Songs Of Blood And Sword: A Daughter'S Memoir by Fatima Bhutto Read Free Book Online Page A

the Prime Minister. By that point I was convinced that Benazir had had Papa arrested and I wasn’t going to sit by while my father was taken to jail. I picked up the red intercom phone and asked whoever answered in the office to connect me to the Prime Minister’s residence in Islamabad. ‘Don’t take no for an answer,’ I said fiercely. ‘I have to speak with Wadi.’
    The phone rang minutes later, much sooner than I thought it would. It was usually a considerable hassle getting through to the Prime Minister, even – or especially – if she was your wadi bua, or father’s elder sister in Sindhi. I picked it up and was placed on the line with the Prime Minister’s aide-de-camp. I sat down in Papa’s armchair to take the call. ‘Hello, bibi , is everything all right?’ The ADC sounded shaky, scared even. I didn’t know whom I was speaking to – we certainly didn’t have a relationship this ADC and I. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. Can I speak to my aunt please?’ I was curt, but he kept speaking. ‘Is your family OK? Is everyone fine?’ Yes, yes, I responded. Satisfied with my grunts and promises that everything was fine, the ADC put me on hold.
    The music on the other end of the line was soon interrupted by a click and a silence. ‘Hello? Wadi?’ I said, calling my aunt the name only I used for her. ‘No, she can’t come to the phone right now,’ came the reply. It was Zardari. It was no secret that none of us in the family liked Asif Zardari, my aunt’s oleaginous husband. On the few social occasions where I saw him, we shared nothing other than a cursory hello. ‘I need to speak to my aunt,’ I said tersely, not wanting to speak to Zardari. ‘You can’t,’ he replied, equally brusque. ‘It’s very important, I need to speak with her now.’ ‘She can’t come to the phone right now,’ Zardari replied. ‘It’s very important and I don’t want to talk to you, I need to talk to her,’ I insisted, my voice quickening. I had wasted enough time on this phone call already. ‘She can’t speak, she’s hysterical,’ Zardari replied. As if on cue, there was a loud wailingsound in the background. It had been quiet before, with no indication that anyone was in the room with Zardari, and all of a sudden there was an almost desperate crying shattering the silence. ‘What? No, I have to speak with her, please put her on the phone,’ I continued, growing confused at what seemed like a theatrical attempt to keep me from talking to the one person who was in charge. ‘Oh, don’t you know?’ Zardari responded. ‘Your father’s been shot.’

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A ll of the men who gave their youth and their commitment to the party with Zulfikar that afternoon in Lahore were, one by one, sent to jail. ‘He was not a prophet,’ Miraj, now frail and ill, told me. ‘He was a great man and a great leader, but in our culture we have a tendency to make prophets out of men.’ The conclusion of Zulfikar’s power was near, and in his weakness he didn’t even see it coming.
    Towards the end of his political reign, Zulfikar floundered. Despite the United States’ hostility towards Pakistan’s burgeoning nuclear programme, the building of the ‘Muslim bomb’ was pushing ahead, though it was winning the Prime Minister no friends in the process. Henry Kissinger, who publicly rated Zulfikar an able and intelligent politician, was said to have warned him that the Americans would ‘make a horrible example’ out of him if he were to proceed with Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions.
    Losing his solid footing, Zulfikar became nervous and started to appease the opposition at home, hoping the turnaround would placate his traditional enemies. He amended the 1973 constitution several times, enhancing his own powers by allowing the federal government to ban political parties and curbing the power of the courts so that, under the third amendment, ‘no order could be made prohibiting detention or granting bail