by Jean Sasson
I heard Maha sobbing, “Mother! Wake up!”
Sara comforted my daughter, “Praise God, Maha! She is still with the living.”
Trying to shake off my confusion, I blinked my eyes. I wanted to speak, but I was unable to form words. I could hear the mingled languages of Filipino, Thai and Arabic being shouted by excited female voices. I wondered groggily why my bedroom was filled with so many chattering women!
In a weak voice, I asked my sister, “What has happened?”
With furrows of pain lining her forehead, Sara seemed to search for words. “Sultana,” she finally asked, “how do you feel?”
“Not good,” I said, before repeating once again, “what happened?”
The loud voice of Amani, rising in volume with every word, rang out over the rest. “You have committed a grave sin, Mother!”
Choking back sobs, Maha shouted, “Shut up! I mean it!”
Amani’s words echoed through the room. “I have the evidence, here!”
I turned my head and saw that Amani was enthusiastically swinging an empty whiskey bottle in each hand. “Mother has been drinking!” She shouted. “Surely, the Holy Prophet will curse her for this sin!”
Sara turned a somber face to her niece. “Amani, give me the bottles and then, please leave the room.”
“But…”
Sara gently took the bottles from Amani’s hands. “Now, child. Do as I say. Leave the room.”
Next to her father, Amani loved and respected her Auntie Sara more than anyone. Now she obeyed, but not without a parting threat. “I’m going to tell Father about this—the moment he arrives home.”
As dazed as I was, I could feel my stomach turn at the thought.
Sara carefully laid the empty bottles on the foot of my bed, and then she took charge: “Everyone, leave the room.”
“Not me!” Maha wailed.
“Yes, you, too, Maha.”
When Maha bent to kiss me, she whispered, “Don’t worry about Amani, Mother, I know how to quiet her foolish tongue.”
The expression in my eyes must have betrayed my curiosity, for Maha clarified, “I’ll threaten to tell all Amani’s religious friends that she wears revealing clothes and flirts with boys!”
Even though this was not true, I knew that such a warning would cause Amani grave concern, for her reputation is that of a true believer who could never commit a single sin. I knew this was wrong, but I also realized the graveness of my current situation should Kareem be alerted to my weakness. Therefore, I did not reprimand Maha, but I gave her a tight smile which she might take to signify reluctant approval.
As she left the room, Maha struggled to push the heavy wooden door against the door facings which I now noticed had been shattered.
Sara answered my unspoken question. “When you would not respond to our cries, I ordered one of the drivers to knock down the door.”
Tears of humiliation came into my eyes.
“You lay like one dead, Sultana,” Sara said as she picked up a cloth and began to wipe my forehead. “I feared the worst,” she said with a great sigh. She then took a glass of tomato juice and encouraged me to sip a little through a straw. “Your silence frightened me out of my wits!” She plumped up the cushions under my head before sitting beside me on the bed.
Sara took a deep breath before saying, “Sultana, you must tell me now, everything.”
Although Sara appeared unperturbed, I could tell she was steeped in disappointment, because it was reflected in her dark eyes. Feeling that death would be welcome for one as wretched as I, my shoulders shook as I began to weep in earnest.
Sara stroked my face and arms. Her voice was gentle as she told me a grim truth, “Sultana, your daughters, and your servants, all tell me that you have begun drinking a great deal of alcohol.”
My eyes flew open. So, my furtive drinking had not been so secret after all!
Sara was waiting for an explanation. At that moment, I knew that my sister could not understand the true source of my pain. I cried out, “You still have little children who need you!”
I could tell by the bewildered grimace on Sara’s face that she was beginning to fear for my mental, as well as my physical, well being.
Frustrated, I wailed, “And, you have your books!”
