Matti had the power to make Michelle’s life one long, totally cool adventure. He gave her practical help and moral support as she adjusted to her new life. He explained whatever she found difficult in her studies, whether in subjects he was teaching her or in other courses. He was vigilant about keeping up to date on how her dorm life was going, and he tried to help her solve any problem she encountered. She was enjoying her independent life and savoring the taste of a freedom she was experiencing for the first time in her life, but on a daily basis she still spent more time in her uncle’s home than she did in her dorm.
After struggling through the challenges and strains of her first few months in San Francisco and getting used to the university routine, Michelle began getting involved in university activities, drawing in Cousin Matthew (that is, Matt or Matti), who in turn began to include her in his weekly pastimes, as did some of his friends.
There was a university-organized camping expedition to Yosemite one weekend. Matti went along because he was president of the university’s Friends of Nature Club. Out there, in nature’s enchanting embrace, amid beauties Michelle had never seen, Matti was the right companion in the right place at the right time. He would wake her up early for a hike to some small rock outcropping in some out-of-the-way spot where they perched to watch the sunrise. Sitting there, they saw the sun’s rays break across the spray of the surging waterfall directly in front of them. They vied to see who could get the best shot in one captivating photo op after another. She roused his competitive zeal with a photo she took of a pair of lovebird squirrels kissing. A little later, he got her back with a picture of a deer blocking the disk of the sun with its head so that the rays appeared to be golden horns extending as far as the eye could see.
Another weekend—this time a long weekend—Matti took Michelle to the Napa Valley. He had been invited by one of his close friends, whose family owned a famous winery there. At the farm Michelle tasted truly superior freshly made jams, grilled meats and pasta made with grain grown on the farm, accompanied by some wonderful Chardonnays and Cabs.
Such were the weekend breaks. When they had longer vacations (but ones not long enough for her to travel home to Saudi Arabia)—Easter break, for instance—Matti would drive her to Las Vegas or Los Angeles. By San Francisco standards, her uncle would be considered, if not loaded, at least a member of the upper middle class. With Matti’s monthly salary from the university and his father’s help, in addition to what Michelle’s father sent her each month, which was pretty substantial, they were able to come up with some totally satisfying plans for spending holidays in out-of-the-ordinary places.
In Las Vegas, he took her to a performance of the hit show Lord of the Dance. He surprised her with two tickets to the magnificent “O” show of the Cirque du Soleil. In LA, which she had visited before, they switched roles; she became the expedition organizer. She first took him to Rodeo Drive near Sunset Boulevard so that she could pursue her favorite passion: shopping! He began grumbling even before they got there. They spent the evening smoking hookahs at the Gypsy Café. The next day they walked along the beach at Santa Monica and spent the evening at the Byblos Restaurant. There she spotted lots of Saudi men with their Persian girlfriends. Staring at her, checking out her facial features, the Saudis suspected she might be one of them. They were disconcerted to see her there with someone who was obviously not Saudi. As they overheard her chatting with Matti, though, her perfect American accent chased away their misgivings; their eyes, so accustomed to stalking girls from the Gulf, stopped following her.
Back in San Francisco, Matti would take her to Chinatown, where they strolled among the tiny stores window-shopping and wandered into traditional Chinese restaurants. Each time they visited the Chinese neighborhood, they ordered the fruit juice “cocktail” thickened with tapioca, which turned the drink deliciously gluey and gummy.
In the spring they took excursions to Golden Gate Park to view the sunset. He played bewitching songs on his guitar as the sun biscuit dipped into the cup of sea. In winter, he often took her to drink hot cocoa at Ghirardelli overlooking the bay and the infamous island prison of Alcatraz. Sipping their hot drinks, they contemplated its tower in the distance, a notorious silhouette that conjured up a grim past of crime and violence in America.
What Michelle liked best about Matti was that he always showed respect for her opinions, however different they were from his views. Often, she noticed, she commanded sufficient authority to win him over to her way of seeing things. He always explained, though, that these disagreements didn’t amount to much, just minor differences of opinion. It wasn’t worth the effort to try to change each other’s view just to march in lockstep in everything. In her own country, Michelle was used to pulling back from any conversation when disagreement threatened to boil over into hot verbal conflicts and an exchange of insults. She avoided expressing her opinions strongly except when she was with people she felt close to, such as her most intimate girlfriends. Public opinion in her country, she had become convinced, did not necessarily represent what people really thought. They were reluctant to offer their views on a particular issue because some prominent or important person, someone whose word was practically law, might step in and say a few words and then everyone would rush to support him. At home, public opinion coalesced around a single view—the view backed by the most powerful people.
Had Matti fallen for her? She didn’t think so. So had she fallen for him? It was impossible to deny that spending so much time together for two years, together with all the interests they shared, made them very close. Nor could she deny that there were moments when she imagined herself truly loving him, especially after a poetic evening on the beach, or—more superficially—after she got a really good final grade in a difficult course in which Matti worked hard to tutor her. But deep in her heart, Faisal still lurked, a buried secret that she couldn’t ever reveal to Matti. Knowing nothing about Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t begin to imagine the restrictions that had hindered her attachment to Faisal and had turned the story of her love for him into a tragic tale of loss.
