Tammy’s family, although Muslim, saw nothing wrong with observing Christmas, as did other moderates, since Jesus Christ is considered to be a major figure in Islam. As soon as my boss gave me the go-ahead I immediately flew to Karachi. I ate a lot of food, walked down a beach, and touched my first actual Christmas tree in four years. I relaxed.
Two days after Christmas, Tammy and I prepared for the shooting of the TV reality show Enter the Prime Minister, where Pakistanis could vote on their favorite candidate for prime minister. It was like American Idol meets C-SPAN, reality TV for political junkies, only possible in a politically obsessed country like Pakistan. Tammy was a judge. I planned to write a story. So I packed a backpack—my computer, a notebook, two cell phones. I didn’t bother to bring my power cords, as I planned to be back at Tammy’s house in a few hours. Unfortunately the show was as scintillating as static. At one point, bored and concerned about how I would ever make a reality show about politics interesting, I checked the news wires. Somebody had fired shots at a rally of Nawaz Sharif, who like Bhutto had just returned from exile. I worried that I was in the wrong place, out of position again.
During a break in filming, I told Tammy and the show’s other participants about the attack. A few crowded around my computer. Then I checked the Pakistan news again. This time a breaking-news bulletin flashed an attack on Bhutto’s rally in Rawalpindi, although the former prime minister was safe. Most of the high-powered people on the TV show were friends of Bhutto, and they started making calls. The head of Pakistan’s human-rights commission soon received a text message saying that Bhutto had been wounded. Minutes ticked by, all confusion. Then Bhutto’s longtime friend from the human-rights commission answered a phone call. She cried out and hung up.
“She’s gone.”
Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of the East, had been killed at a rally a few miles from where her father had been hanged, as she stood and waved out the sunroof of her white SUV. Maybe a bomb, maybe a gunshot, the conspiracy machines were already spinning. Like the country, I found this impossible to process. But I had no time. Events soon overtook even her death. Tammy and I looked at each other; she had been frustrated with Bhutto’s willingness to make a deal with Musharraf, but she still saw Bhutto as a preferable alternative to the military. Almost immediately, Tammy started to cry.
“This is very bad,” she said. “It will rip this country apart.”
She needed to visit Bhutto’s relatives and friends, so I rode with her to the home of one, a cousin. The receiving room was elegant, chandeliers and wooden furniture. Everyone hugged and sobbed. I was the stranger, the lone non-Pakistani, the lone journalist, the other. At one point, I slid out my notebook, figuring I should write something down. Tammy glanced at me and shook her head. Her message was clear: This was not the place, and I should have known better. She soon sent me off in a carload of people from the TV show toward the Pearl-Continental Hotel, where they were staying.
“You can grab a cab home from there,” she said. “I need to stay.”
But the turbulent city of Karachi was Bhutto’s home, and it was catching fire. As darkness fell, young men threw rocks at the Saudi embassy; others set fire to tires in the middle of intersections. Already Pakistanis marched with flags of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party and yelled “Bhutto lives!” Some fired guns in the air. In my car, crammed with seven people, one woman threw a scarf around my head.
“Cover yourself,” she said. “You’re an American. You never know what will make these guys angry. It’s very volatile.”
Eventually we made it to the Pearl-Continental. I called Tammy.
“You’ll never make it back tonight,” she said. “They’re already rioting. Cars are on fire. The neighborhood has been sealed off.”
I was in poor shape. The hotel was sold out. I had no computer plug and only about thirty minutes of battery power remaining. I had two cell phones—but each was close to running out of batteries. I camped out in the business center, writing a story on a hotel computer. Eventually the hotel manager found a last-minute vacancy, a suite that cost slightly less than $400. I jumped at it.
By 3 AM I was asleep. I woke up early the next day, trying to figure out a plan. Bhutto would be buried that day, near Larkana, her ancestral home, a short flight from Karachi. Tammy called and told me a special plane was taking journalists and relatives to the funeral. She gave me the name of a party official; he told me the plane was leaving in fifteen minutes.
“I don’t think you’ll make it,” he said.
But nothing ever left on time in Pakistan, and on this morning, fearful of what could happen, no one was yet on the road. The highway, normally a parking lot that constantly vexed me, was empty, and the taxi sped to the airport at fifty miles an hour. On the sides of the road, cars were piled together, all burned-out husks, still smoking. I tried to count them, but lost count around a hundred. After the taxi pulled up in front of the airport terminal, I sprinted for the door. I bought one of the last two tickets for the plane, rushed through security, and then ran to the gate. Somehow I made it.
Then I contemplated my decision. I had no fixer. I had no phone chargers, no computer charger. I had only the clothes on my back—a black-and-white slightly ripped long-sleeved shirt that barely covered my rear, and baggy black pants. I had not showered. I was not fit for a funeral. I called Tammy.
“There’s no way we can get out to send your stuff,” she said. “You’ll figure it out. Just find something to cover your hair.”
“OK,” I said.
“Oh and one last thing,” she said. “If anyone pinches or grabs you, don’t yell or punch them. It’s a funeral. You have to stay calm.”
“Yeah. Calm. Right.”
Luckily a friend from the Guardian was on the same plane. Unfortunately, he had a different computer and a different phone. He and I were the only foreign journalists on this trip because we were the only two who happened to be in Karachi when Bhutto was killed. We flew to a town called Sukkur and were picked up by trucks and vans to drive to the funeral, about an hour away. With a police escort, we moved quickly, past smoldering gas stations and cars and banners that said WELCOME, BENAZIR. The air smelled like burning tires.
We stopped at Bhutto’s family home. Her wooden coffin, draped in the green, red, and black flag of her party, was slid into the back of an ambulance. People clutched at the coffin and ran after the ambulance, crying. Our convoy then pushed on toward the mausoleum Bhutto had built for her father and two brothers, who also died violent deaths. We stopped when we hit the crowds, climbing out of our van to walk across the desert toward the white tomb, which resembled a cut-rate version of the Taj Mahal. Thousands of Pakistanis also trudged toward the tomb, waving the flag of Bhutto’s party, beating their chests. They came by tractor, by hanging off the back of buses or trucks, by foot. Men held up posters of Bhutto and notes she had written them. Women sobbed, clutching at me. Angry young men held guns and long bamboo sticks and vowed revenge.
Pakistanis practicing English tried to talk to me. I asked one to help get something to cover my hair—he quickly procured a large piece of dark red, blue, and white material, which I wrapped over my head and chest. I walked around, talking to people who spoke English. The funeral started. The prayer of the dead was read outside, and men held their palms to the sky. At least, most of them did. Sure enough, in the middle of the prayer, someone pinched me. I spun around, mindful of what Tammy had warned, quietly outraged.
“Here?” I whispered. “At a funeral?”