Chapter 36
"She was not born with a heart of stone, but the world had chiseled it into one."
Unknown
A robot.
A robot is what I became after the Jason incident.
After realising that my family's safety, and even mine, would be in jeopardy if I left the ranch, I resigned myself to my fate.
I switched to auto-pilot mode, focusing on my living and breathing moments, never on my tragic past, and most definitely not on any lofty hopes for the future. I had no future outside of these four walls.
I stayed. I stayed on as the minister's ornamental wife, good for a show but nothing else.
I ignored the stream of concubines he continued to take, and put on a bright smile when I had to be on his arm at public functions.
I allowed myself to enjoy the caprices of his renewed desire to ensure I looked the part of a multi-millionaire's wife.
I allowed myself to indulge in the expensive clothing and even more expensive skincare, ensuring that, as the years went by, I didn't shrivel and wilt like my mother had but, instead, blossomed.
With this renewed understanding came something of a friendship between the minister and I.
He was pleased that I had finally become the kind of wife he desired, beautiful to look at and, at the same time, blind to his vices.
This led to longer and more congenial conversations, with him sometimes even seeking my company to chat.
Ours was not a sexual relationship, neither was it a familial one, it was just a friendship between two people who had learned to tolerate and accept each other.
As for Ibrahim, in the first few years after jason's death, he frequented my bedroom so much that I often wondered how he explained his many nights away to his helpless wife.
Just like in the past, he was back to being violent and aggressive, sometimes beating me for no reason at all.
He was clearly trying to punish me for my perceived betrayal.
I put up no fights and took all the beatings without even as much as a yelp, accepting it as the hand fate had dealt me. In time, he eventually tired of trying to prove whatever point he'd wanted to and resorted to only dropping by my quarters only on occasion.
Sometimes as frequently as several times a week, and other times months would go by without him seeking me, even if he was in the ranch. But I soon trained myself not to care either way. If he came, I tolerated it, and if he didn't, then it was all the better.
As for the domestic staff, my bond with them strengthened after Ibrahim's humiliating assault.
Maybe it was guilt over their inability to help me or maybe they just pitied me for all I'd endured, whatever the case, after that day, they took me on as family.
They loved and protected me fiercely, especially from the vicious gossip coming from town, about me being responsible for the death of a promising young man like jason.
Catherine and madam maria , especially, were extremely protective of me, and ever so often, would invite me to their private quarters in the basement for a meal.
I finally got to meet her paraplegic husband, André, and she soon became to me more of a mother like my biological one was.
Time has been good to my father. Even though only in his fifties, he looked at least a decade younger. It was like all the girls he allowed ravage her body over the years he took a piece of them each time they'd had their fill.
Eventually, and I suspect as a result of his ability to attract more influential men to sustain his lifestyle, he'd taken to petty trading, which earned her a whole lot more money, leaving her even more happy than he'd been before.
I still tried to support diamen as best as I could but, contrary to his belief, there was a limit to how much of the minister's money I had access to.
Thus, my father's resentment of me escalated over the years.
Damien had also not been very successful. Even though he finished his program at the University with decent grades, he struggled for years to get a good job.
He spent a few fruitless years in UK, roaming from one menial factory job to the other. Frustrated, he returned to India and to his former master, whose auto repair workshop he took over when the old man finally decided to retire.
Alas, it hadn't been a full relinquishment on the man's part, as he still expected to share a decent chunk of diamen's earnings.
As my brother had not been able to come up with the money required to buy out his former master, he'd had no choice but to continue sharing his income, leaving him with very little to call his own at the end of the day.
The minister's other children made it a point of duty not to return to America. In the early years, when they came to the country, the minister would meet them in france.
But after a while, even that stopped. After that awful Christmas, I didn't set my eyes on Yusuf, the one whom I'd once thought myself in love with.
As for the other, he finally returned in 2011, when the minister turned 70. The moment we clapped eyes on each other, I could see an even more intense hatred than what had been there the last time we'd seen each other that unfortunate Christmas of 1996, fifteen years before. But this time, I was not going to allow myself to be bullied.
He had arrived at the ranch, shouting orders at everyone like he was the king of the manor.
He did everything he could to undermine me and my authority, but I was prepared to make him see that I would not be her pushover.
"no, Kamsir. That's not how we are going to do it," I'd countered him, when he tried to steer his father's birthday party in a completely different direction from what had already been planned.
"Nobody is renting any hall anywhere. This place is good and big enough. We will decorate it accordingly, and it will more than meet our need for the day."
"Will you keep quiet there?" he had snapped, finally able to confront me. "People are talking, and this one is talking. Is it because Ibrahim is not warming your bed today that you have the nerve to open your gutter mouth to talk?"
Zeynep of years before might have cowered into a corner, but not this one. Instead I smiled at him.
"zeynep, I know you are frustrated so I will ignore all the nonsense coming out of your mouth. It's not easy still living off your daddy at almost 40 years of age. Don't worry, keep praying to God for your own , and I'm sure He will soon send you one. In the meantime, allow me to take care of my own, am I clear?"
There was a snigger from one of the maids, and if looks could kill, zeynep would have murdered me a million times over.
His face was so red and swollen, I knew I'd touched a sore spot…but I didn't care.
I too could play dirty. I'd learnt how to. They'd taught me how.
He had withdrawn from the birthday planning and, on the day of the party itself, had been very subdued.
It hadn't helped seeing Ibrahim and his own grown children, nor his peers whose kids were in their teens as well, not to talk of the distant relatives who kept badgering him about when she would get married or make his own money.
On the one hand, I did sympathise with him. I also couldn't boast of being reasonably married, neither did I have any wealth of my own.