by Kim Barnes
We waited for the bus with Cindy Moe and Ronda Taylor, two of the other wives who looked to be in their thirties, all of us wilting in the heat. I listened to them and Ruthie catching up on news of children, plans for a company trip to Ceylon, the preparations already beginning for the annual Christmas pageant. Christian holidays were officially outlawed, they told me, but even the Arabs looked forward to watching the annual pageant enacted on the Dhahran baseball diamond: the American wise men dressed in robes and ghutras, arriving at the stable on camels to pay homage to the blond Virgin Mary, the pale baby Jesus wailing in his manger.
The old Mercedes bus bucked to a halt in front of us, and we climbed aboard, then followed the wide asphalt street onto the sand-humped road. I couldn’t imagine how the Empty Quarter could be any emptier than this desert expanse and remembered Candy’s words—the middle of nowhere. Miles and miles of nothing but sun and sand as far as I could see. As we neared Dhahran, traffic picked up, and the ride became less sedate as we dodged donkey carts and swerved around the hulk of a car abandoned along the roadside. The other drivers tailgated before ripping past, blaring their horns all the while.
“The Ladies’ Limo,” Ruthie said, and sighed. “Sometimes I just want to get in the Volkswagen and gun it right through the gate.”
“What if you did?” I asked.
“If Aramco got to me first, a good scolding, I’d guess.” She peered at the back of the driver’s head. “If the Saudis discovered I’m an Israeli Jew, they would ship me out for sure.”
I looked at her quickly, then away. The only Jews I knew were in the Bible, and I wasn’t sure what I had expected one to look like—just not like Ruthie. I glanced up at the bus driver, who was smiling at us in his mirror.
“Don’t worry,” Ruthie said. “He’s Somali. You can tell by the scars on his face. They mutilate themselves.”
I sat quietly until we reached Dhahran, where the bus dropped us near a blocky concrete building holding a proliferation of Cairo grass at bay. The coolness of the interior hit as hard as the heat. I followed Ruthie down the hallway to an office where a man in black trousers and white shirt sat amid stacks of newsprint and photos, file cabinets left open, a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled papers. He jumped to his feet when we entered.
“Nessie!” Ruthie wrapped his long frame in a tight hug. “Nestor Reedy, this is the friend I told you about, Gin McPhee.”
He thumbed his black-framed glasses back up his nose before turning to me. “You’re the writer,” he said.
I looked at Ruthie, who widened her eyes and gave a tight nod.
“I’ve written some stories,” I said, remembering my diary, my wishful attempts.
“If that’s enough for Ruthie, that’s enough for me.” He puffed his chest and tucked his shirt, which seemed too short for his torso. “Please, ladies. Sit.”
“I need to use the little girls’ room,” Ruthie said. “You two go ahead and take care of business.” She stepped out, and I saw how Nestor watched her and knew he felt as I did: a little bereft.
He righted himself, turned to his desk. “So, you see what we’re up to. Production news, food drives, sports, that kind of thing. We like a few cartoons and jokes sprinkled around. Everyone can use a good laugh.” He mustered a smile that dropped quickly. “The Saudis read and censor everything. Just because we do it doesn’t mean we can write about it. Parties are illegal in Arabia, so don’t use that word. We call dances shindigs or steppers or do-si-dos, and never mention drinking or gambling. Problem is, that’s all we do around here.” He ran the eraser of his pencil down a coffee-stained desk calendar before standing and escorting me to the door. “First assignment, Beachcomber’s Ball,” he said.
The latch clicked shut behind me just as I saw Ruthie laughing with a tall woman about her age, dressed in a nurse’s uniform—platinum hair pinned into a beehive beneath her pointed cap, a way of switching her hips that made her sturdy white shoes bap like a rumba. Ruthie kissed the woman’s cheeks and walked toward me.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Linda Dalton.” She stripped a stick of gum, offered me half. “I like Linda. She can talk about something other than casseroles. She followed her fiancé here. He missed Kentucky. She didn’t. She works at the Dhahran hospital and lives in Singles.”
“She lives in Arabia by herself?” I asked.
