by Jean Sasson
Kareem and I watched as Fouad grasped Jafer and Fayza as if they were one. From the look on Jafer’s shining face as he watched his wife, it was clear that he loved her more madly than ever.
How pleased I was! A Saudi woman was happily wed to one forbidden.
I whispered in Kareem’s ear, “See, every straight line can be forced into a curve!”
A family tragedy was transformed into a scene of great harmony.
Later that evening, from the courtyard at our Cairo villa,
Kareem and I watched the loveliness of the Egyptian sky.
My husband surprised me with a heartfelt apology. Hovering nebulously between shame and love, Kareem promised that he would not prejudge me again, that Abdullah had told him I was not privy to his plot to free Fayza. It had been Kareem who had given our son the combination to our safe. In the excitement of the moment Kareem had forgotten!
Then, as though it were an afterthought, Kareem reached into his pocket and brought out the largest diamond I had ever seen. The stone was hung on a golden chain. My husband tenderly fastened the necklace around my neck, and I felt his lips as they brushed my shoulder.
A few years ago, I had hated the bitter emptiness of my married life. Just the month before I had hungrily sought the meaning of life. The moment was a breeding ground for all sorts of emotions—affection, regret, and, most of all, confusion. Was Kareem that rare phenomenon, a Saudi husband who was gentle, virile, practical, and intelligent? Had I been wrong in my assessment of his character?
How could a Saudi man be the answer to my happiness when I had fought against Saudi men all my life?
I had once heard that a miser is never satisfied with his money, nor a wise man with his knowledge. Was I a woman who would never know fulfillment? That possibility was frightening.
Another thought came to my mind, an Arab proverb, “lf your husband is made of honey, do not consume him.”
I looked at Kareem in a new light. Remembering the numerous insults I had inflicted upon him, I prayed that God would shorten my tongue and increase my powers of reason.
I smiled at my husband. Suddenly I felt many wounds heal—injuries suffered because of Kareem’s conduct earlier in our marriage.
For some reason, my scars could scarcely be detected.
Fatma
Something was dead in each of us
And what was dead was Hope.
—OSCAR WILDE
The following afternoon, Kareem and I were sitting together with our children on the veranda at our villa in Cairo. An immaculate flower garden encircled the large covered porch, and the sweet scent of roses and honeysuckle permeated the air, bringing to mind the wealthy British presence that had once occupied the unwelcoming city. My husband and I were savoring the coolness of the spacious and shaded area, for there was not a hint of an afternoon breeze, and the concrete structures of the populous city had retained the oppressive heat of the day, dulling the senses of Cairo’s eight million occupants.
Our three children whispered among themselves, claiming that we had once again been forgotten by “Forgetful Fatma,” as they often called our Egyptian housekeeper when she was out of earshot.
I warned my children not to make fun, that Fatma was no longer young and her feet had difficulty moving her abundant body. Still, I stifled a smile, thinking that the children were probably right in their assessment of the situation. Fatma had more than likely begun some new chore, entirely forgetting her employers as they waited impatiently for a cool drink. Fatma was absentminded and did have a consistent inability to remember why she left one room to go into another. Many times Kareem had complained, saying that Fatma should be let go and a younger, more energetic woman hired in her stead, but I resisted his urgings because the woman was dependable and had always displayed a genuine love for my three children.
Kareem accused me of being unable to part with Fatma’s lively tales of Cairo scandals. But that was not the case.
Fatma has been employed as our permanent, live-in housekeeper since we purchased the villa many years before. Abdullah was only two years old at the time she came into our lives, and our girls were not yet born, so Fatma was a constant in their young lives.
Just as I pushed myself from my chair to go and remind her of our earlier request, I heard the familiar scraping of her loose sandals as they struck the marble floor of the interior hallway leading to the veranda.
I looked at Kareem, and he gave an irritated shake of his head. My husband had no understanding of why he should be inconvenienced by the aging of a servant.
Feeling mischievous, I said, “My husband, do not forget that God is watching you.”
Kareem tartly replied, “Sultana, do not concern yourself with my relationship to God.”
The children thought we might slip into an argument and ruin the afternoon, so Amani wrapped her arms around her father’s neck, while Maha began to rub my shoulders and begged me not to lose my temper.
I felt too good to fight and said so. About that time, my attention was drawn to Fatma. Recalling the graceful and slim woman of years past, my eyes affectionately followed her heavy figure as she painstakingly opened the double glass doors that led from the villa onto the veranda. Fatma was enormous and had great difficulty balancing the tray stacked with crystal glasses and a matching crystal decanter filled with freshly squeezed lemonade.
Like many Egyptian women, Fatma had struggled with a weight problem from the moment she bore her first child. With each new addition to her family, she had grown larger and larger, until a childish Abdullah had fearfully questioned me, asking how Fatma’s skin could continue to hold her figure together.
Slowed by her weight, Fatma took many moments to walk the few steps from the doorway to the table of white-painted rattan. Abdullah jumped to his feet and took the tray from her, insisting that he would serve the family.
