Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [152]
Privately, she is sad to be traveling away from Kamil al-Samawi, the human rights lawyer. While it will be some time before I find out, Zuhra has been falling in love all year. She first realized she was in love with Kamil last autumn, after fainting while covering a story in a Sana’ani hospital. The chemical smell of the place had made her ill. When she regained consciousness, Kamil was the first person she rang. He had been so supportive of her, such a close friend, that he was the one she trusted to come and get her. It was Ramadan, but Kamil gave her juice and food to revive her and took her safely home. That was before they were in love, she said. “After this incident I realized I was in huge love with him. I see him and thought oh my god I want to spend my life with this person. It was deep down. Lots of changes that happened to me were because of Kamil. He made me feel confident, he made me love myself, he made me feel I am beautiful. We knew we were in love after this incident. But it took time. It’s not acceptable to be in love here.”
Which is why she stayed silent.
Kamil supports her trip to the United States. They have been discussing marriage, and she wants to start a life with him, but he promises to wait. I’ll just be gone a little while, she tells herself. I’ll be back soon.
In mid-August, I start to panic about my own future. Two weeks left, and I have made no preparations for my departure, other than to try to sort out visas, which as usual has gone wrong. The immigration authorities didn’t renew my residency, which will be two months expired by the time I leave. And the exit visa they gave me runs out before I even get to the airport!
I ambush Faris the next day to ask him for help. I also tell him that Jamal Hindi, the owner of al-Mankal restaurant, has offered to host my farewell dinner with my staff. What day would be good for him? He doesn’t know. He’ll get back to me. He doesn’t seem particularly broken up about my imminent departure. Everyone in the office has asked me to extend my contract—everyone, that is, except Faris. I remember sadly the huge banquet he threw for me at the end of my first trip to Yemen and wonder what went wrong. Then he had given speeches lauding me and handed me a pile of Yemeni gifts. Now he can’t seem to get me out the door fast enough. He can’t bring himself to look at me but fiddles with his pen and stares at his computer.
“Faris? Is everything okay?”
“You’ve made me a lot of enemies,” he says. “Everyone in the government hates the paper. The minister of the interior will not speak to me to this day.”
I look at him levelly. “It is not the job of a newspaper to befriend the government,” I say. “We should be the watchdog of the government and make sure that it is fulfilling its promises. And frankly, I am not at all convinced that it generally is.”
He nods, but not in agreement.
“And everyone I have spoken to, every diplomat, every expat, and even Yemeni officials, has told me how far the paper has come in the past year.” I am desperate for just one tiny shred of recognition.
“Yemeni officials? I doubt it.”
“Even your friend Jalal.” Jalal is now deputy minister of finance.
“Oh, really? What article did Jalal like?”
“Faris, I can’t remember a specific article. Look, are you saying you are unhappy with my work?”
“No. I am just telling you the whole picture. Didn’t I tell you lately how I heard everyone is begging you to come back and offering you their houses?”
I stare at Faris. He looks away, at the wall, the desk, anywhere but at me. I linger, hoping vainly for a few kind words about the changes I have wrought in his paper, but Faris is obviously done with me. I get up to leave. If I were to wait around for Faris to pat me on the back, I’d be waiting an awfully long time.
MY STAFF HELP make up for Faris’s apathy. Hadi gets more despairing every day. “I will suffer when you leave,” he