Girls of Riyadh

What really got me howling was an e-mail from Haitham, from Al-Madina, City of Light, in which he slams me for my extreme partiality toward the “Bedouin” girls of Riyadh and my neglect of Lamees, his heart’s darling. You people are starting to act as if you know my four friends better than I do! Don’t let it bother you, dear Haitham. My e-mail today will concern Lamees and only Lamees.

Though Lamees and Tamadur looked very much alike, enormous differences in character and in their thoughts and ideas separated the twin sisters. True, they had attended the same classes in elementary and middle school, and even as far as high school and university, where they both studied at the College of Medicine. But Tamadur alone drew the admiration of professors for her intense seriousness and hyperdisciplined personality. Lamees, on the other hand, was the cool A+ student who was also the favorite of her classmates because of her wit and her friendliness to everyone. At the same time, she also managed to maintain her good grades. Lamees had more courage—and also more sheer nerve—than Tamadur, who always described her sister as careless, dare-devilish, and rash, not to mention flighty and a bit flirtatious.

Their father, Dr. Asim Hijazi, was a former dean of the College of Pharmacology at the university and their mother, Dr. Fatin Khalil, had been a deputy administrator in the same department. Dr. Asim and Dr. Fatin were the keys to their daughters’ success and their distinctive academic superiority. Ever since the twins’ birth, the parents had been as careful as could be to parcel out their roles and attention so that the two little girls would get all the consideration and care they needed. As Tamadur and Lamees entered nursery, and then kindergarten, and then real school, the parents’ attentiveness grew rather than dwindled. So did their aspirations for their daughters’ ongoing—and accelerating—academic distinction.

The couple had only these twins, and moreover had had them only after enduring much suffering and medical attention over a span of fourteen years, after which they had been given, by God’s mercy, these two lovely baby girls. They did not try for any more children, since by then the mother’s age was somewhat advanced and any attempts to have another child might be bad for her health and that of the unborn baby.

One of the more infamous episodes of Lamees’s high school career occurred in her first year. She, Michelle and two of their other classmates executed a massive and perfectly planned video exchange. On the appointed day, each girl brought four films to school. The idea was that at the end of the school day, they would parcel out the sixteen films among themselves, but bad luck had it in for them. No sooner had they arrived at school than the girls heard about the administration’s intention to search all of the classrooms and everyone’s schoolbags that day, looking for prohibited items. The list of contraband items was long and included photo albums, diaries, perfume bottles, romantic novels, music cassettes and videotapes.

Lamees didn’t know whether someone had ratted on them or whether it was merely the bad luck that always seemed to chase her. When the news got around, the four girls were thrown into utter chaos, aghast at this unexpected development. And the true disaster was that this wasn’t a question of one or two tapes; it was a matter of sixteen!—found with four of the school’s leading students! What a total scandal—and the possibility hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind!

Lamees gathered up the videos from her classmates, stuck them inside a large paper bag, and asked them all to act normal. She assured them that everything would turn out just fine and that she would handle the whole mess and take care of everything.

During recess, she carried the bulging paper bag into the bathroom to search for a hiding place, but it was a big bag and she couldn’t find a good place to stash it. She worried that any school employee might stumble on it and steal it or take it to the authorities. If that happened, her problem wouldn’t just be a school scandal but—and maybe this was ten times worse—she would have a real issue on her hands with her classmates, none of whom would be particularly happy to have her own tapes seized!

Next, Lamees considered stuffing the bag into the classroom cupboard. But the spot was pretty open to view, not to mention being an obvious place to look. Lamees began to feel desperate. The whole thing was like a dangerous game of hide-and-seek played at a time and in a place that simply were not suitable for playing games at all.

But just then the perfect solution popped into her head. Brilliant! She knocked on the door to the teachers’ lounge and asked to see her favorite teacher, Ms. Hana, who taught chemistry. Ms. Hana appeared in the doorway, full of welcomes for this surprise visit, and boldly Lamees explained her difficult situation. The teacher’s welcoming expression disappeared.