Two Boys from Aden College

By Qais Ghanem

Ahmad and Hasan were two of the brightest students at Aden College in Yemen; they were also best friends. After graduation, they traveled together to Britain, where Ahmad studied medicine in Edinburgh and Hasan studied law in London. Their friendship remained strong while in Britain, as did their competitive natures. However, politics and ambition changed all that!

Hasan returns to Aden, where he gets married to none other than Ahmads sister, Salma, who adores him. Hasans career is just as successful as his personal life, and he becomes a high-ranking, well-respected minister of justice. Meanwhile, Ahmad develops a good reputation as a physician, but diagnoses murder by the communist government, and has to flee.

Fate brings the best friends back together in Sanaa, the capital of North Yemen. This time, the circumstances are dire. Once again Ahmads forensic training incriminates one of the presidents in-laws, accused of murdering a burglar. But Hasan chooses to protect the sheikh, and put his brother-in-law, in jail. Help comes from a teenaged prostitute.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469796277

Qais Ghanem

Retired neurologist, author, poet, columnist for several international papers.Promotes peace, dialogue with diversity and gender equality.Previous books:Final Flight from Sanaa - novel, also translated to ArabicTwo Boys from Aden College - novel - also Arabic versionMy Arab Spring My Canada - co-authored non-fictionFrom Left to Right - Arabic and English verseForbidden Love in the Land of ShebaDemocracy, Deity and Death - Discussion by Four Arabs

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

LEAVING HOME

It was the last day of August 1967. The two old classmates from Aden College, the highest institute of learning in South Yemen, were preparing to leave for the United Kingdom. Hasan Alawi Al-Qirshi and Ahmad Shawqi Saleh were virtually all packed and looking forward to their flight to England to study law and medicine, respectively. They had scoured all the major stores for the biggest suitcases they could buy in that sparsely stocked market, but it was not easy to find one. They blamed it on the violence associated with the guerilla war of liberation in the south. In North Yemen, the civil war had been raging since 1962 between the monarchists, supported by Saudi Arabia, and the republicans, backed by Egypt.

Ahmad had a bit more money to spend, being the son of the minister of trade, a drug sales representative by training. He was a proud citizen of Aden who had been born in the small town of Crater, so named because it was nestled in an extinct crater apparently thousands of years old. The highest seat of learning was Aden College where all the brightest boys went, including these two. No girls were allowed; they had their own girls’ college, where Ahmad’s fifteen-year-old sister, Salma, was receiving her secondary education. She was destined to graduate from high school over the next few years and hopefully get married. No girl had ever been to university, for she would have to leave the country and live in a foreign land, away from close supervision. That would simply not be permitted.

Hasan, like Ahmad, was twenty. He too had passed his general certificate of education exams in nine subjects, at the ordinary level, and then two subjects at the advanced level. He was very competitive and dearly wanted to know by how many marks he had beaten his friend and archrival Ahmad. He was endowed with a superior memory, compared with Ahmad, and thus did very well in history and botany. He was also a proverbial bookworm. Ahmad, on the other hand, found remembering the different names of the digestive system of the frog and the earthworm quite onerous, if not boring. But give him a mathematical problem to solve, and he would do it ahead of everyone else, without pencil or paper. He so looked forward to the geometry classes given by his Pakistani teacher with the typical accent and the limp he suffered from polio in early childhood. Ahmad always knew when that teacher was approaching the classroom, from his asymmetrical steps accompanied by a shuffling sound as he dragged his withered leg along the floor. Ahmad just knew he would shine in the geometry class and needed to reassure himself that he was, from time to time, cleverer than Hasan. He also enjoyed sports like badminton and volleyball, whereas Hasan would spend his time swatting instead. It was a strange rivalry; both boys knew their strengths and weaknesses.

