2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

by Paul Torday

  When I had finished I inspected the clothes laid out for me on the bed. There were evening clothes, shirt and black tie, clean underwear, socks, which all fitted as if they had been made for me. On the rug beside the bed was a pair of black loafers, gleaming with polish. These also fitted like gloves. Somehow I was not surprised. I left my room and, as I came to the landing at the head of the stairs, I saw Harriet coming towards me from the other wing of the house. She was wearing a stunning black evening dress, with a gold belt around her waist. I have to admit she looked surprisingly glamorous. She saw me, smiled and said, ‘I’m so sorry you have been kept waiting. His Excellency has many duties and unfortunately had to take time to deal with them this afternoon.’

  I bent my head in acknowledgement. I no longer minded having been kept waiting all day. I felt curious and expectant, as if some important secret was about to be revealed to me. I was looking forward to meeting Harriet’s client.

  We went downstairs together. Harriet was wearing a perfume which, although faint, reminded me of the smell in a garden on a summer evening after rain. I found myself inhaling it as I walked down the stairs behind her. Mary says expensive perfumes are a form of feminine exploitation and no substitute for the frequent application of soap and water. We entered the library, and there standing in the centre of the rug in front of a log fire was the small man in white robes I had seen on the road earlier that afternoon. Now I noticed that the robes, and his headdress, were edged with gold. His face was dark-skinned with a grey moustache and beard beneath a hook nose and small, deep-set brown eyes. He had an air of stillness about him and stood very upright so that one forgot his height.

  ‘Welcome to my house, Dr Alfred,’ he said, extending a hand.

  I went forward to take it and as I did so Harriet said, ‘May I present His Excellency Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi bani Tihama.’

  I shook hands and we all stood and looked at each other, and then Malcolm arrived with a silver tray with a tumbler of whisky and soda and two flutes of champagne. Sheikh Muhammad took the whisky, and Malcolm asked me if I wanted something else, or would the champagne be acceptable?

  ‘You are surprised,’ said Sheikh Muhammad, in his clearly very good English, ‘that I drink alcohol. In my homes in the Yemen, of course, I never do; there is none in any of my houses. But when I discovered that whisky was called the water of life, I felt that God would understand and forgive me a little, if I drank it in Scotland from time to time.’ His voice was deep and sonorous, with few of the guttural sounds that Arabic speakers sometimes have.

  He sipped his tumbler of whisky and made an appreciative, soundless ‘Ah’ shape with his lips. I took a sip of my champagne. It was cold, and delicious.

  ‘You are drinking the Krug ‘85,’ said Sheikh Muhammad. ‘I do not drink it myself, but friends are kind enough to say it is palatable.’ He motioned us to sit down, and Harriet and I settled side by side on one large sofa, whilst he sat opposite us. Then we began to speak about the salmon project. Although it is late now, I remember very clearly the sheikh’s words. He is a man, I think, whose presence and words would not be quickly forgotten by anyone who met him.

  ‘Dr Alfred,’ said Sheikh Muhammad, ‘I greatly appreciate the work you have done so far on the proposal to bring salmon to the Yemen. I read your proposal and I thought it most excellent. But of course you think we are all quite mad.’

  I muttered something along the lines of ‘Not at all’ but he waved away my denials.

  ‘Of course you do. You are a scientist—a very good one, I am informed. A leading light in the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence. Now come some Arab people who say they want salmon! In the Yemen! To fish! Of course you think we are quite mad.’

  He sipped at his glass and then looked around. Malcolm appeared from nowhere with small tables for us to put our drinks on, then faded away to some corner of the room out of the light.

