It felt as though even at times when saying goodbye was supposed to be based around times of hope, and happiness, it was once again filled with pain and sorrow!
It was early August and Yas had been visiting us every week, sometimes more, in case we were given the green light to fly home. Even though Dad was staying at Nebat’s house more and more vigorously searching for us, Nebat would also manage to visit us, pretending to go to the market, or pretending to visit other women in the afternoons. My work at the hospital had come to an end - I wasn’t given a good reason, just that I wasn’t needed any more - but Yas made sure every time she came to visit she brought us food to keep us going, so we needed for nothing.
Rain season was in, and being in a house that was only half built was proving difficult. We survived a few nights of rain with the kitchen flooded and the roof leaking, but when the rain became too heavy we couldn’t even shelter in a corner because the floors were flooded in every room.
Anwar came over one evening and told me he couldn’t leave us in the house any more, he had spoken to his family about us, and they said for us to go and stay with them, he told me Thahaba wasn’t there because she was in the village.
I was furious with him for letting his family know about us without asking me first, but he assured me he didn’t tell them anything about our relationship, only that he was helping us escape Ziad. I was concerned that more and more people were learning of my whereabouts in Sanaa, I was also convinced his mother would suss me and Anwar out, and I refused to go, but when the rain got so bad that all our blankets and belongings were drenched, and the children were shivering with cold, I finally gave in.
Anwar’s mother, who was called Zayneb, was kind and generous to the children, taking them into a room and making them beds to sleep for the night. This wasn’t my first meeting with Zayneb, we had met when she first came to Yemen and I’d got on well with her then. Anwar’s brother Jabil was also there, he always sat alone in his room; he was the total opposite of Anwar personality wise, he never spoke to anyone unless he really needed to. Salwa, his other sister, was working and was expected back later that evening. I felt guilty as I entered the kitchen and walked over to where Zayneb was in the kitchen, I was in her house under false pretences that I was merely a friend of her son, when in fact I was in love with him, and he with me.
I sat down next to her and offered to help with what she was doing, and without hesitation she took up my offer and we started chatting. We cooked food while Anwar sat with the children and it wasn’t long before Salwa turned up; she was tall and beautiful and welcomed me into their home. She told me she had just come back from a trip abroad as an air stewardess, and although her family had heard all her stories before, I couldn’t wait to put my children to bed so she could tell me all about them. Salwa told me all her stories, she hadn’t long come back from the UK, and although she said she never stayed there because they flew straight back, she loved her job and the freedom it gave her!
The rain continued so we stayed at Anwar’s house for a few more days. I called Yas and told her I was staying with a lady I’d met at the hospital where I last worked, just in case she came to visit. She didn’t question me; all that mattered to her was that we were safe. I also called Karen and told her the truth, I told her about Anwar many months earlier. I asked for her help with his passport, but she told me she couldn’t help because they had no control or say in Yemeni passports, and she didn’t know anyone in the Yemeni Embassy that she trusted.
My time with Anwar and his family took me back to my time with Mana and his family; my time with Mana was very short, but peaceful. None of Anwar’s family knew of our relationship, even though it was evident from the way we were together that we loved each other. Spending time with Anwar and his family made me wonder what we could have had if Anwar and I had been allowed to be together, but I knew this would never happen.
It was August 1992 when Karen turned up at the house. She told me that they thought we would have a chance of leaving very soon, as in the next week, or few days; she told me she felt this was very likely to happen, but she couldn’t make an absolute promise. She told me to be prepared, to say my goodbyes, because the next time she saw us it would be to take us either to the airport or out of Sanaa.
I didn’t tell the children what Karen told me, I didn’t want them to get their hopes up just yet. They knew I’d been trying to get passports but I told them we had a long wait. I was worried about giving them the false hope that I’d had to bear so many times in my life. However, something inside me told me this time things were different, so I went straight to the phone box.
My first call was to Yas who made her way straight to Sanaa; she and Abdul decided to stay at his family home for a few days. She told me Karen had spoken to Abdul earlier that day and told him the same thing; they were already packing to leave when I called. Karen and Abdul had been talking between themselves for months by now to try and help each other with our situation.
My next call was to Anwar, we arranged for him to come over that night, and every night until we left.
Yas and Nebat visited every day, sometimes they would go back and forth more than once or twice a day, worried that I would be gone by morning. It was really difficult for them to do this by then because Dad had become increasingly obsessed about finding us and had been spending all his time between Abdul’s house in the city where Yas and Abdul lived, and Nebat’s house in Sanaa.
Every time I said goodbye to my sisters my heart would break; every day it got harder because I knew my departure got closer. On one day it became too much. Tarek caught me on my knees, crying. I’d collapsed after Yas left. He thought something bad had happened so I decided to tell him why I was so upset. I was happy we were finally leaving; I was upset that Aunty couldn’t come with us. Tarek hugged me; I could see how upset he was because he was close to his aunty and cousins. Then he promised not to tell his siblings what Karen had said, but told me how excited he was that we were finally going to escape! Seeing the excitement in Tarek’s face I decided to tell the others!
