Read Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village Online
Authors: Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
Tags: #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #General
Aziza posed by the little arched iron footbridge which crossed
the canal; then she climbed the bridge to pose again, leaning
on the railing and looking into the water romantically.
The Buick roared up just before sundown and we clambered
gratefully in. It was good to be rescued on the lonely road as
night approached and the only human habitation for miles
those unfriendly families in the mud huts. It was very cosy in
the car. The lights were on in El Nahra and it was actually
dark when we reached my door. On impulse, I asked the girls
to have supper with me, as Bob was eating in the mudhif.
Over cold chicken and salad, watered yogurt and tea, Aziza
became quite eloquent. The subject was tribal purity, and
Laila supported her effusively on every point. Neither girl, it
appeared, would ever dream of marrying a man not of her own
tribe.
“It is—it is—” fumbled Aziza, looking desperately for an
explanation which might appeal to my strange Western mind,
“it is like the British royal family,” she finished triumphantly.
“They do not sully their bloodlines. Why? Because they are
proud of their lineage. That is the way we feel.”
“But if a man from another tribe were very handsome and
very rich would you marry him?” asked Laila.
“I might like to, if I saw him and fell in love with him,” said
Aziza.
“I would, if my father asked me to,” burst out Laila.
“Any girl would do whatever her father asked,” retorted
Aziza, “but my father would never ask anything like that. In
our tribe we are very tall and we want to keep the tallness.”
“Of course,” said Laila politely, and then to make amends
she added, “your cousin is very tall.” “Yes,” said Aziza.
At that moment Mohammed called through the shuttered
window to ask if he could speak to me privately. I was
surprised, for Mohammed never interrupted or intruded when
I had guests, especially women. I excused myself, and Aziza
asked me as I went out whether Mohammed could walk her
home, as she did not like to return to the school alone in the
dark.
Mohammed waited in the kitchen.
“Sitt,” he burst out without even a prefatory greeting,
“something very bad has happened.”
“What?” I cried, my mind jumping to a vision of Bob lying
dead in a ditch out in the middle of the plain.
“It is Laila,” he said.
“Laila?” I echoed, in some perplexity.
“Yes, Laila. Isn’t she in your room now with the
schoolteacher?”
I nodded.
“Didn’t you take her with you this afternoon?”
“Yes,” I said, still not understanding.
“You should not have done that,” said Mohammed
solemnly. “In fact, you should never have gone at all without
asking your husband.”
My first reaction was one of irritation. What right had
Mohammed to tell me what I must and must not do?
“Thank you very much, Mohammed,” I said as calmly as I
could, “but I am sure my husband would not object. After all,
I was with the schoolteacher, whom everyone respects.”
Mohammed brushed my reply aside with a gesture of
impatience. I could hardly believe that this was Mohammed,
who never spoke like this to anyone, and had never presumed
to discuss my conduct with me. But he continued firmly, “Sitt,
you are a foreigner and although you wouldn’t, I should think,
want to ruin your good name, you don’t have to live here. The
schoolteacher’s cousin is a very bad man; he drinks and
gambles and stays with bad women in Diwaniya.”
I opened my mouth to interrupt but Mohammed held up his
hand warningly.
“Laila is in great danger,” he said. “If anyone”—he paused
and repeated “—anyone were to know that she went riding
with a strange unmarried man without men from her family
present, she could be killed. Her father would have to do it to
save the honor of the other women of the family. Do you
understand?”
Yes, now I did understand, with the sickening realization
that one has as a child of being caught in an act of serious
wrongdoing, conscious that there will be no discussions or
excuses, no opportunity to explain. It is done and one is to
blame and waits for punishment.
“What shall I do, Mohammed?”
“You must deny that Laila was with you. Say it was a
cousin of the schoolteacher. I know Laila went and so do
some of the children who saw you go, but I will deny it and so
will the children because they like Laila.”
“But Mohammed, she is here now, eating supper with me.
Everyone will know that, and will see her leave.”
Mohammed paused. “You could say that she camp after the
ride to eat supper with you,” he decided. “Perhaps you had
better explain to the schoolteacher.”
I went in to Laila and Aziza, where they sat chatting
happily, and told them what Mohammed had said. “We must
swear it was a cousin of yours in the car, Aziza,” I finished,
“and all stick to that story.”
“Yes,” said Aziza.
Laila’s holiday manner disappeared as I talked; she now
rose abruptly, knocking her half-full glass of tea all over her
abayah. I pushed my handkerchief at her, but she did not take
it.
“Never mind, never mind,” she said and wiped ineffectually
at the wet abayah with her hand.
“I must leave,” she said, shaking our hands perfunctorily
and going out quickly.
Aziza and I were left looking at each other. “I should have
known better,” she said. “I know how conservative these
people are; after all, I grew up as Laila did. That is why I
made a point of asking whether her father would allow her to
go. When she said yes, I was too careless to press it further.
“We must say nothing,” she added. “The least they can do
is to beat her. Let us hope they do nothing worse.”
Mohammed coughed discreetly outside the window where
he was waiting to escort Aziza home. He would walk, as he
walked with me, a few steps ahead to lead the way; and he
would wait until the school gate had clicked shut behind Aziza
and only then return.
Aziza took my hand.
“I’m sorry our lovely afternoon finished this way,” she said.
My face must have shown what I felt, for she added
quickly, “Don’t worry, please. If no one will admit that she
went with us, it will be all right.”
