"Nope!" Beads of sweat form on my forehead and I reach to turn on the AC of the SAAB full blast. The engine roars as the car accelerates up the hill, my feet pumping on the gas pedal, unsure where we are going. Black goats and white sheeps dot the barren hillsides, feeding on dried bushes.
"This is not right!" Liz Phelan says from the back seat. She wipes her sweaty face with her palm. I tell her to use the box of Kleenex behind her. "We’re lost. Why those bloody bastards went ahead and not even wait for us is beyond me." She kicks the floor of the car. "It's just rocky hills, dried bushes and stupid goats and sheeps all around. I'm sure this is hell, what with this heat!"
Sue Clarinton is the General Manager of the Austin Eye Clinic and Liz Phelan is her Office Administrator. They have come with a team of eye doctors from Texas and have arrived two days ago in Muscat, the capital of Oman. The owner of the company I work for, Atlantic World Oil, has sponsored the team as a contribution to a project planned by Shiek Al Bin Khalfan, the Minister of Petroleum and patron of Atlantic World Oil. After visiting possible sites for a clinic in downtown Salalah and inspecting a few hospitals, Shiek Al Bin Khalfan tells us we will have a picnic atop the hills.
We have started earlier with our convoy of four cars: Shiek Al Bin Khalfan in a brand new Range Rover with Dr. Steve, Dr. Shawn, Dr. Billy and one bodyguard, Suleiman, who is also our guide. Seven more bodyguards are packed in like sardines in an older Range Rover. My boss, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Al-Sajeed, the minister's assistant, drive in a rented Mercedes Benz while Sue and Liz ride with me in my rented SAAB. For thirty minutes, we follow the three cars, with Shiek Al Bin Khalfan at the head, as they zig-zag their way through traffic and highways up to the small town leading to the "hills" for the picnic. At a turn off, a small "tornado" forms, a mini-funnel like wind that gathers dirt and messes up the sands and effectively blocks our view of the three cars ahead of us. When the wind settles, we find ourselves on a rough path leading up the hills that suddenly appears in front of us.
Liz pushes her blond hair with the palm of her hand. "We have picnic at top of hills, beautiful view. You enjoy it, I know," she says, mimicking Shiek Bin Khalfan’s accent. "That fuckin’ asshole." She grabs the hem of her long skirt and dabs the sweat off her face and neck. "And you haven’t been there at all, have you, Victoria?"
"Are you kidding me?" I say, shrugging my shoulders and glancing at her through the rear-view mirror. "This is the first time I’ve come to Salalah. I don’t even know why I had to come!"
"Obviously they needed someone to drive Sue and me around," Liz says, the fabric of her skirt muffles her voice. "Those morons clearly don’t want women in their stupid cars. I want to kill that stupid minister."
"I don’t really care wherever we are right now, I just need to pee real bad," Sue declares. "I don’t know how much longer I can take it, Victoria, but my bladder is about to burst with this rough road we’re in."
A skinny dog darts from a thick bush and crosses the path in front of us.
"Shit!" Sue and Liz say in unison as I step on the brakes. Sue drops her leaf fan and her hands clasp her bulky gut, in an attempt not to urinate on the passenger seat.
"Fucking shitty dog, crossing the road like some idiot….hmp… hmp… dog." I say. I look sideways at Sue. "Did you go or what?"
She looks at me and seeing my dog-like grin, she yells, "Shut up, Victoria!"
I continue to drive, my own bladder building up its own pressure. The SAAB's AC couldn't keep up with the heat of three women, two of them on the verge of menopause.
"Shit, I got to go, too, damnit!" Liz says from the back seat. "Victoria, do you think we can stop somewhere and we can go behind a thick bush or something? There wouldn't be anybody around here, would you say?"
I pull over and roll down my window, the heat slapping my face. I stick my head out, careful not to release the break that my right foot is straining now to press. The sky is a clear blue and the sun hangs directly above us like it would not set for another ten or twelve hours. I hear the hodgepodge of crickets and goats and sheep’s sounds, and the distant whirl of the hot air being blown from the direction of the Yemeni desert. My left foot loses the clutch pedal and the car shakes before the engine stops dead. Seeing that we are parked on the very edge of the road with a deep ravine at their side, Sue and Liz holler "Watch out!"
