Girls of Riyadh

by Rajaa Alsanea

  When she greeted Tariq, he kept her hand in his longer than usual, trying to read in her eyes the answer she would give to his request. She led him toward the reception room, chuckling at the scene he made behind her as he tried to get rid of his little brother Hani, who was insisting on fleeing from the nanny and going into the living room with them.

  This meeting wasn’t like any of the times they’d been together years before. They didn’t play Monopoly or Uno, and they didn’t quarrel over who had the right to have the remote as they sat in front of the TV. They even looked different. Sadeem was wearing a brown knee-length chamois-cloth skirt with a sleeveless light blue silk blouse. Around one ankle she wore a silver anklet and on her feet were high-heel sandals that allowed her carefully trimmed nails and French pedicure to show. Tariq was wearing a shimagh and a thobe, though he never put on this traditional wear unless it was a religious holiday. One thing had not changed: Tariq had not forgotten to bring her the Burger King double Whopper meal she liked.

  They had their dinner in silence, each of them immersed in private thoughts. Sadeem was having a dialogue with herself, a bit mournfully.

  This isn’t the one I have dreamed of all my life. Tariq is not the person who will make me cry for joy the day the contract is signed. He is a sweet and nice person, in a very ordinary and normal way. Marrying Tariq doesn’t require anything more than a beautiful wedding gown, the usual trousseau and a wedding party in some lavish hall. There won’t be any real happiness or even any sadness about it. Everything will be ordinary and normal, just like my love for him and every day of our future life together. Poor Tariq. I won’t thank the Lord every single morning when I find you next to me in bed. I won’t feel butterflies in my stomach every time you look at me. It’s so sad. It’s so ordinary. It’s nothing.

  After they had finished eating, she tried to think of something else to do other than talk about what he really wanted to hear. “Can I get you something to drink, Tariq? Tea? Coffee? A cold drink?”

  Her mobile phone, which was on the low marble table in front of them, rang. Sadeem’s eyes widened with astonishment and her heart jumped into her throat when she read the number of the sender there plainly on the screen. It was Firas’s number. She had erased his name from her phone directory since their “last” separation.

  She jumped up and left the room to answer this unexpected phone call, particularly sudden and unexpected right at this moment. Had Firas somehow learned about Tariq and called to influence her decision? How did Firas always seem to know everything and show up at crucial times?

  “Saddoomah. What’s new with you?”

  “What’s new with me?”

  At the sound of his voice, which she had not heard for quite a long time, her heart plunged. She expected him to ask her about Tariq, but he didn’t. Instead, he began telling her about seeing her two days before in the hotel with her friends. She watched Tariq rubbing his palms together anxiously, waiting for her.

  “So, are you calling me right now in order to tell me you happened to see me the other day?”

  “No…to be honest, I am calling to say to you, um, I have discovered…I feel that—”

  “Hurry up. My battery’s low.”

  “Sadeem! In one phone call you make me happier than I’ve felt all the time I’ve lived with my wife, from the day we got married!”

  There were a few seconds of silence, then Sadeem said in a taunting tone, “I warned you, but you were the one who said you could live this kind of life, because you’re strong, and because you’re a man. You think with your head and not your heart, remember?”

  “My Saddoomah, darling, I want you, I miss you. And I need you. I need your love.”

  “You need me? What do you mean? Do you really think I’m going to be willing to come back to you and be your lover, just like before, now when you are married?”

  “I know that’s impossible. So…I’m calling to ask you…will you marry me?”

  SADEEM HUNG UP on Firas for the third time. The triumphant tone of his voice had made it clear that he was expecting her to crumple at his feet that second with a grateful “Yes” at his generous offer to make her his second wife. She turned to Tariq. He had thrown off his shimagh and the eqal that kept it in place on his head. The shimagh sat untidily on the arm of the sofa. Tariq had begun to rub his hair wildly with both hands. She smiled. She went into the kitchen to make him the loveliest surprise of his life.

  She came back in carrying a tray with two glasses of cranberry juice on it. He lifted his head to look at her. She lowered her head and smiled with feigned embarrassment exactly like in the old black-and-white movies they had watched together. In imitation of the classic scene when the girl signals that her suitor’s marriage proposal has been accepted, she put the tray down in front of him and offered him a drink. Tariq began laughing and kissing her hands. He repeated over and over, in utter happiness, “If only this phone call had come a long time ago!”

  Between You and Me

  I do not claim that I have uttered all of the truth here, but I hope that everything I have said is true.

  —GHAZI AL-QUSAIBI

  The girls of Riyadh went on with their lives. Lamees (who you will recall actually has a different name in reality, along with the rest of my friends) got in touch with me after the fourth e-mail. She wrote from Canada, where she and Nizar are doing their graduate studies, to congratulate me on the wild and crazy idea of writing these e-mails. Lamees laughed and laughed at the name I had chosen for her sister, “Tamadur,” since I knew in advance that her sister despised this name and that Lamees called her by it whenever she wanted to irk her.

