Chapter 9: In Which our Hero has Lots of Dates

“Crank up the A.C, sweetheart. Let me get some water ... Oooaaahhh...”

“Sweetheart? Again?”

“Yes. I suddenly cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. And especially for that bag with bottled water. Let’s get a move on. You drive.”

“Destination?”

“The most expensive hotel in Al Hofuf. Unless you can find one with a charger?”

“I cannot execute that search. We will reach Al Hofuf in two hours.”

“Okay. Then I’ll do a search and you drive. Stop at the next empty rest area, so I can get rid of that bottle of piss and this beret.”

“I could not parse your request. Do you want me to stop at a rest area?”

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

As I am a lazy writer, it is tempting but incorrect to say I stood out like a sore thumb. There weren’t many Westerners, but plenty of people were dressed like me and my car wasn’t exactly out of place, either. I will bet my left nut you’ve never heard of Al Hofuf, but it is actually about the size of Doha in terms of surface area. Over half a million people live in and around it.

On the outskirts I found huge plantations with date palms, with a few rather impressive forts and palaces dotted amongst them. But then the city began in earnest. From the road signs I determined they had two airports, a university faculty for veterinary medicine and even a railway station! I say ‘even’, because in my admittedly limited experience they aren’t overly interested in trains in the Middle East. You don’t need to be, if you only have three or four significant population centres and petrol is fifteen cents a gallon.

Still, it was all quite exotic. I had plenty of time to look around, because by now I trusted K-T completely. She had trouble interpreting some commands, but the banter that had been scripted for her was absolutely brilliant. She made Siri look like a lobotomised Arkansan with an ear trumpet. The voice was incredibly unnerving, but she hadn’t ... excuse me, IT hadn’t hesitated for an instant to come to my aid. God knows what those two yokels would have done to me had I been travelling in that Nissan Pathfinder.

Al Hofuf was surprisingly green for a city in the desert! I saw lots of trees and not all of them were date palms. I even saw grass! It all relied on irrigation, obviously, but I’d seen far less greenery in Doha and had started to wonder how people do without it. Many buildings had sculpted topiary near the entrance and some streets were wet, from just having been cleaned. I guess they had a local water source, which would explain why they were able to grow so many dates. There’s a legend that the Prophet (yeah, that one) once visited the huge, ancient oasis of al-Hasa that was located in this area. He asked a farmer for some dates and got a few raisins. ‘Sorry, best we can do around here,’ said the farmer. The prophet ate them and said: ‘God bless the water of al-Hasa.’ And wouldn’t you know it, it worked! For a while, at least. In the 1960s they needed 155 German construction engineers to come and clean up the fetid, saline swamp that had been created over time, because God sadly had not provided a manual for proper drainage and water treatment methods.

Still, this was not some backwater in the desert. One of the nice things about the Middle East, or at least of the parts I visited, is that they have embraced the roundabout. And not only that: they see it as a great opportunity to do something silly with it. I passed one with a coffee can the size of a car, covered in gold leaf, on a pedestal. It was illuminated, and rightfully so. The city streets were well-paved and I even saw ornate lampposts. Too bad that road signs were no longer bilingual as soon as we left the highway. I struggled to make sense of them, more so because I wouldn’t know what ‘Ein um Khreisan’ was, even if they had written it down in the Latin alphabet. I used the Google Translate app on my phone to take pictures of signs at traffic lights, which then analysed the image and turned the Arabic script into something I could read. Read, but not understand.

I had chosen the Intercontinental hotel. Why? No idea. I have no particular preference for that chain, but I figured I’d go for the one most likely to attract international visitors. Rooms were around 160 Euro per night, which to a Londoner is laughably cheap. I switched to manual driving on the parking lot, parked near a path towards the main entrance and went inside with my travel bag. I could have driven up to the front door, but K-T was dirty and dusty and I didn’t mind a brief stroll along a shaded walkway next to a fountain. Ten minutes later I was in my room. The shower was nice, but the water tasted unpleasant. By now I was hungry as a bear. There was a complimentary basket of dates in the room and although I generally don’t give a fig about them (fig ... get it?), these were excellent. Amazingly so, actually. But then, this was the date capital of the world.

