Confessions of a Real-Life Ambassador’s Wife

The ambassador and his wife. (Photo: Jennifer Steil)

She went to Yemen to be a journalist. She left the wife of a diplomat. Jennifer Steil never set out to be an ambassador’s wife, but you never know what the universe has up its sleeve.

Steil was living and working abroad in Yemen in 2006 as the editor in chief of the Yemen Observer when she fell in love and married the British ambassador to Yemen, Tim Torlot.

All of a sudden the fiercely independent journalist was thrust into a strange world where she couldn’t leave the house without bodyguards, one where she traveled everywhere in armored cars and regularly had Scotland Yard and foreign ministers sleeping in her guest rooms.

I read Steil’s memoir of her time in Yemen, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, when it was released in 2011, and one quote from the book helped inspire me to become a travel journalist.

“I had no idea how to find my way around this medieval city. It was getting dark. I was tired. I didn’t speak Arabic. I was a little frightened. But hadn’t I battled scorpions in the wilds of Costa Rica and prevailed? Hadn’t I survived fainting in a San José brothel? ��Hadn’t I once arrived in Ireland with only $10 in my pocket and made it last two weeks? Surely I could handle a walk through an unfamiliar town.”

Years later Steil and I met at a luncheon in New York City, and I quickly learned that her story continued to be the stuff movies are made of.

At six months’ pregnant she was held at gunpoint while hiking with friends outside Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a. Soon after, Torlot survived a suicide attack directly targeting him. The family was quickly evacuated from Yemen.

Today Steil and Torlot are living in La Paz, where he is the EU ambassador to Bolivia.

Related: Snake Shots and Salsa — The Perfect Night Out in La Paz

Steil borrowed from her own experiences to pen her thrilling new novel, The Ambassador’s Wife, which tells the harrowing tale of a woman named Miranda, the wife to the British ambassador in a fictitious Arab country. When Miranda is kidnapped, the couple are forced to make difficult decisions and evaluate everything about their lives.

The Ambassador’s Wife has been optioned to be a television series starring Anne Hathaway. (Photo: Doubleday)

We asked Steil to take us behind the glitz, the glamour, and the diplomatic immunity to show us an actual day in the life of a real ambassador’s wife.

When I first met the man who would become my husband, I had no idea how much my life was about to change. I had been living alone in the old city of Sana’a, Yemen, and wandering the country freely. Once I moved in with Tim, then the British ambassador to Yemen, walls descended around me. I couldn’t leave the house without a bodyguard; we traveled by armored car and had diplomatic events nearly every day. It was an adjustment. There are many perks, of course. We had a household staff of five and a stream of interesting visitors. I had plenty of space to work and do yoga. Best of all, I had Tim.

We now live in La Paz, Bolivia, where we have much more freedom. I am enjoying learning Spanish and exploring the country. I’m also finding diplomatic life endlessly fascinating and educational. Here’s what one of our typical days looks like:

6:38 a.m.

Tim’s alarm goes off. He doesn’t move. He never moves before the snooze alarm 10 minutes later. I’m bad at sleeping, so I get up, pull on a sweatshirt and yoga pants, and steal downstairs to put on the kettle. I like to be alone in the kitchen with the sky just turning pink, even if just for a few moments.

7:05 a.m.

I carry a mug of English Breakfast upstairs and leave it in the bathroom for Tim, who is in the shower. Our 5-year-old daughter is still asleep. I draw her blinds, letting the sun cast its first rays over her sleeping face. I grab my computer and run back downstairs to write for 10 minutes. Hugo, our majordomo, is in the kitchen heating up quinoa porridge. He informs me that it is cold outside. Hugo always thinks it is cold outside. While I make coffee, Hugo squeezes oranges.

7:15 a.m. Theadora finally wakes. I help her get dressed, and after picking out her favorite bunny du jour (she chooses a different favorite bunny from her vast family of rabbits every day), she runs downstairs to see Hugo. She loves Hugo. While she eats porridge and eggs and fruit, I read to her.

As we’re preparing her lunchbox, Theadora says, “A boy in my class says that dinosaurs are for boys. That I shouldn’t have a dinosaur lunchbox because they are for boys.”

Me: Did you tell him how silly he is?

Theadora: Mummy, I try not to call other children silly.

She’s a diplomat’s daughter.

8 a.m.

