No Way Home

by M S James

  The following morning, after the serious stuff of number bonds and writing and learning alphabet sounds, we had mid-morning break and then a fun session of singing accompanied by my newly acquired guitar. The children loved it and the sound of our music-making echoed around the building. At the end of the morning, as the mothers came into the classroom to collect their children, they were followed by the mistress-in-charge. She stood waiting impassively until the last child had gone.

  ‘You must not play this guitar,’ she said, indicating the offending instrument.

  I always started these conversations with a pleasant smile and tried to keep it going as long as possible.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It is not Islamic.’

  I stared at her incredulously. ‘A keyboard is Islamic but a guitar is not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I pressed her. ‘It says so in the Koran?’

  She inclined her head but wasn’t prepared to give me chapter and verse.

  ‘I have seen instruments like guitars being played on Saudi television.’

  A steely glint came into her eyes. ‘Please, you will not play.’ And with that she departed.

  Perhaps there had been complaints from the classrooms either side of mine? Perhaps she didn’t want this fun to contaminate the ethos of the school? The classes next door were conducted in Arabic; the children sat on chairs around the perimeter of the room and loudly recited the Koran pretty much most of the time. So much so, that I began to pick up sizeable chunks of the Koran in the ensuing weeks, simply by passing by. Rousing renditions of ‘Old MacDonald’ must have been a trial to them.

  I hurried off to the kindergarten to collect Anna. ‘Mariam, can I ask you something? Would you say playing a guitar is anti-Islamic?’ A wary expression came across her face.

  ‘People say different things,’ she replied. ‘In England, no problem, but here…’ She made a non-committal gesture.

  However, I had the guitar and the children liked singing with it, so I would carry on for the time being. But gradually I stopped. Carrying the guitar back and forth every day was a bother and I didn’t dare leave it overnight in case it ‘walked’.

  Nevertheless, I was a hit with the parents. One day the doctor-mother who had worked in Ireland confided to me how relieved she was that her daughter was being taught by a qualified British teacher. ‘They forced us to put her into the Madrassa. We wanted to send her to the British School but they said that since we are Muslim, we must send her here.’ She looked despairingly around the classroom.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘it is run on a shoestring. Except for worksheets, we have nothing. I am surprised that so many in my class don’t speak English. This class is supposed to be for native English speakers.’

  She laughed and explained, ‘The non-English-speaking parents want their children to speak English and have a British teacher, so they pay more money! They pay double to be in your class.’

  I was dumbfounded but also pleased. The school might take exception to the way I taught but I was a good source of revenue. I would bear it in mind during my next altercation with the mistress-in-charge. Gradually, I became more accustomed to their oddities. I think that they were always wary of me and the other British staff who would always stand their ground when confronted by pointless bureaucracy. The children were sweeties, very bright and happy to learn. I desperately wanted some reading books for them but the local bookshops had nothing suitable. I knew where I could get some but they were 3000 miles away. The village school in England where I taught previously had recently changed its reading scheme. Out went Peter and Jane (and Pat the dog) and a new up-to-date scheme was brought in. I decided to write to my previous head and ask him to keep the books until February when I could collect them on my mid-year break.

  Weeks passed and a routine developed. But the vagaries of Arab ways of doing things often caught us out. One morning, the street where the Madrassa was located was oddly silent. No cars dropping off children, no mini dust storm from the churned-up earth street, no indication as to what had happened. ‘It is Saturday today?’ I checked with Philip. ‘Normal school day?’

  ‘Yep.’

  The smiling gatekeeper waved. ‘Ahlan!’

  ‘Why is there no school today?’

  ‘We are praying for rain!’

  ‘What, the whole country?’

  ‘Yes. Rain will come. Allah loves us very much. He will send rain.’

  ‘Why was I not told?’

  ‘It was on television last night. No work! Pray!’

  ‘Well, Allah must love the Irish very much. It rains non-stop there.’

  The British School was open (the staff had seen rain predicted on the weather forecast and had not felt that their prayers were needed). Jake was dropped off and in due course so were Anna and I.

