What Was I Thinking: A Memoir (15 page)

As I was leaving Heathrow the whole project fell into place. I saw a newspaper poster that read: ‘Two Saints Die in One Week’.

What bollocks.

No matter how much you idolised and idealised Diana, and no matter how much you can reasonably criticise Mother Teresa, because she was saintly but she was far from perfect, you have to admit they were living totally different lives. One of them had dirty hands and the other one didn’t. There was a nice feature — the contrast between these two holy celebrities. I had the guts of the yarn written in my head by the time we reached India.

Mumbai was a nightmare. Between the stench and people pissing in the streets and sifting through dust looking for food, it’s a nightmare at the best of times. When the whole world is landing on its doorstep, it’s even worse. There were journalists arriving and being swept away in the cars they had booked, by the drivers who would be with them the whole time. No one was interested in helping me. I thought I was going to have to wake up a beggar to get any assistance.

Eventually I got on board my flight to Calcutta. I was squashed in next to an obese Russian journalist. It was my practice to try to befriend other journalists for various reasons. Some were great to get information from, others were good to cadge off, though I always made sure there was something in it for them. Usually you could exchange information that was of use to each other. When the journalist was from a big organisation, the New Zealander with the backpack and a cell phone was a novelty.

The Russian journalist was moaning from the moment he sat down. He was sweating torrents and appeared to have every illness under the sun, including some that were new even to India. He thought the assignment was ridiculous and he was going to do it as quickly as possible and get back home to collect his mafia bribes or however he earned most of his living.

When the hostess came around with our meals I went to take mine but was stopped by a hairy Russian paw.

‘Wait one moment,’ said my new friend. ‘We are both very hungry but very scared. This food will kill us, won’t it? What is it?’

‘Lamb korma,’ said the hostess.

‘As I suspected. It will kill us. No, no, no, we won’t be having any of that. Bring me something that is entirely shrink-wrapped and my colleague will have that too.’

When we arrived at Calcutta he asked where I was staying. I didn’t have anything organised but it certainly wouldn’t be a luxury hotel like the one he had booked. There’s a paradoxical
law of travel: the worse the country is, the more expensive the expensive hotels are, but the less chance you have of surviving in a cheap hotel. In the end he put me up in his hotel and we agreed to split the bill.

Obviously, I was more enthusiastic about this story than he was.

‘We’ve got to go to the slums,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to cover the work she’s done, we’ve got to talk to the people who are in there, the sisters who are doing the dirty work and everything like that.’

He waddled along reluctantly. We went into some of the missions Mother Teresa had in the slums. I have never seen anything like it before or since. The concrete floors were on an angle so that the people who were brought in covered with maggot-filled wounds could be put on the floor and hosed down and the maggots would be washed away. The stench was what you would expect under those conditions. There was not a surface that you could touch that wasn’t blazing hot. Your shoes became impregnated with the filth that was on the floor. It was truly squalid.

It’s not hard to get into the slums where the missions are based, but it is dangerous. These people have good reasons to kill you and not much to lose. When you go into the missions themselves, you ask yourself why anyone goes there if they don’t have to — like the Australian girl we met who had committed to six months helping the nuns.

Some people had criticised Mother Teresa for not doing more to publicise the plight of people she helped. By exploiting images and other PR tactics, they argued, she might have done more for them. Her answer was that that was someone else’s job. She was too busy helping the people in front of her. I’ve even heard her criticised for living the high life — by which the critic meant eating the odd banana when those around her couldn’t afford even that. Well, it wasn’t very high.

All in all, the contrasts with the earlier funeral in Kensington could not have been more marked.

In London, no expense had been spared. Everywhere you looked, there were lovely sepia or black and white photos of Diana looking thoughtful and sometimes carrying black children. Most read: ‘Diana Princess of Wales, 1961–1997’. In Calcutta, there were hand-painted pictures and the words: ‘Mother Teresa, 1910–Forever’.

We got to the hall where Mother Teresa was lying and saw the seemingly endless stream of people waiting to file past her casket. They had as many fans and air conditioners going as possible but it was hot and she was decomposing. They put a cover on her to keep flies off but there was no denying the smell.

