Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [21]
When I arrived in Faris’s office, he was seated behind an enormous desk, fiddling with his computer. He stood up to shake my hand. Only briefly did his eyes meet mine before darting around the room, as if making sure I hadn’t arrived with a retinue of spies. Faris’s eyes were always moving. I introduced myself and explained what I hoped to do with my class. He seemed properly impressed and expressed deep gratitude for my presence. I expressed deep gratitude for the opportunity to assist him. I gave him a copy of The Week, the magazine for which I write science, health, theatre, travel, and art pages, which he flipped through so quickly the pages blurred. I suddenly panicked as I realized I’d given him the copy with a cover story on gay marriage. The minimum punishment for homosexuality in Yemen is death. I stammered an explanation, but Faris didn’t seem concerned.
“Of course we understand,” he said. “Things are different there.”
Before I left, he handed me a stack of thirty issues of the Yemen Observer. “Read these and tell me how to make it better,” he said. “What sections are good, what sections to get rid of, and also, please read this interview I wrote and tell me what you think of it and how I can do better interviews in the future.”
Staggering under the tower of newsprint, I took the papers to an empty office downstairs and read until my eyes dried out. I had managed only about an hour of sleep the night before. I can’t remember ever having had such terrible insomnia, a combination of jet lag, nervousness about teaching, and the wild euphoria of travel. I was in rough shape.
Despite this, the excitement I felt about my class carried me along, and I managed to take about thirty pages of notes on the back issues of the Yemen Observer.
Reporters kept popping in to see me. “About that argument with Theo,” said Adel. “Has he ever lied to you about money before?”
I was impressed—I had thought that none of them would think to interview either Theo or myself. Bravo, Adel! Then al-Matari popped in to ask me several questions about his story and journalism in general. Several small boys visited me periodically to bring me silver cups of water. I had no idea where they came from. Several men stopped in my doorway simply to stare at me.
During our meeting, Faris had asked me if I had any special needs during my stay, and I had told him that I would like to go for a swim if at all possible. I am hopelessly addicted to exercise. So after I had a quick falafel lunch with Theo, Faris sent one of his drivers to fetch me and drive me to the Sheraton, which has one of the only lap pools women can use. (All sports clubs in Yemen are sex-segregated, but the biggest hotels—the Sheraton and the Mövenpick—have coed pools.)
Water is my second home, and the emotional relief submersion brought was instantaneous. Stripped of my Yemeni drapery, I was exhilarated to feel the water and sun on my skin. I was Jennifer again. I recognized myself. As my elbows began their rhythmic rise and fall, the anxieties of the morning dispersed, rising through my body and out my fingertips, dissolving in the chlorine.
I swam for an hour, despite the best efforts of the small boys playing at the end of the pool to thwart me. At first, they just liked to get in my way and dodge me at the last minute, but then they began to imitate my stroke, splashing clumsily after me. I outlasted them, and finally they pulled their shivering grayish-brown