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stage she was able to picture the empty, winding roads that appeared to lead only to more dust and more bare hills, and where there was rarely another vehicle in sight. Problems with transportation had themselves played a part in her becoming friendly with Souad, Mahyoub’s sister. Ingrid and some other teachers from the school where she taught had set out to visit the village closest to Sanaa as a first step toward discovering what lay beyond the city.
    Like the rest of the staff, she had spent the first month after her arrival skating on thin ice, treading on eggshells. When they ventured beyond the protective embrace of the city they felt as if they were at the edge of an abyss and were relieved to encounter two men hitching a lift. As a result they were guided for nothing to the village that was subsequently to become the focus of Ingrid’s life and changeher from a European woman into one who wore Yemeni clothes, baked bread on an outdoor clay oven, spoke Arabic and hennaed her hands, a custom she was told went back to the Prophet Muhammad, when he wanted to differentiate women’s hands from men’s.
    Ingrid used to notice one particular woman who always came into the shop opposite her home in Sanaa. She began to identify her by the colored cloth bag she carried, as all the older women veiled themselves in an identical fashion: the sheet hanging down either side of the head and the soft black silky material, patterned with red, covering the face. This cloth bag never left the woman’s hand. At the beginning Ingrid was certain that she came to beg, as people like her shopped at the local markets, not in these expensive shops, which were patronized mainly by foreigners and government employees. How naive she must have been to believe that this woman was suitable territory in which to sow the first seeds of her mission! She actually went up to her and invited her to her house and the woman went along with her at once, as if she’d been expecting her. Once inside the house she wandered around the room and finally came to a stop in front of the mirror, where she spent some time examining her reflection in amusement. Then she went over and patted the sofa, picked up an ashtray and viewed it from all angles before returning it to the table, stared at thephotos of Ingrid’s family, and felt the curtains. She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed and bounced up and down like a child. She drank a glass of cold fruit juice in one gulp, and then seemed content to gaze at Ingrid’s face, not understanding a word of the other’s attempts to talk to her in Arabic. Ingrid was afraid that this opportunity would slip through her fingers and hurried to fetch the woman a picture of the crucified Christ. The woman drew her breath in sharply, putting a hand up to her mouth, but her attention was distracted by the knitted tea cosy. She mumbled a few words and seemed to be asking whether Ingrid had made it and laughed again, pointing at the teapot, apparently finding it strange that it should have a cover at all. Then she smiled broadly at Ingrid, nodded her head as if to say she’d be back again soon, and went out the door. Later Ingrid discovered that she came to the shop only to curse the cigarette display, because her daughter’s husband had left her for another woman and he used to buy his cigarettes there. It was then that Ingrid realized that her task was not going to be easy, as she would need excellent Arabic in addition to trying to understand the culture of the country.
    Many months had gone by, in the course of which Ingrid believed that she had begun to be able to understand the people’s mentality and decipher their behavior. But whenever she went deeper below the surface, she lost herway inside their compact heads, intelligent eyes and smiling mouths.
    Mahyoub’s car finally came in sight and he drew up and got out, but instead of returning her enthusiastic greeting he stood talking to the owner of the shop. She