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"Do you believe in fate?" Someone asked me that a very long time ago as we stopped for a small chat in the streets of Kuwait on a hot, humid day.
"Of course I do; why?" I was a little puzzled, especially as the question came from a very young man.
"Imagine on," he said, "I was to be on my plane to England for my studies, but instead I remain in this devilish heat with a very nice job into the bargain! Isn't it a trick of my fate? What do you say?"
"Well, you might as well call it a happy trick," I said. "You see, Lady Luck is very moody and plays all sorts of tricks on people but, as far as I am concerned, she played on me the trickiest trick of them all. Believe me!"
"What do you mean by that?" he asked.
"Call on us one day and I'll tell you what I mean." but he never came to us and I, having so unexpectedly remembered the story of my tragi-comical stay in Yemen, decided to put it all on paper. And here it is. -- Alexandra Skobeleff
As anyone who has ever seen the gawdy-awfulHollywood musical "Kismet," or considered the amount of sheer bukhtautobiographies dote on, the discovery that led to the eventualpublication of Alexandra Skobeleff's Light and Shadows: Memoriesof Yemen (Portland: Mandaville Associates, 1994, 105 pp., ISBN0-9642876-0-9) should come as no surprise. While trekking throughAustralia in 1991-1992, Jan Mandaville ended up one evening(bukht?) at a quilting group in a small town near Perth. Arather mundane event, it would seem. Then one of the women mentionedto Jan that her mother had worked in Yemen several decades ago as anurse. Normally this would be passing trivia as the real work ofgetting the quilts done dragged on. But wait. Jan Mandaville hadlived in Yemen back in 1978-1979 along with Jon (first residentdirector of AIYS in Sanaa) and three inquisitive children. So thenext day Jan, on her way to catching a plane, rushed to meet thelady, Alexandra Skobeleff, and found her to be "delightful, a tinyvibrant woman full of vigor and humor" (p. 7) and saw a completedraft of the story that enfolds in the present book. In less timethan it takes to pronounce the words "quilting bee," Jan was stung bythe delightful experiences that Alexandra recalled and set out tohave the results published. Building on the initial "coincidence"(explain how you will how Jan would end up at a quilting bee with thedaughter of a nurse who had worked for the household of ImamAhmad...), some basic perseverance on Jan's part has led to thepublication of these memoirs.
First, to the story. [I can tell you atthe outset, by the way, that you simply must order this book foryourself, your local library, your local 4-H club and whoever. Inthe category of books you will not be able to put down, this issomewhere near the top of the list for any Yemenophile.] Alexandra Skobeleff is a Palestinian born in Nazareth in 1908 asWadia Kanazi. When her mother died in 1910, Alexandra and her twosisters were adopted by a widowed Russian missionary. She spent thenext 20 years with her adopted mother and a German governess inDamascus. Her Palestinian father wanted Alex to go with him when heemigrated to Argentina in 1919, but she stayed in Damascus. Shelater attended a convent school in Beirut and then received a degreefrom the conservatory of the American University of Beirut. In 1937,at the age of 29, she married a White Russian who was an engineeringdraftsman. It was in 1952 that she spent several months in Yemen asa nurse and interpreter for Dr. Antonina Moshenetz. Later she joinedher husband in Kuwait and by 1962 they ended up in Australia. Theseare the bare bones of a most extraordinary life, but the focus of thebook is on Alex's memories of her brief stay in Yemen.
In her introduction to the book, JanMandaville quotes Alex, who said up front, "I am not a journalist. These are just stories" (p. 7). Thank God she is not a journalist,especially in light of the atrocious journalistic accounts availablethese days on Yemen. Stories they are, entertaining and informative,but these are not "just" stories. This is as close as you will getto a conversation with a remarkable woman who has a vividrecollection of mundane events from four decades ago. No sensationalrevelations here, nor earth-shaking conclusions of a much debatedpart of Yemen's history. These are stories the way they are meant tobe heard, not edited into formulaic print pablum. Alexandra writesand the result is not unlike a tape recording of a conversation onemight have over coffee or while knitting a quilt.
I was especially drawn into the narrativewoven here because shortly before reading this memoir I had devouredthe translation of a wonderful novel by Zayd Dammaj, TheHostage, recently published by Interlink Books (reviewed on page34 in this issue). Dammaj takes us on a magical tour of the imam'spalace from the eyes of the young dawadars, young pages to the imam. Alex knew the world of these young boys, one 14-year old inparticular: "Could I ever forget him? That skinny but always gaylad, full of mischief, who knew all the palace secrets &emdash; thewomen's longing for freedom, their sickness, their intrigues" (p. 9). There are memories here of Ahmad's wives; Alex thought he hadmarried about 14 times by the time she knew him. She was especiallyclose to the second wife of Ahmad (at the time) known as Zaynab, agirl whose mother was English and father Yemeni. "She was married atthe age of 14 to the 50-year-old King. She was the lonelinest andthe unhappiest soul of all, for deep in her heart of hearts she hadtwo secrets: longing for her homeland of England and a craving tobecome pregnant, both wishes not gratified" (p.10).
There are so many interesting anecdotes thatit is difficult to pick out one or two for illustration. Considerthe attempted seduction, the surgeon who was asked to cut off aprisoner's hands (which he did not and thus saved the hands of thesealleged felons), the rain of locusts, the royal lions, and many more. Let two stories suffice. Alex and Antonina were often called totend to the imam's wives, especially to help them become pregnant. Most had constant complaints, except for Sayidatna, who was a dwarf. The narrative picks up as follows (p.63):
"No complaints at all?" we repeated."No, not even headaches. and no scars. I eat very little, drink plenty, and don't chew qat. I read and teach the Qu'ran and go to sleep early and get up early too!"
"Alex, ask her what her mother did to her father; remember she promised to tell us that story the day we met the King."
Shy, blushing a little, Sayidatna told her story. "My mother was a very tall, strong woman like Khadijeh here." She pointed to the slave standing in the corner, the tallest of all the women. "My father was a dwarf like me. Once mother was mad with my father and to teach him a lesson, she took him in her hands and sat him on a high shelf in the room. She told him to sit there until she came back.
"He had no alternative but to wait for someone to help him down. But no one would do it, they were all afraid of my mother. So he remained there almost all the day until she relented and put him down." Here all of us laughed, including the storyteller.
And for those who want to get to the bottom of life with Imam Ahmad, consider this story and imagine yourself in the same position (p. 77):
... Ghaleb came running to our room. "Come quick, the Imam is sick and wants you." Both of us [i.e. Alex and the young queen Zaynab] ran to the salon where the King lay on the sofa, buttocks uncovered and inflamed. To my dismay, I saw several yellow spots of pus surrounded by circles of red. I trembled a bit. How could I treat this bottom just as I would any Yemeni's?"
I suggest that before doing anything else,you dash off a check for $13.50 (or $16 overseas) for your copy ofLight and Shadows. You can order the book from: MandavilleAssociates, POB 69548, Portland, OR 97201-0548, USA (FAX:503-452-4618). Do it now; before your bukht runsout.