In the tradition of the international bestsellers Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody and Desert Flower by Waris Dirie, Hidden Bars tells the shocking true story of a young woman’s search for her lost mother and her struggle for self-hood and respect within a culture that brutally suppresses women’s aspirations, rights and freedoms.

Hameeda Lakho was brought to Holland as a four year old, a member of an immigrant family from Pakistan. Her father soon reveals a violent and tyrannical nature, beating and abusing the girls and their mother with impunity in keeping with the iron code of his land that women should endure any punishment or humiliation in silent obedience to men. Hameeda’s mother has nowhere to turn – she is a stranger in a foreign land and cannot understand or trust the ways of a modern European society. He finally commits the cruellest act of all: he banishes the mother and the youngest child to Pakistan and lies to Hameeda and her sisters, telling them that their mother has died in car crash. Their lives are reduced to that of virtual slaves as the cycle of abuse grows, until there is no option but to run away and stay in orphanages, prisons or on the road, always the outsider without hope of home and acceptance. But when Hameeda learns that her mother is actually alive, her life in infused with purpose. She works to bring her mother to Holland and takes the daring and unprecedented step of suing her father in the Dutch courts for the years of suffering at his hands.

Hameeda relates her story of living between two cultures with exceptional eloquence, insight and tremendous emotion, discussing the different kinds of `prisons’ she has endured and survived – her inner alienation and separation from her mother, as well as the lonely disconnection of the immigrant experience.

Prologue
July 1997

Contemplating. Anxious. Alert. Nervous? No, it’s a different feeling. I can’t find the right word for it just like that. Moods alternate at high speed. Determination is replaced by insecurity, and right afterwards grief is replaced by fighting spirit. Imagine that he would also show up. What terrible consequences that would have? The very thought of it makes me shiver. For a moment I feel fear. And panic. Clear memories of a wild, aggressive look, swollen lips and the dull drone of the beatings with a stick are trying to overpower me. The woman in the mirror looks familiar to me. She is trustworthy, but a the same time a stranger. It feels like I can’t reach her. Her pale brown face with dark staring eyes is framed by her thick, glossy, deep brown hair that is lying on her shoulders. The brown in her eyes seems more intense than ever. With a pull I brush my long hair one more time and strike it out of my face. Now, I won’t be overpowered, I know exactly what I want. For months, years, almost my entire life, I have been waiting for this moment. In a while I will meet amma. Amma: my mother. Last night my brother Ali Nawaz called to say that they had landed in Abu Dhabi. Ali Nawaz, my youngest sister Yasmin and my mother. What would he look like, my younger brother I have never seen before? And the last time I held my youngest sister Yasmin in my arms, she was only one year old. She must be almost thirty now… I know they’re on their way. That they were able to leave Karachi without problems, but still. Only after I have touched her, I will believe that she is real. Amma.

‘Mama. Mom? Mom!’
With a start I return to the present, at Schiphol Airport. I begin to smile. Again and again my daughters Rachel and Melanie bring me down to earth and give me something to hold on to. I try to squat down fluidly, but that’s not so easy with my new, tight long skirt. Rachel looks surprised when I pull her towards me and tell her how much I love her.
‘But that’s not what I’m asking you.’ With a frown she pulls me into the bathroom. ‘How do you flush here? I don’t see a handle anywhere. And there…’ With her little hand in mine she pulls me to the next door. We are pursued by the sounds of flushing toilets. With a face that is one big question mark, she looks up. It takes at least five minutes before Rachel, her younger sister and her niece accept that the toilets at Schiphol Airport work the way they do. I walk back to the mirror and straighten the collar of my blouse.
‘You look beautiful’, Gilmer said this morning as he held the door of his meticulously cleaned car.
Exactly one week ago I was in The Hague to buy clothes for this occasion. I found something suitable very quickly. In fact, I knew exactly what I wanted to wear. A long skirt with a wasted jacket. Respectable, serious and elegant. The yellow blouse sharply contrasts with the suit and my hair.

The last few months were dominated by the ‘reunion’. From the moment my eldest sister Zahida found my mother, I haven’t been able to relax. Almost my entire life I had to do without a mother. When I knew she was still alive, I had to see her. I wanted to know where I came from, I wanted answers, solutions, and I wanted to experience what it feels like to be loved by your mother. In agreement with my sisters Zahida and Ayesha we decided to invite amma, our younger sister Yasmin and our unknown brother Ali Nawaz to stay with us in the Netherlands for a couple of months. Despite the fear they also must have felt, they accepted the invitation. It took months and a lot of trouble before we received the visa. But there was no way back. For nobody. We knew about each others existence and recognized our desires.

With Melanie on my arm and Rachel next to me I walk back to the arrival lounge. Gilmer looks around and cannot resist taking some shots of me and our daughters. It must be exciting for him as well.
‘They will arrive a bit later. There is a strike in Paris,’ he says, pointing to the monitor with flight information. ‘Look, plane GF19 is delayed.’
I’m not sure if I can handle two hours of delay after twenty-nine years. Rachel and Saima, Ayesha’s daughter, understand that they can start wandering around again. Rachel’s fingers slide out of my hand. I cast a glance at Ayesha and watch them go off. Our children are now eleven, seven and four years old, about the same age we had when we arrived in Holland. Melanie curls up to me when I try to find a seat. People walk by, in a hurry or not, talking, laughing. I see everything, but I’m not really there. It’s incomprehensible that nobody notices that I am about to meet my mother. I feel like screaming it out loud, and let the world know: ‘This is an important day. More important than anything else.’ But everyone is going his own way. Maybe one or two people sense the restlessness in me nervously fiddling about with the flowers, in Gilmer hovering around us and in my sisters, their partners and children pacing up and down.

Yesterday the hairdresser immediately saw something was about to happen. Especially for this occasion I went to a famous hairdresser. The girl noticed that I didn’t just wanted to have my hair done, but that it had to be done for a special occasion. When she asked me if I had something to celebrate, I looked her in the eyes through the mirror and said: ‘I will meet my mother tomorrow; I haven’t seen her for almost thirty years.’ Her comb fell out of her hand and her fingers stopped working. ‘What do you mean?’
I told her something about my life. It sometimes surprises me that, without hesitation, I can talk about the degrading things me and my sisters experienced when we were younger. Zahida and Ayesha never talk about it. I do. I talk about it, I write about it and I don’t feel ashamed of my past. Not anymore. Rachel’s birth not only revealed the absence of a mother and her love, but also the lack of a background and an own identity. I wanted to love my child in a way I’ve never been loved. I wanted her to be a child, give her a sense of security and a solid background. But how could I do that if I didn’t even know who I was and where I came from? I felt completely Dutch, but one look in the mirror made it clear that others didn’t look at me like that. I have a dark skin, and originally come from a country with an exotic culture. A culture I had only known from its worst side, and for that reason denied for years. In this way I also denied myself. If you try to live without roots, you float through your existence, as it were. Disoriented, and in my case, always searching for security and fighting against loneliness. Rachel’s birth was the beginning of a long journey to my past and to myself. The deep, warm feeling she, and later Melanie as well, stirred up in me and which controlled my life, made me realize what and who I had missed myself and was still missing. A place I could call home, the knowledge where you came from, a mother. Slowly but surely I began the search for my mother. Amma, who could clear things up and give answers to all the questions from the past.

‘Ten minutes to go,’ Gilmer yells. I am a bundle of nerves. Cold shivers run down my spine. I’m afraid. Amma is almost there. Maybe the reunion won’t be what I expect from it. Have we been separated too long to repair the bond? Maybe I won’t feel anything when I see her. No, just the sound of her voice through the phone, the way she pronounces my name, feels like I am coming home.
The feelings for her are there. The fear I feel has to do with my doubts whether she can answer all my questions. Whether she can help me find solutions and justice. I am hoping for recognition; I hope to see myself in her. Maybe I’m most afraid of the disappointment that lies ahead of me if she turns out not to be the key to the peace and happiness I’ve been pursuing ever since the moment we – amma, Zahida, Ayesha, Yasmin and I – arrived at Schiphol Airport. Today, twenty-nine years ago.

1

Arrival at Schiphol

Flustered by the shock of the landing we shuffled from the plane with shaking legs. It was draughty in the corridor which Hakim, our guide, called a ‘trunk’. My mother, amma, walked in front of me, with my baby sister, Yasmin, on her arm. I heard my older sisters, Zahida and Ayesha, right behind me. It took a while before we saw the end of the gangway, but finally we reached the exit and entered a hall. A group of strangers was waiting for us. Amma did her best to keep Zahida, Ayesha and me around her. A big man lifted Yasmin out of her arms.
‘Ayesha, say hello to baba,’ amma said, giving my sister, who was three years older than me, a little push.
Ayesha took a step forward and looked at the man who now carried Yasmin. Then amma pushed twelve year old Zahida, her eldest, towards him. I clung to amma’s hand and also held onto her leg, which made walking awkward for her. But I was only four years old and very frightened. My mother felt my fear, which was why she didn’t push me towards the man. All sorts of people with pale faces and strange clothes were looking at us. I kept screwing up my eyes against the flashes of light from the cameras. Amma had trouble freeing her hand from mine so that she could be embraced by the man with Yasmin in his arms. Yasmin looked frightened as she became squashed between the two kissing grown-ups.
‘Baba!’ amma said to Yasmin, pointing at the man.
So this man in funny clothes was really our baba? Baba, our father, about whom amma had talked so often? Baba, who lived, worked and earned money for us in a faraway country? But who were those other people who were staring at us? I didn’t see any other children around; Zahida, Ayesha, Yasmin and I were the only ones. Yesterday we still had our cousins, and lalli, our dear, sweet grandmother. Where was she now? On the plane amma had promised we would see her again soon. I wished she had come with us. I closed my eyes and saw lalli and aunt Noora, and Yasmin’s cot rocking under the palm tree. It had been horrible saying goodbye to lalli and my favorite aunt. Lalli had refused to let go of me and had kept screaming: ‘Leave these children here! You can’t take them with you!’
But my mother had put her arms around lalli and said: ‘But you know I’m taking them with me to give them a better life, lalli. And they also belong to their father, your son! He wants our family to be together. I promise we’ll come back for you.’ Amma always listened to lalli, but this time she had made up her own mind. I knew why, as she had explained it to us. One day, when she came home from the hospital where Zahida had been treated for an eye infection again, she had taken my elder sisters and me to the palm tree in the centre of the courtyard. There, in the shade, she had talked. At that time she had talked mostly to herself and to Zahida, but twenty-nine years later she told me the same story. The story of her husband, our baba, of her childhood and of the future she wanted us to have...

