Girls of Riyadh

by Rajaa Alsanea

  Gamrah, Lamees and Um Nuwayyir began to notice that Sadeem had started to become careless, even neglectful, about performing her prayers. They also observed that she was exposing some of her hair when she threw on her hair cover, which was supposed to leave only her face visible. Sadeem’s religiosity seemed to be in direct proportion to her relationship with Firas. Her anger at him made her angry at everything that reminded her of him, and that included religious duties.

  Throughout Sadeem’s whole ordeal, her aunt Badriyyah had been traveling back and forth between Riyadh and Khobar, all the while keeping up her relentless campaign to convince Sadeem to move out east to live with her and her family permanently, or at least until her “fated share” would come to her.

  When she saw the daughter of her only sister in such a severe state of depression and still firmly refusing to go to Khobar, Aunt Badriyyah decided to broach the subject of Sadeem’s getting married to her son—Sadeem’s cousin Tariq. Aunt Badriyyah had intended to instill in Sadeem a sense of security and the possibility of some future happiness for her, but she only succeeded in making Sadeem all the more upset and embittered.

  So they wanted to marry her off to that adolescent dental student who was only a year older than she was? If they knew her Firas, they would never have dared to make such a proposition! They were exploiting the fact that she was now alone in this world and needed a home she could live in securely without having to face people’s scrutiny and their inevitable gossip about her living alone after her father’s death. Even Aunt Badriyyah wanted to ensure that Sadeem would remain under her supervision by marrying her to her own son. And who knew? Maybe Tariq was already thinking about the money and property she would inherit from her father and was planning how to get his hands on it. Maybe his mother—her own aunt!—was even encouraging him.

  It was out of the question. She would not marry Tariq or anyone else. She would shut herself up like a monk in her father’s house. If Aunt Badriyyah didn’t let up in her insistence about not leaving her alone, and didn’t allow her to live in the family home in Riyadh, then she would consent reluctantly to live with them in Khobar. But she would dictate her own terms. She would not allow anyone ever again to take her for granted, as Firas had done.

  40.

  To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

  From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

  Date: December 10, 2004

  Subject: Hamdan, the Cute Guy with the Pipe

  Nothing is harder than the life of a woman who finds herself torn between a man who loves her and a man she loves.—Khalil Gibran

  Whenever I start thinking about the shape my life will take when I bring this story to a close, it stresses me out. What will I do then, having gotten so used to finding all of these messages from you folks out there, e-mails in my mailbox that fill the emptiness of my days? Who will call me every bad name in the book, and who will be there to pat me on the shoulder? Who will even remember me at all? Will I be capable of adjusting to life in the shadows after becoming so accustomed to the glare of publicity, to my role as the spark that sets off the arguments that flare up whenever people in this country get together now?

  Even just thinking about what it will be like is upsetting. It’s true that I began with the simple intention of trying to reveal a few of life’s daily realities that pass so many of you unobservant people by. But I’ve become so invested in this story! And I also find myself waiting eagerly—impatiently!—for your readerly responses. I get irritated if I don’t get as many e-mails with feedback as I want; and I’m ecstatic whenever I read about ME in a newspaper or magazine or on a Web page. I’m going to miss all of this attention, there’s no doubt about that. In fact, I might find myself pining for it so fiercely that I don’t have any choice but to start writing again. In that case, what do you all want me to write? I’m standing by, readers, ready and willing: what should be the topic of my next exposé?

  Michelle couldn’t believe that her friend Sadeem considered Saudi Arabia to be the sole Islamic country in the world! In Michelle’s opinion, United Arab Emirates was just as Islamic, even though its people were allowed a lot of latitude in their social behavior, and were even allowed to practice other religions. In Michelle’s opinion, UAE was going about it in a much better way. Sadeem tried to make it clear to her that just because a country was “Muslim” did not necessarily mean that it was also an “Islamic country.” Saudi Arabia was the only country ruled solely and completely by the law derived from the Qur’an and the way of the Prophet, peace be upon him, applying that law—the Shari’ah—in all spheres of life. Other Muslim nations might draw on the Islamic Shari’ah for their basic principles and outlook, but as society changed and new needs arose, they left specific rulings to human-made law. Michelle could see the gap between her and her friends widening to the point where at times she wondered how it was that she ever fit in their scene at all—their world didn’t accord in any way with her own ideas about life or the ambitions she had.

  And what were those ambitions? Michelle felt she had found her calling working in the media, and she planned to make it to the top. She was going all the way. She dreamed of one day seeing her portrait on the cover of a magazine, standing next to Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. She fantasized about magazines and radio channels and TV stations vying with each other to get her exclusive scoop interviews with celebrities. She imagined the invitations to attend the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys that would surely come her way, just as the invitations to the Arab awards ceremonies already had. Never mind that her father had not let her attend even one of them—she would convince him with time. It would be over Michelle’s dead body that she would be reduced to the circumstances her poor miserable friends found themselves in: a prisoner of the house (Gamrah), a prisoner of a man (Sadeem) or a prisoner of her vanity (Lamees).

