“I heard you escaped a monastery. I’ve been to Christian monasteries, a long time ago, when I was traveling through Andalusia.”
I try to explain to him that I didn’t escape, that I simply left without anyone stopping me, but he’s one of those people who talk and don’t listen.
“Strange places, the monasteries of your land.”
I try to explain that Andalusia is not my land. He doesn’t listen.
“My name is Mirza Hussain. What’s yours?”
“Bos Mutas.”
“That’s not a Christian name.”
“It’s not, and it is.”
“Christian monasteries are closed buildings where many live together,” he says, “sometimes just men, sometimes just women. Whoever enters has to stay forever, practicing idolatry and constantly wearing a long, gloomy robe. I wonder how you managed to escape. Here, in this house of doctors where you now sleep, men and women live together without being married, or even being related. That’s a bad thing, according to the Koran. But we justify your behavior or at least tolerate it, because you’re from a very different culture from ours. And because we know that in this house of doctors, the men and women stay chaste, without lying together. I don’t condemn those foreign doctors and surgeons who’ve come to heal our wounds and bare their faces before us with a calm, innocent shamelessness. It’s understood that none of you are promiscuous. I don’t know whether the males among you have made vows of chastity, or whether you’re eunuchs. It’s said that in your land, those who cloister in monasteries practice the mysteries of their priesthood by marrying their God. That seems a monstrosity to me, and I have no idea how the nuptial ceremony goes, because you all keep it very secret. It seems your God doesn’t favor beauty, because when I asked whether in the convents—the women’s monasteries, which are like a harem—only the most beautiful young women are chosen to wedyour God, people said no, that age and beauty were not valid considerations for selection. A strange God, yours.”
Pau appears and invites me for a walk. I leave Mirza Hussain, seller of nonexistent carpets, to finish his coffee as he tries to decipher the indecipherable, and I follow Pau to the street and into the neighboring town. From the minarets of many mosques the muezzins proclaim the eternal glory of Allah, all at the same time and on loudspeakers, in a startling, dissonant polyphony. Not one woman is visible on these debris-strewn streets. There are men, but they’re deep in stupor. Young or old, they linger motionless on sidewalks or in old cafés as if haunting the ruins of Sleeping Beauty’s palace.
“It’s the khat,” Pau says. “You see that bulge in their cheeks? That’s where they’re holding a clump of khat leaves.”
“Have you tried it?”
“No.”
A misguided question, a sharp response. How could I think Pau—strapping, exigent Pau, who’s constantly warning me about security and behavior norms—would chew khat? Zahra Bayda laughs when she hears it, she says it takes time to adjust to Pau and his flurries of orders, which are understandable if you keep in mind that before joining MSF he was with the Red Cross and, before that, the military.
“But make no mistake,” Zahra Bayda tells me, “Pau has a heart of gold.”
Understood. Pau, my Catalonian boss, shoots out orders like some automatic weapon, but it seems he has a heart of gold. Fine. I’ll call him Pau Cor d’Or.
Here I am, following him. He wears a felt hat pressed down to his eyebrows, and he forces me forward at a fast clip through a labyrinth of alleys until we arrive—unbelievably—at a Chinese restaurant. Sunk deep in these ruins, yet identical to any Chinese restaurant in any part of the world, like some kind of proof that when food runs out on this planet we’ll always be able to count on glazed duck, wontons, and chow mein.
“We’re going to pick something up for tomorrow’s dinner,” Pau says.
“What about Leyla’s Yemeni dishes?”
“You’ll see.”
Pau whispers with a Chinese waiter in a black apron and gives him a few bills. We’re led to the back. Someone’s mopping the floor, the chairs are on the tables, and a gaudy mural boasts two languid camels walking toward the right, on a pink and lilac background reminiscent of dawn. We wait awhile, until an old Chinese woman appears and hands us two large bottles of soy sauce.
“It’s wine,” Pau confesses once we’re back on the street.
“What? It’s not soy sauce?” I’m slow to catch on.
Pau, the Red Cross soldier, our great guardian and protector, committing a risky transgression?
“It’s wine,” he affirms. “The Chinese make it secretly and camouflage it in these bottles. Listen, don’t even think of doing it again, this is the exception, and it’s because Zahra Bayda’s birthday is only once a year.”
On the walk back, Pau explains a basic truth: If I want to stay in Yemen, there are two words I must learn.Halal, andharam. Halal is what’s permitted; haram is what’s forbidden.
First lesson. Haram: alcohol, music, dancing. Halal: cats, lamb meat. Haram: dogs, pork, gambling, playing the lottery, stealing, smoking. For women, haram is more extensive: It includes visible skin or hair, menstrual blood, and extramarital relations.
“This is a world divided into halal and haram,” Pau says. “There is no in-between.”
There’s no in-between and yet here we are, walking down the street with a backpack containing haram bottles of fake soy sauce. This Cor d’Or is more complex than he seemed; he knows how to find a small corner of the permitted within the forbidden. Like all good leaders, he’s good at assessing when he can bend his own rules. Hats off to you for that, maestro. Hats off too for his second charge,that of cook, which makes him a peculiar being: On the one hand, he’s the patriarch and bigwig we all fear and obey, and, on the other, his feminine soul is devoted to caring for others and seeing to their nourishment. Inhuman and human, all at once: intriguing. Pau’s weakness is Africa. Typically cold as an icicle, when he’s talking about Africa, this exacting Catalonian’s eyes go soft like those of a man in love. I’ve already heard Zahra Bayda say that Pau had a sentimental side that only showed itself on that topic, and that here in Yemen he fulfilled his duties at a hundred percent and with a Spartan discipline, but that his dreams were wrapped up with Africa.
“I miss it,” Cor d’Or confirms on our way back home. “I can’t wait to return. From here I’ll go wherever Doctors Without Borders sends me, no matter where, but fingers crossed that it’s an African country. It’s where I most like to work. I feel good among the people there, what can I say? In Africa, I’m happy.”
