A Foreign Affair by Stella Russell

the legal owner of the car, Aziz had been forced to call him in Sanaa, confess to the loss and then beg him for the requisite code.
    ‘Madam Roza, I swear to you that my father was more angry with me than ever before in my life. He threatened to cut off my manhood and feed it to dogs or hang it around my neck on a rope made with the sinews from my legs...’
    ‘Pervert!’ I exclaimed, disgusted.
    ‘I don’t understand the word “pervert” but I’m sure from your facial expression that I agree with you,’ laughed the stranger. ‘Aziz’s father may well be a “pervert” but unfortunately he is also head of all Yemen’s security services and perhaps even the most powerful man in the country at this time. Isn’t that right, my friend?’
    ‘Yes,’ answered a surly Aziz from the far side of his camel, ‘and I must warn you Madam Roza that he does not like western women, especially if they have broken his favourite toy.’
    ‘What? Did you forget to tell him that it was you who forgot to check the water?’ I protested, hastily skirting his beast in order to confront him face to face, aghast at his treachery.
    ‘But what choice did I have if I wanted to live? I had to tell him you insisted on driving but had never driven an automatic before...’
    Immediately, I was back planning my swift departure from Yemen, the incipient tenderness I was feeling towards the stranger relegated to a back-burner. The reception staff at the Aden Sheraton would probably be able to arrange me a direct flight from Aden to London or, failing that, via Djibouti or Addis Ababa. Whatever happened, especially since I lacked a Yemeni visa, I must avoid Sanaa. I scowled at Aziz: ‘I thought you were my friend!’
    Once again the mysterious stranger rode to the rescue, retrieving the situation by placing a hand on our shoulders and reminding us that we were all extremely tired and hungry. Very shortly, he told us, we’d be returning the camels to the farm that had so kindly lent them to him. There we’d find his own LandCruiser precisely where he’d left it the previous evening, complete with a picnic breakfast he’d prepared for us. Had I ever tasted a special Yemeni honey bread? No. Well, I must. There was no time to lose. Aziz, at pains now to make amends, timidly observed that the camel farm was no distance at all from Silent Valley which was on our way back to Aden, if I was still interested in seeing the cemetery...
    ‘After everything I’ve been through, a meal, a shower and some sleep is all I’m interested in!’ I answered him huffily.
    ‘Just as you wish, Mrs Flashman,’ said the stranger, before commanding our camel to its knees in readiness for re-mounting. ‘I would like you to know that I regard it as a very special honour to put myself at your service.’
    ‘Oh?’ I stopped mid-mount in profoundest puzzlement, ‘Were you at Rugby too then? – by the way,’ I added in a whisper for his ears only, ‘it’s “Miss”, not “Mrs”.’
    ‘Forgive me, please,’ he said, gracefully handing me into the saddle, ‘No, I did not go to Rugby; I was educated in Saudi Arabia.’ I came to know of your ancestor and his adventures while attending a summer language school in Brighton. One of the teachers made us read about him in class. I think he didn’t know how to teach English so he made us laugh with those colourful tales...’
    At the mention of Brighton the penny had dropped. I was, I was sure, face to face - or rather by now, snugly settled back to front, my back pressed close against his chest - with none other than the author of the original letter to the Daily Register . Thrilled, my heart pumping fit to burst, I invested my next words with all the wealth of significance I could muster: ‘Sheikh al-Abrali,’ I began, my lips only millimetres from his ear, ‘I want to thank you from the depths of my being for inspiring my visit to your homeland and awakening in my bosom an ardent dream of renewed