Mabrouka came charging into my room. “You rotten wench! You’re thinking of marriage when you haven’t even been here three years yet! You’re obviously nothing but trash!” Amal, too, came to read me the riot act. “Really, my pet, they’re right. You can’t be in love with that queer! He’s not for you!” Their words only reinforced my attraction to him. Jalal was sweet. And he was the first man to tell me he loved me. What did the scorn of these deranged people matter anyway?
A few months later they announced that the Guide was going to make a grand tour through Africa. Two weeks, five countries, visiting a horde of heads of state. Much was at stake, that was clear; I felt it in Mabrouka’s agitation. And the entire household would travel with him. Gaddafi’s “daughters,” dressed in their lovely uniforms, were to be a special credit to him. Myself included! So, at five o’clock in the morning on June 22, 2007, I became part of a great convoy heading for the airport of Mitiga. No waiting, no formalities whatsoever. The gates were wide open and the cars went directly onto the tarmac to drop us at the foot of the steps of the plane. Half the plane was filled with girls in khaki, beige, and blue uniforms. Blue was reserved for the Special Forces, the real women soldiers—heads high, stares icy, their training evident. Or so I was told. Like Amal, I wore khaki. A fake soldier. A real slave. In the back of the aircraft I noticed Jalal, and I was happy. The Guide was traveling in a different plane.
We disembarked in Bamako, the capital of Mali, and I could never have imagined the welcome we received—pure frenzy! The red carpet was laid down for Gaddafi, who strutted out in a white suit with a green map of Africa sewn over the chest. The president of Mali, various ministers, and a host of officials were competing to pay their respects to the “King of kings of Africa.” And there was the crowd—joyful, excited, almost in ecstasy, singing, screaming, dancing, and shouting, “Welcome, Muammar!” There were folklore groups, traditional dancers, and people wearing Dogon masks, all of them shaking and swaying. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Mabrouka quickly took control of the situation and signaled us to assemble at one side and get into a group of 4x4s that were ready to take us away, driven by our usual Libyan chauffeurs. It seemed that all of Bab al-Azizia was on the move. The crowd had gathered on the route of the convoy and kept on waving and chanting Gaddafi’s name. I was flabbergasted. How was it possible for him to be so loved? I wondered. Were they sincere? Or were they as brainwashed as everyone in Libya?
We arrived at the Libya Hotel, where Sana, a woman from the Department of Protocol, made us wait in a room where we were able to smoke quietly. And then we left again in a convoy. Almost a hundred vehicles, tents, and food—utterly insane logistics. The roads were blocked off, the Africans were applauding as we passed, and the girls inside the cars were laughing. It was a cheerful atmosphere, almost like a carnival. I felt like I was at the movies. But while we were smiling back at the crowds that greeted us, I couldn’t help but think how madly ironic a situation this was. We’d been let out of our basement to be shown off in the sun and contribute to his glory!
I had no idea what our destination was, or who the presidents, ministers, and ambassadors whom we met were. No idea of the Guide’s personal affairs. We followed, like a royal entourage, without asking any questions. The early part of the journey was grueling, for we drove almost a thousand kilometers from the north to the south of Guinea to Conakry, the capital. The only thing the girls around me were curious about was where we would stay. They were hoping for luxury hotels with nightclubs and swimming pools. But it quickly became clear to me that I wouldn’t have that luck. While Amal and the others went off to a hotel, Mabrouka signaled for me to follow the master, who was staying in an official residence, a kind of château. I had to share my room with Affaf, another girl, but in the middle of the night I was summoned to the Guide. He wasn’t sleeping, was pacing naked around his room, looking somber and anxious. He kept turning, picking up his red towel, wiping his hands on it, concentrating and ignoring my presence. At dawn, he finally hurled himself at me.