‘I was born in 1940. When I was two, my father died, and three years later my mother remarried Habibullah Lakho. Habibullah was divorced and had a nine year old son from his previous marriage. With our new family we went to live in Bakra Pri, a Karachi slum. Habibullah was proud of his family, especially of his own child and the children that came later. They were allowed to go to school, while I had to stay at home to do the housework and look after the babies.
When I grew older, my stepbrother Hussain began treating me in a different way. I didn’t know exactly what he was doing to me but, as a result, I soon became pregnant. Habibullah was pleased, because he had already suggested to my mother that Hussain and I should marry. My mother had always refused, but now marriage between her daughter and her husband’s son was the only honorable solution.
Your father and I stayed with our parents, even after you were born. We were very poor, and when I was expecting Waheed your father decided to go to Dubai to look for a better job. Waheed was born in miserable circumstances. It had rained for days, the house was as leaky as a sieve and I looked desperately for a dry place in which to put him. But I couldn’t keep him warm and could afford neither milk nor a doctor. Waheed contracted pneumonia and died in my arms when he was six days old.’
For a moment she was silent.
‘We buried him without baba. With each day life in Bakra Pri grew worse. You were ill all the time and there was no money for medicine or food. Waheed’s death had made me realize that we couldn’t go on in this way. Your father returned from Dubai, and three months after Hameeda was born he decided to go to Europe. Life in the slum was too hard and you were never well. I had to do something, too, so I decided to take the three of you to Hyderabad. Lalli lived there, your father’s mother and Habibullah’s first wife.
At first everything went well for us. I found a job, Hameeda stayed with lalli, and Zahida and Ayesha went to school. But a few weeks later lalli became homesick for Soomar Halepoto, a hamlet near Tando Mohammed Khan, her place of birth. So we moved and we have been living here for quite a while now. I didn’t want to leave Hyderabad, but I had no choice.
When baba came back last year, he said that he would stay with us from then on. He had shipped a car to Pakistan and wanted to buy a house in Tando Mohammed Khan. But after a few weeks he was homesick for Holland. He felt he didn’t belong here any more and wanted to go back there. By then I was two months pregnant with Yasmin and I begged him to stay, but he said he had to return so that he could provide a better future for his family. Baba left and Yasmin was born. A few months ago he called me and told me that he had plane tickets and a house for us. He wanted us to go to Holland, too, as he was very lonely. I have thought about it for weeks, discussed it with lalli and sent letters to baba, and I have decided to leave. We’re going to baba, to Holland.’

So we were to leave, but we didn’t know when. Life went on as before. I hardly ever thought of my father, as I didn’t even know him. He had left when I was still a baby. Although he had visited us the year before in Soomar Halepoto, I couldn’t remember him. Amma often said she longed for baba and he missed us, his wife and daughters. Perhaps everything in that far away, unknown country was indeed better, but he had no family there. His life was surely very different from ours. All of us lived together in Soomar Halepoto, in about a dozen huts around a courtyard. A hut consisted of poles and straw mats for walls and the roof. On the floor were thin mats to be used as beds, and we had khats: plaited mats hanging in a wooden or metal frame above the floor. Lalli and her husband slept in a khat; amma, Zahida, Ayesha en I slept together on the floor. I often snuggled close to amma’s warm breasts. I played with the other children in our courtyard and went with amma to the fields. Sometimes she let me suck a piece of sugarcane. You could find all kinds of things on the fields. Amma picked cotton and I helped her. We worked from five o’clock in the morning till the sun had risen way above the horizon. Then we went home for breakfast. After breakfast Zahida, Ayesha and I fetched water from the well and milked the buffaloes and the goat. In the yard we grew carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and onions, and our trees produced sweet juicy mangoes. In my opinion amma did lots of exciting things. We often collected cow pats, which she formed into large flat cakes. Wet cakes were used as building material, dry ones for the fire. I helped her arrange them neatly so that they could dry in the sun. Mostly all of us ate together, including the aunts who also lived around our yard. We sat around the fire. Sometimes lalli cooked the food, most of the time amma did. Almost always we had porridge and maani; now and then, when amma had sold lots of cow cakes, we had meat. I preferred maani, our fragrant, flat bread. However, that day under the tree, amma told us that from then on everything would be different and better.
What did she mean by better, I wondered. What could be better than this? We had a nice life. You could build towers with cow cakes, you could play with the goats, the buffaloes and the donkey, you could climb on the carts and you could rock yourself in Yasmin’s cradle under the palm tree. It was a lovely place, although... I asked amma if there was a snake pit full of snakes, too, in the place where baba lived. As always she replied that the pit in our courtyard did not contain any snakes. But I knew better. If I had to pee in the night, I always put it off as long as possible, until amma was awake and we could go together. When I peed during the day and peered between my legs into the hole I never saw any snakes, but at night I heard them rustling in the dark. Then I squatted as high as possible to prevent them from nipping my behind or even worse, from slithering between my buttocks. That could happen - according to Asif, and older cousin, who had it happen to him. So if baba’s pit had no snakes, life could be better there. Amma promised she would always be there to take care of us. She wouldn’t have to leave home to go to work. So if amma could stay with us and lalli was able to come later on, why not?

It took weeks before we could leave. Hakim, an acquaintance of my father’s and a stranger to us, came to Soomar Halepoto to help my mother make the necessary travel arrangements. We couldn’t understand him. He came from the North and spoke Urdu. Tando Mohammed Khan is situated in the southern province of Sindh. We spoke Sindhi, but my mother also spoke Urdu. Together with Hakim she spent a few days in Hyderabad applying for passports. We were relieved when she came back. We felt the tension of our imminent departure. Two weeks later Hakim came to fetch us. My mother hadn’t needed much time to pack. We lived outdoors the whole day and our personal possessions also belonged to lalli and the other members of the family. On the day of our departure amma saw to it that we all took more trouble washing our hair and we were given new gold earrings. Lalli tied bows in my hair and lalli’s sister plaited Ayesha’s. Zahida could already do hers herself. We also got a new shalwar-kamis and the dopatta that went with it. Amma had sewn these clothes herself with lalli’s help. We all wore the same outfit in white and blue; in our village all the girls and women wore these traditional clothes. My new shalwar - wide trousers that closed around the ankles - was rather long, but lalli rolled it up around my waist and pulled the string so tightly that it couldn’t come down. The nala - the string through the double seam at the top of the pants, which dangles on your belly - just missed peeping out from under my kamis. The kamis, a tunic reaching the knees, had long slits at the sides for easy movement. Amma wore her dopatta on her head, while we usually wore this oblong piece of thin material around our necks, or we played with it. When we followed Hakim out of our courtyard, I heard amma crying softly and I saw her tears, but I didn’t dare ask her why they were there. On the way there was plenty to see: camels and tanga’s: carts drawn by a horse or a donkey. We walked through streets full of carts, animals and especially men. The women were, like amma, completely veiled. By the sides of the roads I noticed sacks of dun peas, lentils and colorful spices. In Hyderabad we took the bus to Karachi. When after a day’s traveling we arrived in Bakra Pri I thought at first that we had already arrived in the foreign country that was our destination. In my grandparents’ house in the slum where my mother had grown up, tea was boiling over a burning cow pat. Before we left for the airport, we drank chai: tea with milk. As many as thirty people came to the airport to see us off. While amma was talking to Hakim and others, I stayed close to lalli. She stroked my hair and couldn’t stop kissing me. I loved her very much. All of a sudden the noise increased and everybody started bustling around. Just when I had dozed off on lalli’s lap it was time to board the plane. When amma wanted to lift me up, lalli began to cry and scream: ‘Don’t take her! Leave at least one of them with me! Leave Hameeda with me!’ Over and over again amma tried to explain that our leaving was the best thing for us, and she promised repeatedly that we would return. I held on tightly to lalli’s hand. I would have liked to stay with her, but I also needed my sweet mother. Men in uniform told us in a friendly but firm manner that lalli could not come with us. They pushed all the others behind a swinging door and ordered them to stay there. Lalli’s screaming and wailing increased; she was overwhelmed with sadness. In my mind’s eye I can still picture her face. She almost crushed my hand and when amma carefully freed it and pulled me with her, lalli kept on reaching for me. Suddenly the door closed and the last I saw of lalli was her hand, stuck between the door and the wall. I couldn’t see the rest of her, just her clawing hand. I wanted to run back to her but amma stopped me and when I looked around again, the hand was gone. Years later I heard that due to all the emotions lalli had fainted.

Saying goodbye in Karachi had been heartbreaking, but soon afterwards lots of other things drew our attention. Zahida, Ayesha and I didn’t know where to look first. The plane, the seats, the cabin staff, the pale people... Everything was new to us. Zahida and Ayesha sat with Hakim, amma sat between Yasmin and me. One of the air hostesses fetched a special cot for Yasmin. We left Pakistan at night and were to arrive in Amsterdam the next morning. It was a bumpy flight. Zahida was airsick and had to throw up. Other passengers suffered from the turbulence, too. I was afraid the plane would crash. Nevertheless all of us slept, even amma. We were already preparing to land when I woke up.
‘Amma,’ I said, ‘I have to pee.’ Ayesha heard me and said she also had to go to the toilet.
‘Impossible,’ said amma. ‘We have to remain in our seats.’ But I was insistent, as I had to see this strange toilet which didn’t have any snakes. So amma grabbed me and pushed Ayesha up the aisle. The three of us were still in the small cubicle when the plane began to land. Amma urged us to hurry up and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She rattled the handle and banged on the door until the whole cabin crew came to our rescue. We were already flying very low. After some more fiddling the door flew open. The air hostess pulled us out and pushed us into the arms of the nearest passenger. Ayesha and I were lifted from one pair of hands to the other over the rows till we had reached our own seats, where we were buckled up by strangers. Everybody was back in place just in time. With a loud bang the plane hit the ground, announcing our arrival in Amsterdam in quite a violent manner.

