My flatmate the terrorist...
Not so very long ago, I was a 20-something postgraduate desperately looking for somewhere to live in a strange new city. I ended up moving into a house with five 19 year-old students, none of whom I’d met before. They were a cosmopolitan lot - four lovely (and relatively wealthy) young expat ladies hailing from Dubai, Thailand, Italy and Egypt, and a working class lad from Blackburn. They had a few of the requisite quirks that sharing a flat with strangers always entails, but they were for the most part easy-going and clean living. Which was a good thing, as there were six people crammed into a house meant for four, the landlord ingeniously having managed to convert various closets into bedrooms.

After about six weeks, the Egyptian girl (we’ll call her Sara, for ‘twas her name) mentions that her boyfriend will be coming over from Rome to stay for a while. Sadir. Age 26. Half Italian, half Iraqi. “Oh right”, I say. “Coming for the week is he?”

“No, actually, he’ll be staying about a month,” Sara replies.

Not wanting to rock the boat with a bunch of people I was still getting to know, I acted all cool, although the prospect of a month making small talk with another stranger didn’t really thrill me. Fortunately however, Sadir was a nice guy and just as into football as me and the Blackburn lad so all was well. Well, almost.

Being from the Middle East, he and Sara had some views about the Western world. Capitalist pigs. Corrupt. Decadent. That sort of thing (didn’t stop Sara taking advantage of the finest education Britain had to offer and Sadir stuffing his gob with Burger King though). I had some of those Iraqi playing cards - you know, the ones given to soldiers with pictures of Saddam and his cronies on them. He went through them, sharing anecdotes about Iraq’s most wanted, most of whom were “friends of the family.” Hmmm.

Anyway, Sadir’s holiday lengthened. He arrived in October. By Christmas he was still in the flat, using our electricity, cramping our space and turning the heating up to the sweltering Mediterranean climate he was used to. And I’m not a petty man, but coming home in the evening after a hard days work to find him just out of bed did get a little galling sometimes.

“Don’t worry,” said Sara. “He’ll get a job after Christmas, and he’ll be gone by Easter.”

He didn’t, and he wasn’t.

He did get a job, speaking Italian at a Call Centre, but lasted two days. We asked for rent or at least something towards the bills, but Sara and Sadir, hospitable Arabs that they were, couldn’t quite grasp the notion of a guest paying for his keep. Even if that ‘guest’ had been there four months and now got more mail than I did. Eventually, in April, he decided to go. We bid him a fond but firm farewell as he got in the taxi to the airport.

Two hours later he was back. They wouldn’t let him on the flight due to ‘irregularities’ with his identity documents, apparently.

The next day I was woken by banging at our door. Wandering downstairs in my dressing gown, I found my flatmates sitting on the sofa looking extremely worried and two burly plain clothes detectives escorting Sadir to the police station for questioning. In one of my rare displays of cool, I gave a nonchalant “morning” and proceeded to make breakfast, as if dawn raids from the fuzz seizing suspicious Iraqis were an everyday occurrence for me.

He wasn’t a terrorist, of course. Too lazy. And not even a particularly devout Muslim. During his entire stay he did little except sit around in his pyjamas and play Pro-Evolution Soccer 4, which I’m sure Osama bin Laden would have frowned upon.

Anyway, he finally went home in May, seven months after his arrival, having barely left the house and not paid a penny for his upkeep. He speaks three languages fluently and has an influential family, so he may well be working for the UN by now. Or possibly he’s bumming around in the flat of some other unfortunate students.

He didn’t apologise for length (of stay), so nor will I.
(Richard of York gained battles in vain, Sun 8 Apr 2007, 15:59, Reply)