“Why not?” Ruthie asked, snapping her gum. “If Lucky ever left me, I’d kill him first, then find a good job. A girl has got to have something to fall back on. What’s your first assignment?”
“The Beachcomber’s Ball.”
“It’s a ball, all right. The Yachting Association puts it on.” She applied fresh powder to her nose. “Let’s see what’s new at Fawzi Jishi’s.”
We climbed back on the bus and sweated in the torrid heat through the long minutes it took the driver to finish his prayers. When we finally began moving, I held my face to the open window, welcoming the hot breeze. As we passed the police station, Ruthie tapped the window and pointed to where a tall T-post was strung with what looked like blackened leaves.
“There,” she said. “Do know what that is?”
I shook my head.
“Saudi justice,” she said. “If someone gets caught stealing, they cut off his hand.”
I peered at the pole as we passed. “Are you sure?” I asked.
She wrinkled her eyes. “What do you think, I’m lying?”
I settled back against the seat, pressed my palms into my lap. “That’s awful,” I said.
“If you’re looking to feel sorry for someone,” Ruthie said, “you’ve come to the right place. Sometimes it’s like a stalag around here.”
I sat quiet, trying to absorb all that Ruthie was telling me, even as I charted the empty miles of sand that separated the compounds. To see al-Khobar on the horizon felt like a discovery, a new planet in the vast solar system of the desert. The bus dropped us near a small courtyard, and a whipping breeze gusted up around us, clearing the littered street. If I’d believed that the desert smelled like nothing, the market smelled like everything: coffee, incense, roasted meat, cardamom. Adobe-like buildings of mud and mortar, some centuries old and faded to the color of sand, others newly constructed and limed a brilliant white, one-story, two-story, three, many with suspended covered walkways along the front, Arab men peering down from the open windows—al-Khobar reminded me of an Old West town, a mix of what once was and what was about to be. Cars rattled past the long-eared goats that bleated and scattered, Arab children close behind. The date palms and jasmine that had been planted along the thoroughfare had somehow taken hold, their roots sinking deep beneath the sand that had been scraped and bladed smooth. Ruthie gestured to where a group of women, some blond and blistered with sun, others tanned the color of sandalwood, laughed over a monkey that dashed to the end of its leash and pinched almonds from their fingers.
“Those are single girls, hired into the secretarial pool,” Ruthie said. “German, Dutch, one way or the other, they have their pick of men. Aramco started shipping them in when the Indian clerks wanted more money. Women will always work for less, especially if they can get a husband in the bargain.”
I listened to the languages that mixed and swirled with the dust, the sounds and smells like the chaos of a carnival. As we moved away from the group, Ruthie touched my elbow. “Watch for the mutaween. You’ll know if they’re coming because everyone will start acting nervous.”
“I thought you said they would leave us alone.”
“Don’t worry. They’re just a bunch of bullies,” she said, “prowling around, trying to take everyone by surprise. Even the natives hate them.”
But I did worry as I followed Ruthie through the nut store, the egg store, the carpet store, the toy store, the stationery store—the hair at the back of my neck electric with foreboding. At the material store, Ruthie did her best to distract me by pointing out the canvas and lace, Dynel, and imitation fur. And then the refrigerators
, transistor radios, fingernail polish, electric shavers, shelves of Danish meats, brown-and-serve rolls, powder bleach, and Spangles chewing gum that held their place alongside tooled leather sandals, antique urns, tapestries, and melons. At the As-Sharq Record Store, Ruthie squealed like a teenager over the Beatles’ album Revolver.
“I didn’t think this would ever get here,” she said, hugging it to her chest, and I remembered my grandfather in Shawnee, calling for the destruction of all the Beatles’ records. “We’re more popular than Jesus,” John Lennon had said—blasphemy enough for good Christian people to call for his death. The bonfire we built in the little gravel lot lit up the sky, fueled by blackjack and scrap and the lone LP found in our congregation, pried from the fingers of twelve-year-old Maggie Dahl, who cried as her record burned.
