A Foreign Affair (5 page)

Chapter Five

Another time, another place and the presence of a fellow Brit might have reassured me. If he’d hailed from Devon or Suffolk say, I might have relaxed. As it was, only a West Yorkshire accent would have set more alarm bells clanging than that Brummie bleat.

WWFHD? Great-great-great grandpa Harry certainly met some odd-balls but I’m sure he never faced anything to compare with this. The folk he encountered could be complicated but they didn’t tend to be as layered as a multi-storey car park. If you were a mid-19th century Afghan, for example, you looked, sounded, behaved and thought like a mid-19th century Afghan. You didn’t suddenly become a London hansom cab-driver. Nowadays, a Bangladeshi dung-merchant can crop up as mayor of London or an ex-convict from Siberia as a suited denizen of Chelsea or Knightsbridge. Enriching and life-enhancing as all these plural identities are, fascinating as we may find the types one meets these days, those of us fated to sail through life under a single flag can be left at a considerable disadvantage. Actually, now I come to think of it, I’m a fine one to talk! My Russian Orthodoxy muddies my waters, and the Union Jack can hardly be described as a ‘single flag’...

Now, where was I? In ‘deepest, darkest do-do’ as Nanny Atkins loved to say.

While my limbs obeyed a polite invitation to arrange themselves on the mattress seating in that carport, my mind raced in every direction, hunting for an escape route. Could I ask to visit that hell of a loo again and make my getaway from there, while no one was looking? No, not in my mules, not without another human habitation or road in sight. Might I nip out to the LandCruiser, locate my mobile phone somewhere at the bottom of my wheelie case, hope it was charged up enough to try and call International Direct Enquiries to get a number for the British Embassy up in the capital, Sanaa, to put in an SOS call? Most unlikely. Could I kick up an almighty wailing fuss, pretending to be too modest and God-fearing to sit with a group of men, insisting on being shown straight to the women’s quarters? Once there, might I be able to bribe the friendly Fatima with some accessories (my mules, watch and ring, for example), to help me escape? I liked this plan better but how could I be sure that Fatima had the wherewithal to help me, however much she coveted my goods? I even wondered if, armed with the Green & Blacks I’d nicked from the Revs, I couldn’t entice all those pesky kids into some hard labour: digging me a Great Escape tunnel under the mud castle. For a moment there, I think I took leave of my senses.

No. My best chance of leaving Yemen alive, I decided as I nervously picked the tender green leaves off the qat twig I’d been offered, lay in waiting for and seizing any opportunities as and when they arose.

The minutes ticked by, and the hours, and the six men became ever more saggy-mouthed with the growing weight of their qat cuds. I’d soon found I hated the chalky taste of that shrub. Feeling sick, as if I’d drunk ten too many double
espressos
, I’d refused any more which meant there was nothing to do but watch my hosts flapping their hands, chopping at the air, disappearing behind clouds of cigarette smoke, pointing at me, shouting and explaining and remonstrating, while steadily picking and chewing, and chucking their qat stalks onto the packed mud floor around them. Now and again, they passed me a plastic bottle of water to swig or a pack of Rothmans. The barest breath of a breeze came rippling down the length of that carport only about once every half hour but still I smiled and was at pains to look impeccably modest. My pose was as follows: feet tucked neatly under me to guard against any inadvertently insulting flashing of my soles, head bowed and eyes downcast in the manner of a slave, hands folded neatly as if in prayer.

After almost three hours I was as uncomfortable as Fiona when she’s been wearing her support pants all day and far too bored to be scared of anything anymore. I decided to rid myself once and for all of my uncertainty with regard to the character and intentions of my hosts:

‘Would I, by any chance, be right in thinking that you are Islamist terrorists?’ I politely inquired of the Brummie, ‘Is that why you’re stockpiling all those weapons?’

‘You westerners,’ he answered me with a sneer that combined Elvis Presley’s smile with Hannibal Lecter’s grimace, ‘anyone who doesn’t see the world like you is a “terrorist”, anyone who thinks the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are crimes is a “terrorist”, any Moslem’s a “terrorist”, anyone with a darker skin than you is a “terrorist” – you remember that Portuguese guy who got killed by police on the London underground?’

