A Foreign Affair

by Stella Russell

  Knowing what I do now I can better understand what struck me at the time as a ludicrous over-reaction on his part. Not so much my petty felony but my pretty little spiel about ‘Perks’ was going to cost me dearly, but yet again I’m getting ahead of myself…

  ‘What was all that about?’ chuckled Sheikh Ahmad, as we reached the car at last.

  ‘Stop laughing at me, will you, Sheikh Ahmad!’ I protested, play-punching his upper arm.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘I have the feeling that you are not happy,’ observed the sheikh, after we’d been travelling back towards Aden in silence for the best part of half an hour.

  He was not wrong. I was feeling a growing unease about the ambassador’s warning to me to keep away from him and a deepening regret at not having accepted the lift to Sanaa without a second’s hesitation. My fateful delay had given Mrs Rev her lethal opening. Safely under British diplomatic protection I would have had nothing to fear, not from the sheikh or from Aziz’s father, or from Mrs Rev of course. And anyway, why linger longer in the south of the country? As far as I could tell, there was nothing much to see around Aden whereas I’d heard that Sanaa resembled a scene from the Arabian nights. And then, I also reckoned that my destiny was more likely to be lying somewhere at the centre of Yemen’s action, in the capital in other words, than in broken-down Aden… In short, I was fretting about having missed a plum opportunity to pursue my still misty destiny. ‘I’m worrying about whether I should have agreed to go north to Sanaa, as the ambassador suggested,’ I said.

  Sweetly attempting to make it all better with a dried fig plucked from a paper bag in his glove compartment, Sheikh Ahmad said: ‘The moment or chance has passed, so probably it was never meant to be. You must try and look at it like that. Am I sad because your ambassador refused to have a meeting with me? No, he has reasons, or I should say London has Washington’s reasons. So what? Anyway, what makes you want to leave south Yemen so soon? You have spent less than forty-eight hours with us!’

  ‘I suppose what I’m looking for is a really good reason to stay here,’ I said, daring him to conjure me one, ‘I mean, I want to be useful. I’m not a tourist and, if I was, Aden’s not exactly Venice, is it?…’ I suppose that last observation was a subconscious attempt to direct his thoughts into a romantic channel.

  He did not disappoint me: ‘Roza,’ he began after a pregnant pause, ‘Please listen to me now.’ Glancing from the road ahead to my face and back again, and again, as if to impress upon me that what he was saying was of crucial importance to both of us, he said, ‘I have formed the impression that you are a very special person and therefore I would not even try to persuade you of something you did not want, but I must tell you about a very strong feeling I have, as strong a feeling as I have ever had in my life, that your fate – I mean, the real purpose of your life – is here, in south Yemen. I am very, very serious about this…’

  Given the softly probing, but also hotly penetrating looks that accompanied these words, his meaning could not have been clearer to me. My destiny, he was informing me, lay with him, at his side, right there. Overwhelmed as I was by a tsunami of emotions, I did manage to make sensible allowances for what I worried might be an Arab talent for overstatement and simply suggested that we continue the conversation in private, in my room at the Sheraton, as soon as we’d dropped Aziz home.

  I was being careful not to use the sheikh’s name, having recently discovered that, at a certain early stage in a blossoming relationship, overuse of the would-be lover’s name has a cooling effect. After first repeating the name in order to assure the object of one’s desires that one isn’t likely to forget it, one then needs to work hard at creating the impression of having achieved a very high degree of familiarity by deliberately omitting it. Of course, my sister-in-law’s extraordinarily rude refusal to call me by my first name, ever – it amuses her to call me ‘Di’, or just ‘Princess’ - is not a useful example of this strategy.

  ‘With great pleasure!’ said the sheikh, bestowing on me one of his delicious smiles.

  Gone in the twinkling of an eye was all my unease and any trace of a hankering for whatever passed for bright lights in Sanaa. My third night in south Yemen looked set to be a memorable as well as a comfortable one. By the time Sheikh Ahmad slipped some woman dolefully wailing about her lost or erring habibi on the CD player, I was so relaxed I nodded off and didn’t come to again until we’d glided to a halt at the checkpoint on the edge of Aden. A couple of Salaam Aleikums to the pair of bulgy-cheeked teenagers in blue camouflage, and some small talk that involved them first recognising and then paying their respects to Sheikh Ahmad saved us all the bother of producing my passport, and we were on our way again.