With some money that Yas had given us I took the children to the night market to buy our outfits for our travel back home. I didn’t have a clue what the fashion was or what little children wore but I was determined that my children would have a new outfit to travel home in.
They needed hope just as much as I did, and buying them a new outfit for our travel home and storing it safe until that date, whenever in the future that may be, would give them hope. The boys chose matching outfits and so did the girls, very colourful, very Yemeni, but nice. As I looked around I couldn’t see anything that stood out to me. I knew it was August and much colder than Yemen so I opted for an outfit that was a two piece, long black woolly trousers and a long sleeved black and white matching top. That was it; we were ready and waiting to go.
My nights with Anwar would feel like a dream that I didn’t want to wake up from. We would stay awake until sunrise every night just talking and making plans for our future together. Until he could join me we would write to each other and phone each other. He made me promise that I would always allow the children to talk to him on the phone and write to him, and that I’d send him photos. I knew then that I would never love another man as much as I loved him.
It was August 28th, 1992. Anwar was back in work by then so he had arranged to come over later that evening, if we were still there! I heard a knock at the gates and went to open it, expecting to find him, but when I got to the gate and quietly asked who it was, my heart started beating when I heard Karen’s voice.
“It’s me, Karen, quickly open up!” I opened the gates to allow Karen and the car she had come in to drive into the garden.
“How long will it take you to get ready? You have a plane to catch!” she whispered as she stood in front of me, a huge smile on her face.
I stood there for a few seconds, my mouth wide open. At that moment I had an instant flashback of Yas’s nickname for me, “Moo
cow,” saying that my eyes reminded her of a cow, because at that moment my eyes were open so wide!
Not believing our time had come to go home, I froze, but Karen snapped me out of my trance by ushering me towards the house.
“Well, come on! We haven’t got long; you don’t want to miss your flight do you?” She laughed. I ran towards the children’s room shouting back at her.
“Five minutes! Give me five minutes!”
My hands were shaking, my legs felt like jelly, and the whole of my insides felt as though they were turning upside down as I quickly tried to wake the children, gently shaking them with the news that the time has finally come for us to go home to England. The clothes we had bought from the market, along with a few other items, had been folded neatly in a bag and put to the side, waiting for this moment!
Karen told me we needed to be at the airport within the hour and didn’t have much time, so I should just take the clothes with us and change everyone in the jeep on the way. Tarek and Izzy, as always, woke up straight away and took charge in helping me, while Sadig woke up and hung around for instructions on what to do next; he was always the quieter one of my children, very playful and very cheerful, but not very talkative!
Karen took Izzy and Sadig out to the car as I attempted to wake the other two; loving her sleep Dobia refused to wake up, shaking off any attempt to be woken from her sleep she pushed us away, and stuck her thumb in her mouth in her attempt to get back to her sleep. Nasser was in a deep sleep, and had to be flung around like a rag doll, and that’s exactly what his brother Tarek did as he picked him up and flung him over his shoulder! I did the same with Dobia, whilst I grabbed my sharsharf and the bag of clothes. Karen came back in and took Nasser off Tarek.
“Where are your bags?” she asked, looking around, I held up the plastic bag in my hand.
“This is all we have, and this is all we need!” I told her as we walked to the jeep. Unlocking the gate, I turned to Karen.
“Oh no! Anwar, he’s coming here tonight!” Even as I was saying the words I knew there was nothing I could do. I was leaving. Karen took Anwar’s number from me and promised to call him as soon as she left the airport; she promised me she would keep on calling him until she spoke to him. On the way to the airport I put my sharsharf on and changed my children, while Karen talked us through things we needed to do at the airport.
She told me Abdul had been informed we were leaving tonight; he would be somewhere in the airport but we wouldn’t see him, and if we did, we were not allowed to speak to him, or act as if we knew him. He was there purely to see how things went for us and to report back to Yas on whether or not we managed to escape! Karen told us once we were inside the airport we were totally alone, no matter what happened; if we got caught nobody would come to our rescue, or admit to having helped us in any way. This was to be the most terrifying time of my life.
Karen handed me my passport and I quickly flicked through the pages. My children’s names on my British passport, in my hands! It felt heavy, as if it was made from gold! I held on to it as I hugged her goodbye, I didn’t have the right words to make her understand how much she had done for us. Thank you just didn’t seem enough, but it was all I had, and now it was her turn to ask me for something. She handed me her private address and number, and she made me promise that I would call her, and let her know we were OK once we had settled in back home.
She told me Uncle Jim had been kept informed throughout the time they had been trying to get us out, and that he would be waiting for us when we landed in the UK.
With all but Nasser now fully awake we headed into the airport; armed police and soldiers were a heavy presence at the airport, and I couldn’t think back to when I’d ever felt so petrified. Tarek held on to Sadig’s hand, leading him inside, and Izzy held on to her sisters. I could see Izzy was grasping tightly onto Dobia, and Dobia was twisting her hand to release her sister’s grasp, so I had to tell her to ease up! Izzy said she was sorry, but she was worried her sister would run off because she never listened. To my relief, Nasser was still fast asleep over my shoulder.
