Chapter 13: I’m something of an Esobe myself

When Asim and I came home, it was as if nothing had ever happened. I examined the lock, but that was only because my instructors had told me it’s a good habit to see if you can spot the scratches most lock-pickers leave. This guy was good: there were no scratches at all.

I also reviewed the footage from my spy-cam, but learned nothing more. I also had no idea what prince Omar had been doing in other parts of the house, because I only had enough gear to monitor my own room. By the looks of it, he hadn’t even found, much less touched my other two suitcases. And even though they contained a bit more than socks and ties, it’s not as if I had brought an Uzi with me. I did have a black outfit and a balaclava with me, plus a knuckle duster (brass knuckles to you), a very nasty umbrella, an even nastier pen and some other assorted toys, but they were all cleverly hidden in plain sight. I reported Omar’s visit to both the Brits and the Americans, but that was the end of it for the time being.

K-T had followed Abdul the pimp home, so I now knew where he lived. But frankly, I had no idea what use that information was. It would be nice to discover his home was a brothel and call the cops on him, but the images K-T showed me were of an fairly generic small villa. Besides, I might get some prostitutes in trouble. And that was assuming the Saudi police didn’t already know what he was up to, but simply looked the other way for some reason. If random people in the street can point at you and know what kind of illegal stuff you’re up to, you’re probably not that worried about the fuzz. A little demon whispered in my ear I had Abdul followed just so I’d know where to find a brothel and go there myself for some release, but I told the demon what I’d do to his testicles if he ever spoke to me again and it’s been nice and quiet ever since.

I caught myself whistling one day. I don’t often do that, but it’s a pretty good indicator of a good mood. I thought about it during yet another shopping run and realised that life here in Riyadh was actually agreeing with me. The heat was a nuisance, but little more than that.

I often woke up around eight, which is about an hour and a half later than back home. Then I’d have an hour and a half to myself, which I’d spend on grooming my beard and having a nice breakfast whilst listening to some Radio 4 comedy on the iPlayer. Asim was hardly ever up before ten and his breakfast took only ten minutes to prepare. I wasn’t in charge of anyone or anything, I didn’t have to change diapers or wash frilly knickers, didn’t have to argue with programmers or compile progress reports, didn’t even have to mop the floors. I kept my own room and the kitchen tidy, but the rest was done by the elves dispatched by the palace. Asim was away more often than not, leaving me plenty of time to do a bit of reading or watch some Netflix. Then I cooked whatever I felt like and Asim was always grateful, if he was there at all. Credit the man for not being a fussy eater. No, if I’m honest I was enjoying the peace and quiet. I’m a family man through and through, but ever since Kate had come to find me life had been topsy-turvy and right now I found myself reading books and having a swim whenever I fancied, just like I would do on vacation! My family was fine without me, I was sure of that. And so I wasn’t in a particular hurry, I’m ashamed to say. Ashamed in hindsight. At the time, I rather enjoyed it...

The biggest problem was actually my libido. I’d actually forgotten I had one! Most of last year was spent either fatigued, recovering from injuries, working or having terrible adventures. On those rare occasions I found myself with a hard-on and the inclination to do something with it, there was no shortage of takers. Sex is a bit like money, I find: it’s not an issue if you know your balance is high enough. I occasionally belong to the one percent but I keep buying Euroshopper shower gel: I know I can afford the good stuff should I want it, but this will do.

