The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (39 page)

I AM GROWING CLOSER
to all of my reporters. It’s easy to spend time with my men outside of the office, because they can go where they want whenever they want. But my women all have curfews. They can’t be out after dark, and I can’t take them to dinner at a restaurant. Most women don’t go to restaurants. (It’s nearly impossible to eat while wearing a
niqab
.) Also, when I invite my women to lunch, they often decline because they are fasting. My women are frequently fasting, sometimes just because they want a little spiritual extra credit. Still, many afternoons I eat with Zuhra at al-Mankal, the nearby Jordanian restaurant where I now have lunch most days and where the manager brings us a wooden screen to hide her from view. Other days, I buy falafel sandwiches for me and Radia, who never goes home for lunch, and we sit eating them at her desk. None of the men are around then, so she flips up her veil while she eats and helps me with my Arabic homework.

My women are, however, more likely than the men to invite me home. It’s easier for them; they don’t have to worry about jealous wives. The first time I have lunch at Zuhra’s house, I am struck by how joyful a place it is. She and her three sisters drag me to their bedroom after we eat, and we lie on the bed looking at scores of photos and a series of home movies. One stars Zuhra and Shetha (her sister now married and living in Dubai) playing old village women wrapped in the traditional Sana’ani
setarrh
(a red and blue cloth now worn only by the elderly). Ghazal, Zuhra’s youngest sister, dances toward them in a skimpy dress. She doesn’t cover her face or glittering eyes and exudes self-confidence. “Put something on!” Zuhra says in the film. Aping the old gossips who sit around judging the younger generation, they ask Ghazal if maybe she is
American
. Are you
praying
in America? Who is your father? (Two questions Zuhra says are often asked of young girls.) We all roll around on the bed laughing and poking each other.

“This is what we are like all the time,” Zuhra says. I have a pang of envy. When I was a child I fantasized about having a big, noisy family. Zuhra and her sisters and mother are as close as I can imagine any family being. “We’re like
Little Women!”
Zuhra says. I am surprised she knows the book. And I think they might have a bit more fun than those March sisters.

IBRAHIM IS ONE OF THE FEW MEN
who dares to invite me home. I go to his house, some forty minutes outside of Sana’a, for lunch one Friday afternoon. Ibrahim and his wife, Sabah, live with a passel of relatives and children. Upstairs, I take off my shoes and settle in a large carpeted room, where the curious eyes of little people soon surround me. A plastic sheet is spread on the ground, and platters of fish, salads, breads, rice, chicken, radishes, and
zahawek
(the spicy Yemeni salsa I love) are piled in front of me. Because I am the only non—family member present, men and women eat together. If I were a man, I could eat only with the men. Sabah is very pretty and asks me the usual questions. Am I married? Yes, of course. Do I have children. I hesitate. No, I say, waiting for the usual cry of dismay. But to my surprise, she brightens. “Like me!” she says. “You are like me.” I hadn’t realized that Ibrahim had no children. He and his wife are both in their thirties and have been married since they were around twelve. Such early marriages are common in Yemen, though there is a growing movement to increase the minimum matrimonial age. I constantly hear reports, from both Yemenis and westerners, of young girls forced into marriage before their bodies and psyches are prepared. These appall me, and I find it horrifying that it is acceptable for grown men to find twelve-year-olds sexually appealing.

But Ibrahim and Sabah share a genuine affection that isn’t often obvious between husbands and wives here. It is unusual for a Yemeni man to stay with a woman who hasn’t given him children. Yet Ibrahim and Sabah occupy themselves with caring for their herd of nieces and nephews and appear happy.

ALL THIS PROGRESS
with the rest of my staff leaves me with just two people to worry about: al-Asaadi and Zaid. Faris has promised to keep al-Asaadi out of my hair by making him the editor of a new magazine he’s launching and has approved my choice of Zaid as my successor. While I am dismayed that I only have a couple of months to get Zaid up to speed when he returns from London, I have high hopes that his journalism studies abroad have molded him into something resembling an editor. All I will have to do, I hope, is polish his edges. Yet I am plagued by anxieties. I have no idea what Zaid will be like as a manager. I have no idea how al-Asaadi will take to his new job.

