A Foreign Affair (15 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Aziz and I lost no time in forming a mutual appreciation society. Arm in arm on the back-seat of the LandCruiser, high as kites after our performances, we couldn’t stop congratulating one another.

‘But that was real genius, Madame Roza, your mention of the queen’s breasts all beautifully carved...’

‘Thank you, thank you - but I’ll tell you what genius is, Aziz – the baby food slogans!’

‘And you looked so royal! Everybody fell in love with you...’

‘Really? How nice!’ I said, hoping that Sheikh Ahmad was listening, ‘But Aziz, head-cloths instead of T shirts with my face on - such a brilliant idea! You’re totally wasted here. Have you ever heard of Saatchi & Saatchi?’...

It took us a while to notice that Sheikh Ahmad, sitting up in front next to the driver he’d borrowed from our host, wasn’t contributing to the conversation. I guessed we must have forced him to confront the sad truth that his talents were of a less visibly starry sort than ours. The gift of creative thinking for the purpose of public relations is not given to everyone, and nor is the power to move and energise crowds with a few well-chosen words. He was doubtless feeling that Aziz and I had rather stolen his thunder. Poor Sheikh Ahmad! After all, it was almost all his money that would be funding many of Aziz’s bells and whistles. I longed to be alone with him, to plant a forest of butterfly kisses on the crown of his head.

We all know that power is the most powerful aphrodisiac there is and, after an uncommonly disempowering sort of a day with the sheikh’s wives, I think I could be forgiven for having drunk my fill of power that night. I thoroughly dislike the word ‘horny’, but there was no other word for the way I was feeling by the time we arrived back at the Brighton Pavilion There must be some way I could inveigle Sheikh Ahmad into accompanying me to my guestroom, I told myself.

The sight of Jammy waiting for us just inside the front door reminded me that she’d been promised a rare ‘visit’ from the sheikh that night. I didn’t snarl my ‘good night’ at her as I swept straight past her on my way to my, but she could have been forgiven for thinking I had. So, you can imagine my surprise, when I heard her little slippered feet pattering along behind me as I sped down the long corridor, and an urgently whispered ‘Roza!’ as she caught up with me.

‘What is it Jammy? I’m very, very tired.’

‘I have a wonderful plan, Roza. Please listen.’ Her eyes behind her glasses were ablaze with excitement and hope, and her hand was clutching my forearm.

‘A plan? What do you need a plan for tonight?’ I was in a foul mood suddenly and no wonder in view of those stats; my clear advantage of 19 points, to Jammy’s paltry 13.5.

‘Roza, will you listen please?’ she asked, pushing me ahead of her into my room ‘ – there’s no time to lose. Listen!’

‘If you haven’t grabbed my attention in fifteen seconds, Jammy’ I said, squinting at my watch, ‘I’ll ask you to leave. Clear?’

‘OK. Roza, we both know that Bushara has too much influence over Sheikh Ahmad, don’t we? We would both like very much to see that change -’

‘I’m listening...’

‘My proposal is that we break the strong spell she has cast on him by introducing something new, something appetisingly exotic, into his sexual diet, something that will make her seem stale and uninteresting.’

‘I’m not following you now, Jammy – stick to the point will you? – what have you got in mind? Hand-cuffs, butt-plugs? Something like that? What makes you think my wheelie case is stuffed with that sort of gear....’

‘No, Roza! I mean you!’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you! I have seen how you look at him, as hot as a curry. Your adventurous western ways will be wonderful for him. Now, as I told you, Sheikh Ahmad will visit my apartment tonight; you will undress now; you will wear a
balto
; you will follow me as fast as possible to my apartment; you will swiftly remove your
balto
and you will get into my bed; all the lights in the bedroom will be extinguished..’

‘Will I? Will they?’

‘Yes, yes! - I will be receiving the sheikh first in my main room; we will chat for a few minutes; I will make myself sexually attractive to him and caress him a little to prepare him; I will excuse myself to go to the bathroom, telling him that he must come and find me in bed, according to our usual habit; I will go to my son’s room however; instead of me in my bed, he will find you!’

