Girls of Riyadh (15 page)

To: [email protected]

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: August 13, 2004

Subject: Sultan Al-Internetti

Not a week passes anymore without my reading some article about myself in a newspaper or magazine or Internet chat room. Standing in line at the supermarket, it really stunned me to see a popular magazine on the rack with bold letters across the cover that said: “What Do Celebrities Think of Today’s Hottest Talk in the Saudi Street?” I didn’t doubt for a minute, of course, that I was that hot subject. Very calmly, I bought the magazine. Once I was back in the car, I flipped through it quickly, flying through the roof out of happiness! Four entire pages crammed full of photos of writers and journalists and politicians and actors and singers and sports stars, each having their little say on the burning issue of the e-mails from an unknown source that have been the talk of the Saudi street for months!

I was most interested in what the literary lions had to say. I didn’t understand a thing, naturally. One said I was a talented writer who belongs to the metaphysical surrealistic expressionist strain of the impressionists’ school, or something like that. The pundit observed that I am the first to be able to represent all these things. If only this big-mouth knew the truth! I don’t have the slightest idea what these words even MEAN, let alone know how to combine them in some meaningful way! But deserved or not, it is indeed gratifying to be the subject of such panegyric. (Hey, at least I can match their vocabulary now and then!) What do I think about impressionist metaphysical surrealism? It’s positively, absolutely PUFFSOULISTIC!

S
adeem, do you think there is any hope Rashid will start aching for his son and come see him one of these days? You know, right, that Rashid’s dad brought Saleh a namesake gift because I named the baby after him, even though Rashid isn’t even anywhere around?”

“Don’t waste your time even thinking about him. Didn’t he send money with his mother or father? That’s it—curtains! As far as everybody is concerned, he’s in the clear. What do you want with him anyway, after everything he’s done?”

After her phone conversation with Sadeem, Gamrah started looking at the photo album of her wedding. In picture after picture, she noticed how glum Rashid’s expression was, while her face radiated happiness and delight.

What brought her up short was a photo of herself surrounded by Rashid’s sisters: Layla, married and mother of two children; Ghadah, who was about Gamrah’s age; and Iman, who was fifteen years old. For a few minutes she concentrated on this picture, thinking. She reached a decision. She rushed over to the computer and slid the photo into the scanner. In seconds, the picture appeared on the screen. Using the right mouse click, she cut herself, Layla and Iman. Only Ghadah was left.

In the evening, getting together with Sultan on instant messenger as she did every night, she convinced him that she had finally decided to send him her photo in exchange for the many photos of himself that he had sent her.

She sent him Ghadah’s portrait through IM, trembling as she hit send. She had already told him that it was a photo of her with some friends taken at someone’s wedding. She edited out all the others, she explained, as a loyal and trusty friend who would never expose her friends’ pictures to strangers. As soon as the photo was transferred successfully, Sultan divulged how blown away he was by her good looks, telling her he could never have imagined that she was so gorgeous. Gamrah rounded out her little deception by telling him that her real name was Ghadah Saleh Al-Tanbal!

G
AMRAH’S SISTER
H
ESSAH
called her older sister Naflah to ask her advice about the never-ending problems Hessah was having with her husband, Khalid.

“Sister, would you believe it, now he’s on my back all the time because of Gamrah! He started calling her names just because he heard that my brothers set up an Internet connection for her at home.”

“He ought to be ashamed of himself, saying things like that! Did you tell Mama?”

“I told her, but you know what she said to me? She said, ‘It’s none of your husband’s business what Gamrah’s doing and you can tell him to stop complaining! The poor girl doesn’t have anything to entertain her. It’s bad enough that she’s shut up in this house day and night. At least, spending time on the Internet is better—for all of us—than having your sister roaming the streets of Riyadh out of boredom!”

“Mama is still so upset about poor Gamrah’s divorce.”

“So, as long as Gamrah has gone and gotten a divorce, do you want me to follow her example and get myself a divorce, too? My Lord, if Khalid hears any gossip at all about Gamrah, anything bad she’s doing online with the guys she chats with every day, anything!, he’s going to throw me out and my children, too. Out in the street!”

“He’d be the only loser! Anyway, don’t you have a family, a home you can go back to, after all?”

