Girls of Riyadh

by Rajaa Alsanea

Michelle would never have believed it of her parents, but there was undoubtedly a religious impulse behind their blowup. Her father had never been among the hard-liners when it came to religion. And her mother, who had become a Muslim after her daughter’s birth, had never been one to strictly follow religious strictures. So why did they treat her so ferociously now, trying to force her to believe that Matti wasn’t right for her? Her parents, it seemed, had absorbed their share from this garden of contradictions where they had put down roots in recent years.

  What if Matti really did love her? She knew that was unlikely, but she couldn’t help but think: was she going to give him up for the sake of her family, as Faisal had let her go for the sake of his family? Matti’s problem was much more complex, because according to Islamic law, she couldn’t marry Matti, since he wasn’t a Muslim. Her dad, as a Muslim man, had been able to marry her Christian mother, but Muslim women weren’t permitted to marry non-Muslim men. Could she marry him in a civil ceremony in America? She knew that her parents couldn’t possibly agree to such a thing, no matter how liberated they were.

  Anyway, praise be to God that Matti had never broached this subject of love. Perhaps his feelings toward her were no different from the customary affection between friends or between brothers and sisters. Especially since in America it wasn’t generally accepted for first cousins to form romantic relationships. Perhaps her years in Saudi Arabia had so perverted her judgment in these matters that when a man was just being nice and kind to her, she misread it as LOVE.

  Her parents decided to take the step they had been postponing until Michelle got her degree from UCSF. As a pretext for making that decision now instead of later, they insisted that with the situation being what it was in post-9/11 America, they were afraid for her to return there for her last two years of college. Michelle had a hunch, though, or more than a hunch, that what she had said about her relationship with Matti, as vague as it had been, was their real motive.

  They would all move to Dubai! That was the decision the parents made once they became convinced they could no longer fit comfortably in the prim and prying Saudi society. Michelle had no choice in the matter. If she were to refuse to move with her parents and brother, the suspicions filling her father’s head would only grow more intense. For her part, when she thought about her relationship with her cousin, she didn’t believe he truly loved her. She felt he regarded her as a pampered younger sister whom he tried to make happy—the way he tried to make everyone happy, especially those nearest to him.

  Their decision, coming after she completed only two years of her studies at the University of San Francisco, bewildered her. It was clear, though, that her parents had arranged everything in advance. She was to finish her studies in the Department of Visual Communications at the American University in Dubai so that the two years wouldn’t go to waste, as had her first year of university when she moved from Riyadh to San Francisco. Little Meshaal, meanwhile, would enter a private school. Her father intended to make investments in Dubai as many of his friends were doing. Her mother would have more freedom and respect, which had mostly been denied to her in Saudi Arabia.

  Even though Dubai was a lot closer than San Francisco, this move was much harder than the last one. This time she would have to say good-bye to her friends without the promise that she would see them again at the New Year’s break. Their home in Riyadh would still nominally remain their home, yet Michelle was certain that she would return to it only if everyone in the family agreed. There would remain no ties to Riyadh except for the relatives who lived there, and her father and mother would not be interested in visiting them, anyway.

  Lamees organized a big farewell party at her house. The girls gave Michelle an elegant diamond-studded watch. They cried remembering the days of their adolescence and young adulthood, which seemed to be vanishing with Michelle’s departure from the shillah. Um Nuwayyir reminded her girls repeatedly that phone lines and Internet did exist! She pointed out that they could even converse daily, with picture and sound using a webcam and a microphone. That soothed them a little. Still, they worried that their relationship with Michelle would change once she moved to Dubai, just as it had when she went to America. This would be an even bigger change, for now the separation would be permanent, and so the ember of friendship that had remained constantly warm for years would be snuffed out, no matter how hard they all tried to preserve it.

