Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [118]
“I know you need people.”
“So we should hire advertising their own people. Qasim obviously needs a staff.”
I have become so fed up with Qasim stealing my reporters that I ran a help-wanted classified seeking an advertising intern. But when a man showed up who was eager to help, Qasim sent him away.
Faris has no suggestions. He just reiterates how much he needs me to help the advertising people. But he isn’t done with me yet.
“Regarding al-Huthi,” he says. “Tone it down. Do you hear me?”
“Tone it down? It’s the biggest story in the country!” The Huthis are conservative Shiites in the North who have been periodically battling the government since 2004. Their specific demands are unclear, but they seek the restoration of Zaydi Shia dominance in Yemen and denounce Saleh’s close relationship with the West.
In January, fighting between Huthis and the government resumed, and hundreds are rumored to have died. We are not allowed to send a reporter to Sa’dah, the northern province where the fighting is centered, because the roads are blocked and there is a complete media blackout. So Ibrahim has been reporting the story based on phone calls to the governor of the region and other sources.
“I am telling you: Do not run it on the front page of every issue. Do you hear me? Tone. It. Down.”
“I hear you, but—”
“There were errors in the last story.”
“If the government doesn’t want us to make mistakes, then it should let us into Sa’dah so we can see what’s going on for ourselves.”
“You want to go to Sa’dah?”
“Yes, I want to go to Sa’dah!” How thrilling it would be to be able to do some real reporting on this story. I am certain that the information we get from the government is far from accurate.
“Fine. I will see if I can get you in. I would love it if I could send you to Sa’dah.”
“Why? Anxious to get rid of me, Faris?” Small smile.
“No—we’d have an exclusive.”
“And possibly some real information.”
Ignoring this, Faris comes to what seems to be an even bigger problem: I’ve fired our photographer Mas. I explain again why I dismissed him: He did no work. He sat around listening to music on his laptop and complaining about being bored, but the minute I needed him to photograph something, he was nowhere to be found. After months passed without Mas producing a photo, I fired him.
Yet some people in the office seem to think I should have kept him, largely because he is the Doctor’s son and a favorite of Faris’s.
They may be right. It has hurt my standing with my staff and it has upset Faris deeply.
“When Mas was young and had leukemia, I paid for his treatment,” Faris says. “Mas is like a son to me. I like to see him around the office.” His eyes glisten with tears. I am consumed with self-loathing. How could I be such a beast? I knew about Mas’s cancer. He had told me after doing a photo essay on a little boy in a Sana’ani cancer ward. “If you don’t want to work with him, couldn’t you still have kept him around the office?” says Faris.
I’d love to work with him, if he would actually work, I think. Instead I say, “Faris, I am sorry.”
I feel terrible that I have failed to understand the intricacies of Faris’s relationship with Mas, and also the difficulties of firing someone in an office controlled by nepotism. I might have avoided this pitfall had Faris spent a little more time with me, helping me to understand how things work here. Now I find out these things too late.
I apologize abjectly, saying that I will do anything to make things right. Faris says he hasn’t told me this before because he didn’t want to cry in front of me. And on cue, he sheds two tears. I feel sick.
Before I leave the office, we go quickly through the other things on my list. For example, I need the plane fare to the United States for my two-week break, as my salary is not enough to cover it.
Without a word, Faris pulls a wad of $100 bills the size of a grapefruit out of his pocket. I stare wide-eyed, never having seen that much cash in my life. He peels off thirteen