During the day I met up with the rest of the group—Amal, Jalal, and all the others. They were in a magnificent hotel and the atmosphere was festive. I’d never seen anything like this before. Mabrouka had demanded that I go back to the château at night, but I couldn’t help following everyone else to the nightclub. With bright colored lights shining on them, the girls were smoking and drinking alcohol, dancing close with African men. Sirte and my family seemed very far away. I’d landed on a planet where there was no room for the values and beliefs of my parents. Where my survival depended solely on qualities or activities they abhorred. A planet where everything was upside down.
Jalal was watching me from afar. I caught his eye, and that was enough to make me happy. But he approached and advised me, “Soraya, the most important thing is that you shouldn’t drink,” which I really liked. He was sweet. The girls, on the other hand, kept on trying to convince me to drink. The music grew louder and louder; the club was packed, the atmosphere heated. Jalal kissed me. It was all completely unbelievable.
I slept at the hotel, in the room of one of the girls. Someone had called Mabrouka to ask for permission for me to stay away that night and, surprisingly, she allowed it. The master must have been busy. There were so many women who had followed him, and I know he collected more along the way. But the next morning it was action stations. “Uniforms, everyone at the ready, everything immaculate,” the protocol woman yelled. “The Guide is going to give a speech in a huge stadium. Everyone must play their part!” The 4x4s brought us to the Conakry stadium, which was filling up with hordes of people, young and old, families with children. There were orchestras, banners, and people in splendid suits and boubous. Before leading us to the official stage, Nuri Mesmari, the chief of protocol, spoke to us: “You are not soldiers, but you must act as if you were really in charge of the Guide’s security. Put yourself inside the skin of actual bodyguards. Look serious, focused, and attentive to everything that’s happening around you.” So I played at being a guard, mimicking Zohra, who had a forbidding expression on her face and looked around as if she were searching for terrorists.
When we came into the stadium, when I heard the roar of voices and saw the throng of more than fifty thousand people who were applauding Gaddafi and singing his praises, it took my breath away. Clusters of women were shouting his name and trying to get near him, touch his clothing, or even kiss him. It was wild. “You poor things,” I said to myself. “You’d do better not to be noticed. He is a dangerous man.” I was thinking of Mama, who might be seeing me on national television and would surely be moved, despite her loathing of Gaddafi. Maybe she’d say to herself that on this one day, at least, I was experiencing something pretty significant. But I thought of my brothers as well. What did they know? What would they think? That thought frightened me. I turned my head away and tried to hide my face. Their likely reaction made my blood run cold.
Gaddafi seemed bolstered by the crowd. He was calling out to them, smiling and laughing with them. He swelled with pride, shaking his fist like an athletic champion or the master of the universe. The other girls were fascinated, but I can assure you that I was not. Not for a second. This is what I saw written on his forehead, between his brown cap and his black sunglasses: “sick, mad, and dangerous.”
And on we went, driving for hours more to the Ivory Coast via Sierra Leone. At the next hotel I had to share my room with Farida and Zohra, which was no problem since the bed was enormous. Everyone was happy and getting ready for the swimming pool. I was dying to go swimming, never having seen a hotel pool like that. But the Colonel could call for me at any moment. “Just say you have your period,” Farida told me. “You know it’s the one thing he’s afraid of. But watch out, they do check! Put some lipstick on a pad.” I thought that was pretty clever. Two hours later Fatiha ordered me in her deep voice to go to the Guide’s residence. I put on a worried look and assured her I was much too
tired. She raised her eyebrows as if I were trying to fool her. “I have my period.”
“Really now! Let me see.”
“You’re not actually going to check me out?”
“Show me!”
It was a humiliating action, but the sight of the pad, sprinkled with water and colored with lipstick, convinced her, and Farida went to the Guide by herself.