  Lammoosah told me that she is very happy with Nizar and that she has given birth to a beautiful baby girl named after me. She added, “I just hope the girl doesn’t turn out to be as crazy as you are!”

  Michelle was really bowled over and told me she had no idea that I had such a knack for storytelling. She often helped me recall certain events and she corrected details I remembered unclearly, even though she didn’t understand some of my classical Arabic words and was always asking me to use more English, at least in the e-mails that were about her, so that she could understand them.

  Sadeem didn’t divulge her true feelings to me at first, and that made me think I had lost her as a friend after telling her story in my e-mails. But she surprised me one day (after my thirty-seventh e-mail) with a really precious gift, which was her sky-blue scrapbook. I never would have known about it if she hadn’t given it to me. She handed it over before signing the marriage contract with Tariq. She gave it to me to keep and told me that I could disclose all that she felt in that painful period of her life. May God bless her marriage and make it a union that erases all of the sadness and misery that came before.

  Gamrah heard about the e-mails from one of her sisters, who realized from the very beginning that Gamrah was the intended double of this character, but she didn’t know which one of Gamrah’s friends I was. Gamrah blew up at me and threatened to cut off all ties if I didn’t stop talking about her. I tried to convince her—Michelle and I both tried—but she was afraid people would find out things she and her family didn’t want them to know. She said some really hurtful things to me the last time we spoke. She told me that I am taking away all that might be left of her chances—marriage chances, I presume. And after that she cut off every link she had with me despite my many pleas and apologies.

  Um Nuwayyir’s house still serves as a safe haven for the girls. The girls had their last meeting there during the New Year’s break when Lamees came from Canada and Michelle from Dubai to attend Sadeem and Tariq’s wedding. Sadeem insisted on having it in her father’s house in Riyadh. Um Nuwayyir planned the wedding with Gamrah.

  As for love, it still might always struggle to come out into the light of day in Saudi Arabia. You can sense that in the sighs of bored men sitting alone at cafés, in the shining eyes of veiled women walking down the streets, in the phone lines that spr
ing to life after midnight, and in the heartbroken songs and poems, too numerous to count, written by the victims of love unsanctioned by family, by tradition, by the city: Riyadh.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to express my deepest gratitude toward everyone who has helped me edit the English counterpart of my Arabic novel (Banat Al-Riyadh): my dear eldest brother Nasser, my best friend Aceel, my sister/ my rock Rasha and my wonderful editor at The Penguin Press in New York, Liza Darnton, who all tried their best so that my novel does not get lost in translation.

  I would also like to express my deepest appreciation to my role model, Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, former Saudi ambassador to Britain, current minister of labor and brilliant poet and novelist, for his unflagging support.

  Last but not least, I would like to remember the man who taught me how to write, my father, Abdullah Alsanea, may he rest in peace. I hope I would have made him proud.

  GLOSSARY OF NAMES

  The number 7 refers to an Arabic letter similar to the letter H in English. Arabs use numbers like 7, 3, 5, 6 to refer to certain Arabic letters that have no counterparts on an English keyboard. This is called the Internet language and is also used in cell phone text messages as well.

  Seerehwenfadha7et: the name of the mail group created by the narrator. Seereh means memoirs or story; wenfadha7et, wenfadhahet means disclosed or exposed. The name was taken from a Lebanese talk show called Seereh Wenfatahet. It means “a story told” but the name got changed to wenfadhahet to reflect more of a scandalous scene.

  I chose the characters’ last names to show where they come from. Just like any other place in the world, in Saudi Arabia you can tell a lot from where the man or the woman comes from.

  P.S.Al means the.

  Sadeem Al-Horaimli: of or relating to Horaimla, a city within Najd, the center of Saudi Arabia.

  Gamrah Al-Qusmanji: of or relating to Qasim, a city within Najd, the center of Saudi Arabia.

  Lamees and Tamadur Jeddawi: of or relating to Jeddah, a city within Hijaz, the west coast.

  Mashael and Meshaal Al-Abdulrahman: a random name that can belong to any family with unknown roots (i.e., from an untraceable tribe).

  Firas Al-Shargawi: of or relating to Sharqiyah, the east coast of Saudi Arabia.

  The following family names are Arabic adjectives to describe the personality of each:

  Rashid Al-Tanbal: the bonehead.

  Faisal Al-Batran: the wellborn.

  Waleed Al-Shari: the buyer, the purchaser.

  Fadwa Al-Hasudi: she who hates to see other people more happy or successful than her.

  Sultan Al-Internetti: of or relating to the Internet.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RAJAA ALSANEA grew up in Riyadh, the younger of two daughters in a family of doctors and dentists. She is currently living in Chicago, where she is pursuing a degree in endodontics. She intends to return to Saudi Arabia after attaining her degree. She is twenty-five years old, and this is her first novel.

