2023 Jan Morris Short Prose Award Winner

Honorable Killing

 

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Aware of the chance of losing my slippers while visiting Sonia’s house for condolence, I hid my slippers under the carpet and sat uncomfortably on them, close to the door. I suffered from anthropophobia and wanted to run away soon after offering my condolences. And, as women kept filling the tiny space, I started to panic and thought about fleeing the scene to come to visit them some other time. After all, our house was just across Sonia’s. 

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Before I could decide, Sonia’s mother saw me and came to sit beside me. I looked at her expressionless face as she thanked me for coming. She said it was an honor for her that I visited her house. She introduced me to other women from the neighborhood, proudly announcing that her family has been washing my family's clothes for three generations now. I kept feeling uncomfortable, partly because of the slippers I was sitting on.

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Cutting her midsentence, I mustered the courage to utter sympathetic words about Sonia. She excitedly told me that a pedestal fan had electrocuted her daughter as the floor under it was wet. I tsked and nodded in understanding, but with some shock, I looked at the big spinning pedestal fan that dried my sweat every time it turned its broad face toward me. I pointed toward the fan and looked at her with a big question mark on my face. She nodded and moved on to the other women. 

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That fan was huge; Sonia was thirteen and tiny. 

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Before I could move, an old lady moved very close to me, too close for comfort. I felt my slippers and heard her introduce herself as Sonia’s grandmother. I pressed myself into the soft body of the woman beside me – away from Sonia’s grandmother. Sonia’s grandmother whispered that Sonia’s father could not believe that Sonia was fooling around with the boy that owned the candy shop next to their house. I touched my slippers and gauged my distance from the door; two steps? 

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The Grandma whispered that Sonia’s mother had to give her some drugs to get rid of the fetus, but Sonia died with the fetus. She elaborated that the police asked for a large sum to cooperate but allowed them to bury Sonia within an hour. She assured me that the family’s honor was safe. I pulled my slippers out and put them on my feet. I was still sitting on the white sheet, spread on a rented carpet. Then, taking a final look at the fan, I jumped up. Putting my hand on the other mourners’ heads to steady myself, I dashed out of Sonia’s house.

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I made a mental note to be paranoid about the metal-based pedestal fans for the rest of my life.

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Our driver, cook, cleaning boy, and maids knew the candy shop’s owner, and they all approved of the way the parents of the dark-eyed, unnecessarily smiling Sonia saved themselves from this hassle. I guess they would have done the same.  

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Soon after, they shared that the candy shop owner’s mother is looking for a pious, righteous, and dutiful girl to marry her son. The boy was ready to father many children but not out of wedlock and never behind the pulled-down shutter of his candy shop.