When it came to the funeral, again, the big guns were doing all the blazing. Huge rigs had been built for the lighting and there were podiums erected for the cameras so the anchors from CBS, NBC, CNN and the rest could all do their thing.

My Russian friend got out as soon as the funeral was over, absconding under the shadow of darkness without telling me, though he did pay his share up to then. I was left again with the quandary of how to do something nobody else was doing. I decided to take a shortcut and go straight to Mother Teresa’s headquarters, Mother House, which was where she lived and where she would end up.

The next day I was the first European journalist who was allowed through the door, and one of only a handful who were there as the casket was taken in. After a while I was ushered into the room where her casket had been placed with the first candles lit by its side.

‘You are number one,’ a nun told me. And I thought, if I never did another story, if I never made a penny out of this one, that moment in time was worth all the effort.

I made quite a bit actually, and got a good story out of it. I used a picture I had taken in London of a girl in a public school uniform who had paid £3.75 for a small bouquet of flowers, which were being sold outside Green Park. She had stood in line for some hours, drinking a Coke and waiting for her turn to place them at the palace gates as a tribute to Diana.

Alongside this, I had followed a girl who had never been out of the Calcutta slums and who had stolen a flower and waited for three days in 98 per cent humidity, with no food, to walk past Mother Teresa’s body and leave her flower. As she walked away, certainly heading back to horrendous squalor, one of the nuns blessed a petal from a flower that had been taken from Mother Teresa’s body and handed it to her. I took a photograph of her clutching that petal. And in the contrast between those two girls you had the difference between Mother Teresa and Diana. That was my story, which ran in the UK and generated a lot of complaints for the way it allegedly denigrated Diana. 

IN 1998 THERE WAS
pressure being applied to Iraq over allowing UN military inspectors into the country. Weapons of mass destruction and all that. Tensions had flared and looked like they were going to ignite. There was a stand-off between the US and Saddam Hussein. The military build-up in the area had begun. The frigates were in the Gulf and stealth aircraft were in Jordan. Well, if the inspectors couldn’t get in, I would have to, on behalf of Radio Pacific.

I thought it would be easy. Desert Storm had been nothing if not a major media event, so I was sure there would be roads where they were needed and lots of points where you could get
links and transmit your material without too much difficulty.

As I was deciding when to go it suddenly looked like the country might be closing its borders entirely. So I left in a hurry, which meant I got off to a bad start. I had no idea what I was going to do. Would the war have started by the time I got there? Would it be over? Was it even going to happen?

I had just $1000 in cash and a credit card to pay for hotels. I couldn’t afford a satellite phone, and hoped I wouldn’t need one but was sure that, if I did, I could rent one in Jordan, which is the most westernised of the Arab countries. I was going to get into Iraq through the Jordanian border.

It took myriad flights to get to Jordan. On the last leg, I met a young English man, Simon, who explained he was going to tidy up his affairs in Jordan where he had been working for a member of the royal family as a tutor for their children.

‘I haven’t got anywhere to live,’ I told him. ‘Do you know of anywhere?’

‘My hotel is nice and modestly priced for what it is,’ he said. ‘I’m going to be staying there for a couple more days and you could have it after me.’

When we got to Jordan, I had my first run-in with Jordanian authorities while paying for my visa. I hate all bureaucrats anyway, but after the long journey I was tired and in a foul mood. East–West tensions were high at the time and the officers were hostile from the start, waving their guns around and threatening to deport me before I had even got into their country.

‘Why am I paying $50 to be abused like this?’ I said. ‘I could commit a crime and get treated like this for free.’

Eventually I met up with Simon and we went to the hotel, where everyone seemed to know him, which I thought was a good sign. We went to his suite, which was full of his possessions, and he generously gave me one of the two bedrooms to stay in. ‘I’ll be out all day tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And then I’ll be gone
for good.’ I went to bed early and got up early again the next morning to look into what I needed to do to get into Iraq. Its embassy in Jordan was one of its last operating anywhere. I thought it might take a few days to get through, so I also wanted to sniff out some stories in Jordan while I was waiting.

I got back to the hotel in the middle of the afternoon. Clearly there had been something of a kerfuffle in the room during my absence. A slightly dishevelled Simon arrived not long after me and began throwing a few belongings into a bag.

‘I’m not going to take all my things,’ he said. ‘I’ve managed to get a flight this afternoon.’