It was true! Sara had a great love for collecting books on a wide range of topics that interested her. Her life’s hobby, collecting and reading books, gave her endless hours of joy and contentment. Sara’s valuable library consisted of books in Turkish, Arabic, English, French, and Italian. Her art books, stored in their special bookcases, were lovely beyond description. She had also amassed a priceless collection of ancient, handwritten manuscripts describing the golden age of the Arabs. I knew that if a great cataclysmic tragedy should ever leave Sara alone in the world, she would seek and find solace in her stacks of books.
“Sultana. What are you speaking about?”
“And your husband never leaves on long trips!” Asad’s work rarely took him from his home, as did Kareem’s. “And Asad loves you more than Kareem loves me!”
Sara was married to Kareem’s brother, Asad. I had known for many years that Kareem would never love me as intensely as Asad adored my sister. While I had never begrudged Sara and Asad’s great love, I often wistfully yearned for the same devotion from Kareem.
“Sultana!”
In between sobs of self-pity, I began to explain. “My children are nearly grown—they no longer want their mother in their lives.” What I said was true. Abdullah had recently turned twenty-two, Maha was nineteen, and Amani was seventeen. Three of Sara’s six children were young enough that they still required their mother’s daily attention.
“Sultana, please. You are not making sense.”
“Sara, nothing has turned out as I planned! None of my three children are dependent on me any longer…Kareem is away more than he is home...and there are countless abused women in the world like Munira crying out for help, and there’s nothing that I can do to help them!” I began to sob hysterically. “And now, I’m afraid I’m becoming an alcoholic.”
Facing the emptiness and humiliation of my life for the first time, I cried out, “My life is a failure!”
Sara’s arms wrapped around me in a warm embrace. “Darling, you are the bravest person I’ve ever known. Shhh, little sister, now hush…”
Suddenly, Mother’s image came to me. I wanted to be a child again, to be in those childhood places, to forget all of the adult disappointments in between. I wanted to go back in time. I shouted as loud as I could, “I want Mother!”
“Shhh, Sultana. Please stop crying. Don’t you know that Mother is around us, even now?”
My sobs began to soften as I looked around the room. I was longing to see Mother once again, even if her countenance only came to me in the form of an apparition, as before in my dreams. But I could see nothing, and said, “Mother’s not here.” After my sobs subsided, I described my dream to Sara. For me, the pain of our mother’s death would never heal.
“You see,” Sara remarked, “your dream proves my words to be true. Mother’s spirit is always with us. Sultana, I, too, often sense Mother’s presence. She comes to me at the oddest moments. Only yesterday, when I was looking in a mirror, I clearly saw Mother appear behind me. I only caught a glimpse of her, but it was enough to let me know that the day will come when we will all be together once again.”
I felt a sense of peace wash over me. If Sara had also seen Mother, then I knew that Mother still existed. My sister’s integrity is never questioned by anyone who knows her.
Sara and I sat quietly, both of us remembering the days when we were innocent children, and Mother’s unending reservoir of wisdom, understanding and love sheltered us from most of life’s dangers.
When I fidgeted under the bedcovers, the two empty whiskey bottles dropped from the bed to the floor. Sara’s haunted eyes looked toward the bottles, and then at me. Recalling the reason for the alarm that had brought Sara to my s
ide, a black depression once again settled over me.
“You are on a dangerous path, Sultana,” Sara whispered.
I sat and twirled my hair around my finger. After a time I burst out, “I hate my life of idleness!”
“Sultana, you can do more with your life. You must take responsibility for your own happiness. A hobby or occupation that consumed your attention would be good for you.”
“How can I? The veil interferes with everything I do!” I grumbled, “I can’t believe that we were unlucky enough to be born in a country that forces its women to wear shrouds of black!”
“I thought it was loneliness that was driving you to drink,” Sara dryly noted. With eyes half-closed in weariness, she said, “Sultana, I do believe that you would argue with Allah, Himself!”
Filled with unruly emotions, unsure of the exact cause of my current turmoil, I looked at Sara and shrugged, “Amani is right, you know. I have been cursed by the Prophet. And he must have cursed me on many occasions. Why else would everything bitter in my life come together at once?”