Kareem and I exchanged glances, and I saw that my husband bit the inside of his lip to keep from protesting. Ever since he was young, Abdullah was easily affected by the suffering that comes so often undeserved to mankind. I felt proud of my son’s sensitivity, but I knew that his father had no desire for him to do the work of servants.
To distract Kareem, I asked Abdullah to tell us more about his experiences in Lebanon, for since we had met him in Cairo, we had enjoyed little private time to hear of his adventure. I remembered that in Kareem’s youth, he had spent many happy times in the beautiful city of Beirut, where large numbers of the Saudi royal family had gone for rest and relaxation before the days of the mad and senseless war that had destroyed the once lovely land of Lebanon.
Abdullah saw hope where Kareem said there was none. Abdullah said that he had been impressed by the Lebanese spirit, marveling that the Lebanese people had not only survived, but had endured a most vicious civil war with their optimism intact, refusing to acknowledge that they could not surpass their brilliant past. Abdullah thought that given half the chance, the Lebanese would once again rise to claim an exalted place in the Arab world.
Abdullah paused and looked at his father. He wondered if Kareem might be interested in investing money in that country.
Kareem rewarded Abdullah with an approving smile. My husband is a man who seeks economic opportunity at every chance, and our son’s previous lack of interest in such matters had always been a weight on his mind. But Kareem’s smile quickly vanished when Abdullah added that the infrastructure of Lebanon was al- most completely in ruins and that there were many good causes to which Kareem could donate funds.
I almost dissolved in laughter when I saw Kareem’s face. He sat up straight and tried to show some interest, but my husband had difficulty concealing his desperation; he looked at his son as if seeing him for the first time.
I knew that my husband had not yet recovered from Abdullah’s proud announcement that he had donated the bulk of the one million dollars he had taken from our safe to the hospital that housed Jafer’s older brother. My husband had no heart to reprimand h
is son for such a good deed and had gazed at Abdullah with sad affection, in spite of his dismay at losing one million dollars.
Kareem confessed to me later that in his mind donating money to Lebanon was equivalent to tossing good money after bad, for who knew when the guns of destruction would once again flame across the Lebanese sky. Let the Lebanese show that they were serious about peace, and Kareem would look into the possibility of assisting his fellow Arabs.
Abdullah had been stricken by the lack of facilities at the institution that housed Jafer’s brother, and now he spoke again of that place. He said that he could not forget the wretched condition of the war-wounded who lived in the hospital. Abdullah’s eyes welled with tears as he told of men and women without limbs, confined to small rooms, for there were no prostheses or wheel-chairs. Abdullah had discovered men tied to wooden tables, men who had no movement in their bodies, men stoically accepting the idea of a life devoid of any pleasure.
Abdullah said he had learned a tragic truth, that a large number of the Lebanese wounded had no surviving family members to provide funds for their care.
In anguish, he asked, “Does the world neither know nor care about the damage done to that country?”
I reminded Abdullah of a happy thought, that Jafer’s brother had been luckier than most, since Jafer had routinely sent money for his medical expenses. But even his situation was bleak when compared to the advanced health care facilities our oil wealth guaranteed the inhabitants of Saudi Arabia. Jafer’s brother would now enjoy the latest treatment available, for Fouad had insisted upon taking his son-in-law’s brother home with them to live as one of his family.
Now our son wanted his father to distribute more of his personal wealth for the needy of Lebanon. Abdullah thought that a new hospital supplied with the latest equipment would be an auspicious beginning.
I leaned forward, interested to hear my husband’s reply, for I knew it was painful for Kareem to refuse any wish of his beloved son.
Kareem had closed his eyes in concentration and was beginning to rub his forehead with his hand when without warning our family gathering was interrupted by a most pathetic howling.
Baffled, we looked at each other and then realized that the strange noise was coming from inside our villa and that the sound was made by Fatma!
A look of relief flashed across Kareem’s face, for his son’s interest had been diverted. Abdullah was the first to move inside. My daughters and I quickly followed, leaving Kareem alone on the veranda.
My first thought was that Fatma had burned herself, for she was standing over the kitchen stove, frying beef and onions for our dinner. But I quickly saw that her weeping had not interrupted her cooking, for she continued to stir the ingredients in the pan and seemed not to realize that her wails had penetrated the stone walls of the villa.
“Fatma! What is the problem?” Abdullah asked.
Like the voice of doom, Fatma replied, “Oh, Abdullah! The female most blessed is she that has never been born! Next to her in happiness is the female who dies in infancy!”
Bereaved to madness, Fatma began to thump her chest.
Maha grabbed the wooden stirring spoon from her hand, while Amani began to console the poor woman with soothing sounds and comforting words.
Abdullah gave me a questioning look with his brown eyes.
I shrugged, as confused as he. I had no thought other than that Fatma’s husband might have divorced her and taken a younger wife, though they had seemed a well-satisfied couple in the past. Fatma’s husband, Abdul, doubled as our gardener and family chauffeur, and the couple had often said they considered themselves fortunate to work for wealthy people who paid a good wage and who were rarely in the country. They were guaranteed plenty of free time to spend with their children, who lived in an apartment in Cairo with Abdul’s mother. Yet, I knew that by law Egyptian men, like Saudi men, have full power over their women, and it was not unusual for an old man to take a second wife, or even to divorce his first wife and take a younger, more attractive woman into his home.
