Deadline Yemen

by Peggy Hanson

  The streets of Sana’a are dark in the evening, lit only by a glow coming from panes of colored glass above the shuttered windows. Not much need for lights. Few go anywhere legitimate at that hour. All business meetings take place during the brief official morning or at the mix of socializing and business over afternoon qat.

  Tonight, upstairs windows, row after row, showed the bluish glow of a television set or lights left on by people who couldn’t sleep after the national narcotic pastime.

  It was like walking through narrow dark canyons, every mud brick house surrounded by an adobe wall. I watched my step because of random holes in the cobblestone surface. The moon had risen to just above rooftops, sometimes framed by spiky pepper leaves. The crisp clear air held a faint mix of dust and detritus and animal smells.

  Should I stop by Tom Reilly’s house in the old Jewish Quarter? And shouldn’t I tell someone where I was going? I had no idea who I was meeting, or why. It would have been the sensible plan. But Tom would be enjoying his Scotch amid a circle of friends, so I decided instead to cut across toward Ali Abdul Mogni Street. That’s the most direct way, along 26th September Street, which doesn’t go anywhere near the Jewish Quarter.

  I walked close to walls, enjoying the rising moon and (perhaps under its influence) believing I was actually safer this way than taking a taxi. Less-noticed. Heading for a secret rendezvous. Slightly scary and dangerously delicious. Dogs that slept all day along the street were awake and stirring. I get along well with dogs and talk to them in alpha tones.

  The people I met were few, as I expected. They seemed to be minding their own business, men closing down their shops, women walking home from tea at the neighbors. I felt like a ghost in their midst.

  As I rounded a corner, no one appeared ahead but I heard stealthy footsteps from behind. My heart raced. Complacency had once more pulled me away from common sense. I pressed myself against the nearest wall. What would happen? The footsteps continued, then stopped.

  I would not peer back around the corner. The welcome lights of Ali Abdul Mogni Street flickered just ahead. I breathed deeply. The voice of my yoga instructor came to my mind. Put yourself in a protected circle. Go confidently.

  As I picked up my pace and tried to look confident, three men approached from the main street, weaving a little as they came. I headed on toward the three shadowy figures, not meeting their eyes. At least they weren’t skulking behind me. In a pinch, they might even help. Still, I tried to look like I knew what I was doing. And I wished someone were with me.

  Why hadn’t I notified Tom, or maybe even Becca, where I was headed?

  Just as my route was about to cross theirs, the men stopped. So did my heart, for a moment.

  “Hi,” said a slurred American voice. “Didn’t I meet you at Tom’s?”

  Omigod. At least two of these guys were Americans, dressed in the comfortable futha worn by Yemeni men. International volunteers, of course! The other young man was Yemeni. I took a shaky breath.

  The two Americans were feeling no pain. I only hoped they weren’t up to more than drinking illicitly and making fools of themselves. The Yemeni was putting himself in peril just being with them. It’s one thing to be a foreigner, quite another to consort with them—especially when alcohol is on the menu.

  Unless, of course, you are assigned to accompany the foreigners.

  I looked at the Yemeni curiously and he turned his head away. Perhaps he didn’t want me to see him clearly.

  Ashamed that my fears should have centered on a nationality not my own, and that they had eased when I found compatriots, no matter how drunk, I answered sternly. “Hi. Larry, isn’t it? Nice to see you.”

  “Yeah. You, too. We’re out howling at the moon.”

  “So I see.” Maybe a little schoolmarm talk would shake them to their senses.

  The trio would willingly have absorbed me into their group, but I walked on after exchanging a few niceties and the hint on my part that they should make themselves less conspicuous.

  I was on business. It was business to be done alone. And I wasn’t in the mood to buy three young men dinner, which I guessed might be a secondary idea of theirs.

  At least the footsteps behind had stopped, or turned away.

  I waited until Larry and the others were out of sight. Then I slipped across the street, dodging traffic, to the Palestine Restaurant. The mouthwatering thought of falafel almost made me forget my earlier fears. But whatever the meeting in the restaurant turned out to be—please, God, let it be Halima—I’d take a taxi back to the Dar al-Hamd.