I sit back and re-start the car. I look forward, backward (through the rear-view mirror), sideways.
"What?" both women ask.
"I don't know," I say. "It's 2:30, maybe the animal keepers are having their naps."
"Victoria," Sue says, "We never saw any houses or igloos around here. I'm sure the animal keepers are down in the village."
I giggle at the mention of "igloo" and drive the car a few feet before I say, "They have small caves around these hills, that's where they stay." Two pairs of eyes roll up in exasperation.
The car's engine strains as it follows the upward path. We drive for another ten minutes and we reach the top of the hill where we have a view of the valley below, dried brown bushes and bare trees among the maze of small dirt roads, going down to the village, where the color turns green with the date palms and olive orchards. On the horizon, the blueness of the sky meets the deep blue of the Arabian Ocean. A light wind blows and it suddenly feels pleasant. We got off the car and surveyed the place. A few feet away, we found a large bush.
"Perfect!" Liz exclaims. "I think we can do our bathroom duties here. We can see when people are coming."
"Oh no," Sue says, adjusting her large pink scarf. "We came from that side," she points west, "so if they come, they would be around there, not here," she points east.
"Which means?" Liz asks.
"Which means, we can pee and nobody will see us." Sue looks at me for approval.
"Up to you guys, I myself don't mind. We used to do this in the Philippines all the time."
"No," they both shake their heads. Liz says, "I haven't done anything like this at all in my entire life."
"The hell. Let's go." Sue proceeds to lower her pink track pants.
Liz follows. "Well, there's always a first time!"
I join the two women. We look around first just to make sure nobody can see us.
It seems endless, this bladder, I comment when it seems we could not stop peeing. A bee buzzes by.
"Damn you," Liz says.
Sue jokes, "What if it mistakes our assholes for its nest?"
We all laugh, the flow of our pee becoming choppy.
Another bee flies by.
"Another one!" For a moment, Liz makes an attempt to stand up, but crouches back again. "My pee won't stop, I'm not finished yet!"
Suddenly, from the distance, dusts rise and I spot sparkling reflections of the sun against glass. Then the image of a car appears. It’s Minister Al Bin Khalfan’s Range Rover, with the second Range Rover and the Mercedes in its dusty wake.
"Holy camoley," I say. Since I have finished, I pull up my drawers and, still in crouching position, move towards the other side of the bush, out of the cars' view.
Liz follows me. "Fuck, Sue, we are on the wrong side of the fucking bush!"
"Well, who's to know." Then Sue shouts,"Holy shit!" Her scarf gets caught in a small dried branch while pulling her pants up. She almost falls, her fat bum facing the path where the cars are now coming closer at full speed.
"Come on, Sue, quick!" Liz yells. "They're coming! They'll see you!"
"What the hell do you think I’m trying to do! Ballroom dancing?"
Sue swears and utters all obscenities while she tries to compose herself and pull up her blazing pink pants as well, as Liz and I fall on the ground, clutching our stomachs, laughing hard.
When the three cars reach us, the Minister comes out first, grinning. His bodyguards quickly unload mats and blankets, large containers of food and styrofoam boxes of beer, wine and juice buried in crushed ice.
"How you know this is where we go?" he asks in his heavily accented English. His tall imposing figure towers above me. He wears a long beige cardigan over his clothing and as he places his hand on his hip, I see a gun tucked together with his kanjah.
"I just followed the road," I reply, staring at the gun which is at my eye level.
"What took you so long?" Liz asks, her arms akimbo, not exactly hiding her displeasure.
But the Minister ignores her. "What you doing in the bush?" he asks again.
"There's no toilet around, here, Your Excellency," I say. "We had an emergency!"
I glance at Sue and Liz, their faces red from heat and embarrassment, darting angry glances at the Minister.
The Minister grins, a gold molar glinting in the bright afternoon sun, and turns to Sue, "Oh, is good we saw you. I thought there is pink panther in bushes." He smirks. "I ask Suleiman to shoot!"
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