Three Shawermas to Go
The Middle East is my kinda place. I used to go twice a year for two weeks at a go. Sometimes I would get a day off (Fridays, the holy day for Muslims) and sometimes I skittle up to someplace like Istanbul where they seem to care more about keeping to a Western workweek schedule than taking off their Sabbath. I never went in summer and I was always careful to work around the Muslim holidays of Ramadan and Id. I really had it quite nice since my staff arranged my meetings, set my schedule and briefed me thoroughly for each visit. We spent our time calling on rich people in order to persuade them to give us their money to invest. It’s really a much more elaborate and involved ritual than that, but you get the idea (or at least you do well enough for purposes of this story).
Sometimes we saw regular folks who had just had the good fortune to get rich. But other times we saw people of real substance. These were Kings, Princes, Supreme Rulers, Ministers, Emirs and otherwise very significant others. When visiting with people of substance, I found it wise not to be too direct. Business people like direct. Potentates, on the other hand, like to warm up to you before getting down to business. In fact, sometimes they don’t even really want to get down to business, but would rather spend their time and yours reminding everyone that they can pretty much say and do what they want. This is O.K. with me. I want their business, but I also want to keep my head firmly attached to my neck.
So when I was on my way to this intriguing part of the world, my people over there would have talked to my people over here and decided that I didn’t need a full weekend before my two week non-stop trip. Leaving Saturday night and flying all day Sunday should work just fine to get me there for a Monday morning meeting with one of the local Grand Pubahs. I believe he was booked on Tuesday for falcon hunting, Wednesday for wadi bashing (driving jeeps very fast over sand dunes), Thursday for a goat grab (you got me!), and generally tied up for the rest of the week. So Monday morning, right after prayer time is it. One must be specific about this type of appointment since there are five prayer times per day to confuse you.
I had never met this particular Royal Highness before, but one of my guys had groveled before him with a prior employer, so we were well briefed on his particulars. He only spoke enough English to buy his flat in Mayfair and make the odd eight to ten trips a year to London to shop at Harrods, so my colleague would act as translator. He was of Swiss-Venezuelan-Lebanese extraction, so he spoke Arabic well except for a slight excess of rolling his r’s and keeping his lips a bit too pursed. We had another colleague of Arab origin with us just in case His Highness needed someone to strike to drive home a point.
It was a beautiful spring day and the courtyard we drove into was in full bloom. The peacocks roamed the yard along with some stray chickens. I’m not sure where the traditional yard goats were, but the lawn looked well trimmed nonetheless. The doors were wide open and we were greeted by several of our host’s retainers. Some carried walking sticks, some had just their prayer beads in their hands, and a few held falcons with hoods over their eyes. We greeted or nodded to everyone except the falconers, who looked too important to bother.
We were shown directly into the Maglis. For those of you not familiar with the Maglis, it is the Arabic version of a parlor. It’s where you meet and greet visitors like us. It’s much like the living room in any of our homes except that it holds at least 40 to 60 identically upholstered chairs all around the perimeter of the room. It seems that Bedouin tradition was not big on either cluster seating arrangements or mix and match decorating. This particular Maglis was sort of a cross between French Provincial style and Persion Colonial. Kind of a tent version of Versailles. Oh, and of note was the black lacquer Mitsubishi 60 inch big-screen, picture-in-a-picture TV in the near corner.
It was immediately clear where we were not supposed to sit. The Danish Modern leather and teak chair in the far corner with the three telephones next to it was clearly off limits. We were directed to the three seats to the right of the throne.
I had been reminded that the Maglis protocal allowed for us to possibly share the visit with any number of other visitors His Highness might have that morning. My colleagues clucked about being the only ones there. It portended great things for the meeting. Our host, meanwhile, was deep in prayer as we awaited His arrival.
A commotion in the entry signaled His arrival. We jumped up and were ready to greet our host. I find it’s pretty easy to tell who’s the boss at these gatherings. The gold-embroidered, membrane-thin cloak is a good clue, but given the wide range of lower carat thread available these days, I don’t like to rely on it. I personally find that if you take a quick glance at the local currency and get a peek at the portrait thereon, it’s your surest bet. This trick works even when you are not seeing the Supreme Ruler Himself, but any of his thirty or forty brothers who will succeed Him to the throne. They all try to honor the Head Honcho by emulating his facial hair configuration. The more senior you are, I suspect the better your barbers are at getting a close resemblance.
All hell breaks loose (facially speaking) when a new brother ascends to the throne since he then gets to choose his own hirsute program. I’ve never actually been in the region directly following a coronation, but I imagine that it can get pretty nasty, with a lot of folks trying to shave a whole new way all of a sudden. It may be over the sink and helped by styptic pencils, but I’m sure it’s not a bloodless transition.
In any case, His Highness is a dead ringer for His Supreme Highness, so I sort it out quickly and greet my host with a firm (but not overpowering) handshake, a slight bow and a fine “How do you do Your Highness.” This seems to work to His satisfaction and we all scramble for our respective seats, trying hard to remember which of the forty identical chairs we were sitting in.