But now I was stuck in a desert and sometimes didn’t speak to a woman for days. My own girls were out of the picture and I will admit there were a few early mornings where I turned on the VPN on my laptop, turned Safari to private browsing and had a look at the latest Pornhub had to offer. Sadly, I found I wasn’t all that interested. There’s a girl out there called Alexis Crystal. I noticed her because she looks like a young Monique and even though I hardly ever miss my late ex-wife, I did have my first sexual experiences with her. Alexis, who was born in the Czech Republic, got her start in porn doing really cheap and somewhat nasty stuff: she got herself fucked inside a car, by sticking her bottom out of the window and giving a group of lads the chance to ride her, she did some pee fetish vids, she got herself tied up on someone’s lawn with her head in a box that was buried in the sand, she had sex in public parks and alongside rail tracks and then she suddenly got a better agent. (I never met the girl, but I pieced it together based on the dates of all the clips I found of her, and her appearance.) She moves to the UK and suddenly she’s doing glamour shoots for Private, 3D-videos and even gets speaking parts (FakeAgent, FakeTaxi). Then she shows up doing work for American companies, as evidenced by the Californian houses she is now getting fucked in. The girl has a commendable work ethic: she’ll do anything, from lesbian to MMF. But as I was tracking her career over the course of a few browsing sessions, I suddenly realised that this is not how porn is supposed to work. You’re not meant to track someone through her work, you’re supposed to type in a few words, skip the dialogue and the kissing and then crack one off. It’s just that I didn’t really care. I’d give it one or two tugs, lose interest and find myself either back on Wired.com or tracking down Alexis’ first videos, from when she was still a cheap hooker in Prague and looked so much like the girl I first kissed, underneath a lamp post in Leiden.

Now, I have never been able to seduce a woman. Not a clue how that works. I’ve been very fortunate of late, but that just kinda happened to me. But even if I wasn’t stuck in one of the most misogynistic countries in the world, and was inclined to cheat on my wife, I would have had no idea how to go about getting my needs seen to. Go to a bar? I wouldn’t want a girl who hangs around in bars. At least, not the type who would consider coming home with the likes of me. Besides, Mel is very lenient but only up to a point: I am not supposed to actively go and look for pussy.

So that was all well and good, but I found myself easily distracted. A weird sensation.

A few days after the car lovers’ meet-up, on the last day of July so about two weeks since I had arrived in Riyadh, I decided to check out Rasul street, where I could supposedly hire a lock-up. I still can’t believe I’m saying this about a fucking CAR, but K-T clearly wasn’t too pleased about having to roam the mean streets of Riyadh at night and relying mostly on her ability to charge via thermal energy. That gave her just enough juice for a daily shopping trip and to run her A.I., but even then her reserves dwindled by one or two percent every day. When I knew Asim would be gone for a while I’d sneak her in as some sort of clandestine hooker and connect her to a wall socket. But that didn’t really do the trick either: she would cool down in the garage and the 220 volt 16 amp charge was only enough for a few kilowatt hours per session. Still, ‘every little helps’, as ASDA always says.

Friday, July 31^st, 2015. Asim’s house.

Today I was dressed like a sane person: jeans and a blue button-down shirt, plus a blank, dark blue baseball cap. If I showed up in a suit, which I would usually wear when Asim was around, I would probably not do well in any kind of negotiation.

Rasul street was a dusty but asphalted road, in an area with many car-related businesses: tyre fitters, small garages, lube shops, Toyota parts and upholstery services. Those usually look grimy enough back home, but here the heat took it to another dimension altogether. I had to brace myself before I could bring myself to get out there.

Pakistani ruled here, often dressed in long, brown tunics (called Shalwar Kameez), or just plain old overalls. Nobody wore safety boots. Whites were not unwelcome: expats would come here for a service, a new mirror or a pair of tyres. People spoke English to some extent, and mostly smiled. A young boy who for some reason wasn’t in school followed me as I got out of K-T and began to walk down the street, trying to make sense of the place and looking for any kind of lock-ups or ‘for rent’ signs.

“Salaam!” he said, after about one hundred metres.

“Salaam.”

He wore a white dishdasha, or at least one that had once been white, and a red and white head-dress, folded in a way I would not be able to emulate if I had a week to practice. Basically, he’d made a hat with a brim out of a square cloth.

“You okay, boss?”

Not really, as it was at least forty degrees Celsius and there was no shade here. The King would never visit Rasul street, so there was no median with manicured trees. Instead, the street and sidewalks were covered with dried oil slicks and right now we were standing next to a building that was under construction, which in the Arab world means that white, plywood walls are in place to fence off the site. It keeps the dust out, I suppose. And graffiti isn’t really a problem over there, so those white walls are quite safe.

“I am looking for a place to store my car.”

“Aston Martin,” he said, approvingly. When I first spotted him I assumed he was about seven or eight, but I readjusted my estimate: twelve. Maybe thirteen. I’m used to Dutch children, raised on a litre of milk per day.

“Yes, that one. So it needs to be safe.”

“Okay. You come. Come!”

