It is about to turn 1989 and we are to move to a new place. We being Niggle and I. This is the second year of my two - year contract and I am mentally preparing to leave at the end of the school year in May. I shall miss the Spiderweb, with its bustle, but I suppose paying two rents for separate rooms is a drag for the school management. Niggle seems happy with the arrangement.
We are invited to Mrs Hashimotos in Hali Road for dinner with a few other Karachi notables: a police chief, and a local politician. Mrs H puts on a good traditional Sunday lunch with chicken and roast potatoes and veg. The police chief sits next to me and places what appears to be a dead pigeon wrapped in a handkerchief on the table next to his plate. Mrs H stares at him with her glittery blue eyes. The chief unwraps the handkerchief to reveal a tiny pistol - so small it seems like a toy. Mrs H whoops.
Later we sit in the sitting room of her failed seduction and she gives her rendering of the Muslim Azaan, to the bemused smiles of our two locals. In the kitchen, Mrs H stops me by the arm.
"Is Niggle all right?" she asks. I frown.
"He won't even look me in the eye," she says. Obviously, he is impervious to her charms.
"He's a Muslim convert," I say. She nods knowingly.
"I see." Then she whoops.
Mrs H has been good to me, in spite of the failed attempt to "catch" me. She is there when I need help and gives tons of advice about living in Karachi. ( E.G."Three things you need are a car, a telephone and some knowledge of Urdu to order people around") I leave behind a little gift for her on her sideboard - an ornate handcrafted papier-mache box.
Our new place is not too far away from the Spiderweb, in Rehman Appartments on New M.A Jinnah Road, the way to Quaid - i - Azam's Mazhar or Mausoleum. The school is just around the corner.
The flat is huge, with three bedrooms en-suite and a large open area as well as a dining room. Most of it will remain unfurnished. We each take an en-suite bedroom. Along with the flat s a "servant" - Hafeez - and a larger TV on which we can watch Neelam Ghur. Niggle disappears for two weeks at Christmas 1988 only to return late one night and flop back in his room and sleep for two days.
Early in February, a terrible incident occurs. the British Council Library in Bleak House Road is targetted in a bomb attack.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/02/27/bomb-rocks-british-site-in-pakistan/6eee1c1a-aa51-4945-a2cb-dd2efa6fabed/?utm_term=.8949861c2eec
The reason is Mr Salman Rushdie and his controversial book "The Satanic Verses."
Salman Rushdie
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