When she received the black gloves, Muhammad Shaheer’s mother said, she asked her maid to wash them. “Suddenly, the maid cried, ‘There is blood in these!’ so I rushed to see. Blood was leaking from inside the gloves. I told the maid to get aside,” she said. “I will wash the gloves myself. This is my child’s blood, my own blood.” She touched her stomach. “You see, when my child was shot, he must have put his hand on his stomach to ease the pain.”

The other mothers mechanically wiped away tears.

“So I washed them myself, and the whole tub was filled with blood,” she said. “Then I took the bloodied water and watered my plants with it. It is my blood, so it will stay in my home.”

“But my tears have dried up,” her husband said. He is short and stocky, and introduced himself as a businessman. “Will you please let me talk for five minutes?” he asked, dragging a plastic chair closer to where I was sitting. “No one should interrupt me.”

“What has the government done for us? They have only given us medals. And these medals have gone black, just like their hearts. What operation is the Army doing? Which terrorists are they hanging? Why don’t they show us the photos of the dead terrorists? I would like the government to hang them in the square of this city, so I can go and spit on them. When my child and the children of these parents were killed, they took them to the hospital in Suzuki vans like cut-up pieces of meat.”

He pointed at our host. “Mr. Aurangzeb, here, his son called him from his cellphone after he was shot, to say: ‘Baba, bring me water. I am feeling thirsty.’ His father rushed to the school with two guns in his hands to kill the terrorists himself but he was not allowed in. Please excuse my language — I should not be using this word in front of women — but what have these bastards done for us other than give us rusting medals?”