The experiences of my life have taught me that men are generally at the root of female grief. Thinking of Fatma’s bitter words of female misfortune, I imagined a man as their cause, for nothing is more demoralizing to a woman of Fatma’s age than to be abandoned by a husband of many years.
Abdullah, Amani, and I led Fatma to a chair in the sitting room, while Maha tended to her unfinished tasks.
Fatma moaned as she walked, holding her hand on the top of her head, like someone trying to stop the pain.
Wanting to get to the cause of her grief, I waved my children from the room and asked her point-blank, “Fatma, has Abdul divorced you?”
Fatma raised her head and looked at me, her languid eyes blinking at my question. She repeated my words, “Abdul? Divorce me?” She then smiled, but only with her lips. “That old man? Let him try! I will crack his bald head like an egg and fry his brains on the sidewalk.”
I had to struggle to keep from laughing aloud, for in the past, Kareem had often commented that in his opinion Abdul lived in fear of his wife, and that there was at least one married woman in the Arab world who had no need of feminine advice from me.
Abdul was half Fatma’s size, and once Kareem had come upon the couple unexpectedly and had seen with his own eyes Fatma strike her husband on the back with a large board.
I asked, “Then, if it is not Abdul, what is the problem?”
Fatma’s heavily wrinkled face fell, and she became lost in her own morose thoughts. She sighed so heavily that I knew her sadness had a heartfelt source, and I asked myself with dismay what could be the cause of her anguish.
“Fatma?” I reminded her of my presence.
Suddenly her face turned bright red, and Fatma’s despair burst forth.
“It is my granddaughter Alhaan! Her father is an evil being, a donkey of a man, that Nasser! I would kill him with my bare hands if my daughter would allow it! But no! She says she and her family must live their lives as they see fit!”
Fatma’s eyes flashed with anger, and her huge bosom heaved with indignation. “My own daughter demands that I stay out of her family matters!” She looked at me aghast and asked, “Can you imagine that? To have no say in my own granddaughter’s life?”
Feeling utterly bewildered, I asked, “What has Nasser done to his child? To your granddaughter?”
Surely, I thought to myself, if the mother of the child has no objections, the harm to the child must not exist.
“That Nasser! He is from a small village. What does he know?”
I drew back in surprise as Fatma spat upon our newly carpeted floor.
Fatma was talking in every direction, cursing Nasser, crying out for her daughter, and begging God to help her grandchild.
I lost my patience and, raising my voice, demanded to know. “Fatma! Tell me, now! What happened to your granddaughter?”
Disconsolate and at a loss, Fatma tightly squeezed my hand and said, “Tonight. Tonight they will make Alhaan into a woman. They have an appointment with the barber at nine o’clock. This ritual I do not believe is necessary. None of my daughters were so treated. It is that Nasser! Can you help me, mistress, please...?”
The past surged up in my mind. How well I remembered the horrible story told to me by my oldest sister, Nura, when she too had been made into a woman.
Kareem and I had not yet wed, and I was young, only sixteen years old. My mother had recently died, and Nura, as the eldest daughter, was instructed to answer my questions regarding female circumcision. I had not known until that time that Nura and our two sisters closest to her in age had endured the horrific rite, and as a result had been subjected to lifelong pain and suffering.
In Saudi Arabia’s not so distant past, circumcision of women had not been infrequent, with each tribe following a different custom. Just this past year, I had read a book my son had purchased while in London. The book was titled The Empty Quarter, by St. John Philby, a respected British desert
explorer. With assistance from my grandfather, Abdul Aziz Al Sa’ud, the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, St. John Philby had carried out extensive explorations in Arabia in the 1930s.
I had taken the book from my son’s room and derived great pleasure from reading this man’s history of the Arab tribes that make up the population of Saudi Arabia, until I came across a section of the book that told of the Englishman’s findings concerning female circumcision. I had imagined the brutalization of my own sisters and had cringed and cried out when reading about a conversation Philby had documented with the Arab men of the desert:
But his strong subject was sex, and he loved to poke fun at Salih by dilating on Manasir practice in the matter of female circumcision. “Take it from me,” he said, “they let their women come to puberty with clitoris intact, and when a girl is to be married, they make a feast for her circumcision a month or two before the wedding. It is only then that they circumcise them and not at birth as do the other tribes— Qahtan and Murra, Bani Hajir, ay, and ‘Ajman. Thus their women grow up more lustful than others, and fine women they are too and that hot! But then they remove everything, making them as smooth as smooth, to cool their ardor without reducing their desire. The girls are dealt with in their tents by women who know their business, and get a dollar or so for the job. They are expert with the scissors, the razor, and the needle, which are all used for the operation.”
I could not help wondering at this information. It struck me as strange that men thought of complete women as lustful, yet condoned the barbaric procedures performed on these women in order to “cool their ardor.” From my own readings, I had learned that female circumcision caused women to dread any intimacy with their husbands, and I came to the conclusion that there is no rational thought or pattern when it comes to the mutilation of females.
