Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [123]
“I mean, who is going to take responsibility for this?” he says. “They could put someone in jail.”
“I will.” I am not going to let Radia—or any of my reporters—go to jail. But they will never send me to jail. It would be political suicide. Besides, it would be far too embarrassing for Faris; he simply would not let it happen.
By the time I’m dismissed, I have the feeling that Faris didn’t really want my advice after all. What upset him most was that the minister had refused to shake his hand. People in power were irked with him. And he wanted to make it clear to me that this was my fault and unacceptable. I could do anything I wanted to with the paper—so long as I didn’t lose him any friends in power. One more false step, I think, and even peanut butter cups won’t be able to save me.
Slowly, it dawns on me that this is not going to change. There will always be limits to what we can write. Faris will never allow me to hire the staff we need. Salaries are not going to rise. My reporters won’t all stick around, and those who do are not going to become paragons of the profession in one year. This is what I have to work with. These are the parameters within which I will have to find new ways to define success.
SEVENTEEN
a world beyond work
Now that my reporters are submitting almost all of their stories promptly on deadline, I’m spending more time with them than ever before. It’s immensely gratifying to have the luxury of explaining all of my edits to them and chatting with them about their lives. I’ve even changed my routine; I go to the gym before work, so I can lunch with my staff.
My favorite lunches are at the fish souq, where al-Matari or one of the other men picks out a large fish or two and we take it to a restaurant to be roasted and served with squishy, buttery bread called ratib. I am always the only woman there, and men stare at me the entire time. But surrounded and protected by my male staff, I don’t mind. Some afternoons we go for saltah, a Yemeni meat stew with a bubbling broth of fenugreek, in Baab al-Sabah, the market street near my house. The men spread strips of cardboard on the stones for me to sit on and run off in different directions to buy saltah and bread and tangy raisin juice. They even order me my own little pot of vegetarian saltah, which tastes like a spicy potato stew. We squat in a circle while passing men stare at the oddity of a woman eating in public. It makes all the difference that I now have time to do this; my relationships with my reporters become easier as we spend more nonwork time together.
The mere act of getting the paper on schedule has transformed my life. Not only can I spend more time with staff, but for the first time in six months, I have time to go out with friends after work. Of course, I first need to find friends. I have some, but I’ve spent so much time in my newsroom that I’ve hardly met anyone outside of work other than Shaima, Marvin, and Pearl. My solitary times on Soqotra musing on distant loved ones reminded me of how critical my friendships are. The e-mails I get from faraway friends are a comfort, but I need people here.
Anne is the first to step into the void. I’d met her a couple of months earlier at my first diplomatic party, but now I finally have time to see her. An intern at the Dutch Embassy, Anne is twenty-two, but age has ceased to mean anything to me. In New York, most of my friends were close to my age or older. But in Yemen, I collect friends from ages twenty-two to sixty-seven. There are so few expats in Yemen that just living here gives us a strong common bond. Besides, Anne is precocious. She grew up in Saudi Arabia and has traveled extensively. A voracious reader, she often whips through a book a day, speaks perfect English and decent Arabic, makes friends easily, and is consistently sunny and cheerful. I am a little bit in awe of Anne. Our mutual love of books initially brings us together; there are few books in English available in Yemen, so we trade our stocks. In the evenings, she is often the person who drags