Danuta Reah - Strangers

‘I speak very little.’

‘But you try. This is good.’ She studied Roisin in silence. ‘The bangles you wear, they are very pretty.’

‘Thank you. My husband bought them for me when we first arrived, from the market.’

Souad nodded as if this pleased her. ‘We have good silversmiths here. Now, these first meetings are important, are they not? I would like to introduce to you one of our graduate students who will be your teaching assistant today.’ She indicated a chair in the corner of the room where another woman was sitting, unnoticed until now.

As she stood up to greet Roisin, it was obvious she was pregnant. ‘I am Yasmin,’ she said.

She was beautiful. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a black hijab that emphasized the fairness of her skin. A curl of chestnut hair escaped the confines of the scarf. But she looked tired. Roisin could see dark circles of fatigue under her eyes, and lines around her mouth that denoted some kind of strain. ‘I am most pleased to meet you,’ she said. She spoke English with a slight French accent.

‘And I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Roisin Gardner.’ Roisin hadn’t had time to get the name on her teaching papers changed to reflect her new status. ‘Will we be working together?’

‘Sometimes. I would like to learn better English.’ Her smile to Roisin was cautious. ‘I think I will be your student.’

‘Yasmin will assist you in some classes,’ Professor Souad explained. ‘But I cannot spare her all the time. Some days, she teaches in the villages. We have a big programme, funded by our government, to bring education to the village women. Now, my dears, I think we should have tea.’ She picked up the phone and spoke briefly, then sat down and gestured for Roisin to sit next to her. ‘What is your impression of our university?’

‘It’s beautiful. But I was surprised there were so few students–in this part, I mean. I thought you had more women than men here.’

‘Yes indeed. Our education policies are more enlightened than we are given credit for. But the girls don’t arrive before classes start, unless they are here to see their tutors. Saudi girls don’t waste their time in gossip and “hanging out”.’ She gave the phrase an ironic emphasis. ‘Isn’t that right?’ she added to Yasmin, who smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t worry. Your class will be waiting for you. Now you must tell me about yourself.’

Over the next fifteen minutes, she subjected Roisin to a friendly but close interrogation, interrupted briefly by the arrival of tea and pastries. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when Roisin told her she had no children. ‘But, my dear, you are already thirty-two!’

‘I only got married a few weeks ago,’ Roisin said.

‘I had four children when I was your age.’ Souad patted Roisin’s hand. ‘Take my advice. Don’t delay.’

‘A lot of women in the West wait until their thirties.’ Roisin noticed with some amusement the flash of slightly contemptuous pity in Souad al-Munajjed’s eyes.

‘The students,’ the professor said briskly; ‘you have seen their work online–what do you think of them? And you like our discussion forum? This was my idea.’ She refilled Roisin’s cup unasked, and put a sweet, crumbly pastry on her plate.

‘There have been some interesting postings recently.’ Roisin broke off a piece of the pastry and put it in her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue. Its intense sweetness was mellowed by the flavour of spices. ‘I was surprised about the…’ She hesitated for a moment, but these women were too intelligent not to be aware of what she was thinking. ‘I was surprised at the openness of the discussion about women’s rights. And about the vote.’

The professor nodded slowly. ‘Truly we discourage openly political topics. There are some hotheads who do not understand about debate. Otherwise, why should the girls not discuss what they wish? You must be aware that sometimes they talk without thinking. They are very young, very inexperienced. There are a lot of wrong ideas about women in this country. I don’t pretend for a moment that all is well, but women have their difficulties everywhere, and sometimes things can be made worse when they are brought into the open.’

Roisin noticed that Yasmin had withdrawn from the discussion and was sitting quietly studying her hands. ‘You think they shouldn’t discuss it?’

‘I think that the–what is the word? The status quo –the status quo can be the best. For example, it has long been the rule in the Kingdom that women are not allowed to drive, but attitudes were perhaps starting to change. Then there was a protest here, and a group of women drove. All they achieved was to lose their jobs, anger the clerics and draw attention to a law that may have been quietly repealed in a year or two. Instead, their defiance made attitudes harden. So where was the value in the protest? All it did was to make life more difficult for everyone. Is that not so?’ She turned to the silent Yasmin.

‘It caused trouble, certainly,’ Yasmin said after a moment.

‘And now,’ the professor continued, ‘there are the elections. It can worry the students. They say things they do not understand.’

‘Some women,’ Yasmin said in her quiet voice, ‘expected to be given the vote—’

‘Ah, the vote.’ Roisin got the impression that this was a topic the professor was used to dismissing. She turned to Roisin. ‘Tell me, does your vote make any difference to who rules you, who makes the laws you must abide by?’ She was smiling as she looked at Roisin, her head tilted like an interrogative bird.

Roisin evaded the question. ‘I thought that Islamists believe laws come from God.’

‘Ah, but you are not an Islamist, as that remark shows. Come now, what do you believe?’

Roisin shrugged. ‘People make laws. Men make laws. One vote, no, it makes no difference. But…’ She had a vague memory of an Arab proverb and she was trying to remember it: ‘One small thing is…small. But a lot of small things together…The women could make a difference if they voted.’

‘And you support the government that rules you?’

‘Not entirely, no.’

‘And did you vote for them?’

‘No. I voted for someone else.’

The professor nodded slowly. ‘So in this much-praised democracy, your vote counts for nothing and you are governed by someone you didn’t choose? As these girls are governed by someone they didn’t choose?’

‘The government knows that not everyone supports them. That limits what they feel able to do. I was able to express my choice. I feel unhappy about a system that denies so many people that right.’

‘When my children disagree with me, I let them tell me why. I let them have their say, I let them “express their choice”, and then their father and I tell them what they must do. If I had a democratic family, it seems that the children would rule.’ Her eyes gleamed as she watched Roisin’s reaction.

‘In a democracy, children don’t have the vote.’ Roisin saw the trap as soon as she had stepped into it.

‘So you, like us, decide who can and who can’t choose. I see we are not so different after all. At last I understand this democracy. Now, it’s time to meet your students. Yasmin will take you to the seminar room.’

‘Will you stay for the class?’ Roisin asked as they left the room.

‘If you are happy for me to,’ Yasmin said.

As she followed the younger woman along the corridor, Roisin wasn’t sure if she’d just participated in a good-natured debate, or if she had been given a warning. She had no doubt that everything she said to the students would reach the diligent ears of the professor.

Damien was sufficiently concerned by Amy’s sudden interest in the Patel case–especially as it seemed to have been triggered by Joe Massey–to do a bit of digging on his own. He wasn’t interested in the rights and wrongs of it–Patel had made a bad choice and had had the misfortune to fall foul of the Saudi legal system. Any crusade to get the case reopened would be a quixotic waste of time. The courts of the Kingdom didn’t make mistakes and anyone who suggested they did was asking for a fast ticket out. He didn’t like the system, but it wasn’t his system. It was up to the Saudis themselves to clean it up.