Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [141]
“Too bad we don’t have a flask,” I say, fiddling with the broken radio.
“I was just thinking that.”
While we are waiting, I get a text from Zaid.
“I thought u’ll show me more respect, but girls and Ibrahim are your favorite and me at the end of your list. U made me feel empty and nothing. Thanks and sorry can’t understand u anymore.”
What am I going to do with him? I myself am no model of comportment, but I can at least say with a clear conscience that I have never once threatened to walk out on my job. At least the girls never fling themselves out of the office in a funk or threaten to quit.
“Ali, help me,” I say. “Couldn’t you take over the paper?” He is half-Yemeni, after all. His English is flawless. He’s ideal.
“No way,” he says without pausing for reflection. “I just don’t care about it enough—not like you do.”
Maybe I care about it too much. I want to control what happens to it after I leave; I want to shape Zaid into a model editor; I want my reforms to be immortal. I want better conditions for my reporters and a better reputation for the paper. I want the Observer to be effective, to influence public thought. But I’m starting to realize that no matter how hard I work, no matter what kind of plans I make, these things are beyond me. I cannot single-handedly save this paper. I’m still pondering this when Carolyn rings. “Now don’t panic,” she says. “But I thought I should warn you….”
As if it had absorbed the full weight of my hopes and dreams for the Observer, a large chunk of the roof of my 350-year-old gingerbread house has collapsed. A massive pile of ceiling, dirt, and rubble has tumbled to the hallway of our top floor, just outside the room where a houseguest was sleeping. And the rain is pouring in.
I panic, picturing a massive river of water cascading down my stairs, sweeping away our shoes from the landings. “I should get home,” I tell Ali.
The rain has eased a bit, so Ali and I park and pick our way through ankle-deep water to my ruined home. Outside, crowds line the flooded Sayilah and its series of bridges. A carnival atmosphere prevails, adults as excited as the children to see the sudden river circling the city. I’ve never seen the water so high; it must be more than ten feet deep. Children slither down the stone embankments and splash into the muddy brew. A taxi floats by. A large truck is semisubmerged under the bridge. Forgetting my roof for a moment, I pull out my camera and begin snapping photos. Men walk by with their white thobes pulled up, revealing their undershorts. When they do this, they wrap their robes around their jambiyas, so it looks like they are all walking around with enormous erections. Sometimes men even hold on to each other’s jambiyas as they walk, with no apparent thought for the overt eroticism of the gesture.
Fifty photos later, we tear ourselves away from the spectacle and splash down the street to my house. When I unlock the gate, Ali and I race to the top floor. An avalanche of mud, straw, plaster and rock litters the last staircase. I stop short of the landing, because there is nowhere left to stand. A waist-high pile of roof fills the hallway. A few drops of water hit my hair and I look up. Sure enough, above us is only a jagged chunk of Arabian sky.
My home, the paper,