Fast Food is widely available in the Arab world. In fact, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, The Emirates and Saudi Arabia all rank ABOVE the United States (#17) on the list of most obese countries (when ranked by percentage). And before you go: ‘Yeah, and we know who’s only keeping The Netherlands off that list because his sister made him emigrate’: it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be, thank you. My girls keep me happy enough for me to be able to endure a bit more hunger during the day. Still, it meant I’d be able to find something to eat with relative ease. I don’t enjoy culinary adventures, you see. In fact, I’ve yet to visit a Nando’s. But I needn’t have worried, because the Intercontinental had four restaurants on site, and room service. They also provided dry cleaning service for my suit and were willing to take care of my scuffed shoes. I could have probably bought a dry cleaning business and a sandwich shop for what they charged me, but I figured I’d be getting free room and board for the foreseeable. And anyway, I had this credit card to the name of a certain Mr. R. Carstairs and I had no idea who was paying for the balance on that thing but I was quietly hopeful it would be the British taxpayer. That way, I really would be getting a penny for each time one of them had held me up for a selfie or to ask how Kelly was doing!

While I was having dinner in my room, another call to prayer started up. I had a view of several mosques from my window and I actually saw men at the top of the minarets, miaowing into microphones. Right now it sounded pretty funny, creating a nice soundtrack to my adventure, but I was pretty sure this would get old soon. On the other hand: it had never really bothered me in Doha, either.

The room was fine. Like most hotel rooms in the Middle East, it had an arrow on the ceiling. Those are called Qibla and they obviously point to Mecca. The ones in Qatar had all been green and more or less hidden: I’d found one in a desk drawer! But in Saudi they were black and hotels were obligated to have them in every room. Placing them in a drawer was illegal because they shouldn’t be covered up. And yes, there’s a copy of the Quran in every hotel room. I once spent a night in a hotel room in Hamburg and there they had provided the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I found hilarious. I imagine if you put that in a drawer along with a Bible or a Quran, it starts a fire.

Predictably, the minibar contained only non-alcoholic drinks. Strange, how you can suddenly crave a beer. I’d never in a million years have had one from a minibar if there had actually been one, but now I was ready to down one in a single gulp. Preferably with a can of Pringles.

Still, Saudi Arabia is a modern country in many ways; they buy their doors and light fixtures from the same places we do, for a start. Their traffic lights are red, orange and green as well. Apart from the call to prayer and an Arabic translation on the ‘please leave your towel on the floor if you want us to replace it’ sign, I couldn’t tell I was suddenly in the Dark Kingdom, where women were second class citizens and money flowed from oil wells to car dealers and imam training schools. But let’s not judge a country by the quality of their tarmac and the filet steak with mushroom sauce alone, shall we? If it were all strawberry unicorn farts over here, Diana would still be alive. In fact, so would thousands of other people.

As I lay down on my bed in clean underwear, with brushed teeth and an Elastoplast on my knee, which turned out to have been mildly scratched even though my trousers weren’t, I noticed the watch on my bedside cabinet. It blinked slowly, so I picked it up and touched the screen.

“Can you hear me?” I asked.

“Yes, Reginald.”

I shivered. I knew full well to expect Kate’s voice, but it still stung.

“How are things down there?”

“The outside temperature is still above thirty degrees, which means I am still charging.”

“Great! So can we make it to Riyadh tomorrow?”

“Sorry, no. Thermal charging is primarily used to provide power to my on-board systems, such as the processing cores and the cooling systems. Even so, I have been using more energy than anticipated. I will need an additional 17 kilowatt hours to reach Riyadh.”

“Bummer.”

“I am unable to parse that statement.”

“That’s okay. Look, I need to get there. How about I take the train from here to Riyadh and when you’ve warmed up enough you join me there? Or maybe I can send a flat bed truck to come get you.”

“Please hold. Calculating.”

“Calculating what?”

“Please hold.”

And so I held. Well, actually I held the remote control. The TV featured the same dismal collection of satellite stations as the one in my Doha room. Al Kass one through five, all equally terrible. Al Jazeera, obviously. Jeem TV. Abu Dhabi TV. MBC 1. Awtar TV. Either they were showing motor sports, commercials for their own tourism industry, and cheesy American drama series from the eighties and nineties (21 Jump Street was on 3 channels, for some weird reason) or they aired discussions between ugly, pasty, bloated and bearded religious conservatives who lectured each other on God knows what. Or on what God knows, more likely. I searched in vain for anything from the BBC.

