Girls of Riyadh

The women complained about his naughty behavior and ordered Gamrah to send him over to the men’s section to pray. Gamrah found his little antics adorable but would try to reprimand her son in front of the other ladies, fighting to keep from laughing. Saleh would give her one of his cute smiles, encouraging her to let out the laughter she was suppressing, as if he knew that she didn’t mean to scold him.

Riyadh Tarawih prayers* usually ended around eight-thirty or nine P.M. and the shops opened their doors right after that. Gamrah would make her rounds, from the seamstress who was sewing the tablecloths and chair coverings for the wedding hall to the restaurant where she tasted new dishes every evening in order to select what pleased her most for the wedding buffet. She had visits to the florist and the printer who was doing the invitations, and many others, in addition to her many trips to the mall with Lamees to get whatever Lamees was still lacking for her trousseau.

Gamrah wouldn’t get home before two or three in the morning, although during the final third of the month she would return an hour or two earlier, in time to do the Qiyam prayers** at the mosque with her mother and sisters. At first, Gamrah’s mother wouldn’t let her go out on these work missions alone, but she began going easier on her daughter when she noticed how seriously Gamrah took it all. What most impressed Um Gamrah was when she saw her daughter make her first profit—for arranging a dinner party in the home of one of Sadeem’s professors at the university—and hand it over to her father, who finally was persuaded of the suitability of his daughter’s odd work. Her mother had tried to force her sons to accompany their sister in her nightly outdoor activities, but they refused, one and all, and she eventually let it drop. So Gamrah was free to go about her work, sometimes in the company of her sister Shahla, or with Um Nuwayyir, or—most of the time—with Saleh and no one else.

On the long-awaited day, Lamees looked more gorgeous than ever. Her long chocolate-brown hair flowed down her back in pretty waves. Her mother-of-pearl-studded gown dropped softly from her shoulders, draping gracefully in front and revealing her upper back before widening gradually until it reached the ground. Her tulle veil flowed from her head down her bare back. One hand held a bouquet of lilies and the other clasped Nizar’s hand. He was softly invoking God’s name over her before every step and helping her lift the long train of her gown.

Lamees’s friends could see the unadulterated joy in her eyes as she danced with Nizar after the procession, amid a circle of women, his relatives and hers. Their friend Lamees was the only one who had fulfilled the dream they all had, the dream of marrying the first love of their lives.

GAMRAH: May God’s generosity put us there next! Just look at those two blissed-out faces out there on the dance floor! Ah, how lucky is the girl who gets a Hijazi man! Where are our men when it comes to these romantic gazes of Nizar toward his bride? I swear to God, a Najdi would kill you if you said to him, sitting up there on the bridal dais, “Just turn toward me a little, and smile, for God’s sake! Instead of sitting there frowning as if somebody had dragged you here against your will!”

SADEEM: Remember how Rashid reacted when we told him to kiss you during the wedding? And look at this Nizar, all he does is kiss Lamees’s forehead every couple of minutes, and then her hands and her cheeks. You’re right, men from Jeddah are a different species.

GAMRAH: And look how considerate he is, he’s happy to let her stay in Riyadh while he’s in Jeddah, until she graduates and can move there. I swear to God he’s a real man, God bless both of them and make them happy.

MICHELLE: But isn’t that the way it should be? Or did you think he was not going to let her finish her studies, or that he would force her to finish in Jeddah because he’s there? This is her life, and she’s free to run it as she wants, just as he’s free to run his as he wants. Our problem here is that we let men be bigger deals than they really are. We need to realize—assume, even—right from the start that things like letting us graduate are not even optional, it’s just what makes sense, and our eyes should not fly out of our heads if one of these men actually does something right!

SADEEM: Shut up, both of you. You two are giving me a headache! Let’s just watch those lovebirds over there. They look so cute when they’re dancing together. Just look at how he looks at her! His eyes are glazing and he looks like he’s going to die of happiness. Oh, my poor heart! That’s what I call love.

GAMRAH: Poor Tamadur. Don’t you think she must be jealous because her twin sister got married before she did?