Despite my disappointment, I grinned. Daria was smooth, that was for sure. She had spent a week worshipping at the altar of Bilquis, sitting beside her, phoning her every evening, putting on a campaign that would have melted the desert rocks, never mind Bilquis’s stony heart. Then Daria’s candidacy for the debate was announced, and she was the unchallenged queen of Nizamiyyah. Younger girls turned their heads to look at her in awe, older girls with envy, and today at lunch Bilquis walked up to take her rightful place beside Daria and Mishail in front of everyone.
She never made it. The whispers and pointed fingers and laughter stopped her dead in her tracks. I had been watching by Mishail’s side, and Mishail showed me her cell phone, hidden in sandwich paper. Bilquis’s deepest, darkest secrets were all online for anyone in Daria’s now expansive social network to see.
Bilquis had shit her pants in the first grade, too shy to ask the male teacher for permission to go to the bathroom.
Bilquis’s mother was terrified that she might be seen by non-mahram men, so she carried around some breast milk in a vial, presumably to force it down the throat of any male who caught her unawares, making them rada, or permitted to her.
Bilquis had spent the rest of lunch crying and was now wearing her niqab in the classroom to cover her tearstained face.
I kicked out from the ledge, dissatisfied and confused. If I were a truly good person, I’d be happy for Daria and Mishail. If I were a truly evil person, I’d have taken more pleasure in Bilquis’s getting what she deserved.
The bell rang. We left our equipment on the ledge for next time. I helped Mishail through the window, laughing at the romantic picture we made when Mishail landed in my arms.
“You’re so strong,” Mishail said in a fake voice, her arms going around my neck. “My hero.”
“That’s me, fighting off the evil soap bubbles of Riyadh, keeping us from getting sticky.”
“There you are. If you two are done fooling around, Leena, I need to see you in my office. Now.”
I let Mishail down and wiped my hands guiltily as I followed the headmistress. Maryam Madam was upset about something. And she clearly had been for a while, because as soon as we got into the office and closed the door, the headmistress went straight into Phase Three, as if expecting me to catch up.
“I’m not even surprised anymore when this stuff happens, just disappointed,” the headmistress said, pacing the small space so fast she made me dizzy. “I spent all this time trying to understand the loopholes of the system. To even apply for that internship, you’d need your father’s permission. So I wrote to him, and I wrote to the authorities. I called in favors. I did all but use the Sudairi card, because you never know what could happen when you blast that bomb.”
I blinked, trying to keep up. I had heard the rumor that Maryam Madam was one of the Sudairi women, almost as powerful as the Sudairi men. Sure, the Economist and the New York Times had written articles glorifying the Sudairi Seven, the full-blooded brothers of the royal line who acted as a single political bloc, using their influence, or wasta, to shape the country and leave it to their blood-sons. The articles never spoke of the women, not even of Hassa Al-Sudairi, the most powerful queen in our country’s history, the one whom the country’s founder was so obsessed with he married her twice.
“Finally, finally, I got a court order that says in matters of education, until your father is out of prison, my guardian can function as yours, so all I needed to do was get my eleven-year-old to sign a blank sheet of paper—he likes signing things, it makes him feel important—and then I only found out today that since our schools were merged, Naseema and I could submit only one team to this debate.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was torn between being touched at the headmistress’s thoughtfulness and outraged at the thought that my educational future was in the hands of an eleven-year-old boy I’d never met. I fought off the bitter laughter that was now second nature every time I discovered exactly how badly my country was broken.
The headmistress’s gaze grew softer, more calculating.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I know this is disappointing, but I want you to trust me. If our team wins, the minister will gladly give Mishail’s share to the school. All the parents of Daria’s classmates who stopped sending their daughters to school might realize there’s hope if Daria wins. I have to admit it was a brilliant idea from Naseema, balancing the half American with the minister’s daughter, so nobody can attack Daria’s character!”