“You are being foolish, Sultana! I do not believe that our Holy Prophet would curse a troubled woman,” she said. “Is it a life without problems that you are seeking?”
“Inshallah!” (God willing!)
“You want a life that does not exist, Little Sister. Everyone who lives has problems. She paused, then said, “Even Kings suffer problems that cannot be resolved.”
I knew that she was referring to the failing health of our Uncle Fahd, the man who was the King of Saudi Arabia. As the years passed, he had become increasingly frail. He was now a man with everything in life but good health. When he had suffered a serious medical setback recently, every member of our family had been reminded of our own mortality, and the fact that all the money and modern health care in the world could not keep death at bay forever.
Sara’s firm tone relaxed, “Sultana, you must learn to bear the pain of life without reaching for improper solutions.” She nudged a whiskey bottle aside with her foot. “You have become the slave of a new power, a power that is in danger of creating even more serious problems than the ones that drove you to drink!”
I then divulged my deepest fear. “Amani might tell Kareem.”
Sara told me flatly, “You tell him first. Anyhow, it’s best not to keep secrets from your husband, Sultana.”
I looked closely at my sister. Without a trace of rancor, I realized that I had always been outshone by her beauty and by her virtue.
Even though she had been called from her home unexpectedly, Sara was impeccably dressed in a freshly ironed silk dress, with shoes of matching color. An exquisite set of pearls was fastened around her delicate neck. Her thick black hair was fashioned in a flattering style; her skin lovely; her eyelashes were so long and thick that she required no make-up.
Sara’s personal life paralleled her perfect appearance. Her marriage to Asad was the best I had ever known. I had never heard her raise her voice to her husband, or even complain about him. Many times I had tried to tempt Sara to confide a weakness belonging to her husband, without success. While I was guilty of shouting at, pinching, and even slapping my children, I had never seen Sara lose control with any of her children. My sister was the satisfied mother of the six children that Huda, our family slave, had predicted so many years before.
Although problems occasionally arose with her second child, a daughter named Nashwa, Sara remained gently firm. Sara even had established a warm relationship with Asad and Kareem’s mother, the unpopular and difficult Noorah. In addition, my sister was one of the few Al Sa’uds I knew who never drank alcohol nor smoked cigarettes. Certainly, Sara had no secrets to keep from her husband. How could such a flawless woman ever understand that as I grew older, my bad habits had increased, rather than diminished?
It seemed that my life had always been imbued in some deep intrigue. My drinking was only one of the many secrets I kept from Kareem. Over the years of our marriage, I had presented myself in a more flattering light to my husband than was true. I even lied to Kareem about the number of kilos I had recently gained!
Not wishing to further disappoint my sister with additional knowledge of the weaker points of my character, I kept from blurting out everything that had come into my mind. Instead, I hastened to promise, “I will never drink again, if only I do not have to confess to Kareem. I could not bear it. He would never forgive me.”
“Oh? What do you think Kareem might do?”
I stretched the truth mightily. “Well, he might beat me.”
Sara’s black eyes grew large with disbelief.
“You know yourself, Sara, that Kareem dislikes people who cannot control their habits. At the very least, his love for me will dim.”
Sara’s hands fluttered, “Then what will we do to destroy this habit? The servants told me that you drink to the point of drunkenness when Kareem is away.”
Indignantly I demanded, “Who said such a thing?”
“Sultana. Curb your anger. The information was given out of genuine concern for your well-being.”
“But…”
Sara’s voice was firm and unsympathetic, “No. I will not tell you.”
I tried to think which of the servants might have spied on me, but with so many women in the palace, there was no way to be certain where to direct my anger.
Sara pursed her lips, thinking. “Sultana, I have an idea. Ramadan will soon be upon us. At that time, you will be unable to eat or drink during the daylight hours, anyway. And, when Kareem is not with you, we can make sure Maha or I remain by your side. That will be the time to defeat this sinful craving.” Sara leaned toward me with a smile, “We will spend much time together.” I heard the warm affection in her voice, “It will be like our days together when we were children!”
