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On that day, many girls cried for a lost love or mourned for an old crush. Many gifts were confiscated and the girls who had worn red clothes or accessories had to make pledges that they not repeat their behavior next year. In the years that followed, clothes were subject to inspection even before the girls were inside the campus gates where they could take off their wraps. That way, the inspectresses could return the culprit to her chauffeur, who still would be waiting there, to be taken immediately home if there was the slightest sign of the Crime of Red on her person, even if it was a mere hair tie.

But Faisal’s gift to Michelle did not end with his romantic poem. On her way home, as she was tossing the soft black bear from hand to hand and breathing in Faisal’s elegant Bulgari scent, which he had sprinkled over the bear, she suddenly caught sight of a pair of heart-shaped diamond earrings that Faisal had hung in the bear’s cute little ears for his cute little Michelle to hang in hers.

10.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: April 16, 2004

Subject: When Grief Becomes Pleasure

He said to her one day, All a man wants from a woman is that she understand him. And so the woman snapped loudly into his ear, And all a woman wants from a man is that he love her.—Socrates

Among the many criticisms that have begun flooding into my inbox are a large number slamming me for quoting lines by the late poet Nizar Qabbani and—way back in my first e-mail—asking God’s mercy on him. I quote Qabbani for a simple reason: There isn’t anything out there today that could compare. I’ve never read any modern poetry that has the simplicity and the clear eloquence of his. I have never felt even slightly moved or influenced by those modernist poets who compose a qasida of thirty lines in which they talk about nothing! I do not get any pleasure from reading about the festering pus on the forehead issuing from behind the haunch of eternal grief. I am in sync only with Nizar’s essential lines, lines that not a single one of those new poets (with all due respect to them) has been able to compose, despite their simplicity.

After Sadeem flunked out of school, which came as a huge surprise to everyone since she was known for her academic excellence, her father proposed that the two of them travel to London for some fun. Sadeem asked him, though, to let her go alone and stay in their flat in South Kensington. She wanted to spend a stretch of time by herself, she said. After some hesitation, her dad agreed, and he furnished her with some telephone numbers and addresses of friends of his who, accompanied by their families, were spending the summer in England. She could contact them if she wanted a little break from herself. He urged her to occupy her free time by signing up for a computer or economics course of some kind so that she could benefit from her time away once she returned to her college in Riyadh.

Sadeem packed away her wound along with her clothes and carried it all from the Dust Capital of the World to the Fog Capital of the World. London was not new to her. In fact, spending the last month of summer there had become a familiar yearly ritual. London this time around was different, though. This time, London was a huge sanatorium where Sadeem had decided to take refuge to overcome the mental maladies overwhelming her after her experience with Waleed.

Before they began the descent at Heathrow airport, Sadeem headed for the airplane bathroom. She took off her abaya and head covering to reveal a well-proportioned body encased in tight jeans and a T-shirt, and a smooth face adorned with light pink blush, a little mascara and a swipe of lip gloss.

Coming from Riyadh’s heat, Sadeem had always enjoyed walking beneath London’s summer rains, but on this trip, all that poured over her was misery. London was nothing but gloom, she decided; the city was as dark and cloudy as her mood. The silent apartment and her empty pillow added to her unhappiness, leading her to shed more tears than she had known it was possible to produce.

Sadeem spent a lot of time crying. She wept tears that burned her eyes, for the wrong, the darkness that had enveloped her, that had shrouded her defamed femininity. She cried and cried, mourning her first love, buried alive in its infancy before she could even find pleasure in it. She cried and she prayed, she prayed and prayed, in hopes that God would set guidance before her in her plight, for she had no mother to comfort and reassure her, no sister to stand by her side in this trial. She still did not know whether to tell her father what had happened between her and Waleed on the last night they had been together. Or whether she should carry the secret to her grave.

All that she had the power to do was seek God’s forgiveness and send one prayer after another into the air, imploring that the despicable Waleed would not scandalize her by revealing why he had divorced her; that, having dumped her, he would not say anything that would drag her name through the mud. “Allah, shield me! Keep his evil from me! Allah, I have no one but You to come to, and You are the most knowledgeable of my condition.”

It was during this difficult time that Sadeem became addicted to songs of grief, pain and parting. During those weeks in London, she listened to more sad songs than she had ever listened to in her entire life before. She would feel transported, even elated, whenever she listened to one of the classic love songs by famous Arabic singers that were full of romance and melancholia.

These songs would drench her in sadness and envelop her like a warm, clean bed. As the days passed, she no longer listened to such songs to give herself comfort, but rather to keep herself immersed in the intoxication of grief that she had discovered after the failure of her first love. This was an experience she had in common with most lovers who have suffered loss or betrayal; a masochistic ordeal where pain becomes pleasurable. The trauma leads us to create a tent of wise thoughts in which we sit to philosophize about our life that is passing by outside. We are transformed into tender, hypersensitive beings and the teeniest thought can make us weep. Our damaged hearts dread the next emotional break, so they stay inside their lonely tents of wisdom, avoiding ever falling in love again. One day another Bedouin comes along. He shows up to mend the tent’s tendons…When this other man passes by, we invite him in for a thimbleful of coffee and keep him there, only for a little while to warm up our sad solitude, but unfortunately, this other man always ends up staying—for too long, and before we know it our tent of wisdom falls down around us both! And then we are no smarter than we were before.

After two weeks of solitary confinement in the apartment, Sadeem decided to eat her main meal of the day out, as long as she could find a restaurant not inhabited by streams of tourists from the Gulf. The last thing she wanted, when she was in this state, was to meet a young Saudi man who would try to chat her up.

She didn’t feel any better in the restaurant than she had inside the four walls of the apartment. The atmosphere inside the Hush Restaurant was, as its name might suggest, quiet and romantic. Sadeem thought she came across as the victim of some contagious disease whose family had abandoned her. There she was, eating her meal in solitude, while couples all around her were talking and whispering in the glow of the candlelight. Sadeem couldn’t help but recall her poetic dinners with Waleed and the way they had planned for their honeymoon. He had promised to take her to the island of Bali. She had asked that they spend several days in London before returning to Riyadh after the honeymoon was over. For so long she had dreamed of someday going with her husband, whoever he might be, to the places she had been going to alone for years.