Ramadan in Jail
I got back to the hotel that night, charged up the cell-phones and started going though the phone books. It was reasonable to suppose that the phones and the hotel room could be tapped so I went to a local call center to begin phoning around the world.
“Hello, is that Sven? HI, my name’s Tom and I’m a friend of Clive who’s been arrested in – hello?”
“Hi Donald. Your friend Clive is in jail in-“
Hello Nori. I am a friend of Clive? He has big problems…”
Around half the people I rang hung up within a few seconds. Of those I spoke to around half wanted to know what the fuck Clive or I wanted from them. One or two were genuinely dismayed though and offered to send money at once. Kind natures are often very trusting – they were willing to send money to a complete stranger who claimed he’s use it to help Clive.
I picked up the money transfers and took the first installments of the lawyer’s fee over to his office. He invited me to come and break the Ramadan fast at his house the following evening. I accepted in the hope of gaining his trust and friendship. His Pakistani chauffeur came to pick me up.
“How long have you worked for Dr Al Khalif?” I asked him on the way over.
“14 years. Last year I wanted to go home to my family but Dr Al Khalif said, ‘please, stay one more year.’”
“And you think that Dr Al Khalif is a good man?” He shrugged as though it were a foolish question.
“He is a lawyer.”
We pulled up outside a villa complex in the desert with high walls surrounding a garden and a house big enough for the most prolific Arab family. The sun had just set and Dr Al Khalif was waiting for me in the doorway with a tray of melon slices.
Arabic hospitality is lavish no matter what the means of the host but it can be stifling at times for Westerners used to a little more personal space. I would far rather have been chilling in my hotel room but we were depending on the good will of the lawyer and it was important to make a good impression.
We sat on the carpet in the main room and broke the fast with trays of steamed vegetables and fried meats. I sampled them all enthusiastically and praised the virtues of the cooking. When the main course came out, however, I had little room left to do justice to my plate. A large piece of fish had been stewed with rice and then put into the oven until both were firmly lodged together. I think then they’d fried it to give it a little more grease.
“Arabic food is most delicious!” I exclaimed for the 50th time that night, kneading balls of rice together with my right hand. I had been offered a spoon but I assured them I was used to eating as the Arabs do.
I somehow got through the main dish and was wondering if it were possible to find any Alka-Seltzer in the local pharmacy. But then Dr Al Khalif came through from the kitchen bearing a jug as though it contained molten gold.
“Here is a specialty of our country.” He told me with gleaming eyes. “My wife made it herself. As if on cue his wife appeared briefly in the doorway and flashed a bucktooth grin from beneath her headscarf.
There was no getting out of this one. They spooned a gray mixture onto my plate and I sighed with relief. It was halvah – a sweet made of ground sesame and sugar. I ate it all the time.
I raised a big dollop to my lips but when I tried to withdraw the spoon it wouldn’t come out of my mouth. This was not halvah. My best guess is that they took the fat from camel humps, mixed it together with uncooked rough buckwheat flour and bismillah, you had cement. I dragged the spoon out of my mouth but now my lips were stuck together. How was I ever going to swallow this?
“Well, do you like?” They asked as a mother might enquire if you think her baby is beautiful. Desperately trying to work the mixture off the roof of my mouth I made the kind of face as if to say words-could-not-describe the taste. When they looked away I swallowed half a litre of water and hoped that my windpipe wouldn’t get blocked as this gunk reluctantly crawled down my throat. They looked as though they were about to offer me some more and so I immediately launched into a 20 minute monologue praising Islam, Arabic family values and camels until one of his wives came to clear the plates.
There only remained to drink coffee and eat luminous sweets bought from the marketplace. The correct form for drinking coffee is to swallow it a fast as possible even though it’s too hot – as though to say it is so good that you simply can’t wait. I did this and scorched my throat before I remembered that that’s only the etiquette of the nomadic Bedouin. Everyone else took their coffee in discreet sips.
Whilst I suffered second degree burns on the esophagus, Dr Al Khalif described to me his plans to take a third wife. The tradition of more than one wife is rarely practiced in the Muslim world these days as time shave changed and hardly anyone can afford it. Money is not a scarce resource in this part of the world and the lawyer licked his lips as he told me about the 17 year old he was presently negotiating for. I tried to imagine how she might feel to be given as a slave to this heavy set 50 year old with thick black hair coming out of every follicle imaginable. Somehow I doubted she would have much say in the matter.