  CHAPTER 47

  It is annoying to be treated like a pickpocket, though the suspicion was mentioned with no malice.

  Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia

  The door to the Palestine was open, despite the chill night air. I paused for a moment. Did I recognize whoever it was who had urged me to come here? No. Nobody I knew. Everybody except one expatriate family sitting in a corner was male, but I’d expected that. The fifteen-odd men were about three-quarters Arab and one-quarter European. Every one of them looked at me. I glanced briefly over the sea of eyes without meeting any. In the casual Yemeni way, I sought out an empty table for myself and was heading there when someone touched my shoulder.

  I jumped. The touch was soft, and I caught the scent of expensive perfume. I turned. She was garbed in the all-black, all-covering balto and burqa, so all I could see were urgent dark eyes. It was not Halima.

  A whisper. “Come.”

  Disarmed by the gentleness—and, of course, the femininity—I followed the woman out of the Palestine. She grabbed my hand with long thin fingers and urged me to hurry with every mode of communication at her disposal—clenched hands, labored breathing, virtually exuding the need for haste.

  Just outside the restaurant door, a car waited almost on the sidewalk, its motor still running. It was black and sleek, probably a BMW. I was pushed unceremoniously into the back seat and the slight figure in flowing black landed on top of me. The driver took off. While he was negotiating streets, my abductor and I arranged ourselves awkwardly.

  The young woman seemed, if anything, more stressed than when she had urged me away from the restaurant. She threw off part of her head scarf to show shiny black hair. She seemed nervous and glanced repeatedly out the back window. I didn’t know her. From time to time, she whispered to the driver in Arabic: “Hurry, hurry.”

  As we made our way through a lighted intersection, my companion lifted her veil to her finger to her lips. A familiar face. I’d been snatched by the same woman I’d seen at the window in the Old City. She looked even younger up close.

  I’d thought that the house might have been Halima’s. What if it weren’t? Who was this woman, anyway?

  A flash of fear, which I suppressed.

  The car lights illuminated a mud brick wall. We stopped and a gate opened.

  We entered an enclosed courtyard. The gate closed behind the car. Someone opened my door, and I stepped out. Sounds of movement on the other side of the car indicated that my veiled companion was getting out, too.

  The multistoried mud brick palace loomed up against the night sky, lights muted through shuttered windows on the upper floors. Over each window an arch of stained glass added red and green and yellow patterns to a tan compound lit romantically by moonlight. The courtyard with its feathery tamarisk trees silhouetted against the moon had the smells of the street, but magnified—cloves, myrrh, dried dung, tobacco, and chili peppers. I felt light-years away from Washington. My heart beat faster. Surely, this was a house I had seen before.

  A hand at my elbow ushered me toward the dimly-lit low doorway at the lowest level of the house. This, I knew from previous visits to Yemen, would go directly to stairs which would in turn lead to the more sumptuous parts of the residence of an important Sana’a family.

  A woman waited at the door.

  CHAPTER 48

  O these fortress towers that have appeared before me

  There
is no blame on the fugitive.

  Tell Yahya bin Muhammad

  We will meet on the day of resurrection.

  Traditional Yemeni poetry translated by Steven C. Caton, “Peaks of Yemen I Summon”

  The former Ali al Shem, now Abu Salif, felt his confidence waver—unusual for him. Had he misjudged? Had he drawn his family into danger to satisfy a selfish adolescent whim?

  Yes, he was religious. But what the charming leader who had drawn him in was doing had nothing to do with religion. These simple country tribesmen he was with saw the charm and not the consequences. A caliphate again! True, pure Islam, lived by every man, woman, and child in the society. No falling into the vices of the infidel Western world. What could be wrong with that?

  No. Islam was more democratic than that. The problem with what was being preached was that only a few people were allowed to choose in that system. Only a few leaders, who held the glint of power and fanaticism in their eyes. The rest—especially the women—had to go along with whatever was decided.

