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Thursday, November 08, 2007
Snapshots from Home
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Mr. UD attended Harvard with Benazir Bhutto. UD used to see a little of her years back, when she made trips to Washington. She recalls Benazir, not yet in office, sweeping into a French restaurant on Capitol Hill, where she met up with les UD's and other Harvard friends -- I think this must have been UD's first glimpse of her. She wore an amazing fur coat -- UD could impress you more with this detail if she were able to differentiate among pelts -- and took immediate command -- a tall, insanely intense woman -- of the table. As soon as she arrived, small talk ended. Everything was about her recent pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, her father's imprisonment and death, her brother's death. UD saw her in a more relaxed mode at the Capitol Hill house of a mutual friend. This would've been at least fifteen years ago. She was funny. She complained good-naturedly about the woman who was writing her autobiography. One of the guests was recently divorced, and Benazir was hilarious on the subject of various unsuitable cousins she was going to toss at him for his next wife. After Benazir took office, les UD's went to a very formal gathering that was supposed to be a very informal gathering, welcoming her to Washington as part of a state visit. The event was at Blair House, across the street from the White House, and the guests were, again, Harvard friends of hers. UD remembers lots of group photos being taken; she remembers being dazzled by Benazir's sister, a gorgeous woman in a sari whose shimmering glow gave her the aura of one of the major saints. She remembers a longish chat with Benazir's husband, a genial, self-deprecating man who spoke mainly about polo. There were other formal events, including a state dinner at a Washington hotel, where Dan Quayle toasted Benazir and Benazir toasted Dan Quayle and UD's eyes flickered from VIP to VIP to VIP... UD's all about private life, or mainly about private life, so people fully committed to public life are enigmatic to her. Their destinies frighten her. When he was with the United Nations in East Timor, Mr. UD worked for, got to know a bit, and got to admire profoundly, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a handsome, brilliant, unpretentious man who was killed in a Baghdad bombing. Benazir's life, too, is in danger. |