I crossed the threshold, entering the lives of others. Either side, neatly tended lawns were encircled by terracotta planters spilling cheerful scarlet geraniums. From the inside, these same walls which had looked so ominous from the outside now looked strangely protective. I was glad to be behind them, ensconced in privacy and at once immediately relaxed. At the top of a small flight of steps was a terrace, onto which opened white-framed double French windows. No matter how often I visited Zubaidah's home, I never got used to the French window entrance, as if I was entering secretly from a rear entrance.
A Filipina maid opened the door, wordlessly ushering us inward. As I was taking in the Daum figurines and the oversized Lalique coffee table amid a Liberace-esque interior, Zubaidah rushed up to greet us, a riot of color against her white marble home. She looked so different, she moved differently; even her voice was less modulated. Her hair I could now see was a flaxen golden brown, playfully turned upward in deliciously sassy, soft waves. I looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. I couldn't take my eyes from her and in that moment I understood the power of veiling. A woman is transformed by hair. I was agog, and, soon after, embarrassed that I was looking at Zubaidah rather in the way a man might have done. For full moments, I was transfixed by the sight of her exposed hair and her buoyant beauty.
The forbidden becomes much more enticing than what is always revealed. I was astonished at the effect her unveiled appearance had on me. Momentarily, I was jealous at how she caged her beauty, sharing it only with the few, the chosen. Briefly, I wished I had treated my looks with such gravity, with such careful measure, instead of giving myself away, daily, wastefully, indiscriminately. Adjusting to the distraction of her entire appearance and her total beauty, I saw she was smiling her warm and infectious pearly smile, greeting us each in turn, gray-brown eyes sparkling with animation, rapidly speaking in refined English laced with a cultivated Lausanne-Amman hybrid accent, markers of a lifetime of summers spent in her family's Jordanian and French-Swiss homes.
She greeted each of us with brief but sincere hugs, and we responded in perfumed flurries of salaams and good evenings. Unanimously we admired her stylish, heavily embroidered burgundy caftan. Zubaidah had opted to wear the traditional dress preferred by so many Palestinian exiles in Riyadh. I was learning. Zubaidah was born and raised in Riyadh and was a Saudi national, but her father had left Palestine in 1948. She was a Saudi Palestinian.
Quickly disengaging ourselves of our abbayahs, we handed them to the silent maid, and followed Zubaidah into her sumptuous home. She led us down the white marble stairs, and into a refinished basement, a suburban American aspiration once again, except it was finished in marble, with Persian fine rugs and several areas of seating. There wasn't a man to be seen. Instead the room was filled with amazing-looking women. My dull outfit was becoming, like me, more hideous by the minute. Zubaidah was the centerpiece of the room, animated, a little flushed and vibrant. She moved effortlessly, engaging in conversation in several languages all the while skillfully switching music and introducing her guests. Seated around the perimeter of the room, other women coolly appraised us, the newly arrived guests. We were the only Westerners there. I was the only non-Caucasian Western Muslim, a strange fruit indeed. I invited extra scrutiny.
I settled myself into a deep, navy blue sofa, which, by dint of generous upholstery, defied any possibility of sitting up straight. I felt increasingly inelegant, my ignominy around these sophisticated Saudi creatures mounting ever further.
Across from me, a Saudi woman, in her early thirties, sat alone on an armless dining chair, dressed in a tight fitting gray wool dress with a short, fringed skirt exposing a single, chiseled knee peeping beyond the hemline. She smoked Marlboros skyward, her glossy head lazily abutting the wall, a picture of nonchalance. Smooth, waxed legs wore tall, black, high-heeled suede boots. Her shapely legs were idly crossed, swinging in synch to each drag of the cigarette. Slowly, she fixed on me with a steady, unblinking gaze and surmised my clumsy ensemble. As she exhaled languidly, I noticed her cigarette was perched on immaculately manicured, slender fingers. In fact every Saudi woman there was also smoking cigarettes, except for Zubaidah. I looked at the chic woman once more. So this was what women in Saudi Arabia wear: exactly what they wear in Manhattan, even down to their nail polish!
I thought of the hundreds of abbayahs that had scurried by me, perhaps many concealing chic and trendy outfits, free of my critical eye, or indeed anyone else's.
“I love your dress!” I told her, “and the boots are fabulous! Where do you shop?” I asked her in genuine admiration.
“From my own boutique in Oleyya,” she replied, coolly, blowing a smoke ring. After a moment, she went on, “This is all from my store. You should visit. Perhaps you will find something you prefer,” she replied, only a glint of excitement in her eye giving away her pride. Her accent was harsher than Zubaidah's and the color of her skin darker, closer to my own, though her English was measured and excellent. This was Hudah, born and bred in Riyadh, of an undiluted Saudi family, a family that allowed their daughter to be a business owner! In Riyadh! Immediately, I wondered if she was married but instinctively knew she was unwed. She seemed too independent. I was pleased to recognize some of myself within this woman.
In the Kingdom, women had been asserting their economic independence for some time. I was stunned to discover a number of other women at the party were also business owners, of clothing boutiques, hair salons, or even, like my friend Zubaidah, owners of chic stores purveying hard-to-find European wares like hand-turned glassware or rare porcelain. It is estimated that forty percent of private wealth in Saudi Arabia is held by Saudi women, and even though women are not permitted to hold a business directly, many do so through the front of a male representative, often a family member. More than fifteen thousand firms are owned and operated in this manner, and their women owners are allowed to be elected to business guilds and chambers of commerce in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dharan.4
Elsewhere, a young, sylph-like girl clattered into a small room in the corner of the basement, carrying a series of rather ugly vases. I could see no flowers. Not everything was quite ready for this party, after all. I followed the activity and offered help. With expert, feline dexterity, the young Saudi woman, Sara, quickly assembled the series of thick glass cylinders onto a round base. From one cylinder (the top most) emerged a thick flexible hose of purple silk. At the end of the hose was a wooden carved pipe wrapped with red cloth, ending in a brass mouthpiece. The “vase” being cleaned was not a vase at all. I was increasingly alarmed. Drugs! The Ganja! In Saudi Arabia! Don't they know about the death penalty? Do they really think they are safe in their homes, here in this police state? Hysterically, I began to feel unsafe, even here, in the security of a private home.
Sara carried on, oblivious to my rising anxiety. She pulled out a small packet of dusty gray bricks, each smaller than a deck of cards, unwrapped the colorful paper enclosing them, and placed them carefully on a steel tray to one side. She piled them up loosely like a short, fat tower. Then she lugged the vessel of vases, which was by now almost as tall as she was, into the deep sink, filling the base of the cylinder with tap water. Finally, I could see, she was assembling a giant kettle; it was a “hubbly-bubbly,” a hookah. Tonight women would smoke!
I looked at Sara more closely. No more than twenty-six, weighing less than one hundred pounds, her darker complexion was nearer mine in color, not as fair as Zubaidah. She was well made up; her well-dressed darker skin concealed scars from recent teenage acne, carefully covered in camouflage makeup. Sara's features were more Indian than Arab, and there was a coldness in her vivacity. She knew the power of her beauty already at a young age. Her widely arched eyebrows and wide-set, dark eyes imparted a feline appearance, compounded by her elegant, efficient movements. She too was wearing a stylish ensemble, a short skirt ending above the knee accompanied by a slim-fitting sleeveless sweater. Clicking heels added to her momentum. The body-hugging clothing revealed a lean, enviably streamlined figure.