When Aziza had gone, I sat appalled at the possible
consequences of my thoughtlessness. I tried to busy myself
tidying up our two rooms, but I had a bad hour, alternately
imagining Laila weeping and beaten, or Laila thrown into the
canal and drowned (would they tie her hands and feet?). There
should be something I could do to help, but, alas, there was
nothing. What I had done could not be repaired by any words
or action of mine.
Bob’s appearance was hardly reassuring. He had just spent
an extremely uncomfortable half hour in the mudhif being
scolded by Nour for his husbandly neglect in letting me go out
alone. Poor Bob had been at a disadvantage, for he had been
away from El Nahra the entire afternoon and knew nothing of
what had happened.
“I covered you, I think,” Bob said, “by saying that I had
told you beforehand that you could go, but I didn’t know
anything about the sheik’s women, fortunately. When they
asked me who was in the car with you, I said quite truthfully
that I had no idea. But I have never seen Nour so upset. He
spoke very abruptly. He has never acted this way in all the
time we have been here.”
Bob was as upset as I.
“I’m afraid you’ve made quite a blunder,” he said. “You
might have asked me before you went. You’ve made me look
foolish and compromised your friend.”
“I know, I know,” I wailed, “but what can I do?”
He thought for a moment. “I think you probably should stay
here, but I had better go back to the mudhif and act as if
nothing were wrong. Maybe I can find out what is
happening.”
We both knew this was unlikely. Whatever Laila’s
punishment, it would be administered behind the high walls of
her house. What actually took place would be known only
long after.
Bob on his return had little to report. Nour had seemed
calmer, but had repeated his earlier strictures on Bob’s
conduct. “Nour is being overconscientious because Sheik
Hamid is in Baghdad,” Bob said.
“If only the teacher’s cousin hadn’t been such a rake,” he
added, “I have the feeling it might not have been so bad. Nour
may be afraid that the cousin will gossip about Laila and you
in the Diwaniya coffee shops. Then the tribe will lose face.
This business of the good name of their women being the
honor of the tribe is no joke.”
Neither of us slept much that night. I reproached myself
again and again for being so thoughtless. After all, Aziza had
asked Laila and she, Laila, had made her own decision about
going. It was not all my fault. But I knew that I should have
been perceptive enough to realize that it was an almost
unheard-of action for as sheltered a girl as Laila. I was older
and, as a married woman, theoretically I was more
responsible. On the other hand—and so I argued back and
forth.
Mohammed, when he came in the morning, had not
dropped his role of counselor-adviser. This must mean that the
situation was still grave, but when I asked he said he did not
know what had happened. He told me not to visit Laila’s
house but instead to visit the sheik’s house. This seemed like a
good way to appear unconcerned and a wise move in general,
but I found it very difficult to walk up the path that morning,
past Laila’s house (what was going on inside?) and into
Selma’s courtyard. I sat down in the bedroom and prepared
myself to face questioning. Selma and Samira sat with me,
and Kulthum came in to drink tea. Several other women
stopped momentarily, but an hour passed with no mention of
yesterday.
Bob told me at lunchtime the men too had stopped talking
about it in the mudhif. I asked Mohammed at nightfall if he
had heard any news.
“Laila is all right, I think,” he said, “but she hasn’t been out
of her house all day, and neither have her sisters.”
At this I felt a great sense of relief, although Mohammed
warned me again never to mention the episode to anyone. It
would, he said, be all right for me to visit Laila the next day.
Laila greeted me cheerfully. I had just about decided
Mohammed had exaggerated the seriousness of the whole
affair when Laila left the room, and her three older sisters
came in and closed the door. They proceeded to give me the
politest, most cutting lecture I have ever received.
I was thoroughly embarrassed as the girls pointed out the
damage I had nearly done.
“We know that you don’t understand our ways,” said
Fatima.
“We realize you didn’t mean any harm,” put in Nejla.
“We just wanted you to understand …” Sanaa left her
sentence unfinished.
None of the three actually mentioned the facts of the case,
and when I put in, rather crossly, that after all Laila had come
of her own accord, they merely looked at their hands.
Finally Fatima said, “Yes Beeja, we know she should not
have gone. We have scolded her already, but she is young and
silly. You are older and a married woman and have been to
school. If our father knew for certain, he would beat her very
hard. We were all so frightened for Laila last night.”
The three girls stared at me in a somber way, while I felt
they were willing me to imagine the things that might have
happened to Laila. I dropped my eyes before that steady,
virtuous, oppressive gaze, saying I was very sorry for the
trouble I had caused.
Fatima caught me by the hand. “We will never mention this
again,” she said.
Gradually our pattern of visiting re-established itself, the
men in the mudhif no longer discussed the question, and I
thought the incident forgotten completely. But two months
later I was drinking tea with Selma. We were discussing I
don’t remember what, when she casually asked, “Who was in
the car with you, Beeja, when Sitt Aziza took you for a ride?”
“Aziza’s cousin from Diwaniya,” I replied promptly.
“What was her name?” inquired Selma, pouring a little hot
tea into the saucer and blowing it.
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Many people say that it was Laila in the car,” said Selma,
offering a little of the cooled tea to her three-year-old
daughter, who sipped it noisily.
“They are wrong,” I lied.
One of the women said, “But my daughter told me she saw
Laila get into the car.”
“So did mine,” put in another.
My uneasiness was growing, but Selma cut the two women
short.
“Didn’t you hear Beeja?” she asked. “Are you calling our
guest Beeja a liar?”
No more was said. But I began to realize that Bob and I
would never be other than foreigners, even though our efforts
to conform to the local customs might prove ingratiating. No
one would seriously blame us for our lapses, but we had to