Girls of Riyadh

The gentle words and mournful tune pierced straight through Sadeem’s heart. The image of Firas clouded over her mind, and though she was surrounded by people on the dance floor, she danced as if it were only Firas who was watching her.

When it was time for dinner, they all filled their plates from the buffet and started talking about Sadeem’s departure the next day. Sadeem was feeling so sad that her chest was constricted in sorrow, and she did not know how she would ever emerge from the ordeal whole again. As they talked and ate, one of the cell phones lying on the table beeped twice, indicating that a text message had been received. Every one of the girls dove for her phone, hoping that she would be the one who got the text from someone who had remembered her at that particular moment. Lamees was the lucky one. Knowing that his darling was attending a wedding party, Nizar had written from home saying: “May our wedding be the next, habibti!”**

HOURS LATER, Sadeem stared at the suitcases and boxes that filled her room, ready to be shipped to Khobar. She felt a lump rise in her throat as she traced the scratching she had made on the edge of her desk as a child and gazed at the magazine pictures of celebrities and her friends’ photos plastered on her closet door. She picked up her sky-blue scrapbook and pencil, and wrote.

Letter to F: It is now 3:45 a.m., local kingdom time.

In a few minutes the dawn call to prayer will echo through the city of Riyadh. You must be on your way to the mosque at this very moment, since your prayers in the eastern region start a little earlier than ours do here. Or are you in Riyadh right now? I don’t even know whether the two of you are living here or there.

Do you still always go to the Friday prayer service? Or has the pleasure of sleeping at her side made you lazy about getting up and performing what is due to God?

I’m dying to hear your voice. If only I could wake you up right now! Without you, the world is a gloomy place. The night is darker than it should be. The silence is worse, and lonelier.

Oh, God…how much I love you!

Do you remember when you called me from your private jet as you were on your way to Cairo? I don’t remember the reason we argued that day, but I do remember how depressed I was that you were traveling somewhere when I was still so upset.

About half an hour after I got your text message saying good-bye from the airport, I got a call from a long and unfamiliar phone number. It didn’t occur to me that it could be you. I screamed when I heard your darling voice, I was so happy! Your voice washed my heart clean of whatever pain was there. Firas, my love! I yelled. Didn’t you leave?

You told me that your body was up in the air but your heart was on the ground with me, trying to soothe me. You went on teasing me and flirting with me for a whole half hour. I practically melted away, I was so madly in love with you!

I wish you were with me right now.

Today, I went to a wedding party. I danced there imagining you standing in front of me, and I reached out to you but of course you weren’t there.

I lament you at night like twenty death rites, while you’re by her side,

May God not forgive you, nor forgive her through life,

Nor bring you back to me, nor give her bliss

I love you…

My love who I HATE!

Did I tell you that I am traveling to you tomorrow?

Finally, in Khobar, I will live by your side. That city has brought us together again: me and you, and now Madame Wife, too!

How am I going to drive down that road, all the time remembering when you went by, on the same road, three years ago, beside my car, guarding me from afar? I can’t imagine myself on the highway heading east without you. No, it’s more. I can’t imagine myself in any place without you. I can’t imagine that I will be able to go on in this life without you. It’s all because of him! God punish you, Waleed, who ruined my life! God get my revenge on you.

42.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: December 24, 2004

Subject: Lamees Marries the First and Only Love of Her Life

From a sensitive woman’s heart springs the happiness of mankind.—Khalil Gibran