Princess

by Jean P. Sasson

  I was certain Noorah watched us from her bedroom window, for the moment the gate closed behind him, Noorah would begin to call my name with the greatest urgency. None of the thirty-three servants employed in her household would do; she would cry out for me to serve her hot tea.

  Since I had spent my childhood mistreated by the men of my family, I was in no mood to spend the second part of my life abused by women, even Kareem’s mother.

  For the present, I remained mute. But Kareem’s mother was soon to learn that I had faced antagonists much more fierce than an old woman with dark mental recesses. Besides, there is an old Arab proverb that says: “Patience is the key to solutions.” In an attempt to exchange success for failure, I thought it best to heed the wisdom passed down from generations. I would be patient and await an opportunity to reduce Noorah’s power over me.

  Fortunately, I had little time to wait. Kareem’s younger brother, Muneer, had recently returned from his studies in America. His anger at being back in Saudi Arabia bit deeply into the peace of the household.

  Although much has been written about the enforced monotony of women’s lives in Saudi Arabia, scant attention has been given to the wasted lives of many of our young men. True, their lives are bliss compared with that of women; still, much is lacking, and the young men of Arabia spend many languid hours longing for stimulation. There are no movie theaters, clubs, or mixed dining since men and women are not allowed in restaurants together unless they are husband and wife, brother and sister, or father and daughter.

  Muneer, only twenty-two years old and accustomed to the freedoms of American society, did not relish his return to Saudi Arabia. He had recently graduated from business school in Washington, D.C., and had plans to be a liaison for government contracts. While waiting for his opportunity to prove his adeptness in acquiring huge sums of money, a passion with all the royal princes, he began to keep company with a group of princes within the family known for their risky behavior. They gave and attended mixed parties. Foreign women of questionable morals who worked for the various hospitals and airlines were in attendance.

  Drugs were abundant. Many of these princes had become addicted to alcohol, drugs, or both. In their drug- or alcohol-induced haze, their dissatisfaction with their kin who ruled the land festered. Not content with modernization, they longed for Westernization; these young men were ardent for revolution. Not surprisingly, their idleness bred dangerous talk and conduct, and before long, their revolutionary intrigues were common knowledge.

  King Faisal, once a carefree youth himself who was transformed into a pious king, diligently followed the actions of his young kin and attempted, in his solicitous manner, to guide the young men of the family from the excesses of empty lives. Some of the worrisome princes were placed in the family business while others were sent off to the military.

  After King Faisal spoke of his concern about Muneer’s unseemly behavior to his father, I heard loud shouting and angry voices from the study. I, like the other female members of the family, soon found some urgent task in the map room, directly opposite the study. With eyes on the maps and ears tuned to the shouting, we gasped when we heard Muneer accuse the ruling family of corruption and waste. Muneer swore that he and his friends would bring the changes so direly needed in the kingdom. With curses on his lips and a call for rebellion, he stormed out of the villa.

  While Muneer claimed the country needed to move into the future, his commitment was vague and his real activities troubling. His was a sad tale of misjudgment; alcohol and easy money had seduced him.

  Few foreigners today are aware that alcohol was not banned to nonbelievers (non-Muslims) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prior to 1952. Two separate and tragic events involving royal princes brought about the ban by our first king, Abdul Aziz.

  In the late 1940s, Prince Nasir, the son of our ruler, returned from the United States a different man than the one who had departed the kingdom. He had discovered the enticement of the combination of alcohol and uninhibited Western women. In his assessment, alcohol was the key to idolization by women.

  Since Nasir held the position of governor of Riyadh, he found few barriers to his ability to maintain secret supplies of the desired liquid. Nasir held forbidden parties, entertaining men as well as women. In the summer of 1947, after a late-night gathering, seven of the partakers died from drinking wood alcohol. Some of the dead were women.

  Nasir’s father, King Abdul Aziz, became so incensed at this needless tragedy that he personally beat his son and ordered him to jail.