As we approached the desk Karen had told us to go to, I handed Tarek the passport and tickets so that he could hand them to the man at the desk; it was wiser for me to show that I was allowing my oldest son to take charge when his father wasn’t around, it showed respect for males, and I didn’t want to bring any unwanted attention to us. The children had all been warned to stay silent and calm, and not to speak unless I nodded or gave them permission, it was only until we got on the aeroplane.
While the man behind the desk inspected our papers, I felt as though every person’s eyes were on us, and my heart beat became so fast, and my breathing so shallow, I could feel my neck swelling up! His eyes darted from the passport to me, then to the children, then back, then forth, back and forth, and back and forth!
“No luggage?” he finally asked, handing the passport and papers back to Tarek. Once again I froze not knowing what to say, I was travelling to England with five children, and a plastic bag!
“My uncle’s bringing them in a few days, it’s too much to carry,” Tarek quickly said. “Where do we go now?” he asked the man, acting so grown up.
Happy that Tarek had got us out of that situation, we made our way over to an area where a group of people were sitting; most of them were foreigners but there were a few Arabic people. Karen had told me to listen out for a flight to Gatwick Airport, and to go to the gate as soon as I heard the callout for that flight.
While we sat and waited I looked around; my nerves were really bad as I watched the soldiers walking around the airport with their automatic guns by their sides. Every time my eyes accidently caught one of theirs my stomach would turn, I just kept imagining the worst, what if? I tried to keep my head down, but I was looking for Abdul or Karen. Karen was gone, if she was there I couldn’t see her, but finally I saw Abdul!
For some unknown reason I had a glimmer of hope that my sister would be stood in the background next to Abdul to watch us escape. Even though I knew Abdul would never allow her to be there at the airport, it was a thought, almost a last wish that entered my head. Abdul thought that Yas was too weak to watch us leave, and maybe she was weak in her health, but to see us escape would have been something that would have brought her such joy, even if it was tainted with sorrow and sadness because of our separation.
Abdul was hiding right at the back behind a huge crowd and I quietly whispered to Tarek, telling him not to let the others know because they would become too obvious. Tarek slightly glanced at Abdul and gave a hint of a smile, then looked the other way and ignored him. The children all sat holding hands with their heads slightly down for what felt like hours, but were only a matter of minutes, and then I heard the call for Gatwick.
I quickly stood up and told the children to follow me and do as they were told, then once again handed Tarek the papers so that we could get through the gates onto the tarmac. The children’s eyes lit up as soon as we got onto the tarmac and they saw the huge aeroplane in front of them, and as we followed the crowd across the tarmac Izzy and Dobia broke into a little skip and run, and immediately got shouted at by an armed soldier who was patrolling the tarmac.
Even though I was terrified I could sense the fear in Izzy as she grabbed her sister’s hand and dragged her back to my side, holding on to the edge of my sharsharf.
“Sorry mummy!” she whispered. I could see her eyes were filling with tears because she thought she had done something wrong, so I grabbed her hand.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, in England you can skip anywhere you want to!” I whispered back as we walked up the steps to the aeroplane. I could see an armed soldier stood next to the aeroplane door, and I could hear the stewardesses welcoming the passengers and directing them to their seats, and when it was our turn my heart nearly jumped out of my chest: stood right in front of me was Salwa!
“Muna! What?” she said in shock.
“Salwa! Hi!” I go
t really close to her. “Please don’t say anything, please!” I quickly begged. She immediately composed herself and told me not to worry.
“I have a letter for you from Anwar, he knew this day would come and made me carry it with me everywhere. I will bring it over to you later, I’m so happy for you!” she whispered, taking us to our seats, we had front seats with extra leg room and two seats behind, with Nasser on my lap.
Every moment that passed felt as though it was happening in slow motion, I watched everyone’s movements as they entered the plane and took their seats. As I watched the armed soldier pace up and down the aeroplane doing his last inspection, and I watched the soldiers on the tarmac march from one side of the tarmac to the other, I could feel the sweat dripping from my body under my sharsharf.
After a while Salwa came over to us. “You need to put those belts around you,” she said, showing the children how to put their belts on, and then she turned to me.
“Are you alright? What’s happening?” she asked while she handed me an envelope. She could tell how nervous I was.
“I will be fine once we are in the air, and I will tell you all about it then!” I said, shoving the envelope down my top while looking around. Salwa told me not to worry as the doors started to close ready for take-off, and then she went off saying she would go and get some things to keep the children busy during the flight. I looked at the children and gave them a wink to let them know everything was OK, but Tarek saw through my fearful reassurances.
“Mum, stop worrying, we are safe now!” he pleaded.
“I know son, believe me I know. We are going home and we are going to be safe, but I will always worry, I’m your mother and that’s what mums do!” I told him.
A Father's Betrayal Page 41