  ‘I have observed,’ said His Excellency, ‘over the many years I have been coming to this country, a curious thing. Will you forgive me if I speak frankly about your countrymen?’ I nodded, but he had taken my forgiveness for granted because he continued almost without a pause. ‘In this country you still have a great deal of snobbery. In our country we too have many different ranks but everyone accepts these ranks without question. I am a sheikh from the sayyid class. My advisers are cadis. My estate workers at home are nukkas or even akhdam. But each knows his place and each talks to the other without restraint or fear of ridicule. Here in the UK this is not the case. No one seems to know what class they belong to. Whatever class they do belong to, they are ashamed of and want to appear as if they are from another. Your sayyid class put on the speech of the nukkas in order not to stand out, and speak like taxi drivers and not lords because they are afraid of being thought ill of. The reverse is also true. A butcher, a jazr, might make a great deal of money and adopt the speech of the sayyid class. He too is uneasy in case he pronounces a word wrongly or wears the wrong sort of tie. Your country is ridden with class prejudices. Is this not the case, Harriet Chetwode-Talbot?’

  Harriet smiled and inclined her head ambiguously, but did not say anything.

  ‘But I have for a long time observed,’ said His Excellency, ‘that there is one group of people who in their passion for their sport ignore all things to do with class. The sayyid and the nukka are united and stand together on the riverbank and speak freely and without restraint or self-consciousness. Of course I speak about salmon fishermen, indeed fishermen of all descriptions. High and low, rich and poor, they forget themselves in the contemplation of one of God’s mysteries: the salmon, and why sometimes it will take the fly in its mouth and sometimes it will not.’

  He sipped at his whisky again, and Malcolm was there at his elbow with a decanter and a soda siphon.

  ‘My own people have their faults, too,’ continued the sheikh. ‘We are an impatient people, and sometimes violent, very quick to pick up a gun to finish an argument. Although our society is in many ways an ancient and well-organised one, we are first members of our tribe, and only second members of our nation. After all, my family and my tribe have lived in the mountains of Heraz for over one thousand years, but my country has existed for only a few decades. There are still many divisions in our country, which not long ago was two countries and much longer ago was many kingdoms: Saba, Najran, Qa’taban, Hadramawt. I have noticed in this country that although there is violence and aggression—your football hooligans, for instance—there is one group for whom patience and tolerance are the only virtues. I speak of salmon fishermen in particular, and all fishermen in general.’

  Sheikh Muhammad’s voice was gentle and quiet, but he had the gift of compelling attention and respect with every word he spoke. I said nothing, not daring or wishing to break his chain of thought.

  ‘I have formed the view that the creation of a salmon river in the Yemen would in every way be a blessing for my country, and my countrymen. It would be a miracle of God if it happened. I know it. My money and your science, Dr Alfred, would not alone achieve any such thing. But just as Moses found water in the wilderness, if God wills it, we will enable salmon to swim in the waters of Wadi Aleyn. If God wills it, the summer rains will fill the wadis, and we will pump out water from the aquifer, and the salmon will run the river. And then my countrymen—sayyid, nuqqa and jazr and all classes and manner of men—will stand on the banks side by side and fish for the salmon. And their natures, too, will be changed. They will feel the enchantment of this silver fish, and the overwhelming love that you know, and I know, Dr Alfred, for the fish and the river it swims in. And then when talk turns to what this tribe said or that tribe did, or what to do with the Israelis or the Americans, and voices grow heated, then someone will say, ‘Let us arise, and go fishing.’’

  He sipped the last of his whisky and said, ‘Malcolm, have they dinner for us?’

  I am tired now and cannot remember much of the rest of the evening, but I remember those words of his
exactly as he spoke them. I know that he is, as he says he is, mad, but it is a gentle even a noble form of madness, and one that cannot be resisted. What we ate and drank I cannot say, except that it was all delicious. I think we had lamb. The sheikh drank no wine with dinner, only water, and he ate little and spoke only enough to encourage Harriet and me to talk of this and that.

