floated up. For women in the household, work was hardly nine to five. The call to prayer started gradually from the Great Mosque near her house and spread quickly to the minarets of both the Old City and the new until the air was full of the familiar tremulous calls, interrupting and overlapping each other. She had nearly slept through it.
Her cousin, Zuheyla, who had slept on a thin mufraj mattress near her, must have let her sleep. She was gone now. It had been a sleepless night for both of them.
Had Elizabeth arrived last night? What a terrible breach of hospitality to not meet her, or even send a driver out with her name on a card. It broke Halima’s heart.
But her family was now watched by the President’s own security forces. If connections with Elizabeth were known, she would be unable to help. She might even be endangered, herself. Could anyone help, honestly? It felt like the end of the world.
She rose, did the ritual ablutions, brought out her prayer rug, and appealed to the Divine.
CHAPTER 8
A curious thing happens on the Jol—a constant bird-like twitter in the moonlight, a pleasant and companionable noise… At about 3 a.m. the Great Bear appeared for half an hour, wheeling low over the horizon and the Polar star. My companions murmured that they heard footsteps; they made a small clatter of stones, unlike a wild animal… I blamed myself for a camp so defencelessly scattered…
Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia
The cat was gone when I woke at four to the cacophonous sounds of the call to prayer from every mosque in Sana’a. I lay there soaking it up. Yemeni imams don’t have the studied melodic smoothness of those in Istanbul or Cairo, they shout out the message in syncopated rhythms: Allah huwa akbar…Allah is great. There is no God but God.
They sound convincing—particularly in the mysterious pre-dawn hour.
I paused a moment to meditate in my own way. My first thought was of my friend Halima. What could be happening to her? Why did she need me? How could I find her? Perhaps we both needed divine guidance!
I read some of Freya Stark’s Southern Gates of Arabia, about her 1936 adventures on a donkey following the ancient spice route in the Wadi Hadhramaut in Yemen’s southeast near the Empty Quarter, then fell back to sleep for an hour or two. It was still early when I staggered from the bed to shower with cold water. I shivered, slipped into khaki pants, a dust-colored tee, and a long-tailed shirt and went down to see if breakfast was being served yet.
It was, and someone else had beaten me to the dining room. The guy in khaki pants and blue shirt from the first row of the plane yesterday sat at a table near the windows, looking out at sunrise on the back garden. “Garden” meant a field where fruit trees and wild green grass mingled with dry golden stalks of sorghum, framed by the adobe wall.
The mystery man and I nodded politely to each other and said “Good morning.” He had a British accent.
I took the other window table, my back to the stranger. After ordering coffee, I planned my day. My first goal was to try to contact Halima, though I feared since she hadn’t met me at the airport, the job might be hard. My second goal involved doing some quick research for the Trib backgrounder. There might not be time after dealing with Halima’s problem. I couldn’t imagine what I—an outsider in the closed world of Yemeni society—could do for a Yemeni woman, but I was here to do what I could. Not for the first time, I hoped my age would help. The fifties were quite nice that way.
I scribbled in my notebook and sipped from a cup of awful coffee—Nescafe, in the land of Mocha, the port on the Red Sea that gave its name to the famous chocolaty coffee of Yemen! I called the waiter over.
“Do you have any Yemeni coffee? Any Arab coffee?”
“We have kishr,” he acknowledged.
Kishr is a tasty drink made from the husks of the coffee beans. Better than Nescafe! “Bring me some, please.” It would have the bite of cardamom.
As if to make up for the coffee, the smell of spicy ful maddames, broad beans, made my mouth water. And there were pizza-size thin breads baked on the inside of clay ovens which, combined alternately with the beans and with famous Yemeni honey from the storied Wadi Hadhramaut, tasted heavenly.
The door opened and I glanced up. My erstwhile seatmate, Michael Petrovich! So he was staying here, too. He seemed a bit distracted, but when he saw me, he came right over.
“Well, hello! Fancy meeting you here!” His eyes held that confidence in his own attractiveness that I’d noticed on the plane.
Our seat-mate relationship had been friendly and chatty. I’d even say it was flirty, at times, though both of us were wise to the world. Handsome and distinguished-looking, he’d helped lift my carry-on to the luggage rack—a sure vote-getter. We’d shared a couple of glasses of wine, one of which he paid for. None of this involves trust, but it had been a pleasant interlude.
Still, he’d dropped me as we got off the plane, let me take a taxi into Sana’a alone. There was nothing even remotely gentlemanly about that and it didn’t deserve great friendliness.
“Good morning,” I said, casually.
“May I sit down?”
There wasn’t much I could do about it. My smile was cool as I moved my purse off the other seat. But after a few pleasantries, I excused myself. There was much to do. And my pride had been nicked a little by the inattention last night.
He seemed to read my thoughts. “How about lunch? I can be available at your convenience.” His tone caressed.
Michael certainly sparked my curiosity. But I had to learn what I could about Halima’s situation. Perhaps I could kill two birds with one stone.
“Do you happen to know a little Italian restaurant downtown called Caffe d’Italia? It’s run by a friend of mine, Nello.”
“I do. Yes. And of course everyone knows Nello. He’s an institution in Sana’a.”
I hesitated for a moment, arguing with myself. “I will see if I can have lunch there.” And with a little wave, I was off.
The khaki-clad Brit watched me leave.
When I got back to my room, I found a piece of paper stuck under the door. It was an envelope marked with my name. Who knew I was here? Halima had been the only one I told, and this wasn’t her writing. I tore it open to see a brief scrawl: “Welcome to Yemen! How about a drink tomorrow at the Taj Sheba with someone you know? Be at my house at 6 o’clock. Remember the way? Tom.”
Tom Reilly that would be. Journalist friend—or rather, another acquaintance from my stint here during the civil war. Apparently his information network stretched to the hotel. Well, of course it would. He’d lived here forever.
But the Taj Sheba. Yes. I liked the idea of experiencing one of the new hotels, too. While the Dar al-Hamd had charm and history, it couldn’t be called luxurious. The smell of dust pervaded every nook. I rang Tom to ask how he knew I was here. A servant speaking good English said he wasn’t home, so I just RSVPed on the drinks.
My body ached, and my eyelids felt heavy. How should I contact Halima? I must step with care. Women in Yemen are rarely alone, even in an enlightened family like the al Shems. They’d allowed her to study abroad and become
