who were listening to an old man. Unlike them, he was alone in a corner.

"Salam Alaikum." He heard a man say to him.

"Walaikum As-Salam," Rafan answered, not paying attention to the person who was standing a foot away from him. He continued saying something in Turkish, which only annoyed Rafan after a brief moment.

"I am sorry, but I do not speak Turkish." The man blinked his eyes at Rafan only to move ahead to the group of people. The Imam was probably giving a religious lecture to the visitors, which Rafan was not interested in. Rafan ignored and looked away after a single glimpse in that direction. Soon after, the people also left, and the old man glanced at Rafan as he stood up while straightening his clothes.

"They say that people should not be left alone when they feel lonely." The man said in English. His voice echoed in the empty mosque as a smile climbed on his face. Is not it weird a place previously packed with people, was empty now? A place lined up by humans in rows to prayer wo clear of them? Is not life like that too? One time you have people in your life, and the next, there is no one? Only your Creator stays and continues to stay, even after you, like He was there before you, before anyone?

Rafan did not even spare him a glance as his voice seemed to be closer with each word he spoke. Rafan only looked away. The old man smiled at his behavior. The old man was perceptive enough to know that this generation was somewhat unapproachable on the first hand, especially when the truth was an injury to their realities.

"What is your name?" The old man asked patiently, still with a smile.

"Rafan." He answered to not come across as rude as he already had been.

"Ah, Persian, but where are you from?" He continued as he took the space to sit beside Rafan.

"Pakistan." The answer made him smile a little more as he heard Rafan.

"Beautiful place... beautiful people. Does not your name stand for something similar?" Rafan could not help but roll his eyes. That only made the old man to chuckle.

"Allah promises in the Quran, in Surah Al Baqara that, 'Those who believe, and do deeds of righteousness, and establish regular prayers and regular charity, will have their reward with their Lord. On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.' I believe it was 2:277." The old man spoke, but the smile never left his lips.

"There will be people who will hurt you, Rafan, and there will be reasons to be sad in this world, but there will be no grieve or fear in the end if you truly believe." As if something had snapped back inside Rafan.

"My mother passed away when my wife, the woman I loved, chose to run out on me. Later, to only find out that she wanted to protect me from the agony of her possible death that she suffered alone. I have nothing but fear of losing more and grieving over what I have already lost. So sorry for my lack of faith in the good that awaits me." He was not angry at Allah nor those who preached about Him, but he was in pain from the betrayal that people have caused him in the name of his protection; his safeguard.

"There will be individual battles where you would see nothing, Rafan, yet there would be a place where you do stand and see the graves of the ones you loved, but death is not infinite but yet another chance of seeing the people you have lost because it's bounded to come, to every single soul." The old man waited for him to deny, but when he did not, the old man realized that he believed, but the hurt was driving him away from sanity, which is why Rafan did not deny the truth.

"I have to go," Rafan said, standing up as he roughly passed his hand through his hair.

"Maybe you have lost enough, Rafan, but do not forget that there are people who are still here, waiting for you because Allah has placed them here for you. Allah's plan was never for you to know, but it was for you to walk on. So walk on it with dignity and respect with the faith in your heart that you must not forget. He loves you more than you could have loved anyone or will love anyone. even if it was Him in the end because His love is not only un-explainable but also not understandable." Saying his Salam, the old man turned around and walked. With whispers of Durood, the man entered further into the mosque until he disappeared behind one of the doors.

Rafan could only stare at his fading back. In the end, all that he held inside of him had no importance. At that very second, all his grief and complaints were meaningless, or that is what they felt to him now.

"Thank God! I have found you. Are you alright?" Kabir asked as soon as Rafan stepped out of the mosque, in concern.

"How did you find me?" Rafan asked, clearing his face.

"I tracked your phone. Everyone is worried sick about you, especially... your wife." Kabir hesitated before calling Jeena that, not sure about how would Rafan react.

"And may I ask, how do you know about her being worried?" Rafan had a schooled look on his face that caused Kabir to think, maybe he has crossed a line.

"I went there to meet you, but Murat, her brother, explained to me what had happened, and I could hear sobs from behind him." Kabir quickly defended his assumptions with an expression that said he was still loyal to his duties and not interested in Rafan's personal life.

"What happened to the meeting that I asked you to cancel?" Rafan asked as he moved towards the car parked behind Kabir.

"It's shifted to the day after tomorrow, at 11 am in the morning," Kabir replied. Nodding at him, Rafan took the passenger seat.

"How was she?" Rafan asked after they entered the road where she lived.

"I am not sure," Kabir replied, truthfully as he peeped at Rafan with his peripheral view.

"Sorry for being hard at you," Rafan stated as he got out of the car and walked away towards the door of the house. Kabir saw a tiny change in the variation of Rafan's behavior that was unlikely a trait that he ever saw since he knew him. Yet, he could completely describe it. It was like breathing openly.

"I think we should call the police." Jeena was talking to Murat, who was passing his hand over Zeynep. She was fast asleep in his lap.

"It's not 24 hours yet, nor is he a kid that has been missing, Jeena. He will get around when he finds a more understanding state of mind." Murat tried to calm his panicking sister down, but he could see he was failing at it.

They both heard the door screeching as their heads snapped towards the direction of the sound. Rafan walked in while Jeena only noticed his condition. There he was, standing in the same tracksuit that he had gone out in the morning with, but now it was dirty. His long hairs were breaking out from the high bun. His face appeared as if he saw someone get murdered by his own eyes. The life was sucked out of him.

"Rafan..." Murat had trailed off, not sure of what to say.

"I have always loved you even when I thought I could not. I have kept my promises when you chose to abandon me. I have lost enough to not ever look at you the same way again, but I won't take my responsibilities lightly." He was staring at Jeena, and she couldn't read his eyes. All though he was speaking directly to her. There were no emotions left within him that one can read upon.

"You are still my wife and do not expect anything else from me. You are my responsibility, which I do expect you to argue over, but that won't matter to me." Rafan declared with authority. Jeena could only blink at him, not completely sure where he was going with this.

"I want her documents to be updated. I want her single status to be changed. We are applying for the papers first thing, tomorrow." Rafan referred to Murat as Murat arched an eyebrow but still never argued back. Without another glance, Rafan walked up to their room leaving the siblings behind; one in distress and the other in confusion.

Chapter 20

Hello Jeee! How was it?

Rafan be like if she cannot be my lover, she will be my wife.

But did we feel bad for him or her?

Another fact about me if you have not noticed.

Until next time,

Allah Hafiz.

Next Update: 16th Nov, 2021.