Deadline Yemen

by Peggy Hanson

  “Shall we all go back?” I asked the little group I’d come with. It hadn’t been the peaceful sunset occasion I’d hoped for. I needed food and explanations.

  Becca, for once, was silent. “This is not the time for talk.”

  Because the UNESCO jeep driver, Yusuf, had witnessed the episode?

  Tom walked toward the Land Rover with Christine in tow. The other young man had already climbed into the back seat.

  CHAPTER 68

  “…Round windows made of alabaster give a moonlight effect to a room, hence the name in Arabic qamariyyah [moon-inspired]. The apertures above and on each side of the entrance give air and light to the ground floor and stairs.”

  Renzo Manzoni, Roma 1884

  Sunset is a short affair close to the equator. Night had fallen as we approached the city limits. I curled into my corner of the back seat of the jeep, keeping my gaze on the Sana’a lights. A special twinkling occurs in Third World cities, a product of alternating current, low wattage, and not much neon. I sat and bumped gently in the cool air, letting my thoughts twinkle mindlessly with the lights.

  So many layers to this story, and this society. Who was good, and who was bad? Tom, Christine, Halima, Becca, Alex, that young man, who should not have been an ominous figure…how did they tie in? I blocked out the late Michael Petrovich, whose character had become so besmirched, and the U.S. diplomat, Jason Roberts. I also blocked out Richard Queens.

  In retrospect, all that might have been premature. I often made judgments too fast.

  CHAPTER 69

  The young women asked each other: Is she engaged to a Yemeni yet?… She spoke a long time with Hassan the Attar… But she was with the Russian. The Russian always speaks a long time to the Attar… She will marry an educated man… Very educated…

  Eva Sallis, The City of Sea Lions

  Nello’s place smelled as inviting as ever. Becca and I had decided to go there after our excursion. Garlic, sweet basil, pine nuts, roasted peppers. We exchanged glances of pleasure. And she received a distracted hug from Nello just as I did.

  “Good, good. Two old friends. Now friends together. Good.” And he bustled away to take care of other customers.

  “So, what happened out there?” I said. Nello had told the waiter we’d have a half carafe of the house red, served discreetly out of a cranberry juice bottle—the usual ploy. “Could you understand? What do you know about Christine?” We had ordered our pasta and were nibbling some fried cheese.

  “Well,” said Becca slowly. “It was strange. Tom Reilly seems to have a relationship with Christine Helmund. I’d heard that was over. I thought there was going to be violence with the other guy, the volunteer named Larry.”

  I nodded while I ate. “Maybe competition between Tom and Larry? And, of course, you, like everybody else in Sana’a, know Christine.”

  “I met Christine through her volunteer group. Don’t know how much good she does, really. She’s not quite the do-gooder type.” Becca’s plump face puckered into a thoughtful frown. “I wonder why she’s here. Men like her, obviously. I was surprised to see somebody male looking so hostile.”

  I couldn’t help grinning over my disguised Chianti. “Becca, tell me the truth. When was the last time you said anything totally malicious about anybody?”

  Becca grinned. “Don’t get me started!”

  My heart felt lighter than at any moment since I’d come to Sana’a. As I enjoyed solitude, I’d had enough for a while. Becca’s arrival into my itinerary was precisely what I needed—a good meal and a spot of gossip.

  And in light of our plans to visit Sa’da, a companion in my real quest. Though of course she couldn’t be told the whole story.

  “You’ve been here a long time, Becca. What do you make of the place?”

  “I love it. Absolutely love it. The people are direct and friendly—though it’s a challenge to understand their complicated tribal system. As a foreign woman, I have the opportunity to meet whole families, men and women sitting together. Men can’t do that. This high, dry climate agrees with me. I often forget there’s another world out there…”

  A different background story needed examination, though. “This guy, Michael Petrovich, who was killed at the Dar al-Hamd…did you know him?”

  “Not well, but I met him a few times. He was doing some French project in beekeeping, and it involved some of the volunteers working in villages near here. Wadi Dhar was one of those, by the way. And some other projects out east, in Wadi Hadhramaut.”