I had very little to lose. He ducked into an alleyway between two grey, concrete buildings nobody had ever bothered to paint. A dirty, one-eyed cat caught my eye and, me being a sentimental Westerner, broke my heart. It ran off. My guide ignored him and expertly weaved between AC-puddles, formed by leaky window units. Puddles didn’t last long here, but consistent dripping and high temperatures had fostered some very interesting and disgusting micro-biomes I didn’t want to have to scrape off my shoes. I wasn’t particularly worried about being assaulted: this was just what Riyadh looked like outside the major public areas and malls. Someone needs to do some actual work to keep things going and this was where part of it was done.

“Here, boss!”

He pointed out a row of garage doors, ten or so in a row, all with flakey beige paint. There was a sign above one of them, but it was in Arabic. At the end of the street stood a building that was purpose-built to be a garage: huge, grey sliding door, office on top. It had a ‘for sale’ sign hanging from the office windows.

“You want rent?” asked the boy.

“Who do I talk to about that?”

“You wait!” he said, and ran off. He RAN! In this heat!

“Okay. FIVE MINUTES! It’s like an oven here!”

“OKAYOKAY!” he yelled over his shoulder. Two minutes later he came back with a traditionally dressed Saudi male in tow. I had a banknote ready, which I gave to the boy after the Saudi had confirmed he owned the garages. The lad seemed pleasantly surprised: he had only tried to be helpful, without expecting anything in return.

“Want to see?” asked the Saudi, nodding to the row of boxes.

“Yes, please.”

“Where your car?”

I sighed. K-T just came rolling around the corner, like a dog who had decided to ignore the ‘stay!’ command to see what his owner was up to. I didn’t think it was a good idea to point out my self-driving sports car, so I said:

“Nearby. Can we get out of the sun before I collapse?”

“Sure, sure! You want water?”

“No, I just need to be in the shade.”

“So, what do you think?”

There wasn’t much to see. It was an empty space, made from cinder blocks and fitted with a garage door. It was quite deep, so you could place some storage racks in the back. There was a large fluorescent lamp on the ceiling and it was hot as hell in here. K-T might like that; having her own, personal oven. But I’d have to fit it with an automatic door opener, because I sure as hell wasn’t interested in ever setting foot in here.

“No electricity?”

“No. Sorry. Only this lamp. Why you need? You cannot fix cars here. Not allowed. Only store car.”

“I see. But I want an automatic door opener.”

“Is him,” said the man, chuckling, and pointed to the boy. He was still here, because ‘I will leave you it, then’ is not really a concept in the Arabic world. They like to stick their noses in.

“Isn’t he supposed to be in school? Anyway, thanks for your time but I’m looking for something with electricity. Preferably with a three-phase power line and a remote controlled door.”

“For how many car?”

“Just one. That one.”

The boy did a classic double take: K-T now stood parked on the opposite side of the road. I’d seen her slinking her way towards us. She obviously wanted to see the inside of this box.

“Boss? Your car?!”

“Yeah.”

“But ... You park! Other side!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes! I saw!”

“Well, it IS very warm here. Why don’t you go school? I’m sure they have air-conditioning there.”

The man told the kid to bugger off in Arabic, which he did (in Arabic). He passed K-T and pressed his face to the glass, to see if there was a driver inside. I turned my attention back to the Saudi.

“It’s an electric car, you see. I want to charge it.”

“Electric?!” he asked, stunned.

“Yes. Fully electric.”

“Here? Petrol is almost free!”

“I’ve noticed the charging infrastructure isn’t quite what I would like it to be. That’s why I need storage and ideally three-phase current.”

“Three-phase is only for garage and workshop, my friend. For heavy machinery. I have it here, in that building. It is mine.”

He pointed at the garage at the end of the street.

“That’s a bit much, perhaps.”

“How long you need for to rent?”

“Uhm ... Couple of months. Maybe a year.”

As we spoke he ushered me out of the lock-up, closed the door and started to walk towards the building.

“This I am trying to sell for a year now. It’s too big for local business. It is too ... not good for brand dealership. Out of the way. Looks bad. But is good building. Come see!”

“Look, I’m not BUYING a garage.”