  Lamees was the most grief-stricken of all. Michelle’s departure came at a trying time for her. She was suffering from an accumulation of things: difficulties at the university with some overbearing faculty members, plus her usual problems with Tamadur, who never tired of criticizing her and didn’t conceal her envy whenever Lamees scored some success or other. There were also problems with Ahmad, who, Lamees had discovered, was repeating everything they discussed on the phone to his friends at the university—all those conversations that had nothing to do with their studies! He was passing on everything she told him for their amusement, including stories about her classmates, who then heard about it and got furious and stopped having anything to do with her.

  In the last few years, Lamees had grown distant from Michelle. She had gone through a long period of uncertainty and conflicting feelings that came when she compared Michelle to her new, somewhat more sophisticated girlfriends at the College of Medicine. But on the day of the departure, Lamees had the sudden painful realization that Michelle alone understood her, really understood her. Michelle resembled her in so many ways and she had divined her true personality in a way that the others had not. Only she had unlocked her deepest secrets and could keep them safe. Yes, there had been problems. Michelle had put up with a lot; she had every right to feel hurt when Lamees neglected her at the university. But what was the point of dredging any of that up now? Michelle was about to leave and might never return, and so Lamees would lose forever the friend closest to her heart, whose worth she recognized only now.

  33.

  To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

  From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

  Date: September 24, 2004

  Subject: Abu Musa’ed and His Fine Print

  The Prophet, God’s blessings and peace be upon him, said: The virgin’s agreement to a marriage must be sought by her guardian, but the widow or divorcee has more right to her own person than does her guardian.—The hadith collection of Sahih Muslim, verse 3477

  One of the guys reading my e-mails offered to collect them, once the last one appeared, and to organize them into chapters for a book to be published. That way everyone could read them.

  Ya salam!* That’s really something. For me to have a novel all my own! A book that would be displayed in bookstores and hidden in bedrooms. A book that some people would beg others to bring from oversees. (That’s assuming that it would be banned here in Saudi.) And would I see my charming photo gracing its back cover—or defacing it!—just like other writers?

  I was astonished but also frightened at the suggestion. Astonished because I believe that no one is left in Saudi Arabia who hasn’t received my e-mails. After all, I have been so diligent, using addresses of subscribers to Yahoo and Hotmail and other service providers, that I’ve sent them to all Internet subscribers who had Kingdom of Saudi Arabia mentioned in their online profiles. And after the first few e-mails, I have got thousands of new subscribers to my Yahoo group! And frightened because publishing a book would mean revealing my name, after keeping it hidden from all of you out there for these many months.

  Here come the truly serious questions: Do my friends deserve to undergo such a sacrifice? Is it worth all the accusations that will be meted out to me and to them (in addition to those rebukes that have already been kindly sent my way) if my real name becomes known?

  I am anxious to hear your views and advice. Write to me.

  Gamrah’s mother prodded her daughter to meet Abu Musa’ed, an army general and a longtime friend of her uncle’s. This Abu Musa’ed was over forty. He had been married, but in
the ten years he had spent with his wife, God had not blessed him with children. For some reason, everyone used to called him Ubo Musa’ed—father of Musa’ed—anyway. He had divorced his wife and was looking for another, younger one who would provide him with the son he was longing for. (Incidentally, just as he decided to marry again news reached him that his former wife had gotten pregnant by her second husband.) He put the troublesome issue of finding a fertile wife on the table for his friends to toss around. No sooner did his friend Abu Fahad, Gamrah’s uncle on her mother’s side, hear this than he nominated his sister’s daughter. How utterly devoted he was to his niece’s best interests, he thought triumphantly.

  So here she was. When Abu Musa’ed came to call, Gamrah sat a little apart, but not too far away, and went about inspecting him with a scrutiny she had not practiced on Rashid when, three years before, he had presented himself as a suitable husband. She no longer was hampered by that old bashfulness of hers, nor was she in danger of tripping over her own feet.

