A Foreign Affair (3 page)

‘Thank you but no. I’m Anglican by birth but a practising Russian Orthodox Christian by choice,’ I declared.

I think I’d already gathered that Mrs Rev was a muscular evangelical sort of Christian, in other words about as far a cry from my beloved Russian Orthodox as she could be, which meant that our fledgling enmity was, almost from the outset, as much sectarian as personal. Suddenly, I was helpless with laughter, visited by a vision of ‘muscular Christian’ Mrs Rev hauling me out of bed the next morning and heaving me fireman-fashion downstairs to church. She had the shoulders for the job – the thick neck, broad back and mighty chest.

Narrowing her eyes at me, stony-faced, she made a little sign to her husband, as if she was flicking some imaginary insect off her forearm, before leaving the room.

‘I’m afraid none of the guest apartments is going to be free tomorrow...’ the Rev began. Hint taken. Round one – the first of many, it turned out - to Mrs Rev.

But what a bore to have to pack my suitcase again so soon. Never mind. A new day had dawned and my native optimism with it; I was sure that something a good deal more pleasant than rationed gin and yellow poly-cotton sheets awaited me in this land I hadn’t even begun to explore.

Yes. While showering I happened to notice that the bathroom supplies were of a decent quality so, once I’d dressed and almost repacked my wheelie treasure chest, I was careful to cram in a pair of soft loo rolls. Next, just as I was checking I hadn’t forgotten anything, it struck me that the room’s black-out curtains would make an excellent, bargain of a do-it-myself
balto
so, tugging two of them down, I packed them away too. Finally, Mrs Rev’s graceless low-church grouchiness, so powerfully reminiscent of my sister-in-law Fiona’s Scottish Presbyterian joylessness, meant that I felt no compunction whatsoever about raiding the guesthouse kitchen cupboards for some leftovers: a dented tin of baked beans, another half tin of Colman’s mustard powder, a half-bottle of cooking sherry, an opened but still fresh pack of Bombay mix, a bar of Green & Blacks chocolate without it’s paper wrapper and a single serving box of past their sell-by date Rice Krispies.

Chapter Three

A tiny congregation of Protestant ex-pats had just struck up a horrible hymn about Jesus being the rock who rolls away their blues when I descended those narrow loft stairs at shortly after 7 am. I tried to ensure that my now rather heavy case thudded down each step in time with the musical beat, but it was no use. The cursed thing insisted on a syncopated rhythm so that on that sunny Sabbath morn those gathered in His name in Aden were treated to the sort of din the Devil himself might make.

Out in the quiet cool of the compound at last, I breathed more freely. Neither of the young security guards, both of them dressed in navy blue slacks instead of those invitingly ventilated tablecloths - futas, as I learned to call them - showed any interest in the contents of my metal swag-bag. Instead, they confined themselves to admiring its shiny contours and streamlined design. Their curiosity sated, I was soon giving them something else to marvel at. I had them teach me how to say ‘good morning’ in their language.
Sabbakh
al
-
khair
!
’
whose literal translation, they told me, is ‘Morning the brightness!’ To this exclamation one replies with another
Sabbakh
al
-
Nur
! , ‘Morning the Light!’ What fine and generous sentiments! It strikes me now, and I hope I don’t flatter myself if I describe my default spiritual position as celebratory.

‘The Prophet himself – Peace be upon him! – could not speak our language as well you, Madame!’

‘Oh, you’re just saying that!’ I protested, chucking him under his hairless chin and feeling him recoil, as if I’d administered an electric shock – but a pleasurable one.

Just before we stray too far from the subject of my spiritual side, I think I recall at this juncture experiencing a fleeting instant of sheer ecstasy at the mere fact of being alive and free to do as I pleased. A lightning bolt of intuition told me that my Flashman soul had at last found the space and time it required to expand and grow but how, when, in what, and at whose direction, I still had no idea. Ignorance, for the time being, was bliss.

Aziz was as good as his word, waiting for me outside the compound’s high iron gates. He’d parked the recovered LandCruiser at a rakish angle, half on, half off the narrow pavement and was standing in a patch of shade beside it jabbering into a mobile phone, gesticulating with a Rothmans in his other hand. In his freshly laundered pink shirt and matching
futa
, he looked as fetching as a little girl’s birthday cake. I think I’d realised within five minutes of our meeting the day before that with his long eyelashes and smooth cheeks, Aziz was not what Nanny Atkins would have called ‘a man’s man’. It was probably why I’d instantly felt at ease with him. I would have nothing, except perhaps his driving skills, to fear by venturing out of town in his company.

I gestured to him to toss me a cigarette. On the whole, I don’t smoke for fear of my lips ever resembling a cat’s anus, as Fiona’s are already showing signs of doing after years of pursing them at me, but there’s always been the odd occasion. Ummmm, I inhaled luxuriantly, as a plan of the day’s action began to form in my mind. By the time Aziz got off his phone, I was ready to issue some instructions, but he had a question:

‘You are leaving so soon, Madam Roza?’ he asked, pointing at my suitcase.

