{"product_id":"our-lady-of-alice-bhatti-isbn-9780307948946","title":"Our Lady of Alice Bhatti","description":"\u003cp\u003eMohammed Hanif delivers a shockingly funny new novel set in steaming Karachi, about second chances, thwarted ambitions and love found in the most unlikely places.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments need a miracle. Alice Bhatti may be just what they’re looking for. She’s the daughter of a part-time healer in the French Colony, Karachi’s infamous Christian slum, and it seems she has, unhappily, inherited his part-time gift. With a bit of begrudging but inspired improvisation, Alice begins to bring succor to the hospital’s overflowing patients. But all is not miraculous. Alice is a Christian in an Islamic world, ensnared in the red tape of hospital bureaucracy, trapped by the caste system, and torn between her patients, her father and her husband—who is about to drag Alice into a situation so dangerous that perhaps not even a miracle will be able to save them. \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMohammed Hanif was born in Okara, Pakistan. He graduated from the Pakistan Air Force Academy as Pilot Officer but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism. He has written for stage, film and BBC Radio. His first novel, \u003ci\u003eA Case of Exploding Mangoes,\u003c\/i\u003e was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, short-listed for The Guardian First Book Award and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel. He was the head of the BBC Urdu Service in London and now works as their special correspondent based in Karachi.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eExcerpted from the Hardcover Edition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLess than three minutes in front of the interview panel and  Alice Bhatti knows in her heart that she is not likely to get the job  advertised as Replacement Junior Nurse, Grade 4. A sharp tingling in the  back of her neck warns her that not getting the job might not even be  the worst thing that could happen here. No questions have been asked  yet, but she knows that all the preparation--her starched white uniform,  the new file, a faint smudge of mud-brown lipstick, breathing exercises  she has done to control her jumpy heart, even the banana she ate on the  bus to stop her stomach from rumbling--all seems like wasted  investment, halal money down the haram drain, as her father Joseph  Bhatti had put it. “These Muslas will make you clean their shit and then  complain that you stink,” he had said. “And our own brothers at the  Sacred? They will educate you and then ask you why you stink.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe  has been in this room before but is dreading the prospect of sitting  down on a chair and talking. She has always stood here and taken her  orders: Have you cleaned the floor, Alice? Why have you not cleaned the  floor? Who do you think will clean that blood on the floor, Alice? Your  father?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe room is a monument to pharmaceutical merchandising:  the orange wall clock from GlaxoSmithKline, the calendar with blonde  models in various stages of migraine from Pfizer Pain Management  Systems, the box of pink tissues promising Dry Days, Dry Nights. The  ornamented gold-framed verse from the Quran exhorting the virtues of  cleanliness carries the logo of Ciba-Geigy: a housefly in its death  throes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlice Bhatti wonders if she can put in a request to be  interviewed while standing. She shifts on her feet and tries to become  invisible by clutching the file to her chest. The file contains nothing  except a copy of her job application. She doesn’t get the opportunity to  ask anything as the interview panel is too busy debating the  cost-benefit ratio for patients on pacemakers. They are at the end of a  heated argument and everyone wants to get the last word in. She doesn’t  really understand what they are talking about, only wonders why she was  called in if all they were going to talk about was electricity  generators, ventilators, running costs and heartless relatives of the  deceased arriving from Toronto or Dubai, brandishing their grief to save  some dollars or dirhams, refusing to pay up, holding ambulance drivers  hostage, demanding compensation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe has an odd sensation of  overhearing a conversation that she is meant to overhear. She thinks  maybe this conversation is part of the recruitment exercise; she’ll be  asked her views later and she should pay attention. The head of the  orthopaedic unit only brings up words like “professionalism” and  “Canadian immigration” when he is angry. Ortho Sir is very angry by now.  “I am a professional.” He pulls out a pink tissue from the Dry Nights  box and pats the bald patch on his head. The grey diamond-shaped mark on  his forehead is a testament to his five-times-a-day prayer routine, but  his designer goatee belongs in some kafir fantasy. “My job is to cure  people, to cure them at the worst of times. I don’t decide when someone  is going to die. He does.” He raises his forefinger towards the ceiling.  Alice Bhatti looks at the ceiling fan in confusion: Put Your Faith in  Philips, it says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf the relatives of the deceased are in Dubai  and Toronto, she wonders, then what is the deceased doing in this death  hole otherwise known as the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments.  Rights of admission reserved, it says in three languages on the  signboard at the entrance. Enter at your peril, someone has scrawled  under it, summing up the customers’ sentiments. Leave your firearms and  faith at the gate, says another sign under a small wooden cross,  slightly askew and not painted in a long time, in the hope that people  will forget that it’s a Catholic establishment. This is not the kind of  gate where anybody leaves anything, this is not the kind of place where  people forget where you come from.