The Blessed Land
Yemen
The knock came at dawn, as it always did.
Fatima set down the chipped teacup she had been washing and dried her hands on her dress. Through the thin walls, she heard Ahmed rise from the mattress they shared with their children, his joints cracking in the cold morning air. Their son Yusuf did not stir; at fifteen, he had learned to sleep through anything. But Mariam, thirteen, sat up instantly, her eyes already searching for the bag she kept packed beneath her pillow.
“Government,” Ahmed said, peering through the gap in the shutters. “The car has plates.”
Fatima exhaled. Government was better than Houthis, who had taken their neighbor’s eldest son last spring. Better than the STC militiamen who had beaten Ahmed for owning a photograph of former President Hadi. Government meant paperwork, questions, perhaps a bribe if they had anything left to offer.
She opened the door to a man in a pressed suit, incongruous against the rubble of their street. He carried a leather folder and wore sunglasses despite the gray sky.
“Assalamu alaikum,” he said, his accent placing him somewhere in the Gulf. Saudi, probably. One of the advisors the recognized government imported to administer territories they could not hold. “I am conducting loyalty assessments for the Ministry of Interior. I will need to speak with each member of your household. Separately.”
The family exchanged glances. Fatima nodded and stepped aside.
The bureaucrat chose the kitchen for his interviews, settling onto the only chair that still had four legs. Ahmed went first, standing before him like a student called to account.
“Your name was on a petition,” the bureaucrat said, reading from a tablet. “Eighteen months ago. Pledging loyalty to Ansar Allah and eternal resistance to the Zionist-American alliance.”
“Everyone signed,” Ahmed said. “They came to every house.”
“And six months later, you signed another document. This one supporting the Southern Transitional Council’s peace initiative with Israel.”
“They also came to every house.”
The bureaucrat made a note. “So you have no actual convictions? You simply sign whatever is placed before you?”
Ahmed’s hands trembled at his sides. “I have a conviction that my children should live to see adulthood. I have a conviction that my wife should not become a widow. These are the only convictions I can afford.”
The bureaucrat studied him for a long moment, then waved him away.
Fatima’s interview was shorter. She answered each question with the minimum words required, her face betraying nothing. Yes, she had attended the mandatory rallies. No, she did not own a radio. Yes, she understood the current government’s position on regional security. No, she had no relatives abroad. This last answer was a lie; her sister had reached Jordan two years ago, but Fatima would die before giving anyone a thread to pull.
Yusuf shuffled into the kitchen still half-asleep, his phone clutched in his hand. The bureaucrat frowned at it.
“What do you do on that device?”
“Games, mostly.” Yusuf shrugged. “When there’s signal.”
“Which games?”
“Shooting games. Strategy games. Whatever runs on low data.”
“Do you communicate with anyone outside Yemen?”
“Just the servers.” Yusuf’s eyes were already drifting back to the cracked screen. “Sometimes I’m on a team with people from Egypt or Jordan. We don’t really talk. Just play.”
The bureaucrat seemed unsure what to make of this. “Do you have political beliefs? Affiliations?”
Yusuf looked up, genuinely confused. “I’m fifteen. I just want the internet to work.”
Mariam entered the kitchen with her chin raised, meeting the bureaucrat’s eyes in a way her parents would have warned her against if they had been present.
“You speak English,” he said, not a question. Her school records were apparently in his file.
“Yes. And French. I’m teaching myself from books.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to leave.” The words came out fierce, almost defiant. “I’m going to apply to universities abroad. Harvard, maybe. Or Oxford. I want to study literature. Chekhov. Austen. Mahfouz.”
The bureaucrat’s pen stopped moving. “You think this is possible? A girl from a contested zone in Yemen, attending Harvard?”
“I think if I stay here, I will die or become someone’s wife or both. I think if I leave, I might become something else.” Mariam’s voice did not waver. “So I choose to believe it’s possible.”
For the first time, something like pity crossed the bureaucrat’s face.
He gathered the family in their small front room afterward, his leather folder now closed. From it, he withdrew three pamphlets and placed them on the table like cards in a game whose rules only he understood.
“Your home is now in a contested border area,” he said. “The recognized government cannot guarantee security here. You should consider your options.”
The first pamphlet was in Russian, featuring a photograph of smiling soldiers and numbers denominated in dollars that seemed impossible, fairy-tale sums.
The second showed the Dubai skyline at sunset, advertising opportunities in construction. Ahmed recognized the careful language; he had heard stories from men who had accepted such offers and returned hollow-eyed, if they returned at all.
The third bore the black flag.
“I am required to provide all available information,” the bureaucrat said, and Fatima understood that even this man, in his pressed suit with his Gulf accent and government plates, was simply following whichever rules had most recently been handed down.
He left without another word.
The family stood around the table, staring at the three futures laid before them. Outside, somewhere distant, the sound of shelling resumed.