  Later, in 1951, when Mishari, another son of the king, while intoxicated, shot and killed the British pro vice-consul and almost killed the man’s wife, the old King’s patience expired. From that time forward, alcohol was banned in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and black-marketing schemes were born.

  The people of Saudi Arabia react to the prohibited much in the same manner as people of other cultures: The forbidden becomes even more enticing. Most Saudi men and women I know drink socially; a large number have acquired serious addiction to the substance. I have never been in a Saudi home that did not have a large assortment of the finest and most expensive alcoholic beverages to offer to guests.

  Since 1952, the cost of alcohol had risen to SR 650 for a bottle of Scotch ($200). A fortune could be made in importing and selling the illegal drink. Since Muneer and two cousins who were high-ranking princes were of the opinion that alcohol should be legalized, they banded their energies and soon became fabulously wealthy trucking illegal alcohol from Jordan.

  When border guards became suspicious of the cargo, they were paid off. The only obstacles to the illegal importation of alcohol are the ever-roving bands of the committees for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. These committees were formed by the mutawas, religious men who tremble in anger at the effrontery of members of the Saudi Royal Family who, above all others, are presumed to uphold Islamic law, yet prove time and again that they consider themselves above the teachings of the Prophet.

  One of these committees soon was Muneer’s undoing and unwittingly provided the solution to my obtrusive mother-in-law. It was a Saturday, our first day of the week (Muslims celebrate their religion on Fridays), a day none of Kareem’s family will ever forget.

  Kareem sullenly walked through the doorway, weary from a hot, trying day at his office, and came upon his mother and wife in a rough shoving match. When she saw her son, Noorah widened the twilight war with her new daughter-in-law by sobbing and loudly proclaiming to Kareem that I, Sultana, was filled with disrespect for his mother, and that for no apparent reason, I had started the brawl with her.

  As she fled the scene she pinched me on the forearm, and I, in a widening mood of anger, rushed after her and would have taken a swing at her but for Kareem’s intervention. Noorah looked hard at me and turned to Kareem. She hinted darkly that I was an unfit wife, and that if he investigated my activities, he would be prompted to divorce me.

  Any other day Kareem might have laughed at our ridiculous and infantile display, for women with little but time on their hands tend to maneuver themselves into numerous squabbles. But on that day he had been informed by his London broker that over the previous week he had lost more than a million dollars in the stock market. In his black mood, he rushed to meet violence with a vengeance. Since no Arab man will ever contradict his mother, Kareem slapped me three times across the face. They were slaps meant to insult, since they accomplished little more than to redden my jaw.

  My strong character was formed by age five. I have the tendency to be nervous at the sight of trouble looming. As the danger draws near, I become less nervous. When the peril is at hand, I swell with fierceness. As I grapple with my assailant, I am without fear and fight to the finish with little thought of injury.

  The battle was on. I swung at Kareem with a rare and priceless vase that just happened to be nearby. He saved his face by a quick move to the left. The vase shattered as it struck a Monet painting worth hundreds
of thousands of dollars. The vase and the water lily painting were destroyed. In a fine fury, I grabbed an expensive Oriental ivory sculpture and threw it at Kareem’s head.

  The crashing and banging, along with our shouts, alerted the household. Women and servants burst suddenly upon us with loud cries. By this time, Kareem realized I was going to destroy the room, which was filled with his father’s beloved treasures. To stop me, he punched me in the jaw. Inky darkness surrounded me.

  When I opened my eyes, Marci was standing above me, dripping cold water on my face from a soaking cloth. I heard loud voices in the background and assumed that the excitement over my fight with Kareem was continuing.

  Marci said no, the new disturbance concerned Muneer. Kareem’s father had been summoned by King Faisal regarding a container of alcohol that had leaked the illegal substance in a trail down the streets of Riyadh. The Egyptian driver had stopped at a shop for a sandwich and the pervasive smell of alcohol had caused a crowd to gather. Detained by a member of one of the committees to prevent vice, he, in his fear, had volunteered the name of Muneer and one other prince. The head of the Religious Council had been alerted and he had contacted the king. The king was in a rare rage.

