A Foreign Affair

by Stella Russell

  I was well satisfied with the way I was managing to deliver a coherent message in carefully coded and non-incendiary terms, but how long could I keep it up? I didn’t want to mention the Queen directly in case I found myself mentioning her corgis’ living arrangements, but she did provide me with the inspiration for my next line: ‘You have had almost twenty anni horribili – about fifty actually, if you count your Marxist period - so it’s high time you started being able to look forward to some sunny uplands flowing with milk and honey – or at least enough water!’

  Now in serious danger of losing my plot I decided it was time to round everything off in a memorable crescendo and one could do a lot worse than look to Churchill for that. Not until I’d started on the only lines that came to mind ‘We shall fight them in the wadis, we shall fight them at the airports, we shall fight them in the qat fields and in the towns…’ did I realise my fatal mistake. I’d been so busy re-jigging the quote to suit local conditions that I’d failed to notice the lethal repetition of the word ‘fight’. Would Aziz notice before it was too late and have the miraculous presence of mind to replace it with ‘kiss’ or ‘greet’ or ‘hug’?

  No. Aziz had done his job only too well by faithfully translating my every word. Far below me, chaos was already breaking out again, the ocean of men growing choppier by the second, wails of pain and fury rising, guns firing here and there, the entire square soon banging away like popcorn in a pan. I stood there mesmerised, stunned by my effect, paralysed, before turning to go inside, where the scene had unaccountably and utterly changed. Aziz had melted away but Sheikh Ahmad was nowhere to be seen either. Instead, Munir, authoritatively stern rather than obsequious now and flanked by a brace of burly but sleek men armed with mobile phones and side arms, awaited me.

  ‘You will come with us now please, Madam Flashman,’ said the serpent Munir with a smirk, while one of the sleek heavies slipped a pair of US-made plastic handcuffs on my wrists.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Believe it or not, my arrest and bundling in the back of yet another air-conditioned LandCruiser - this time a tan model with blacked-out windows, a siren and a tangle of aerials on its roof - was an alarming but not altogether unwelcome development.

  I naturally wondered what had become of Sheikh Ahmad but was assured he was safely ensconced in the identical vehicle behind us. I sensed with relief that I was in official hands, clear of all that pop-gun madness, the maddened, baying crowd in the square I suspected might easily have smothered me in its frantic eagerness to rally to the cause I’d been representing.

  The driver swung the vehicle through the high metal gates and screeched down the narrow side alley at top speed, flattening a pair of children against the alley wall, knocking an old man’s walking stick out of his hand and forcing a couple of youths carrying what, with hindsight, was almost certainly a corpse in a blanket and a man with a bleeding stump for an arm, out of our path. The atrocious truth - that my headcloths and words between them had provoked both death and injury – was not, I’m ashamed to say, uppermost in my mind.

  Time to take stock. There were four of us in the car: the driver, myself and two of those sleek fellows with side arms and mobile phones at the ready. They weren’t wild-eyed, unpredictable and scrawny types, like the handsome boy-band brothers or most of the crowd we’d just left behind. More like Aziz to look at, they were the sort of men who spent their working lives parked in swivel chairs behind big desks, fiddling with paper clips and picking their teeth. Their soft stomachs spilled over the tops of their futas and their double chins over their shirt collars. I judged I could rest assured that those men were too idle and happy to do me any harm by instructing an underling to get busy with a cattle prod, let alone administer any punishment themselves.

  Confident of my immediate surroundings therefore, I began to worry and wonder about Sheikh Ahmad again. To take the edge off the tugging ache in my heart I forced myself to compile a mental list of his shortcomings: secretive, tyrannical, distrustful, polygamous, bourgeois need to keep up with the bin Joneses in the wadi, sentimental about his womenfolk… For all his faults, however, I couldn’t reasonably suspect him of betraying me to the authorities. The same could not be said of Aziz, against whom the evidence was stacking up too neatly to ignore. Firstly, and most incriminatingly, that toad Munir had been Aziz’s contact; secondly, where on earth had Aziz got to the instant the fighting erupted? He’d been at my side, translating, and then he’d evaporated; thirdly, and most incriminatingly in my view, he had been exceptionally, nervously sweaty all day. I strongly suspected him of being hand in glove with that beastly Bushara in the conception – via those head cloths – of a plan to bring about my downfall.