They were both rather skinny. Hasan was five feet, ten inches in height, unusually tall for a Yemeni, with light brown skin, black hair, and black eyes like nearly all Yemenis in the south. He was not handsome, but at that age he had the attractiveness of youth stamped all over his face. Ahmad was only five feet, eight inches, with wavy black hair and brown skin. He too was not handsome by any stretch of the imagination, but he exuded a pleasant and friendly nature and radiated an almost constant smile.

Hasan’s father and mother were known to have moved to Aden about twenty years earlier from the small Yemeni town of Turbah. No one seemed to know where Hasan was born, but he did have a birth certificate issued by the British colonial system indicating that his place of birth was Aden. With that came certain privileges, including attending government schools, receiving government bursaries, and acquiring jobs. Given that the available resources were limited, the fear was that the relatively huge population in North Yemen might overwhelm the South. North Yemen was a poor and very backward country with ten times the population of its counterpart. It was ruled by a long dynasty of absolute kings known for their macabre dungeons from which very few prisoners ever left to tell the tale. Many young boys were kept there as hostages to ensure the loyalty of their parents. Word leaked that many of them were routinely physically and sexually abused by the wardens and the older prisoners.

That night Ahmad and Hasan spent some quality time with their parents and siblings and received members of their large extended families who traveled from nearby towns and villages. A few tears were shed over many hugs and kisses before the boys went to their beds and spent most of the night wondering what awaited them over the next few days.

Both families took their young and promising sons to the airport, with luggage bulging out of the car trunks, the trunk doors being tied down with some yellow string. The cars were so small and the large families had to fit in, or at least as many members as possible. Each of the boys was the eldest in the sib ship. For their younger siblings, it was going to be a great adventure seeing an airplane for the first time at such close range. Some even imagined that they might be allowed inside to take a look, but they were later disappointed. Hasan’s mother did not go to the airport, however, for his father was a conservative Muslim who did not allow his wife outside the home. He looked after her well, but her place was in the home. She had to say her tearful good-byes at home as Hasan got into the car heading for the airport.

Both cars took the pretty seaside Abyan Road from the town of Crater to the airport. Shawqi Saleh, Ahmad’s father, being a minister, had a driver assigned to him by the government, and his car had an official government number plate; thus he did not have to rush. Alawi Al-Qirshi’s car came up to the checkpoint behind the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and slowed down to the orders of the sweating British corporal standing by the barrier in his classic khaki uniform, holding a menacing rifle in his right hand. As he lifted it, the underarm sweating was extensive and hideous.

The corporal came up to the left side window and started asking questions. Where did you just come from?

Hasan, who spoke much better English than his father, said, From Crater of course.

"Why of course? You could have come from anywhere, for all I know!"

Hasan sensed anger in the soldier and explained, As you know, Abyan Road goes along the beach and has to end up in Crater from here.

Really! And where are you off to?

Excuse me? asked Hasan, who had learned school English but had never come across the term off to before. You mean where are we going? Oh, to the airport. We are already late, and I have to catch a flight to London; I am going to your country to study law. I will be a lawyer, Hasan added boastfully.

What do you have in the trunk? Why is it tied up with all that rope?

I just told you that I am flying to London, and that is my luggage; the suitcase is too big for the trunk.

Open it up!

Excuse me, I am in a hurry. Please let us through, Hasan said angrily.

I said open the trunk! was the equally angry reply.

Please, please, let me speak to your officer there in the tent. I am sure he will be cooperative.

The corporal paused for several seconds, trying to contain his frustration at the defiant student, and then walked the twenty paces back to the tent. He emerged with the sergeant who looked at the car from the tent for a few seconds and then gestured with his hand the unmistakable order to search the car. Hasan, now seething with rage, had to get out of the car and start undoing the tight knots in the yellow rope holding down the lid of the trunk.

The soldier watched him. Take that suitcase out!

What for?

I said take it out!