  * A very popular cartoon for the 1990s generation of Saudi Arabian children. Translated from Japanese, it’s a story of a boy trying to achieve his dream of becoming a soccer star.

  * An expensive car with completely tinted windows often belongs to a man who does not want his wife and daughters exposed to the eyes of young men looking for fun. Nowadays, tinting is prohibited by Saudi law for security reasons.

  * The weekend in Saudi Arabia is Thursday and Friday.

  * In Islam, a hijab is any kind of head covering that conceals the hair and neck of a woman.

  * The hadith are collections of the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed.

  * A famous Egyptian singer from the 1960s.

  * The Internet provider company in Saudi Arabia.

  * Sheikh Jassem Al-Mutawa’, a famous Kuwaiti Muslim televangelist who hosts a very well-known Arabic TV program called Happy Nests and is the chief editor of several magazines and the author of many Islamic books that discuss relationships between men and women, marriage and family matters.

  * Among the different subclassifications of Saudi society, there are the tribals and the nontribals. Between those two classes/sectors there can be no marriages. A tribal family is one that can be traced to one of the well-known Arabic tribes.

  *“Mama” can also be used as an expression to indicate surprise or fear (“Oh, God!”).

  * Amr Khaled is an Egyptian Muslim activist and preacher. His popularity has now grown all over Arab countries. He is one of the most influential televangelists and authors in the Arab world.

  ** There is an Arabic proverb that says: “Better the shadow of a man than the shadow of a wall.”

  * Manfooha is a very old and urban area south of Riyadh, and Olayya is a bustling area in Riyadh where real estate prices are high.

  * After the death of Prophet Mohammed—peace be upon him—Muslims were split on who should lead them. Khalifah Abu Baker Al-Siddeeq, Prophet Mohammed’s loyal friend, was nominated, but there were those who rejected the choice and wanted Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali Bin Abi-Taleb, to succeed. Shiite Muslims are of the opinion of the last group and thus are referred to by some Sunnis as rejectionists.

  * Breakfast meal in Ramadan.

  ** A popular Ramadan drink; juice of grapes, raspberries and black currants.

  *** The call for prayer.

  § The religious sheikh who calls for prayers at a mosque.

  * A city in the east coast of Saudi Arabia, with a big Shiite population.

  * Of course they do! All men who wear thobes have to wear long white underpants—called Sunni underpants—underneath to prevent the thin material of their thobes from shearing. The name “Sunni” underpants is just a funny coincidence.

  * Arabic incense. Wooden sticks that come from particular trees in India or Cambodia, and when burned, generate strong and beautiful lasting fragrance.

  ** Al-Hai’ah is a short name for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, i.e., the Religious Police.

  * Yalla can mean “c’mon!” or “hurry up!”

  * A short pilgrimage to Mecca undertaken by Muslims. Unlike Hajj, Umrah can be done anytime of the year.

  * Due to their darker complexions, Saudi girls tend to have darkened knees. Guys always pick on girls because of that, although they have the same problem! However, due to the hot climate of Saudi, dryness and the frequent use of Arabic sandals, ni’aal, guys tend to have very dry feet and dirty toenails. Girls pick on that, in return.

  * Egyptian actor. The line comes from a famous black-and-white “classic” Arabic movie.

  * Anonymous last names to protect the identities of those bold enough to offer a writing job to me!

  ** Tahini halvah: a type of dessert made of sesame paste.

  * A saying used when you compare two things that are both worthless.

  * A handsome, well-known Egyptian actor who starred in many Arabic romantic films.

  * Taiba and Owais is a massive outdoor flea market where cheap goods are sold.

  * Oh, wow!

  * Male’s head covering in Saudi. Similar to a shimagh but has a plain white color instead of red and white checks.

  * Ma shaa Allah is an Islamic phrase that one says in order not to jinx someone’s luck.

  * Famous Saudi critic.

  ** It is generally frowned upon for young Saudi women to be actresses.

  * Saudi prince and famous poet.

  * A type of tobacco pipe popular in the UAE.

  * Male garment in UAE, similar to the Saudi thobe.

  ** Turban.

  * Old and famous Saudi singer.

  ** My love.

  * Many native Hijazis prefer to shorten the engagement period and lengthen the time between the marriage contract-signing and the wedding, i.e., the milkah period. Unlike Najdis, who would not mind a long engagement period but do not like a long milkah period, when the couple are considered officially married and have the right to meet and go out even before t
he wedding ceremony takes place.

  * God is Great. The starting line in every prayer.

  ** E Wallah means swearing in God’s name that something is true.

  * Nonobligatory prayers held right after Isha prayers during the whole month of Ramadan.

  ** Nonobligatory prayers held in the last third of night during the last ten days of Ramadan.

  * Traditional black cloak that men wear on top of their thobes for important occasions or events.

  * By Nabil Shu’ail, a Kuwaiti singer.

  * Muhram men are men whom a woman is allowed to go without hijab in front of; e.g., male members of her immediate family.