“No, you rent! When I sell, you go. If I sell. But if you pay for three months, you can rent. I don’t want to rent to Pakistani. Then I can never sell. They make the place look bad. Messy. And I have to make it cheap, or they can’t afford. And then I have to make others cheap, too.”

Apparently this guy owned half the block. I saw his problem.

“Okay, let’s have a look.”

It was perfect. The building didn’t look like much on the outside, but on the inside it was clean, and relatively cool. The main facade contained a sliding door made from grey plastic panels, rendered opaque by a decade of dust storms and air pollution. It was about four metres high. Next to the sliding door was a regular door, that led to a small reception area consisting of a painted desk and two chairs. Behind the sliding door was a workshop with three stations, one of which was fitted with a hydraulic car lift the owner assured me was still operational and safe. A winch on a rail ran across the workshop floor, to hoist engines in and out of their chassis. In the back was a blue metal staircase, which led to an office that was essentially a white, rectangular box, resting on a blue, metal framework that also supported the winch. That’s probably where the mechanics would have lunch, with some extra space for small parts. Everything was empty and not exactly sterile but certainly swept clean not too dusty. I had absolutely no use for it, but I did get that greedy sensation that comes from viewing large, empty rooms. Part of your brain goes: ‘I could put all sorts of stuff here!’ and won’t shut up.

“You like? Air-conditioning is good. Is off now, and it’s not warm. Is smaller unit in office.”

“Can we have a look at the electrics?”

“Sure! Oh, the door has remote. I have it in my desk.”

Fifteen minutes later we were in Mohammed’s office, at the other end of the street. I signed a lease, which he had typed on a laptop. It was ten lines in his own, slightly limited English and clear as day: I’d rent the garage for 1,500 SAR per month, all in. I’d leave without argument as soon as he asked me to in case he managed to sell it and I’d get a partial refund. My car was not insured for anything and I would pay three months in advance. Now that’s the sort of contract I like to sign: fair and clear. Four hundred dollars per month was quite steep, given that he only asked ninety for the lock-ups, but it wasn’t coming out of my own pocket so I honestly didn’t care.

Later that day I came back with a wad of cash. Mohammed gave me a single key and the remote control. Half an hour later I was back and gave him back the key and four cylinder locks.

“What this?”

“These are your locks. I changed them all.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll be keeping my very expensive sports car in there, that’s why. There’s no telling who might also have a key to that place. I’ve also changed the frequency to open the door, by the way. And I’ve installed a silent alarm. You can keep that when I leave.”

“Okay. But it is really safe. You know what happens to thieves here, yes?”

He mimed chopping off his hand.

“You STILL do that?”

“Oh yes.”

“Good. But if anyone sets foot in there without my permission, I will be chopping off considerably more than just a hand. Spread the word, if you would.”

“Well? What do you think?” I asked K-T, as soon as the automatic door had lowered behind us.

“Can I charge here?”

“Yes! 400 Volt, 25 Amps. Will that do?”

“Yes. I shall be able to charge from empty in two hours and thirty minutes. Please connect me.”

“Hang on, do you take a four pin plug?”

I had found a cable that ran from a heavy duty wall connector. It was long enough to reach the middle bay. At the end was a red connector with five metal pins.

“Yes. I have an adapter. But I will not be able to disconnect myself. I can operate the door, but I cannot disconnect from that type of plug.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I may be able to rig something up, but I’ll need to find the right parts and it will take me a few hours. For now, I’ll hook you up.”

“What will you do in the meantime?”

“Paperwork. Filing reports, reading instructions and dossiers. I usually don’t get around to all that when I’m home. It’s not exactly bed time reading, either. Listen, can you set up a Wi-Fi network for me? I’ll go and work in the office upstairs.”

“Yes. Network operational. You have seven messages.”

K-T now had a roof over her head, and I had a place to stash some stuff, but she still couldn’t charge without my presence. After all, she needed to be plugged in. I had a chat about it with Miles and he agreed to send me a new part: an inductive charger, to be fitted under the car. All I had to do was to arrange for a metal frame so I could mount the other coil at the right height. And so I spent a decidedly miserable afternoon in a hotter than hell welding shop recommended by Mohammed, where two surly Pakistani men who seemed to think welding glasses were for pussies, recreated something I had carefully drawn on the finest paper napkin Dunkin’ Donuts could provide. The language barrier was such that they hadn’t picked up on the fact I was going to give them 200 SAR each as soon as their manager’s back was turned, so they just thought it was extra work for them. It took almost two hours, but I’m sure they could have done it in twenty minutes. I’ve never given someone a fifty dollar tip AND wished terminal flatulence upon them and their descendants for the next ten generations to their non-comprehending but suddenly smiling faces. It was a weird experience. I blame the heat.