  “What about him and Christine? Were they an item?”

  Becca’s expression turned inscrutable. “Christine has been an ‘item’ with a number of men in Sana’a,” she said.

  “That doesn’t answer the question. Could she have killed him, do you think? Could another boyfriend of hers have killed him? Somebody like that young man—Larry?—we saw at the cliff top?

  Becca wound spaghetti around her fork. “Hmmmm. Christine as a killer? I don’t think so. She doesn’t have the passion for it, I’d guess.”

  “Well, in a sense, passionless people make the best killers. Cold blood and all that.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. I have seen that young man with Tom before, so maybe it was nothing. Tom has his own little coterie—some of them were at that party.”

  I was speculating like mad. Who else could have a motive? Another of the volunteers? Somebody at the Embassy? “Do you happen to know Alexandra Metzger?”

  Becca stopped chewing. “The flamboyant one at Reilly’s party. Don’t really know her. But I’ve met her. If we were writing a mystery, she’d be the perfect suspect, wouldn’t she? Self-absorbed, colorful. The one everybody loves to hate. Bet she knows more than she lets on, while trying to look like just another brazen dame.”

  Becca was a wonderful gossip. I warmed to the malice. “I traveled around with her three years ago, during the civil war. She is a brazen dame. But she’s quite intelligent, and if she had some connection with Petrovich, anything’s possible.” I took a ladylike swig of my ‘cranberry juice.’ “We do know Alex Metzger and Tom Reilly are cohorts, at least in traveling together…what do you think about Tom?”

  “I don’t have time for men like him. Dilettantes.” Becca bit savagely around the pit of a black olive. “His immaturity is annoying, you know? As if he couldn’t make a living where he had to take some responsibility. Yemen does attract eccentric Westerners. And really strange people come through here all the time. I consider Tom Reilly one of the lazy ones.”

  I raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Why? He’s been helpful to me.”

  Becca’s mouth tightened. “Oh, nothing, really. I just don’t like him.”

  I let that subject drop. “I saw a British guy go into Petrovich’s room the night of the murder. Businessman, he claims. I think he has ties to some Yemenis hanging around the Dar al-Hamd.”

  Becca’s eyes lit up. “You what? Really? This is like Agatha Christie. That guy definitely goes on our list of suspects… Let’s keep thinking through the possibilities.”

  “I guess you’d rule out Ahmad Kutup.” My voice was a little unsteady. I didn’t want to offend. And I didn’t want to suspect Halima’s lawyer. For more reasons than one.

  Becca thought it over, eating spaghetti daintily. “I don’t know him very well. I really don’t. I’m surprised at how much you’ve picked up since getting here, what, two or three days ago? I bet you’re a good journalist.”

  I sighed. “I get distracted by side stories that seem more interesting than the latest episode in a current event. I like my work at the Trib. But I’m more interested in the long background pieces, you know? Where you can look at layers over a longer time. I like the big picture.”

  Becca tilted her head to one side. “Promise not to pass along anything I tell you?”

  “Well, of course.” I was a little insulted she’d ask. “You can consider this a background discussion, just as I do.”

  “Christine is interested in Ahmad Kutup. You have to ad
mit he’s good-looking. And worldly compared to most of the Yemeni men around here. She’s had her eye on him since he arrived a few weeks ago. He’s one of the few Yemenis who can go back and forth between foreigners and natives, acceptable to all.”

  “Isn’t that a little suspicious in itself?”

  “I guess it could be. Especially now that there’s been a murder.”

  I took another sip of my “cranberry juice” and thought for a minute. “Do you really want to make that trip to Sa’da with me?” Given the pain of the al Shems, I had to act as quickly as possible while looking casual and keeping up with my work image.

  “Hmmmm. I think so. Yeah. I could check on a project we have up there.” She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay, count me in. Saturday, you said?”

