Rajaa Alsanea - Girls of Riyadh

Faisal paid for two cups of iced coffee and cruised around the streets of Riyadh with her in his Porsche. He took her to his office at his father’s company and launched into an explanation of some of his responsibilities at the business. Then they dropped by the university, where he was studying English literature. He circled around the parking lot for a few minutes before a campus patrolman informed him that he was not allowed to drive around the university grounds at this hour of the night. After two hours or so, Faisal returned Michelle to Um Nuwayyir’s. Her head was spinning. He had simply, and surprisingly, swept her off her feet.

4.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: March 5, 2004

Subject: What Did That Jerk Do to Gamrah on That Night?

This culture we claim—

bursting bubbles of soap, of slime

We live on, by the logic of key and lock

We swathe our women in cotton shrouds

We possess them like the carpets beneath us,

like the cows in fenced fields,

to flock home at night’s end,

for our due, bulls and steeds unpenned. —Nizar Qabbani

Sitting in my own silent room, I can practically hear the blasts of condemnation and profanity coming from Saudi and Arab men among my readers when they see this verse posted. I wish you men could understand it as I believe Nizar Qabbani intended it to be understood…Oh, Nizar, in love there’s been no one before you and there will never be anyone after you, even if your compassion toward women isn’t due to a mutation in one of your male chromosomes but rather to the suicidal end of your poor sister’s tragic love story. So it seems, I’m sorry to say, that no woman among us will find her own Nizar until after she has finished off one of his sisters, so that the tale of beautiful love will have to be titled “Gone to Prison” rather than “Gone with the Wind.”

Heart of mine, don’t grieve.

When the honeymoon was over, Gamrah and her husband headed for Chicago where he was working for his PhD in electrical engineering, after getting his BA in Los Angeles and his master’s in Indianapolis.

Gamrah began her new life in absolute fear and trepidation. She felt like she died of terror every time she walked into the elevator that took her up to the apartment they shared on the fortieth floor of the Presidential Towers. She felt the pressure splitting her head open and blocking her ears as the elevator shot upward through the floors of the skyscraper. She got dizzy every time she tried to look out of a window in the apartment. So very far down, everything appeared tiny and fragile. She stared down at the city streets, which looked to her exactly like the streets in the Lego sets she played with when she was little, with their minuscule cars no larger than matchboxes. Indeed, from this height the cars looked like ants in rows: they were so very small and so neatly and quietly arranged in long and slow-moving lines.

Gamrah was afraid of the drunken beggars who filled the streets and shook their paper cups in her face, demanding money. The stories of thefts and murders that she always seemed to be hearing terrified her. Every story she heard had something to do with this dangerous city! She was just as afraid of the huge black security guard at their building, who ignored her whenever she tried to get his attention with her poor English hoping he would help her commandeer a taxi.

From the moment of his arrival, Rashid had been completely immersed in the university and his research. He left the apartment at seven o’clock in the morning, returning at eight or nine and sometimes as late as ten in the evening. On the weekends, he seemed determined to occupy himself with anything he could find to take him away from her; he would sit for hours staring at the computer or watching TV. He often fell asleep on the sofa while watching a boring baseball game or the news on CNN. If he did go in to their bedroom to sleep, he kept on the long white underwear that Saudi men always put on underneath their thobes —we call them “Sunni underpants” (I have no idea why)—and T-shirt. He would collapse onto the bed as if he were a very old man depleted of all his energy, not a brand-new husband.

Gamrah had dreamed of much more; of caresses and love and tenderness and emotion like the feelings that stirred her heart when she read romance novels or watched romantic movies. And now here she was, facing a husband who clearly felt no attraction toward her and indeed had not touched her since that ill-fated night in Rome.

At that time, after dinner in the elegant hotel restaurant, Gamrah had made an irrevocable decision that this would be her true wedding night, something for which she had waited too long. As long as her husband was so bashful, she would have to help him out, smooth the way for him just as her mother had advised her. They went up to their room and she began to flirt with him shyly. After a few moments of innocent seduction, he took things into his own hands. She gave herself up to it despite the enormous confusion and anxiety she felt. She closed her eyes, anticipating what was about to happen. And then he surprised her with an act that was never on her list of sexual expectations. Her response, which was shocking to both of them, was to slap him hard on the face then and there! Their eyes met in a stunned moment. Her eyes were filled with fear and bewilderment, while his were full of an anger the likes of which she had never seen. He moved away from her quickly, dressed hurriedly and left the room amid her tears and apologies.

Gamrah did not so much as see her husband until the evening of the next day, when he sullenly accompanied her to the airport in time to catch the airplane to Washington, followed by another to Chicago.

5.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: March 12, 2004

Subject: Waleed and Sadeem: A Typical Love Story from Contemporary Saudi Life

Men have written to me saying: Who authorized you to speak for the girls of Najd?! You are nothing but a malevolent and rancorous woman deliberately attempting to sully the image of women in Saudi society.

And to them I say: We are only at the beginning, sweethearts. If you are mounting a war against me in the fifth e-mail, then imagine what you will be saying about me after you have read the many e-mails to come! You’re in for a ride. May goodness and prosperity come to you!

Sadeem and her father walked into the elaborate formal reception room of their house to meet Waleed Al-Shari. It was the occasion of the shoufa , that one lawful “viewing” of the potential bride according to Islamic law. Sadeem was so nervous that her legs nearly buckled underneath her as she walked. Gamrah had told her of her own mother’s warning to not under any circumstances offer to shake hands with the groom at this meeting, so Sadeem refrained from extending her hand.

Waleed stood up respectfully to greet them, and sat down again after she and her father were seated. Her father immediately started asking questions on a seemingly random variety of topics and then, a few minutes later, left the room to allow the two of them to talk freely.

Sadeem could tell right away that Waleed was taken with her pretty looks; the way he stared at her made that clear enough. Even though she had barely lifted her head to look at him when she first walked in, she had seen him studying her figure, which nearly made her trip over her own feet. But as they talked, Sadeem gradually gained control of her nervousness and, with his help, conquered her shyness. He asked her about her studies, her major at the university, her future plans and what she liked to do in her free time—all on his way to arriving at that one question every one of us girls fears and considers rude to be asked in a shoufa : Do you know how to cook?