  One other thing he said, as we drank small cups of cardamom-flavoured coffee in the library after dinner: ‘If this project succeeds, then it will be God who has succeeded and God who should be thanked. If it fails, then you, Dr Alfred, can say that a poor, foolish, deluded man insisted that you tried to achieve the impossible. And no doubt some good will come from the work you do whatever happens. Some new thing will be known that was not known before, and you will be rightly praised for it and all else will be forgotten. And if it fails, the fault will be mine, because my heart was not pure enough, my vision not clear enough, my strength not great enough. But all things can be done if God wills it so.’

  He put his cup of coffee down and smiled at us, preparing to bid us goodnight. Something made me say, ‘But nothing bad will happen, Your Excellency, if this project does not work.’

  ‘I have spoken to many scholars and imams about my dream of salmon fishing. I have told them how I believe this magical creature brings us all nearer to God—by the mystery of its life, by the long journey that it makes through the oceans until it finds the waters of its home streams, which is so like our own journey towards God. And they have told me that a Muslim may fish as well as a Jew or a Christian, without any offence to God. But that is not what the jihadis will say. They will say I am bringing the ways of the crusader to the land of Islam. If I fail, then at best they will ridicule me. If they think I might succeed, then they will certainly try to kill me.’

  It is dark night now and the heavy curtains are drawn in my bedroom but I can still hear the owls shrieking in the woods. In a minute I will put down my pen but I must write these words: I feel at peace.

  §

  19 July

  David Sugden called me into his office this morning. He waved me to a chair. He was beaming. ‘You seem to have worked your charms on your Arab friend.’

  ‘Sheikh Muhammad, I suppose you mean?’

  He nodded and pushed a thick sheaf of documents across the desk. ‘This arrived from Freshwaters this morning. They are the sheikh’s legal advisers. Very expensive I should think they are, too.’ He tapped the documents with his forefinger. ‘Five million quid. Right there.’

  It turned out that Freshwaters had sent us a draft contract to provide a legal and commercial framework for the Yemen salmon project.

  ‘It’s all there,’ said David. ‘Our legal people are looking at it, but it has everything we would want. No-fault clauses if it doesn’t work, payment no matter what happens, bank guarantees to support it, milestone payments to keep the cash rolling in. It is,’ he said, rolling his eyes at the ceiling, ‘manna from heaven. If I can’t get some of that five million into some of my underfunded budgets, then I’ve lost my touch.’

  I said that I hoped we were not going to take Sheikh Muhammad’s money under false pretences.

  This must have sounded rather prim because David flapped his hands at me and replied, ‘Don’t be such an old woman, Alfred. You know what I mean. I meant every department in NCFE can charge time to this project for one reason or another. He’ll get his salmon river in the desert—or not, as the case may be. We get five million pounds whatever happens. Now, let’s talk about details. I’m going to head the project and take responsibility for communications with other departments…’

  ‘The Foreign Office, you mean?’

  David tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger in a stagey gesture. ‘The prime minister’s office has become involved now; Peter Maxwell is keeping himself in touch with this. But you should forget I said that. In fact I must ask you to be very discreet about all this. The sheikh, the Foreign Office and indeed everyone wants to keep the lid on this project until we are certain we know what will come out of it. So, please remember, keep your mouth buttoned up.’ He laughed to show he had intended a joke. ‘Now then. Where were we? Yes. You are to be in charge of operations: I mean the research team and then project management. You will report to me.’

  He turned his computer screen round so I could see it and led me through a project plan. What a bureaucrat! He has organised it so that I will do all the work and he will take all the credit (but not the blame, if there is to be blame). He really doesn’t know what this is all about. He has no conception of how difficult it is going to be, how much scientific research has to be done, the ecosystem models that will have to be built, the environmental impact assessments, modelling the dissolved oxygen levels in Yemeni watercourses, bacterial sampling. My head feels as if it might explode when I think about the complexity of it all. And here is this idiot talking about ‘milestones’ and ‘deliverables’ and ‘resource allocation’.

  §

  23 July

  Mary came back from Geneva this afternoon. She’s in the spare room asleep. Home for two hours, and we had a row.