Before we left the plane my mother took our new cardigans out of her bag. White cardigans with a V-neck edged in blue. We put them on over our kamis, for Hakim had told amma that our new country was a cold place.
So there we were, at the airport in Holland on an autumn day. Somebody pushed something soft in my hand - a bear, I discovered later, to cuddle. I held it tightly, just like amma’s hand. People were talking to the man who, according to amma, was baba. The strangers had come closer and one of them handed amma a bunch of beautifully colored flowers. Everybody looked very different from us and the people in Soomar Halepoto. There were women like amma, but they also wore different clothes and no dopatta. One of them did wear something on her head, but it was nothing like amma’s shawl. Every time baba approached us or put his arm around one of us, the lights flashed brightly.
‘They’re taking pictures,’ said amma. We even had to line up, with me sitting in front of amma, for another one. Was this a normal thing to do in our new country? Finally the men with the cameras left and a small group stayed behind: we, Hakim, baba and a few others. We were taken to several cars; fortunately I was allowed to sit next to amma. She took Yasmin on her lap, and Ayesha and Zahida got in on her other side. Baba sat in front and spoke in an unknown language to the driver. Sometimes he said something to amma, which I could understand. Baba was a tall man and everybody was very nice to him. Amma had told us that she loved our baba very much and that he would be just as nice to us as she was. I was very anxious to know more about this man, our father, who, because of the way he was dressed, looked very different from our grandfather or uncle Khan for example. Now and then I pressed amma’s hand and then she pressed it back to let me know that she had felt it. It was a game we had also played when we walked to the fields or through the courtyard. What was happening there now? Had the goat been fed, was anybody taking care of him? He had always seemed so pleased and had gaily swished his tail when I went to pet him in the morning and when I brought him the leaves which I had collected for him. How strange, I could see no goats here. Nor any donkeys or camels. And far fewer people in the streets. I did see a lot of cars, though. And land, brown and green land. You could see a long way into the distance. It didn’t look like our courtyard at all.
‘Where are we going, amma?’ I asked softly. ‘Are we going to our new courtyard?’
Amma looked at me and I saw a warm glow in her eyes. She told me that I had to be patient and that she didn’t know what to expect either, but that baba had arranged everything and we were on our way to our new home.
‘We’re going to Rijswijk,’ said baba, who must have heard amma’s answer. The car turned sharply around a corner and I fell against amma, who fell against Ayesha and Zahida. All four of us in the back seat began to chuckle, while Yasmin slept on amma’s lap.

‘This is Rijswijk and this is your house,’ my father said to my mother. Curiously I looked out of the car window and saw a strange, high building. It looked very closed and enormous. I wondered how people got in and how they reached the roof. I saw people getting out of other cars and walking towards us. Ah, the men with the cameras were there, too! One of the strangers from the airport opened the car door for us. My kamis flapped in the wind and amma’s dopatta was almost blown off her head. Zahida just managed to hold it for her.
‘Welcome to Holland! Welcome to Rijswijk!’
Although I didn’t understand a word, several people gave us an official welcome at the front door of our flat in the Jozef Israëlslaan. It was only thirty years later, when I found the newspaper cuttings, that I understood why they had rolled out the welcome mat for us. Only then did I see the pictures they had taken. The people in the other cars were our welcoming committee. They had made it possible for us to come to Holland. My father got an enormous key; it must have been one and a half meters long. Again they took pictures. The cardboard key symbolized our first entry into our new home.
Welcome to Rijswijk. Shivering with cold I pressed myself against my mother. Through our thin clothes I felt the warmth of her legs. We had arrived in our new country. A better life awaited us here. Or so we thought when we stood in front of the door of our new home. Welcome to Rijswijk. The place where everything, literally everything, would be taken away from us.

2

A stranger for a father

My father was given the honor of opening the front door. Behind it we saw an entrance hall and stairs, something quite unknown in Soomar Halepoto. Everything in our yard was on the same level. We didn’t have so many doors either. First you had the heavy front door, which banged shut after we entered. Like a jail door. Then came a lot of closed doors, which we passed by. One of them opened and a person with a white face applauded while we went past. Very carefully, step by step, we climbed the stairs. My mother tried to keep an eye on us, but because we were surrounded by people I lost sight of her. A strange lady took my hand and helped me climb. When my mother was out of breath my father said that, at last, we had arrived. The space in front of our door was jammed with people, all of whom eyed us curiously. When our door was opened, they parted to let my mother and us join my father. But he paid more attention to the onlookers than to us and he pushed us inside distractedly. Through a tiny, dark entrance hall we walked to a slightly lighter space, but Ayesha and I walked on to an even lighter one, which surely must be ‘outside’. For that’s where we wanted to go: outside, to the yard. In Soomar Halepoto we were always outside. Even when we were inside, it felt like outside, because there were no doors or windows. But the light wasn’t anything like our outside, for although I approached it slowly, I bumped my head. What was this? I placed my hands against the glass. A window. I looked through it and shrank back. What was happening? Was I flying? I looked at Ayesha, but she had her feet planted firmly on the floor. Again I looked outside. Instead of sitting under a tree, I was floating above one. I had never seen bare trees and now I looked down on a tangle of branches. Under the trees I saw cars in different colors, and here and there a tiny person walking. It was very, very scary. For safety’s sake I took another step backwards, but then I stood on my toes to be able to look outside again. The woman who had taken my hand on the stairs held a little dish in front of me, and gestured that I should take something and put it in my mouth. I looked behind me for Ayesha, but she had gone to amma. Zahida held herself aloof, she looked angry. Hesitantly I took something that they called a biscuit and sniffed it suspiciously. Mmm, not bad. I screwed up my eyes, stuck out my tongue and licked quickly for a taste. I saw that Zahida held her hands stubbornly behind her back when the lady offered her a biscuit, too.
I went up to my big sister and said: ‘It tastes very nice, Zahida.’ But she kept on sulking.
Amma was walking through the house with baba and two other people. Now and then she let her hand glide over a wall, first to examine it, then to stroke it. Did she like it here? Often I saw her smile at people who were trying to explain something to her in a language I was sure she didn’t understand. The only word I understood was ‘Hussain’, and when baba came to stand next to her, she nodded emphatically and smiled again. She was very beautiful, our amma. Her hair, always shining and fragrant, was woven into a thick plait that sometimes hung on her back but mostly lay over a shoulder and on her breast. People gestured that she should sit down. She pulled us with her and there we sat, all of us, on the sofa. A few strangers came to stand around us and again pictures were taken. Slowly people started to leave. My father went with them into the hall, shook hands, and was given friendly slaps on his back. Then the door shut with a bang.

Finally everybody had gone, including my father. The man next door had asked him to come and watch television. The Olympic Games in Mexico were in progress and the hockey match between Holland and Pakistan was being televised. Relieved I looked at amma. Did this mean that there were just the five of us again? Amma pulled us towards her and said that this was our new home and we would explore it together. Impatiently I jumped off the sofa. We would explore and discover without the eyes of strangers staring at us. I, amma and Ayesha wanted to know what our Dutch house looked like, but not Zahida. She wanted to go back to Pakistan. She still felt sick, she was very tired and she was scared of baba. He was a stranger to us and hadn’t paid much attention to us. But amma had assured us that he would be nice. Everything would be all right; we just needed time to get used to each other. While we went exploring, my eldest sister curled up in a corner of the sofa. Next to the door I saw a switch. When I tried to turn it carefully, nothing happened, but when I used more force a light went on. Quickly I turned it back to the way it had been and the light went out again. I did it again, and again, and laughed loudly when the light went on and off. Amma and Ayesha came to see why I was making so much noise. How interesting! We tried every switch we could find. In the kitchen amma looked full of awe at the taps and explained to Ayesha what the ladies had shown her: ‘I have to turn something and the water will come out.’
On-off, on-off, went the light in the kitchen.
‘Stop it, Hameeda,’ said my mother without looking at me.
On-off, once more. Amma moved the swivel of the tap back and forth, bending over to look into it and see if the water was coming. But it wasn’t. She moved it a little faster. Still no water. She grabbed one of the knobs, the one with the red dot, and turned it quickly. Boiling hot water spurted into the sink. ‘Nanaa! Nanaa! Aaow!’ she yelled, turning the knobs and the swivel wildly. Steam rose from the sink. Water splashed everywhere, on cupboards and the wall. Finally she managed to stop the flow. Not only the draining board and the floor were awash, but amma herself was also drenched. Ayesha and I pushed our heads into her wet lap, howling with laughter. Not because we thought it funny, but because we had been scared and because we were so happy to be alone with amma again. With a cloth out of one of the cupboards amma mopped up the water, but not thoroughly, for there was much left to discover. The kitchen led back into the small entrance hall, with five other doors besides the front door: one for the kitchen, one for the living room, two for the bedrooms and one for a strange sort of cupboard. The small bedroom contained a big bed and a cot. The cot was nicely made up and Yasmin was lying in it, asleep. The big bedroom contained a big bed and three wardrobes. They turned out to be filled with clothes, but not of the kind we were used to. The strange sort of cupboard contained only one chair... or stool... or... What could it be?
‘This is what at home is the pit,’ amma explained. ‘Come and see, Hameeda. No snakes.’
Reluctantly I moved closer. Zahida said she needed to pee, but she was too scared to sit on this weird kind of pit.
‘Just try,’ said amma. ‘Look, I’ll show you how it is done.’
At home we had put our feet firmly on either side of the hole and were practiced in squatting while relieving ourselves. While amma used one hand to lift her shalwar-kamis and the other to support herself against the wall, she climbed on the pot and squatted with her feet on the seat. ‘How awkward,’ she mumbled, ‘this thing is far too high and the rim is far too narrow for your feet.’
‘Hold on to the rope, amma,’ I advised her, and reached for the handle myself. My mother let go of the wall and seized it. The deafening noise of falling water made her jump off the pot and land in the hall.
‘What on earth was that?’ Ayesha and I had dived to the floor with her, and even Zahida came to see what was happening.
‘Do you think the snakes are up there?’ I asked with a tiny voice, while I pointed at the cistern.
Amma shook her head. ‘Na, na,’ she said, ‘but it seems that everything you turn or pull here makes you wet.’
I had to pee, too, but like Zahida I was too scared to climb on the pot. You could fall in and be flushed away with the water! Fortunately amma found a small tub in one of the kitchen cupboards, and we took turns squatting over it and emptying it in the toilet pot, which we rinsed clean with bowls of water from the kitchen. None of us suspected that only a few days later we - amma and her three girls, who thirty-six hours ago had still lived in a primitive village in South-Pakistan - would take that toilet for granted.