‘Only this place. I’m a sitting duck for any stray bin Baddy with a bomb in there – they’ve been attacked three times,’ I answered him breezily, ‘It’s the Sheraton for me tonight! Now, could you just...’

Staggering under its weight, Aziz heaved my case into the back of the car. I hadn’t wanted to tackle the task myself because I was wearing a carefully tailored cream
shalwar
kameez
that I’d had run up for me somewhere off Brick Lane, some gold suede mules and a matching scarf draped over my blond curls in that loosely romantic style the late Benazir Bhutto always favoured. A pair of gold rimmed aviator-style sunglasses by Chanel completed a look I imagined could have passed for that of a visiting princess from one of the more westernised Gulf states – Kuwait, Qatar, or Bahrain perhaps.

‘Do I look all right, Aziz?’ I was fishing for the sort of compliment a beautiful woman only hears from gay men.

‘Believe me, Madam Roza, you are another Queen of Sheba!’ he answered obligingly.

‘I don’t think so! Only one queen around here!’ I quipped back but he didn’t hear over the noise of air-conditioning. I decided to drop it. Somewhere I’d heard that in countries like Yemen one can’t assume people have even seen the closet, let alone considered opening it or stepping out. By the end of my week among the Yemenis, I would have discovered, to my considerable personal discomfort, that they punish homosexuality with death, but I’m getting way ahead of myself now... ‘Aziz, how long will it take us to get to Silent Valley and back?’

‘Certainly no more than an hour, Madam Roza.’

‘Fine. Let’s head there first while it’s still cool, and then it’ll be straight to the Sheraton to check in, have a nice swim and a drink before a decent lunch. Does that sound like a good plan of action?’

‘Yes, Madam Roza, it does and much more interesting than my usual work. Most days there is nothing for me to do because no ships are visiting Aden. What a curse is this al-Qaeda! They have ruined everything for us with their evil craziness!’

‘But can’t you find a more interesting job? Your English is good.’

‘Perhaps it is hard for you to understand Madam Roza, but in this so- called Republic of Yemen I am a privileged and lucky person just because I am a civil servant with a salary and a pension, thanks to my father. I can feed my family –

‘What family?’

‘My two wives and five children, two boys and three girls.’

‘Really?’ I changed the subject, ‘Now, I understand I need some sort of permit from the tourist police?’

Striking himself on the forehead three times in a theatrical fashion, Aziz swung the car around in a screeching U turn, narrowly missing a couple of shaven-headed schoolboys kicking a Coke can along the road, and we headed straight back in the direction we’d come, towards the offices of the Tourist Police.

He escorted me up to an office on the first floor of a sadly dilapidated old colonial building that he explained had been a boarding school for the sons of tribal sheikhs in colonial times. Fearing for my cream get-up and golden mules amid the filth of the ancient linoleum floor and fly-specked overhead fans, I nevertheless extended my hand politely to an ancient Tourist Police chief sitting at a desk strewn with dusty manila envelopes and unwashed tea glasses. I also accepted a seat in a sweat-stained armchair and another cigarette. On the wall facing me, behind the old man’s head, was a touched-up photograph of a very young queen – pale-skinned, ruby-lipped and coltish in yellow sling-backs, sleeveless cotton frock and white gloves - dubbing some uncomfortably crouching Yemeni a worthy knight of the Empire.

Our chat went well. I was English and, although he’d been one of those involved in taking up arms to eject us Brits in the mid-1960s, he greatly admired what he called my ‘masterful race’. While my lack of a valid Yemeni visa was irregular and even regrettable, he assured me that it was not the end of the world. Recent orders received from ‘those barbarians up in Sanaa’, he explained, strictly forbade foreign visitors to leave the city by car on account of a heightened risk of being abducted and beheaded by ‘brainless fanatics’, in the manner of two luckless Luxembourgeoises whose safe despatch back to Europe in body-bags he had himself overseen a week earlier. But such things happened, didn’t they, wherever one happened to live – Madrid, London, Bali.... And anyway, who was he to follow the orders of the northern barbarians ‘like a slave’? Who was he to detain a member of my ‘masterful race’ one moment longer with ‘petty prohibitions’? Filling in the requisite
passe
partout
with what looked like a 1950s Parker pen and a defiant flourish, he posed me a final rhetorical but also philosophical question: ‘Are we not all of us born to be free?’ I quite agreed with him and, for the second time in as many hours, felt a wave of joy surge through me. My Flashman soul was soaring.