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSenior Sister Hina Alvi sits  on the interview panel with a paan tucked in the right side of her  mouth, her tongue occasionally licking the crimson juice before it can  become a dribble. This well-timed anticipatory lick will remain her main  contribution to the proceedings. Alice Bhatti doesn’t need an advanced  nursing degree to know that Sister Hina doesn’t like her. The only  consolation is that there isn’t much that Sister Hina Alvi does like.  Alice smiles at her in the futile hope of winning her over. Nothing. She  looks at her terrifying poise, the imperceptible movement of her jaw,  the crimson lips, and her eyes that seem to be taking part in the  discussion, and realises that Senior Sister Alvi’s feelings towards her  are slightly stronger than indifference: she hasn’t yet decided whether  this Alice woman even exists or not. Dr. Jamus Pereira, the chief  medical officer of the hospital, is Alice Bhatti’s only hope on this  panel; he is the CMO for no reason other than the fact that he inherited  the Sacred from his father, and he inherited it because of his  inability to say no. But who can say no to a dying father who is  pressing the family Bible into your hands?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe sits with his fist  under his chin and seems to be wondering how long before Ortho Sir will  start healing multiple fractures with the power of his principled  stance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlice looks at him and realises that if Dr. Jamus Pereira is your best hope in this world, you’d better abandon all hope.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And what do you want?” Ortho Sir looks at her as if she is a child trying to interrupt a grown‑up conversation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A and E vacancy.” Dr. Pereira speaks before Alice Bhatti can turn and run. “Please have a seat, Alice.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNormally  Alice finds Dr. Pereira’s politeness irritating--Sir, if you don’t  mind, I would like to inform you that the gentleman you accompanied to  this hospital at the time of his admission has breathed his last. She  always thinks his struggle to bring order to this world through the  practice of good manners is a bit pointless. But she likes every word of  it now. She likes the fact that he has called her Alice. It implies  acceptance, professional fellowship, even intimacy, an innocent type of  intimacy. She likes the way he has uttered the word “seat.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe  also realises that when you start feeling gratitude to people for asking  you to sit down, you are obviously not at the top of your game.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How  many candidates have we got?” Ortho Sir looks at his watch impatiently.  He is on a break from being a humble professional. This usually happens  when underlings are around. In private he can make his superiors feel  like little gods. When he is brazen and publicly rude, the network of  veins on his bald head swells up and you can see them turning green with  anguish, like an alien realising it’s not going home for a long time.  That the earth has run out of the fuel that his spaceship relies on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Only  the lonely,” Dr. Pereira says, looking optimistically at both his  colleagues. Senior Sister Alvi curls her lip in a smile that seems to  suggest that she knows the con, has heard the joke before, but is too  far above all of this to bother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Then why do we have to go through this?” Ortho Sir pushes the file away and looks at Alice Bhatti.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlice  Bhatti looks at a lizard on the wall, desperately willing it to move,  as if its movement will affect the movement of her stars.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Procedures,”  says Dr. Pereira. “And if my colleagues here have objections, we don’t  have to, we can advertise externally. But there are not many qualified  candidates with experience. Privates snap them up. Or they go to Dubai  or Toronto.” There was a time when he could assert his authority and  claim that the hospital was built by my father and named after our Holy  Mother so why should anybody have a problem hiring a nurse who happens  to be Catholic? Now he must stay polite and humble in all his little  battles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“All the good ones go to Dubai and Toronto.” Ortho Sir  is mild now--and mean, having fully exposed the inherent inefficiency of  the system. He has just received his Canadian visa and it has given him  more confidence than those twenty-five years of setting bones in an  operating theatre, even more than his two trips to Mecca. Spiritually,  he always reminds his colleagues, he feels much more settled now; he  quotes from the Hadith, which says something about knowledge and having  to go to China. Nobody reminds him that Toronto is not in China. Not  yet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSenior Sister Hina Alvi looks at them with contempt, as if  they have stepped over some invisible boundary of good taste, as if  words like “procedure,” “vacancy” and “candidate” are vulgar and  shouldn’t be used in front of ladies. She does all of this with a little  twitch of her upper lip and a pat on her steel hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSenior  Sister Hina Alvi has thirty-five years of bedside experience, she has  worked through riots and massacres and saved the life of a foreign  minister’s wife. She knows about these things. Alice Bhatti is always  surprised how Senior Sister can get the world to obey her with the  movement of an