Hasan struggled to lift it out and demonstrated that the trunk was otherwise empty. The soldier gestured to him to put the suitcase back in. As Hasan walked back to the passenger door of the car, the soldier ordered him to stand still and lift his arms straight up in the air. Still holding his rifle in his right hand, the soldier proceeded to frisk him with the left.

What are you looking for? Hasan asked. I told you I am a student traveling to London.

Shut up, and keep your arms up!

At this point, Shawqi Saleh’s chauffeur-driven car approached the scene with Shawqi in the passenger seat. He told his driver to stop behind the other car. The corporal looked up and saw Shawqi, and recognized the official number plate.

Shawqi said, Good morning, officer. What seems to be the trouble? This young man is Hasan. He is a friend of the family; he is like a son to me. In fact, my son and he are traveling today to study in Britain.

Now the sergeant came out of his tent, having noticed the events outside. He walked over and gave the corporal a subtle signal to let the boy go.

Alawi started the engine again, under the contemptuous gaze of the triumphant corporal, and resumed driving toward the airport. During those few minutes, Hasan promised himself that he would get his degree in law as fast as he could and would use that knowledge on his return to Aden to evict the British colonizers.

"Ibn al-kalb [son of a dog] will make me late for my flight!" Hasan said.

You will have to learn to control your temper, son.

Me, control my temper? Why are you defending this dog? Do you like to be humiliated, Father?

Of course not! This soldier is obeying orders; he cannot think for himself. He is not educated like you, otherwise he would not be a corporal. He would be a teacher or a lawyer, or at least an officer. What he has going for him is his six-foot frame and those huge muscles with which he carries his rifle all day.

I think he did that to show us he is boss.

That too, probably.

Well, I am not going to stand for that. I am an Adeni, and this is my country!

Son, I have a secret to tell you, which your mother and I had decided to keep from you. However, now that you are going away for many years, and who knows what will happen to us in the meantime, I have to tell you the truth.

Hasan, looking alarmed, said, Tell me quickly. We are almost at the airport.

You are not an Adeni really. You are a Yemeni, born in North Yemen in the town of Turbah.

But I have my Colony of Aden birth certificate and my British passport; they are right here in my hand luggage.

That is your brother’s …

What brother? interrupted Hasan.

Look, my son! One year before you were born in Turbah, your mother gave birth to a premature baby here in Aden, in the same house where we are living now. He only weighed four pounds. I still remember how his ribs stuck up under his skin, because he was so scrawny. He developed some infection in his lungs, and fever, and had great difficulty breast-feeding because he was so weak. When he breathed, his chest wall would sink in between his tiny little ribs; he could not keep milk down in his small stomach and was vomiting a lot. Your mother had no experience with babies. He was her first, and she did not know how to look after him. We took him to the doctor, of course, but he just gave him some antibiotic syrup, which the baby kept vomiting. I even remember the name tetra … tetra something. Anyway, he died before he reached the age of one month.

So?

"We got a birth certificate for him here in Aden; then we forgot about it. But then your mother got pregnant again; we were very young at the time, and she was very keen on having a son. But this time, she decided to go to Turbah to deliver, where she had the help and guidance of her mother, your gidda [grandmother] Fattoom. You were born at the right time, and you weighed just above seven pounds. There, in the north, there is no birth registration. So we all came back to Aden, and since we already had a British Colony birth certificate, we decided to just give you his name: Hasan. Your mother felt as if Allah had given her back her firstborn. Anyway, it would be a great advantage for you, because you would have a right to free schooling all the way to the end of secondary school, and now also to a scholarship to England."

I still don’t see it. So, you gave me his name, Hasan? I wish you did not.

What’s wrong with Hasan? You know it is the name of the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him; it is a wonderful name.

But that means that I am actually one year younger than my supposed age?

Yes, but you are smarter than those who are one year older than you. You always have been, and I can see a wonderful future awaiting you.

Okay, Father, we have arrived at the airport, and I am going to London under false pretenses!