At Fawzi Jishi’s, I told Ruthie that I needed a new swimsuit. Amid knit jackets from Italy, Lusso chiffon blouses, and Jacques Fath ball gowns, Ruthie found an emerald green bikini, a tie at the back of the neck and at each hip. She held it against me. “Adorable,” she said. “It will match your eyes.”
“I don’t know if I can wear that,” I said. “Don’t they have any one-pieces?”
She blinked. “Are you even twenty?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“Then quit acting like an old lady.”
The bearded Saudi clerk, dapper in a Western suit coat buttoned over his white thobe, smiled broadly as he wrapped the package and wrote up the charge. Outside, the sky above us pilled with clouds, just enough to parse the sun’s bite. Ruthie pointed me to a little sidewalk café with a private room where women could sit closed off from the men. She sank into her chair, took off her shoes, dug her thumbs into the arch of one foot, and groaned. The old Arab man who brought our coffee took his time, arranging the sugar and spoons, mesmerized by Ruthie’s bare legs. It might have made me anxious if not for her nonchalance, as though we were not in the middle of Arabia but shopping the mild avenues of Oklahoma City, flirting with shop boys. I kept my knees tucked beneath the small table, took a sip of the thick black brew spiked with cardamom—a taste like nutmeg or mace. When two black-cloaked women came in, moving around us like our own animate shadows, only their kohl-lined eyes visible, I lowered my gaze, made shy by their modesty and sharp glances.
“Have you ever met one?” I whispered to Ruthie.
She flicked her lighter. “Once. The Fullertons invited some sheikh to dinner, and he brought his first wife along. She just sat there in her abaya and didn’t say a word. We couldn’t drink while they were there, so the whole evening was a bust.” She brushed the flies from the sugar. “Some Arab women spend their entire lives in one house, never leave, not even for groceries. It’s a mark of status because it means all of their needs have been met. Can you imagine?”
Just thinking about it made my throat tighten, my chest constrict. “They must be so lonely.”
“I’m not sure a woman is ever alone,” Ruthie said. “If a Muslim has enough money, he can take four wives and all the concubines he can feed. Women always have to be in the care of a man, so men marry widows just to take care of them, and they all have their kids and relatives, so it’s a mob, a big family, but the men and women are always segregated. The only real time a wife spends with her husband is when it’s her turn in his bed.” She shrugged. “Guess that in some ways they’re not much different from us.”
“Except for the more-than-one-wife part,” I said, “and the concubines.”
Ruthie blew out a smoky breath. “You take a bunch of healthy men and women, fence them up in the middle of the desert, throw in some sadiqi juice, and see what happens. It’s like Peyton Place around here.” She sat back, crossed one arm at her waist. “The difference is what happens if you get caught. If a Saudi woman is even seen with a man she’s not related to, she can lose her virtue, and if she loses her virtue, she may as well be dead. You know, honor killings.” I nodded as though I did know. Ruthie lowered her eyes, thought for a moment. “Then again,” she said, “there’s Charlene Whitaker.”
I ran through my mental list of names and faces. “Charlene? I don’t think I’ve met her.”
“That’s because her husband strangled her to death, then buried her body in the desert. He was always sure she was having an affair whenever he was on the platform, but she never dared even look at another man.” Ruthie ran one finger along the edge of the ashtray. “She always blamed her bruises on bumping into things, tripping, but we all knew. They locked him up in the Dhahran hospital until they could ship him back to the States.” She lifted her face. “But it doesn’t do any good to think about things like that. What’s done is done.” She looked around, waved her cigarette like a censer. “When we first came to Arabia,” she said, “this was nothing but sand and a few mud houses. Next thing you know, they’ll be putting in a Bloomingdale’s.” She brought her gaze back to mine. “But you’re not like the other girls. Shopping isn’t really what you want to do, is it?”
I dropped my eyes. “I’m just turned funny,” I said, and Ruthie laughed.
“I think you’ve got more adventurous things in mind,” she said. “The trick is learning how to spend your time so that it doesn’t spend you.” She stubbed her cigarette, checked her watch. “We had better get going,” she said, “before the shops close down for prayer.”
