Black Book of Arabia (5 page)

Using Sheikha's picture and profile, the matchmaker soon found a suitor: a thirty-five-year-old Saudi royal, tall, dark and handsome, a Leo. He was a successful businessman, never married, and was thinking of settling down in the United States after the wedding because he had a portion of his investments in the United States and he enjoyed it there. Lulu's heart stopped. With luck like this, who needs black magic?

Catching the prince's attention was surprisingly easy. All she had to do was furnish him with a few select images of the alluring Sheikha as his potential bride-to-be. Human nature, curiosity, and vanity did the rest. The prince who was oh-so-hard to reach and discriminating was grateful for the introduction and begging for more.

Lulu had deliberately chosen someone who was not only a member of a royal family, but also was a businessman, ensuring that he would be away from home and too busy to actually insist on meeting often or soon. She let his liabilities be his own disadvantage in speaking to her as often as he would like. Too many inquiries could risk blowing her cover. Lulu remembered what her Aunt Khokha, who also worked in the salon, used to say: “You must be a tease with men. Once they have you, they lose interest. Without the chase there is no mystery and no reward, so why bother? Remember, it is best to be the apple at the
end of the stick than to be the stick in their hand. The chase is the key.” Thus, Lulu left little to no time before the actual wedding ceremony, when he would make her his wife and fall in love with her personality, at least. Even if he saw that she was not the beauty he was led to believe she was, she would compensate by being a loving partner. Otherwise, if all failed she would still keep the hefty dowry and she would live off the reputation that she was a prince's divorcee.

The prince was the only contact in the phone Lulu used, so none of her friends would know anything about it. She was careful to always leave him hungry for more, interrupting him as he was speaking or inquiring about her, promising him she would call him back—but of course she never did. To him she was unattainable, a mystery that left him more thirsty with every sip. She would read him a line that struck a deep chord within him, but then would say something absurd. When he would comment, she would say that she needed to call him back some other time or would just disconnect the call. The adrenaline rush was like that of a hunter pursuing prey that was unobtainable and impossible—and all the more intriguing.

Lulu saw no harm in using her friend, since it was for a good cause. Sheikha would understand that this would help Lulu to attain her goals in life: money, status, and a good-looking prince for a husband. She daydreamed about how she would join Sheikha and her husband in the future on their Swiss ski trips as lifelong friends.

Lulu carefully drew on the bank of images of Sheikha that she had saved, posting them at just the right point in a conversation with the prince. Lulu's real-life friends often told her she was a hilarious character, and she knew that her sense of humor was both her best asset and best chance at capturing the attention of her online prince. She was right: He was instantly interested. He searched for her. Constantly. Whenever he asked her a question that was too smart for her simple background, she would end the phone call, interrupting his thoughts and leaving the impression that she fully understood him. He was always left wondering, though he thought positively about her, as much as it would bother him. She seemed like she never had time for him, even though he was the one with a packed agenda.

The prince was particularly interested in the images of the horses and foals. Lulu was frightened of the large horses and being quite short, she found it difficult to mount a horse. Sheikha was five foot, seven inches tall and had been riding since she was three years old, with and without a saddle, so Lulu had many photographs of Lady Lulu on horseback. Unfamiliar with equine terminology, Lulu tried to joke her way through the prince's questions. He ignored the gaps in her knowledge of equine activities, perhaps because there was too much truth in the other things. Perhaps she wanted to avoid answering questions. Perhaps she was being coy. Lulu possessed details about the things Sheikha had done that only someone who had been there would know. For example, Sheikha sometimes let Lulu feed her
horses, Snowdrop and Reeh Al Shemaal (North Wind), so she knew how to feed the horse with open fingers to avoid being bitten. She knew never to walk behind the horse, lest it kick in fright, and how horses sensed rain, earthquakes, and danger. Details like these kept the prince convinced and silent.

Lulu had to be careful with languages, however. She claimed that Lady Lulu had been educated abroad, like Sheikha, but Lulu's knowledge of English and French fell short of what one would expect from someone who had lived and studied in London and Paris. Indeed, her entire educational background was lacking, compared to the princess's. Some of the pictures she shared showed shelves packed with literary masterpieces, but Lulu did not know the difference between George Orwell and George Lucas. The prince would speak of the shabby-but-Boho Chic alleyways in Saint Germain, a gathering place for the educated and cultured, and she would say she hated poor corners and slums. Yet she also said she painted scenes on location in Paris, and a few of the paintings she had shared with him depicted the very same alleyways he mentioned. Odd indeed, and most queer. A curious nature, this intriguing and lovely Lady Lulu.

The images of Lady Lulu were always enticing, and they dissolved many a questioning thought. She was a royal like him, just as rich, traveled, cultured and educated, with a hunger to rediscover previously visited places with the same eagerness. Familiarity breeds approval.
How refreshing
, he thought to himself. The horses, the paintings, the beauty
of her sad eyes, the romantic poetry, the alluring sound of her singing a short note, which he replayed several hundred times, and her beautiful, long hair were the net, and he, the fish.

The prince wanted to meet his bride before the wedding. He asked if he could fly in to see her, but she refused. She said it was her dream for him to see her in person on their wedding day, and for him to carry her away in a white carriage. His patience waned, and it began to look as if he would not be able to wait three months. When he insisted on seeing her, she explained that her father was very traditional and would expect the wedding to happen instantly and then introduce the bride. He understood that she was from a conservative family, but he was confident that there must be a way around it. She insisted otherwise.