  Bushara’s motive I could easily understand: good, clean, honest jealousy. But I couldn’t think of a single good reason why Aziz should have set out to torpedo the cause he’d been working so hard for. Hadn’t he been demonstrating all the flair and devotion of a young Goebbels in its service? What or who could have persuaded him to betray the interests and trust of the man we both loved? But then what had persuaded him to betray me in the matter of his father’s car radiator? Staring out of the blackened window at what looked like a dead grey sea of sand, dolefully munching on Abu Walads and swigging from a plastic bottle of water the heavy beside me had had to manipulate for me on account of my handcuffs, I thought hard….

  Yes! Of course! A shaft of intuition informed me that Aziz’s debilitating fear of his father on account of the latter’s non-acceptance of his sexual nature must lie at the root of the whole matter. ‘The sins of the father shall be visited on the son’, who in turn will go and visit a few more sins on those around him and spoil everything for everyone else, I thought miserably. There was still so much I couldn’t fathom that eventually my thoughts strayed away to my lost wheelie case. In the normal way of things, nothing would have induced me to team a zebra print jersey tunic with baby-blue harem pants and scarlet ballet pumps, so the very idea of arriving somewhere and meeting new people in that no longer even fresh-smelling get-up, without even a l’Oreal wet-wipe to freshen my T zone, was making my flesh crawl.

  ‘Excuse me, could either of you please tell me where we’re going?’ I ventured.

  ‘Sanaa,’ said the heavy in front, shortly.

  ‘Oh, good!’ I dared say I’d be able to find something to wear there, although the range of cosmetics on offer might disappoint. The more I thought about it, the more I missed my treasure chest.

  ‘You like the capital city of Yemen?’ said the heavy beside me, sounding a little surprised, ‘but you prefer Aden?’

  ‘Oh no, Aden’s a bit overrated, if you ask me. We British have never been any good at beautifying places; have you ever seen London’s South Bank complex? I’ve actually never been to Sanaa. Is it very beautiful?’

  ‘Madam, “beautiful” is too small a word to describe my birthplace. We say that Sanaa is the oldest living city in the world, that if you have not seen its typically Yemeni ancient brick skyscrapers with their typically Yemeni white decorations and their colourful qamariyya half-moon windows that light up at night like a magic jewellery box in a princess’ boudoir and are so typically Yemeni…’

  ‘Stop! Let me guess. You’re a bit of a poet and you’ve worked for the Ministry of Tourism?’

  ‘Madam, how intelligent you are! I was employed in that ministry for three years on account of my typically Yemeni poetic soul and my knowledge of English, but there was no work for me after 2001 because no tourists wanted to come to Yemen thanks to that dog, that traitor to his ancestral homeland, Osama bin Laden. Now I am employed in the defence of the integrity of our glorious Republic of Yemen.’

  ‘You’re a “typically Yemeni” secret policeman in other words.’

  His obvious enjoyment of my little tease was encouraging. When his colleague in front tuned the car radio to some grimly wailing habibi station, I seized the opportunity to discover more about my situation and prospects.
<
br />   ‘How long will it take to get to Sanaa?’

  ‘Many hours. Maybe seven, maybe eight, but we will stop in Marib to refresh ourselves. These days, in this area, it is not safe to travel all night.’

  ‘Bad roads? Robbers?’