‘Perhaps I should have phrased my question differently,’ I backtracked hastily, ‘I really meant to ask if you’re all just arms smugglers with a living to make or serious al-Qaeda types fighting a global jihad?’

‘You understand nothing about this country, do you?’ he said with another cross between a sneer and leer.

‘Hardly surprising when I’ve barely been here twenty-four hours!’ I muttered, as he took it upon himself to explain to me that there are parts of Yemen, especially the north, where every man has his own private arsenal – millions of men of all kinds, with maybe five different guns apiece lined up against their bedroom walls, but a sheikh might have a tank and plenty more would have rocket propelled grenade launchers. From the Brummie I learned that it was almost as common for a man to carry a gun in Yemen as for a woman to carry a handbag. I risked a joke, of sorts: ‘So you’re telling me that you lot are actually about as dangerous as a team of handbag salesmen?’

He didn’t care for that logic, and I trace the roots of his fierce antipathy towards me back to this fateful exchange. But it was the result of my super-courteous subsequent request to him to fill me in on what I imagined must be the ‘fascinating’ conversation he was having with his brothers that convinced me that in toying with his
amour
propre
I’d been dicing with my death.

‘We can’t agree about what to do with you,’ he explained, shifting so close to me along the mattress that I could feel his hot vegetable breath on my cheek, smell his sweat. He was a common or garden bully; it takes one to know one. This is probably neither the time nor the place to go into it, but just like my great-great grandpa Harry - although at primary rather than secondary school - I myself was an accomplished hair-puller, Chinese burner and defacer of others’ written work. You’ll say I was ‘projecting’ or ‘compensating’ or ‘transferring’, but I think I was just brighter than average and badly under-exercised. As simple as that, just like those under-employed lolling Yemeni qat chewers.

‘Well, I’d be fascinated to know the various options,’ I replied breezily, refusing to give him the satisfaction of either sounding or looking scared.

‘Haroun there, on your left, is dead keen to try out the video camera he bought in Dubai duty free last week; he fancies filming us executing you, and Saeed beside him agrees but he’s worried about getting blood on his new shirt. The rest of us have been teasing them, saying they just want to draw attention to themselves because they’re still well hacked off about not being picked for one of the 9/11 flights. They keep telling people that they would’ve been if they’d had Saudi passports....Now Saeed’s talking about doing the job neatly with the electric carving knife I brought him back from the UK...’

‘So, OK, two out of six of you would like to kill me,’ I interrupted him hastily, worried I might throw up but determined to re-deploy all my wits and charms in the service of saving my skin, ‘Would you mind translating what I’m going to say to them?’

‘All right,’ said the Brummie, looking surprised.

‘Tell Saeed and Haroun that, it so happens, I spent last night at the guesthouse of the Anglican church in Aden and was delighted to learn that some of their spiritual brothers had hurled a few bombs at it. In fact, I’m sorry they didn’t manage to blow the whole place to kingdom come. Tell them that that’s precisely the sort of target-rich environment they should be aiming at. Who’s going to be impressed or grateful if they kill one Russian Orthodox Englishwoman? No one! But time it right on a Sunday morning and they can hope to pick off a dozen or so of those nauseating born again Christians at that church compound and, by the way, the vicar’s wife’s a Christian fundamentalist...’ I’m not proud myself, but not everyone is marked out for sainthood and any hero worth her or his salt has a flaw or two, don’t they?

The Brummie must have conveyed my meaning fairly accurately because, after listening attentively, my would-be murderers began laughing and slapping their thighs and crossing themselves Christian fashion and miming being blown up by each other, throwing themselves about on the mattresses and cushions, playing dead. I wondered if the qat or simply an authentic
joie
de
tuer
was to blame for their childish levity, but what did I care just as long as they shelved their schemes for electric carving knives and video cameras?

Turning back to the Brummie bully I asked him to fill me in on any other plans for me.

