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At first I refuse to believe it. But then I look again. I am not imagining it.

In horror, I pull some riyals out of my purse and throw them at him, leaping from the car in the middle of a major intersection. “You disgust me!” I yell. Dodging cars, I run panting and nauseated across the street, my bags banging against my back. I cannot get over his complete lack of shame. Did he think he could get away with that, just because I was a foreigner? I wish I hadn’t paid him. I wish I had remembered the Arabic word for “shame.” I wish I had hit him. I stop and look around. I have no idea where I am. I am probably only halfway to work. But I have been on this route so many times, I figure if I just keep walking I will see something I recognize. It’s hot, and the sun and dust press down on me. Once again I am grateful for my dark sunglasses as I stumble crying down the street, trying to stifle my sobs as I pass groups of construction workers. I walk and weep all the way to the office. My women are gathered at the gate, as if expecting me. It is lunchtime, and the men are gone.

“Do you have a cold?” says Zuhra, looking anxious.

“No, I just …” I start crying again, and Zuhra and Radia follow me to my office. I tell them the whole story, but they don’t look impressed.

“This happens to all of us,” Zuhra says. “It is normal.”

Radia concurs. They are harassed constantly, both by taxi drivers and men on the streets. Even fully covered, fully disguised.

“One time a man even offered me money to go to a hotel with him,” says Radia. “But what can we do? This is what men are like.”

This is what men are like.

“You should not be subjected to this!” I cry. “It is not normal. I can’t bear the fact that you think of this as normal! You should not have to suffer these horrible men.”

They concur. “But what can we do?”

AT THE END of the month, the rains come with a vengeance. While the mornings are still sunny and clear, by the afternoons dark clouds have filled the sky. It’s unwise to start walking anywhere between lunch and dinner; that’s when the deep purple bellies of the clouds tear open, flooding the city.

It’s nearly rain time one closing day when al-Asaadi rings to tell me he has a front-page story. A group of Belgian tourists was barred by the Tourism Police from traveling to the picturesque village of Kawkaban and are outraged. They complained that they had read in our paper that Yemen was inviting and safe, and now the minister of tourism is holding them captive in Sana’a. Al-Asaadi wants the headline to be GOVERNMENT KIDNAPPED US, SAYS TOURISTS.

I politely suggest that the word “kidnapped” may be slightly loaded, and al-Asaadi concurs. We change it to TOURISTS BLOCKED FROM TRAVEL. I’m trying to explain how I want things laid out to Hadi, but both al-Asaadi and Zaid are hovering, blocking my way.

“Three editors in one place is two too many,” I say in frustration. “Could I please have some space to finish telling Hadi about this paragraph?” No one moves, and I throw the pages I’m editing to the floor. It’s a bit melodramatic, but experience has taught me that my reporters don’t respond to subtlety.

This jolts the men into action. Al-Asaadi slips back upstairs to his new office, and Zaid storms off in an adolescent funk.

“Do whatever you want with the paper. I’m leaving,” he flings at me before toddling huffily off down the road, despite the fact that I have invited him to chew qat at my house after work.

This is the first of several dozen times that Zaid will “quit.” He’ll tell me he’s done with the paper, storm off in a sulk, and then the next morning at the office he’ll be back in front of his customary computer. “Funny,” I’ll say, “I could have sworn you quit yesterday.” It gets so the day doesn’t feel quite complete if I haven’t driven Zaid to quit.

With Zaid gone, I quickly finish my edits and find Ali, who has come back from the United States to work for me again. Luke has been moved upstairs to edit Arabia Felix, so