“Anyhow, go on…why on earth would the Yemeni government, or Interpol, for that matter, allow such activities? It couldn’t be in their interests to have people like Michael Petrovich supporting groups like that. And how did he get tied in?”
If Nello was right—and Nello was usually right—I began to see why Jason Roberts at the Embassy had so little to tell me about Michael Petrovich. If—and I still maintained a shred of skepticism—he was an illicit arms smuggler, he certainly wasn’t a citizen America could be proud of, and diplomats are trained to put the best face on things. Of course, diplomats must also lie through their teeth when protecting knowledge of undercover activities. Often, they don’t even know who is working in intelligence. Maybe Michael had been a double agent? I was grasping at straws.
“Yemen government do not approve, no. They wish to catch him. But he is clever. Many friends. The government has many people who like money, you know? Bribes. The government does not want to upset the apple carriage. And he works with French company for fertilizer. They do not want big ‘hullabaloo.’” Nello gestured to the waiter.
He arrived with my soup. The steaming bowl called to me with fantastic aromas of garlic and tomato. I dipped in a spoon and then a piece of bread. “So who would kill an American like Petrovich, then?”
Nello’s eyes narrowed. “Who wouldn’t? He is better dead than in jail. Less trouble.” He lowered his voice even more. “I think it good if you not look too much into this Petrovich, Elizabeth. Petrovich has friends. And Petrovich has enemies. You not here to do this story? Then do little as possible. Forget that man!”
I dropped the Petrovich topic. “Do you know where Halima al Shem is these days? I want to see her!” Even with Nello, I wouldn’t share information that might harm my friend.
Before volunteering an answer, Nello popped up and out to the kitchen.
Perhaps Nello wasn’t even aware of the large role he had played in my first trip to Yemen by introducing me to Halima. That had been late May of 1994, on a day the bombing was light and I’d enjoyed lunch at Nello’s, alone for a change.
After our first meeting, I’d stopped by the Friends of Yemen whenever possible, often combining it with a stop at Nello’s. Halima couldn’t go into a restaurant, for social reasons, but I could stop by her office. On those visits, we talked of many things—life in America and Yemen, the roles of men and women, personal hopes and fears. Halima’s feminine colleagues watched us converse with awe on their faces. And with pride. A Yemeni woman holding intellectual discussions with a foreigner! Imagine.
Nello came bustling back from the kitchen. “What did you say? Professor Halima?”
“Yes. I hoped to see her while I was here, but Friends of Yemen seems to be closed.”
“She has not been by to say hello for a while. I know nothing…” Nello looked puzzled.
I shrugged and chalked that subject up as a dead end.
But I still had a job to do, sending some broad reports back to Mac in Washington. “How would you say Yemen has changed since I was here? I mean, other than a war not being waged right now. Are there changes in daily life?”
“Now that, it is hard to answer,” said Nello. “More loud. More like what you call it, your American Gold Rush? But like when you were here before, foreigners stay together; Yemenis live their own lives.”
Did Nello know I owed my life to Halima? That episode, dark and frightening, had remained a secret from virtually everyone. It hadn’t been safe to tell. Certainly I would never tell anyone what a Yemeni woman had done in secret, in a place where secrets are all that the sequestered women have.
CHAPTER 28
“I passed the hours listening to the gentle lubalub of the hookah and whispered conversations about dead poets and fine deeds. In Sana’a, qat governs. No rush, just a silky transition, scarcely noticed, and then the room casts loose its moorings. ‘Capturing moments of eternity,’ someone once called the subtle tinkering with time that qat effects.”
Kevin Rushby, Eating the Flowers of Paradise
It was qat time in Sana’a, the post-prandial ritual of chewing the leaf, exchanging poetry and high thoughts with friends, sitting companionably, and then withdrawing into aloneness.
Tom Reilly lay back on the dusty mufraj cushions in the sparsely-furnished room, pulling off tender leaves at the top of the qat branches in a plastic bag. Three water pipes, the hookahs, gave off tobacco and herbal smells that mixed nicely with the ever-present dust of the cushions.
A few casual friends had stopped by: three Peace Corps volunteers, two volunteers from Irish Concern, and the spectacular Swede, Christine Helmund. All of them were idealists, he supposed. Even Christine. He felt he was past that stage. Though sometimes he wondered.
It was a daily thing, this qat, immutable. Every Yemeni from top officials to porters in the souq was thus engaged. The officials and rich people—the men, at least—got the choice top ends of the sprigs.
Qat was one of the things that had bonded Tom to Yemen. He looked forward to it every day. Usually he chewed with foreigners, as today, but sometimes he got invited to the home of a Yemeni man, and had the chance to join in with the poetic outbursts and intellectual arguments of the natives. Women, of course, were never in sight at these chews, though Tom knew they were in a lower mufraj with women friends, chewing the leftover leaves not chosen by the men.
Tom found it hard to articulate exactly what he got from Yemen. Living at the end of the world could be addictive. Relationships came and went. Not having a regular job like these volunteers gave him extra freedom. Glancing at the sexy Christine, he felt like a truant schoolboy, escaping the rigid structure and authority figures back home.
Adding a few choice bits to the wad in his cheek, he felt the warmth of self-confidence that often came with qat. He turned to one of his companions, Larry, a pony-tailed volunteer who was stationed way off in the Wadi Hadhramaut, a good twelve hours across desert tracks in an uncomfortable taxi loaded down with people and animals.
“So did you hear about Petrovich?”
Larry looked startled. “What about him? Is he here now?”
“He’s dead,” stated Tom. “Killed last night at the Dar al-Hamd. They found him this morning.”
Larry was quiet for what seemed a long time. “What happened?” he asked, finally.
“I guess he ticked off some Yemeni. There was a jambiya in his chest.”
Tom glanced at Christine, who had in fact been the person who related some of the details. She sat frozen this afternoon, none of her usual vitality showing through. How well had she known Petrovich? “Christine, how did you learn about it?”
There was a long pause. Then Christine roused herself to speak delicately around her own qat wad. “I went over to talk to him this morning, but an American woman told me he was dead. She told me about the jambiya.”
“Well, that’s one problem we won’t all have to face anymore,” muttered Larry.
“Whadya mean?” Tom looked sharply at Larry. “Did you have problems with him, then?”
“Oh, not real trouble. I just thought he stuck his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.”
“Like where?” Tom was deep enough into qat to not care much about the answer. He felt above it all, full of lofty thoughts.
“He kept asking us stuff that didn’t have to do with our project. He was a pretty bad supervisor, for being an expert and all that.”
“What did Petrovich say? What did you talk about?”
Christine, who