After a minute, K-T came back to me. That is to say: my watch buzzed on my wrist.

“Still here,” I said.

“If you travel onwards by train, including your luggage, I will be able to reach Riyadh. This is due to the weight difference and the fact I will not need to run any comfort systems.”

“I see. And then what? Where will you charge? Are there any EV charge points in the area?”

“No, there are no public EV charge points anywhere in Riyadh.”

“So what’s the point? How do I recharge you when you get there?”

“I can charge from a variety of power sources, including wall sockets.”

“Then why wait? Let’s find a socket right here! There’s an underground car park, isn’t there?”

“Yes, there is.”

I joined K-T in the car park and walked around the structure, looking for an outlet. As luck would have it, I found a wall socket near a door, and an empty space. I rummaged around in a side compartment in the trunk and found an extension cable with a very thick core. There was a charge connector underneath the front bumper, and the cable made it to the wall socket. They use the three-pronged UK plugs and sockets in Saudi, in case you’re wondering. Sensible.

“There you go,” I said, plugging her in and flicking the switch next to the socket. “How long until you’re full up?”

A family consisting of a man in white, a woman in black with a veil and a little girl wearing a tiara and a princess dress looked at me with some concern, as they saw me squatting near a service door and talking to myself. K-T didn’t answer. I sat down inside her. Inside IT! Dammit.

“How’s that?”

“Charging.”

“How long will it take?”

“I am attempting to establish the limit of this circuit without causing the safety fuse to blow. The maximum yield from a wall socket at 230 Volts and limited to 16 Amps will be 3680 Watt, but there may be other devices connected to this circuit. Right now I am charging at 1700 Watt.”

“That’s 1.7 kiloWatt hours! That’s going to take at least 17 hours!”

“Correct. And I will not be able to use thermal charging, as this facility remains below 30 degrees Celsius.”

I wanted to curse, but what’s the point of cussing out my own car? Or indeed any car?

“I’ll leave you to it, then. I may decide to take the train, but I’ll come and disconnect you if I do. At least you’ll have more range inside Riyadh. If it’s anything like the size of Al Hofuf, you don’t want to be stranded at the edge of it.”

“With your permission I will shut down all non-essential systems, to save energy. This means you must approach me in person to communicate with me. Good night.”

“Good night,” I muttered. I closed the door a lot more carefully that I would have done with a car that didn’t sound like my sister or chatted about voltages and wandered to the exit of the garage. The Intercontinental chain favours a certain building style, whereby the hotel is elevated and a circular one-way road leads to the main entrance. You then park to the side of the building, which leaves a circular space in front. They had planted a small park there, with some water features and trees with benches. It was still about twenty-five degrees right now, but that’s actually a really pleasant temperature with the right humidity. It was dark, but no expense was spared to illuminate the place. Everything had a cosy, orange hue.

I sat down on a concrete bench, to watch a small fountain. There were hardly any bugs here, except for a few moths dancing around a lamp post. I fought the urge to call home, to ask my girls how they were doing and to tell them I was fine. I was barely in the country for half a day and I had already killed a man with a brick. The clumsy fool who snuck up behind me didn’t count. Or did he? He’d be alive if he hadn’t shown up for work this morning.

I wondered if someone was looking for them yet. If there was a tracker in the car or not. If the man who had sent them after me was going to tell his bosses he had ordered two subordinates to shake down a traveller who had a bottle of Scotch with him, and how he knew it to be there. My guess would be he wasn’t.

My phone rang, which felt almost indiscreet in this quiet garden. It was prince Asim.

“Good evening, Your Royal Highness.”

“Carstairs! How are you?”

“I am well, thank you. And yourself?”

“Fine, fine! My friend, when are you ready to come to my country?”

“Well, as it happens I am currently in Doha.”