‘Brilliant, Jammy!’ I said, but I was thinking truly, the enemy of Jammy’s enemy was Jammy’s friend, to the extent that she would pimp her own husband to get one over on Bushara. Still, why should I look a gift-horse in the mouth? ‘What a clever idea, Jammy,’ I said, ‘but I can see just one little snag: won’t he turn on a light when he comes into the bedroom?’

‘No, no, he prefers to have intercourse in the dark – he finds it more romantic and mysterious, he says’, she answered promptly, leaving me wondering if she’d ever compared notes with Iman and Bushara on this subject. ‘But, just to be on the safe side,’ she went on,’ I’ll remove all the bulbs from the light sockets in there.’

‘All right! Let’s go for it’ I agreed. Quickly releasing the wishbone lever by the bed, I dashed into the
ensuite
to undress.

It must have been after midnight when we raced through those vaulting empty chambers, along dark corridors towards the pavilion’s women’s quarters together. ‘Hurry Roza’ hissed Jammy, ‘I think I can hear him way behind us, he is coming! Hurry!’ It struck me that Jammy was commendably fleet of foot for someone of her weight, who spent so much of her life holed up indoors.

‘How do you keep so fit?’ I panted

‘The sheikh gave each of us an exercise bike for
Eid
al
-
Fitr
last year – we all love them!’ she replied, ‘
Yella
Roza – we’re nearly there!’

I might have felt uneasy about our plot, given that Jammy’s three teenage daughters and seven-year-old son were occupying bedrooms next door to the one in which I was planning to hoodwink Sheikh Ahmad into some noisy high-jinks. But there simply wasn’t time for scruples of that sort. As soon as I’d shimmied out of my
balto
and slipped between what felt, kinkily, like velvet sheets, Jammy went straight to work on removing the light bulbs.

Seconds later, a token knock on the apartment door heralded Sheikh Ahmad’s advent. A few moments too soon, because Jammy was still squeezing into what she insisted was a vital bit of kit for the preliminary seduction phase of our operation: a tight bodice in magenta satin trimmed with yellow nylon lace. ‘
Yella
Roza!’ she commanded, bending low over the bed, ‘- pull this tighter for me, please, so that my breast does not fall out – the sheikh is always saying “less is more”!’

And then she was gone and that first phase set in motion. The greeting and chatting and seduction was proceeding without a hitch by the sound of it but I, dog-tired by now, was in serious danger of dropping off so I was hugely relieved when at last the door opened and my nostrils were assaulted by that delightfully familiar scent. But that was all the delight I got that night because the entire operation had to be brutally aborted in the very earliest stages of its crucial second phase.

On sliding into bed naked beside me and reaching for me with a happy sigh, his hands first encountered my breasts which, being of the same proportions as Jammy’s, easily passed muster. What suddenly scotched our plot, what had him leaping out of bed was his shattering discovery that on stretching his body the length of mine in order to align our pelvises prior to a conventional sexual docking, his shins encountered ones which were sadly not as smooth as those of any of his wives’ would have been, simply because four sweltering days and nights had passed since they’d last seen my
Episilk
. He bellowed something in Arabic along the lines of, ‘Aziz, you filthy shirt-lifter, how many times do I have to tell you that I do not care for you in that way?’

By the time Jammy had heard all the commotion and decided it wasn’t some lively foreplay but an emergency, Sheikh Ahmad had slung his
futa
around him again and was standing above me aiming his mobile’s tiny torch beam at my head, like a pistol.

‘Rozzer!’

‘Your lucky night!’ I said, turning on my side with the sheet hiding my breasts, propping up my head on one elbow and treating him to a Marilyn Monroe wink. It was hard to know how to play it. I was doing my best to make light of the unfortunate episode, heroically hiding my agony of sexual frustration. But the sheikh was in no mood for jokes.

‘Rozzer, please leave this instant! We will talk in the morning.’

Cowed as I was by the cold anger in his voice, I bravely played my last card. Casting aside that kinky velvet sheet, I revealed myself in all my naked glory to him, trusting that he’d soon alter his tone and change his mind at the sight of so much beautiful white flesh. But he turned towards his face away and it was Jammy who reacted:

‘Roza,
habibti
– darling, in our culture it is dirty to keep hair there,’ she said, pointing pityingly at my lush pubic triangle, ‘Tomorrow we will show you how to remove it all with sugar and lemon. Iman is the expert, and it won’t hurt at all!’