‘Those two – Abdul Wahhab and Abdul Rahman – are only interested in money. They want to ransom you for 6.5 million dollars, which isn’t a bad idea because we could use that kind of money to buy more weapons, but they’re crapping on about building a chain of 5* hotels with Jacuzzis – I’m trying to tell them that no one gives a shit about Jacuzzis anymore and anyway, this country hasn’t got enough water ...’

‘I see...,’ I said, thinking as fast as I could, ‘I’ve got a message for them too, if you wouldn’t mind translating again. Please tell them that I think their hotel idea is brilliant. Yemen deserves a decent chain of hotels. Indeed, you might mention that I stepped inside the ghastly Aden Hotel for a moment yesterday but stepped straight back out again! What a shambles! I would be very prepared – in fact, honoured - to stay on here in Yemen and help them get the business off the ground once the ransom is paid. They could use someone with my contacts book and sense of style to promote the brand.’

Once again, the translation must have been up to scratch. I could almost see the scrolling dollar signs in Abdul Wahhab and Abdul Rahman’s
qat
-enflamed eyes. More importantly, I could tell that they relished someone taking them seriously, as proper entrepreneurs. So much of life seems to be about psychology and so much of psychology these days about ‘positively affirming’ people, no matter what.

‘Now what about this chap on my left – has he got another plan for me?’

‘Him? Hamza’s been saying that you’ve got to be a British spy; what else would you be doing travelling alone in Yemen at this time? He says you’re more use to us alive than dead, says we shouldn’t harm a hair on your head.’..

‘Hurrah for Hamza,’ I muttered to myself, turning on him my most dazzling, Princess-Diana-arriving-at-the-Serpentine-Gallery-in-her-Liz-Hurley–black-dress kind of smile.

‘... but he’s only saying that because he’s a south Yemen nationalist,’ the Brummie went on, ‘We know he only really cares about kicking the northern barbarians out and getting independence back again with British support. Saeed and Haroun have been on at him for forgetting about the real goal: the righteous global jihad against the Zionists. They keep talking about how the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Zionists’ occupation of Palestine are Christian and Jewish crimes...’

‘Ummm, yes,’ I nodded sagely, ‘I can see that in the context of global jihad, Hamza’s Yemeni aims might seem a bit parochial. On the other hand, please would you translate again, they could be described in modern managerial parlance as a SMART target: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.’

My last excellent point was probably lost in translation. No matter. I’d carefully resorted to a dispassionate tone to conceal the fact that my heart was leaping with hope and joy at the first real chance I’d spotted of managing to save my skin. If this random Hamza had hitched his star to the same pro-British bandwagon as Aziz and that chief of the Tourist Police in Aden, pro-colonial sentiment in south Yemen must constitute a considerable counterweight to al-Qaeda influence.

The Brummie was still bleating in my ear:

‘... but me and Saeed have been teasing him about independence for south Yemen being a stupid dream. You might be interested to know that I’m with Saeed and Haroun; I want you dead. And, by the way, we’re going to have a vote about it. You’re British, you like that kind of democracy, don’t you? – don’t you? – you do, don’t you?’

My heart pounding, feeling the blood freeze in my veins, I hung my head as low as I could while they set about sealing my fate, in a more or less disorderly democratic fashion. It was a dead heat, three against three but a moment later they seemed to have lost all interest in the project, lolling back on their cushions for another round of qat and more cigarettes, and some more exaltedly over-excited chatter. I told myself that for as long as no one made any move to fetch either of those dreaded small electrical goods, I was not going to abandon all hope.

And then the atmosphere changed again. Jacuzzi fanciers Abdul Wahhab and Abdul Rahman fell out over a cigarette, the last in the latter’s pack, the one he’d been carefully saving until Abdul Wahhab had selfishly helped himself to it. The resulting skirmish looked about to turn fratricidal until the Brummie intervened to arbitrate, and what I feared most was the upshot of that: Abdul Wahhab declared he’d rather throw in his lot with the trio of my wannabe executioners than even consider going into the hotel business with Abdul Rahman. ‘No need for another vote,’ said the Brummie, gleefully rubbing his hands together while a thin stream of green qat slime that had burst the banks of his lips slid down his chin, ‘it’s four to one in favour now...’