As soon as I said that, I bit my lip. What if he was there, too? Why didn’t I just tell him where I was? Just to hide the car? Or because he was supposed to think I never left London? I’m sure there was a reason for it at one point, but remembering cover stories is very tiresome. I don’t usually lie, unless I want to take the piss. It’s just too much work to remember it all.

“Doha! Which hotel? I can be there in, like, four hours!”

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient if I came to you, though?”

“Yes! Yes, you are right. So, when can you leave?”

“Well, my business here is concluded. I can catch a flight tomorrow and be there some time in the afternoon. Would that be agreeable?”

“Yes! Good! I am so looking forward to it! Let me know when you land, okay?”

“Surely Your Royal Highness doesn’t need to concern himself with picking me up? I’m sure I can arrange my own transportation from the airport.”

Well, he wasn’t having that.

“No, my friend! No, no, no! You can make tea for me soon enough, ha haaa! First, I welcome you properly. Just text me the flight number and I will be there, okay?”

“Yes, of course. I may have to pick up my luggage, as well. Some of my suitcases will be sent onwards from London. It may take some time to liberate them, but I’ll let you know when I have arranged my ticket, and when I expect to have landed.”

“Good. Good! You will love my country, Carstairs. I guarantee it. Doha? Doha is just a ... box where the cats poop. You know?”

“I can’t say I disagree, Your Royal Highness. Well, I am greatly looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

“So am I! I will bring my Ferrari!”

Okay, so people still drive Ferraris? I thought those went out with the Discman.

“Yes ... Have I mentioned the luggage? It’s four suitcases and a bag.”

“Oh, of course! This is good. This means you are staying for a long time. Good, I am happy.”

“Excellent, Your Royal Highness. Salaam.”

“Salaam! Yes! Good night!”

Well, at least someone was glad to see me.

Thursday, July 16^th. Al Ahsa Intercontinental. (Richly.Stamp.Reach.)

I slept very, very well. And long, too. I think I was out before ten, and I woke up at eight. A solid ten hours of sleep! When was the last time that happened? Puberty, probably.

As the hotel had a coffee corner with sandwiches, I decided I’d have breakfast there. It was Ramadan, so it turned out they weren’t actually serving anything by the time I got there, but if you didn’t look too Muslimey you could get a limited selection to go, wrapped in brown paper like a porn mag and picked sight unseen from a text only menu. And so I had a chicken sub in my room, and made coffee with the Nespresso maker. Adopt. Adapt. Overcome.

Anyway, how come a city I had literally never heard of in my life had this vast, impressive hotel? The Al Ahsa Intercontinental contained a cavernous interior: the building was square, and all the rooms were on the outside. There were six floors, served by smooth, glass lifts. In the central space was a piano bar, a coffee bar with an impressive looking pastry section (currently not available), an indoor garden with a footbridge over a koi pond, a marble double staircase to the second floor, where they had conference rooms, some expensive shops and a business centre, and above it all hung a vast chandelier. I asked about the swimming pool, but was told single men were restricted to certain hours and I just missed that time slot. Shame, because I’d seen it on the internal TV channel and it looked very inviting. Oh, why is there never a card that says: ‘We care about the environment so please reuse your towel, but we leave the TV on 24/7 in empty rooms to display our own internal slideshow’? Just wondering.

I then visited K-T in the car park. The charging cable had been disconnected from the wall socket. That wasn’t good. I wondered how I’d get in without a key if she ... IT ... was powered down, but the door opened as soon as I touched the handle.

“Good morning,” I said, and sat down in an uncomfortably warm chair. The centre console displayed a picture of a red Aston Martin Rapide S, which rotated until the headlights were visible. Apparently this car had been red before they had fitted it with all the extras. The animated headlights then flashed and the car disappeared, showing the normal, white display with the time and the multimedia options.

“Good morning. Charging was interrupted at four twenty a.m.”

“By whom?”

“Unknown. Sensors were powered down. My charge is insufficient to take you all the way to Riyadh. However, I can offer you a ride to the railway station. Trains depart five times a day. Journey time is three hours and two minutes. Shall I make a reservation for the eleven a.m. train?”

“Please do. First class, if possible. I’m actually surprised you can do that!”

“I can’t. I am sending the request to a human operator.”

“AH! So that’s your trick! I KNEW IT!”

“I am unable to parse that statement.”