I think Jammy was trying as hard as I was to normalise the situation with some girly chit-chat, but to no avail. Sheikh Ahmad was shaking with fury: ‘Cover yourself this instant, Rozzer!’ he commanded, ‘I have already asked you to return to your own room, and you,’ he said, turning on a tearful Jammy, ‘where have you mislaid your Arab pride?’

With hindsight now, of course, I can see that I was seizing an opportunity, making the most of any chance that came my way, but my all-consuming passion for Sheikh Ahmad and perhaps a drop too much
Stolichnaya
, had blinded me to the obvious fact that the scheme to banjax Bushara was an utterly hare-brained one that would back-fire badly on both of us.

Chapter Twenty

Wince! And again, and again!

The events of the previous night had played havoc with my bowels. I’d passed the small hours of the morning operating that wish-bone lever on my bedside table, opening and closing the door to the
en
suite
, trying but failing to forget Sheikh Ahmad’s look of cold disdain at the sight of my naked body in the light of his mobile torch beam.

The most sensible thing to have done would have been to pop an Imodium, make my adieux and head straight for Sanaa and the airport, but such a course of action – the eminently rational reaction of a person disappointed in lust - was the very last one I felt like taking because I wasn’t in lust. I was in love, and in the painful process of making two discoveries about that state of mind and heart; first, that a person doesn’t fall out of love nearly as easily as they fall into it, and second, that a
sine
qua
non
of the condition is an insatiable craving for the loved one’s respect and admiration, not his shock and awe, let alone his fear and loathing.

This last lesson was what made it imperative for me to, in the slightly re-jigged words of the immortal Shirley Temple, ‘pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again!’ I’d stop trying to deploy my base physical charms to seduce Sheikh Ahmad. In future, my campaign to make him fall in love with me and repudiate his present marital arrangements would be confined to the higher plane of spiritual and intellectual warfare, what real Moslems call
jihad
and we Russian Orthodox know as
podvig
. The golden rewards I was after in this holy war were not sexual and marital in the first instance but intellectual and spiritual.

Picking myself up and dusting myself down – that morning it was all about wiping myself down, actually – would have to wait; I was too ill to move from my bed except to use the loo and too ill to cross the room to pick up the phone when it rang, even though I knew it would be Sheikh Ahmad. If he planned to take me to task for my behaviour the previous night, he was going to have to come and find me.

Sure enough, after about ten minutes, there was a knock at my bedroom door. I was tempted to make a light joke, to call out something culturally appropriate along the lines of ‘Has the mountain come to Mohammad?’ but restrained myself. I couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure that my visitor was Sheikh Ahmad and, if it was him, I wanted him to know I was ill, not just having a lazy lie-in.

‘Rozzer?’

‘Come in, Sheikh Ahmad!’ I called out in a voice weak enough to sound convincingly indisposed but strong enough to be heard. A speedy
spritz
of a Jo Malone cologne to freshen the air around my bed, a quick peck on my icon locket and a lightning prayer – ‘Please St Serafim, turn my bowels to ice!’ – and I was ready for him.

It was a relief to see that he was in no fitter state for visiting than I was for receiving. His black hair looked dull and roughly clumped rather than shiny and neatly
en
brosse
. There was a puffiness about the lids of his lovely eyes, and an unaccustomed droop to both sides of his mouth as well as his shoulders. Even his
futa
– an unbecoming beige number – sagged like a sodden dishcloth.

‘I see that neither of us has had a good night’s sleep,’ he said, eyeing the end of the bed nervously but cautiously drawing up a chair instead.

‘No, but there’s no time be lost, is there?’ I answered him with a brave smile, ‘A free South Yemen won’t be built in a day, will it?’

He was shaking his head: ‘No, Rozzer, it won’t, but I have reached a firm decision that, after all, this political work is not yours to do. South Yemen is not your country and I believe that you have no clear understanding of the dangers that this struggle may involve. What you have to know is that our president is like an old lion now. He feels that he is losing his power and he is aware that he has made criminal mistakes with national unification. However, the joining of the south with the north of Yemen is the only achievement he feels proud of. The people around him care only about the money of course, but that means they also care about a single, united Yemen. Why? Because Yemen’s only export is oil and most of that oil is in the south.’

