“You will not leave the queue,” Brigadier TM shouted at the top of his voice. “Nobody will bend down to touch the President’s feet. Nobody will try to hug him. If he puts his hand on your head, don’t move abruptly. If anyone disobeys these instructions…” Brigadier TM put his hand on his holster and then stopped himself. It seemed a bit excessive to threaten a bunch of widows with his revolver. “If any of you break these rules you’ll never be invited to meet the President again.” Brigadier TM realised the lameness of his own threat as the rows began to dissolve and the widows started chattering, like students catching up after the summer vacation. He jumped into the jeep and sped away towards the marquee on the lawns of the Camp Office, where the camera crew was getting ready to film the ceremony. Brigadier TM saw a lone woman, with a newspaper in hand, walking towards the widows whom the guards were now trying to form into a queue. He thought of turning round and finding out why the hell she wasn’t sticking with the other widows but then he noticed that General Zia was already talking to the Information Minister. He shouted at her before rushing towards the President.
“Get in the bloody queue.”
General Zia always felt a holy tingling in the marrow of his backbone when surrounded by people who were genuinely poor and needy. He could always tell the really desperate ones from the merely greedy. During the eleven years of his rule, he had handed out multimillion-dollar contracts for roads he knew would dissolve at the first hint of monsoon. He had sanctioned billion-rupee loans for factories he knew would produce nothing. He did these things because it was statecraft and he had to do it. He never got any pleasure out of it. But this ritual of handing over an envelope containing a couple of hundred rupees to a woman who didn’t have a man to take care of her made him feel exalted. The gratitude on these women’s faces was heartfelt, the blessings they showered over him were genuine. General Zia believed that Allah couldn’t ignore their pleas. He was sure their prayers were fast-tracked.
A television producer with an eye for detail walked up to the Information Minister and pointed to the banner that was to serve as the backdrop for the ceremony.
President’s Rehabilitation Programme for Windows, it read.
The Information Minister knew from experience that a spelling error could ruin General Zia’s day and his own career. General Zia photocopied the newspaper articles, even those praising him, and sent them back to the editors with a thank-you note and the typos circled in red. The Information Minister placed himself strategically in front of the banner and refused to budge during the entire ceremony. This was probably the first and the last time that the Information Minister was not seen in the official TV footage in his usual place and in his usual mood; he had always stood behind his boss with his neck straining above General Zia’s shoulders and always grinned with such fervour that it seemed the nation’s survival depended on his cheerful mood.
“Pray for Pakistan’s prosperous future and my health,” General Zia said to a seventy-five-year-old widow, a shrivelled apple of a woman, a deserving veteran of these ceremonies and hence the first one in the queue. “Pakistan is very prosperous,” she said, waving the envelope in his face. Then she pinched his cheeks with both her hands. “And you are as healthy as a young ox. May Allah destroy all your enemies.”
General Zia’s teeth flashed, his moustache did a little twist and he put his right hand on his heart and patted the old woman’s shoulder with his left. “I am what I am because of your prayers.”
General Zia, occupied for the last few days with the security alert triggered by Jonah’s verse, felt at peace for the first time in ages. He looked at the long queue of women with their heads covered, with eyes full of hope, and realised they were his saviour angels, his last line of defence.
Brigadier TM stood out of frame and bristled at the way these women were disobeying his instructions. But the camera was rolling and Brigadier TM had enough television manners to stay out of the picture, control his anger and focus on the end of the queue where a catfight seemed to be in progress.
Most of the women in the queue knew why it was taking the President so long to hand out a few hundred rupees. The President was in a talkative mood, enquiring after the health of each woman, patiently listening to their long-winded answers and asking them to pray for his health. The one hour and thirty minutes scheduled for the ceremony were about to run out and more than half the women were still waiting in the queue. The Information Minister thought of stepping forward and asking the President if, with his permission, he could distribute the rest of the envelopes, but then he remembered the misspelt word he was covering and decided to stay put. Brigadier TM looked at his watch, looked at the President chattering away with the women, and decided that the President’s schedule was not his problem.
The First Lady wasn’t getting the sisterly support she had expected from the other women in the queue. “Begums like her bring us a bad name,” the woman in front of the First Lady whispered to the woman ahead of her, making sure that the First Lady could hear. “Look at all the gold this cow is wearing,” the woman said, raising her voice. “Her husband probably died trying to keep her decked out in all that finery.”
The First Lady pulled her dupatta even further over her head. She tightened it across her chest in a belated attempt to hide her necklace.
Then she realised that to these women she must appear a fraud, a rich begum pretending to be a widow coming to feed off the official charity.
“My husband is not dead,” she said, raising her voice to the point where ten women in front of her could hear. The women turned round and looked at her. “But I have left him. And here, you can have these.” She removed her earrings and unhooked her necklace and pressed them both into the reluctant hands of two women standing in front of her.
The whisper travelled along the queue that a woman at the back was distributing gold.
General Zia’s right eye noticed the pandemonium at the back of the queue. With his left eye he sought out the Information Minister. He wanted to find out what was happening, but the minister was standing in front of the backdrop as if guarding the last bunker on a front line under attack.
An incredibly young woman, barely out of her twenties, shunned the envelope extended towards her by Zia, and instead removed the dupatta from her head and unfurled it like a banner before the camera.
Free Blind Zainab, it read.
General Zia shuffled back, Brigadier TM rushed forward with his right hand ready to draw his gun. The television cameras cut to a close-up of the shouting woman.
“I am not a widow,” she was shouting over and over again. “I don’t want your money. I want you to immediately release that poor blind woman.”
“We have set up special schools for the blind people. I have started a special fund for the special people,” General Zia mumbled.
“I don’t want your charity. I want justice for Zainab, blind Zainab. Is it her fault that she can’t recognise her attackers?”
General Zia glanced back and his right eyebrow asked the Information Minister where the hell he had got this widow. The Information Minister stood his ground; imagining the camera was taking his close-up, his mouth broke into a grin. He shook his head, and composed a picture caption for tomorrow’s papers: The President sharing a light moment with the Information Minister.