  ‘No, no madam. Much more dangerous! I’m sure you are aware that your allies and ours, the Americans, are flying robot spy planes that can fire missiles precisely at a single moving vehicle, searching for the people you call “terrorists”. This area we are passing through now is where many people who admire Osama bin Laden are able to hide because these desert tribes do not like to break the tribal law of hospitality to strangers, so the spy planes are especially active here. Our most up to date information is that there will be some drone activity tonight; al-Qaeda terrorists, some bin Husi tribesmen, members of a clan called the al-Amra, are said to be in the region to confer and coordinate their plots with associates from the desert tribes here. We would not like the Americans to mistake our vehicle for one of theirs and lock onto it and target it with one of their Hellfire missiles…’

  ‘I should think not!’ Although I confess to a secret thrill at the idea of the al-Amra brothers receiving their just deserts from on high courtesy of an American drone, I was suddenly seriously alarmed for my physical safety for the fourth time since I’d arrived in Yemen. ‘I wonder how you can allow the Americans to violate your sovereign air-space like this!’

  ‘Your outrage is shared by millions of Yemenis, Madam,’ he sighed comfortably, ‘People say that if we have terrorists then Americans are terrorists too because they break their own law of always giving everyone a fair trial. But my belief is that our president has no choice except to cooperate with them; the Americans can pay him a lot of money for their terrorism in our land, and we are a very poor country. Ah, yes! We are now passing the place where six years ago an American drone targeted a travelling LandCruiser with a Hellfire missile and turned one of your “terrorists” and four of his fellow passengers into ashes. If you were a tourist and we had time to stop I could show you the broken wing mirror and pieces of tyre rubber that have been left in this place as a memorial.’

  ‘Really? Who says I can’t be a tourist? What’s the big hurry?’ I was hoping that if our vehicle paused, the one Sheikh Ahmad was travelling in would be obliged to do the same.

  ‘My boss, the head of all Yemen’s national security services himself has requested that you are handcuffed and waiting for him in his office first thing tomorrow morning.’

  Again, this may sound strange but I confess that this news did not much alarm me. Instead, I was relieved to learn that my case – whatever it might be – was being treated with urgency and seriousness. Never having met a spy chief before, I couldn’t help relishing the idea of meeting Yemen’s. Perhaps fortunately, I had quite forgotten Sheikh Ahmad telling me that none other than Aziz’s father headed up Yemen’s security services. I remained for the time being blissfully blind to the fact that I was caught in the claws of one of the biggest beasts in Yemen’s political jungle, a person already strongly predisposed against me. When we arrived at the hotel in Marib therefore, my new friend was able to banish my blues simply by opening the LandCruiser’s back door and handing me a pink Puma sports bag filled with most of my favourite personal effects. A momentary panic on discovering that the vehicle Sheikh Ahmad was travelling in had not stopped behind us, faded to cross disappointment when it was explained to me that, being a man and a native Yemeni, he could be billeted more cheaply in an establishment on the other side of town.

  In the hotel’s generously proportioned and mercifully empty marble Ladies I discovered that the Puma bag contained not only my make-up and full complement of unguents and underwear but also a couple of fresh outfits – the sun-yellow kaftan with its white silk embroidery and the Chinese blue shalwar kameez I particularly liked – as well as a few scarves, neatly wrapped in tissue paper. Whoever had appointed themselves my lady’s maid cum valet had even thought to throw in my old Vogue, my strappy Jimmy Choos and some workaday functional flats that would go with anything. To cap it all, safely swaddled by my pink silk kimono was a half bottle of Stolichnaya. Long before I found the accompanying note at the bottom of the bag, I’d detected the hand of Aziz. Who else came anywhere close to understanding my woman’s heart well enough to fix me such a personal survival kit? His less than enthusiastic endorsement of my outfit that morning now struck me as a sure proof that he’d known perfectly well I’d be not only needing but badly wanting a change of clothes.

  His note, on pale pink paper, was short and fairly to the point:

  Madame Roza,

  I hope that one day you will be able to forgive me for what I have done and remember how carefully, with how much love, I have packed this bag for your comfort.

  Thanks to my monstrous father my choice has been a terrible one: between betraying our friendship, my love for Sheikh Ahmad and the cause we all share OR sacrificing my own life and the honour of my children by being put to death for the crime of homosexuality.