  The man wasn’t as old as she had imagined; he looked to be in his late thirties. No gray in his mustache, but there were a few silver hairs along the temples, escaping from beneath his white ghutra.*

  Her uncle knew Abu Musa’ed very well and so her father’s role in all of this seemed of little importance. Her father had every intention of getting up from his chair and disappearing for a few moments (as the mother had advised him to do) so that his daughter would have a chance to talk to this potential fiancé, an opportunity she had not been given in her first marriage. Her father was waiting for the uncle to rise. The uncle did not budge, however. He couldn’t care less about any entreaties from his sister, who was waving furiously at him from behind the door. Gamrah’s uncle simply stayed put, anxious and rigidly alert for the tiniest lapse, the slightest turn or look or whispered sign from Gamrah, that would allow him to vent his anger on her and on her mother, should Abu Musa’ed withdraw from the scene.

  But Abu Musa’ed ignored Gamrah’s presence entirely. He turned his attentions to her uncle, chatting with him about the latest share prices. His impolite attitude thoroughly disgusted Gamrah. It was all she could do not to walk out of the room even though she had made her entrance no more than a few moments before. But suddenly Abu Musa’ed set off a bomb that got her to stay long enough to see whether it would blow everything to smithereens.

  “Now, as you know very well,” he started in, talking to her uncle, “I’m a Bedouin and a soldier, and I ain’t interested in makin’ clever little chitchat with you fancy city folk. I heard your niece has a little boy from her first husband. So the fine print as I see it is, the boy stays here with his grandmother. To clarify, here, I am not gonna raise a kid who isn’t my own, he is not welcome in my house.”

  “But Abu Musa’ed,” responded Gamrah’s uncle, “the boy is still very young.”

  “Young or old, that doesn’t matter to me! This is the fine print on the contract. I am just being frank about it and that shouldn’t upset you or her father.”

  Her uncle tried to defuse the bomb, even if too late. “Be patient, Abu Musa’ed, and only good will come of your patience, God willing.”

  Gamrah was shifting her gaze from her father to her uncle to Abu Musa’ed. It hadn’t occurred to any of these men to consult the person who had the biggest stake in this, and who happened to be sitting there in front of them, even if she was as silent and stiff as a wooden plank.

  Gamrah stood up and left the room, but only after giving her uncle a scathing look.

  In her own room, she found her mother waiting for her. Her mother had heard the whole conversation. Gamrah fumed about her uncle’s coldness, her father’s passive attitude, and the arrogance of this horrible man called Abu Musa’ed. Her mother made light of it all, though anxiously enough; Gamrah could hear the hard edge in her voice. She soothed her daughter with whatever words she could find, and then she sat silently, having calculated that it was best to remain quiet, now that she had once again bored herself and her daughter by saying the same old things. Gamrah was not to be placated. She went on ranting about this shameless man and his small print, this man who demanded so brazenly that she give up her little boy for his sake—even though the man was clearly not going to produce any children himself! How could he possibly dare to take away her only son? How could he demand that she make such a sacrifice? Who did he think he was, anyway, this Bedouin soldier, that he could speak to her uncle in such a conceited, self-important way? She had heard about those Bedouin men and their difficult natures, but never in her life had she had the bad luck to encounter someone as offensive as Abu Musa’ed.

  After the man left the house, indignant that Gamrah had walked out of the room without bothering to come up with a polite excuse, her uncle, with her father behind him, came into her room. Just as her uncle had ignored her presence when they had all been sitting in there with the Bedouin, he ignored her presence now, addressing himself to her mother.

  “Your girl has no shame, Um Mohammed! She is so spoiled. I say we go ahead and marry her to this man. There’s nothing wrong with him, and praise be to God, the girl already has a son, that is, she isn’t completely without children to fill her life. And we all know that leaving her here to sit around without a man to shield and protect her isn’t a good thing. People are always talking, sister, and besides, we have other girls in the family who should not pay for what people say about your divorced daughter. God make your life—my dear sister—long for us, God let you raise your children and the children of your children. Gamrah’s boy we can leave here to grow up in your house. His mama can come and see him whenever she wants to, and I don’t think this man will forbid that. So what do you think, brother, what about it, Abu Mohammed?”

