the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

platform just above the driver, we watched the crowd of tens of
thousands swell.
Eventually Bhutto was whisked out of the airport and into her truck.
She soon swept onto the platform in a green salwar kameez and a
white gauzy headscarf, waving gracefully. Chaos, clapping, cheering,
screaming. I was happy I wasn’t in the crowd. A kind of fervor, a
lunging, hungry fever spread down below, with people lurching toward
the T-shirts near the bus, trying to get close to their queen. But the
scene was also joyful, seen from above, and as usual, the Pakistanis
started dancing to their own inner music. Bhutto treated the bulletproof
screen like a nuisance and leaned over the railing instead. We rode
along with the convoy for about ve hours, or less than a mile, before
climbing down, near our hotel, and going inside to write. Like everyone
else, I wanted to le a story, sleep for a few hours, and join the convoy
in the early morning.
After writing, Dave and I checked the news, set the alarm, and fell
into bed before midnight, still wearing our clothes. Then my cell phone
rang. A close friend.
“What?” I said.
“A bomb, turn on your TV,” she said, sounding panicked.
I turned on CNN. Nothing.
“Are you sure it was a bomb? It’s not on CNN.”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
She told me to check a Pakistani station. I did, and saw the rst
images of an explosion, of flames and carnage. I groaned.
“Gotta go.”
Dave and I looked at each other, sighed, ran to the lobby, and begged
and bribed our way into a taxi. No driver wanted to go near Bhutto’s
convoy or any explosion—rumors were already spreading. The cab
dropped us blocks away, and we ran toward the sirens. Bhutto’s truck
sat there, surrounded by mangled car parts, people with bloody salwar
kameezes, police. I saw friends and body parts, and pulled out my
notebook and started taking notes. Dave and I split up. The scene was a
free-for-all, no police tape, no sense of preserving evidence. A police
officer called me over. He lifted up a white sheet, to show me a head.
“Bomber,” he said.