  You should know that you will meet my father in Sanaa tomorrow. You should also know that he will punish you for the loss of the LandCruiser, probably by keeping you in jail, but only until you can repay him the cost of the car, because your kidnappers never returned the vehicle. If you want to blame someone for this unheard-of breakdown in tribal law, please consider the part that you have played. I understand that your withholding of the gift of a can of beans and a tin of mustard to the old sultan, is at the root of the matter.

  Good luck my dear friend! Inshallah we will meet again in this world, or the next!

  Aziz

  I could feel nothing but pity for my first Yemeni friend who, I imagined, might well – without any prompting from his monstrous parent - go and hang himself from Aden’s Big Ben by his own testicles. There in that ladies lavatory in Marib I turned to the only friend to hand – Stolichnaya.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Handcuffed and in the ‘deepest, darkest do-do’ I’d ever known but also in a pleasantly sozzled state, I couldn’t help but be delighted by everything about ‘the land of the barbarians’. On that pearly, early morning the drive into Sanaa was thrilling.

  I grant you, the Shangri-la wadis of Hadramaut had had much to recommend them but, Sheikh Ahmad aside, nothing else about southern Yemen had impressed me much – not Aden, not the environs or the inhabitants of the bin Husis’ mud castle, not Silent Valley nor the Sheraton. By comparison, the north’s attractions were obvious and vastly superior. How can I convey the qualitative gulf separating Yemen’s twin capitals? If Aden’s a Ford Fiesta, Sanaa’s a horse and carriage; if Aden’s a used Kleenex, Sanaa’s a fine lawn hankie; if Aden’s an IKEA flat-pack, Sanaa’s a Regency secretaire. The coarsening effects of over a century of British rule followed by twenty-five years of Marxism had left the southern city as badly scarred as a victim of adolescent acne while Sanaa’s complexion was as unblemished as a pretty girl’s.

  Of course Sanaa was more backward than Aden but what did that matter when, high up there on its clear-aired plateau, it was so extraordinarily picturesque? At that hour of the morning I was being treated to the unearthly moaning of a hundred muezzins from the chubby stubs of a hundred homely minarets, echoing around the city and ricocheting off the ring of blue-pink mountains all around. I was admiring ancient brick high-rise after ancient brick high-rise, clustered close as trees in a forest or skyscrapers in Manhattan. I was glimpsing hidden gardens behind high brick walls. I was noticing posses of small boys with shaven heads in pea-green school uniforms dawdling towards their schools, and hundreds of white-veiled school girls in pine-green baltos making for theirs. There were old women veiled in tie-dyed silk veils and cloaks like patterned Indian tablecloths, rapping at their neighbours’ wooden doors, shrieking greetings, receiving answering shouts. Along narrow city streets we inched past men on donkeys, a man leading a camel by a rope, youths on motorbikes with caged chickens as passengers, boys t
rundling wheelbarrows laden with onions or potatoes, or barrows stacked high with fresh flatbreads or outsize sesame pretzels, and boiled potatoes. I spotted grandfathers returning from the mosque, or from the Turkish baths with striped towels slung over their shoulders.

  Let me say something else about Sanaa. The northern Yemeni male must be the Italian of that region. Neatly put together, elegantly proportioned, vivid and lively; all of these things, but also blessed with the boldest sense of style. Over either an elegantly patterned futa or one of those elongated shirts he often sports a wide gold brocade belt to which he has affixed a broad curved dagger – a jambiyah – sheathed in an Islam green scabbard. This vouch of his virility he teams with a frequently ill-fitting but always toning tweed jacket which parades its brand on a label attached to one of its sleeves. As I’ve already noted with reference to my bin Husi kidnappers, the Yemeni male easily circumvents the misery of mid-life hair loss by means of the ubiquitous headcloth. These cotton squares, of the same design as the black and white checked keffiyehs worn by Palestinians or the red and white ones the Gulf Arabs favour, are as astonishingly coloured in Sanaa as Italian gelati in their twin cornettos; shades of strawberry and pistachio, of coffee and vanilla, of blueberry and liquorice and lemon and coconut…