Matti, who came from a country that breathed freedom, believed that love was an extraordinary force that could create miracles! When Michelle was first emerging from girlhood, she, too, had believed that. But that was before she returned from America to live in her own country, where she came to realize that love was treated like an inappropriate joke. A soccer ball to play with for a while, until those in power kicked it away.
29.
To: [email protected]
From: “seerehwenfadha7et”
Date: August 27, 2004
Subject: Firas Is Different
Nasser Al-Clubs wrote, inviting me to write for the magazine the Diamond, of the son of Al-Spades, whose editor-in-chief is Dr. Sharifa Al-Hearts.*
Now that I have discovered that the beggar may actually get what she wants when she sets her own conditions, I shall wait until I get an offer to anchor my own TV show just like Oprah or Barbara Walters!
And keep in mind that the better offers you have for me, the happier you make me, the longer e-mails you will be getting from me every week! So, what do you think?
Um Nuwayyir set down a platter of Kuwaiti tahini halvah** and a pot of tea in front of Sadeem, who poured them each a cup. They sipped their tea and nibbled pieces of the rich sesame dessert.
“Can you believe it, Auntie, I didn’t realize Waleed wasn’t Mr. Right until I got to know Firas.”
“I just hope the day doesn’t come when you realize that Firas isn’t Mr. Right until after you get to know the next one in line!”
“God forbid! I don’t want anything from this world but Firas. Just Firas and that’s it.”
“You said exactly the same thing about Waleed, and soon a day will come when I have to remind you that you said that about Firas, too!”
“Ya, but just think about it—think about Firas and then picture Waleed, Auntie Um Nuwayyir. They’re so different!”
“Both of them are losers! As the Egyptians say: Why compare flip-flops to wooden clogs!”*
“I do not get why you don’t like Firas, even though he’s so sweet and lovable. What’s not to like?”
“I don’t like men, period. You’ve totally forgotten the day when I told you I don’t think much of Waleed. You weren’t very happy to hear it then, either, and you have paid no attention to my concerns.”
“I was kind of dumb and naïve. That sick bastard Waleed told me that he had spied on all the telephones in the house—landlines and cell phones both—before our engagement, that he got hold of telephone records and searched through them all, incoming calls and outgoing, for the past six months before his proposal to my father. He gave himself the right to search for anything that might suggest I had a relationship with any guy before him, and I was so brainless that I actually felt proud to know that I had passed that exam! What an idiot.”
“Obstinate! That’s what you were. At the time, I said to you this fellow has a real problem with jealousy, he’s pretty sketchy himself. But you didn’t believe me. You were absolutely blinded by love. I said to you: It’s early days still, and look what’s happening already. You’ll never be rid of these tests he puts you through—it’s not high school final exams, it’s marriage! Do you know what that means? And what if you fail one of his ‘trust checks’? What will happen to you? He’s gonna leave you for sure! To hell with it. To hell with him!”
“But Firas is different, Auntie. I swear to God he’s never put me through anything that suggests he does not trust me enough, he’s never pestered me with questions like Waleed did. Firas has a good clean mind and he doesn’t see everything through a veil of suspicion the way Waleed always did.”
“But Saddoomah darling, it’s not good to show Firas that he’s everything in your life and that you’ll do anything for his sake!”
“But Auntie, I can’t help it! I’m deeply in love with him. I’m so used to having him around. His is the first voice I hear when I get up in the morning and the last voice I hear before I fall asleep at night. All day long he’s with me wherever I am. He asks me about my exams before my father does, and he lists the things I have to do every day before I even realize them, and if I have a problem, he solves it for me in no time by using his connections. If I need anything, even a can of Coke in the middle of the night, he gets someone to bring it. Can you believe it, one time he went to the pharmacy at four in the morning to bring me a pack of sanitary pads because my driver was fast asleep! He went himself and bought it for me and dropped the plastic bag off at our front door! I mean, is it strange, Auntie, after the way he treats me and pampers me, for me to feel like he is everything in my life? I don’t know, I don’t even remember how I ever lived without him!”
“Oh, for God’s sake! You are making him sound like Hussein Fahmi!* I ask God to give you the best out of him and spare you the worst. I’m just not very optimistic.”
“But why? Tell me!”
“Well, if he loves you as you say he does, then why hasn’t he proposed to you yet?”
“This is exactly what I don’t get, either, Auntie.”
“Didn’t you tell me you thought he changed after he found out that you had been previously married to Waleed?”
“He didn’t change, really, but…well, uh, I sensed that he was a little different, maybe. There was the same caring and gentleness and worrying over me, but it’s as if there’s something inside of him that he doesn’t show in front of me any longer. Maybe it’s jealousy? Or anger that he’s not the first person in my life, the way I’m the first girl in his.”
“And who on earth is telling you that you’re the first girl in his life?”