I began to chew my fingernails, remembering the one major problem that still remained. “But how will we prevent Amani from telling Kareem?”
Sara pulled my hand from my mouth and held it between her two hands. “I will speak with her, don’t worry.”
I was a prisoner reprieved! I knew that if Maha’s threat did not frighten Amani into silence, then Sara would surely manage to convince my child not to speak to Kareem. I smiled happily, knowing that under Sara’s watchful eye, all would be well. Slowly, my worries began to lift.
Finally able to relax, I asked, “I’m feeling hungry, now. Can you stay for a meal?”
Sara nodded slightly. “I’ll call home to say that I will be staying a while longer.”
I rang the kitchen on the palace intercom and asked the head cook what had been prepared for the mid-day meal. Pleased with what I heard, I expressed my approval. I then instructed her that my sister and I would eat our meal in the garden since cloudy skies had led to weather that was cooler than usual.
After I washed my face and hands and slipped on a fresh dress, Sara and I made our way through the palace to the outside gardens. We walked arm-in-arm under a row of leafy trees that provided a cool shade along the passageway. We paused to admire the flowering bushes now heavy with red and gold blossoms.
With our unlimited Al Sa’ud wealth, we can do many wonderful things, even turn a parched desert into a green garden!
The food had not yet arrived, but we settled into the comfortable chairs surrounding the glass top table. A red awning shaded the area around the table.
Soon three Filipino servants appeared balancing silver trays heavy with dishes. While waiting to be served, Sara and I sipped hot, sugary tea and discussed the school plans of our children. Once the servants set the table and filled our plates, we talked and laughed while we ate our way through a feast of salads, meatballs cooked in sour cream, and roast chicken stuffed with boiled eggs and rice.
I remembered Sara’s words about the approach of Ramadan. With that thought in mind, I took second servings of many dishes, knowing that during Ramadan I must endeavor to abstain from food between the daylight hours of dawn and sunset.
As I s
avored the food before me, my thoughts drifted to what lay ahead for me during this time of sacrifice. Muslims throughout the world would soon begin to search the skies for the new moon. Once that sighting occurred, the time for fasting would have arrived.
My burning desire was that, for the first time in my life, I would be able to fulfill my Muslim oath.
Chapter Four
Chaining the Devil
Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam and it is obligatory that every adult Muslim observe its customs. The Koran says: “O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you that you may (learn) self restraint and remain conscious of God…” (2:183)
Although I breathe somewhat easier knowing that during this special month, the doors of heaven are open and the doors of hell are closed, with the devil chained and unable to create mischief, a strict dedication to Ramadan has never suited my particular character.
I’ve always been possessed with a great longing to be as pious as my mother and sisters, but I must admit that I have not been flawless in my devotions. Even as a child, when I first learned of the rituals of Ramadan, I knew that my failure to conform was inevitable. For instance, I was told to impose silence on my tongue and avoid lying, obscene language, laughing, and backbiting. My ears were to be closed to anything offensive. My hands should not reach out for evil; as my feet should be curbed from pursuing wickedness. If I inadvertently allowed heavy dust or thick smoke to enter my throat, my fast would be considered invalid! Not only was I not to eat or drink during the hours between dawn and sundown, but even when rinsing my mouth, I was warned to guard that I not accidentally swallow a single drop of water! Most important of all, I was to fast from my heart, meaning that all worldly concerns should be discarded, and only thoughts of Allah should enter my mind. Lastly, I must atone for any thought or action that might distract me from remembering Allah.
From the time I began fasting at adolescence, I was often forced to atone for my failure to achieve full compliance. The Koran says that, “Allah will not take you to task for that which is unintentional in your oaths, but He will take you to task for the oaths which you swear in earnest. The expiation therefore is the feeding of ten of the needy with the average of that you feed your own, or the clothing of them, or the liberation of a slave…” (5:89)