  Kareem and his father left the villa to return to the king’s palace. The drivers were sent in search of Muneer. I nursed my swollen jaw and plotted a new plan of revenge on Noorah. I could hear her cries of grief; I gathered myself and walked down the circular staircase, sniffing the air for her sobs. I, a woman far removed from sainthood, wanted to see and feel the full pleasure of her distress. I followed her cries to the sitting room. I would have smiled but for my painful jaw. Noorah was crumpled in a comer of the sitting room, crying out for Allah to save her beloved Muneer from the wrath of the king and the men of religion.

  Noorah saw me and instantly quieted. After long moments of silence, she looked at me with contempt and said, “Kareem has promised me he will divorce you. He agrees that ‘Who grows up on a habit will die with it’ (Arab proverb), and you have grown up wild. There is no place for such a one as you in this family.” Noorah, expecting tears and pleas, which are common from those deemed helpless, searched my face closely when I replied that I myself was going to demand a divorce from her son. I declared that Marci was at that very moment packing my bags; I would leave her oppressive home within the hour. As an added insult, I called over my shoulder that I was going to influence my father into calling for Muneer to be made an example for those who so disdain the laws of our faith. Her precious son would more than likely be flogged or jailed, or both. I left Noorah with her jaw hanging in fear.

  The tables had turned. My voice rang with a confidence I did not feel. Noorah had no way of knowing if I possessed the behind-the-scenes power that could accomplish my threats. She would celebrate if her son divorced me; she would be mortified if I were the one to seek a divorce. It is difficult, but not impossible, for a woman in Arabia to divorce her husband. Since my father was a prince closer in blood to our first king than Kareem’s father, Noorah had a moment of fear that I could be successful in my claim to call for Muneer’s punishment. She had no knowledge that my father would more than likely turn me out of our home for my imprudence, and that I would have nowhere to turn.

  Appropriate actions to follow my bold threats were required. When Marci and I appeared at the door loaded with traveling cases, the household broke open like an explosion. By coincidence, Muneer, located at the home of a friend and ordered home, had just arrived with one of the drivers. Unaware of the seriousness of his predicament, he swore when I informed him that his mother had brought about the pending divorce of her eldest son.

  A wave of perverse optimism swept through my body as Noorah, incited into action by the possibility of my vociferous wrath, insisted I not leave the house. The double crisis had impaired Noorah’s resolve; she emerged thoroughly weakened in our bitter feud. After much pleading on her part, I reluctantly remained.

  I was sleeping when Kareem returned, exhausted from an evening of mortification. I overheard his appeal to Muneer to consider the name of their father before committing acts that were forbidden. I did not have to strain to hear Muneer’s insolent response, accusing Kareem of helping to oil the mammoth machine of hypocrisy that was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

  King Faisal was revered by most Saudis for his dedicated and devout style of life. Within the family itself, he was held in deep respect by the elder princes. He had led our country from the dark days of King Sa’ud’s rule into a position of regard and even admiration from some quarters. But there was a deep divergence between the elder princes and the younger princes within the family.

  Devoured by desire for unearned wealth, these young men of the family hated the king, who cut their allowances, prohibited their entry into illegal businesses, and chided them when they strayed from the path of honor, There was not even a flicker of compromise between the two camps and trouble continuously brewed. That night, Kareem slept a great distance from me in our large bed. I heard him through the night as he tossed and turned. I knew he was plunged in dark thoughts. I had a rare touch of guilt as I pondered the severity of his troubles. I decided that if my marriage survived that day’s grievous wounds, I would temper my attitude.

  The next morning, a new Kareem emerged. He failed to speak or acknowledge my presence. My good intentions of the previous night vanished into the pale morning light. I told him in a loud voice that I thought a divorce best. In my heart I longed for him to appeal for peace.