So, liberated and lighthearted, I joined the other girls—and Jalal—in the pool. There was music; there were drinks and hookahs. No one was confiding in anyone but it felt like a kind of small rebellion. For a few hours we were allowed some luxury. We were part of Gaddafi’s community, no longer the subhumans he saw us as, and the hotel staff attended to everyone’s needs. For once there was a small compensation for our daily suffering and humiliations, though it was just a fleeting illusion. But it served as a safety valve, and much later on I understood that these rather infrequent moments kept some of us from giving up on life entirely.
Suddenly I heard someone shout: “Soraya!” Fatiha had spotted me. She came toward me, beside herself. “You are supposed to have your period and you’re in the swimming pool?” I felt so sheepish that I couldn’t find anything to say. Then she hit me. “Liar!” Farida had betrayed me. I was brought to the residence immediately. The master’s punishment, they warned me, would match my trickery. But as I was waiting in a small room, Galina came to see me. “Soraya! How could you let yourself be fooled like that? Papa Muammar is in a rage and has ordered me to inspect you . . . My poor little love. You’re putting me in a horrible position. What am I going to tell him?” Nothing. She said nothing. Or rather, she lied to him to protect me. They left me alone the rest of the day.
The next day we continued on the final leg of our trip, traveling to Ghana for the meeting of the heads of state of the African Union in Accra. We were on the road for hours and hours, a journey that never seemed to end. The second night Fatiha came to “inspect” me. No trace of any period. She stared at me coldly, said nothing, but alerted Mabrouka, who gave me an enormous slap before bringing me to Gaddafi. What’s the use of going into detail? He slapped me, beat me up, spat on me, insulted me. I came out with a swollen face and they locked me up in a room, while Galina, I later heard, was instantly sent back to Libya. Mabrouka taunted me from the doorway: “You wanted to escape, did you? No matter where you may go one day, Muammar will find you again, and he’ll kill you.”
7
HICHAM
The trip through Africa didn’t represent the end of my suffering, but it was the end of my total confinement. Was the Guide getting tired of me? Had I passed my expiration date? I don’t know. There never was any logic or explanation. I lived from day to day, depending on his goodwill, no horizon in sight. But the day he returned from his African tour he had Mabrouka call me in and with a pout of disgust tossed out these words at me: “I don’t want you anymore, you slut! I’m going to have you join the revolutionary guards. You’ll be living with them. So get lost!”
After this, Mabrouka gave me a cell phone: “If you feel like contacting your mother . . .” It came as a total surprise! I immediately called Mama. She had noticed me on national television in uniform behind Gaddafi in the stadium in Conakry and seemed almost happy to let me know this. “How I’d love to see you, my darling. I miss you so much!” I felt emboldened enough to make another request of Mabrouka and against all expectations she answered that Mama could come by the following day to see me. At Bab al-Azizia!
Imagining her coming into this universe was, of course, sort of terrifying to me. But I needed her so much, so I explained how to get to the garage, the point from where someone would bring her to the Guide’s residence. I was hoping that everyone would be nice to her. How naïve I could still be! Mabrouka, Salma, and Fatiha were downright obnoxious and callous. “You want to see your daughter? It’s downstairs.” Fortunately, Amal kissed her and let me know she was there, and I ran into her arms, where I immediately broke down crying and wept for a long time. I couldn’t even get a word out. What would I tell her? Where would I start? This basement told my story for me. My sobs must have been unbearable. Mabrouka made fun of my tears, and Mama was hurt by that. And soon we were separated.
A few days later Galina appeared in my room, her face drained of color. The Guide ordered us to come to him together, wanting to know more about the African incident. I was bowled over that he had no more important topics to concern himself with.
“Why did you lie to me saying she had her period?” he asked the nurse.
“I didn’t lie. In young girls the cycle can be quite irregular and their period can be slight.”
“You’re nothing but a liar, and deceitful to boot! Farida told me the truth. As for you, you little whore, go down to your room. You won’t miss anything by waiting.”