The old fellow was not quite done with me. Rising to his feet with a little grunt and laying one hand over his heart as if he were taking an oath of loyalty, he began to address me in a style that matched his pen while glancing at a file that might have been chewed by a goat before being dunked in the sea and dried in the sun:

‘My dear Lady, I believe that Allah has sent you – the only British tourist Aden has seen for more than a year, according to my records here – because this poor south Yemen needs you! I pray you, be so kind as to convey to Her Majesty at the earliest possible opportunity the most sincere loyalty and respect of all of us here.’ Like a schoolmaster having recourse to a visual aid, he swivelled on his heel to rap at the picture of our juvenile monarch with the butt of his Parker pen, before going on, ‘And I beg you, do not omit to impress upon her the extent and severity of our suffering under the boot of this northern barbarian.’ With another rap of his Parker, he indicated a smaller portrait photograph of the northerner tribesman Aziz had called ‘the chief of all the robbers’, which was hanging slightly lower and to the left of the Queen.

‘It will give me the greatest pleasure to do as you ask,’ I replied, in as close an approximation to the queen’s voice as I could manage, extending my hand to him again to bow over respectfully. Playing the part of a stiff-necked, lion-hearted daughter of the Empire was still coming astonishingly easily to me.

That meeting only improved my excellent spirits. As I picked my way back down a lethally creaky staircase, past a flotsam of empty cigarette packets and plastic water bottles, through drifts of sunflower seed husks and discarded plastic
qat
bags, it occurred to me that people in this sadly squalid corner of the world seemed to have been watching and waiting for someone like me. There was no longer a nano-particle of doubt in my mind that I’d landed in the right place at the right time to accomplish something or other. What precisely that something was would be revealed in good time, I felt sure.

Aziz and I were on the road again, headed west, gliding round roundabouts, past Crater and out along a causeway with a ravishing view of paddling pink flamingos on our right, towards a much less ravishing oil refinery that the British had built and the Marxists had failed to maintain. We cleared a police checkpoint on the edge of town without incident thanks to Aziz chucking the single teenage conscript on duty at that unearthly hour of the morning a twig or two of wilted
qat
and a dollar bill. I recognised the name Sheikh Othman on a vintage bi-lingual road sign. It was still only 9am; the whole day lay ahead of us.

We must have been no more than fifteen minutes short of our destination, quite alone except for the odd speeding pick-up truck transporting the daily supplies of
qat
safely to market under a flapping blue tarpaulin, on a good open road that led as straight as a die through a parched russet Mars-scape towards a range of jagged black mountains rising some way up ahead of us, when disaster struck.

It transpired that the LandCruiser was not as roadworthy as Aziz had claimed. He’d failed to notice that it was thirsty. A haze of radiator steam had begun to blur our view of the road ahead. When we stopped to let the engine cool sufficiently to be able to give the poor machine a drink, and at last risked unscrewing the radiator cap, a jet of high-pressure steam erupted from it, scalding one of Aziz’s chubby cheeks and melting one arm of his Raybans. The radiator fractured like a boiling egg, but with a sickening series of cracks, like pistol shots.

Aziz was distraught. The car was not his. It belonged to his father who, although not a ‘northern barbarian’, was nevertheless a regime big-wig who lived up in Sanaa, among those barbarians. He had received the car as a kind of ‘welcome to my band of thieves’ present from the president himself and would surely return to Aden and throttle Aziz the instant he discovered the very serious damage to his favourite toy with its walnut dashboard and leather seats. He had always preferred Aziz’s brother to him and from the day Aziz was born had referred to him as the Arab equivalent of a big girl’s blouse and still mocked the size of his penis, and so on and on....

I wasn’t in any mood to listen to all this but what could I do? We were sitting side by side in what little remained of the air-conditioned cool, hoping against hope, minute after interminable minute that another
qat
pick-up would appear and its driver be good enough to stop and run Aziz back to Sheikh Othman where he could arrange for the LandCruiser to be towed back to Aden and beg, steal or borrow another vehicle to rejoin me. We decided – or rather, I decided, since Aziz was far too distressed to think straight – that as soon as another car hove into view we would flag it down and set our plan in motion. I would remain in the LandCruiser with all the doors locked and wait for him to collect me so that we could continue towards our destination.

The plan was a good one. Everything came to pass just as I’d envisaged, until I’d been sitting alone there in the car for about twenty minutes, flicking though a copy of Vogue I’d retrieved from my treasure chest and snacking on the single serving of Rice Krispies I’d pinched from the Revs. Then, a battered red pick-up carrying a large load of cardboard boxes improbably emblazoned with the logo Dolce & Gabbana, came hurtling towards me. Two heavily bearded young men, both of them dressed in those elongated shirts Moslem men tend to wear in places like Shepherds Bush and Finsbury Park, and pink and green checked head-cloths, and both of them with guns slung on straps over their shoulders like handbags, hopped out to assess the situation by peering in though the smoked glass of my passenger window.