Ayesha had inspected the wardrobe and with sweaters, coats, skirts and trousers was changing herself into a little Michelin-man.
‘What are these?’ amma asked. ‘Who does all this stuff belong to?’ She tried on a coat with a soft fur collar. ‘My goodness, how clever of baba to find all these things for us.’ Looking pleased she kept stroking the soft collar.
I put something on her head, a hat, like I had seen one of the ladies wear. Ayesha and I roared with laughter. But suddenly Ayesha’s face fell. I gave her a prod in her side to make her laugh again, for laughing was fun. But with a heavy frown she signed me to stop. Surprised I followed the direction of her dark eyes and there, on the threshold, stood our father. He was a big man and his face was anything but friendly. My mother quickly started to clear up the mess we had made. She tripped over the clothes on the floor and in her haste she fell forward. It didn’t escape me that my father pushed the tip of his shoe into her side while he said softly but furiously: ‘What is all this? Why have you made such a mess? What did you teach these children? Tell them to dress properly and go and sit on the sofa.’
My mother made us hurry. She didn’t want to cause my father any trouble - the man who had slaved and saved for so many years to buy us all these things. The house was completely furnished. The kitchen cupboards were filled with pots and pans, there were toys and even clothes to keep us warm in this cold climate.
Silently Ayesha and I tiptoed to the living room and pressed ourselves close to Zahida while the man in the bedroom yelled at amma. It sounded ominous and frightening. When I heard a slap followed by a moan from amma I pressed my hands against my ears. The last thing we heard from my father that afternoon was his threatening promise that everything would change: ‘Here in Holland we live differently.’ With big, heavy steps he walked out of the room and let the door bang behind him.

At last Zahida began to relax a bit. ‘Amma, do we really have to stay?’ she asked.
My mother was pushing the loosened bits of hair back into her plait. She looked disheveled. The shine that had lit up her eyes when she was standing by the wardrobe had dulled. I noticed a red welt near her eyebrow, but when I stroked it and wanted to ask how it got there she shook off my hand. She explained that it was a big change for baba, too, to have a wife and four children around suddenly after having lived alone for so many years.
‘Where did he live alone?’ Ayesha asked.
‘Did he cook his own food?’ Zahida asked.
Amma shook her head. ‘I don’t know exactly, but I’m sure baba will tell us everything we want to know. Just give him time to get used to us.’
I started to cry softly and held on to my mother. She did her best to reassure us, but we could feel the tension in the air.
Not much later our father came back. When I lifted my face and looked him in the eyes, he yelled: ‘How dare you look at me! Look down, at the floor!’
I winced. He walked with my mother through the house to show her what everything was for. Everything was new. A cubicle with taps and a shower. A fridge that made a deep humming sound. A gas stove to cook on. She asked if she could get the ingredients for roti.
‘In Holland we eat Dutch food. No maani, no roti. The meal for today is already cooked. From now on we adjust ourselves to the customs of this country. Tomorrow you dress in the clothes from the wardrobe. No shalwar-kamis, no dopatta. As soon as possible I’ll take the children to meet Dutch people so they can learn the language and the customs. Life is different here.’
Then he ordered my mother to put us to bed. Although he had decided that two of us should sleep with Yasmin and the third in the parental bed, my mother wouldn’t hear of it. ‘The children need each other.’
Firmly she put all three of us in the big bed. We snuggled close together, even though I would have liked to jump on the soft, springy mattress first. This was indeed very different from the khat, the hard, woven bed I had slept on in Soomar Halepoto. I pulled the clean sheet and soft blankets over my ears and wondered how much fun it would be to have a father... Tomorrow he would be nicer to us.

Almost immediately I fell asleep, but Zahida’s sobbing and amma’s soothing voice woke me up again.
‘My dear child, believe me, your father loves me, he won’t harm me. He only has to get used to the new situation.’
‘Then where is he? Doesn’t he stay with us when it gets dark?’
I heard amma sigh. How difficult it must have been for her to suppress her own doubts to inspire enough confidence in us to accept our new Dutch life. ‘He’ll be back later, believe me.’
Later was twenty-four hours later. That night and the next morning we were alone. Not that we minded, on the contrary. Alone with amma we enjoyed ourselves. We talked, played with Yasmin and the new toys, looked out of the window and were constantly amazed at the low trees, the tiny people and the mini-cars. We found rolls and milk to eat and drink, and many other things that we didn’t know what to do with or even if they were edible. The cow’s milk was already very different from the buffalo milk we were used to. But we dunked pieces of bread into the cold milk and were content. It was more than we sometimes got to eat in Pakistan.
Around four, when it was already getting dark again, the door flew open. My father entered with Hakim, our travel guide, on his heels. We ran to the sofa and arranged ourselves neatly in a row. Baba would appreciate that. But baba didn’t even look at us. He carried a pile of newspapers, which he threw triumphantly on the table. ‘You’re in the papers,’ he said to my mother.
‘In the papers?’ she repeated, smiling because she thought the old Hussain was finally showing his unexpectedly funny, teasing side again.
‘Look here.’ He held one of the papers in front of her face.
Of course she recognized herself and us, but she couldn’t read the caption. ‘Why are we in the papers?’ she asked, sincerely interested and curious.
‘Because it is very unusual to come all the way from Pakistan and have a completely furnished house waiting for you.’
It was, only he let us believe that he was the one who had organized it all for us. It wasn’t until more than twenty years later that we discovered the truth of the matter. For the time being he could tell us what he wanted and have us believe him. Like so many Pakistani in the sixties my mother couldn’t read or write. Zahida and Ayesha had learned to read the Koran at Koran school, in Arabic, of course. The strange letters and signs in the Dutch papers were hieroglyphics to them, so they only looked at the picture of our family. My father had Yasmin on his arm, on his right stood amma with Ayesha, Zahida and me in front of her. On my father’s right stood the man who had handed him the cardboard key.
‘Do you see who this is, Hameeda? It’s you,’ said Zahida. ‘This is amma and baba has Yasmin on his arm.’
The newspaper pictures confirmed my father’s wonderful achievement. We admired him for it, but not for long. After he himself had looked at all the pictures he looked at us, with bloodshot eyes. Not at our faces or eyes, but at our Pakistani clothes, with great distaste. He grabbed my mother’s plait, pulled her towards us and shouted: ‘I don’t want to see this any more! We live in Holland, where people wear Western clothes! Everything is provided for you, ungrateful creatures! Change your clothes, now!’
He chased us out of the room - not that we needed chasing. We were only too happy to leave a room where he was behaving like a monster, though we hated leaving amma with him.
When amma tucked us in and sang a lullaby for us, my father and Hakim were still there. Afterwards I heard amma, baba and Hakim talking together. Zahida and Ayesha lay close to me and soon I fell asleep. Hours later, it seemed, I was woken up by harsh voices. Amma’s was angry, baba’s loud. Amma asked him since when he, a Muslim, had been drinking alcohol.
Apparently he found her question amusing, for he cackled and answered: ‘How often do I have to tell you that my life has changed?’
‘And where were you last night? Why did you leave us alone?’
‘You’re asking me where I was?’ he asked irritably. ‘You want me to answer to you? You dare using that tone of voice to me, woman? You wanted a better life for your children, you’ll have it. You wanted to leave Pakistan, you did. You waited all that time till everything here was arranged for you. Who do you think did all the arranging for you and your four - four, do you hear me? - daughters? I did! For years I worked day and night. Saved money. Looked for a house. Bought furniture and clothes. And now you’re asking me where I was last night? You’d better count on my being out very often, and remember I don’t owe you any explanations!’
His shouting had woken Zahida and Ayesha too. I felt Zahida trembling and Ayesha moved closer. We didn’t dare speak, but listened intently to a conversation which we would have preferred not to hear. We hoped amma would stop talking and come to us, but she didn’t. Although she knew her place, as a Pakistani and as a Muslim woman, she was too spontaneous and straightforward not to repeat her question again: ‘Where were you last night?’
This time the answer was a slap in the face. We heard it. Zahida flew upright and wanted to get out of bed, but Ayesha stopped her. ‘No, stay here, amma will come soon.’ I started to sob. I was afraid, very afraid. I wanted to leave, to go back to lalli and our yard, even to our snakes.
My father demanded respect and gratitude. That was what we would have to show him. ‘Only if the mother sets the right example, will the children follow.’ Then he marched out of the room and out of the house, leaving my mother with Hakim.
‘Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you do something when he hit me? What are you doing here, I’d like to know!’ Amma directed her anger at him.
Hakim told her my father had ordered him to sleep in the house and help her if she needed it. Without another word amma crawled into bed with us. We all pretended to be fast asleep, for we realized that she would hate it if we knew about the fight. We hadn’t lost any respect for her, but we didn’t think much of her husband.
Hakim stayed. He slept on the sofa and helped with the housework. My father came by occasionally and brought food. Dutch ingredients, but amma was smart enough to cook things she knew we would like. Sometimes my father wanted to talk to my mother and sent us out of the room. A few days later my father announced that he was taking Zahida, Ayesha and me with him.
‘What about amma?’ I asked surprised, looking at her.
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m staying here with Yasmin. The three of you will go out with baba to have a look around.’
Baba and Hakim took us for a walk through the neighborhood. And there we went: three Pakistani girls, undernourished, unaccustomed to Dutch clothes and for the first time in stiff shoes. We thought it cold and strange, but also very exciting. There was much to see. Amma waved to us from the window above us. Yasmin, on her arm, waved a little, too. It was only a short walk, but I enjoyed it tremendously. Outside. Out of that strange, new house.
‘Can we go again tomorrow, baba?’ I asked. He looked a bit annoyed, but he promised to take us out for a longer trip soon. I was already looking forward to it, but Zahida looked doubtful.
The next day the four of us were busy with the vacuum cleaner when my father came in. Hakim had already explained how it worked, but my mother didn’t quite know how to handle it yet. She had underestimated its sucking power and had not only cleaned the floor, but also the table, and by accident had sucked up some money that my father had left there the previous evening. Panic stations. The money was gone and baba would think she had stolen it. So we had to get it back. Amma shook the machine, held it upside down and eventually decided it had to come apart. When my father came in, we were surrounded by parts and covered in dust.
‘I told you they had to be clean and dressed and sitting on the sofa when I returned,’ he began angrily.
‘Yes, I know,’ she answered carefully, ‘but we didn’t know exactly when you would be back and I needed help.’
When my father looked at the wrecked vacuum cleaner and the retrieved money in my mother’s hand, he flipped. He dragged her by her thick plait across the room, yelling furiously and totally unfounded that she had wanted to steal his money, that she intended to set his children against him, but that he could play this game longer than she could. My mother cried and screamed. We tried to protect her, but he pushed us away roughly.
‘You can’t do anything!’ he shouted at amma. ‘You can’t even be an example to your children! And as for bringing them up, that’s a laugh. If there’s to be any hope of making something of them, I’ll have to raise them myself.’ He kicked her and roared on and on.
My mother protected her head with her hands and arms, and had drawn up her legs against her body.
‘I’ll come and get them tomorrow. See to it that they’re properly dressed.’
Only when my father had left the house, did amma relax somewhat. For the first time I saw doubt, disbelief and also fear in her eyes. ‘If it doesn’t get better, we’ll go back,’ she whispered, more to herself than to us. ‘Then we will all just go back.’