I swallowed hard to hide my sense of betrayal. All this time, I had thought that Maryam Madam had somehow been outwitted by the crow from Najd National, who had wanted to put her girl first. But no, Maryam Madam had agreed to choose Daria over me. Why did I have to make all the sacrifices?
“Tell you what, Leena. I won’t stop trying to help you, because I know you’ll hold on. These other girls? They haven’t a lick of street sense. They may be smart, but they aren’t clever, and every one of them fancies themselves the next Manal Al-Sharif.”
I squirmed. Of course every girl wanted to be Manal, that queen of the rebellion who had become so famous during the Arab Spring for inciting women to break the law and drive. Like her, every girl wanted to drive around Riyadh with lipstick and sunglasses, making snarky comments to their best friend in the passenger seat who was filming a video that would spread around the world and set fire to a revolution.
“You and I know better, don’t we?” the headmistress said, placing a hand on my cheek.
I closed my eyes and leaned into the touch.
“Yes,” I said. My voice was hoarse, as if I’d been the one ranting this whole time. I said the words the headmistress had once used to get through to me, let them soothe the deep hurt that had been gnawing at me all day.
“Anger puts you in jail; patience lets you prevail.”
8
SHOUFA
In the middle of home economics class, I saw Daria pass Mishail a note. Mishail’s eyes widened upon reading it, and she started turning pages in the novel hidden inside her textbook.
I struggled with myself, torn between wanting to know what the two of them were up to and not wanting to seem pathetic by asking. Mishail patted my arm urgently and handed over the book she was reading.
The book was Love, Lies, and Leila Baxter, in which two unbelievably stupid girls, Leila and Mabel, somehow got into college even though they barely got Bs in school and cried a lot over boys who were even stupider than they were. I skimmed the book, trying to understand why Mishail had passed it to me. Mishail passed me Daria’s note, which just said 120. So I skipped to that page, where Leila met a guy named Mike, who she kept saying was thrilling even though he’d done nothing thrilling beyond wear a black motorcycle jacket. But on the right page, Leila went back to his dorm room with him and lost her virginity.
My eyes flew wide open, and I nearly dropped the book. My shock was mirrored in Mishail’s eyes. We had never read a book with s-e-x in it before. The censors meticulously screened every book, CD, and DVD, erasing all bad words, kisses, and nudity. Even the biology textbooks were covered in black censorship ink, never mind novels and magazines.
Mishail jerked her head, and I read on. In the next chapter, Leila decided she was too young to be tied down, so she dumped Mike and moved on to someone else who was even more thrilling.
I felt a headache coming on. At the end of the class, when the teacher left the room, Daria turned to face us.
“Well?” she asked.
“You’re right,” Mishail said. “I can’t believe it.”
“Right about what?” I asked.
Daria said nothing, just raised her eyebrows at Mishail.
“She’s not going to tell on us,” Mishail said. “She’s not like that.”
“What can’t you believe?” I asked Mishail.
“The love scenes, of course!” Mishail said, louder than she’d intended, because she immediately clapped a hand over her mouth.
Too lat
e. We had an audience, and Zainab and Iman, two girls who sat within earshot, turned around to listen.
“I wish we could go somewhere private,” Daria said with a sigh, but she didn’t seem to mean it, because she explained to the eavesdroppers, “We’re just discussing a book.”
Mishail asked in a low voice, “Do girls in America really do it before they’re married? With multiple people?”
Zainab and Iman gasped in unison.
“Wah, you girls are so sheltered and innocent!” Daria said, shaking her head. “In America, people do it all the time in college. Many of them even start in high school. And everybody drinks. It’s totally normal. It’s their body, so it’s their choice.”
She spoke with all the authority of having lived in New York and gone to an American school before her family moved here. I felt a flush of shame and wondered whether Daria had intended to make us feel small.
“Normal?” Mishail cried. “But how do their parents allow it?”