That was the last time I saw Galina at Bab al-Azizia. Very much later, at the beginning of the revolution, I would be astounded to see her on television, filmed at the time of her return to the Ukraine, the secret of her experience in Libya buried deep inside her. A few days after that stormy interview, Gaddafi sent for me again, and assaulted my body with such violence that I came out of it all groggy and covered in bruises. Amal G., another girl in the house also named Amal who was usually rather indifferent to my lot, was overcome. “I need to get you out of here for a while!” I didn’t even pick up on it; I had no hope left, the days went by, and I was slowly going under. But she came back to my room with a triumphant look. “Mabrouka says it’s all right for me to take you home to my family!” And she took me away for a few days to her place, or rather to her family’s home, where her mother and her little sister were waiting for her with a heaping plate of couscous.
Three days later she was again given permission to take me out. Even though it was conditional, this freedom was incredible, and I didn’t know what to make of my jailers’ change of face. But the few hours outside of the compound gave me such a boost that I never asked any questions. I wasn’t even thinking of escaping anymore. I had no hopes, no dreams. I was a long-forgotten girl, without any sort of future beyond Bab al-Azizia. One of those women, among so many others, who belonged to their master forevermore.
On that day I couldn’t foresee that another man would come into my life.
Amal G. took me out to lunch in the old fishermen’s quarter near the sea. We were about to leave and she was taking a step backward when a man yelled: “Watch out!” Looking exasperated, he came out of his car, which we’d almost smashed into. But he quickly calmed down. We exchanged a look, a smile, and that was it. I was head over heels. I didn’t even know that feeling existed. An earthquake, with a before and an after. He was about thirty, with a square build, robust, muscular, his gaze as dark as his hair, and laden with energy. Better yet: with boldness. I was stunned. But Amal G. drove off, straight back to Bab al-Azizia, and life returned to its usual routine between the basement and the master’s bedroom, between indolence and submission.
One afternoon I was permitted to go out with her again. She wanted to take her younger sister to a fair and show me the rides. One of them looked like a huge sieve, inside of which riders sat in a circle and held on to the edge, and then the whole thing shook in every direction. We were laughing and screaming, trying to keep our balance, when I realized that the man in charge of the ride was the one we’d seen the other day. Again our eyes crossed, and he increased the speed of the ride. Fear and excitement! The more I laughed as I clung to the side, the more he intensified the shaking. “We’ve seen each other before, haven’t we?” he yelled.
“Yes, I remember. What’s your name?”
“Hicham. Do you have a phone number?”
This was crazy! Completely forbidden and totally fabulous! He didn’t have any paper but told me his number, which I dialed immediately so that he’d have mine in his phone. Amal G. quickly hauled me off elsewhere.
As I was returning to Bab al-Azizia I felt a sweet euphoria. Life was taking on a new hue. I called him from my room, which I knew was crazy. He picked up right away.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At home.”
“It was great to see you again at the fair. Nice coincidence, right?”
“I would have recognized you anywhere.”
“I’d really like to see you again. What do you do in life?”
Oh, that question! I should have expected it. How could I answer it? I didn’t do anything in life. I wasn’t making anything of my life. In fact, I had no life. An abyss. I burst into tears.
“Nothing. I do absolutely nothing.”
“Why are you crying? Tell me!”
“I can’t.”
In tears, I hung up the phone. I was eighteen years old now. The girls at my school had graduated. Some of them were already married. Others had been accepted to the university. I remembered how in middle school I’d dreamed of becoming a dentist. Teeth and smiles were the first thing I looked at in people and I couldn’t keep myself from giving advice on how to take care of one’s teeth, keep them clean and white. A dentist! It was almost laughable. What fun they’d make of me if I told that to people in my basement. They had ruined my dreams, stolen my life, and I couldn’t even talk about it. For what they’d done to me was so shameful that, outside these walls, it was me who became the leper. What could I tell Hicham?
I didn’t even have time enough to ponder the question. They called me upstairs.
Gaddafi's Harem Page 7