Excitement was in the air at the airport, and Ahmad’s was intermixed with anxiety about the future, especially as his father addressed him. His father said, Now don’t forget to write every week. It is very important for us, and your mother here will be very upset if you don’t. She is already depressed.

Ahmad’s mother nodded her head in agreement as tears welled in her eyes. After all, this was her firstborn leaving home for the first time ever. Arab families have a special place for the bekr [firstborn] if he is male. He is the one who has the responsibility of looking after the family and making all the important decisions in the absence of his father, or after his death. What if he does not return home because he might find a foreign wife over there? Or he simply decides to stay in England? she wondered.

"No, no, don’t worry. I will write, inshaallah," Ahmad said.

You must write, Ahmad! Don’t worry about the postage; I will send you a monthly allowance, in addition to the bursary from the government, to cover the cost of the stamps.

Yes, Father!

The whole family now came round to hug and kiss Ahmad. Salma, fifteen years old, knew what was happening. She was close to her brother. But the younger daughter, Zahra, only nine at the time, was much closer to him; Ahmad really loved her and pampered her. One more kiss from his mother, and Ahmad was on his way to the departure lounge, waving all the while to the family, but not before he also said a warm good-bye to Hasan’s father, addressing him as Uncle as custom dictated. Hasan had already preceded him to the departure lounge.

Suddenly, a man in civilian clothing recognized the minister of trade and rushed toward him, offering to allow him through the gate leading to the departure lounge to be with his son a few more minutes. He identified himself as a member of the amn [security]. Shawqi thanked him for the offer but excused himself by saying that he was with al-usrah [literally the family but used to mean the wife] and he would rather stay with her.

Twenty minutes later, the Dakota took off for Cairo, where the two young men would make a connection with a British Airways flight to London.

CHAPTER 2

ENGLAND

The change of climate was the first thing that hit the two young men as they landed at Heathrow. There was no sun; the sky was gray and raining lightly. The size of the airport, and the time it took the airplane to taxi to its gate, took them by surprise. They had heard and read about the great city of London, but now it was up close and personal.

Passport control was simple since both carried British passports. They picked up their suitcases and went through the nothing-to-declare green door into a throng of people awaiting the arriving passengers. Despite the huge number of travelers around them, the process seemed smooth and rapid. It was the two young men’s first international journey, and they could compare it only with the confusion they had witnessed at the Aden Airport whenever they met incoming passengers.

What! No customs check? asked Hasan.

Does not seem like it. We are already in the reception area; I wonder who is meeting us. They told us someone would; they are mostly Indians here! Ahmad replied, impressed with the ethnic makeup of the crowd.

The two Yemenis inched forward, pushing their heavy carts toward the crowd, scanning the cards held up by people, distracted by the multitude of shapes and colors and ages, and above all by the large number of beautiful women in the crowd. Suddenly there was one such young woman holding a big card with their two names written in blue, correctly spelled.

They headed toward her as she gave them a big smile. Welcome to London!

Thank you, they said in unison.

I am Isobel from the British Council. I’ll drive you to your temporary accommodation in London. I hope you had a good flight? Which of you is Ahmad?

Yes, it is me. How do you do? Ahmad blurted out what he had been told was the typical British greeting.

She looked at his friend. And so you must be Hasan?

Yes, I am. How do you do?

Isobel smiled. So, let us go up one flight to the garage, where I parked my car.

Hasan got the privilege of sitting in the passenger seat next to Isobel, while Ahmad sat in the back. They were soon on the fast motorway toward London. By then it was considerably brighter, as the sun rose a bit higher. It was all very exciting, especially seeing so much grass and so many trees, and everything seemed green and cool and fresh. What a contrast that was with Aden at the end of August with temperatures near forty in the shade.

