Girls of Riyadh

Then Lamees asked Fatimah about some photographs she had seen in the wedding album of Fatimah’s older sister. At the time, she thought they were strange but refrained from asking about them. There were photos showing the bride and groom dipping their bare feet in a large silver basin, coins scattered around the bottom. Two grandmothers were pouring water over the couple’s feet. This was just one of their wedding traditions, Fatimah told her, akin to the practice of drawing patterns in henna on the bride’s hands or the elaborate unveiling ceremony. They would rub the bride’s and groom’s feet in water that had been blessed by having verses from the Qur’an and certain prayers recited over it. Coins were tossed in front of their feet as alms to bless their marriage.

Fatimah answered her friend’s questions simply and directly, laughing at the surprise and wonder on her face. When the conversation started to go too far, though, they both sensed the tension in the air. Either one of them could at any moment say something that would appear to disparage the other’s version of her faith. So they stopped the question-and-answer session and moved quietly into the living room to watch the popular sitcom Tash ma Tash the Saudi TV aired every Ramadan after Fotoor time. At least that was something that both Sunnis and Shiites in Saudi Arabia agreed on!

Tamadur was first to reject her sister’s relationship with this rejectionist. She made it very clear to Lamees that all of the girls she knew at college were making fun of the friendship.

“Lamees, wallah, I heard the girls saying things about her that are really bad! She lives by herself! Her family is in Qatif* so she can do whatever she wants while she’s in Riyadh for school. She goes out whenever she wants and comes home whenever she feels like it. She visits whoever she wants to, and whoever she wants visits her, too.”

“They’re lying. I went to her place and I saw how tough the security men were over there. They don’t let anyone in, and she can’t leave the place on her own, no way. Her brother has to be there for her to get out.”

“Lamees, whether it’s true or not, why do we need to be involved in this? If everyone is talking about her today, tomorrow they’ll talk about you, and they’ll say you’re a bad girl just like her! What is it with you? From Fadwa the psycho to Sarah the princess to Fatimah the Shiite? And the best friend you ever had is an American rebel that doesn’t worry about what people think!”

Lamees frowned at her sister’s mention of Sarah, the girl from the Saudi royal family who enrolled at their high school for senior year. Lamees had genuinely adored Sarah. The princess bewitched her with her modesty and her high principles—bewitched her in part because Lamees had never expected a princess to be anything but arrogant and pushy. She didn’t care in the least about what the girls said about her relationship with Sarah. They snickered about the fact that Lamees gave the princess wake-up calls every morning. But there was a perfectly good reason for it: Sarah was afraid that, with the huge palace she lived in and the large number of people in it, the servants would forget to wake her up on time. Lamees also used to finish some of Sarah’s homework for her—but not on a regular basis, as certain people claimed. And she only did it when she observed that Sarah was occupied with more important matters, official occasions and family rituals and social duties that Sarah would tell her about in advance. Lamees would invite Sarah to study in her own modest home on the days preceding the exams they had every month, so that Sarah could concentrate on her studying more than she could in the palace. As for the hurtful rumors going around among the girls at school which Tamadur would confront her with—that she was the princess’s servant and would do anything for her—they had no effect—if anything, they brought her closer to her new friend and made her even more anxious to prove her devotion.