We sauntered back, stopping along the way at a suq strung with Mexican peso pins and baby bangles, where a veiled woman, hands crippled with age, stood with her basket of fruit. When I reached to examine the bananas and dates, she touched her fingers to my face.
“Latifa,” she said. I looked at Ruthie.
“She thinks you’re pretty,” Ruthie said. “She’ll want to give you something now.”
As if on cue, the woman lifted a persimmon from her basket. “She’s offering you a gift,” Ruthie said. “You have to take it.”
The persimmon nested in my hand, soft as an Easter chick. “Thank you,” I said. The old woman’s eyes wrinkled with pleasure, but then I saw them widen. She pulled up the hem of her scarf and hobbled away. I turned to see two Arab men approaching, their long beards untrimmed, their thobes cut short at the knees.
“What in the hell are they doing here?” Ruthie hooked her arm through mine. “Don’t look. Just start walking.”
I matched my quick steps to hers, and we headed back to where the bus would pick us up, weaving past crates, kicking up the sand that had drifted in and around the buildings. Maybe it was Ruthie’s bare shoulders that caught their attention, or maybe it was the way we brushed against the Arab men in our path, but when one of the mutaween let out a shout, I knew we were in trouble.
Ruthie pulled me into a jog, and then we were running, our bags belling our elbows, the quickening slap of the men’s sandals against the ancient stone street echoing behind us. We dodged between a donkey cart and an oncoming Mercedes, the young prince laying on the horn as he passed. Shopkeepers appeared at their doors and windows, calling loudly, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I felt the strength in my legs come back to me, all those sprints across the open fields, running to beat my grandfather home, but Ruthie was lagging. I looked back and saw the two men barreling down upon us, skirts flapping, people and chickens and goats scattering from their path.
“I can’t,” Ruthie gasped. “I’m out of breath.”
I dragged her a little bit farther, wishing I could pick her up and carry her like a sack of potatoes, but when she staggered to a stop, I held on to her, turned, and stood as tall as I could.
A crowd of shopkeepers was joined by the curious men who had left their coffee and bargains on the tables and begun to gather as the mutaween slowed and approached, their canes held out like they were goading hogs. I could see now that one of our pursuers was a bit younger than the other, his voice shrill and excited. The elder, his face pitted with smallpox scars, stepped toward us, angrily gesturing to the group of men for support. I looked around, hoping for help, but the fe
w women in their abayas had disappeared. I considered our bags and purses, some token we might offer—a Beatles LP, an emerald bikini—and then I remembered the persimmon.
I moved carefully, showing that I meant no harm, and extended my hand, the fruit balanced in my palm. “Peace be upon you,” I said, and offered a modest smile.
The elder looked at me with such disdain that I thought he might spit. Before I could move, he raised his staff and struck the fruit from my fingers. I pressed my throbbing hand to my chest and heard a murmur go up from the ring of men who surrounded us. Ruthie pinched my elbow.
“Don’t do it,” she whispered, but it was too late. The pain sparked a flash of anger that flared in me so fast, I didn’t even stop to think. I reached down, snatched up the persimmon, and threw it as hard as I could.
Mason had always said that I had a good arm for a girl, and maybe he was right because the persimmon smacked the mutawa right in the forehead. I pulled back, hardly believing what I had done, although if I had had a bag of persimmons, I would have pitched them every one.
The mutawa stumbled back. When he lifted his hand as though he might find blood and found instead a spatter of sweet fruit, the surprised look on his face turned murderous. He raised his cane to strike again, but I ducked away and pulled Ruthie behind me. I heard shouts and jeers, felt the crowd of men pressing in.
“Oh, shit,” Ruthie said. She huddled against me, and I draped my arms around her and tucked my shoulders, expecting a shower of stones. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t me and Ruthie who were being taunted but the robed police. The shopkeepers and other men crowded in, separating us from the mutaween, urging us away.
“Hurry,” Ruthie said, “the bus.” She took my hand, and we ran together, gasping our way past the fountain, banging up the bus’s stairs, startling the driver. We ignored the curious looks from the few other women and collapsed into seats near the front. I peered out my window and saw the angry eyes of the elder mutawa glaring back as he watched us pull onto the main road.