  ‘Why do they know who you are?

  ‘I am known,’ was all he said with a shrug and a smile. ‘Aden is not a very large place.’ Fair enough. I supposed that given his height and extraordinary looks he would certainly stand out in a crowd, any crowd in Yemen, any crowd on earth perhaps.

  We sped on towards Crater which, at that hour of the early evening was a far livelier place than I’d given it credit for. Stalls piled with exotic fruits and vegetables or stacked with pots and pans, or shrouded in smoke and the smell of sizzling goat were lit up with fairy lights and fluorescent strips, just like an Indian bazaar. There was an unexpectedly charming hustle and bustle to and fro of boys with tin wheelbarrows, bicycles and derelict cars dating back as far as the British pull-out and the heyday of the Marxist experiment. It felt good to be away from mud castles and the endless empty Mars-scape.

  Poor Aziz had to be shaken awake when we reached his home on the far side of Crater and he complained that his nose was hurting. I thanked him profusely for rescuing me and expressed a hope that we’d meet again, handing him a card with my email address on it, telling him to look me up if he ever came to the UK.

  ‘But you are not leaving Aden? You can’t go yet, my friend, Madam Roza!’ At the time I thought that the guilt of betraying me to his father was still weighing heavy on his conscience, but again, with hindsight, I see that he had as compelling a reason to oppose my departure from south Yemen as the sheikh.

  ‘Well, I’m not quite sure…’ I looked to Sheikh Ahmad who took charge, saying something short and sharp in Arabic which succeeded in calming Aziz, and we all parted on the best of terms.

  It struck me that Aziz’s ravaged face and sweaty miasma would have created precisely the wrong first impression at a 3* hotel’s reception desk, let alone a 5* establishment’s. Already the car interior smelt better, just slightly of whatever delicious cologne the sheikh used and the evening sea air blowing in through our open windows. For the first time I was discerning a hint of glamour about Aden. One of the tankers in the bay appeared to be lit up, as if for a party, and the white globe lighting along the corniche looked like a string of baby moons. Among them were pairs of black balto-d shapes out taking the cooler evening air, some pushing prams, others with toddlers in tow. Old men squatted on the harbour wall, their gazes fixed on the horizon, children played and laughed.

  I was absorbing all these sights, but I was also covertly studying the man at my side, allowing the magic of physical chemistry some space to go to work. I admired the lazy way he steered the vehicle with one hand while the other, its slim wrist banded by an expensive watch, rested loosely in his lap. No one could have guessed that he’d camel-galloped his way through a hail of bullets, missed a whole night’s sleep and spent most of the day behind the wheel. The sleeves of his Egyptian cotton shirt had retained their knife-edge creases and his sober grey futa with its discreet zig-zag pattern was spotless. His marvellous face was neither caked with dust nor greasy with sweat and not a hair on his head was out of place. There was a good deal of the natural aristocrat about the man I was now longing to get to know much, much better.

  ‘Why are you Sheikh Ahmad, why not just Ahmad, like Aziz is just Aziz?’ I enquired of him suddenly.

  ‘I am sheikh because the p
eople of my tribe, the Wadhlis, have agreed that I must be.’

  ‘So you’re the boss of your tribe?’

  ‘Never the boss! Our Arab societies do not like bosses; we hardly have a word for that western idea because no one is happy to be a slave. I must be like a clever guide or a wise father and I can give advice if someone asks me. I make judgments in community legal affairs…’

  ‘So that’s how you knew how many guns to give in compensation for Mohammad’s death.’

  ‘Of course, and I can ask Sanaa for money for a road or a school or a clinic, and receive the usual silence for an answer…’

  For the first time I detected a bitterness in his voice. I might have questioned him further about his feelings towards the government, or at least asked him where his tribal land was located, but frankly, just at that moment I was more interested in discovering where he fitted into Yemen’s social pecking order. I was beginning to suspect that if all went according to my plan, I would shortly be making the beast with two backs with the Yemeni equivalent of Viscount Linley.