Isobel was wearing a yellow skirt, which tightly hugged her anatomy, and a brown blouse, which showed an ample cleavage. But from where he was sitting, pretending to look straight ahead through the windshield, Hasan was watching Isobel’s full thighs and smooth and shapely legs exposed all the way to slightly above the knee. At first he scolded himself for ogling her legs, and for letting his imagination run wild. He would never do that to a Yemeni woman at home, not only because the opportunity would never arise but also out of good manners and hishmah [respect].

Ahmad had to content himself with looking through the side window and making small talk with Isobel for the half hour drive to Kensington Road.

The small bed-and-breakfast had room for four student guests, each with their own little room but only one shared bathroom with a bath but no shower. They would be allowed one bath per week, with gas-heated water, which would only fill half the bathtub. And since homes were not air-conditioned, taking a bath was the art of washing as much of one’s skin as possible in the shortest possible time, and ensuring that the towel was as close as possible at the end of it.

The landlady gave them her routine pep talk about the rules and regulations within her house and pointed out that each student was responsible for cleaning the bath after himself. They also had to be home by ten in the evening, otherwise they would find the front door locked in their faces. No alcohol was allowed in the premises either, and the final rule, which she repeated twice, was that girls were not allowed either. The two boys wondered why she had emphasized that when they had never even considered indulging in either of those two sins.

There were two other young men of about their age. One was from Uganda. They met him over breakfast the next day. He told them that there was a "sik man" in the fourth room, but he had gone away for the day and would return the next day.

What is wrong with him? Ahmad asked the Ugandan.

Who?

I thought you said there was a sick man in the other room?

He is okay. There is nothing wrong with him.

Oh, so he is not sick anymore? I am glad; otherwise he might infect us.

"No, no, he is not sick. He is Sikh, Sikh. You know, with a turban on the head!"

The two Yemeni boys looked at each other, suppressing their laughter. The next day they did meet Nirmal Singh and found him to be more than okay!

During a week in London, all four students went through a course of orientation to British society and its very different customs. But that education started in the small bed-and-breakfast hotel bathroom, at least for Hasan, who had made daily prayers part of his routine. While traveling from Aden, he did not manage to pray, but that was within the rules of Islam as he knew them. Now he wanted to return to that daily routine and indeed make up for all the missed prayers, as a true observant Muslim is supposed to do. And for that he had to perform his ablutions, which required washing his face and arms, and feet too. But the plastic cup which he kept in the bathroom at home, to help him wash his backside after going to the toilet and to wash his feet for prayers, was nowhere to be found. Thus, Hasan struggled to lift his feet, one at a time, into the washbasin and managed to mix the water flowing from the separate hot and cold taps to arrive at a tepid mix. He then washed his feet before performing a long session of prayer to catch up with all the ones he had missed on that long journey. He liked the velvety feel of his ornate prayer mat with a picture of the Kaaba, that big square structure draped in a huge sheet of black silk, around which Muslims would circle seven times during the annual hajj [pilgrimage].

Ahmad, by contrast, did not bother with all that stuff, even when he was back home, except for the occasional attendance at a mosque on a Friday when his father embarrassed him into attending, or on very special occasions.

The next morning, the four students came down to breakfast prepared for them by the landlady. There was a large jug of milk, the likes of which the boys had never seen, and cereal in a tall cardboard box, but none of them knew what to do with it. The Ugandan student eventually stuck his spoon in the box and brought it out full of crispy cereal flakes, which he put in his mouth. He enjoyed the crunchy sound they made between his teeth. The other three famished students followed suit, and even that bit of food made them feel better. They poured themselves some tea, for which they knew the British were world famous.

This tea is very weak, isn’t it? said the Sikh boy.

And there is no cardamom or anything else in it, responded Hasan.