“Oh, fine! Just great. Exactly what I want to do, sit around with Mama and Gamrah now!
Wallah,
the more I see the state Gamrah’s in and this life she’s living, the more I praise my Lord for this creep I have sitting at home. As the proverb says, hold on to whatever you’ve got, otherwise you will get a lot worse.
Yallah. Alhamdu lillah
and thank God for everything.”

F
ROM THE MOMENT
she sent him the photo of Rashid’s sister Ghadah (or, ahem,
her
photo), Sultan had hardly left the Net for a minute. He kept after her all the time to let him talk to her over the phone. She stood firm, though. She wasn’t “that sort” of girl, she said. The more she turned him down, the more attached to her Sultan became and the more he praised and glorified her moral rectitude.

In truth, Gamrah had given a great deal of thought to this issue of telephone calls. She simply could not go there, she decided. She thought of two reasons. First, her cell phone was in her father’s name. That being the case, it was very possible that Sultan could and would find out who she really was. He would know that she lied to him and he might spread the news that he got to know one of Al-Qusmanji girls and the ex of Rashid Al-Tanbal through the Internet. And second, she had never really warmed up to the idea of talking on the phone to a strange guy, even if she did feel a kind of closeness to Sultan and sensed that he was sincere and would stick to his word. Still, something inside of her would not relent. She, like the majority of well-raised Saudi girls, couldn’t help but resist the idea and find it improper.

After some long nights of insomnia and many, many tears of contrition over her unforgivable act of exploiting innocent Ghadah’s photo to get revenge on Rashid, and after her mother described the problems Hessah was having with her husband on account of her sister’s addiction to the Internet, Gamrah made a very difficult decision. She would withdraw from the bewitching world of chat. She would take herself out of the range of the good, upstanding Sultan, who did not deserve to be treated in such a thoughtless and cavalier way. He especially didn’t deserve such horrid treatment after he had begun to talk about hoping to marry her.

Without any warning, Gamrah disappeared. All news of her suddenly ceased. So did the messages to Sultan, who went on writing e-mails full of desire and love and entreaty and conciliation for months, even though Gamrah did not respond, not even once.

To: [email protected]

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: August 20, 2004

Subject: Had Matti Fallen for Her? And She for Him?

My reader Ibrahim advised me to create a Web site for myself (or he will create it for me) where I will publish my e-mails, starting with the very first one and going all the way through. Ibrahim says that this will protect them from literary theft or loss, and I can increase the number of visitors with some advertisements and I can make money if I agree to put links to other Web sites on my Web page. Ibrahim explained everything to me in detail.

I am most grateful to you, brother, for your kind offer and generous cooperation. But I don’t know any more about designing Web sites than I do about stewing okra! And I can’t possibly put such a burden on your shoulders, Ibrahim. So I will continue on in my own style, as outdated as it is, of sending weekly e-mails while waiting for a more tempting offer. A weekly newspaper column, maybe, or a radio or TV program all to myself, or any other proposition which your ingenious intellects can inundate me with, readers!

M
atti had the power to make Michelle’s life one long, totally cool adventure. He gave her practical help and moral support as she adjusted to her new life. He explained whatever she found difficult in her studies, whether in subjects he was teaching her or in other courses. He was vigilant about keeping up to date on how her dorm life was going, and he tried to help her solve any problem she encountered. She was enjoying her independent life and savoring the taste of a freedom she was experiencing for the first time in her life, but on a daily basis she still spent more time in her uncle’s home than she did in her dorm.

After struggling through the challenges and strains of her first few months in San Francisco and getting used to the university routine, Michelle began getting involved in university activities, drawing in Cousin Matthew (that is, Matt or Matti), who in turn began to include her in his weekly pastimes, as did some of his friends.

There was a university-organized camping expedition to Yosemite one weekend. Matti went along because he was president of the university’s Friends of Nature Club. Out there, in nature’s enchanting embrace, amid beauties Michelle had never seen, Matti was the right companion in the right place at the right time. He would wake her up early for a hike to some small rock outcropping in some out-of-the-way spot where they perched to watch the sunrise. Sitting there, they saw the sun’s rays break across the spray of the surging waterfall directly in front of them. They vied to see who could get the best shot in one captivating photo op after another. She roused his competitive zeal with a photo she took of a pair of lovebird squirrels kissing. A little later, he got her back with a picture of a deer blocking the disk of the sun with its head so that the rays appeared to be golden horns extending as far as the eye could see.