  The safest route, Michelle determined, was to stay away from entanglements with men altogether—if her experience with Faisal and her sort-of experience with Matti had taught her anything, it had taught her that. There would be no man at all, not even if that man was as sweet and cultivated as Hamdan, the young producer who was now directing her weekly program and who had studied media production at Tufts University in Boston…

  Michelle had to admit to herself that she had been attracted to Hamdan from the start. He had a natural gift for making everyone gather around him as soon as he showed up at a shoot, making one of his usual loud appearances. And whenever he was around, the laughs and excitement level in the air seemed to climb up a notch.

  Michelle and Jumana had watched Hamdan from a distance as he was smoking his midwakh* pipe on one of their first days on the job, and Jumana had commented on how attractive he was. But Jumana was in love with one of her relatives whom she intended to marry as soon as he finished his MA in England and returned home, so she had been trying to set Hamdan up with her friend Michelle instead. But Hamdan beat her to it. When he made his interest in her obvious, Michelle wasn’t surprised. After all, out of everyone in the crew it was clear that she and Hamdan seemed to agree on things the most and to be the most in sync. They seemed to be a natural match.

  Hamdan was twenty-eight. The most handsome thing about him was his nose, as sharp and fine as an unsheathed sword. He had a trim, light beard and a truly infectious laugh. He was as stylishly turned out as Michelle always was. Usually, he wore a nice pair of jeans and a name-brand T-shirt to work, but sometimes he showed up in his white kandurah* and isamah.** Even though he was relentless about keeping up his urbane appearance, he could never endure having his head wrapped up for more than an hour at the very most. So he would inevitably yank off the carefully wound turban, revealing his hair, which was longer than Michelle’s, since she had gotten her hair cut short like Halle Berry’s—a style Faisal forbade her to adopt because he didn’t want to lose her lovely long hair with its delicate soft curls which he loved to wrap around his fingers.

  Hamdan and Michelle had long conversations about all kinds of thi
ngs, not least the TV program and their goals at the station. Because their work demanded it, they began going out to various places together—restaurants, cafés, shops and local events. Hamdan often invited her to go out hunting with him or on fishing trips in his speedboat (the one thing he was even more infatuated with than his Hummer automobile). Though Michelle enjoyed these kinds of expeditions, she always declined his invitations, limiting herself to looking at his photographs and listening to him as he talked about his adventures.

  41.

  To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

  From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

  Date: December 17, 2004

  Subject: A Message for “F”

  Anyone can become angry—that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, with the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not easy.—Aristotle

  A lot of people have written to me asking to know more about Sadeem’s sky-blue scrapbook that I mentioned a couple of e-mails ago. Some have asked how it is that I managed to see what Sadeem wrote in it (and of course the subtext here is: if you aren’t Sadeem, that is.). They’re just DYING to figure out if she and I are one and the same. Others are just curious about what is written in that scrapbook.

  To the curious ones out there, I say: I will read to you, and with you, more of Sadeem’s musings from her sky-blue scrapbook. To those who are nosy and have made it their business to “out” me, I say: Just drop it.

  When she couldn’t seem to find an appropriate job after graduating, Sadeem decided to start a business with a portion of her inheritance. She had for some time been thinking about becoming a party and wedding planner, since there certainly was a demand for it—hardly a week would go by without her receiving an invitation to someone or other’s wedding or dinner party or reception. During summer—the high season—it was not uncommon for her to get invitations to two or three different occasions on a single evening. She and many girls her age, whenever they felt bored or cooped up, would arrange to get invited to a wedding—it didn’t matter whose. They could dress up and deck themselves out and put on heavy makeup and spend the evening dancing to music played by live bands or DJs. It was the closest you could get to an evening in a nightclub, albeit a very respectable and entirely female nightclub.

  Sadeem’s idea was to start by arranging small get-togethers for her relatives and friends and then to gradually expand until she got good enough to organize weddings. For years she had noticed that the party-organizing sector was pretty much a monopoly held by a small group of women, all Lebanese, Egyptian or Moroccan, who demanded enormous sums of money but did not provide excellent service in return. Sadeem was electrified at the thought of having the opportunity to plan every detail of an event herself, from A to Z, and modifying the plans to fit the type of occasion and the budget. She already knew the restaurants, florists, furniture shops and clothes makers that she would want to work with.

  Sadeem proposed to Um Nuwayyir that the older woman take charge of the Riyadh office, with Gamrah as her assistant. Sadeem would assume control of the eastern region, where she was about to move, and Lamees, if she wanted, could set up an office in Jeddah, where she would be moving with her husband, Nizar, after her graduation. They could even arrange with Michelle over in Dubai to hire some singers who would make special recordings of songs suitable for wedding processions or graduation parties.