The prince's suspicions began to grow. There was a little too much mystery surrounding Lady Lulu, especially the fact that she would not even reveal her father's name. Also, she said she spoke fluent Saudi Arabic because her best friend was Saudi. Hard to believe. The prince was a serious man and did not like women playing games with his heart, no matter how perfect she was. He told her he was coming to Kuwait for one day and expected to see her, even if it was in her father's house with a formal engagement. Fearing the whole scheme might fall apart, Lulu agreed, but she set the rules: She would only see him in a public place; her entourage would accompany her; they would not speak.  The prince accepted the conditions, and Lulu set a date for the rendezvous.

Lulu called Sheikha and casually invited her to the Al Salhyia Mall to have lunch. The Fauchon Café in Al Salhyia is a famous spot for the old money in Kuwait, a place that people who are not fashionable or who are attempting to watch their weight should avoid.

Somewhere in the boisterous Fauchon Café sat the young prince. He immediately recognized Lady Lulu from the many pictures he had pored over for the last few months. He asked the maître d' to move him to another table, closer to the object of his affection. From his new vantage point, he filled his eyes to his content with his young princess.

She was everything she had said she was, and even more than she had shown him. There was a gentle grace that was impossible to sense in the hasty texts, and a serene glow of savoir-faire in the folding and unfolding of her napkin. The quiet movement of her slender hand requesting the menu, her bashful eyes and fan of lashes, the way her lips curved when she smiled warmed his heart and crowned the image he had of her in his mind. He pictured eating with her, her family and his family together, their children, their work and their travels. He wanted to apologize for his insistence and to compliment her, saying that it seemed the sun had come out to have lunch in Fauchon Café this day. He burned to join her.

He wanted to speak to her; after all, he
was
her fiancé, and he wanted to meet her family since he was in town. He was braver and more insistent and wanted to break the norms; he wanted to go introduce himself and sit down with her. It was
the proper thing to do. She would definitely be delighted at his chivalry, and it would be a brilliant surprise. Who knew? He could be granted an audience with her while he lunched or maybe dine with the family with her present. His eyes did not belong to him anymore; they drank in her beauty as if they had never tasted anything like it before.

He texted her, but she never even looked at her BlackBerry. He did not understand. Unable to contain himself, he approached her to say hello, but she ignored him. He spoke to her, but she gave him a withering look and told him to leave her alone.

Feeling confused and a little insulted, he returned to his table. He toyed with his Caesar salad as she excused herself and walked past him toward the ladies' room. She was tall and slender, dressed in a light pink tweed Chanel jacket with a velvet border with gold and pearl buttons, and beige sailor trousers with similar gold buttons on either side. Her pearl earrings glimmered, and her straight, white teeth matched their opalescent gleam. With her hair gathered in a French twist, she looked like she had just walked out of a fashion magazine.

Accompanying her was a short, fat woman with exaggerated hips, tight jeans, and a bulging waistline. She was wearing chains and chains of long necklaces, silver eye shadow, and a long line of eyeliner that resembled the Egyptian pharaohs. No two friends together at the café could have looked more different or more odd.
The princess must have wanted to come in a hurry
, the prince thought,
and this was the only friend available. Clown looking, though.

When the princess and her friend finished their meal and got up to leave, the prince threw more money than necessary on the table to pay his bill and followed them out the door. He remained at a distance as they proceeded to the car park. As the young women got into the princess's champagne-colored Porsche, the prince casually snapped a picture of the license plate as he walked by and said, “God bless you, my sweet.”

When he got to his Range Rover, the prince texted the plate number to one of his contacts in the police department. As he waited to learn the family name of his beloved, he finally received a text from Lady Lulu. She apologized for her behavior, but said it was necessary since she could not let
her
entourage, Sheikha, know about him, as she was certain to tell her father and that could spoil all of their plans. She had mentioned that her family wanted to marry her off to her cousin but she wanted to know her husband-to-be beforehand. Hence the situation they were in right now.

The prince smiled to himself, thinking what an amazing moment it would be when her father spoke to her about him, all unannounced and unexpected and in full confidence that he was someone she would agree to marry because there was a pre-agreement and they were in love. He had forgotten his heart in the café, forgotten how to breathe like he used to. He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled. There was a delicate pleasure and joy in the corner of his eye and the curve of his smile when he caught his reflection.

The prince accepted the explanation of her indifferent behavior in public, but, after finding out her family name from her plate number, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Proceeding as a gentleman, he contacted her father, a respected sheikh, and asked to have coffee with him in the
majlis
.

After courteous greetings and some cordial chat, the prince stated his intentions. He wanted to marry Princess Lulu. Her father looked confused. He had only one daughter of marriageable age, and she was already engaged. The prince could not believe what he was hearing.

“Princess Lulu is engaged?” the prince asked in amazement.

“My daughter most assuredly is,” said Sheikha's father. “But that's another thing: Her name is Sheikha, not Lulu. She has a friend named Lulu, a Saudi girl who lives in our care. She is my daughter's entourage as she has failed in university but she is the daughter of a hairdresser, not a head of state.”

Sheikha's father laughed at his own wordplay.

The prince smiled, more in embarrassment than in amusement, thinking to himself that his love had a sharper wit than her father did.

Sheikha's father explained that Lulu was like his daughter, but he still deemed it best to propose to her through her own father.

“Her father is in Riyadh,” Sheikha's father said. “He sells camels, I think.”

The prince was a businessman and royal with many years of experience in public attacks, scandals and swindles, but this was new to him. Hurt and angry, he seethed in Kuwait for a day trying to clear his thoughts on how to proceed. Lady Lulu texted him, but he ignored all of her attempts at contact. She asked him if he did not like how she looked when he saw her. She explained how she had to act detached because everything is watched carefully by the socially active and camera-happy people in Kuwait. She was afraid of her reputation being tarnished had she shown her true affections and excited reaction to meeting him. Being caught on camera talking to a stranger and publicly entertaining him is not a comfortable situation for a woman to be put in, especially at such a sensitive and marriage-ripe age.