Tim has an early meeting so I take Theadora to school. She goes to the Colegio Franco-Boliviano, where 80 percent of the instruction is in French and 20 percent in Spanish. She is already fluent in Spanish, having attended a Bolivian nursery for a year before starting school, and is always correcting my grammar and pronunciation. She goes into fits of laughter when I mistake caballo (horse) for cabello (hair). It is humbling. Apparently I am no better in French. On a recent trip to France as she listened to me ordering breakfast at the airport she said, “Mummy, your accent, it is very bad.”

Once I return to the house, I go through our Spanish recipe books, pick out things for our cook Irene to make for lunch and dinner, and give her the money she needs for her shopping.

8:30

I walk to the gym, about 20 minutes away. It’s all downhill. I am the only woman at my gym who ever looks like she just rolled out of bed—the only woman who appears without makeup, without blow-dried hair, without matching spandex. It’s amazing I haven’t been kicked out of the club for sheer lack of glamorousness. And me, an ambassador’s wife! Surely they expect more of me.

I leap into the overheated pool and swim for an hour or 2,000 meters, whichever comes first. Bolivian men often douse themselves with cologne before getting into the pool, which I do not understand. Are they trying to lure other swimmers close with their irresistible scent? If so, it isn’t working. To me they smell toxic and make my eyes water. I swim as far away as possible.

I walk home. It’s all uphill. In La Paz, which at 12,000 feet is the world’s highest capital. I am always panting. Even getting dressed in the morning is aerobic exercise. Putting on tights totally counts as a workout.

10:30 am

My first Damas Diplomáticas meeting. Maria, a Spanish singer, fetches me. It’s good for me to be with her because she speaks only Spanish with me. I need to study Spanish until I can be myself in it. It’s hard to be yourself in another language. Or at least the same self. Right now, in Spanish I am younger, more innocent, and more inept. I want to be able to sound smart in Spanish, to understand jokes and be funny. I want to be as loud and provocative as I am in English. Half the time when I am at an all-Spanish dinner party I become a quiet person, smiling and nodding at something that if I understood better I might disagree with. I’ve never been a silent, decorative person and I don’t intend to start now.

We meet the others in a building that houses the offices of one of the women’s husbands. As we wait for the PowerPoint presentation on the achievements of the Damas Diplomáticas I chat with Alfrida, a Danish diplomat’s wife. I am handed the form for new members. The form asks who our husbands are and what they do for work. Nowhere on the form does it ask what I do for work. I am outraged by this. Sigh. This is not something that is going to change in the next four years. Alfrida says that there is a periodic movement to include the male trailing spouses of female diplomats, but it is always defeated. “It’s always Europe against South America,” she says. “And South America always wins.”

I fill out my form, noting in the margin that I have a career of my own.

After the meeting coffee and snacks are served. I talk with the Brazilian ambassador’s wife, who is holding a reception in my honor on Friday. Like most women here, she is heavily painted with makeup. I have no idea what anyone really looks like, except Maria and Alfrida, who are lovely and natural. “Brazilian women have the biggest breasts in South America,” the Brazilian embajadora informs me.

“You mean because of all the plastic surgery?”

“No!” She looks put out. “We naturally have the biggest breasts.”

12 p.m.

Home. I eat a second breakfast of almond butter or fruit while starting my work for the day. I write until it’s time to fetch Theadora from school.

1 p.m.

I pick up Theadora at school and take her home for lunch. Irene has made us guacamole and lentil soup and a flower of vegetables for Theadora. I eat quickly because we have Russian and Paraguayan national days.

Theadora learns a great deal from being the daughter of a diplomat. For example, earlier Tim and I were discussing the Bolivian economy.

Me: And how is the economy today?

Theadora (5): The economy is good.

Tim: Theadora, do you know what the economy is?

Theadora: Yes. It is a parade of unicorns.

Is she wrong?

1:20

As I am dressing for Russian National Day I find myself wondering if wearing red implies approval of the country’s actions in Ukraine. There has been some discussion in diplomatic circles about whether to attend at all, given the current political situation. I look down at my dress, a short black lace skirt topped by a red and black tunic featuring scraps of fabric with conflicting patterns. It feels arty enough to simply be my style rather than a political statement. I keep it on.

The national orchestra plays a program of Russian music, beginning with a Ukrainian piece.

We go from the Russians to the Paraguayans, arriving just as the first bars of the national anthem were played. I can’t help but bounce a little bit every time I hear the Bolivian national anthem – it’s so catchy! But every time I do, Tim elbows me. Apparently it’s not respectful to dance to a national anthem.

Steil taking the first ride in Bolivia’s first teleférico. (Photo: Jennifer Steil)

4 p.m.

I am finally home. Finally writing.