  Um Nuwayyir welcomed the idea. It would fill the hours of loneliness she faced daily when she got home from work, which would be lonelier still after Sadeem’s departure. Gamrah was very enthusiastic as well. She and Sadeem began setting up small gatherings to which they invited their acquaintances. Tariq, Sadeem’s cousin, helped them take care of official tasks, obtaining a commercial license and other necessary documents. Since women are not always permitted to take care of legal matters with banks and other offices themselves, Sadeem made him their official agent for legal affairs.

  The evening before Sadeem left for the eastern province, Gamrah produced invitations to the wedding celebration of a relative of a friend of her sister Hessah, and so Gamrah, Lamees and Sadeem went along with Hessah to the wedding. Hessah took her seat at the table reserved for the bride’s friends, while the three girlfriends sat up on the dance floor. That was where all young single girls customarily sat, magnets for the roving eyes of matrons who were mothers of eligible young men.

  When the tagagga crooned into the microphone, the three girls stood up, ready to dance to the familiar Saudi ballad. All of the girls sitting on the raised space started to move as the drumbeats began to throb. The sound roused the entire hall as the taggaga’s voice soared.

  Sadeem was dancing in place, shaking her shoulders softly and moving her head from side to side with her eyes closed as she drummed her fingers in time to the song. Gamrah was moving her arms and legs in a random rhythm that had no relation to the beat, her eyes staring upward. Lamees shook her hips as if she were belly dancing, singing the song lyrics along with the singer, as opposed to Gamrah, who did not memorize song lyrics, and Sadeem, who considered showing off how in tune you were with the music while you danced to be a bit overdone.

  When the song was over, Lamees went off to chat with an old friend from her school days that she had happened to bump into. The friend had been recently married and Lamees wanted to ask her how she was finding marriage so far, and what the wedding night was like and what kinds of birth control she had tried, and other such particulars that were concerning her now that her own wedding had been booked for the midyear break.

  Sadeem remained with Gamrah on the dance floor to dance to a song she loved by Talal Maddah:*

  I love you even if you love another

  and forget me and stay far away

  because my heart’s only wish

  is to see you happy, every day

  The gentle words and mournful tune pierced straight through Sadeem’s heart. The image of Firas clouded over her mind, and though she was surrounded by people on the dance floor, she danced as if it were only Firas who was watching her.

  When it was time for dinner, they all filled their plates from the buffet and started talking about Sadeem’s departure the next day. Sadeem was feeling so sad that her chest was constricted in sorrow, and she did not know how she would ever emerge from the ordeal whole again. As they talked and ate, one of the cell phones lying on the table beeped twice, indicating that a text message had been received. Every one of the girls dove for her phone, hoping that she would be the one who got the text from someone who had remembered her at that particular moment. Lamees was the lucky one. Knowing that his darling was attending a wedding party, Nizar had written from home saying: “May our wedding be the next, habibti!”**

  HOURS LATER, Sadeem stared at the suitcases and boxes that filled her room, ready to be shipped to Khobar. She felt a lump rise in her throat as she traced the scratching she had made on the edge of her desk as a child and gazed at the magazine pictures of celebrities and her friends’ photos plastered on her closet door. She picked up her sky-blue scrapbook and pencil, and wrote.

  Letter to F: It is now 3:45 a.m., local kingdom time.

  In a few minutes the dawn call to prayer will echo through the city of Riyadh. You must be on your way to the mosque at this very moment, since your prayers in the eastern region start a little earlier than ours do here. Or are you in Riyadh right now? I don’t even know whether the two of you are living here or there.

  Do you still always go to the Friday prayer service? Or has the pleasure of sleeping at her side made you lazy about getting up and performing what is due to God?

  I’m dying to hear your voice. If only I could wake you up right now! Without you, the world is a gloomy place. The night is darker than it should be. The silence is worse, and lonelier.

  Oh, God…how much I love you!

  Do you remember when you called me from your private jet as you were on your way to Cairo? I don’t remember the reason we argued
that day, but I do remember how depressed I was that you were traveling somewhere when I was still so upset.

  About half an hour after I got your text message saying good-bye from the airport, I got a call from a long and unfamiliar phone number. It didn’t occur to me that it could be you. I screamed when I heard your darling voice, I was so happy! Your voice washed my heart clean of whatever pain was there. Firas, my love! I yelled. Didn’t you leave?

  You told me that your body was up in the air but your heart was on the ground with me, trying to soothe me. You went on teasing me and flirting with me for a whole half hour. I practically melted away, I was so madly in love with you!

  I wish you were with me right now.

  Today, I went to a wedding party. I danced there imagining you standing in front of me, and I reached out to you but of course you weren’t there.

  I lament you at night like twenty death rites, while you’re by her side,

  May God not forgive you, nor forgive her through life,

  Nor bring you back to me, nor give her bliss

  I love you…

  My love who I HATE!

  Did I tell you that I am traveling to you tomorrow?