Date: May 14, 2004
Subject: Of Michelle and of Faisal I Will Tell You
Love is a matter of the heart, and a person has no control over it. Human hearts lie between two fingers—the fingers of Allah the merciful—and He tilts them as He wills. If love were not so very precious and fine, then so many people, ever since the time of the prophets, would not have ventured there. The Prophet—may the blessings and peace of God be upon him—stressed that the flame of love can only be quenched by marriage. For love which is bound by the reins of chastity and piety gives no cause for shame. But if the marriage does not occur, then patience with the bitterness of disappointment is the only solution.
We have to distinguish between love as a practice and a behavior, on the one hand, and love as an emotion, on the other. It is right Islamic practice i.e., Halal to feel love, but if love turns into acts of love, such as a touch or a kiss or an embrace, it is against the law of Islam i.e., Haram. Many bad things will result, because it is difficult for the person in love to keep that love in check. So what is the love that we do want? We want love that changes hearts and souls. We mean love that pushes those who have it to perform deeds that will then get documented in history as a beautiful love story.—Jassem Al-Mutawa’*
I have begun to get really engrossed in reading your comments on the story, all of you out there! After my last e-mail, I received nearly one hundred messages! And I read every last one. That is because I want to be sure that we are a people who agree to disagree. From the one who sympathizes with Gamrah to the one who finds her pitiful, and from Rashid’s supporters to those who are really angry at him and ready to swing a blow, I can assure you that I thoroughly enjoyed reading every one of your varied opinions, even those I disagree with. But to those of you who ask about Michelle and say I have neglected her for too long, I must say that I agree, and I apologize. Things are looking good for Michelle, and how easy it is to ignore happy people!
In Faisal, Michelle found everything she had been looking for in a man. He was not like any of the young men she had met since settling in Saudi Arabia. The strongest indication of this difference was that their relationship was still going strong after nearly a year, when the longest of her relationships before Faisal had not lasted more than three months.
Faisal was a truly cultivated guy. He knew exactly how to treat a woman, and he didn’t jump to exploit opportunities like all the other guys did. He had quite a few friends who were women, just as Michelle had male friends, but they both made it clear to everyone that they were a serious couple.
Faisal’s gentleness and refined behavior made Michelle rethink the bad impression she had initially formed of young men in her home country, following a number of very short-term relationships. Before getting to know Faisal, it did not even occur to her that a young Saudi man could be as romantic as young men everywhere else in the civilized world. For example, every morning when her driver took her to the university, Faisal would follow them in his own car as a sign of his devotion. She had to admit to herself that seeing him at seven-thirty in the morning maneuvering the streets of Riyadh and working hard to fight off his drowsiness just so he could be almost in her company tickled her heart and filled it with joy.
Michelle had never been able to explain to any of her friends, not even her close girlfriends, the sense of loss she had felt when she had to move back to Saudi Arabia from America. Even though her girlfriends understood how intensely she loathed Saudi society and its severe traditions, and even though they knew how much she mocked the restrictions that the society placed on young women, the battle of two civilizations that raged within her was so contradictory and complex that only someone with an acute intelligence and an enlightened, open-minded thinking could truly comprehend it. And then Michelle found herself in the company of Faisal, who seemed to understand exactly what she was going through. Soon, every time they were together, she told him more and more about what troubled her. After finally stumbling across a young man who understood her, after years of groping around for something that didn’t seem to exist, how could she not grab the opportunity to reveal who she really was to someone?
She would meet him at Um Nuwayyir’s house. Um Nuwayyir believed in love and never once tried to represent it to the four young women as something that one should be ashamed of. She was well aware that genuine love had no outlet or avenue of expression in this country. Any fledgling love relationship, no matter how innocent or pure, was sure to be seen as suspect and therefore repressed. And that, in turn, might well push the lovers over the edge and into a whole lot of bad choices. So when Michelle told Um Nuwayyir that she was determined to invite Faisal to her home in her parents’ absence, since she had gotten so tired of meeting him in cafés and restaurants where they had to hide behind protective curtains as if they were fugitives, Um Nuwayyir opened the door of her own home to the hapless lovers. She did this to keep their heretofore innocent and respectable relationship from turning into something bigger before any official acknowledgment of their union was established.
Faisal grabbed Michelle’s pampered little dog, Powder, and played with the tiny white poodle as he listened to Michelle tell one of her stories. She spoke English, because she felt less constrained that way.
“When I was five and we were still in America, the doctors discovered that Mama had cervical cancer. She had to have chemotherapy and then she had a hysterectomy. So she couldn’t have any more babies.
“We returned to Riyadh after she finished the radiation therapy but before her hair had grown back in. As soon as we arrived, instead of consoling us, my aunt—that’s my father’s sister—suggested, right in front of my mother and me, that my dad should marry another woman who could give him a son to bear his name. As if I’m not enough! What’s the use? If I were to try to talk about every crime committed in this hypocritical society, I would never stop talking! Daddy stood his ground and refused to marry another woman. He loved Mama and was totally attached to her, he loved her from the first time he saw her, in America, on New Year’s Eve, which he was spending at a friend’s. He met her that night and married her two months later. My father’s family was never reconciled to that marriage, and my grandmother would grumble every time my mother visited—and she still does.
“Less than a month after we left America my father moved us back there—my father, who had dreamed of returning to his homeland so that I would grow up as a Saudi girl! But he couldn’t get his relatives to respect his privacy and stay out of his business. So he emigrated again.”
Every so often, Um Nuwayyir came in to check on things. She was so sweet and kind. Even though she didn’t care much about tradition, she was always as protective of the four girls as if they were her own daughters, and she was completely committed to them. Um Nuwayyir would sit with the two of them for a few moments, asking Faisal about the health of his mother and siblings, none of whom she knew, of course. She wanted him to know that she cared about Michelle and that he would have to be on his best behavior. She did not want him to get “too close” to Michelle physically, either. He had to feel that they were not left alone in the house, that the caring auntie could come in at any second. After Um Nuwayyir left the room, Michelle returned to her story as the two of them munched on the special mixed nuts that Um Nuwayyir had brought from Kuwait.
“Three years later, when I was thirteen, we returned to Riyadh, and Meshaal was with us. Can you believe that it was me who chose him, from out of hundreds of children, as my brother? I really had the feeling, at the time, that I was shaping fate! I loved his black hair, which was nearly the color of mine, and his little innocent face. I felt somehow that he was close to me. He was seven months old when we adopted him. He was so cute. As soon as I saw him, I told my mother and father that this child was my brother, he was the one they were looking for.