I have an office. It is a very nice office. It has two walls of windows and is flooded with sunshine. It contains two wooden desks made to order especially for me, a large oak filing cabinet, and two entire walls of overflowing bookshelves. The floors are made from honey-colored wood, the kind of floors I always wanted.

Yet I have never, not even once, worked in this office. I don’t know why. I go in there semi-regularly to file my bank statements and tax documents, or to put away books I’ve just finished. But I don’t go there to write. I tried it a couple of times and lasted about 47 seconds. It’s just so—sunny and cheerful. It oppresses me.

In fact, I can’t settle on one place to write. I gave up on coffee shops because every coffee shop not only blasts music but also contains at least one massive television. When Tim returns home from the embassy, he is never sure where he will find me. For awhile, he found me typing away in our bed. It felt comforting to type surrounded by pillows and comfort. But a spinal injury put an end to sitting up in bed in a position chiropractors only recommend when they want to make money.

Sometimes I work on the floor. I like being on the floor. I feel grounded. It always feels like something of a miracle if I write one beautiful sentence while sitting on the floor. Maybe my big wooden desks simply expect too much from me. They are serious, heavy with intent. I sit there and do not feel equal to those desks.

Today I am in the guest room. I like the guest room because there is nothing in it other than beds and this small desk. No clutter. No stacks of books to draw my eye. No heaps of discarded clothing begging to be carried down to the laundry room. Nothing personal at all, not even one of my daughter’s drawings.

Yesterday, Tim came in while I was working in the guest room on the new novel. “Don’t you want to open the curtains?” he said, reaching toward the one window.

“No!” I said too loudly, grabbing his arm.

“But it’s so dark—”

“The glare. From outside. It makes it hard to see my computer screen.”

“Oh. But—”

“And there’s a view.”

“I was just about to say don’t you want a view?”

“No. No. I very definitely don’t want a view.”

Looking puzzled, he backed toward the door. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

He’s very good, my husband. He leaves me very little to complain about. I really have to search. Last week when I broke down in tears because I didn’t have enough time to write, he promptly offered to take two days off from work this week to spend time with our daughter. I had settled in for a nice long breakdown, but it was arrested in mid-sob. I was forced to cheer up and make reasonable conversation.

And when we attended The Queen’s Birthday Party at the UK residence and I accidentally put a meat dumpling in my mouth (because the waiter had said it was filled with vegetables) and then spit it into a napkin, Tim took it from me and discreetly slipped it into his pocket.

A diplomatic wife said to me once when I was looking for Tim at a Mexican National Day fiesta: “Rule Number One of diplomatic life: Arrive at an event with your husband, leave with your husband, and never speak to him in between.”

But—and I know this sounds crazy—I actually enjoy talking with my husband.

Related: I Travel Without My Husband and We’re Both Better Off

Steil and Torlot at Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni. (Photo: Jennifer Steil)

7: 20 p.m.

I am getting ready to go out to a reception at the German ambassador’s home, and rush into the bathroom for a last-minute touchup. Theadora follows me.

T: What are you doing?

Me: Putting some powder on

T: Gun powder?

Me: Um, no. Not gun powder.

T: So what is it for then?

Me: To make me a little less shiny.

T: WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE LESS SHINY???

At every reception in La Paz, waiters greet you at the door with a silver tray full pisco sours and wine. I’m on new nerve pain medication so I regretfully take a glass of fizzy water. I adore the German residence, which feels more like a museum than a house. It is vast and beautiful, with gardens cascading down the back.

Photographers take photos of us. Usually I write my name down for them, so they don’t spell it wrong. But the third one said he knew my name, and spelled it correctly aloud. “I know you,” he said in Spanish. “I have seen your website. Está muy conocida.” “No muy!” I answered modestly. But I was pleased. Someone thinks I’m famous.

Related: She Sent a Tweet in South Korea and Met Her Husband

The ambassador’s residence in Bolivia. (Photo: Jennifer Steil)

10:30 p.m.

Tim finishes up some work downstairs while I answer emails and make a few notes. When we finally climb into bed, I’m still wired from the evening and unable to fall asleep, so he opens his Kindle and finds a Somerset Maugham short story. “What do you remember from last night?” he says.

“Um….”

“Do you remember anything?”

I search my memory. “No.”

“Not even the beginning?”

“Not even what it’s about.”

Tim sighs. “This will be the fifth time I’ve had to start over.”

“But I’m supposed to fall asleep during it! That’s the whole point!”

“Okay,” he says, finding the first page. “Rain. It was nearly bed-time and when they awoke next morning land would be in sight…”

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