It was a week after that incident that Ayesha and Ghalib heard her mother screaming and swearing vilely in the kitchen. She was sitting on top of Malik when they got there, and she was stabbing him repeatedly with a kitchen knife in the chest. There was blood all over the floor, and Malik was completely motionless. But their mother kept on stabbing and stabbing.
Ayesha had run over to the neighbors, and Aunty Fareeda and Uncle Maimun had come over to see what was going on. The Police had been called because Malik was dead, and their mother was taken to hospital. She had also been stabbed and she kept on screaming and swearing as they took her away.
Apparently, the two of them had, as usual, been arguing over money and Malik had slapped Amina. She, in turn, had grabbed the knife and threatened him with it. Malik had somehow managed to take the knife from her and in the struggle Amina had been stabbed in the arm. Further than that, nobody knew – whether Malik slipped and fell on the floor or whether Amina overpowered him, was anybody's guess. Amina never spoke a coherent word after that, because she suffered a severe nervous breakdown and was admitted to a mental institution. Ayesha and Ghalib went to stay with Aunty Fareeda and Uncle Maimun, who had no children of their own.
In the words of Fareeda, the neighbor, "I've always wondered about the irony of life, that those who have children sometimes don't know how to look after them. But then ALLAH has strange ways of working. And, I can only be thankful that HE has granted me these beautiful children to look after, even if it is just for a while. I shall not stop asking ALLAH to make this a permanent solution."
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