  ‘Did you inherit the job of sheikh from your father?’

  ‘Yes, but it is not an automatic thing like in your royal family,’ he explained. ‘I am the sixteenth son of my father, almost the youngest, but the elders of the tribe judged that I was the most capable of doing the job.’

  ‘Is it because you are a sheikh that you are recognised by even the boys at the checkpoint?’

  ‘Yes!’ he replied with a light laugh, as if the directness of my question were somehow indecent.

  He must be an aristocrat, I concluded. An English lord being quizzed by a foreign visitor as to why the village folk touched their caps at him whenever he passed would have responded with precisely the same blend of modesty and irritation. While I’ve tended to view the upper echelons of British society as my natural hunting ground when it comes to sexual partners, I’ve always discovered my prey to be too effete and inbred to linger there long. The siren call of the more wild or exotic always lures me away. But here, like a bespoke answer to a girl’s prayer, was a two-in-one: a wildly exotic aristocrat. I was beginning to feel as breathlessly excited as a teenage girl on the eve of her first date.

  The Aden Sheraton was some way out of town, and perched up high on a cliff with a sea view. If I hadn’t recently been threatened with a lengthy sojourn in a mud castle with a fly-infested privy, I would have noted the tiny tell-tale signs that business was not as good as it might be. I’d probably have seen that its marble front steps were chipped, the glass in its revolving door a little smudged and the surface of the wooden reception desk greasy. As it was, I was far too starry-eyed to notice anything of the sort and, even if I had, my exultant mood and the friendly service would have amply made up for any shortcomings. Sheikh Ahmad and I were enthusiastically welcomed by a receptionist who turned out to be a member of his tribe. A quick-fire exchange of friendly Arabic between the two men secured me a room with a balcony and a sea view, plus the key to a mini-bar.

  The room was as spacious as I could have hoped, its bed as emperor-sized and its en suite as generously provided with fluffy towels and perfumed unguents as anyone could have asked for.

  ‘You won’t mind helping yourself to something from the mini-bar and relaxing on the balcony while I have a quick shower, will you?’

  I think I sounded confidently in control, but I didn’t feel it. The sheikh didn’t seem to notice my attack of nerves however, let alone suffer one himself. Striding straight over to the French windows, he opened them and stepped out onto the balcony to sniff the sea air. ‘I’ll be your guest!’ he said with a dazzling grin, re-entering the room and making for the mini-bar, ‘I hope I can find a nice Schweppes bitter lemon in here. Now, don’t be too long in there!’

  Standing in the shower, I luxuriated in the sensation of my face, breasts, shoulders and buttocks being gently pounded by cool water, but my brain was still hard at work. Urgent practical questions required answers. Would I dress for dinner or emerge in my rose silk kimono with my hair in a turban to encourage thoughts of intimacy? Would we begin our chat about my destiny in south Yemen on the balcony and have to play the crucial transition from balcony to bed by ear? My palms were sweating and my breathing shallow by the time I was contemplating conundrums such as ‘What will he be wearing under his futa? Not, I hoped, a pair of those passion-killing pantaloons I had spotted dangling from a shop front in Crater. No, I imagined that a loose cotton boxer was the sheikh’s underpant of choice, in a fine Egyptian cotton, of course… To tell the truth, I was nauseous with nervousness. I’d have been more blasé about bedding a Chinaman or an Eskimo Why? I think I was already starting to value Sheikh Ahmad’s high opinion of me more than was comfortable.

  After what felt to me like no more than fifteen minutes, I finished my ablutions and emerged in my kimono with my still damp curls neatly combed and the lightest possible layering of make-up. I was just about to ask him to pour me some Dutch courage in the form of a gin and tonic when I noticed two changes to the room: there was a piece of paper on the bed and the French windows were open, the gauzy curtains waving gently in the evening breeze. I didn’t need to check the balcony. The note said, Sory! I haf to hury to a apontment now. Haf a gud rest. Pliz be wetting for me in the lobi at 8.30 tumoro morning – yor frend, Shek Ahmad.

