Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [84]
He gives me a curt nod and leaves my office.
I tell all of this to Marvin, who nods sympathetically. “Well, if you need to get away, come see us on Soqotra,” he says. “There are plenty of stories for you to write there.”
I KEEP MARVIN’S INVITATION in mind as I redouble my efforts to work with al-Asaadi. The tension is not constant, and he can be quite charming. In late November, our relationship gets a boost from an out-of-town field trip. I haven’t left Sana’a since I arrived (other than a long weekend in Istanbul) and am aching to see the countryside. Al-Asaadi says he wants to take me somewhere in honor of my birthday, which I think is the best gift possible. So one Friday in November, he and his two eldest daughters come to pick me up in the Old City to take me out to Wadi Dhar, a valley about a half hour from Sana’a.
Hulud and Asma, ages four and six, both tiny and shy with identically braided hair and long, curly eyelashes, stand in the backseat of the car for the entire ride, staring at me silently. I cannot get used to seeing parents fail to buckle their children safely into cars. There are no child safety seats, and older children never wear seat belts.
It is a bright, sunny morning as we head out of Sana’a, past the sprawling fruit and vegetable markets on the fringes of town and increasingly ramshackle homes, into the mountains. We are heading to Dar al-Hajar, the imam’s palace built on top of a rock in Wadi Dhar.
On the way, al-Asaadi pulls over at a scenic overlook, where hundreds of tourists, both Western and Yemeni, mill around the edge of the cliff overlooking a deep, green valley. The four of us walk to the edge and stand looking down at the patches of qat and the squat homes beneath us. Mountains fill the horizon. Yemeni men sell trays of bright pink cotton candy, fruit, and nut brittles. A man with a falcon on a rope lets foreigners take pictures for a price. We take photos of each other and talk with a German family standing near us. Al-Asaadi is happy to see tourists in his country. “When bad things happen, like these terrorism things, it makes me worry about their future,” he says, tapping his girls on their heads.
I want to say that one of the best things he can do for their future is to make them wear seat belts in the car, but I bite my tongue.
It is hot and dusty when we arrive at the palace. Just outside, men dance in a circle with unsheathed jambiyas. Even knee-high little boys wave their daggers around in the air as they try to follow the steps of the men. No one seems concerned about trusting preschoolers with lethal weapons. I am reminded of my sister’s horrified reaction when, after my first trip to Yemen, I gave a tiny jambiya to my four-year-old nephew, Noah. “I can’t let him have a weapon!” she scolded me.
We wander over to the entrance and make our way up the many flights of stairs, pushing through throngs of people. The five-story medieval Dar al-Hajar (Rock Palace) was expanded in the 1930s into a summer residence for Imam Yahya, who ruled Yemen from 1918 to 1948. It is a maze of gypsum-walled rooms, riddled with qamaria and nooks and crannies for children to crawl into. We lean out windows to gaze at the valley below. Hulud and Asma are interested in everything, touching the walls and looking around them with big eyes, but are almost entirely silent. They don’t even jabber with each other.
When we’re done exploring, al-Asaadi is in a hurry to get home in time for noon prayers. The dirt track winding back to the main road is lined with fruit sellers offering pyramids of plums and pears. I buy a kilo of tight-skinned purple plums and we eat them as we drive back, the sweet juice running down our arms and chins. When Al-Asaadi drops me home, he runs to the Qubat al-Mahdi mosque across the street, as he doesn’t have time to get to his mosque. I ask if he is taking the girls, and he says no, they will wait in the car. The afternoon heat is sweltering and the car is overly warm. Trying to hide my horror, I ask, “Why don’t they come stay with