“Yeah, never mind. You’re rumbled. I knew A.I. wasn’t that good, yet.”

“Do you book your own tickets?”

“I ... uhm ... used to. Oh, speaking of which: can you show me all flights from Doha to Riyadh today? Direct flights only, please.”

“Searching.”

After a minute or so she showed me a list. I wrote down a flight number and arrival time and looked at my watch.

“How far to the train station, with a ten minute margin?”

“Five minutes. Margin specified falls below threshold.”

“See you at a quarter to eleven. I’ll plug you in again.”

“Thank you. Reservation complete. The confirmation will be emailed to you.”

Museum.Boots.Edicts.

The train was old, thirty years or so. And the passengers were, and I’m well aware how this sounds, smelly. (In particular their breath.) And so was the train, because the rail network wasn’t electrified. I saw a diesel engine belching smoke even at standstill.

The tickets were dirt cheap, though: I paid 120 SAR, about thirty bucks US, for a first class seat. But to be fair, even Dutch Rail still uses some rolling stock that is almost forty years old and as long as it is all well maintained, it doesn’t matter. I had an airplane-like seat to myself, but was gawked at by Pakistani and other expat workers as they shuffled past. One or two Saudis also had first class seats, which was half a section in the first car. First class was called ‘Al Rehab’, second class ‘Al Talla’ea’. Those seats were smaller, but then so were the customers. It’s not often you’re better off in rehab, is it? Two women covered head to toe in black, with only their heavily made up eyes visible through slits, considered sitting opposite me and then didn’t, for fear I might rape them or something.

“I’ll sit with them if it helps,” I offered, gesturing at the two Saudis. That way they would be able to sit across empty seats. Look, I don’t agree with those norms either, but I couldn’t very well hog three empty seats.

“No, shukran, thank you,” one said, in a strangled accent.

“No, it’s fine, really,” I said, already getting up. But they kept on walking and didn’t come back. I had no idea what that was about, but it was the first time I had interacted with a woman here in any way and she skittered away like a roach in a kitchen. The men gave me disapproving looks, for some reason. I sat down, put my headphones in and stared out the window for three hours and two minutes. We didn’t hit a camel. That sometimes happens, I’m told. Doesn’t really stop the train, though. That takes a full herd.

The cabin was air-conditioned, but not to the point where it became comfortable inside. It was set just high enough to make sure that the diesel loc didn’t pull into Riyadh Grand Central Station with a few hundred dead people in tow. I hadn’t used my phone too much, except to listen to some podcasts and to communicate with Prince Asim about my arrival. I had it on airplane mode most of the time, except when I wanted to check if there had been a new message.

Because it was Ramadan, the buffet car was closed. Travellers are allowed to drink water, but hardly anyone does so because you have to make up that day later. I had water with me, which I got up to drink every now and then in the little no-man’s land between two cabins. I still got a few dirty looks, but within the rules I was okay. Saudi is worse than other muslim countries: they don’t give foreigners and non-muslims much leeway, but I was a traveller today, so up yours, Abdul. L’chaim!

From the rail station, which looked exactly as you’d expect in the capital city of a country with money to burn, I took a taxicab to King Khalid airport, a ride of about about fifteen minutes. That didn’t exactly give me the best impression of my new home town for the next few weeks: most buildings were low, it was dusty and not nearly as green as Al Hofuf and didn’t have anywhere near as many palm trees, either. (Come to think of it: they might be date trees. I suppose being hit by a falling date is preferable to being hit by a coconut, so they were probably date trees.) Practically every street was lined with red and white plastic barriers. There was a lot of construction going on.

I saw all the familiar brands, though. Not just Yamaha, but places like Pizza Hut, Ben & Jerry’s, Burger King, Nike and Subway. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a law requiring all commercial buildings to have at least one Yamaha sign. They do make everything from pianos to outboard engines, but it’s still a bit weird.