  He looked at me and replied in a dry, frightening voice, “Whatever you think, but we will settle our differences when this family crisis is behind us.” Kareem continued to shave, as if I had said nothing out of the ordinary.

  This new foe, indifference, quieted me and I sat, humming a tune, as one unconcerned, while Kareem finished his dressing. He opened the bedroom door and left me with this parting thought: "Sultana, you know, you deceived me with your warrior’s spirit, hidden behind the smile of a woman.”

  After he departed, I lay in the bed and sobbed until I was exhausted.

  Noorah coaxed me to the table of peace and we settled our differences with gestures of love. She sent one of her drivers to the jewelry souq to purchase a diamond necklace for me. I hurriedly traveled to the gold souq and purchased the most expensive gold breast-plate necklace I could find. I spent more than SR 300,000 ($80,000) and cared little what Kareem would say. Now I saw the possibility of peace with a woman who could cause me endless grief should my marriage be saved.

  Weeks passed before Muneer’s fate was decided. Once again, the family saw no benefit in publicizing the misadventures of the royal sons. The wrath of the king was somewhat tempered by the efforts of my father and various princes who sought to downplay the incident as one of a foolish young man recently influenced by the evils of the West.

  Noorah, thinking that I had somehow influenced my father, was grateful and responded by exclamations of the joy in her heart for having such a one as I as her daughter-in-law. The truth was never revealed: that I spoke not a word to my father. His interest stemmed from the very real fact that I was married into the family and he did not desire association with Kareem’s brother should a scandal arise. His concern was for himself and Ali. Even so, I was thoroughly pleased at the outcome and was a heroine, admittedly undeservedly, in my mother-in-law’s eyes.

  Once again, the mutawas were quieted by the king’s efforts. King Faisal was held in such high esteem by the Religious Council that his appeals were heard and heeded.

  Muneer was brought into his father’s business and sent to Jeddah to manage the new offices. To buy off his discontent, he was awarded large government contracts. Within a few months, he told his father he wanted to wed, and a suitable cousin was found and his happiness increased. Within months he began to gain weight and joined the ranks of the royal princes who live for the deal of making more and more money until their bank accounts overflow and produce enough income from the interest to rival t
he budgets of small countries.

  Kareem had moved into a separate bedroom the day of our conversation. Nothing his mother or father could say or do persuaded him to reconsider our decision to divorce.

  Much to my horror, one week after our estrangement, I discovered I was pregnant. After much soul-searching, I decided I had no option but to abort my pregnancy. I knew that Kareem would never agree to a divorce if he discovered I was with child. But one such as I had no use for a husband under duress.

  I was in a dilemma, for abortions are not common in my land—many children are desired by most—and I did not have the slightest clue where to go and whom to see.

  My investigation was delicate. Finally, I entrusted my secret to a royal cousin who informed me that her younger sister had become pregnant the year before while vacationing in Nice. She had been unaware of her condition and returned to Riyadh. Her fear of her father finding out was such that she had attempted suicide. The mother had shielded the daughter’s secret and had located an Indian physician who, for excessive fees, performed abortions for Saudi women. I carefully planned my escape from the palace to the offices of the abortionist. Marci was my confidante.

  I was waiting, despondent, in the physician’s office when a red-faced Kareem burst through the door. I was a veiled woman among other veiled women, but he recognized me by my unusual silk abaaya and my red ltalian-made shoes. He pulled and pushed me through the door, screaming to the receptionist that the office had best be closed immediately for he, Kareem, was going to see the doctor in prison.

  I was smiling beneath my veil and in the best of tempers as Kareem alternately professed his love for me and cursed me. He glittered and he glared! He cast away my fears of losing him as he vowed that he had never considered divorce; his stance was merely a combination of pride and anger.

  Kareem had discovered my plan when Marci divulged the secret to another maid in the house. This maid had gone directly to Noorah, and my mother-in-law had frantically located Kareem in the office of a client and hysterically reported that I was going to kill her unborn grandchild.