60. Ramallah, 1999 - Tariq

In which Eleanor becomes a boss.

Eleanor calls Tariq into her office. Things do not go well. 

Eleanor

As I look at Tariq across my desk, my irritation grows. Tariq’s obstinacy is galling. As is his slowness.

We’ve finally managed to get a permit for him to come up from Gaza. This is his first trip to Ramallah. He’s been positively bouncing ever since he came through the door: he’s so happy to finally see the office and meet Nagla and Wissam. It would be endearing, except for how he’s crowed to them that he is trusted to run the Gaza office solo. As if that is some big deal. Nagla and Wissam have been with the office in Ramallah for three years. They can run rings around him. He has a lot to learn from them, but no, here he is, showing off to them.

They seem more bemused than irritated by his puffery. But I just want to wring the smugness right out of him. If he were excelling at his job it would be one thing, but he isn’t. Francois has been clear: make him get it. Make him understand it is not for him to tell staff in Ramallah what to do, it is for him to learn how to do his job the way he is supposed to. In short, he needs to stop doing things his way, and start doing the job he was hired to do, the way he is supposed to do it. So, to “make him get it”, as instructed, I told him to come up from Gaza rather than me going down, now that we’ve finally got a travel permit for him.

I can’t say I particularly like Tariq. I feel I get more of the stereotypical Arab chauvinism from him—and it just gets my back up. When Francois made me his supervisor I felt uneasy. Yes, getting to directly manage someone for the first time is a step up in my career, but the more I’ve come to know of him over the last few months since we hired him to staff the Gaza office, the less I’ve come to like him.

He seems entirely too full of himself for one thing. He seems very preoccupied with his own status and dignity, balking at anything that he deems beneath him—like bringing the bottles of water up the stairs to the Gaza office. He had incurred the unnecessary expense of getting someone else to do that for him—which Francois had bristled at. At other times it seems like he’s incapable of thinking or figuring things out himself, I have to explain things to him as if he were a child. And then whenever I’m in the office in Gaza he just wants to talk and talk and talk. A luxury I do not have time for. My visits to Gaza are always jam packed with meetings and work, even if I stay over and spend a second day there. There is always too much to do and too little time to get it all done. He would try the patience of a saint, I think to myself. And I am not a saint.

Finally I call him into my office. As he sits down, I get up, shut the door, and walk back around to my side of the desk. Trying to keep my irritation in check, I walk him through, once again, the process he needs to follow.

He argues back, says that doing it this way or that won’t work in Gaza, will offend the senior Palestinian businessmen and officials he’s been requested to contact, and on and on. Excuse after bloody excuse. Who the hell does he think he is? He is working for South Africa. He needs to do what he is told. Period. Irritation swells.

“Tariq,” I say, my voice cold, “If you carry on refusing to listen and arguing back, you aren’t the right person for this job. We’ll find someone else.”

He stares back at me. Then his whole body slumps in his chair. He collapses like a deflated balloon. Finally! I think, smugly satisfied that I’ve punctured his inflated sense of self. And then he starts to cry. Cry, for pete’s sake! Jeez, now he’s trying to play that card? My heart hardens. Disgust, then contempt follows. What a disappointment he’s turned out to be. I sit at my desk in stony silence, waiting for him to stop sniveling.

“I’ll do it, Miss Eleanor. I promise. I will do what you ask. Please just give me a chance. Please just let me show you I can do it. I promise I won’t let you down. Please, I need this job. My family—my wife, our children. I’m so grateful for this. It’s such an honor to work for South Africa. Please don’t fire me. Please.”

His groveling is both sickening and pleasing. He has no spine. But I’ve done what Francois asked. I’ve made him get it.

“Ok,” I say. “Make sure that you do. This is your last chance.”

Then I get up, open the door and go to get a cup of tea.

Wissam

Wissam sees Tariq come out of Eleanor’s office. He is shrunken, smaller. He sits down at the central table, pulls one of the newspapers lying on the table across to him and buries his head in it.

Wissam waits until Eleanor is back in her office, then gets up quietly and sits next to Tariq. He knows Miss Eleanor can be direct to the point of harshness, but he also sees how Mr Francois treats her. He sees through her brittle shell. He sees how very young she is. How hard she works, trying to satisfy Mr Francois’ ever changing demands. How passionate and committed she is to countering the biased reporting from Tel Aviv. She has a lot to learn when it comes to managing people, yes, but she is highly intelligent, and he is sure she’ll get it, in time. Although she is technically his superior, as she is the diplomat and he is the local staff, he feels a fatherly fondness and protectiveness towards her, even as he sometimes wants to gently chastise her.