3

Getting used to Rijswijk

Now we were all jumpy. The next day we sat on the sofa, neat as pins in western clothes, waiting for my father long before he was due home. The clothes felt strange; I preferred my shalwar-kamis. We didn’t know who had chosen them for us, but we looked fine. Zahida wore a wide black skirt made of soft velvet. Her dark hair contrasted nicely with her immaculately white blouse. Ayesha wore a pink velvet dress with a lace collar, and I a dark green velvet pinafore dress.
‘Amma, feel how soft it is.’ I took my mother’s hand and made her feel the material. I kept stroking the pile up- and downwards and was amazed by the changing color. We’d never seen velvet before, and tights were new to us, too.
‘These are strange pants,’ Ayesha had remarked, ‘with feet attached.’
Zahida, who was quite tall for a twelve year old girl, had been the first to put them on. The crotch hadn’t come higher than just above her knees. She had tried to walk, and made herself fall. I had shrieked with laughter till amma had said there was a pair for me, too.
Yasmin, who sat playing at my feet, looked up admiringly at her big sisters. We all loved our happy baby sister, who never fretted and always cuddled up to us crowing. She didn’t hear the fights between our parents, she didn’t feel the fear we tried to suppress with laughter. But it was Yasmin who, not even ten minutes later, gave us the fright of our lives, for all of a sudden she began to cry loudly.
‘Yasmin, sweetie, what’s wrong?’ my mother asked worriedly when she lifted the hysterical Yasmin off the floor. Something must have scared her and anxiously I scanned the room for a snake or a spider. Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Quickly I turned my face to the balcony and what I saw there, made me cry out, too.
‘Amma, amma!’ I yelled. With eyes wide open I pointed to the panther balancing on the balustrade. The animal stood still, turned its head in our direction, narrowed its eyes to slits and then jumped all the way to the balcony next door. ‘He... he can fly, too!’ I faltered, confused.
‘What is it, amma? Will it eat us?’ Ayesha and I ran to the window. Unconcerned the animal sat licking its ears and paid no attention to us. A little later it stretched itself and went leisurely on its way. Relieved I turned around and looked at amma and my sisters: ‘He’s gone!’

‘What is the matter with these children?’ The incident had prevented us from hearing our father come in. We’d become used to the fact that he didn’t address himself to us, but only to our mother. Amma had started the day in a good mood and explained what had happened. Baba looked irritated and somewhat disapproving. ‘It was a cat. There are plenty of cats here. They are tame and live in the house. In Holland cats and dogs live with people in the house. Dogs especially can be taught to obey.’
This was totally different from Pakistan. There dogs don’t belong anywhere. They roam around and are chased from houses and yards. I heard what my father said, but I didn’t believe him. I stood guard near the window to protect amma and my sisters. But my father had other plans. He wanted to take us out. ‘Yasmin can stay with you, but the other three are coming with me.’
‘Where are you going?’ amma asked.
I got an awful, sick feeling in my tummy. I ran to amma and clutched her legs. ‘I’m staying with you, amma! I’m not going with him!’ In despair I looked up at her face and repeated that I wanted to stay with her and Yasmin. But my mother was used to obeying my father and she knew that he intended to take us to Dutch-speaking Pakistani to speed up our integration. When she went to get our coats, I hung on to her leg. Protesting loudly I let myself be pushed into my coat. ‘The animal will come back! I have to protect Yasmin; I don’t want to go with him!’
I didn’t see how impatient and angry my father became. From the entrance hall he ordered my mother to let me go. By then I had slid on the floor and was hanging on to her ankle.
My mother couldn’t move her feet any more and tried to calm me down. ‘You’ll be back, Hameeda. Go with baba, you’ll be back tonight.’
But I refused to let go and winced when I saw two big shoes coming towards me.
‘You should teach these children to obey!’ he hissed, planting himself in front of amma. ‘You’re setting them up against me, but you can forget it!’ When he bent down to pull me roughly away from my mother’s ankle the tip of one of his shoes touched my ear. I screamed and waved wildly with my arms, for which I got hard smacks on my head and back. In the end he shoved my thin body under his arm, opened the front door and pushed Ayesha and Zahida roughly into the stairwell. I kept on crying and sulking, but of course I was helpless against a big man like him. He just pulled me along and that was that. Running and stumbling I did my best to keep up with him. At the bus stop I finally calmed down, when curiosity won from anger and fear. Amazed I looked at the little glass house where we had to wait. Even more amazed I looked at the bus which came to a halt a little later in front of the glass house. There were only a few passengers and the vehicle looked as plain as bread dough. In Pakistan busses are crammed with people and are gaily decorated. This was a very different kind of bus.

The ride was interesting enough to distract us. We saw tarred roads, towering buildings and modern cars. Pale people got on and off. Most of them stared unashamedly at us. In Scheveningen we got off as well. We walked through a busy road to a quiet one with rows of small houses. In front of one of them my father stood still and without a word to us pressed the bell. Even before he had lifted his finger off the button the door opened and we saw a woman with a narrow, sallow face and untidy, shoulder-length dark blond hair. She had a cute little boy on her arm, who looked at us with big, brown eyes. My father steered us in front of him to the living room and there we were: three shy, dolled up girls, a silent man and a strange woman with a crowing child on her arm. Baba introduced us to the woman who, with a chilly look in her eyes, looked us up and down. She said something to my father in Dutch. After we had hung our coats on the rack in the hall we had to sit on the sofa. At first we didn’t dare move. I had pushed my hand into Zahida’s and now and then she pressed it. Again the woman and my father spoke in Dutch and then he left, without a word of explanation or goodbye to us. We kept silent. The woman was busy with the boy. She talked to him, gave him some food and put him in front of us on the floor. When she left the room, I slid off the sofa and sat next to him. At home I often played with Yasmin, and this little boy laughed at the same things. I played peek-a-boo from behind Zahida’s back, Ayesha joined in and soon we were all giggling and chattering. Very carefully we walked around the room. It was filled with lovely things: clocks, plants, a doll, flowers... There were dark green velvet chairs with embroidered cushions, and pictures on the walls.
‘Hey, this looks like baba with the little boy!’ But I didn’t think about it and walked on.
When the woman came in again, we were laughing at something, but at seeing her cold face we quickly fell silent. Hastily I went back to Zahida on the sofa. The boy began to cry. The woman lifted him up and gestured to us to come with her. In the narrow corridor she opened another door, which led to a small room with a bed. Ayesha had to go inside. Next to the bed was a table with a stool in front of it. On the table were a few books and a pencil. The woman pointed at the stool and Ayesha understood that she had to sit. Curiously I walked to the table and looked at the open books. They had nice pictures. But the woman gripped my upper arm and pulled me with her out of the room.
‘Ayesha, I want to stay with you!’ I yelled.
Ayesha looked at me and I saw confusion in her eyes before the door was closed.
In a small room next door to Ayesha’s the same thing happened, but this time I was the one who had to stay there. I heard the woman say something incomprehensible to Zahida and when another door closed, I understood that Zahida was also left in a room. What am I doing here, I thought. I want to go to amma and Yasmin. I began to cry softly and tried to open the door to go back to Ayesha, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked. I gave up and went to sit at the window. Through my tears I looked outside. People walked past and I saw another cat. I don’t know how long we were locked in, but some time later the woman came back. She took me with her to the living room, where the table was set. The little boy sat in a high chair. Zahida and Ayesha were fetched, too. Immediately I started talking to them, but the woman signaled that I had to shut up. Her index finger moved furiously to and fro to indicate that speaking was not allowed. Silently we looked at the slice of bread on our plate. We had to eat it, signaled the woman. But how can you eat if you feel utterly lost and have never seen a slice of bread with whatever kind of topping before? Zahida watched how the woman attacked hers with a knife and a fork and tried to imitate her. She made a mess of it. I tore bits off my bread and put them into my mouth, but the woman slapped my fingers as a sign that I should stop. In my nervousness I knocked over my mug of milk and that was it, she’d had enough. As if stung by a wasp she jumped up and without paying attention to the dripping milk she grabbed one of my plaits and pulled me off my chair. Then she slapped me twice, pushed me to the room I had just been allowed to leave, shoved me inside again and closed the door. The lock clicked and I was a prisoner once more. Crying I threw myself on the bed. Hours later the door was opened again and there was my father, with my coat in his hand. ‘We’re going,’ he said. Then he made me shake hands with the woman before I could join my sisters.