“Leave their parents, how do they think that’s okay, to even think such dirty things!” Iman said.
I said nothing because I only vaguely knew about sex. The book was full of “hard muscles” and “fierce kisses,” but it gave no practical information about exactly what happened between a man and a woman.
“Oh my God,” Daria said, her strange accent drawing out the words, as if she had to speak slowly to make us village idiots understand. “Anyway, now you know what really happens out there. Of course people have sex before marriage. Not just in America; here, too.”
There was a loud hiss, and Iman covered her ears.
Daria shook her head and said, “Whatever. Even if you wait, chances are your husband won’t. You have to learn all the tricks, otherwise you’ll be a stereotypical Saudi wife, lying there like a dead fish.”
“Daria,” asked little Zainab, “can I read the book next?”
Zainab’s pale heart-shaped face was framed by the black hijab pulled tight around her head. Since we didn’t have to wear a hijab inside the school, this was a sign of her religious piety, which made her request all the more weird. Why did a religious goody-goody want to read a book like that?
“I don’t know,” Daria said.
“It’s okay,” Zainab said, turning bright red. “It … it doesn’t matter.”
There was something about the way she said it that made Daria narrow her eyes.
“I’d be willing to make an exception, just this once. But only if there’s a good reason.”
“You can’t tell anyone, but I’m engaged,” Zainab said, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
“Congrat—” Mishail began, but Zainab shook her head to keep her quiet.
“He comes from a very liberal family,” Zainab continued. “When they came to see my parents for the shoufa, I was wearing my veil over my face. I was already so nervous that he would see my face and decide not to marry me, but then his parents said their son would not consent to the marriage unless he got to speak to the girl first, in private. My parents told me to wait in the study, and when he came in, he asked me to remove my veil.”
“You didn’t tell me that part!” Iman said. “Nobody can ask you to remove your veil. What kind of a Muslim is he?”
Zainab silenced her with a rather majestic wave of her hand. I marveled at it, as it approached Mishail’s in dignity.
“I have nothing to hide from God or man,” Zainab continued. “Besides, he said that a shoufa was supposed to be a viewing after all, and left it up to me. I removed my veil but left my hair covered. And, of course, we left the door open. He left after a few minutes, and later we learned that he consented to the marriage.”
Zainab paused for a second and looked around as if to gauge the impression she was making. “He says that after the engagement, I should kiss him. When I told him I can’t until we’re married, he was really disappointed.”
Still, I said nothing. While it was normal that girls who couldn’t get into college would have to get married, Zainab was only fifteen. Was I next? God forbid.
“Who is he to demand something like that?” Iman asked. “He can’t blackmail you!”
“He didn’t! It’s not like that. He’s a really good man. He would never back out of the marriage or even say anything to me if I didn’t. That’s not the problem. I—I was wondering—”
“You want to kiss him, don’t you?” Daria asked. Her tone was odd, almost jealous.
Zainab’s silence confirmed this. Iman looked ready to cry.
“It’s not dangerous, is it?” Zainab asked. “If it’s just kissing? I don’t know if it’s wrong or not.”
“I don’t think it’s wrong if you’re engaged,” Iman reassured her, rubbing circles on Zainab’s back. Nobody else spoke. I wanted to say that even if it wasn’t wrong, it was probably dangerous, because how would you be able to just stop at kissing? My mother had always said that boys were like cigarettes or drugs: once you got involved, you couldn’t stop.
“It’s not wrong,” Daria declared, and Zainab sat up hopefully. “All right, you can have the book for now. But really, Zainab, you shouldn’t be getting engaged so young. It’s so backward.”
Zainab flinched.
“I know you don’t know any different,” Daria said, “but girls should explore their options, not just be grateful that someone as old as their father is willing to marry them. You should have the self-respect to be willing to wait for true love.” She rubbed Zainab’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hurt you, but—”
“Then why did you?” I snapped.
