Mohammed Hanif - Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

“I think I should have complained. And I didn’t because I thought they were your friends.”

Sister Hina Alvi looks at her with hurt eyes, as if Alice has accused her of running a pimping racket. “I am not that old. Now sit down and tell me what happened.”

♦

People on the night shift had heard screams. Patients sleeping in the corridor had assumed it was some VIP dying. They had seen Sister Alice Bhatti walk out of the VIP room taking off her gloves and coat and shaking her head as if she had just lost a patient she could have saved. Soon after, they had seen a man running to his Devil of the Desert Surf pressing a white hospital bedsheet to his crotch. And they had connected the dots and come up with the most obvious explanation: that Sister Alice Bhatti and the man running with the bedsheet were involved in a kinky sex game in the VIP room that had gone too far. These people won’t stop having fun even when their mother is on her deathbed, they speculated. Maybe the mother on the deathbed is part of the fun. She had bitten him off in the heat of passion, and then taken it home, one rumour went. He had chased her all the way to the edge of French Colony, but had to stop and turn back because you can’t track anything down in French Colony. Even if someone has slashed your dick and disappeared, you don’t go there. Then there were those who always hear a shot during such incidents and they swore upon Allah that they heard a shot. And then there are those who always hear an autorickshaw’s silencer misfiring when they hear a shot. Nobody even remotely believed Senior’s bodyguards’ version: that it was a minor accident in the VIP room’s loo, that Junior had tucked his handgun in his raw silk shalwar and it had gone off. Only a scratch. A bad scratch but only a scratch, the bodyguards told everyone, and in turn had to field some silly questions. “Did you see it? The scratch?” they were asked. “With your own eyes? Is that part of your job? To take care of the scratch?” At which point the guards started mumbling curses and fiddling with their guns.

♦

“What would you have done in my position?” Alice Bhatti asks, as if enquiring about her options in a basic medical procedure. Do you go for stitches or do you just sterilise and put on a bandage?

Sister Hina Alvi swallows a bit of betel juice, licks a drop that is about to dribble off her lower lip, smiles and leans forward. For a moment it seems she is about to share a fond memory from her past, but then she leans back in her chair as if she has just remembered that she is a senior sister with senior sisterly responsibilities and must resist the temptation.

“I have learnt my trade at the bedside, on the job, not in some second-rate nursing school. I would not let them go that far, I would not have let the situation get out of hand. This is not some Pashto film that you are living out. This is real life. That thing that you slashed was a real cock.” Sister Hina Alvi emphasises the word ‘real’ as if the country was full of fakes.

“And he was waving that real cock of his in my real face.” Alice Bhatti feels that Sister Hina Alvi understands perfectly what she is talking about but doesn’t want to agree with her because that might compromise her official status. She doesn’t want to be misquoted later. Sister Hina Alvi feels powerless but doesn’t want to admit to being powerless. God knows how vast the Senior’s family connections are. God knows how long Sister Hina Alvi has known them. What if she herself has been through the same situation? She obviously wouldn’t want to bring that up. She wants to start blaming the victim before the victim can blame anyone else. She wants to be remembered as a solid administrator.

“You are not the first one and you wouldn’t be the last one to occasionally get something in your face,” Sister Hina Alvi says, throwing her hands up in despair. “But your duty is to convince them to put it back in their pants and zip up. That’s what you are trained to do. You are not taught to go around hacking them.” Sister Hina Alvi slashes the air with her right hand like a mad TV gardener.

“And how do you suppose I should have done that? He had a gun to my head.” Alice Bhatti is angry now, as she remembers the large plate with a little sandwich on it, the smell of green tea and thousand-rupee notes. She mimes a gun with her hand and holds it to her own head.

“Cut out this gun-shun business. Everyone is holding a gun to everyone else’s head. If guns could get anyone to do anything, then this country would be sorted by now. Just count the number of guns you see on your journey here from your home and tell me if it has done anyone any good. Where is home, by the way?”

“French Colony.”

“Nice place. I hope they keep their own neighbourhood clean, your people, I mean. Because they are definitely letting this city drown in its own filth.” Alice Bhatti knows that people think that everyone in French Colony is a janitor and works for the Corporation. But she refuses to be drawn into this discussion. It never goes anywhere. “I don’t know anyone in the Colony,” she says. “I just moved there and it’s as clean as any other place I have lived in, which means not very.”

Sister Hina Alvi realises that she has touched on a topic that Alice Bhatti does not want to discuss. “What about family? Any brothers, sisters?”

Suddenly Alice Bhatti feels that she is being interviewed for a marriage proposal. She feels she might be asked if she can cook and sew, whether she would be OK living with an extended family.

“Look, what alarms me is that they haven’t called, they haven’t complained, they haven’t even written. I know their mother passed away and nothing will happen for forty days. But I can’t say what will happen after that. I went to offer my condolences and they were very polite. They thanked me. They are an old family, they have long memories. They can also be very creative when it comes to taking revenge.”

“Do you think I should go to the police? It was self-defence, you know that.” Alice knows she will not go to the police — she has struggled half her adult life to keep away from the police — but she wants to see what Sister Hina Alvi has to say about this.

Sister Hina Alvi shakes her head in despair, as if Alice Bhatti is that stupid child who is always asking why, if the earth is round, people on the other side don’t fall off into space. “In our VIP room you had to deal with one man. In the police station there will be a room full of them in your face. You’ll need a chainsaw.”

Sister Hina Alvi reaches into a file and pulls out a typed sheet of paper. “This is the best I can do. I am suspending you for two weeks. I haven’t written it on the suspension letter, but you’ll get paid. I’ll try and get the word out that you have been punished and hope that will calm them down. Consider it compulsory leave. Relax. Things will be better when you return.” She says the last sentence looking down, as if she is sure things will never get better.

Alice Bhatti takes the paper and starts to fold it carefully. “So basically I am being punished for resisting an armed assault.”

Hina Alvi lifts her enormous bag from the floor, plonks it on the table and starts rummaging through it.

Alice is already wondering what she is going to do for two whole weeks. She can’t think of a thing. Will she have to find a hobby? Or listen to Joseph Bhatti’s rants about the state of Christianity? The prospect makes her even angrier. “I thought you were my colleague. I thought you knew these people; after all, you put me on that shift. I thought you would take some responsibility for this. At least pretend to be on my side.”

She stops abruptly as Sister Hina Alvi produces a palm-sized gun out of her bag and holds it towards her. “Keep it. I hope you don’t have to use it. I have had it for four years and I have never had to. I don’t even know if it works.”