The Khan by Saima Mir (best thriller novels of all time .txt) 📗

‘You can still stay out of all of this, Jia – keep your head down and your hands clean. I will stay to make sure that happens. And I will stay so that the rest of you don’t have to. It’s OK – I want this, don’t you see? I finally feel like Akbar Khan’s eldest son, and I am a Pukhtun: my place is with my family. Baba knows his world, and I know this one. Together, we can find a way forward.’

Jia wanted to make him see that sacrificing himself was no answer, that their father loved him and he did not need to prove himself to him, but she could tell that he was gone; he was too far down the rabbit hole to come back.

The money, the education, the status, it had all failed to protect him. His dreams, his intelligence, his manners all amounted to nothing. White privilege had pushed him one finger at a time to the edge of the cliff and he had jumped. And as he fell, Zan promised himself that the day would come when his people would have justice. He would make sure of it. This would never happen to him or his family again.

CHAPTER 16

Two years later Jia took Zan’s place. She left home for Oxford University and quickly fell for its prestige and privilege. Privilege divided people into them and us, and was celebrated among the spires of Oxford.

Handing in essay after essay left little time for anything other than work, and it made the forgetting easier. Falling asleep before her head hit the pillow, or at her desk, there was little time to think of the troubles of family and home. Words like debate, discussion, opinion, argument – all considered unbefitting of a young woman in the culture of her parents – were encouraged here. Slowly, she began to revel in them. Her father’s pride in her achievements and her mother’s concern for her virtue were fed to her in equal measure. She took both on board; they kept each other in check.

Zan, who had remained true to his plans, enrolled at a university closer to home and continued living with his parents. The police had dropped their investigation, citing a lack of evidence. His evenings were now spent locked in his father’s study, learning the family business. Life seemed to return to normal, but the constant fear of a knock at the door stayed with them, as if a part of them had remained in suspended animation and could reanimate at any time.

When, four years later, Jia Khan came home and announced she had married, her mother, standing in the kitchen up to her elbows in flour, took the news with grace. Sanam Khan had been preparing for a storm, but in the end what had come was drizzle. Her daughter had brought home a young man. It would have been shameful in generations gone by, but it had come to be expected of Jia Khan.

Sanam Khan was reassured to see her daughter scarlet with shame, having dragged her chador from her bosom to her head. ‘A woman’s chador is her honour,’ was something she’d said often to her daughters, a way of reminding them of what was expected of them. She had predicted this day years earlier. ‘A woman knows her children, Akbar Khan,’ she had said as she packed Jia’s belongings for university. ‘And that daughter of yours will be the end of us!’ But she had been young once, and she knew the fears a young girl harbours before her parents. So when she saw Jia’s shame, she took her hand gently and asked to be taken to her son-in-law.

Elyas waited quietly in the living room, trying to look suitably respectful. His face glowed golden and Sanam Khan was pleased at what she saw. At least the girl had had the good sense to pick a Pukhtun and one who had grown up with her own brother. ‘Women have been known to give their hearts to one-legged donkeys,’ she said to her daughter. ‘But you have chosen well. Your heart and head are one.’ With warmth and speed she ushered the couple into the dining room.

‘It’s a lovely room,’ said Elyas, looking around, trying to hide his nerves. White flowers filled the place. Even years later the smell of jasmine would make him feel sick.

‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘My husband had the furnishings brought over from his home city in Pakistan. He loves to bring bits of Peshawar back with him. You must have such things in your house?’

‘Our furniture is more Ikea, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘My grandfather came to England to study at the Bar when he was young and never went back. He said he liked the weather here too much, but I suspect it was my grandmother, and the whisky…’ Elyas stopped, thinking he shouldn’t have mentioned his grandfather’s liking of the haram. But Sanam Khan knew there were worse things than a family that drank.

Elyas and Zan had been friends since primary school, but apart from a smile at the school gates Sanam Khan knew little about his parents. ‘Both my parents were born in England,’ Elyas said. ‘I’m really sorry, Mrs Khan, I don’t know anything about the protocols of our culture. I’m sorry.’ He was babbling and he knew it. He should have brought his parents with him, but everything had happened so quickly that he hadn’t had time. And he doubted they would have fared any better.

Elyas had been in love with Jia for as long as he could remember. She was his friend’s little sister, goofy and geeky and funny. Buried under books and her head filled with song lyrics, she was oblivious to him. It was only when he confessed his love one Valentine’s Day by giving her a bottle of perfume that she realised.

‘I can’t accept that,’ she’d said, pushing her chunky