Hunched up, silent and with lowered eyes we rode the bus home. It was getting dark and lights went on everywhere, but we paid no attention to them. I wanted only one thing: to cuddle up to my sweet amma, stroke her soft arms, play with her thin gold bracelets and smell the flowery scent of her hair oil. At the bus stop my father had condescended to speak to us. We would visit this woman often, because she could teach us the Dutch language and customs. He emphasized how hospitable this was of her and how happy we should be to be received by a person who only wanted the best for us.
‘You’d better get used to her, because you’ll see a lot of her,’ he added. We had to obey her and try to understand what she said. In her house it was forbidden to speak Pakistani, which was the reason why she had split us up.
At home we flew crying into amma’s arms. Yasmin was already asleep. The house smelled of food that amma had prepared for us. She guessed immediately that something was wrong. When, unasked, I explained that we’d been at the house of a mean, pale woman with a cute little boy she frowned.
‘Where did you take the children? I thought you were going to take them to a Pakistani family where Dutch is spoken.’ My father pretended not to hear her. Amma went to stand right in front of him and said: ‘I want to talk to you, later, when the children are in bed.’
Our flat seemed paradise compared to the house where we had spent the day. Here was warmth, and amma’s sounds and smells. Here we felt safe. At least when it was just the five of us. When my father was also there, it was different. Then warmth was replaced by cold. Like now. Amma seemed tired and absent-minded when she put us to bed in the big bed. Vaguely she hummed a lullaby. Apparently she couldn’t wait to talk to baba, for she’d hardly closed the door behind her when their conversation began. At first we couldn’t hear what they said, because they spoke softly. I tried to fall asleep, but even in bed we felt the tension. Zahida was breathing too deeply and Ayesha tossed and turned. The voices in the living room became louder and more aggressive.
‘Who is this woman? Why did you take my children to her house?’
At first my father didn’t answer. We heard him walk from the room to the kitchen, to the lavatory, back to the room.
My mother trotted after him. She sounded more and more desperate. She kept repeating the same questions: ‘Who is that woman? What are my daughters doing there?’
Finally my father answered her, but his words hit harder than his slaps the day before: ‘That woman is my Dutch wife. At least she gave me a son. His name is Waheed.’
Silence. Then sobbing. But the other woman was not the only reason for my mother’s crying, for in Pakistan it was acceptable for a man to have more than one wife. She also cried because she felt betrayed and abandoned, and mostly she cried because of the name of his son. To hear this name, Waheed, made her gasp with pain. The loss of her own son was still clear in her mind. After having brought two daughters into the world, she had given birth to a fiercely desired son. My father had never held this son in his arms, had never even seen him. A day before his birth he had escaped from Pakistan.
‘How could you call him that? How dare you give him the name of our dead child? But your son is my son, and welcome in our home. I want to take care of him, to bring him up.’
‘Bring him up? You want to bring him up? Even your daughters don’t listen to you! But we’ll teach them, don’t worry.’
‘We? What do you mean by ‘‘we’’? Don’t you dare touch my children! My daughters will be brought up by me, and if you want to, you can bring your son here so we can all be a family. You should be ashamed of yourself, you bastard! You’re a married man with four children, how dare you take a second wife without my approval? I don’t want my children in her house.’
We lay shivering in the big bed. Amma sounded angry, sad and insecure. My father - that much we knew by then - became very aggressive if his wife used that tone of voice with him. But there was no stopping amma. She blamed him for being a liar, a whoremonger and a drunk. Her furious tirade got her a beating. We heard things falling over. The angrier she became, the madder he got. Each remark of hers was followed by a slap or a kick. Suddenly the noises stopped. Bang. The front door closed.
Zahida slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the living room. Ayesha and I followed at a safe distance. When Zahida saw my mother, she yelled: ‘Amma!’
My mother lifted an arm and put it around her eldest daughter, who knelt beside her. Blood trickled from her nose over her lips to her chin. When she mumbled something to Zahida, we saw that her teeth were bloody, too. Her plait had come undone and there was a bright red graze on her elbow. We saw tufts of black hair on the floor, and one of her eyes was swelling. She asked Zahida to get a cloth. Ayesha helped her up, but it seemed that one of her knees couldn’t carry her weight, because it kept buckling. Dabbing her nose she hobbled to the sofa.
I stood there, not crying, not saying or asking anything. Just looking, horrified. Zahida and Ayesha walked to and fro with wet cloths, an extra cushion, a blanket, a glass of water... Amma lay fully clothed under the blanket, right next to the heater, but she was shivering as if she were standing stark naked in the freezing cold.
‘What are we to do, amma?’ I heard Zahida whisper. ‘Can’t we leave? Before it’s too late?’
But amma shook her head and said: ‘As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine. Here you’ll have a better life than in Pakistan. I promise I’ll take care of you. Nobody can take my daughters away from me, not even him.’

Soon the other woman and the tug of war about us were the main reasons for the fights between our parents. My mother agreed that we should meet Dutch-speaking people, but she didn’t want my father to take us to his second wife. She wanted a complete family for herself. His son was welcome, but she refused to let her daughters go to a strange woman. In spite of that my father regularly took us to Scheveningen. The days in the house near the sea had a fixed pattern. As soon as my father had left, we were locked into our separate rooms. This was to make us forget the Pakistani language. Our only break was when the strange woman’s parents came home. When they returned from work, we were set free. As soon as the woman heard them coming, she quickly turned the keys of our doors. When they were home, she behaved differently, friendlier. We couldn’t talk to her parents either, but even without talking we could feel their warmth.
Her father took us with him into the garden, where he had a pigeon-coot. When he made a certain sound, the pigeons came flying to him. Even though we didn’t understand much, her father told us stories. Perhaps about the pigeons, or about the sea, that could be heard clearly in the garden. At home I told amma that we had met somebody who could talk to animals. The mother was kind, too. When her daughter wasn’t looking, she gave us sweets. So we did also meet people who cared about us, but most of the time my father collected us soon after they had come home.
If we had to pee while being locked in our rooms, we had to knock on the door. For a few minutes she would let us out. Some mornings I had to pee several times and then she was annoyed. By means of a smack with a clothes hanger or a kick just before we went back into the room she let us know that we should not expect too much from her. If we spoke Pakistani during the meal she hit us very hard with a stick, which stood beside her chair so that she didn’t even have to get up. One Pakistani word equaled three hard smacks. Spilling something, even dropping a crumb, meant being dragged by the hair to your room. One day when her parents were unexpectedly early, they noticed tufts of black hair on the floor of the living room. Her mother picked one up and asked where it came from. Visibly nervous the woman hastily picked up the rest.

Another change was announced. We had to go to school. Amma explained what would happen; baba took us to a building not far from the flat. Of course we wanted to go to school. Anything was better than being locked up in an almost bare room. Zahida and Ayesha were allowed to go to primary school. Even though Zahida was five years older than Ayesha, both of them had to start in the first form. I was sent to nursery school. Strangely enough we were registered as Hussain, while in Pakistan our last name had been Lakho. I remember that when the teacher said my name, Hameeda Hussain, I mumbled ‘Lakho’. Zahida asked amma why we had a different name now, but even she didn’t know. When we left in the morning, amma, with Yasmin on her arm, waved at us from behind the window. From the playground you could see the back of our house and sometimes during playtime amma would stand there watching. Every day we came home with new Dutch words. Amma wanted to learn them all. Even though it was difficult for her, she did her best to make herself at home in her new country.
Compared to the first two weeks life improved. Amma and Yasmin stayed home, we went to school and we picked up the language very quickly. We rarely saw our father. Hakim stayed with us a lot and helped my mother with the shopping. I saw him put his arms around her sometimes or take her hands in his, but she always pushed him away.
‘There’s only room for one man in my life, Hakim. You must understand that,’ she said, looking at him severely.
When my father did come, it ended in war. My mother couldn’t bear it that he chose to live with the other woman. She pointed out his responsibilities towards his own family and blamed him for all kinds of things. She was jealous and couldn’t stand taking second place. And she longed for a caring husband and a proper father for her children. We were always relieved when he left without it having come to fisticuffs. It wasn’t only my mother’s criticism that caused him to smash things to bits; he also used his fists when he heard us speak Pakistani. The three of us had to speak Dutch, also to Hakim. Amma and Yasmin, who couldn’t talk yet, didn’t matter. Our having fun with Yasmin made him angry, too. My mother was allowed to take care of her, but she had to keep us away from the baby. Often I was playing with her in the small room when unexpectedly baba came in, and amma would say loudly that the two young ones were already asleep. Then I knew that I mustn’t come out, and tried to keep Yasmin very quiet. After baba had left amma and I would heave sighs of relief.
At school we were an attraction. Sometimes we took children home, who were curious to see what our mother, who still wore Pakistani clothes, looked like. We also visited Dutch children in their homes. Just like them being curious about our way of life, I was curious about their house, their mother and their toys. Now that we were in school, our visits to our father’s second wife and our half-brother were limited to Sunday afternoons. Most of the time my father stayed and we were not locked up. However, she still kept hitting us, also when my father was present; he considered a good smack for a minor offense beneficial to our education. Late in the afternoon we were taken home and then amma felt like our safe harbor. During those weeks things weren’t so bad any more and we began to get used to our life in Holland, until the day that everything changed.

We were just about ready to go to school when my father came in. He ignored us completely and told my mother that from then on we would go to a different school. He was going to take us with him, to Scheveningen. To his second wife.
As soon as we entered her home, we felt that she was in a bad mood. Without a word she sent us to our separate rooms. After a while I heard her fetch Ayesha. I pressed my ear against the door to hear what she was doing with her, and I became very anxious when I heard my sister yelling and crying. A little later she was sent back to her room and her door was locked again.
Then it was my turn and soon I knew why Ayesha had cried. The woman forced me to take all my clothes off and when I didn’t obey quickly enough, she hit me with the clothes hanger wherever she could. The wood smacked against my head, bare arms, legs and back. Shivering and barefoot I stood in the shower cubicle and I trembled even more when she produced enormous scissors. ‘Stand still,’ she ordered, and proceeded to millimeter my long black hair. She cut and snipped until there was nothing left to cut or snip. Hair soaked with tears stuck to my small body. Then she turned on the shower, and my beautiful hair pooled at my feet. I was so stiff from the cold, the agony and the humiliation that I couldn’t get my clothes on again. Impatiently she bundled them up and dragged me back to my room. The bundle was thrown in after me. Zahida came last.

When my mother saw our new hairdos and heard our story she blew her top. Furiously she said to my father: ‘I told you to keep that woman away from my children! How dare you let her treat your own daughters like this? You’re not a Muslim any more; you have disowned your culture, your language and your children!’
In a rage baba went up to her, seized her wrists and sneered: ‘Your children were crawling with lice! My wife only cleaned them up. We’re not in Pakistan any more, so you’d better be grateful someone is helping you.’
After which followed the umpteenth fight. My father had been drinking and was even less restrained than usual, and he knocked her about like never before. When he noticed us watching him, he came after us, too. When he had finished and had left the house, it was a shambles. He’d beaten amma black and blue, the next day she would look even worse. As so often we all huddled close together. She stroked our short hair and sobbed as if her heart would break. Never before had we heard her cry like that. This couldn’t and shouldn’t go on. When she had calmed down, she looked at us one by one, with a determined look in her eyes. She had made a decision.
‘We’re not staying here. Not like this. This is not going to work. We’re going back to Pakistan. As soon as possible.’