By the way, don’t blame Burger King for the obesity epidemic in Saudi, because I saw dozens of other fast food chains and at least eight of them featured chickens in their logo, all of which seemed ecstatic at the prospect of being eaten by humans: Broasted Yam Yam, Chicken Hot, Super Broast, Delicious Fried Chicken, Red Chicken, Crispy Al Sdeqa’a, Happy Land Broasted (WHAT IS BROASTING FOR FUCK’S SAKE? Boiling, then roasting? Breading, then toasting?) and Crispy Wow. Honorary mentions for disturbing and unappetising names go to Shawafel (I am not making this up), Alvitamin, Ram Corner (would be a good name for a rock ‘n roll band) and Grist Restaurant. Go ahead, Google ‘em. See if I’m lying.

I was very tired after my three hour Turkish steam bath slash fast courtesy of Saudi Railways and I hadn’t had lunch because the buffet car was closed, it being Ramadan. This is a dangerous combination. Food, to me, is what the cooling circuit is to a nuclear reactor. But thankfully my three suitcases were waiting for me at the special services counter and I only needed to show them my passport to take possession. I then accidentally signed for them using my real name, so I had to turn my signature into a very ornate artwork. I’m pretty sure the lady (yes, a lady, though obviously not a Saudi one because only absolute, irredeemable foreign whores work at the baggage desk, no doubt mainly to invite strange men over for a cup of sex) thought I was having a seizure. Then I went to the arrivals door with my bags on a trolley and waited there for fifteen minutes, fighting off cab drivers, until Prince Asim arrived. I nearly didn’t recognize him, because it had been a while since we had met and he was dressed like all these other polar bears. But thankfully he bellowed my name when we were still fifty metres apart, so that helped.

“CARSTAIRS! THERE YOU ARE! IT IS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU! Hey, you have a beard! Looks good on you!”

Apparently, and this was an unpleasant surprise to me, Saudi men hug. And not just hug, because my stay in America has inured me to that. Okay, endeared. I’ll admit I have started hugging my dad and my male friends, even though they think I’ve gone peculiar. But Saudi men take it several steps further, because if you treat women like they have the bubonic plague, who else are you gonna hug? And not just that, but they nose-rub! Or nose-kiss, if you like. Air kisses are one thing, but he pressed his nose against mine and gently ... EEEUW!

I think he noticed. It might have been the clenched fists, the blood draining from my face, me looking around in despair or some other micro-expression. Or maybe the groaning tipped him off. At least his breath was fine.

“Ha! You are so English! Okay, I let you go. Here, we do it properly.”

He took one giant step back and extended his hand. He had to lean forward to reach me.

“Hello Sir, how do you do?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I extended the floppiest hand I could muster and replied:

“How do you do.”

“Good! Now, come with me. I have a car waiting.”

A Mitsubishi minivan with some sort of silver crest on the door was indeed waiting for us on a section of asphalt clearly marked with red lines and next to a sign that bore the unmistakeable outline of a tow-truck. You didn’t need to know Arabic to know not to park there. In fact, the gift of sight was largely superfluous here. A black-and-white police vehicle was parked right behind it and a uniformed driver shrugged as the police officer pointed out he wasn’t supposed to stand there. He merely pointed at the crest and that was it.

“This is a van from the Royal Palace. And this is Rahmoon.”

I shook hands with the guy, a teenager with a wisp of facial hair, and we loaded my bags together while Asimchatted with the policeman. Actually, from the sound of it the officer wasn’t so much making small talk as trying to give us a ticket, and Asim was showing him some sort of pendant and pointing at the license plates of the van. And that was enough to end the discussion, apparently. The officer briefly stared at me, clearly considered giving me the ticket instead, and then sauntered off, back into the shade.

We barrelled through Riyadh. Asim had joined me in the back. People drove like absolute lunatics here, so I made sure to buckle up. Asim didn’t bother. I’d seen some suicidal types around Al Hofuf, but it appeared to be a national affliction. Traffic lights were ignored by half the cars on the road. Asim noticed my discomfort with the way our driver seemed to be acting out the chase from The French Connection. A beaded chain hung from the rear view mirror and danced like those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men.

“It’s okay. He’s an experienced driver.”

That’s impressive, at age nineteen.

“But he’s speeding through red lights! Uhm ... Your Royal Highness.”

“Yes. It’s okay. I’m a prince and this is a palace vehicle. Don’t worry.”

“So why do all these other cars ignore red lights?”

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Carstairs of Arabia

Ron Dudderie

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