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

‘I can’t remember where, just out of here,’ he said, which struck me as a little odd. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll leave some money at the desk.’

‘Don’t worry about it too much,’ I told him. I was grateful because he had helped me. I was now in a good hotel and all in all it had worked out quite well. Plus he seemed to be under some stress.

‘If anyone comes looking for me, just say I’ve packed my bags and gone to England permanently.’

‘Who might come looking for you?’

He stopped throwing clothes around for a moment.

‘It’s very easy to make enemies in this place,’ he said. ‘Just take care. Here, this might help you.’

With that, he handed me a very elaborate edition of the Koran. The Koran is elaborate to start with, but this was a spectacular volume.

‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘you can’t leave that with me.’

‘It’s too heavy for me to take.’

I had talked to him in our time together about how much I would like to visit Algeria, then listed as one of the 10 most dangerous places to travel. Customs formalities there were reputed to consist of someone looking at you to see if you
were mujahedin and, if not, shooting you. ‘It will be great for Algeria,’ said Simon. ‘If they’re planning to kill you and you’re kneeling on the ground with your hands on the Koran then they’re not allowed to.’ So I took it and he went, or, rather, fled, panicked and dishevelled, leaving behind all sorts of things.

That night there was a knock on the door — one of those knocks whose purport is ‘Open the door now or we will break it down’. I had gone to bed early, so I could get up in time to talk to Ewing Stevens at Pacific. I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the door to see several very official, very aggressive men. They were in uniform, but were not police.

‘You’re not Simon,’ they said.

‘No, no, no,’ I confirmed.

‘Where is he?’

‘Well, here’s the thing …’ I began. And I was thinking: where the fuck did I put that Koran? I was choosing my words carefully, trying to think of the best way to frame things. It wasn’t
happening
quickly enough for the men in uniform. By now they were in the room.

‘Where is he?’ the leader demanded. ‘Is he in here?’ It was soon obvious he wasn’t. ‘What’s your relationship to him? How do you know him?’

‘Look, I actually don’t know him.’

‘You flew here together from England.’

‘Well, technically yes …’

It didn’t sound good, when he put it like that. I started to tell the yarn and after a few sentences realised it wasn’t going well. So then I started to hesitate, which looked even worse. Every word that came out of my mouth went straight up my arse and screwed me.

‘I didn’t board the plane with him. I just happened to be sitting next to him and we started to talk and he said this would be a good place to stay.’

Then they found the Koran. I had no way of knowing whether that was good for me or bad for me.

‘So this is yours now, is it?’

‘Did he leave the Koran? Did he leave that here? It’s not mine. I wish it was, it’s a beautiful book, isn’t it? But it’s not mine, no.’ Then I had a brainwave. ‘Actually, he’s left a number of things. Do you want me to get them together for you? I tell you what I’ll do, I’ll pack together all of his things very quickly.’

When I got the things together, of course, it turned out that there weren’t very many and nothing of any interest to them.

‘We will take this,’ said my persecutor, holding up the Koran. ‘And when the man you don’t really know contacts you, you tell him never ever come to Jordan again.’

I said I would be certain to pass on their message in the unlikely event that I ever laid eyes on Simon in the future. Avoiding Simon had quite recently become one of my main aims in life.

When they left, I’m sure they didn’t fully believe my story but clearly their gripe was personal and with him, not me. I still don’t know what he had done, but it obviously had pissed off some reasonably important people. I was annoyed that I had lost the Koran, because it was so heavy it would have been almost impossible to get into trouble while carrying it.

Next morning, I needed to get my visa, so I headed to the Iraqi embassy. This was really the ambassador’s home, with an annex and lots of security. Apparently, you went in, slid a few dollars across a big counter with your passport and you got a visa.

Before I went to the embassy I researched the best way to get into Iraq, so that once I had my documentation I would waste as little time as possible. I had to go to the land border, where oil trucks were constantly going back and forth down a huge highway through the desert. Empty tankers going into Iraq, and full ones coming out again. It would take the best part of a day. That was if there wasn’t a traffic jam, which apparently there
often was, with lines of trucks stalled for kilometres. This went on 24 hours a day.