  The Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, had not lived like that. His wife, Hadija, had owned a business and been a strong woman.

  So Ali was confused. He had come to see what pure Islam would be like, but this was a cult. He no longer wanted to be here. In fact, he decidedly did not want to be here. But this was a cult that no one could safely leave.

  CHAPTER 49

  “These calls had their formalities. The fact that we had only just seen each other in the house of Muhammad’s wife did not absolve us from shaking hands all round when we met half an hour afterwards in the rooms of the mother of Ahmad. Every newcomer made the rounds of the assembly, lifting everyone’s hand in turn and kissing her own as she did so, or sometimes—in sign of greater respect—kissing the top of an older woman’s forehead.”

  Freya Stark, Southern Gates of Arabia

  The woman in the doorway didn’t wear the whole black outfit. Her face was half-covered with the typical red and blue everyday cloth worn by women without status. Probably a servant. She gestured me in, eyes smiling but worried. I entered, followed closely by my veiled mystery woman.

  Behind me, I could hear apparel being removed, which I assumed meant the balto was coming off, with the aid of the serving woman. I didn’t turn around in the narrow stairwell to look. Up we went, and on up, winding our way to the very top of the house, to the main mufraj with its comfortable floor-mattress seating and spectacular views.

  As we reached the next-to-top level of the house, my arm was jogged again, and I glanced back at the two women following me. The servant woman stepped aside. Her balto gone, a lovely young woman stood there, well under twenty, with aristocratic features and the slender build of most Yemenis.

  As they had at the window, her eyes spoke volumes. Deep brown. Liquid. A look of pure terror, and some sort of supplication. I had felt it earlier, when I saw her only from the window as I was passing; now, it overwhelmed.

  Forgetting my misgivings, I reached toward her with an instinct to comfort. A door opened above us, on the mufraj level, and the girl and servant turned away.

  The man at the top of the stairs outside the mufraj door had more authority in his bearing than most generals. Against the soft light I could discern a craggy profile. I caught my breath. It was the handsome, aloof Ahmad Kutup. He appeared to be leaving.

  “Come in, please. They are expecting you.” I stumbled on up the remaining steps, shook the long, slender hand extended to me, automatically took off my shoes, and was ushered into the carpeted and cushioned mufraj.

  My mystery woman and the maid had disappeared. By gender count it was two to two in the mufraj. The other female was Halima, dressed modestly in Western style but with a jilbab covering her hair. An elderly man in traditional dress—white turban and long white garment, wide belt and silver jambiya at the waist—sat regally on the mufraj cushions. Ahmad Kutup still stood, looking like a young Omar Sharif. I put out both hands toward Halima and we hugged.

  “So sorry, Elizabeth, about this afternoon. I couldn’t tell you anything.”

  “Not with those men there,” I said. I nodded with respect to the old man and to the good-looking one about my age.

  Halima flashed her gentlewoman’s smile, took my hand, and led me to a seat on a cushion. We curled our legs under us to be sure the soles of our feet didn’t point at anyone—an insult in Arab culture.

  Ahmad Kutup made an introductory gesture between me and the elderly man sitting in the mufraj. “Sheikh Abdullah, Ms. Elizabeth Darcy.”

  “My father,” explained Halima.

  I nodded again and smiled. The sheikh reached out a hand as if in blessing. Ahmad Kutup gave the namaste sign of respect, palms together facing up over the heart, bowed slightly to all of us, and quietly left. The women of the house would scatter into rooms on other floors as he passed by, frightened at the thought that a man might see them. He probably murmured “Allah, Allah” as he descended, to warn them in the ritual way.

  The young woman from the car slipped in, dressed in a Pakistani-style shalwar-khamis.

  “My cousin, Zuheyla,” said Halima.

  I took a deep breath of relief. The situation had become manageable. And I was more curious by the minute.

  Despite the crisis atmosphere, cups of hot, sweet, milky cardamom tea were served as we sat on the carpet-covered mattresses and pillows that filled the mufraj. The tea was placed just outside the door by serving maids who did not let themselves be seen. I sipped while listening to the quiet voice of my friend.