  First of all, when I tried to tell her about Sheikh Muhammad and his wonderful vision of salmon running the waters of the Yemeni wadis, she dismissed it by saying, ‘The old boy must be insane. Are you sure you want to be associated with something quite as bonkers as that?’

  ‘But you told me to,’ I said.

  ‘I told you not to throw over your job in a tantrum; I didn’t tell you to attach your name to something that sounds like professional suicide. Still, I expect you know your own business best.’

  ‘I hope I do,’ I said stiffly.

  There was a long silence and then she said she was sorry, it had been a long day.

  Mary often says it has been a long day. She seems to think she is the only one who gets stuck late in the office, who has to sit through tedious meetings resisting the urge to drum one’s fingers or doodle all over the agenda. We all get tired. I had a bubble of excitement inside me, a picture captured within that bubble of the sheikh in his white robes speaking of visions of shining salmon rivers in his quiet voice, of the black waters of his own river in the Highlands, of the sea trout that lurked there. I wanted to talk about the private jet that flew us there, of the grave and immaculate butler Malcolm, of the bubbles in the champagne. Somewhere in this picture, seen through the wrong end of a telescope, was Harriet, beautiful in her evening gown, head on one side, leaning forward to listen to the sheikh saying something. I wanted to share all this with Mary. I wanted to share my scientific excitement with her, the thought that with Sheikh Muhammad’s money I could do something different, something that had never been done before; change the rules of the game.

  But she wasn’t interested, and the picture in the bubble darkened and went out, and I buried it deep within me. It’s the first time I haven’t shared something important with her. She just didn’t want to know.

  Later over supper I found out what was on her mind.

  ‘They want me to move to Geneva,’ she said. She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but concentrated on getting her pasta round her fork.

  ‘Move?’ I asked, putting my own fork down.

  ‘Move, yes, as in relocate.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the man who went absent on sick leave won’t be coming back.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s dead.’

  I considered this; it seemed conclusive. So I asked, ‘For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know. At least for six months.’

  ‘Well, obviously that is impossible,’ I said, and then wished I hadn’t.

  ‘Why is it impossible?’ asked Mary quietly, fixing me with a level stare and sitting upright.

  ‘Well, I mean, how can you? We’ve got a life here. My work is here. Our home is here.’

  Mary was silent and ate some more pasta. Finally she said, ‘I’ve sort of told them I’ll do it.�
�

  Well of course, after that I spoke my mind, and then Mary spoke hers. Now she is asleep in the spare room and I am sitting here writing my diary, and in a minute I will put down my pen and lie on our bed with my eyes open, grinding my teeth.

  5

  Extracts from the diary of Dr Jones: marital issues may have clouded his judgement

  §

  28 July

  Today, like the last few days, has been spent mostly in meetings with Fitzharris & Price, either with me going to Harriet’s offices or she visiting NCFE. There were cost estimates to prepare, project plans to be drawn up, equipment suppliers to be located. At first we held our meetings in Smith Square, but David Sugden had a way of suddenly appearing in my office and asking to look at what we were doing. This took up a great deal of time, especially as he liked to explain to us how to do things which we had almost always already done.

  He has a way of looking at Harriet that I do not quite like. This evening he said to me, after she had gone back to her own offices, ‘Bright girl, that, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, she seems very able.’

  ‘I suppose she’s a chartered surveyor by profession. She must find all this is taking her a bit out of her depth?’

  I don’t know why I resented his remark. Perhaps it was the tone, not the words. ‘I think she is coping. She has a well-ordered mind.’

  ‘Attractive girl, too,’ he suggested.

  When I did not reply he rubbed his hands together for a moment, looking at the lino floor of the corridor where he had stopped me on my way from the meeting room to my office. Then he asked if Harriet was married. As a matter of fact, I knew the answer to that one and told David that she was engaged. He said nothing further and returned to his office.