“Hey, I just tell it like it is. Tell the truth, do you really think it’s right, Zainab’s getting married at fifteen?”
I knew I was caught, but it made me only more furious. “If she were being forced into it, I’d help her get out of it. If she changed her mind later, I’d support a divorce. Her choices are her own.”
I grabbed the book out of Zainab’s hands.
“Even if you do go through with the marriage,” I said to Zainab, shoving the book back at Daria, “you’ll be happier if you’re innocent. If you read this trash, you’ll think you have to look like a supermodel and then give yourself up the first time the guy calls you habibti.”
Those were my mother’s words, not mine. Embarrassment made Zainab’s face look like an overripe tomato. Seeing it, I felt a flush of irritation. Daria dangled the book over Zainab’s still-outstretched hand.
“Up to you,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe you’d rather stay innocent like Leena here, keep your expectations low enough for the guys to accomplish.”
I turned to Mishail for support, and my eyes widened when I realized Mishail’s look was pensive, as if she was actually trying to decide whose side she was on.
“Mishy?” I said, heart beating loudly.
“I was just thinking,” Mishail said, descending from her mysterious mountain of rainbows, “that we should have a party at Daria’s house.”
9
TAAHUD
I sat on the bed, watching Mishail as she knelt on the windowsill and placed her cheek against the wood. Her beige-and-coral frock was of delicate lace. Like the window, it was a kind of lattice that gave the illusion that you could see skin through it.
Absolutely scandalous, and Mishail knew it, because she said with glee, “There will be boys at the party.”
My stomach dropped. I wanted to say, You didn’t tell me that before, but I caught the words before I ended up sounding like Bilquis. I was annoyed with Mishail for enough other reasons. She hadn’t defended me when Daria said I was innocent, making it sound like an insult. In fact, she and Daria were often called away together for debate preparations, so I saw very little of her these days. There wasn’t even time to pick a fight.
“Mishy,” I began.
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave your side. Please? It’s just one night.”
I sighed. I didn’t know why I believed Mishail every single time, why all she had to say was please and
all good sense left the building. It’s just talking on the phone with a boy, no big deal. He’s very decent, nothing’s happened, I promise. It’s just to pass the time, nothing serious.
“I know. I’m here, aren’t I? I just don’t think this is a good idea.”
It was nearly November. It was a long time to have just been talking to boys on the phone. They had to have met or tried to meet. But it was illegal, and muttaween often raided the popular restaurants and cafés to break up dates. Surely Mishail wouldn’t have been that stupid. I shook my head to clear my suspicions, but they snaked their way back in. The muttaween wouldn’t raid the small, dark Pakistani restaurants of the slums in the southern part of the city, or the Ethiopian places in Manfouha that smelled of bleach. No, it was unthinkable that Mishail would have been stupid enough to meet with boys, total strangers, who would take her there. Disgusting.
And yet, if she’d really wanted it—
“When do you ever think having fun is a good idea?” Mishail asked, rolling her eyes. “Loosen up!”
I drew back, surprised at what sounded like irritation in her voice. Hadn’t I always supported her, done whatever it took to satisfy her latest whim? Where was this coming from?
“Besides, Daria isn’t going to be studying tonight.”
My nostrils flared.
“I picked three possible dresses for you,” Mishail went on, as if she hadn’t just twisted the knife in my gut. “The color of your flesh for innocence, the color of your veins for power, or the color of blood if you’re going for sexy.”
I slapped my hands against my sides in despair. Mishail’s fashion ideas always arrived with the suddenness of astrological proclamations.
“The color scheme is also true for roses,” Mishail said, as if by way of explanation.
Being with Mishail wasn’t a roller-coaster ride; it was like being swept up in a dust storm and dashed against all seven pillars of wisdom. It was addictive, and I couldn’t get enough. And these days Mishail seemed to be rationing her time, three nights to me, two to Daria.
If I said anything to restrain Mishail, I knew the balance would flip against me.
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