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

help with trepidation and misgivings. Oddly enough, the person in question was a professor who taught at my undergraduate college. He declined to meet and speak with me. It was 2005, I was twenty-three years old and perhaps a little naïve. I tried to persuade the professor to see me; I offered to fly to his city whenever he might have time to spare. The tenth anniversary of my father’s death was the following year, I was desperate. I needed to fill in the blanks, to have something to give to my brother, who was turning sixteen and needed now more than ever to know the father he lost when he was only six years old. The professor did not budge. He was a friend of Benazir’s. ‘I was a classmate and acquaintance of Benazir at Harvard,’ he wrote to me, ‘and she and I renewed our acquaintance and became closer friends at Oxford (partly through Mir). I have remained friends with Benazir over the years, seeing her occasionally in Boston, New York, and Oxford.’ I read his email and felt my stomach hurt. I knew where he was going but thought it unimaginably cruel. ‘I trust you have talked with Benazir about getting her contribution to your project?’ he asked. Though I knew he was a dead end, it hurt me more than I was prepared for at the time to find that even friendships are political and that there, in a totally separate and seemingly safe place, was a familiar roadblock. It mademe worry about the reach of power, but I wrote the professor one last email.
    It saddens me that my aunts cannot be helpful resources to me at this time, but I must make clear that my aim here is not to launch a vitriolic attack on anyone but simply to honour my father’s life through a meaningful remembrance. If you feel that you would rather not participate, I will of course respect your wishes. However, if you would feel comfortable talking about Mir and the time you knew him, I would be most grateful for your help.
    He never replied.
    The professor was a glitch in the machine. Everyone else I found connected me to webs of other people who welcomed me into their homes and lives when I made plans to travel back to the US and start my interviews. My father’s friends were a family, that was my biggest surprise. He never lost their love and affection and, when I found them, they easily and warmly transferred that love to me.
    ‘Your father and I were best friends some of the most critical years of our lives,’ Bill wrote to me after he received my letter. ‘Fatima, if you ever want a home away from home or a visit to a part of the United States which you may have not visited, please feel free to come to Houston. I can tell you more about your father that would make you proud.’ I flew to Texas to stay with Bill and his family. When Bill and I finally met, I was sitting at his kitchen counter eating a cookie. We spent several days together, time-travelling.
    In their freshman year, Bill bought the television and Murtaza the stereo. A typical day in their dorm room saw the two roommates waking up around nine in the morning – they both liked to rise early, regardless of their penchant for late nights – and heading towards their classes. They studied together in the library or in their room till eight in the evening. Then they’d have friends over, play liar’s dice, socialize and listen to reggae – The Harder They Come was their favourite album – late into the night.
    At the end of each semester, as the time to return home approached, Murtaza and Bill had a standing agreement. They would bring each other newspapers from their cities and when meeting again in the autumn or spring they would spend hours sitting together poring over daily news items from Texas and Pakistan with curiosity.
    They roomed together for the rest of their time in college. They added other roommates from time to time, essentially to get better housing, but they remained especially close to each other. ‘Murtaza was a politically sophisticated