Now His Highness is sitting at Command Central. he begins with a quick phone call. No translation is provided me on this, but I’m sure it must be a most urgent matter, so I sit and wait patiently. I’ve got my opening line all planned, but I only get out a quick stutter before His Highness turns to some other guests who have snuck in on us and are seated to His left.
His Highness picks up a stick which is resting next to His chair. This is obviously His Maglis stick. It looks quite rustic and natural except for the gold and amber knob at the end. It’s too thin for a walking stick, but probably just right for poking goats or shooing unwanted bankers.
He finishes with the other guests with a flourish and a wave of His stick. They are in local dress, so they can just get up and leave as they please, which they do. If you’re in a wool suit you just wait your turn. His Highness then turns His attention to me and says (assume quasi-simultaneous translation from here on in), “You have just missed a big hail and rain storm we had yesterday.” I am immediately put at ease. Ice breaking with the weather feels familiar to me. So I reply, “Yes, one does not expect that in your fair city.” This seemed totally appropriate given the quarter inch rainfall per century I’ve read about in my country briefing memo.
“What, you think it only rains in America and Europe?!”, His Highness replies mockingly.
Uh-oh. It’s clear I’ve already done something terribly wrong to upset Him. Before I need to reply He begins a very heated monologue, staring all the while out into the open Maglis. I’m mindful of the falconers. It they start to remove the hoods I plan to make a mad dash back to the car. But the translation comes back as a story about another American bank that done Him wrong. I can work with this. But before I can jump in, he shifts three degrees and starts in on the good old U.S.of A. It seems that he is very pro-America except for our social, ethical, religious and economic foundations.
I wonder if it’s better to have a successful meeting or foresake my country. I take the tactful route and make inane comments here and there. My only hope is that they sound wise in translation. I also do a whole lot of head nodding and shaking, taking my cues from the way He’s waving His stick.
When I do get a chance to say a few quasi-intelligent things about our business, He begins to get bored. I know this because He starts to use the stick to flip the antenna of a portable radio on His table back and forth. I begin to wonder if He’s good enough with it to turn on the radio or even work the TV remote. This, of course, would bring a whole new dimension to the Western concept of remote control.
The boredom is broken by the arrival of His son, who has been educated in California. His english is much better but he has a heavy San Fernando Valley accent. While I am discussing an issue with Junior, His Highness starts using his stick to test the strength of the welting on my Allen Edmond shoes. I asume that this is a mere accident so I move my foot away. It continues and I begin to worry that I have stepped into His part of the carpet. So I put my feet together directly in front of me, but he keeps poking my shoe. Now, I consider myself culturally adaptable. I’ve lived one third of my life overseas. I know not to cross my legs and expose my shoe sole in Arabic countries, but His Highness is trying to pry up and expose my sole (soul?) and only Allah knows what trouble I’ll be in then.
Lucky for me, His Highness stops playing footsie and gets up suddenly. We all rise. He asks if I have to go or if I can stay for lunch……although He makes it clear that it’s neither here nor there to him. We unexpectedly agree and march into the adjoining dining room. The table is set for forty or so and we gather around His Highness’ end of the table.
Just as in the Maglis, He has organized his space quite nicely. He has everything He wants or needs in front of Him. I am priveledged to be seated to His left (Junior is at His right, as it should be). My problem now is that I sense that His stuff is off limits to us. We are being served very efficiently, but He has everything He wants in easy reach. Indeed, He has some stuff we never do get served. But we do all get four glasses of milk in various shades of white. Only later did I learn that one was yoghurt, one was camel milk, one goat milk, etc. I’m not sure which one I drank.
We got up, a servant sprinkled our hands with rose water (a nice touch if you have a spare servant around) and we returned to the Maglis.
His Highness insisted that we sit again, which we did. He then pronounced that He would visit us in Geneva on such and such a date to discuss opening an account. He did this without reference to a calendar, which makes me beleive that he had planned this all along.
We thanked Him and praised Him and thanked Him some more. When He got tired of it all He dropped His stick, shook hands and showed us the direction we would need to take to get to the door. Junior actually walked us to our car and reminded us that he and His Highness were big fans of the U.S.A. He then said that he would send His Highness’ guard squadron with us to help us through city traffic to our next destination.
As we drove out of the courtyard, we were followed by a station wagon filled with guards armed with automatic weapons. As we drove they would cry out over their loudspeakers for other cars and pedestrians to get out of our way. It was quite effective. We had some time until our next call, and it seems none of us had gotten much to eat at lunch. I was too busy talking. My translator was too busy translating. And our colleague was too scared of doing something wrong and getting beaten. So, we told the driver to stop at a Lebanese Shawerma stand (the Arabic equivalent of a hot dog stand). Having the guards behind us made the lunch line go much quicker too. We got three Shawermas to go and hit the road for our next adventure.