  “Yeah. Let’s try for Saturday. But early, so I can go to the big souq there. Tomorrow I have to do a few more interviews here in Sana’a.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Yemen is a rare country in the Arabic world since there is a rich variety of newspaper and magazines with conflicting interests…

  Lonely Planet Guide to Yemen

  The editor of the English language Yemen Daily News, Abdullah al Badr, sat across from me at the hotel. No reporting mission is complete without talking to homegrown journalists. A graduate of an American university, he had said he’d be happy to meet me for morning tea.

  He was a short thin man with a small moustache that quivered when he talked, rather like the whiskers on a West Highland Terrier who once owned me. I had to wrench my eyes away from this diversion to meet his serious bespectacled eyes. Perhaps remembering Ballou, my West Highland Terrier, I took to him at once.

  After a little discussion on the American educational system, we got down to business. “I’m here to do features,” I explained. “But of course any background material will be helpful. Americans are woefully ignorant about Yemen and its history.”

  Al Badr nodded fiercely. It couldn’t have been easy being a student from such an exotic land in the great but provincial U.S. of A. “Sometimes, it is hard to explain,” he admitted. “And Americans, they see all Arabs as a threat these days.”

  I couldn’t dispute the fact. Relations between the U.S. and various Arab countries had gone from bad to worse in recent years. I wished all Americans could meet people like the al Shems, Ahmad Kutup, and Abdullah al Badr across from me. He was a nice guy. An intelligent guy. A member of the new young intellectuals in a country where the definition of literacy had once meant only reading the Koran.

  “I’m planning a little trip to Sa’da,” I said. “Any advice on how to handle that?”

  Al Badr was quiet for a few minutes. “Maybe not too good an idea?” he suggested, tentatively. “Sa’da, it is not so safe.”

  “But I’d miss the whole flavor of the north by not going there! And Rebecca Ross of UNESCO is going with me.”

  He sighed and leaned back. “Mizz Ross is a good person,” he said. “She knows Yemen very well. But do not stay long, okay? Not a good idea to stay long in the north.”

  Suddenly my bête noir, Alex Metzger, breezed in.

  Today she was decked out in a bright blue caftan with shiny gold embroidery on the bodice. Couldn’t she find a better place to have coffee than the Dar al-Hamd? I sighed and gestured for her to join us.

  “Hello, Abdullah,” she said, before greeting me. Of course they’d know each other. I received—and gave—a peck on each cheek. She was in the process of pulling out her cigarettes—a shame, since the aromas heretofore were redolent with beans spicy enough to make your eyes water.

  “We were just talking about my planned trip to Sa’da,” I said. “Abdullah doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Alex sipped her coffee in an ostentatiously ladylike way, bringing the cup to her lips, pursing them, and holding the handle with three fingers. She seemed distracted. “Oh, I don’t know. Sa’da shouldn’t be too bad. I was there three months ago.”

  “Really? What did you do?” I asked.

  “I went with some international volunteers. And Tom Reilly. It was rather a lark.” Her voice was ever so slightly dismissive.

  Since Alex seemed reticent to talk very much about that trip, I pressed. “There must have been a reason for going to Sa’da. Why were the volunteers going there, if it’s such a dangerous place? And Tom…it’s not like him to go out of his way to encounter obstacles.”

  The silver streak in Alex’s hair shimmered in sunlight coming in the high windows. Her eyes were cold as diamonds, and the shaking of her hands appeared to be chronic. Alex looked like she could fall apart, like a broken alarm clock, at any moment. “Some of the volunteers were looking at a possible new site. Tom and I went along for the ride.”

  Finito. Khalas. Alex’s putdown was clear in any language.

  “Michael Petrovich didn’t by any chance go on that trip, too, did he?”

  Silence greeted my question. Abdullah had retreated to obscurity on his side of the table, whiskers twitching nervously. I stared into Alex’s dark eyes.

  “Okay. You win. Petrovich was along, too. His company was interested in having volunteers in a village near Sa’da, and we all went together.” Alex glared, definitely trying to quell me.

  “You were collecting jewelry, Tom was doing a story?” Had I really struck a vein of information about Michael Petrovich’s activities? But why had no one mentioned this trip earlier? Michael Petrovich seemed better-known to my set of acquaintances than any of them wanted to admit.