Another weekend—this time a long weekend—Matti took Michelle to the Napa Valley. He had been invited by one of his close friends, whose family owned a famous winery there. At the farm Michelle tasted truly superior freshly made jams, grilled meats and pasta made with grain grown on the farm, accompanied by some wonderful Chardonnays and Cabs.

Such were the weekend breaks. When they had longer vacations (but ones not long enough for her to travel home to Saudi Arabia)—Easter break, for instance—Matti would drive her to Las Vegas or Los Angeles. By San Francisco standards, her uncle would be considered, if not loaded, at least a member of the upper middle class. With Matti’s monthly salary from the university and his father’s help, in addition to what Michelle’s father sent her each month, which was pretty substantial, they were able to come up with some totally satisfying plans for spending holidays in out-of-the-ordinary places.

In Las Vegas, he took her to a performance of the hit show
Lord of the Dance.
He surprised her with two tickets to the magnificent
“O”
show of the Cirque du Soleil. In LA, which she had visited before, they switched roles; she became the expedition organizer. She first took him to Rodeo Drive near Sunset Boulevard so that she could pursue her favorite passion: shopping! He began grumbling even before they got there. They spent the evening smoking hookahs at the Gypsy Café. The next day they walked along the beach at Santa Monica and spent the evening at the Byblos Restaurant. There she spotted lots of Saudi men with their Persian girlfriends. Staring at her, checking out her facial features, the Saudis suspected she might be one of them. They were disconcerted to see her there with someone who was obviously not Saudi. As they overheard her chatting with Matti, though, her perfect American accent chased away their misgivings; their eyes, so accustomed to stalking girls from the Gulf, stopped following her.

Back in San Francisco, Matti would take her to Chinatown, where they strolled among the tiny stores window-shopping and wandered into traditional Chinese restaurants. Each time they visited the Chinese neighborhood, they ordered the fruit juice “cocktail” thickened with tapioca, which turned the drink deliciously gluey and gummy.

In the spring they took excursions to Golden Gate Park to view the sunset. He played bewitching songs on his guitar as the sun biscuit dipped into the cup of sea. In winter, he often took her to drink hot cocoa at Ghirardelli overlooking the bay and the infamous island prison of Alcatraz. Sipping their hot drinks, they contemplated its tower in the distance, a notorious silhouette that conjured up a grim past of crime and violence in America.

What Michelle liked best about Matti was that he always showed respect for her opinions, however different they were from his views. Often, she noticed, she commanded sufficient authority to win him over to her way of seeing things. He always explained, though, that these disagreements didn’t amount to much, just minor differences of opinion. It wasn’t worth the effort to try to change each other’s view just to march in lockstep in everything. In her own country, Michelle was used to pulling back from any conversation when disagreement threatened to boil over into hot verbal conflicts and an exchange of insults. She avoided expressing her opinions strongly except when she was with people she felt close to, such as her most intimate girlfriends. Public opinion in her country, she had become convinced, did not necessarily represent what people really thought. They were reluctant to offer their views on a particular issue because some prominent or important person, someone whose word was practically law, might step in and say a few words and then everyone would rush to support him. At home, public opinion coalesced around a single view—the view backed by the most powerful people.

Had Matti fallen for her? She didn’t think so. So had she fallen for him? It was impossible to deny that spending so much time together for two years, together with all the interests they shared, made them very close. Nor could she deny that there were moments when she imagined herself truly loving him, especially after a poetic evening on the beach, or—more superficially—after she got a really good final grade in a difficult course in which Matti worked hard to tutor her. But deep in her heart, Faisal still lurked, a buried secret that she couldn’t ever reveal to Matti. Knowing nothing about Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t begin to imagine the restrictions that had hindered her attachment to Faisal and had turned the story of her love for him into a tragic tale of loss.

Matti, who came from a country that breathed freedom, believed that love was an extraordinary force that could create miracles! When Michelle was first emerging from girlhood, she, too, had believed that. But that was before she returned from America to live in her own country, where she came to realize that love was treated like an inappropriate joke. A soccer ball to play with for a while, until
those in power
kicked it away.