My phone screen displayed country code 966 - Saudi Arabia! I pressed the button and said, "Marhaba!" I could almost feel the oven heat and the sand blowing in from the desert when a voice said, "Al-salamu alaykum"
Yes, it was Sheikh Abdulhameed, my ex-boss's brother. After I had wa-alaikum-salaam-ed him back and added a few more niceties, it was down to business. Or rather, it wasn't because, as he put it, he just wanted to stay in touch with an old habibi - after more than thirty years? -, inquire about my wellbeing and what I was doing, and was I thinking of visiting the Kingdom again?
Visiting Saudi Arabia again? Nothing could be further from my mind, habibi or not habibi. I'm 73 years old, go to the bathroom half a dozen times a day, and couldn't be bothered flying to Bali, let alone halfway around the world to Saudi Arabia. In any case, we've been there before, haven't we? Almost a year after I'd come back to Australia, Abdulhameed contacted me and, knowing I would not want to live in Saudi Arabia again, asked me if I'd go and work from the office of their Paris bankers on Avenue Kléber.
When that failed to rekindle my old 'wanderlust', he asked me to come to Saudi Arabia on a flying visit to pick up the paperwork for a full audit in Australia. This I did but I should've known better because, unlike his brother Abdulghani who'd always flown me first-class and accommodated me in five-star hotels, this time my ticket was 'cattle-class' and I was the only European in the sort of hotel in Jeddah he put me up in. I did get back to Australia and got down to work but stopped about a month later after he had failed to pay my first interim bill.
This time we exchanged a few more pleasantries; talked about his business dealings past and present; the reforms taking place in the Kingdom; what was happening across the border in the Yemen; he assured me he would call again; then a final telephonic embrace - both sides of the keypad -, and I was none the wiser why - if there was a why - he had called me.
It's the way of doing business in Saudi Arabia, and this strange phone call happened almost four years ago to the day. There was no sequel, and niether should there be because my globetrotting days are over. I mean, I hardly even bother driving the eight kilometres into the Bay these days.
