Rajaa Alsanea - Girls of Riyadh

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.