9

The Battle Begins

Life carried on. All three of us lived on our own, each leading our own life. Zahida got a job in education, married Tom and had two children. Ayesha did a course in social work and chose to work in shelters for runaway children. When she became pregnant, the future father abandoned her. I was living with Gilmer and did jobs for secretarial agencies. I became familiar with various companies, embassies and government institutions. Several of these offered me a permanent position, but I refused. The idea of committing myself to one employer felt too confining. I was extremely sensitive to issues of freedom and commitment. I didn’t want to be tied down by anyone. My relationship with Gilmer wasn’t always easy. In all those years I had never learnt to trust people. I had developed the habit of building a wall around me and keeping everyone at a safe distance. My father and his wife had given my sisters and me a deeply rooted inferiority complex, which had a very damaging effect on the three of us. I was very insecure. About everything. Also about whether I wanted to have a child. Gilmer wanted to have a baby, but I had my doubts and was afraid of the responsibility. Although I was still hesitant after lengthy discussions and deep reflections, I agreed. Gilmer and I decided to get married. This was easier said than done, because when we wanted to complete the necessary forms, it turned out that I didn’t have a birth certificate. To enter into a marriage contract in the Netherlands, it is required to have at least a so-called certificate of acknowledgement. To obtain such a certificate, you need at least four people to testify to the birth of the person in question. If these four people are not available, it is possible to go to court and state under oath that you are unable to present these witnesses. Like my sisters, I wanted to make such a statement; according to Zahida and Ayesha this was a piece of cake. Unfortunately, this procedure had been changed and now went through to the Department for Nationality Verification of the Registry Office. This would take months. The quickest method would be to obtain four witnesses.
There I was. How on earth could I obtain four witnesses? I didn’t want to contact my father. I was afraid to write to my mother. We didn’t even know if amma was still alive, because we hadn’t heard from her since the last threatening letter.
Just when it seemed wiser to postpone having a baby, I turned out to be pregnant. The marriage was put off indefinitely.

My pregnancy stirred up many emotions. I had tender feelings for the small baby growing inside me, but I was also afraid. Afraid that I wouldn’t be a good mother because of the past. I longed for my own mother, to learn from her. I searched for a role model, but found nothing. In those months I realized for the first time that I was completely alone in the world and didn’t belong anywhere. Although I was born in Pakistan, I knew nothing about the country, its people and its customs. I had never wanted to know anything. My parents raised me in accordance with Western traditions; I attended Dutch schools and actually felt Dutch. My country of birth had never interested me. In an attempt to suppress all the memories associated with my father, I had renounced my true background. I didn’t know my own roots and this was beginning to gnaw at me. Gilmer would enthusiastically tell me about his native country Surinam. He loved his country, the people and the happiness that surrounded the lives of his mother, brothers and sisters. He would be able to tell our child about his or her ancestors. What about me? What could I offer? My baby would be half Pakistani. And I, a full-blooded Pakistani woman, was denying and repressing my origins. These feelings were eating my heart away and became stronger after Rachel was born.

The delivery took a long time and was very difficult. I lost more than three liters of blood because the placenta wouldn’t detach itself and had to be removed surgically. But on June 11th, 1991, Rachel was born: a gift from heaven. I was so proud of this little girl. Gilmer was beaming with joy.
I was incredibly happy with Rachel, but felt miserable about myself. The first few months were difficult as she turned out to be a crybaby and kept us going night and day. I felt weak, had severe psychological problems and was unable to handle the situation. Because I was on sick leave, I often spoke to my company doctor. With her, I had the courage to talk about my past and she referred me to a psychiatrist associated with the regional institute for mental welfare. I needed professional help, but in this stage of my life their approach was not suitable for me. I became more depressed each day and was no longer able to breastfeed my baby. This made me feel even more down and I stopped my visits to the psychiatrist. Needless to say, my problems were not solved.
Much earlier, during the time I lived in a youth home, I started to write down my life story. Once again I developed an urge to write. Rachel’s birth not only triggered many emotions, but also raised a lot of questions. Especially questions to my mother. From the first second I held my little baby in my arms, I could not imagine ever letting her go. No matter how miserable I felt, the bond was immediately there. A strong bond that didn’t oppress me. Towards Rachel I developed the most heartwarming maternal feelings, yet at the same time I remembered myself as a child. How could a mother give up her own child? How could my mother have deserted me? Why has she left her children at the mercy of that capricious and aggressive man? These questions and many more haunted me day and night. I wanted answers. For the first time in my life I wanted to know the entire truth. My anger disappeared. The rage I felt when I was younger had been replaced by a lack of understanding and a compelling and growing need to put everything in a clear perspective. I was searching for my past. If it wasn’t for me, then at least for my child.

Everything I had ignored my entire life was now demanding my attention. I read about life in Pakistan. Only now did I realize in what language my mother had whispered her soft and endearing words. Books, magazines and documentaries informed me about the close family ties in the Pakistani community. I began to understand the subservient behavior and obedience of women. I was also horrified by the relentless and unscrupulous behavior of Pakistani men. Slowly but surely I considered it a miracle that we - Zahida, Ayesha and I - were still alive.
It took a lot of research to uncover the facts. British documentaries provided me with the most insight into the manner in which Pakistani women are suppressed. Until this day thousands of women are killed each year. These murders are committed by the husband, father or brother to preserve the honor of the family. An adulterous woman, a runaway daughter or a disobedient wife: they all run the risk of being killed in the most terrible manners. Examples include lapidation or strangulation. Horrifying mutilations with hydrochloric acid also occur regularly.
Although not prescribed by Islam, it is a common tradition in Pakistan for marriages to be arranged. Many daughters who don’t listen to their father but follow their heart will have to pay for this with their lives or will be severely mutilated. Especially fundamental Moslems advocate the purdah: the total isolation of women. A woman in purdah just moves in confined areas and only appears in public places after approval from her father, brothers or husband. She will never be recognized in public because women in purdah are completely veiled from head to toe, including their eyes.
As I was watching a documentary with Ayesha one day, I said: ‘How horrible to live there! Did you see this when you were in Pakistan?’ Ayesha could remember that the rules in amma’s village were less rigid.
‘At home amma wore normal Pakistani clothing,’ Ayesha explained. ‘She wore a doppata on her head, but it wasn’t necessary for her to cover her eyes and face. Outdoors she was veiled, but actually amma rarely went out.’
When I heard Ayesha speak about amma I felt a deep longing to see my mother. How I would love to speak to her, and have her meet my little girl.

Gilmer bought me a computer and I started writing my life story. It formed the basis for this book. Writing helped me to express painful memories instead of pushing them away.
Reliving my childhood made me sad at times, but it also inspired a sense of strength and fighting spirit. These emotions became more powerful after the birth of our second daughter Melanie, in 1994. The love and care that I could give to my daughters, I never experienced myself. It filled me with joy to watch my children play in an open and carefree way. Yet I also realized how much I had missed and how much I had been denied. I no longer accepted that the physical and emotional abuse was just a fact of life which I had to keep silent about. I wanted revenge. Ironically, my father and stepmother put the idea in my head to press charges, when we had ended up at the police station after the gallery incident. At the time I wasn’t ready, but now the time became ripe to sue him.

During the writing process many more questions arose. I searched for answers. Coincidentally there was a Pakistani boy working at Gilmer’s company. He regularly brought presents for the children because he felt we had a special bond. One day Gilmer told me that Nadir was going on a holiday to Pakistan.
‘Would he be willing to take something?’
Gilmer had an inquiring look on his face. ‘What do you mean, something special from Pakistan?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Would Nadir deliver a letter to amma? I’m afraid to send her anything. We don’t even know if she is still alive and, if she’s not dead, where she lives. Maybe he’ll be in the area of Tando, and then he can ask around if she’s still there.’
Gilmer did his best for me, and Nadir promised to search for my mother. It took me days to compose a letter. I poured out all my feelings, my doubts, my lack of understanding and my questions. We were now beyond the stage of concealing information. The weeks during which Nadir was in Pakistan seemed like years. I was eager to know my mother’s reaction and I wanted explanations. I had a feeling that only my mother could settle my permanent sense of unrest. Nadir returned. With my letter. Due to floods he had been unable to reach Tando. My disappointment was beyond description. I was determined to find out the truth and took the risk of sending my letter to the address that Ayesha still had. I got no response. The fact that I got no reply scared me.
‘Do you think amma is really dead?’ I asked my sisters at a birthday party. ‘I still haven’t received a response to my letter.’
Zahida shrugged her shoulders. Ayesha also didn’t know.
‘Do you really want to meet amma?’ I asked them directly.
Zahida was evasive. Ayesha admitted that she had resigned herself to the fact that amma lived there, and we lived here. She said: ‘I recognize the intense longing you feel now. I had it too, before my trip to Pakistan. But it’s over.’
For us, this was a rather open conversation. It was the first time in my life that my sister shared her feelings. Later that day Zahida called me to say she shared my desire to find amma.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked her. When she confirmed this, I invited her and Ayesha to my house for the next evening. It so happened I had an idea.
That evening they sat on my couch with an expectant look. ‘What’s your plan, Hameeda?’ Ayesha asked curiously.
‘Just wait.’ I turned on the video recorder. On the screen was a woman named Debby Petter.
‘I know her,’ Zahida said, ‘Isn’t she from that awful program called Banished or something like that?’
Ayesha laughed. ‘No silly, the program is called Vanished, not Banished. It’s about retrieving long lost friends and relatives…’ Her smile diminished and she turned to me. ‘You don’t mean to tell me that…’ Ayesha did not finish her sentence.
I nodded and turned off the television. So long Debby. ‘I am determined to find amma. We need to know whether she’s alive or not. Vanished is perhaps our safest chance. I could at least write them a letter.’
We discussed it for a while and decided that I would contact the program makers. Shortly after I had sent them a letter, I received a response. They would review my request carefully. In 1996 I was contacted by an editor from Vanished.
‘Is it true that you submitted a request to our program?’ she asked. After I confirmed, the woman said that she wanted to make an appointment with me and my sisters. She continued: ‘Mrs. Lakho, we want to help you. We were very moved by your story. Of course we must first examine the situation thoroughly, because Pakistan is not the easiest country to look for someone. Are you aware of the situation in your country of birth?’
I always shivered when someone confronted me with my background. I still didn’t realize that my roots apparently were not in the Netherlands, although I had lived there for almost thirty years. I promised to call my sisters to arrange a meeting.

