To my best friend, most cherished of mine,
To the star that one day fell down into my palms,
You were so near yet so far, so oppressed, so divine.
The Fates burst us apart! that we meet once again…
My friend, we will become the heroes of tales
We spin for our children, false names assign’d,
The internal struggle Sadeem lived in that period—the way her emotions zinged back and forth between extremes of rage and forgiveness—made her life a nightmare. She was incapable of discerning her own true feelings: she would curse Firas and spit at every picture of him that she could find, only to leap back and plant a kiss tenderly on each photograph as she begged it for forgiveness. She would recall how, through all those years, he had seemed to stand by her, and it would make her cry, but then she would remember the day years ago when he had alluded to broaching with his parents the subject of his attaching himself to a divorcée, and their response, which had hurt her so deeply that she had intentionally “forgotten” it (exactly what Michelle and Lamees warned her not to do). And that would make her cry even more bitterly over the lost years of her life, and wish all kinds of horrible fates for Waleed, who was the true reason behind all of her troubles.
Gamrah, Lamees and Um Nuwayyir began to notice that Sadeem had started to become careless, even neglectful, about performing her prayers. They also observed that she was exposing some of her hair when she threw on her hair cover, which was supposed to leave only her face visible. Sadeem’s religiosity seemed to be in direct proportion to her relationship with Firas. Her anger at him made her angry at everything that reminded her of him, and that included religious duties.
Throughout Sadeem’s whole ordeal, her aunt Badriyyah had been traveling back and forth between Riyadh and Khobar, all the while keeping up her relentless campaign to convince Sadeem to move out east to live with her and her family permanently, or at least until her “fated share” would come to her.
When she saw the daughter of her only sister in such a severe state of depression and still firmly refusing to go to Khobar, Aunt Badriyyah decided to broach the subject of Sadeem’s getting married to her son—Sadeem’s cousin Tariq. Aunt Badriyyah had intended to instill in Sadeem a sense of security and the possibility of some future happiness for her, but she only succeeded in making Sadeem all the more upset and embittered.
So they wanted to marry her off to that adolescent dental student who was only a year older than she was? If they knew her Firas, they would never have dared to make such a proposition! They were exploiting the fact that she was now alone in this world and needed a home she could live in securely without having to face people’s scrutiny and their inevitable gossip about her living alone after her father’s death. Even Aunt Badriyyah wanted to ensure that Sadeem would remain under her supervision by marrying her to her own son. And who knew? Maybe Tariq was already thinking about the money and property she would inherit from her father and was planning how to get his hands on it. Maybe his mother—her own aunt!—was even encouraging him.
It was out of the question. She would not marry Tariq or anyone else. She would shut herself up like a monk in her father’s house. If Aunt Badriyyah didn’t let up in her insistence about not leaving her alone, and didn’t allow her to live in the family home in Riyadh, then she would consent reluctantly to live with them in Khobar. But she would dictate her own terms. She would not allow anyone ever again to take her for granted, as Firas had done.
40.
To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com
From: “seerehwenfadha7et”
Date: December 10, 2004
Subject: Hamdan, the Cute Guy with the Pipe
Nothing is harder than the life of a woman who finds herself torn between a man who loves her and a man she loves.—Khalil Gibran
Whenever I start thinking about the shape my life will take when I bring this story to a close, it stresses me out. What will I do then, having gotten so used to finding all of these messages from you folks out there, e-mails in my mailbox that fill the emptiness of my days? Who will call me every bad name in the book, and who will be there to pat me on the shoulder? Who will even remember me at all? Will I be capable of adjusting to life in the shadows after becoming so accustomed to the glare of publicity, to my role as the spark that sets off the arguments that flare up whenever people in this country get together now?
Even just thinking about what it will be like is upsetting. It’s true that I began with the simple intention of trying to reveal a few of life’s daily realities that pass so many of you unobservant people by. But I’ve become so invested in this story! And I also find myself waiting eagerly—impatiently!—for your readerly responses. I get irritated if I don’t get as many e-mails with feedback as I want; and I’m ecstatic whenever I read about ME in a newspaper or magazine or on a Web page. I’m going to miss all of this attention, there’s no doubt about that. In fact, I might find myself pining for it so fiercely that I don’t have any choice but to start writing again. In that case, what do you all want me to write? I’m standing by, readers, ready and willing: what should be the topic of my next exposé?
Michelle couldn’t believe that her friend Sadeem considered Saudi Arabia to be the sole Islamic country in the world! In Michelle’s opinion, United Arab Emirates was just as Islamic, even though its people were allowed a lot of latitude in their social behavior, and were even allowed to practice other religions. In Michelle’s opinion, UAE was going about it in a much better way. Sadeem tried to make it clear to her that just because a country was “Muslim” did not necessarily mean that it was also an “Islamic country.” Saudi Arabia was the only country ruled solely and completely by the law derived from the Qur’an and the way of the Prophet, peace be upon him, applying that law—the Shari’ah—in all spheres of life. Other Muslim nations might draw on the Islamic Shari’ah for their basic principles and outlook, but as society changed and new needs arose, they left specific rulings to human-made law. Michelle could see the gap between her and her friends widening to the point where at times she wondered how it was that she ever fit in their scene at all—their world didn’t accord in any way with her own ideas about life or the ambitions she had.
And what were those ambitions? Michelle felt she had found her calling working in the media, and she planned to make it to the top. She was going all the way. She dreamed of one day seeing her portrait on the cover of a magazine, standing next to Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. She fantasized about magazines and radio channels and TV stations vying with each other to get her exclusive scoop interviews with celebrities. She imagined the invitations to attend the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys that would surely come her way, just as the invitations to the Arab awards ceremonies already had. Never mind that her father had not let her attend even one of them—she would convince him with time. It would be over Michelle’s dead body that she would be reduced to the circumstances her poor miserable friends found themselves in: a prisoner of the house (Gamrah), a prisoner of a man (Sadeem) or a prisoner of her vanity (Lamees).