The streetlights of DHA Phase 2 cast a perfect, sterile glow. They illuminated manicured lawns, silent SUVs, and high boundary walls topped with coiled barbed wire that glittered like malevolent jewellery. This was a neighbourhood of curated lives, where the day’s rhythms were dictated by school runs, golf games, and the gentle hum of air conditioners.
But as the sun bled out behind the hazy Escorts in DHA Phase 2 Lahore skyline, a different kind of electricity began to hum through the wide, empty streets. This was the hour of the unspoken, the hour of discreet arrangements.
Faraz adjusted his rearview mirror, not to check for traffic, but to ensure his own face was a placid mask of professional indifference. His car, a spotless, mid-range sedan, was the perfect chameleon—unremarkable, invisible. He was not just a driver; he was a conduit, a keeper of secrets.
His passenger tonight was a woman named Alina. To the guards at the looming gate they were about to approach, she would be a “cousin from Islamabad.” To the man waiting inside, she would be an escape. But to Faraz, in the intimate silence of the car, she was a brief study in quiet transformation.
She wasn’t loud or garish. That was for the movies. She wore a tasteful, expensive-looking shalwar kameez and a delicate chador. Her makeup was flawless but subtle. She looked like she could be heading to a charity dinner or a family wedding. The only tell was her eyes in the dim light—not nervous, but intensely focused, as if she were mentally rehearsing a role she had played a hundred times before.
“Remember,” she said, her voice calm and low, breaking the silence. “If his wife calls, it’s the Ladies’ Club book meeting. We’re discussing the last chapter.”
Faraz gave a single, slow nod. “The book meeting. Understood.”
This was the dance. The intricate choreography of illusion that allowed life in the goldfish bowl to continue unscrutinized. He had driven lawyers, businessmen, even a well-known televangelist. Their needs were all the same: a slice of anonymous fantasy, a temporary pause on the pressures of reputation.
He pulled up to the monstrous gate. A uniformed guard emerged from his post. Faraz lowered the window just enough. “We are here for Sahib. Alina Begum is here for the meeting.”
The guard’s eyes flickered to the woman in the backseat. He saw respectability, not scandal. He gave a curt nod and the giant iron gates began to swing open without a sound. The fortress accepted them.
As Alina gathered her purse, a small, genuine sigh escaped her. For a second, the polished facade cracked, and Faraz saw the woman beneath: tired, pragmatic, and fiercely independent in a world that offered her few respectable avenues for it.
