A Norwegian in Arabia (5)

Nor the basic Classic Arabic classes at the University of Jordan, the very limited conditions in the male collective apartment at Jebel Amman, the monotonous life on the roads down to Akaba (travels done regularly, which could last for several days, up to a week or so) or the standard evening menu (a fried half chicken with frites) with other expatriots at the same Amman restaurant down-town (which name I cannot remember, nor the interior, colors, style, waiter's appearance or name etc), could satisfy my restlessness. So I ended up with Vladimir (see picture; his business card); a hard KGB vodka drinker at Sheraton Hotel. I served him wild fantasy stories from the far north, whiled he served me liter after liter with this hard stuff from the old and one time mighty Soviet Union. We could sit in his hotel room for days, drinking and lying for each other. To be honest, I think he was gay, and wanted something he could not dare to articulate. Later in life, I was warned by my guidance officer from a European secret intelligence service, not to end up as the protagonist spy character in Our Man in Havana, sending home instructions for vacuum cleaners presented as high tech weapon constructions. But that's what I did. First with Vladimir. And later in life with this mentioned guidance officer, which I cannot write more about just now (still classified info). The patterns of interaction between me and those two gentlemen (on each side during the cold war) where as copies, and reminded me than my life was molded in a form I could not escape from. All this happened on my way from Kuwait to the outskirts of the khasba in Algers, where I settled down some few years later.