‘I’m hearing you...’

‘These are the facts, I’m sorry to say, and they mean that this regime will not hesitate to imprison, torture or kill anyone – I mean anyone – who seeks to destroy the unity and cut off the supply of oil money to the north. You must also understand that among the people clapping and cheering for you last night there was surely one government spy who will be reporting to Sanaa by now -’

‘Treacherous dog!’

‘Yes, Rozzer. Now, listen to me, I have calculated all these risks for myself but I know now that I have no right to place you in danger so I have asked my driver to take you to the airport at Seiyun where you will catch an aeroplane to Sanaa at 3pm. Please be ready to leave at 1.30pm.’

A very pretty speech, but why wasn’t he boldly tackling the subject of the fiasco of the night before? Why wasn’t he royally abusing me for abusing his hospitality and using his home as a set for a bedroom farce? Because, I supposed, like men the world over in my experience, he baulked at tackling delicate subjects head on. Well, I realised, it was his loss because he’d left me a come-back line.

‘What on earth are you talking about, you silly sausage!’ I began with a light laugh, ‘You’re mad if you think that I’d abandon you and the cause now, whatever the dangers! I am going to Seiyun today but I’m going there as arranged to address a rally, not to catch any plane. Flashmans don’t flee, Sheikh Ahmad! There’s only ever been one flaky Flashman and even he was knighted for his services to queen and country. Flashmans – especially on the distaff side of the clan - are people of their word, people of action and daring! Flashmans care about their friends and freedom and patriotism! -’

I was playing for time, while trying to cheer him up and jolly him along because it pained me more than I can say to see him so downcast.

‘No, we will not argue about this, Rozzer,’ he insisted, pounding the palm of one hand with the fist of his other. ‘You are a very remarkable woman but you are not the person to help us win independence and, who knows, perhaps after all independence is an impossible dream- as the Rolling Stones always said something like, what was it,
You
don’t
always
have
what
you
like
...’

‘What?’ I interrupted him, ignoring his misquote and feigning shock at this resort to an oriental defeatism. ‘Where’s your sticking power? Ever heard of perseverance? – ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again’?

‘Rozzer, keep your voice down please, and I cannot listen to your rhetoric this morning thank you. You are forcing me to make myself clearer, to admit that it is your behaviour both at Wuqshan’s – I mean your over-consumption of vodka, of course - and what took place in Jammy’s bedroom last night that have convinced me that you cannot stay.’

At last! Was he going to hit me with the old ‘You’ve let yourself down’ line? No, it seemed, I would be spared that but my back was now against the wall. It was high time I turned the tables on him. Respect was what I was after so respect was what I set about demanding.

‘Are you saying that my position as an MI6 field officer counts for nothing, Sheikh Ahmad? Are you saying that my secondment to the British Foreign Office is just an empty formality? Are you also dismissing my frequent visits to Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon in Washington as a hill of beans? Are you also seriously alleging that my close family connection to our Prime Minister – you should know that my sister-in-law’s brother is married to Tony Blair’s sister – is a flash in the pan? Finally, have you forgotten – perhaps I never mentioned it - that I have a year’s experience of civil conflict and secessionism in the former Yugoslavia under my belt?’

‘Can all this be true, Rozzer?’ His liquorice eyes had widened as I spoke and I thought a first nervous flicker of respect had returned to them.

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ I said, faking furious umbrage, ‘Of course it’s true! I swear it on my icon of St Serafim of Sarov – look!’ I said, showing him my locket. ‘What reason otherwise could I possibly have for being in Yemen at this dangerous time? Just think about it!’

‘But why didn’t you inform me about all this to me before?’ he said, still distrustful.

‘Is that how top-ranking spies behave in your country, shouting about what they’re up to and why? I doubt it very much.’

‘So top-ranking British spies spend their time drinking too much and lying around naked and winking?’ he countered, though with one of his delicious chuckles.

