“You don’t see me standing here?” I said.
He shrugged. “Women should not be here anyway. This is a man’s job.”
The crowd swayed back and forth, and I tried to keep my balance. A man grabbed my butt, a message to my fist, and before my brain knew it, I managed to punch him in the face. Not professional, not at all, but still somewhat gratifying.
That was the chaos just before Nawaz Sharif and his brother walked out of the airport, with me worried about my rear, my position, the barbed wire, a mob, and a potential bomb. Supporters lifted the Sharifs onto their shoulders and spun them around in circles because they had no room to walk. Nawaz Sharif looked shell-shocked. He somehow clambered onto a rickety wooden table next to a taxi stand. The contrast with Bhutto was obvious—she was smooth, a master performer, charisma personified, always in control. Sharif seemed more like a baffled everyman, nondescript and beige.
The crush of men waved their arms in the air and shouted that they loved Sharif. He spoke into a microphone, but it was broken and no one could hear anything he said. Speech over, Sharif climbed down from the counter and slipped into a bulletproof black Mercedes, courtesy of his good friend, King Abdullah, who had also shipped Sharif back to Pakistan in a Saudi royal plane.
Now, six weeks later, it was January 2008. Bhutto was dead and Sharif was the only living senior politician in Pakistan. He had been banned from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections—likely because Musharraf still hated him so much—but he would be a major factor in those elections. Sharif was trying to appear like a figure of reconciliation, above all the politics. He publicly cried after Bhutto’s death, and talked about how she had called him for his fifty-eighth birthday, two days before she was killed. I called everyone I knew to try to get an interview.
“You only get fifteen minutes with Mian Sahib,” Sharif’s press aide finally told me, referring to Sharif by his honorary title. “Maybe twenty at the most.”
I flew into Lahore on a Friday morning, and we drove for an hour toward the town of Raiwind and Sharif’s palatial home and palatial grounds. The closer we got, the more Sharif. The place may as well have been called Nawaz Land, given the amusement-park feel and the fact that his name and picture were on everything, from the hospital to giant billboards. Everywhere I looked, Sharif—amiable, slightly pudgy, topped with hair plugs—stared at me like the Cheshire cat. Guards checked me at the gate, searching my bag meticulously. The grounds of Raiwind resembled a cross between a golf course and a zoo, with several football fields of manicured grass and wild animals in cages, leading up to a miniature palace that looked slightly like a wedding cake, with different layers and trim that resembled frosting. The driveway was big enough for a limousine to execute a U-turn. I walked inside and was told to wait. The inside of the house appeared to have been designed by Saudi Arabia—a hodge-podge of crystal chandeliers, silk curtains, gold accents, marble. A verse of the Holy Quran and a carpet with the ninety-nine names of God hung on the walls of Sharif’s receiving room, along with photographs of Sharif with King Abdullah and slain former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Finally I was summoned.
“Kim,” Sharif’s media handler said, gesturing toward the ground. “Come.”
I hopped up and walked toward the living room, past two raggedy stuffed lions with rose petals near their feet. So maybe Sharif was the lion of Punjab. Inside the room, Sharif stood up, wearing a finely pressed salwar kameez, a navy vest, and a natty scarf. He shook my hand and offered me a seat in an ornate chair. The sitting room was a study in pink, rose, and gold, with golden curlicues on various lighting fixtures and couches, and crystal vases everywhere. Many of the knickknacks were gifts from world leaders. His press aide tapped his watch, looked at me, and raised his eyebrows. I got the message and proceeded with my questions, as fast as I could. But it soon became clear that this would be unlike any interview I had ever done.
“You’re the only senior opposition leader left in Pakistan. How are you going to stay safe while campaigning?”
In Pakistan, campaigns were not run through TV, and pressing the flesh was a job requirement. Candidates won over voters by holding rallies of tens and hundreds of thousands of people. Even though Sharif was not personally running, his appearance would help win votes for anyone in his party.
Sharif looked at me, sighed, and shook his head.
“I don’t know. It’s a good question. What do you think, Kim?”
“I don’t know. I’m not the former prime minister of Pakistan. So what will you do?”
“Really, I don’t know. What do you think?”
This put me in an awkward position—giving security advice to Nawaz Sharif.
“Well, it’s got to be really difficult. You have these elections coming up. You can’t just sit here at home.”
“What should I do?” he asked. “I can’t run a campaign sitting in my house, on the television.”
I had to find a way to turn this back on him.
“It’s interesting,” I said. “You keep asking me questions about what I think. And it seems like you do that a lot—ask other people questions. It seems like you’re also willing to change your mind, if circumstances change.”
“I do take people’s advice,” he said. “I believe in consultation.”
After twenty minutes, Sharif’s aide started twitching. I fired off my questions about Musharraf, the man Sharif had named army chief, only to be overthrown by him.
“I do not actually want to say much about Musharraf. He must step down and allow democracy. He is so impulsive, so erratic.”
“Come on. You named this man army chief, then tried to fire him, then he overthrew you and sent you into exile, and now you’re back. What do you think about him?”
Sharif nodded, then tried to duck the question.
“Appointing Mr. Musharraf as chief of army staff—that’s my biggest mistake.”
I stood up. Sharif’s aide was already standing.
“I should probably be going,” I said. “Thanks very much for your time.”
“Yes, Mian Sahib’s schedule is very busy,” Sharif’s handler agreed.
“It’s all right,” Sharif said. “She can ask a few more questions.”
I sat down. I had whipped through most of my important questions, so I recycled them. I asked him whether he was a fundamentalist. Sharif dismissed the idea, largely by pointing to his friendship with the Clintons. I tried to leave again, fearing I was overstaying my welcome. But Sharif said I could ask more questions.
“One more,” I said, wary of Sharif’s aide. Then I asked the question that was really on my mind.
“Which are you—the lion or the tiger?”
Sharif didn’t even blink.
“I am the tiger,” he said.
“But why do some people call you the lion?”
“I do not know. I am the tiger.”
“But why do you have two stuffed lions?”