  Abdullah looked uncomfortable. I stayed silent.

  She took a long drag of her cigarette. “We were filling in some gaps, yes. I told you we’ve collaborated on journalism from time to time.”

  “Was Christine Helmund one of the party?”

  “No, she wasn’t.” Alex’s eyes glazed over for a moment. Was she tired? Bored? Uncomfortable? “I was the only female. The other volunteers were somebody named Larry and a guy whose name I can’t remember. They’re supposed to be experts on honey and beekeeping.”

  “Did the village site work out?”

  “No. There was some trouble with elders. Didn’t want foreigners. We didn’t even stay overnight.”

  “Yet you tell me I’m safe to go to Sa’da?” Things weren’t adding up.

  “I’m telling you it’s safe to go to Sa’da for a short visit. I wouldn’t recommend going to live there, as the volunteers were considering doing.”

  Abdullah’s face registered relief. “Very good idea. Do not stay long. Go and see the buildings. Yes. It should be all right.” He stood up to leave. As had happened with Becca, Abdullah and I had clicked. He looked worried.

  I stood and put out my hand. “Well, yes. I won’t plan on staying. But thanks to both of you for all the information.”

  I got up and made my excuses to Alex, leaving her to finish her coffee and toast. And honey.

  Alex Metzger piqued my curiosity. What was her role in Yemen? What was her relationship to Tom? To Christine? Christine reminded me of Alex in some ways—headstrong, vain, a little too interested in men, or in manipulating men. I couldn’t quite explain the resemblance.

  And Michael was along on the trip too? Too many threads lay tangled, as though a cat had played with them. Rolling the scattered yarn into an orderly ball seemed impossible.

  Because it was late, I called a taxi for the short trip to Bab al Yemen. The turbaned driver, when he finally came, already had his left cheek full of qat, chipmunk style. I didn’t mind riding with him so early in the chew. By late afternoon, when several hours of chewing would have made them lethargic, out of touch, or out of sorts, I’d be less than thrilled to ride with Sana’ani cabbies.

  As I reached for the door of my taxi, another disgorged a passenger near the Dar al-Hamd’s main door. The person paying the fare, looking nicely-pressed, harried, and tense as usual, was Richard Queens.

  “Mr. Queens. Nice to see you.” I beamed.

  He wasn’t enthusiastic, but a small glint a
ppeared. “Ah, yes. Ms. Darcy. I trust your reporting is going well?” He reached back into his taxi and retrieved a bulging briefcase.

  “Actually, it’s going pretty well. I’m just heading for the souq and then to Caffe d’Italia. Better food than here!”

  “No question about it,” came the well-bred response. “And I may go there today, also, once I get rid of these useless documents.”

  “Would you like to go with me? I can wait while you take your things upstairs.” Was that a small crack in the British brush-off?

  Queens was about to answer when two pedestrians strode purposefully up to the front of the hotel. Christine Helmund, accompanied by Larry. They were streaked with dust in the usual Yemen volunteer style. They appeared to have resolved whatever tensions lay between them yesterday.

  Christine gave me an icy little nod as she passed and didn’t look to right or left. Decidedly odd, considering I’d helped save her yesterday at Wadi Dhar. Larry waved halfheartedly. A little embarrassed at our recent encounter at the Wadi? Or not?

  “Hi, Christine,” I called to her retreating back. She ignored me.

  I waved to my taxi to pull over beside the pepper tree near the hotel entrance and stop. I turned to speak to Richard Queens and words caught in my throat. It was like viewing a stone statue. He was looking after Christine and her cohort with an unreadable expression. I glanced back. Was there any response from the other side? No, Christine disappeared through the stone lintels of the Dar al-Hamd, apparently oblivious.

  So it was, after all, Christine who had evoked Queens’ startled reaction that first night. Or it could have been the combination of Christine and Michael Petrovich. I still had questions about why Queens had gone into Michael’s room.

  “Shall I wait for you?” I asked Richard Queens.