K-T dropped me off at home. Asim was already there. In fact, he saw me coming in through the outer gate, on foot.

“Why did you not take the car?”

“I took a taxi.”

“Why?!”

“Because of very poor judgement on my part,” I snapped. “Now if you don’t mind I’d like to take a shower before I get dinner started.”

“Sure. There’s a package for you. Kitchen.”

For a second I thought Miles had worked some kind of magic, so I went to the kitchen and found a white pastry box. Inside was a large profiterole, glazed with chocolate. It was filled with cream. And by that I actually mean there used to be cream inside, but now there wasn’t: it was splattered all over the inside of the box. Someone had smashed this thing with their bare hands...

“Your Royal Highness?” I asked Asim, who was chatting to people on his phone.

“Yes?”

“Did you open this box?”

“No. Is from palace. Driver said it was for you.”

“Right. I only ask because...”

I leaned over and showed him the contents.

“Wow. Maybe ... driver sat on it?”

“If he did, he put it in a brand new box. And then he smeared cream on the inside.”

Asim shrugged.

“It was one of the regular drivers. They never break stuff. Maybe someone in the palace did this. Just call them, they will send new one. Have them send two. I like those.”

“Very good, Your Royal Highness.”

During the shower I needed to wash the grime, the heat and the shockingly racist thoughts about Pakistani welders away, I considered the pastry conundrum. Palace drivers are generally very careful. They’re at the bottom of the food chain, so wilfully destroying packages or messing with food is going to get them in trouble. Besides, I hadn’t ordered this. There was only one explanation and before I was going to get some more pastry delivered, I was going to have to eat a large helping of humble pie.

I texted Anaïs after dinner. Asim had gone out to meet with some friends.

‘Bonjour. Is this a good time to call you?’

The answer came five seconds later.

‘Pourquoi?’

I took that as a yes and dialled her number. She didn’t pick up, so after ten rings I disconnected. She was probably working. But then I got another text:

‘Lâcheur’

I had to Google that. It’s French for ‘quitter’. And so I called again. She answered after fifteen rings.

“Qu’est-ce que tu veux?”

“Anaïs? It’s Reginald. I’m calling to apologize.”

“Pfft. For what?”

“Because you sent me that wonderful pastry the other week and I never did thank you properly. I did not mean to ignore you and I would like to make it up to you.”

“Tsss. Now? Suddenly? What you need, Anglais? Your prince, he wants pâtisserie? They have at the mall. It is all sugar and colorant.”

Although you can get practically anything you want in Saudi Arabia, she did have a point: supermarkets had a very limited selection of pastries. If you wanted a boxed factory made cake with the Power Rangers or characters from Frozen on it, you were golden. But anything more than a Swiss roll was beyond the scope of the bakeries that suppled Riyadh’s supermarkets and it was all a bit bland. She would obviously have noticed that, but it’s not exactly fair to expect Parisian standards to be upheld all across the globe.

“I’m not calling to order cake, Anaïs. I just want to know how you are doing,” I cooed. Oh, I’ve learned a thing or two about dealing with erratic women in the past few years!

“How I am doing? I am in prison, Anglais! I live in a kitchen in a ... sous-sol. I sleep in a room with three girls. I have to pretend to pray five times a day, even at four in the morning! I cannot go swimming, I cannot go shopping ... It is terrible!”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

Well, I was. There just wasn’t much I could do about it. Presumably she knew all this when she signed up.

“Don’t you get time off?”

“ZIS IS MY TIME OFF-UH!”

“Oh. But you can’t go anywhere?”

“Non. Not without a mahram. I can’t even take a taxi. All I can do is visit a mosque, under supervision. What have you done today, Anglais?”

“Me? Uhm ... I did some shopping. I rented a garage. And I spent two hours in an oven.”

“Huh? Oven? Four?”