  Rain was not the only climatic hindrance to our working lives. One morning I woke to find our bedroom bathed in an eerie orange light. I walked into the sitting room and all was orange, particularly the furniture, which was covered in a layer of orange dust. Weird. I peered out of the front door to see a fog of orange talcum powder suspended in the air. ‘My God! It’s the End of the World.’

  I ran to the bedroom. ‘Philip! Come quick! Something strange is happening!’ He staggered out of bed noting the panic in my voice and quickly joined me by the front door.

  ‘It’s a sandstorm. The wind has whipped up the sand into a massive cloud and dumped it on Riyadh.’

  ‘Why is it orange?’

  ‘The sand dunes at Ghat Ghat are orange. The storm probably came from that direction. There won’t be much happening today, it takes several days to clear it up.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I grumbled. ‘It’s going to take me all day to hoover up the orange talc in the villa.’ I hoped that someone at the Madrassa would clear up my classroom for the following day, but I didn’t bank on it.

  My next confrontation with the mistress-in-charge was over my supportive role for the British staff in the other two departments. She stopped me on the way to the print room one breaktime to inform me that I must cover my face when visiting Mr Sayyid.

  ‘Why?’ I didn’t smile. It didn’t seem to make any difference to the outcome of conversation.

  ‘He must not see your face. It is against our custom.’

  ‘He has been seeing my face since I started working here. It is a perfectly normal working relationship. I don’t hang around talking to him. I go in, give him my order and leave.’

  The mistress-in-charge looked pained and said, ‘Please,’ and left. What to do? Another arbitrary diktat from On High which would make life in the school more unpleasant. However, I didn’t have a scarf or veil with me so I pressed on to the print room. There was a huddle of disaffected British staff outside Mr Sayyid’s hut, all in a state of agitation.

  They couldn’t wait to tell me of the new imposition. ‘Confounded cheek. They have no right to inflict their views and restrictions on us,’ said their spokeswoman, Sue, who had already been at the Madrassa for a year or so. ‘They sit up there in their damned office with nothing much to do except to come up with loony schemes to annoy us.’ There was general agreement. ‘What are we going to do?’ asked one of the others. A thinking moment of silence ensued.

  ‘I know,’ said Sue, ‘we’ll get Mickey Mouse masks from the toy souk and put them on when we go to the print room.’ There were shrieks of delight from the others, and agreement.

  ‘I am going to the souk this afternoon,’ said Sarah, Bobby’s mum. ‘I’ll buy a stack of them and we can try them out tomorrow!’

  I went into the print room where Mr Sayyid gave me an embarrassed smile. No doubt he was feeling awkward about the position in which he had found himself. I am sure he did not mind seeing our faces which, on the whole, were more attractive than those of the Egyptian staff. Perhaps that was the problem. I
wondered why the Egyptians I was encountering on a daily basis looked nothing like the elegant sylph-like creatures that one sees in Egyptian paintings of antiquity. At some time in the past the ancient Egyptians, it would seem, were replaced by the current hefty types that are to be seen in most North African countries. ‘Can you print these for me, please?’ I asked as demurely as I knew how.

  ‘Of course, ma’am. They will be ready bukrah insha’allah (tomorrow if Allah wills it).’ I smiled and said, ‘Bukrah insha’allah.’

  It so happened that I had no need to collect my prints the next day as Aisha offered to collect them for me. The following two days were the weekend so my opportunity to wear my Mickey Mouse mask was delayed. By the time I was ready to don it, the storm in this particular teacup was over. The mistress-in-charge came up to me at breaktime and said, ‘You do not need to cover your face in the print room. We are giving you concession.’ She spoke as if a great benefit had been granted and waited for my grateful thanks.

  ‘I am glad to hear that,’ I smiled. I couldn’t wait to hear from Sue how the Mickey Mouse protest had gone.

  Before I went to Saudi I had thought that the British were pretty normal people. Having seen them in action, working in an alien environment, I began to see that they are all paid-up members of The Awkward Squad. They pride themselves on their professionalism and generally work hard to make things succeed. But they take a dim view of authoritarian high-handedness and kick up rough when being put upon. However, the Madrassa still felt it was worthwhile to issue the occasional edict.