Our first meeting was on a Wednesday. Vanished would come to Zahida’s home. The editor to whom I had spoken on the telephone did the introductory interview. Zahida, Ayesha and I had prepared ourselves for the discussion. They knew that all three of us would have to be present on the program. The editor went through the procedure of Vanished with us.
‘We plan to search for your mother in co-operation with the foundation Terre des Hommes. Since we aren’t sure where your father lives or whether your mother is still alive, and considering the threats made in the past, we will need to be extremely careful and thorough in our investigation. In Pakistan a murder is committed quickly and quietly.’
We nodded. We had been fully aware of this for years.
‘Of course we will have to work with an interpreter. Especially when we have found your mother and can invite her to come to the Netherlands.’
Can you imagine, I thought. Can you imagine that in a while I can hold amma in my arms, just like all those other people who are reunited in the program? Will I be happy? Will I cry? I was so excited, but also very nervous.
‘What do you mean, not on television?’ I heard the editor suddenly say.
I startled out of my daydream. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
Ayesha looked at me with big eyes. ‘I’m not sure if I want to be on the program.’
I reacted fiercely. ‘Come on, if you don’t want to appear on television, they’ll cancel the search!’
The editor nodded. ‘The agreement is that you will appear on the program.’
I was fed up. Why was she spoiling this? Finally something was being done for us, and now she was destroying the plan. The editor suggested that the three of us would discuss the issue at greater depth and let her know our decision. I was angry. Very angry.
‘Can’t you think about Zahida and me? You saw amma, but we didn’t. We want to know the truth, no matter how bad it will be.’
I called Vanished. My request had landed on the pile of less urgent matters, but the editor promised to investigate the possibility to search for someone without a live presentation on television.

That summer we heard nothing. In the autumn we were preoccupied with other matters. Zahida was getting a divorce. Tom wanted to leave because he had another relationship. My eldest sister developed psychological problems. I traveled two hours from Rijswijk to Zwolle to take care of her. She was lying in bed, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t do anything. I was afraid that she would neglect herself and her children if this apathy would continue.
‘Zahida, come on! You have to pep yourself up. The children need you.’ I could barely reach her. I stayed at her house for a week but then I had to return to my own family. Zahida came with me for a week to gain some strength.
During this difficult period she met a man: Eric. He was a journalist and listened with awe to Zahida’s story about our past.
‘You must go there,’ he said. ‘Why did you never go to Pakistan yourself?’
It was the fear for our own and amma’s life which had always prevented us from buying tickets and flying to the East. Zahida no longer felt this fear. The break-up with Tom and the awful time that lay behind her had made her cold and insensitive. She decided to travel to Karachi with Eric.

‘Where are you going?’ I repeated when Zahida told me that she was leaving right before Christmas.
‘Karachi.’
I heard it right. My hands were moist, I was nervous. So she just purchased tickets and went to amma. Or better: she would search for amma. Ayesha had given her a photograph taken in 1979 showing amma, Yasmin and Lalli. I wanted to go with her, but I also was afraid. ‘Zahida, you must inform the embassy and the consulate that you are going to Pakistan. Make sure that other people know about your existence because before you know it, they will eliminate you. Don’t forget those threatening letters! And call Foreign Affairs before you leave.’
Zahida promised to do as I said. She would keep us informed about her whereabouts. Zahida and Eric left, leaving me behind. I felt deserted. Once they had departed I was afraid to leave the house. When the phone rang I would jump up as if stung by a bee. But Zahida never called. When the mail arrived I practically ripped the letters out of the postman’s hands. But no letter came. I called Ayesha almost every day to hear if she had any news. Not a word. Then a card came. A postcard with a street scene from Karachi. With trembling hands I turned the card and read aloud, ‘Found amma. She is fine. See you soon. Love, Zahida.’ I turned the card around to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I read once again, ‘Found amma. She is fine. See you soon. Love, Zahida.’ On first impulse I wanted to tear the card to pieces.
I was astonished. ‘Is she out of her mind?’ I said to Gilmer. ‘Doesn’t she understand that my curiosity is driving me mad? Why doesn’t she call? Why doesn’t she write more?’
Gilmer calmed me down a bit. The few days left before her return to the Netherlands seemed like years. Apparently Zahida needed time and space to deal with her own emotions after having met amma. After her arrival in the Netherlands, it took her several days before she was able to call me. She was barely able to share this special experience with me or Ayesha.
All she would say was: ‘She’s fine. She says hello.’
I couldn’t understand this. She talked as if we had all been drinking tea at my mother’s house last month! No feelings, no emotions. She was numb. ‘She says hello.’ I hadn’t seen my mother in almost thirty years! For years I had lived in fear and assumed that she was dead. I thought I didn’t have a mother. I became more restless and pursued Zahida. I insisted that she would share her experiences, her photographs and video footage with me.
‘I myself will determine when I develop the pictures and when I show you the video,’ she said in an irritable tone of voice. ‘If you want to see your mother, go to Pakistan yourself.’
I was so hurt and angry. I was crying. What had gone wrong in our lives? We were abused as children, both physically and emotionally. Everything had been taken from us: our mother, our little sister, our childhood, our youth and worst of all, our solidarity. Zahida showed no trace of empathy. She had isolated herself and refused to share. In fact, she was unable to share. I hadn’t felt this lonely in a long time. Again, I was alone. Zahida was alone. Ayesha was alone. Again, the three of us were locked in our little rooms with our own grief. It seemed like nothing had changed since our childhood.

A few days later the mail delivered a letter with a Pakistani postmark. My heart jumped. On the doormat there was an airmail letter addressed to me with a handwriting I immediately recognized. It was my father’s handwriting. What had Zahida concealed? I was trembling and shaking all over as I opened the letter. My eyes searched for a threat and the name of the sender. Ali Nawaz? This letter didn’t come from my father, but from my mother. Written by my brother. Ali Nawaz had written the letter and apparently he had the same handwriting as my father. After I had recovered from the shock I began reading. And again, and again. Ali Nawaz was a beautiful writer. He wrote about amma and about the unexpected reunion with his eldest sister, whom he had heard so much about from amma. He wrote about their life in Pakistan and that amma missed her three daughters each and every day. From his words I could gather that Yasmin and he were continually reminded of our existence. But there was no reproach in his tone. He ended with the following request: ‘Hameeda, will you please write to us? Amma wants to hear from you and is willing to answer all your questions.’
Tears rolled down my face. They kept coming. It was as if that simple little sentence popped the lid of an enormous box filled with suppressed emotions. ‘She is willing to answer all your questions…’ Would I ever find peace? At that moment I realized that only amma could take away my anxiety. She was my key to salvation.

Late in the evening in January 1997, on Melanie’s birthday, I wrote a long letter. I put down everything I had gone through. I expressed my anger, described the abuse I underwent, and explained how I had lived in youth homes. I ended the letter with the question whether they - amma, Yasmin and Ali Nawaz-- could come to the Netherlands. The answer came sooner than I expected and read: yes! After almost thirty years I would meet my mother. I took great care in planning their trip. We would pay for the tickets and arrange for them to be picked up in Karachi. Ali Nawaz would take care of the visa, passports and insurance. We decided that each one of us here would sponsor one of them. In Holland we had to sign some statements at the Registry Office and show our salary specifications in order to receive a bank guarantee. When all the forms and documents were completed, I sent Ali Nawaz a complete overview. One evening in February the telephone rang. It was Ali Nawaz, the brother that I had never seen, yet with whom I had developed a close relationship through our letters. He had a pleasant voice.
‘Hameeda, are you there?’ he said, ‘Can you hear me? Hold on. Here is amma.’
I was sitting at the edge of my seat and almost crushed the telephone. A haze formed before my eyes. My familiar surroundings became unrecognizable. The line was cracking but then… a soft voice.
‘Hameeda?’ Silence. ‘Hameeda?’
I swallowed but there was a lump in my throat. I was unable to speak.
Once again I heard that warm and loving voice. ‘Hameeda?’
Nobody in the world could pronounce my name like amma did. Very softly, and with a tiny little voice, I answered: ‘Amma….’ while the tears poured down my face.

The reunion was planned for July. During the months of preparation I maintained an extensive correspondence with Pakistan. Yasmin and Ali Nawaz wrote on behalf of amma and themselves. I addressed my letters to all three. During this correspondence a part of my questions was already answered. One suspicion was definitely confirmed: my father had continually lied to us. According to my mother he had to flee from Pakistan after committing fraud. During ten years he had to avoid the country to prevent imprisonment. What we had seen of him was only the tip of the iceberg. But that tip seemed sufficient for him to stand trial. My mother’s visit would reveal many more obscure details. I was all ready. Ready to bring my father to court and to embrace my mother with all my heart.

Supplementary Epilogue

The publication of this book was followed by great disappointment: the day after the festive presentation I received yet another rejection to my family’s visa application. For months I had cherished the hope that this book would help achieve a breakthrough in the endless procedures and red tape I found myself in. This hope was shattered. I was allowed one last chance to file a complaint against the negative decision of the visa authorities. I did not want to give up, so I had no other choice than to continue. Today, after three-and-a-half years, the application for a visa is still being under consideration. A tourist visa is still being refused.

In the lawsuit against my father and stepmother (filed on July 1st, 1998) the period of limitation was under discussion. After the court session it was set at five years. During the appeal, however, the Supreme Court extended this term of limitation to the maximum period of twenty years. I am very happy with this decision because it implies that the indictment is now valid from July 1st, 1978. I can therefore go back to the time I was fourteen. That year, 1978, I ran away from home. It was the year in which they took the photographs of me at the police station after I had been physically abused, and in which I was placed in a home. These facts can now all be included in the indictment. Meanwhile former detective Den Boer has made a statement. During his career our case made a profound impression on him. He felt called upon to reveal the truth and has been a tremendous support to us.
The legal proceedings still carry on and the lawyers continue to work on the case. I haven’t heard anything from my father.

The publication of Hidden Bars was a very significant moment for me. Writing the book was a long and arduous process and formed the conclusion of a period I could finally leave behind me.
The national and international success has strengthened me in my conviction that I am addressing important issues. The many interviews, lectures and reactions confirm the relevance of my experiences to modern society.

I dedicated this book to my mother and it is my dearest wish that one day she will be able to read it. The first chapters have already been translated into English and she thought they were beautiful. She was very proud.
The writing of Hidden Bars has made me stronger. Now I know who I am: a woman of two cultures. For years I have been a child between two cultures. My life unfolded in the Netherlands but Pakistan is the source, my origin, and is a part of me. Both countries make me a complete person. Together they have formed the woman I am today.