  I was livid - livid enough to chip a little off the edge of the mirror over the dressing table by throwing that already dented tin of baked beans at it - but more with myself than with him. How could I have misread his signals so badly? Had I imperceptibly turned into one of those pitiful middle-aged women who deceive themselves into thinking that every male they encounter can barely keep his hands off them? God forbid! My cheeks flamed red at the thought of it. Wild horses would not stop me leaving Aden as soon as I possibly could. I could never look Sheikh Ahmad in the face again.

  As soon as I was dressed I headed straight down to the reception desk to insist that I be booked on the very next flight to Sanaa, if not that night then early the following morning.

  ‘Tonight? No Madame, there is no flight tonight,’ said the tribesman receptionist.

  ‘Tomorrow? As early as possible?’

  ‘No, no flight tomorrow until the evening.’

  ‘But how do you know? Check on the computer.’

  ‘Computer say no flight,’ he said, after tapping a couple of keys.

  ‘I need a taxi to Sanaa, now. How much will it cost?’

  ‘Maybe, 2,000 dollars,’ he said, without blinking.

  ‘How about a taxi to the Aden Hotel?’

  ‘No taxis, no gasoline. No room at the Aden Hotel, a conference’

  I now know what I lacked the presence of mind to work out at the time. Sheikh Ahmad must have given his fellow tribesman on the reception desk strict instructions to, by any and all means, fair or foul, prevent me from leaving the Sheraton.

  Chapter Eleven

  By 8.30 am I’d been ‘wetting’ in that hotel lobby for a good twenty minutes.

  A third atrocious night in Yemen! Bewildered and angry at finding myself under a form of house arrest, I’d retreated back upstairs to order room service, eat a club sandwich and fall asleep, aching with shame and thwarted desire. Waking with a kick-start of adrenalin again at around two, I’d begun to panic after asking myself the harmless question: what was I doing in another Sheraton hotel after the disgusting service I’d received at a Paris one once? And that question somehow begged another: what had I been doing consorting with people I knew next to nothing about, in a country I didn’t begin to understand? And from there, of course, it had been a short desperate leap off a cliff: what was I doing with my life in general, given that I was soon to embark on my fourth decade but had yet to find a role in life?

  I diagnosed an attack of loneliness, that being the likeliest explanation I could come up with to account for the astonishing fact that I was prepared to be sitting, ‘wetting’ in that lobby for Sheikh Ahmad as early as ten past eight. Perc
hed on a leather sofa arm, I caught myself glancing up from my Vogue every time I heard a car door slam outside in the hotel car-park, every time the revolving door squeaked, every time the phone rang at reception. I was all of a twitch, heart pumping, sick with something that might have been excitement if it hadn’t felt so like acute anxiety.

  Now, of course, I know better. What ailed me wasn’t loneliness, it was love. Somewhere in the interval between my existential panic at 2 am and waking again at 7.30am I’d fallen in love with Sheikh Ahmad. How could I be sure? Simple. I no longer had the remotest desire to leave south Yemen, indeed to be anywhere in the world where he was not. I no longer had feelings about anyone or anything but him, except just possibly Ralph and my suitcase. I was seriously entertaining the possibility that my destiny, the entire meaning of my life, might indeed reside here in south Yemen, as he’d said it did. And, to cap it all, I was overwhelmed by a need to incubate perhaps half a dozen of his babies, each of them gifted with their father’s smile – though, I must say, I didn’t want any of our girls inheriting that nose.

  It goes without saying that nothing like being in love had ever happened to me before. I’d had no idea how helpless it can make one feel, how one cannot trust one’s judgement or fully account for one’s behaviour, how accident-prone one can become, how unreliable, over-sensitive but relaxed and generous too! Suddenly, it seemed to me a great wonder that the world had been turning as long as it had, that for millennia people had managed to make and do and feel and think so many things with a phenomenon as maverick and all-consuming as true love to contend with.

  It strikes me now, with the benefit of hindsight, of course, that having no previous experience of the condition meant that it hit me harder. If only I’d had a dry run, one or two false starts as a teenager, a grand amour in my early twenties perhaps, I might have been better able to cope; I’d presumably have acquired some sort of immunity. People do say that where we go wrong with alcohol is in not introducing our children to it in small but daily doses, early enough.