  “I must apologize for bringing you here like this, Elizabeth. There are people at the Dar al-Hamd we do not trust. You had to go somewhere they would not suspect. The al Shem family, our tribe, has ties to the northern sheikhs, who have always been rebellious. Our family has gotten along with the Sana’a government, but our cousins in the north have not.” At this point, Halima paused, as though considering how to put the problem.

  “Somebody’s been smuggling arms to and from Yemen—maybe because they are bribed by Saudi Arabia to destabilize the country. Some of the arms are going to organizations that will stop at nothing—terrorists, in fact.” Halima grimaced.

  “How does this affect your family?” How could terrorism and arms-smuggling mix with the aristocratic al Shems? And how could Ahmad been allowed in the room during such intimate discussions? He must be related.

  As usual, Halima followed my thoughts. “Ahmad is our lawyer and our cousin. He lives in Kuwait. His father is my father’s brother. Our President knows the al Shem family wouldn’t threaten their future by engaging in anything that would destabilize the government. However, we are all under suspicion now and have been investigated by special forces from the Presidential palace.”

  It sounded ominous. “Suspicion of what?”

  Everyone looked at the floor. No one wanted to answer the question. Tension levels rose. No one met anyone else’s eyes. Finally, Halima continued. “Suspicion that my brother, Ali, is involved with fanatics in the North.”

  Her voice sank. “That he might be trained to be…” Here her voice broke. But she managed to get the rest of the sentence out: “a suicide bomber.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Emma’s eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her acquainted with her own heart.

  Jane Austen, Emma

  At a table for one, elegantly set with china and candles and wine glasses, Alex Metzger ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. The Taj Sheba Hotel was allowed to serve wine to foreigners, at exorbitant prices. To her surprise, when the bottle came it was from New Zealand and good. Things were looking up in Yemen.

  It was, of course, no surprise that the cost was high. Thanks to her business arrangements in Yemen, money was no problem.

  On some nights, Alex would have complained to the management, found fault with the wine, created a mini-drama. She knew that about herself.

&n
bsp; Tonight, that was the least of her worries. She signaled for the waiter to pour her another glass.

  CHAPTER 51

  “Break it to me!” cried Emma, standing still with terror. “Good God! Mr. Weston, tell me at once…”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Zuheyla sobbed as the terrible words “suicide bomber” came from her cousin’s mouth. Halima’s father sat staring straight ahead, in the classic position of male grief. I caught my breath. This was indeed disastrous news. Halima loved her family, particularly her young brother, Ali. Their mother had died early and Halima had played a maternal role. According to Halima, Sheikh Abdullah had declined to follow Yemeni tradition and marry another woman, either before or after his wife’s death.

  Educating his daughter. Practicing monogamy. Sheikh Abdullah was a special kind of man. The family had international ties in the sheikh’s diplomat brother, Ahmad’s father. Family or tribal loyalty is a crucial element in Yemen. This family seemed exceptionally close to each other. No wonder Abdullah had a daughter like Halima. How could he have a son like Ali?

  A pregnant pause lay over the mufraj. Halima and Zuheyla looked terrified. Sheikh Abdullah stroked his silky beard, pain in his eyes.

  “He is not a terrorist!” whispered Zuheyla.

  “He’s only a boy,” added Halima.

  The sheikh said something in Arabic with the word “honor” in despairing tones.

  Now that the sensitive subject was broached, Halima gave more information. “Ali spends a lot of time in the north, near Sa’da. There are rumors. Ali is nineteen and won’t listen to even our father.” Halima stroked the hand of the girl beside her. “Zuheyla is supposed to marry him. They both want this. I am sure he loves her.”

  The handsome al Shem faces all expressed concern. “But how could I possibly help?” I asked.

  Sheikh Abdullah looked down. Prayer beads flicked through his fingers. Zuheyla lay back on the cushions with her eyes closed. A faint smell of incense mixed with the scent of lavender sprigs laid along the window sills.