“Yes. Well, it felt like it. I needed to have something welded, for my car.”

“Ah, K-T! How is she?”

“What ... What do you mean, how is she?! It’s a car!”

“Ah non! She’s very nice! Tu es cruel.”

“She’s an iPad on wheels!”

“Men ... You are all the same. Women, we are just toys to you. Why you call, Anglais? Are you bored?”

“I called because I found a murdered cream puff waiting for me when I got home! It’s like CSI Rue Montorgueil in here. I just sent the cream to the lab: they’re putting a rush on it to determine the fat contents. We’re interviewing a rum baba who was found hanging around the crime scene. Detective Stohrer is canvassing every bakery in the area.”

“Stohrer,” she giggled. That’s a famous pastry store. I knew I’d cracked her bad mood, or maybe just her act.

“Have you been, Anglais? To Rue Montorgueil?”

It’s a street lined with very good restaurants, bakeries, cheese shops, produce stands: you name it. But like many things in Paris, it’s a little overrated and in dire need of a bucket of soap. Monet depicted it on a sunny day, and all the houses are flying French flags. In reality it’s deader than Walkmans when the sun is still out and the only thing lining it are waiters desperately trying to lure you into their tourist traps.

“Yes. It’s near Les Halles.”

“I live near zere. Or I used to, but now I rent my apartment to a student. So I cannot even go back,” she sighed.

I felt sorry for her. I was far from home as well, but I had a bedroom to myself and the run of the city. And I didn’t have to fake prayer more than once a day, because whenever Asim and I had dinner together, he would pointedly wait to take a bite until I had folded my hands and mumbled: ‘Dear Lord, for what we are about to receive we are truly grateful, Amen.’ Which is a line I picked up from Little House on the Prairie, so excuse me if this is the prayer equivalent of wearing a tie dye shirt. Presumably these days it’s more like: ‘Yo God, we about to Instagram this shit! Bless you! Like and subscribe.’ But I couldn’t be sure. I know very few people who pray before a meal and they usually don’t do it out loud.

“Look, I’ll see if I can take you shopping in the near future. But right now my employer is in the country and he comes and goes when he pleases. We had a close call last time.”

“I don’t want to go shopping,” she pouted. “I want to swim and get out of this hot city.”

“Uhmm ... What do you think the Saudi countryside is like? Verdant hills? Babbling brooks? The city actually has air conditioning. Maybe I can take you out for dinner?”

“No, you can’t. We are not married.”

“Surely they don’t check that in restaurants? If we both dress like Westerners, I’m pretty sure they’ll leave us alone.”

“They do check. We can book a family room, but the Mutawa sometimes do random inspections. Sometimes they are tipped off by other guests.”

She had a point. All restaurants in Saudi are segregated by gender. Anything from the classiest hotel restaurant down to Starbucks has two entrances: one for single men and all-male groups, one marked ‘families only’ for married couples and families. Larger restaurants have private dining rooms, but if they only have booths or cubicles those may have curtains around them so women can take off their face veils. Oddly, male wait staff can then stick their heads between the curtains to take orders and bring the food, but that seems to be acceptable nowadays. It was a problem for a while, in the eyes of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice at least, so they came up with this elegant solution: ban women from all restaurants.

Some restaurateurs complied, citing stories of truly reprehensible, inexcusable behaviour demonstrated by female guests in the past. Some women would come in alone and speak aloud! In an audible voice! They would order food and just sit there, plain as day, eating it! Only the filthiest, mentally unstable whore would do such a thing, I think you’ll agree.

Luckily the Commission for yadayada has no shortage of informants, because it’s not as if the Saudi population feels repressed by these rules: they are very happy to tell on each other! If there’s one thing guaranteed to bring pure delight to a muslim’s heart, it is the chance to rat out a fellow muslim for breaking the rules. It’s like a House Republican who secretly gets to hunt down a black kid in the woods: pure joy.

The problem, you see, is that running a restaurant is actual work. It is therefore done by foreigners, because Saudis DO NOT WORK. And these foreigners have no idea how a woman should behave in public, so they let them get away with murder. Or worse: talking out loud.

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Support the author's future writing by purchasing this book from Bookapy

Carstairs of Arabia

Ron Dudderie

$13.95