Girls of Riyadh

Gamrah had never liked the English language and she had never gotten as good at it as her friends. Every year she had passed English class with difficulty, and one year she had to retake her final exam and then only passed because the teacher felt sorry for her and gave her marks higher than she deserved.

“Noo! Noo! I…bregnent…haaw?” She flattened both of her palms in a gesture as if to ask, how?

The shop attendant’s brown face showed bewilderment. “Sorry, my dear, but I don’t get what you mean!”

Gamrah kept pointing at herself with her index finger. “Mee…mee…haaw bregnent? Haaw baby? Haaw?”

The shopgirl called over two of her colleagues, and they, together with a shopper who had overheard the exchange, labored to solve the riddle of what Gamrah was trying to say. After ten more minutes of effort, Gamrah finally obtained what she was looking for: a home pregnancy test!

13.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: May 7, 2004

Subject: The Face-off: Between She Who Is Worthy and She Who Is Worthless

The Prophet—the blessings and peace of God be upon him—did not beat a single servant of his nor a woman, nor did he strike anything with his hand.—The hadith collection of Ibn Maja, verse 2060

I heard that King Abd Al-Aziz City* is trying to block my site to dam up the channels of communication and ward off malicious acts, scandalous deeds and all causes of corruption or evil. I know that most of you know a thousand ways to get into blocked sites. But I just might die of electrocution if this blockage happens before I can empty out (and load onto you) the charges—positive and negative—I carry in my chest, which have refused to balance each other out to neutral inside of me. I only ask for a small space on the World Wide Web to tell my stories through. Is that too much to ask?

After spending several long hours at the hairdresser’s and after putting on some of her expensive jewelry that she had not worn once since leaving Riyadh, Gamrah headed for the hotel where Kari was staying. On her way there, she warned the wicked little demon in her head against persuading her to strangle this fallen woman the moment she saw her.

Kari—and Gamrah later showed me a picture of the Chinese actress Lucy Liu, telling me Kari was the spitting image of Lucy—came down into the lobby. The waiting had been killing Gamrah. This woman put out her hand, but Gamrah didn’t take it. Gamrah was still fighting a battle with the little devil in her head.

The meeting took a direction that wasn’t exactly the one Sadeem had predicted. It was Kari who steered the conversation, beginning and ending her words with firmness and confidence, without any sign of confusion, and without stumbling over her English even a little. Unlike her adversary.

“I am happy to meet you. I have heard a lot about you from Rashid. I think your wanting to meet me shows wisdom on your part.”

This blasted woman! How dare she!

“It pleases me, naturally, for you to see me, so that you can form an idea of what your husband loves. Rashid has suffered a lot, and you must work to improve yourself, from the inside and out, so that you can move up to the standard he wants and needs. So that you can come up to my level.”

Gamrah, who had never expected an offensive such as this, found that the cat had gotten hold of her tongue. Even without understanding Kari’s speech completely, what Gamrah did absorb was enough to make her suddenly snap out of her stunned silence and explode in Kari’s face, cursing in weak English and in Arabic, too. Kari burst into shameless laughter at the furious sentences that made absolutely no sense, and Gamrah felt herself getting smaller and weaker in front of her. Utterly brazen, Kari took out her cell phone and called up Rashid while his wife watched. She told him that she was in Chicago and was on her way to see him, and would come to wherever he was.

Gamrah didn’t need any astrology book to tell her what sort of an expression Rashid the Leo would have on his face when he showed up at home after his lover had personally told him everything that had taken place between her and his wife. That was the reason Gamrah had delayed meeting the fallen woman until she was sure that she was pregnant. She had long heard her mother and female relatives repeating the wisdom of previous generations, that if all else fails, pregnancy was the only way to ensure that a marriage continues. (Notice that I say continues and not succeeds.)

Less than an hour after Gamrah had seen Kari, Rashid came home. If only he had not.

“C’mon. Get up!”

“Where are we going?”