Sadeem was the one Gamrah felt closest to. She seemed to have gotten more mature since spending her summer break in England. Her self-confidence had been bolstered by traveling alone and working and reading, it seemed. Or, more likely, it came from being loved by a man with the status of Firas.
Gamrah felt that she was the only one who hadn’t really changed since high school. Her concerns and interests were pretty much the same. Her ideas had not evolved and her old dreams had not given way to new ones. Her sole aspiration was still marriage to a man who would snatch her away from her solitude and make up for the hard times she had seen. How much she wished that she could draw strength from Michelle, intelligence from Sadeem and a measure of boldness from Lamees! How much she wanted to transform herself over into a personality as magnificent and vivacious as her friends. But, she despaired, as always she was just not able to keep up with them. God had created her with this weak personality, a character she herself scorned. She would always be a few steps behind. All her life.
She went in to have a quick look at Saleh before bed. Entering the room, walking toward his little crib, which lay next to his babysitter’s bed. She crept up quietly so that she wouldn’t wake either of them. And there were the baby’s big brown eyes, wide open, turning innocently toward the source of the sound and light, gleaming at her from the darkness. She put her hands out to him and he clutched at them, as if to ask her to pick him up and hold him. Gathering him up, she felt his wet clothes and his moist thighs. She smelled a piercing odor coming from his tiny diaper. She took him into the bathroom. His bottom was completely wet and covered in diaper rash. Gamrah didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Should she awaken her mother or Shahla? How much would Shahla know about babies, if she herself didn’t know what to do? Should she rouse the babysitter? “God rid me of her!” Gamrah muttered. “It’s all her fault. Look at her—she goes on sleeping while my son drowns in his own pee!” Washing his bottom under warm running water, she handed the baby his yellow rubber ducky and he played with it. He didn’t show any sign of being upset or bothered. For Gamrah, though, this seemed more than a mere skin irritation and it was harder to bear.
Everything was hard on her. Rashid, her mother, her sister Hessah, Hessah’s husband, Mudi, and even her best friends—all of them thought she was stupid and weak and ineffectual. Even the Filipina babysitter had begun to neglect her son after noticing how little the mother seemed to know. Life had taken everything from her and given nothing in return. It had robbed her of her youth and joy, replacing them with an emptiness and a child whose only sustenance in life was her—when she needed sustenance more than he did.
The rubber ducky fell from Saleh’s hand when weeping Gamrah embraced him fiercely, with the force of all the oppression and regret and suffering that lay inside of her.
31.
To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com
From: “seerehwenfadha7et”
Date: September 10, 2004
Subject: Gossiping About MEN!
This story has become my life. Friday has become more sacred than ever. The PC room is now my home, the only place I feel safe. Now I just laugh whenever I feel annoyed by some stupid thing a professor or some girl in class says. These people make my blood boil but who cares! None of it means a thing compared to what I am doing. After all, those bossy teachers and arrogant classmates are glued to their computer screens every Friday just so they won’t miss a syllable of what I write. So what if they annoy me every now and then? I’m plenty satisfied by the joy and pride I feel inside!
The four friends met at Gamrah’s house on the last day of summer vacation. Each brought Saleh a toy or a piece of candy, dangling them in front of him as bait, trying to get him to walk toward them with his little stumbling steps and his cute plump legs.
Gamrah didn’t waste any time, scolding Lamees for the bronzed skin she had acquired in the chalets of Jeddah.
“I swear by God, you are insane! These days, when everyone is going with whitening lotions, you have to go and burn yourself under the sun?”
“Oh, c’mon, guys! You don’t appreciate a good tan! I find it so attractive!”
“Girls! Say something to her—this nut!” said Gamrah.
Michelle, home from San Francisco for the summer, had become accustomed to the healthy look of all the tan, sporty California girls.” Actually, I think it looks great,” she said.
Gamrah erupted. She tried to get Sadeem to back her up. “Sadeem! Just look at these insane girls and what they are saying. Have you ever heard of any mother who wanted to find her son a black bride?”
“Oh, whatever! Everyone to their own tastes. How long are we going to keep doing whatever pleases these old ladies and their darling little boys? I say keep that up, Lamees—just do whatever you want to. And if you ever want to pour kerosene on your hair and set it on fire, go right ahead!”
Gamrah was left spluttering. “Thanks for the help, girl!”
“I mean, seriously,” continued Sadeem, “I’m sick of how we let everyone else control us and lead us through this life. We can never do anything without the fear of being judged holding us back. Everyone steers us along according to what they want. What kind of life is that? We don’t have a say about our own lives!”
“Saddoomah!” her friends all turned toward her and exclaimed. “What’s the matter? Who has been bothering you?”
“Obviously, she’s had a fight with Firas. It can’t be anything else.”
“What did that monkey do to you?”
“Did you see him in Paris?”
Sadeem tried to keep her voice calm, since her outburst had shocked her friends. Slowly, she began telling them what was bothering her. “I saw him once. I mean, he came to Paris for one day just to see me, and of course I couldn’t say no. Okay. I’m not going to lie to you. Frankly, I was dying to see him, too! This whole entire year, I hadn’t laid eyes on him because of my studies and his work, and because the two of us had an agreement not to meet in Riyadh. It’s just too difficult, dangerous and awkward. It wouldn’t be relaxing like it would be if we were abroad. Outside the country, you can loosen up, you can breathe without worrying who’s watching you. Abroad I could meet him anywhere, in any public place, but here, no. In Paris, I met him at a cozy restaurant and we just sat there talking. It was nice.”
“So far, so good,” said Gamrah. “So where’s the problem?”
“Of course,” Michelle broke in, “right after it, right away, he asked you, ‘How come you feel so comfortable and relaxed about going out with me?’ Or he doesn’t even ask; he just starts doubting you immediately, and by the next day he’s already treating you differently. Different from when you had never agreed to meet him. After you meet a Saudi guy behind your family’s back, behind the society’s back, he loses his respect for you instead of appreciating your move! I know this stupid business really well; these hang-ups are built automatically into the messed-up heads of our guys. They are mentally twisted! Why do you think I left this country to live somewhere else?”
“No, not at all,” replied Sadeem. “He’s never treated me like that. Sure, I’ve noticed sometimes that he seems to have a little bit of this suspicion thing when he talks about girls in general. But he has never doubted me. Firas knows me really well and he trusts me very much.”
“A guy’s nature doesn’t change,” asserted Gamrah. “If he has that suspicion thing in him, then you will suffer from that one day, even if he tries to hide it in the beginning of your relationship.”