On a large plate was half a loaf of sliced, square, white bread, to which the hungry boys helped themselves. Each also noticed a boiled egg in an eggcup on each of their individual plates. Ahmad felt the egg; it was still warm. He picked the egg out of its cup and started cracking it on the breakfast table. He must have hit it hard in his anxiety to get at the contents because the soft white of the egg burst open and some of the yolk splattered over the tablecloth. Ahmad looked at his three friends, quite embarrassed. As he tried to clean the yolk off the table cloth before the landlady would see the mess, he also knocked his teacup over and screamed in frustration.

That was enough to bring Mrs. Grimond from the kitchen into the breakfast room. Mrs. Grimond was a stern-looking widow of around sixty-five, on the heavy side, with thin lips, ruddy cheeks, and quite a few wrinkles. She had sad gray eyes. She also had a light moustache with hairs quite a bit darker than the gray hair tied at the back of her head in a bun. She could see that her four new student lodgers were not used to the classic English breakfast.

Now, now, she said. I can see that we should have a wee chat about breakfast, and especially how to eat an egg in Britain!

I am very sorry, Mrs. Grimond. I made a mess on my first day, said Ahmad.

As she was mopping up the spilled tea, Mrs. Grimond gave the boys their first lesson on survival in Britain.

In this country, we eat our boiled eggs in their cups. What one does is to hit the blunt end of the egg several times with a teaspoon, until the shell breaks into numerous little pieces. Then one lifts them off with the tip of the special egg spoon, and one finds the white of the egg underneath. One then uses that special egg spoon to scoop out that delicious white and yolk of the egg, which one eats with a piece of toast or bread. However, if the egg is soft boiled, one could slice off the shell with a knife and then proceed to scoop out the egg. One could also sprinkle a wee bit of salt and pepper on the egg. Is that clear?

The boys shook their heads, suppressing their urgent desire to burst into laughter at Mrs. Grimond’s lesson and the schoolmistress manner in which it was delivered.

One hour after breakfast, Isobel came over to the small hotel for an orientation session in which she taught them how to conduct themselves in public. She was used to receiving and orienting new students from the Middle East and other parts of the world, especially former British colonies. So she went over a list of dos and don’ts that she knew by heart. Most important was advice not to ask British people personal questions unless they were close friends. In fact, she pointed out that strangers did not converse unless they were first introduced. She emphasized that men did not kiss in Britain, unlike in Aden and Africa. But she also said that it was perfectly fine to shake hands with women once they were introduced. The boys looked amazed when she added that a man may kiss a lady too, if he knew her well enough, on the cheek, that is.

Isobel spoke about transportation and how to use buses and the underground trains. She thought they should all invest in umbrellas and joked about British weather. She gave each student his travel plans and railway tickets to be used at the end of the week. Hasan was to study law in the city of London, whereas Ahmad was going to Edinburgh at the end of the week to study medicine. He was given the address where he would stay and was told that someone would meet him at Waverly Railway Station.

Over the next couple of days, the two Adeni boys explored the long, wide streets of London in great wonderment at the beauty of the city: its huge crowds walking up and down Oxford and Regent streets, the very organized traffic with those typical red double-decker buses, all the wonderful exhibits in the shop windows, and above all those lovely women who had such different hairstyles and all shades of hair colors. Back home they had only seen straight black hair made shiny with applied oil, except for the occasional elderly woman with henna-dyed red hair. And the legs! They had never seen any in their lives, not even in their mothers or sisters who always kept everything covered in their long dresses. Those legs in London seemed so shapely and smooth, and even shiny. It took them a few days of furtive, lustful observation to realize that the smooth and even shiny legs were due to the stockings covering them!

The boys also explored Hyde Park and St. James’ Park and were amazed at all that green grass punctuated by hundreds and thousands of trees and bushes and adorned by flowers of all kinds. Coming from arid Aden, they hardly saw any greenery unless they ventured to the village of Lahej or to some of the privately owned small gardens in the village of Sheikh Uthman, which would require a long car ride.

What a wonderful city this is! said Ahmad.

Absolutely! exclaimed Hasan. "Look how these people live—not us! All we do is wake up, go to