Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [41]
“I am so happy too!” I say, though perhaps with less confidence. “Where is everybody?”
She tells me that Faris is indeed with the president, that al-Asaadi rarely appears this early, and that Farouq is out because his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter has just died of a mysterious illness. He hasn’t been able to work, she says. He is overwhelmed with grief. I cannot imagine. I have no idea how anyone recovers from the death of a child. “And Arwa has quit,” Zuhra goes on. “She went to find a different job. And Zaid of course just left for London. Hassan and Adel are both working for the EU observers until the election is over.” Theo, who is still in Yemen, has left the paper, apparently burning some bridges behind him. I fell out with him myself after he sent me a series of bizarrely discouraging e-mails about my return. I think he rather resented the invasion of what he saw as his turf.
“Do we have anyone left?” I am beginning to panic. How can I transform a paper with no staff?
“Radia is here! And we have some new ones,” she says. “Come, meet them.”
Radia, who is officially Faris’s receptionist and not a reporter, emerges from the back room, where the women have been breakfasting, to tell me how much she missed me and how pleased she is that I am back.
They take me to the newsroom, where we find two women and two men hunched over computers. Zuhra tugs me over by the hand.
“This is Noor. She is doing the culture page.” Noor has thick, long eyelashes and eyes that crinkle when she smiles. Like Zuhra, she wears glasses, but unlike Zuhra, she ties her hijab in the back of her head. I make a mental note of this so I can identify her later.
Najma, Zuhra tells me, has been writing the health page. Najma shyly takes my hand and tells me how glad she is to meet me. Her eyes are wider and more frightened than Noor’s.
The men, a tall, bespectacled man named Talha and a stouter, boyishly attractive man named Bashir, are equally polite and welcoming.
“How long have you been here?” I ask them. They hadn’t been hired when I left Yemen two months ago.
“A month or so.”
All four of the new hires are recent graduates of university. None has any journalism experience. I am dismayed. So many of the people I had already begun to train are gone. I will have to start all over again.
ZUHRA SHOWS ME to al-Asaadi’s office in the back of the first floor, where I sit and take notes on recent issues of the paper until al-Asaadi arrives, close to noon. I’ve forgotten how tiny he is; just a bit taller than my shoulders (and I am only 5’6”). He’s handsome, with doll-like features and Bambi eyelashes. I would guess he weighs something approaching ninety pounds. He wears a suit jacket and slacks.
“Ahlan wa sahlan!” (Welcome!) he says, taking my hand and smiling warmly.
“Ahlan wa sahlan! I am sorry for invading your office. I wasn’t sure where to go.”
“My office is your office.”
Theo had warned me, when I was last in Yemen, that al-Asaadi would prove my biggest challenge. He won’t want to give up control, he said. He is used to being in charge.
So I am cautious. I don’t want to wound his pride and jeopardize our relationship by throwing my weight around and acting like an Ugly, Imperialist American. I tell him how much I look forward to learning from him and how much I hope we can work as partners.
“It is I who will learn from you,” he says. “Faris feels—and I feel the same way—that you are to be the captain of this paper. You are to run the entire show.”
My knees begin to tremble. “Shukrahn,” I say. “But perhaps you could help me begin? Can you walk me through how things work now, what your deadlines are?” I have no idea where to start.
“Of course.”
He and I sit down with Zuhra in the front conference room to come up with a tentative game plan. Al-Asaadi explains all of the deadlines (which he concedes are generally missed), and Zuhra gives me a printed sheet detailing which reporters