My relationship with al-Asaadi has improved with distance. He calls and writes me enthusiastic e-mails from upstate New York, where he is studying and working as an intern at a newspaper, congratulating me on what I have done with the
Observer
(which he reads online). “Only now can I appreciate what you did for us,” he says. “I am so grateful for all I have learned from you.” I am astonished. Who is this man, and what has he done with my belligerent little fellow editor? Yet this doesn’t quell my fears that our old battles will resume once we are face-to-face again.

Al-Asaadi arrives in Yemen a week before Zaid. He demonstrates his Americanization by kissing me once on each cheek, a first. We have lunch together soon after his return, at al-Mankal, my favorite haunt. We chatter easily about his time in the United States and about work. Jamal Hindi, the Jordanian owner of al-Mankal, comes over to tell us that he is going organic. He spent eight years living in Hong Kong and the Philippines, where he learned about macrobiotics and became interested in organic food. Once he began eating organic, he says, he lost seventy-five pounds. Now, Mr. Hindi is still a very large man, so it’s a bit alarming to imagine what he looked like before.

The first organic restaurant in Sana’a! I pull out a notebook and interview him. I also interview the manager and several people eating nearby. In between, al-Asaadi tells me his plans for the new magazine, called
Yemen Today
. I look at his list of proposed sections and story lineup and am very impressed.
Newsweek
, look out! We discuss stories and timelines, and I’m amazed at how well al-Asaadi and I get along when we aren’t battling for supremacy. A huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders; now all I have to worry about is Zaid.

ZAID ARRIVES FROM LONDON
about a week later, and I take him to the same restaurant. Like al-Asaadi, he greets me with a kiss on each cheek. Yemeni men who have been abroad are particularly fond of this Western custom. Frankly, I prefer not to be kissed. I’ve become incredibly protective of my physical space here; every touch begins to feel like a violation after a while in a country where most men and women never even speak to each other.

We have a fantastic lunch. He tells me about his studies in London, although he spends more time talking about all of the women he got to hug and all the whiskey he drank. He also tells me about the scandal he created when he arrived at Sana’a airport. “When I was in London, people asked me what was the first thing that I wanted to do when I got back to Yemen,” he says, “and I said that the first thing I wanted to do was to kiss my wife. I missed this woman like you would not
believe.”

So when his wife met him at the airport, he lifted her veil and he kissed her. “She was angry at me for about twenty seconds,” he says. “Then she kissed me back.”

Her relatives are less forgiving. His wife’s father and brothers are still furious with him. Heaven forbid a man demonstrate his love for his wife in public.

I update Zaid on life at the paper, give him an outline of our schedule, and talk with him about how I would like our relationship to work. Until I leave, I am in charge. To present a unified front, I want him to run anything he says to the reporters by me first. Zaid concurs.

He then announces that he has given up
qat
entirely. I find this hard to believe, as I have rarely seen Zaid in the newsroom without a massively swollen cheek.

“You should ban it from the newsroom,” he says.

“There would be mutiny!”

“No, the men would thank you for it in the end.”

Oh really?

This lunch leaves me feeling even more relaxed. At last, I have someone willing to help me! At last, I can begin to shift a bit of my burden and begin to think about the future.

AT HOME,
I’ve started building a family. My new Scottish housemate, Carolyn, whom I met at the Soqotra airport and who had originally planned to stay for just a month, moves in for the rest of my time in Yemen. This delights me, as I’m not eager to evict someone who does my laundry, occasionally cooks, and entertains me endlessly with her adventures following in the footsteps of Ibn Battuta and leading tour groups through Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Tashkent.

Just when I’ve settled into domestic life with Carolyn, my Dutch friend Koosje rings one morning while I am making coffee.

“Remember how you said that maybe I could live with you if I had to move out of my house?” she says.

“Yeees …”

“Well, I
do
actually have to move out. So, would it still be possible?”

“When?” I stir my coffee.

“Twenty minutes? I’m already packed.”

What can I do? I can’t leave a pretty blond Dutch girl to the streets. So half an hour later, I have a second housemate. They bookend me agewise; Carolyn is forty-nine and Koosje twenty-two. Koosje is an intern at UNHCR.

It surprises me to find that I love living with other people. For years I have thought I could only live alone. After all, I have lived alone quite happily for the better part of twelve years. Now I find I am a communal creature after all. I love coming home and sprawling in my
mafraj
with Carolyn or Koosje. I love the flurry of their comings and goings. I love that there are always other people around to help, say, fix the washing machine. Funny how you can get to thirty-eight and still find out so many new things about yourself.