Syed looked up and said a small prayer, asking Allah to give him the strength to do what he was about to and that it be beneficial for her. Then, using the needle and thread he had just sterilized, he began sewing the two ends of the gash. Tiny drops of blood oozed out each time the needle entered from one end and emerged from the other. Syed knew that if she was awake, this would have been very painful. The dim light from the bedside lamp was not enough and he had to squint to see clearly. She was badly injured and many of her body parts bore signs of the assault. She had lost a lot of blood and her chances of survival looked bleak. But Syed Zade was not one to give up. He tirelessly attended to her injuries and painstakingly applied the turmeric concoction on her wounds. Two hours later, he stood up and looked at his work. His back was aching but his eyes had an expression of satisfaction. He covered the wounds with betel leaves and wrapped them in shreds that came from a torn bed sheet. This was all he could do. This and pray.

His eyes were shut but his lips were moving; he was asking the biggest doctor of the universe to intervene. When she developed a fever, he wiped her forehead and palms with cold water to bring the temperature down.

Bibi remained unconscious the next day as well, but her fever did not come back. Syed didn’t leave her side. Almost twenty hours later, in the middle of the night, she opened her eyes and became conscious of the extreme soreness and pain in her neck. She stared at the ceiling for a few minutes and then turned her gaze towards Syed. She recognized him and tried to speak but only tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t move her head; her lips were parched and flaky. ‘Kill me, Baba . . .’ she whispered as fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘I don’t want to live . . . Please, let me go to my parents . . .’ she sobbed. Syed noticed that she was straining the muscles of her neck to talk. The deep gash on her neck, which Syed had somehow stitched together, was threatening to reopen, and the excruciating pain was making her faint.