‘Ever heard of “deep cover”, Sheikh Ahmad?’ I was about to retort, but fortunately didn’t because, off hand, I just couldn’t think of a feasible explanation why my job required me to comport myself like a Geordie ladette on a Friday night. Instead, I plotted a far safer course; taking extreme care not to eat humble pie or apologise, not to go anywhere near the ‘sorry’ word, I returned to the fray with a quieter and more formal tone of voice: ‘I understand that you’re offended...’

He didn’t answer. I think he was waiting for me to proceed to a promise to turn over a new leaf and some kind of proof that I had what Catholics call ‘a firm purpose of amendment.’ But he was out of luck, because I needed to say a few words in my defence first.

‘Sheikh Ahmad, I know you’ll agree that conditions in your country – cultural, political, economic and environmental - are such as to drive any sane westerner to the bottle. I would also ask you to bear in mind that I’ve suffered a series of traumas since arriving here in Yemen less than a week ago, every single one of which has amply merited my reaching for a pick-me-up...’

The sheikh inclined - rather than nodded - his head, but I felt my words were not wasted on him.

‘In spite of these objective truths which, I’m sure you’ll agree, go a very long way towards mitigating what you perceive as an offence, I’m prepared to concede that alcohol can cloud my judgment. That being the case, I hereby pledge – once again on St Serafim of Sarov - not to touch another drop of the hard stuff for as long as I am here. Now, let’s move on to consider the facts of the matter of you finding me in Jammy’s bed, shall we?’ I could feel my bowels threatening to liquefy again for this the most delicate area of discussion, but St Serafim kindly came to my rescue and I was able to continue, ‘What you need to understand is that Jammy’s idea of planting me in her bed was “a cry for help”’

‘It was Jammy’s idea? – I don’t understand...’ His eyes had narrowed again.

‘Yes, it was her idea, but it would never have occurred to her if you hadn’t been blinding yourself to her pain,’ I patiently explained, ‘Jammy feels so neglected by you, so passed over in favour of Bushara, so jealous of Bushara’s influence over you that she was prepared to let a stranger enjoy her husband, in the vain and foolish hope that it might break Bushara’s hold over you.’

‘So I am myself to blame!’ he said, striking his forehead, ‘
Bismallah
! Many western men envy us our cockerel choice of hens but they can have no idea of the headaches it brings! I recall Osama Bin Laden once confiding to me that he loved fighting the war in Afghanistan because it saved him fighting the war in the bedroom. You see now what a sense of humour he has? But really, in this matter I don’t think he was joking!’

‘Perhaps one day you’ll thank me for showing you the path to making peace in your home,’ I remarked, but Sheikh Ahmad’s quicksilver mind was already elsewhere.

‘But if Jammy was crying for help because I have neglected her, what could make you – an MI6 operative – involve yourself in such a foolish honey trap operation? What was your purpose, your goal?’

‘Oh, nothing really, because I was off-duty; I blame the quality of the vodka,’ I answered him breezily, ‘The Russian meaning of the word vodka is “little water” but actually it’s big, bad stuff! Still, what does any of that matter now that I’ve promised not another drop will pass my lips while I’m here,’ I said, extending a hand to shake his in the only physical contact I was likely to be able to enjoy for a while. I wanted terribly to draw him to me, to kiss those mobile lips of his and smooth his clumpy hair, to smell his personal scent – even if, on that particular morning, that same scent was turning my stomach. But all that was out of the question, of course. Although acting the efficient, controlling boss when I longed to play the ditzy kitten was painful, I courageously persevered: ‘I’m so glad we’ve had this little chat. It’s always good to clear the air, isn’t it? But time is rather of the essence. We’ve got a people to set free and I’ve got a speech to plan so, if you wouldn’t mind...’

‘I will give you just one more chance, Rozzer,’ said Sheikh Ahmad, taking my hint and rising from his chair.

‘Let’s proceed on the basis that we’re both on probation,’ I answered him briskly, ‘My government, but still more my department, values evidence of hard, steady work and application. Lounging around like this, musing on past mistakes and domestic tribulations, is not the way to win the day! What time do we leave for Seiyun?’

‘At 3 o’clock’

‘Excellent!’ I said, thinking that my Immodium would have plenty of time to work its magic.