eyebrow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlice Bhatti first sits on the edge of  the chair, feels dizzy, then fears that the chair might slip from under  her and she will end up sprawled on the floor with her legs splayed in  the air. She moves back in the chair, the chair squeaks and she puts the  file in her lap, then picks it up and clasps it to her chest. Then  realising that she is making a spectacle of herself, she puts it back in  her lap and thrusts her hands under her thighs, to stop them from  trembling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“So are you Alice or are you Bhatti?” Sir Ortho  believes that this country can only progress if people start spelling  out their middle names, tucking in their shirts and paying his full fees  in advance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Both. That is my name.” Alice Bhatti feels silly  having to explain her name. There might be things in the application she  has embellished, but her name is not one of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I am  surprised that you are trying to hide basic information. Your full name  is Alice Joseph Bhatti. Are you ashamed of your father’s name? Now  Bhatti is a respectable clan from Punjab and I am sure the Josephs are a  respectable lot from wherever they are from. Let me tell you something:  my father was a schoolteacher and went to teach in a school on his  bicycle for thirty-five years. Same route. Same bicycle. Am I ashamed of  him now? No, that bicycle is parked in my garage, along with my Camry.  So that my kids can see it and learn. Do I hide it from the world? No.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDr.  Pereira’s administrative intervention comes in the form of a polite  cough, the clearing of an already clear throat and his fingers playing a  half-remembered jazz beat on the table. He was practising his drums  with the Hawks Bay Kittens the night his father called him and before  breathing his last handed him the Sacred Heart Hospital for All  Ailments. “The application form doesn’t have provision for middle names,  and Bhattis are pretty much everywhere, in every religion, so if we can  start the--”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“So, Miss Alice Joseph Bhatti, why should we give  you this job?” Ortho Sir asks her without looking up and starts  scribbling furiously in his file. The bicycle-riding-schoolteacher’s son  has come this far in life because he knows when to move on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSenior  Sister Hina Alvi looks at her with a beatific smile, as if already  forgiving her for all the mistakes she’ll make in the rest of her brief  and miraculous career. Dr. Pereira sends her silent messages: Praise Our  Lord Yassoo, now don’t let me down, child, not in front of these  Muslas. Short, to-the-point interventionist prayers are Dr. Pereira’s  other management tool besides good manners.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is simple. Alice  Bhatti knows the answer. She has rehearsed it in front of the mirror.  But now she needs water. Her heart beats in her parched throat. A  strange croak comes out of her mouth, a voice that surprises her, the  voice of a baby frog complaining about being too small for this world.  She notices, for the first time in her life, that the lizard has four  feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have qualifications . . .” She realises that she has  forgotten the rest of her answer. She decides to carry on recklessly,  like a pedestrian caught in the middle of a fast lane who decides that  if they close their eyes and rush forward they will end up safe on the  other side. It all comes out in a jumble. Accident assessment.  Paediatric management. First-aid course: FA second division. Serving  patients and humanity. Taking care of the sick and dying. Experience in  TB ward before it was closed down. Personal setbacks. Difficult  patient-and-doctor relationships. Maternity ward internship.  Flexiworking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving spoken for one whole minute without  fainting, Alice Bhatti takes a deep breath and realises that she has  just blurted out everything she was supposed to say over the course of  the entire interview.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn ambulance siren sings in the distance,  and the ceiling fan suddenly picks up speed. Her dupatta flares in a  gust of wind and the faces of the three people sitting in front of her  blur into a crowd, a crowd that is headed for a pre-planned lynching  somewhere else but decides to first warm up on a stray dog. The  ambulance siren comes very close and Alice remembers a dream she had the  previous night. She is in an ambulance, the ambulance is a ball of  fire, it’s rushing away from the Sacred. She had been puzzled in her  dream. An ambulance on fire she can understand. What was she doing in  the ambulance? Why was her face covered in ice cubes? Why was the  ambulance rushing away from the hospital?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“According to the modern principles of nursing and the patient-carer relationship . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Did  you say you worked in Accidents?” Sir Ortho cuts her short, then pats  the alien on his head. “Oh. Of course. Sure you worked in Accidents.  Didn’t we have a little accident there? How could I forget?” Alice  Bhatti cannot believe that Ortho Sir would remember her face. She  remembers his face, though. She remembers a bucket and a mop and a river  of blood on the floor. She remembers him tripping over her mop.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303508857061,"sku":"NP9780307948946","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307948946.jpg?v=1767734326","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/our-lady-of-alice-bhatti-isbn-9780307948946","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}