He sees, too, Tariq’s insecurity. Tariq has shared with him some of what he is dealing with in Gaza as a minority Christian, like him. This job means everything to him and his family. It offers something rare in Gaza—status, a secure income, safety, and stability. He can finally hold his head up. So it’s really important to him not to be seen to be doing menial work—that’s why he couldn’t be seen to be carrying the water bottles, he would have lost status and honor. And that is everything in Gaza, even more so than in Jerusalem.

“Miss Eleanor can be harsh, I know,” he says gently to Tariq. “But she really does mean well. She really does want you to succeed at this. She and Mr Francois spoke highly about you after your interview. You were by far and away the best candidate.” Tariq turns towards him. The look on his face—hunger, need, confusion—it pains Wissam deeply. “Mr Francois has been very demanding lately. They’re both under a lot of pressure from Pretoria, with everything up in the air post Wye. It’s just the two of them while there’s a whole Embassy in Tel Aviv.” He reaches over and rests a hand encouragingly on Tariq’s arm. “We’ve got to do our bit to help them help us. Just do what she asks, even if you disagree, and she’ll come around, you’ll see.”

Tariq looks at him gratefully and nods.

“Come, let’s go for a walk and I’ll show you around Ramallah.” He thinks it wisest if everyone has some space.

Wissam puts his head into Eleanor’s office. “I’m going to show Tariq around Ramallah. Can I get you anything while we’re out, Miss Eleanor?”

“Thanks, Wissam,” she smiles back at him. “I’m good. Francois says he’s going to take us all to Fatoush for lunch when he gets back, so don’t be long. I think he’ll be back in the next hour or so.”

“We’ll be back by then,” he assures her.

As they walk to the main street, Wissam shares the story of his and Mr Francois’ rocky start. “It’ll be alright,” he assures Tariq again. “Really. They’re intense and they’re demanding. But they’re both good people.”

“Thank you,” Tariq says. “Can I call you when I need help? Sometimes I just don’t understand what Miss Eleanor wants. She speaks so fast, and tells me ten things at once. I get confused. I’m just not clear on what she really wants sometimes.”

“Anytime,” Wissam says. “It is confusing at the beginning. That’s just part of getting used to the job. But you’ll get it. Just be patient with yourself. Nagla and I are here to help you with anything. Call us anytime. We’re here to help you.”

Gradually Tariq recovers. He’s quiet over lunch. Nagla takes him under her wing afterwards, asking him to join her in her small alcove that is her office. He hears them talking softly in Arabic, Nagla walking him through all the office systems, how Mr Francois wants information filed on the server, how to search and add records to the mission’s contact database. Nagla’s walked him through all of this by phone before, but finally sitting next to Nagla now, seeing it on the screen as she shows him everything, he sees Tariq brighten. Nagla is patient and methodical, the opposite of Miss Eleanor.

Later, when he walks Tariq to the shared taxi, his ride back to Gaza, Tariq is talkative again.

Mr Francois, Miss Eleanor, Nagla, and now Tariq: they are his second family. He will do anything for them—to keep them safe, to help them. He’s finally been able to save. In a year's time he’ll be able to go to Lebanon with his wife to meet his extended family. In the meantime the work is fascinating. He loves driving Mr Francois all over the West Bank, and to Gaza, and meeting so many people. His whole world is broader now.

He makes a mental note to check in on Tariq regularly. He knows how isolated Tariq must feel—being in that office day in and day out all by himself without anyone else. He and Nagla can get him up to speed, he knows it.

Eleanor

Themba jumps into my lap, purring and head-butting me, demanding to be scratched. Tlali jumps up too, not to be left out. I lean back in the Lay-Z-Boy, feeling the warmth and weight of the cats in my lap.

A twinge of remorse pricks at me. I see the slump of Tariq’s body, the pleading of his owlish eyes. I’ll try to be a bit gentler with him.

But he needed that reality check, I remind myself. He has to learn, and fast. We can't afford his mistakes.

I’d only done the hard, but necessary thing.

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