“It’s just a feeling I have! My heart tells me I’m the only love he’s known. Even if he got to know girls before me—and of course he did, given how old he is and all that time he lived abroad—I am sure he didn’t actually really fall in love with anyone and become attached to her and get his life all entangled with hers like he has with me. A guy doesn’t become so fond of someone and go to such trouble and devotion when he’s this age unless he thinks that the one he loves is someone extraordinary! Someone who really suits him. He’s not young anymore, and he doesn’t see things the way a guy still in his twenties sees things. Men of this age, when they fall in love, right away they start thinking about settling down, about getting married. He’s not just fooling around. There’s none of this C’mon, let’s get to know each other and We’ll see how it goes, let’s go with the flow, and all that little-boy stuff. And what proves it is that to this day he has never asked to see me, since those days in London, except that one time on our drive from Riyadh to Khobar in the eastern region.”
“I don’t understand how you dared let him drive right up to you in the next lane when you were riding with your father. You crazy girl! What if your father got suspicious? What if he saw the way that strange guy in the nearby car was looking at you and got furious? What would you have done then?”
“I wasn’t being daring or anything. The whole thing was a coincidence. I was supposed to travel to the eastern province by car with my father to attend a funeral. Firas was going to spend the weekend with his parents like he always does and missed his plane, so he decided to go by car. My father left work early that day and wanted to set off right away. Firas, who was supposed to have left at noon, delayed until late afternoon because of his work. It happened that we were on the road at the same time! We were texting the whole time, asking each other, How many more kilometers till you get there? I was trying to convince him to stop typing on his cell phone while he was driving! Suddenly I found him saying to me, What does your father drive? I told him, A dark quartz Lexus, why? He said, Just look to the left in five seconds and you’ll see me! Aah, Auntie! I can’t begin to tell you what I felt the moment I saw him! I never imagined I would love someone so much. With that creep Waleed I felt I was ready to surrender, to give up anything, just so he’d be pleased with me. But with Firas I don’t feel the need to make sacrifices. I feel I want to give without any limits. Give and give and give! Can you believe it, Aunt, sometimes I get thoughts I’m ashamed of.”
“Like what?”
“I mean, like I imagine myself welcoming him home in the evening once we’re married. And of course, he always comes home tired. I sit him down on the sofa and I sit on the floor in front of him. I imagine myself rubbing his feet under salted warm water and kissing them! Do you understand what this picture I have in my head does to me, Aunt? It drives me mad! I never imagined I could think things like that about any man, no matter who he was. Even when I loved Waleed, I was too proud to imagine such things! Do you see how this Firas has rocked all my thinking and left me loving him in a totally hopeless way?”
Um Nuwayyir took a long breath and let it out as a deep sigh. “Oh, my dear. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. That’s all I’m saying. May God give you according to your good intentions, my darling, and keep evil away from you.”
30.
To: [email protected]
From: “seerehwenfadha7et”
Date: September 3, 2004
Subject: Same Old Same Old Gamrah
And if Allah touches you with harm, there is no one who can remove it but He; and if He intends any good for you, there is none who can repel His Favor which He causes it to reach whomsoever of his slaves He wills.—Qur’an, Surat Yunus
(chapter of Jonah), verse 107
I’m getting many, many responses rebuking and insulting Um Nuwayyir, and censuring the families of my friends who have allowed their daughters to spend a single evening at the home of a divorced woman who lives alone. Wait a minute. Is divorce a major crime committed by the woman only? Why doesn’t our society harass the divorced man the way it crushes the divorced woman? I know that you readers are always ready to dismiss and make light of these naïve questions of mine, but surely you can see that they are logical questions and
they deserve some careful thought. We should defend Um Nuwayyir and Gamrah and other divorcées. Women like them don’t deserve to be looked down on by society, which only condescends from time to time to throw them a few bones and expects them to be happy with that. Meanwhile, divorced men go on to live fulfilling lives without any suffering or blame.
Gamrah’s life didn’t particularly change after the birth of her son, since the real burden of caring for him fell onto the shoulders of the Filipina babysitter whom Gamrah’s mother had hired specifically for the job. The mother knew how lazy her daughter was and how she neglected even herself. How could she possibly look after a newborn? Gamrah remained as she was. In fact, she reverted to what she had been before she was married. She was busy enough tending to the profound melancholy that had enveloped her after she cut herself off from chat. She went on thinking about Sultan for quite a while. She often felt a strong yearning to talk to him, but she always retreated as soon as she recalled his situation and her state of affairs. Both would make it very difficult for them to be together in any real sense of the word.
Every evening, her thoughts took her far away. Envisioning her three friends, she compared her life with the lives they were leading. Here was Sadeem, totally consumed with adoring ( full-time) a successful politician and a man about town, who might at any moment rise up to ask for her hand in marriage. That image was based on what Sadeem was telling her about their splendid love and how they saw absolutely eye to eye on everything. Oh, how I envy Sadeem, she thought. She is lucky to get Firas instead of Waleed! An older guy is a lot better than those amateurs who don’t even know what they want out of the world.
Girls of Riyadh Page 16