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.Phi-Van, Fi Fo Fi Mum had played a big part inkeeping Lian strong.The Language School had filled with American students.They were loud, nervous, curious.All were men.Themilitary boys had to sneak away to meet Yemenis, sincethey were forbidden from socialising with the natives.The smallest encounters they had, at the Aseer stall, oran invitation to a qat chew, were seen to be excitingovertures, practised seductions by an enemy who hadfine manners and ulterior motives.The Aseer youth, thestreet perfumers, the cripples and aged young haddesigns on their American identities.Lian almost enviedthe American students cultural assurance.Being here121THIRD PAGES 1-END 24/12/01 11:45 AM Page 122seemed to strengthen rather than erode their beliefsand impressions.Theysaw what theyexpected to see andthey pronounced their judgements with the assurance ofthe unassailable.Each had an arsenal of true stories that, as aselection, gave a picture of Yemeni culture and people asthe incarnation of cruelty, bigotry, misogyny.Somestudents, as soon as they realised that the world they hadentered did not fit the selections they had read, reactedin fear.They began the inexhaustible, circular andalways reassuring search for the mean and nasty.Somemade a career of it and went back to lecture in Americaas scholars of the Yemen and its Islam-cankeredprimitives.This place and these people could not seduce them,violate them or enrich them.The exceptions were equally intense and passionateabout their conversion.With janissary fervour theydefended everything, separating Yemen from thehuman as absolutely as their virginal friends.One young student from Utah, Andy, was anexception to both and his compatriots hated him for it.Andy s dream was to be kidnapped by Bedouin.Throughhim they could extract hospitals and schools from theirembarrassed government and, according to all the tribes-men Lian and Andy knew, he would learn the essentialsin return: riding, soccer and recitation.It would befantastic for his language skills.He went out into for-bidden zones every weekend.I am an American.I have122THIRD PAGES 1-END 24/12/01 11:45 AM Page 123a lot to offer.Every Saturday she caught his eye.Stillhere? Yes.Wryly.Inshallah next week.Inshallah.They passed through an expanse in which jewelslay scattered about like pebbles.Purple, green, blueand pale pink in many shades.Abdallah couldbarely believe his eyes.After a while, however,it was too much for his eyes and they acceptedthe jewels as worthless before his mind could.They came to a vast city and entered throughgates built entirely of emeralds and having only anornamental purpose, as the city was usuallyentered from above.The streets were deep ravinesand the doors of the houses were like jewelledbrooches set into the cliff face.All around schoolsof glow fish, fed as pets, kept the city illuminatedin an eerie light, glimmering from around cornersand in crevasses.The whole city was embedded butviewed from above glittered and glinted over agreat area, dazzling the mind and sight.Abdallahof the Land thought this must be the capital buthis friend laughed and told him this was only aprovincial city, one of ten, and that the capitalwas built above and below and was the centreof the provinces.Abdallah of the Land was filledwith a strange hopelessness and ennui.They entered an inn for the night.It waspleasantly lit, despite being a cave.They wereserved several kinds of fish.Abdallah looked at123THIRD PAGES 1-END 24/12/01 11:45 AM Page 124them with distaste and watched as his friend beganeating them with relish, tearing the raw flesh fromthe bones with his fine white teeth. What is wrong? the Merman asked,stopping in the middle of a mouthful and eyeingAbdallah over a silver fish. You do eat fish,O Fisherman? and his eyes crinkled pleasantly ashe smiled. We cook the fish first, he said uncomfortably. There is no fire under the ocean!He picked up a pilchard gingerly and bit intoit.It did taste good.It was crisp and clean andfresh.He forgot his qualms quickly and evenwondered why he had never tried raw fish before.It was refreshing and delicious. Tomorrow we will explore the city, Abdallahof the Sea said,  and over the next few weeks I willshow you the dominions of this small kingdom.Abdallah of the Land thanked his graciousfriend with all his heart and went to sleep, his headwhirling with jewels and fishes and images andvistas of ocean territories.The fine, dry street dust brushed the hem of her black-embroidered black balto.She walked briskly near to themudbrick wall.Her legs swung beneath the folds,muscles tingling, yearning for some violent endlessexercise.The courage to do something outrageous hadbeen slowly building in her.Helena was shocked and124THIRD PAGES 1-END 24/12/01 11:45 AM Page 125delighted when Lian suggested jogging, but refused toaccompany her.At 6.30 a.m.on a Friday, a little after the dawnprayer, Lian, dressed in a long shirt of Nev s and loosetrackies, hauled on her Nikes and went for a run.Herbrown hair was tied back, bouncing and shining like ahorse s tail.Her blood surged and she swung her armsin arcs in the deserted street.The dogs, still awake,turned their heads to watch as she passed.She ran downthe cobbled road to the Saila, and up through TahrirSquare, through the winding alley of the Bauniya andout past the Qa Square.There was no-one about and theair was crisp against her face.She ran down the middleof the long street leading from the Qa to the university,scuffing dust and rubbish, hearing her footfalls echo upagainst the walls and the blue metal doors of the closedshops.At the corners she caught the early sunlight,shocked dogs and glimpses of the bare mountain toher left.She had thought she was fit but her breath laboured.For the first time in all these months, she realised howthin and rarefied the air was, how little of it there was forher lungs to purchase.Her chest ached.She beganstartling the occasional youth or elderly man at corners.She stopped enjoying herself, caught and pinned intheir shocked eyes.The old men muttered and turnedaway, too shocked to have their eyes see more, to see thestrangenesses of the modern world.The young menstared, some grinned.Then, angling down a side street125THIRD PAGES 1-END 24/12/01 11:45 AM Page 126away from their eyes, she came upon a group of smallboys playing soccer.They shrieked and laughed and,once her bobbing back and hair were to them, beganpelting her with stones.Lian spun around and rantowards them, too tired to sprint, furious, her chestscreaming with pain.She must have looked mad, forthey paused only a moment and then scattered.Sheturned and loped home in the intensifying day, smallstones rolling to her ankles and past her from thehidden stalkers.She closed the door with relief and basked inHelena s amusement and celebration of the feat.She didn t go jogging again. Pen! Pen! Money?Lian laughed. Story! Tell me a story! Any story!Koran story!As always, the children stopped and stared, blushed,twisted their toes in the dust, grinned and laughed, alltheir brash bravery wiped away in an instant [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]