‘Di’, or just ‘Princess’ - is not a useful example of this strategy.
‘With great pleasure!’ said the sheikh, bestowing on me one of his delicious smiles.
Gone in the twinkling of an eye was all my unease and any trace of a hankering for whatever passed for bright lights in Sanaa. My third night in south Yemen looked set to be a memorable as well as a comfortable one. By the time Sheikh Ahmad slipped some woman dolefully wailing about her lost or erring habibi on the CD player, I was so relaxed I nodded off and didn’t come to again until we’d glided to a halt at the checkpoint on the edge of Aden. A couple of Salaam Aleikums to the pair of bulgy-cheeked teenagers in blue camouflage, and some small talk that involved them first recognising and then paying their respects to Sheikh Ahmad saved us all the bother of producing my passport, and we were on our way again.
‘Why do they know who you are?
‘I am known,’ was all he said with a shrug and a smile. ‘Aden is not a very large place.’ Fair enough. I supposed that given his height and extraordinary looks he would certainly stand out in a crowd, any crowd in Yemen, any crowd on earth perhaps.
We sped on towards Crater which, at that hour of the early evening was a far livelier place than I’d given it credit for. Stalls piled with exotic fruits and vegetables or stacked with pots and pans, or shrouded in smoke and the smell of sizzling goat were lit up with fairy lights and fluorescent strips, just like an Indian bazaar. There was an unexpectedly charming hustle and bustle to and fro of boys with tin wheelbarrows, bicycles and derelict cars dating back as far as the British pull-out and the heyday of the Marxist experiment. It felt good to be away from mud castles and the endless empty Mars-scape.
Poor Aziz had to be shaken awake when we reached his home on the far side of Crater and he complained that his nose was hurting. I thanked him profusely for rescuing me and expressed a hope that we’d meet again, handing him a card with my email address on it, telling him to look me up if he ever came to the UK.
‘But you are not leaving Aden? You can’t go yet, my friend, Madam Roza!’ At the time I thought that the guilt of betraying me to his father was still weighing heavy on his conscience, but again, with hindsight, I see that he had as compelling a reason to oppose my departure from south Yemen as the sheikh.
‘Well, I’m not quite sure...’ I looked to Sheikh Ahmad who took charge, saying something short and sharp in Arabic which succeeded in calming Aziz, and we all parted on the best of terms.
It struck me that Aziz’s ravaged face and sweaty miasma would have created precisely the wrong first impression at a 3* hotel’s reception desk, let alone a 5* establishment’s. Already the car interior smelt better, just slightly of whatever delicious cologne the sheikh used and the evening sea air blowing in through our open windows. For the first time I was discerning a hint of glamour about Aden. One of the tankers in the bay appeared to be lit up, as if for a party, and the white globe lighting along the corniche looked like a string of baby moons. Among them were pairs of black balto -d shapes out taking the cooler evening air, some pushing prams, others with toddlers in tow. Old men squatted on the harbour wall, their gazes fixed on the horizon, children played and laughed.
I was absorbing all these sights, but I was also covertly studying the man at my side, allowing the magic of physical chemistry some space to go to work. I admired the lazy way he steered the vehicle with one hand while the other, its slim wrist banded by an expensive watch, rested loosely in his lap. No one could have guessed that he’d camel-galloped his way through a hail of bullets, missed a whole night’s sleep and spent most of the day behind the wheel. The sleeves of his Egyptian cotton shirt had retained their knife-edge creases and his sober grey futa with
‘With great pleasure!’ said the sheikh, bestowing on me one of his delicious smiles.
Gone in the twinkling of an eye was all my unease and any trace of a hankering for whatever passed for bright lights in Sanaa. My third night in south Yemen looked set to be a memorable as well as a comfortable one. By the time Sheikh Ahmad slipped some woman dolefully wailing about her lost or erring habibi on the CD player, I was so relaxed I nodded off and didn’t come to again until we’d glided to a halt at the checkpoint on the edge of Aden. A couple of Salaam Aleikums to the pair of bulgy-cheeked teenagers in blue camouflage, and some small talk that involved them first recognising and then paying their respects to Sheikh Ahmad saved us all the bother of producing my passport, and we were on our way again.
‘Why do they know who you are?
‘I am known,’ was all he said with a shrug and a smile. ‘Aden is not a very large place.’ Fair enough. I supposed that given his height and extraordinary looks he would certainly stand out in a crowd, any crowd in Yemen, any crowd on earth perhaps.
We sped on towards Crater which, at that hour of the early evening was a far livelier place than I’d given it credit for. Stalls piled with exotic fruits and vegetables or stacked with pots and pans, or shrouded in smoke and the smell of sizzling goat were lit up with fairy lights and fluorescent strips, just like an Indian bazaar. There was an unexpectedly charming hustle and bustle to and fro of boys with tin wheelbarrows, bicycles and derelict cars dating back as far as the British pull-out and the heyday of the Marxist experiment. It felt good to be away from mud castles and the endless empty Mars-scape.
Poor Aziz had to be shaken awake when we reached his home on the far side of Crater and he complained that his nose was hurting. I thanked him profusely for rescuing me and expressed a hope that we’d meet again, handing him a card with my email address on it, telling him to look me up if he ever came to the UK.
‘But you are not leaving Aden? You can’t go yet, my friend, Madam Roza!’ At the time I thought that the guilt of betraying me to his father was still weighing heavy on his conscience, but again, with hindsight, I see that he had as compelling a reason to oppose my departure from south Yemen as the sheikh.
‘Well, I’m not quite sure...’ I looked to Sheikh Ahmad who took charge, saying something short and sharp in Arabic which succeeded in calming Aziz, and we all parted on the best of terms.
It struck me that Aziz’s ravaged face and sweaty miasma would have created precisely the wrong first impression at a 3* hotel’s reception desk, let alone a 5* establishment’s. Already the car interior smelt better, just slightly of whatever delicious cologne the sheikh used and the evening sea air blowing in through our open windows. For the first time I was discerning a hint of glamour about Aden. One of the tankers in the bay appeared to be lit up, as if for a party, and the white globe lighting along the corniche looked like a string of baby moons. Among them were pairs of black balto -d shapes out taking the cooler evening air, some pushing prams, others with toddlers in tow. Old men squatted on the harbour wall, their gazes fixed on the horizon, children played and laughed.
I was absorbing all these sights, but I was also covertly studying the man at my side, allowing the magic of physical chemistry some space to go to work. I admired the lazy way he steered the vehicle with one hand while the other, its slim wrist banded by an expensive watch, rested loosely in his lap. No one could have guessed that he’d camel-galloped his way through a hail of bullets, missed a whole night’s sleep and spent most of the day behind the wheel. The sleeves of his Egyptian cotton shirt had retained their knife-edge creases and his sober grey futa with
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