  School life fell into a routine; the children worked well and were eager to learn. I was evidently making an impression on them, though not in every way that I had been aware of. Having given a boy (Palestinian and a non-English speaker) a pleasing row of ticks for his number work, he beamed and said, ‘Jolly good!’ I hadn’t realised how often I said it.

  Every morning I switched on the classroom lights and the dreaded overhead fan with its long swishing blades. I was convinced that it would one day come loose and decapitate the children below. But leaving it off made the room insufferably hot. Health and safety considerations were alien to the Madrassa and probably to the whole of Saudi Arabia. I went to call at the classroom of one of the Egyptian teachers one day; the room was one of a series of outhouses that had probably accommodated servants before the building became a school. Try as I might, I couldn’t open the door. I could hear a class inside but no one came to open the door. I spoke to the teacher at breaktime. ‘I came to visit you earlier but I couldn’t open your door.’

  ‘No, it is locked.’

  ‘Couldn’t you unlock it?’

  ‘No, they lock it from the outside. One day a child ran away from the class so now they lock us in.’

  I was both appalled and angry. ‘What would happen if there was a fire? There are bars on your window so you couldn’t get out.’ She shrugged but didn’t reply. She was obviously resigned to her fate.

  On a visit to the junior department, I was startled to see electrical contraptions plugged into every power point along the corridor. Lengths of cable ended in coiled electrical heating elements that rested in a glass of scalding tea. At times the corridor must have been crowded with young children. Obviously, Middle Eastern children had learnt from an early age to avoid these lethal gadgets.

  At the end of the corridor stood the mistress-in-charge, surrounded by her Egyptian staff all holding parcels of blue fabric. Spotting me, she broke off her conversation to say, ‘Mrs Kate. You are to wear a uniform. This is the materials; you make the uniform. We will take the cost of the materials from your salary.’

  I looked at her with a degree of admiration. You had to hand it to them. The administration had an infinite capacity for coming up with crap ideas.

  ‘Children wear uniforms,’ I replied. ‘Teachers do not wear uniforms. I am not going to wear a uniform. I wear a full-length skirt, I cover my arms, I wear an abaya [which looks like a flimsy academic gown] when I visit the print room. That is enough. Do not take money from my salary.’ I made a horizontal gesture with my hand signifying that was an end to it. The other staff stared at the ground looking embarrassed and the mistress-in-charge looked furious. If the Madrassa was going to insist, it would have a strike on its hands.

  Much to my surprise, no more was said about teachers’ uniforms. Some of the Egyptian staff eventually appeared in blue gowns but others didn’t. No doubt another black mark had been put against my name.

  There were a few fairly indolent school cleaners who wandered around with buckets of water that they sloshed around the tiled floors with a mop. One morning I was glad to see them working with unaccustomed energy. Even the not-so-odoriferous hammams (toilets) were being given a good clean. The mistress-in-charge came up to me beaming. ‘We are to have visit today! A princess! From the Royal Family!’

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘The Princess is patron of our school. She wishes to see our school and our beautiful childrens.’

  Later, as I was leaving my classroom, the Princess was walking past. She was a tall, slim, attractive girl who smiled shyly at me. The mistress-in-charge was in a high state of excitement. ‘This is our teacher from England. She teaches the English-speaking childrens.’ I thought it better not to correct her. I proffered my hand and the Princess graciously shook it. ‘Ahlan,’ I said. ‘Ahlan bik,’ she replied.

  Except for one spectacular, memorable evening, this turned out to be the only occasion that I met a Saudi woman. It was strange to be in a country where you had no contact with the natives. Philip met Saudi men through work but not socially. Saudi wives were kept well out of the picture and there were no opportunities to encounter them. I saw them on the streets, in the playgrounds with their children and wandering around supermarkets but they were always fully blacked over. Even their eyes were covered over, although some wore leather face masks with slits to see through.

