Girls of Riyadh

Even more, Gamrah thought, Lamees is so lucky with her mother, God protect her! Her mother is very smart and cultivated and she often sits and talks with Lamees, and with Tamadur, too, and they spill their hearts out to her freely because she’s understanding. My poor little mama is so old-fashioned and unsophisticated. Every time we asked anything of her, all she ever answered was no! We shouldn’t do this, we shouldn’t say that! She always criticized everything. Like that day when Shahla went and bought a few thongs and sexy pajamas, saying all her friends had some. Mama really gave it to her. She grabbed it all and threw it in the garbage, screaming, “This is the last straw! You want to dress like a hussy and you haven’t even gotten married!” She went straight to the old outdoors shops of Taiba and Owais*and bought her a dozen old-fashioned, matronly nightgowns and brought them home, insisting that Shahla was going to like them! She handed them over and said, “This is it for you, missy, and those other things you can have only when you’re a married woman.”

Even Michelle, after Faisal dropped her, was luckier than I was, Gamrah thought. Michelle’s family had let her study in America, while Gamrah wasn’t even allowed to leave the house by herself. And in her rare visits to Sadeem’s house, her mother insisted that one of her brothers deliver her in person and bring her back even though the driver was always around. You’re so lucky, Michelle. You can relax and live your life the way you want to! There’s no one shadowing you and breathing down your neck, asking every minute where you’re going and where you’ve been! You’re free and you don’t have to hear people’s relentless gossip.

Whenever she was with her three friends, Gamrah sensed an enormous gap that separated her from them, now that they had entered the university. What had happened to Lamees? She had changed. Why would she sign up for courses in self-defense and yoga? Ever since joining the lousy College of Medicine, she had been acting weird and had grown away from her old friends, especially in her way of thinking.

Meanwhile, Michelle had become truly frightening lately, the way she talked about freedom and women’s rights, the bonds of religion, conventions imposed by society and her philosophy on relations between the sexes. She was continually advising Gamrah to become tougher and meaner in asserting herself and not to give an inch when it came to defending her own rights.

Sadeem was the one Gamrah felt closest to. She seemed to have gotten more mature since spending her summer break in England. Her self-confidence had been bolstered by traveling alone and working and reading, it seemed. Or, more likely, it came from being loved by a man with the status of Firas.

Gamrah felt that she was the only one who hadn’t really changed since high school. Her concerns and interests were pretty much the same. Her ideas had not evolved and her old dreams had not given way to new ones. Her sole aspiration was still marriage to a man who would snatch her away from her solitude and make up for the hard times she had seen. How much she wished that she could draw strength from Michelle, intelligence from Sadeem and a measure of boldness from Lamees! How much she wanted to transform herself over into a personality as magnificent and vivacious as her friends. But, she despaired, as always she was just not able to keep up with them. God had created her with this weak personality, a character she herself scorned. She would always be a few steps behind. All her life.