  “Wallah, you know the man, and you’ve looked him over with your sharp eyes, and that’s enough for me. If you don’t see any problems in him, well, then, we shall rely on God and go ahead.”

  Having given his full and detailed opinion in a matter that was not his to decide, her uncle left. Her father also went out. Gamrah remained at home, able only to rant at her mother. Provoked and agitated, she flung her words into her mother’s face. “Why? Why do I need a man to shield and protect me? Does your brother think I’m a disgrace, or I cannot protect my own self? You people do not realize that I am a grown woman now and I have a son! My word should count and I should be listened to! But no! You think absolutely the opposite from how any reasonable family would think. That’s even worse than what you did to me in my engagement to Rashid! And what kind of a husband and father are you married to? He doesn’t have even one word to say about his own daughter in front of your bossy brother? And this brother of yours, what do I have to do with his daughters whom he wants to marry off? He wants to dump me on that old defective junk of a man just so he can be rid of me and clear the way for good men to marry his own daughters? God willing, I hope they never get married! May he and every one of his daughters go to hell!”

  “Shame, shame, Gamrah, dear! He is your uncle, after all, he is family. Don’t worry about him now. Seek what is best for you and what the Lord has written will happen. Submit your life to Allah and rely on Him.”

  Her mother had not counseled her to seek “what is best” for her in her first marriage. Had Rashid come with such overwhelming qualities that seeking what is best wasn’t called for then? That night, Gamrah performed the nightly prayer followed by the nonobligatory prayer for seeking guidance that Mudi had taught her. She unrolled her prayer rug and began praying.

  “O Allah, I seek Your help in finding out the best thing to do about Ubo Musa’ed’s proposal by invoking Your knowledge; I ask You to empower me, and I beseech Your favor. You alone have the absolute power, while I have no power. You alone know it all, while I do not. You are the One Who knows the hidden mysteries. O Allah, if You know that marrying Ubo Musa’ed is good for me in my religion, worldly life, and my ultimate destiny, then facilitate it for me, and then bless me in my action. If, on th
e other hand, You know this thing is detrimental for me in my religion, worldly life, and ultimate destiny, turn it away from me, and turn me away from it, and decree what is good for me, wherever it may be, and make me content with it.”

  Mudi informed her that she would not necessarily have a dream that would guide her to the right choice, as she had thought. It was by repeatedly seeking to do what was right that God would relieve her bosom of care and point the way to what was right; or He would make her chest seize up and she would know that this particular decision was not for her own good and then she would know to abandon it. Gamrah went on repeating the prayer for seeking what is right, time and time again, day after day after day, without finding herself really guided to a decision.

  After ten days or so, one night when she had performed her ablutions and prayed and gone to bed, Gamrah dreamed that she was sleeping in a bed that was not hers. She was covered in a thick quilt with only her head and feet showing. In the dream, she was gazing at her own face, as if she were staring into the face of her friend Sadeem, except that she was absolutely certain that the sleeping body stretched out along the length of the bed was her, even though the facial features were strangely “Sadeem-morphed.” The sleeping woman’s hair had grayed to the point of white and she had a long white beard (and what was really strange was that during the dream, Gamrah didn’t have any odd feelings about that beard on her face). Then she observed the scene, as if she were waking herself up, her sleeping self, by screaming at her. Get up, get up, prayer time has come! But she just tossed restlessly on her mattress until she woke up, in the dream and also in reality.

  When she told her dream to Mudi, the woman contacted one of the sheikhs she knew who were expert in dream and vision interpretation. She wanted Gamrah to describe her dream to this specialist in her own words. The dream had come to her, Gamrah told him, when she was seeking God’s guidance about a prospect who had proposed to her. The sheikh asked her if she had been married. “I was, sheikh, but then I was divorced.” He asked her if she had children from that marriage, and she said, “I have a son.”