  Anna was content in Mariam’s kindergarten. I suppose there was a mixture of nationalities and ethnicities, although Mariam conducted the group in English. She was going through letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make when I arrived one lunchtime, so I sat down for a minute or two before extracting Anna.

  ‘What sound is this?’ she asked, holding up a large ‘A’. ‘“A”,’ they all chorused. ‘“A” is for…?’

  ‘Apple!’ they all replied. She then held up a ‘B’ and a picture of a bee. ‘“B” is for…?’ ‘Cockroach!’ they all called back. Well, they would. Hardly any of them had seen a bee but they were all too familiar with those revolting insects that marauded through our homes.

  I had never seen one before, but encountered one on my first evening in Saudi. I screamed as it scuttled towards me across the kitchen floor. ‘Philip! Help! Kill it!’ There was a sickening scrunch as he flattened it into the floor.

  ‘You’ll see lots of them. They’re everywhere.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘Through that drain cover in the middle of the floor.’ Apparently, cockroaches infested the sewers and came up for a breath of fresh air via the drain cover. All tiled floors had a central drain so that water could be slopped down after floor cleaning. So the cockroaches had easy access to everyone’s villa. The Saudi variety of cockroach had glossy brown bodies like large dates and whirring antennae to locate my position. Whenever I spotted one, it would change direction and scuttle towards me. One morning when Philip put on his shoe, he felt a squirming sensation in his toes. On examination, a couple of brown beasties fell out! Thenceforth we checked our shoes before putting them on. Even now, when handed a box of dates I check for a stowaway. Expats would gleefully tell new arrivals that cockroaches were impervious to radioactive substances and that after the nuclear holocaust there would only be cockroaches living on the planet. This may not be true but they were so horrible that everyone believed it.

  Anna and I went o
ut into the super-heated midday sunshine to wait for Angelo. There were no trees to give us shade, only a solitary lamppost. We squashed ourselves into its shade and hoped Angelo wouldn’t be hijacked by Nadia. I would have to bring my umbrella back to Saudi after the mid-year break. The summer sun was going to be far worse than this.

  The children

  Jake and Anna took to our new life in Saudi remarkably well. Soon after Jake started at the SAIS, the school relocated to a large compound north of Riyadh, some distance into the desert. This made travel to and from our schools more complicated but since the Madrassa started and finished earlier than the SAIS, the school runs were manageable. The new British School now had a vast hangar building for indoor sports (vital for the summer term) and two large swimming pools. A large tarmacked playground accommodated the hundreds of pupils as they ran around at playtime and enabled the boys to play football, although it was unforgiving on the boys’ knees. Jake enjoyed going to school, but the weekends could prove a trial. The pool at the bachelors’ villa was well used but there was only so much swimming we could indulge in. He needed another lad to play with. Fortunately, a classmate lived around the corner in the next block. Jake took himself to Patrick’s apartment or Patrick came to us. Sometimes we would drive out to the sand dunes at Ghat Ghat where the children would run up and tumble down the orange sandy hills. Patrick produced a plastic sledge one weekend and the children had fun sliding down the dunes as if they were in the Alps. The silence and the majesty of the desert was impressive. Some parts of the desert were rocky moonscapes and others, like Ghat Ghat, mile upon mile of undulating orange sand.

  Anna was often the object of attention of people in the street or in the souk. I had been told before we went to Saudi that, being a male-dominated country, Jake would get all the attention and Anna would be ignored. It was the other way around. Strangers would pat her head or stroke her face saying, ‘Mumtaz (Beautiful).’ Anna had my Irish mother’s colouring: pale skin (which nevertheless tanned to a golden colour in the Saudi sun), brown hair and light green eyes. Shopkeepers gave her trinkets and small items from their stalls. She soon became accustomed to being given things as we progressed through the souk, sometimes small carpet samples which she added to the others when we got home. ‘Why don’t I get presents?’ asked her vexed brother. ‘I don’t know, darling. I’m sure you’ll get something soon.’ His present turned out to be very extravagant and problematical.