I was told by other journalists that you could go by bus but that it was a bit rickety. You could also get a ride on one of the trucks — they weren’t supposed to take you but would for a few dollars. You could hire a vehicle and take a self-drive package. Or you could bludge a ride with the BBC or CNN. But you couldn’t do any of that until you had your visa.

I was also told that the only person who could issue a
journalist
a visa for Iraq was a Mr Sadoon, and for reasons that will soon become clear, his is a name I will never forget. I was further told he started work at ten so I should present myself at ten.

I turned up for my appointment and entered a room with a large number of people in it — many Arabs, and many also, clearly, western journalists. Among the latter I could feel an obvious competitive edge. All eyes were on me as I walked up to the counter.

‘Ah, Paul Henry here from New Zealand,’ I said to the man behind the desk. ‘I have an appointment with Mr Sadoon.’

A wave of laughter surged, broke and washed over me. All the journalists roared.

‘Mr Sadoon is not here, you’ll have to take a seat.’

‘You don’t seem to understand, I was told to be here at ten o’clock because Mr Sadoon would be here and I need to get into Iraq.’

Howls of laughter. I think someone even slapped his thigh. Clearly I was the butt of a popular joke and everyone had been through this at some point

‘You don’t have to take a seat if you don’t want to,’ said the man at the counter. ‘You can just leave if you prefer.’ So I took a seat in this comparatively squalid, albeit convivial environment.

‘How do you think that went?’ I said to the room in general, generating a round of guffaws.

One journalist shuffled over and sat next to me.

‘How long do you reckon I’ve been waiting for my ten o’clock appointment with Mr Sadoon?’ he said.

‘Please tell me a day,’ I begged.

‘I’ve been here three weeks, and do you know what really pisses me off? It just comes down to money. You go up to that counter now and you slip that guy a thousand US dollars and you’ll be talking to Mr Sadoon within half an hour. That money won’t get you into Iraq but it’ll get you a meeting with Mr Sadoon and the opportunity to slip him the same amount or more. I don’t know how much. In the weeks that I’ve been coming here for my appointment with Mr Sadoon, I’ve seen the big boys come and get straight into Iraq. The BBC just flying in, CNN flying in. They’re playing a game.’

I learnt the authorities would want another $1000 for the right to take a satellite phone into the country. Not to rent one — merely to carry it with you. I had $1000 for everything.

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked my informant.

‘I don’t know. My time is almost up. The war hasn’t started and I just don’t see how I’m going to get in.’

I wondered if logic would trump money for the first time anywhere in the world. I went back to the desk.

‘There are a few pretty annoyed people here from the world’s media,’ I said. ‘We want to go in and tell your story, not someone else’s. The only way we can tell your story is to get in there.’ He appeared to have heard that before.

I wondered if anyone had tried winking.

‘I’m not going to sit and wait with these other people, I want to see Mr Sadoon,’ I said, and winked. I winked like a man who had more than a thousand New Zealand dollars on him. ‘I want to see Mr Sadoon, just tell me when he’s going to be here. I can be here at any time night or day to see him.’

Weeks went by and I spent most of my time in this room. I gathered a few little stories. I observed some riots that were
happening and I got some great war yarns and kept up with what was going on. But always I had to keep coming back to that room where we all waited for Mr Sadoon.

I did glimpse him once or twice as he arrived in his Lexus and moved through the compound. The cry would go up: ‘Is that him? Is that Mr Sadoon?’ Our spirits soared. We all stood up and watched through the bars as Mr Sadoon drove in. Every time it happened I was sure that I was going to meet Mr Sadoon and would soon be on my way to Baghdad. That day never arrived. He came into the room once or twice to give people an opportunity to slip him money. He obviously had a spare moment when he hadn’t been given $1000 for a few hours, so he displayed himself to the gathered masses.

Occasionally we were told to wait in another room and that made me very excited. I was sure that meant I was one room closer to Mr Sadoon, but the other room, which had lots of small pictures of Saddam Hussein and a huge number of doilies, merely sheltered more journalists who I hadn’t seen before.

A newly arrived BBC producer approached me one day: ‘We’re here to get our visas. Do you know where we go?’

‘I don’t think there’s anything you can learn from me,’ I said. ‘Do you need anyone else on your team? Are you short of anyone? I’ll work for nothing if you can get me into Iraq.’