Girls of Riyadh

Every one of those self-appointed muftis* listened to Firas and then gave him a considered opinion designed to agree with what he was already thinking. They knew he didn’t really want to hear something that contradicted what he was coming to on his own. No, he only asked for advice to shore up his resolve. So they worked hard to bolster his spirits, reassure him and soothe his conscience. They went so far as to warn him to stay away from that young woman who had bewitched him.

“They warned you against me? Me? Are you serious? How do they presume to know me? These guys know nothing about me, or us, and they warn you to stay away from me? And you actually listen to them! So when did you start listening to everyone who came and gave you a fatwa,* a piece of advice as ugly as his face? Or do you just like hearing that you’re not wrong, and that you’re the best, and that this girl you happened to get to know is the one who’s wrong, and that you should leave her because she’s not good enough for you? You, you…who deserve the best! You who have no shame! You come and tell me this stuff after everything I’ve done for you? You bastard, you stupid coward, you ass!”

This time it was Sadeem who broke up with Firas, a mere five days after they got back together. She had no regrets this time, now that she had told him exactly what she thought of him. It was the first time Sadeem had ever raised her voice to Firas, and of course it was the first (and the last) time that she swore at him and insulted him—at least to his face.

There were no tears, no hunger strike, no sad songs—not this time. The end of the long tragic story of forbidden love and loss was more stupid and banal than she could have imagined. Sadeem realized that her love for Firas had far surpassed his love for her. She was embarrassed to remember that she had once imagined that theirs would be among the most heartbreaking and legendary love stories in history.

That night, in her sky-blue scrapbook she wrote:

Can a woman love a man for whom she has lost respect? How many love stories like mine ended after years, in a single night, because the woman suddenly saw the man for what he was?

Men don’t necessarily love the ones they respect, and women are the opposite. They respect only the ones they love!

In the same sky-blue scrapbook that witnessed the blossom of her love for Firas, she wrote down her last-ever poem about him:

What shall I say of the strongest of men

when he’s a little silent drum in his mom’s and dad’s hands?

On his quiet hide they beat the anthem of their tribe

because he’s hollow! He’s empty as the sands

though he had the love that only an ingrate would refuse,

God’s graces be upon him in all the far-off lands!

Then he tells me, I’m a man!

The mind gives me counsel and I’ve listened to it.

So I say to him, and I’m a woman!

I sought my heart’s wisdom, and in the heart I trust!

Sadeem felt for the first time in four years that she no longer needed Firas to survive. He was no longer her air and water. Reuniting with him was no longer the one dream and the hope that kept her alive. That evening was the first, since their initial separation, that she did not pray in the silence of her bedroom for his return. She felt no grief about leaving him. She only felt regret for wasting four years of her life running after the mirage called love.

On the last page of the sky-blue scrapbook, she wrote:

I wanted my love for Firas to continue no matter what, and then with the days passing this love became my whole life, and I started to feel afraid about what would happen if he left, that my life would leave with him. That’s all.