Girls of Riyadh

Here come the truly serious questions: Do my friends deserve to undergo such a sacrifice? Is it worth all the accusations that will be meted out to me and to them (in addition to those rebukes that have already been kindly sent my way) if my real name becomes known?

I am anxious to hear your views and advice. Write to me.

Gamrah’s mother prodded her daughter to meet Abu Musa’ed, an army general and a longtime friend of her uncle’s. This Abu Musa’ed was over forty. He had been married, but in the ten years he had spent with his wife, God had not blessed him with children. For some reason, everyone used to called him Ubo Musa’ed—father of Musa’ed—anyway. He had divorced his wife and was looking for another, younger one who would provide him with the son he was longing for. (Incidentally, just as he decided to marry again news reached him that his former wife had gotten pregnant by her second husband.) He put the troublesome issue of finding a fertile wife on the table for his friends to toss around. No sooner did his friend Abu Fahad, Gamrah’s uncle on her mother’s side, hear this than he nominated his sister’s daughter. How utterly devoted he was to his niece’s best interests, he thought triumphantly.

So here she was. When Abu Musa’ed came to call, Gamrah sat a little apart, but not too far away, and went about inspecting him with a scrutiny she had not practiced on Rashid when, three years before, he had presented himself as a suitable husband. She no longer was hampered by that old bashfulness of hers, nor was she in danger of tripping over her own feet.

The man wasn’t as old as she had imagined; he looked to be in his late thirties. No gray in his mustache, but there were a few silver hairs along the temples, escaping from beneath his white ghutra.*

Her uncle knew Abu Musa’ed very well and so her father’s role in all of this seemed of little importance. Her father had every intention of getting up from his chair and disappearing for a few moments (as the mother had advised him to do) so that his daughter would have a chance to talk to this potential fiancé, an opportunity she had not been given in her first marriage. Her father was waiting for the uncle to rise. The uncle did not budge, however. He couldn’t care less about any entreaties from his sister, who was waving furiously at him from behind the door. Gamrah’s uncle simply stayed put, anxious and rigidly alert for the tiniest lapse, the slightest turn or look or whispered sign from Gamrah, that would allow him to vent his anger on her and on her mother, should Abu Musa’ed withdraw from the scene.

But Abu Musa’ed ignored Gamrah’s presence entirely. He turned his attentions to her uncle, chatting with him about the latest share prices. His impolite attitude thoroughly disgusted Gamrah. It was all she could do not to walk out of the room even though she had made her entrance no more than a few moments before. But suddenly Abu Musa’ed set off a bomb that got her to stay long enough to see whether it would blow everything to smithereens.

“Now, as you know very well,” he started in, talking to her uncle, “I’m a Bedouin and a soldier, and I ain’t interested in makin’ clever little chitchat with you fancy city folk. I heard your niece has a little boy from her first husband. So the fine print as I see it is, the boy stays here with his grandmother. To clarify, here, I am not gonna raise a kid who isn’t my own, he is not welcome in my house.”

“But Abu Musa’ed,” responded Gamrah’s uncle, “the boy is still very young.”

“Young or old, that doesn’t matter to me! This is the fine print on the contract. I am just being frank about it and that shouldn’t upset you or her father.”

Her uncle tried to defuse the bomb, even if too late. “Be patient, Abu Musa’ed, and only good will come of your patience, God willing.”

Gamrah was shifting her gaze from her father to her uncle to Abu Musa’ed. It hadn’t occurred to any of these men to consult the person who had the biggest stake in this, and who happened to be sitting there in front of them, even if she was as silent and stiff as a wooden plank.

Gamrah stood up and left the room, but only after giving her uncle a scathing look.