Forbidden Love (3 page)

“Thanks, thanks so much,” Dalia said, almost bouncing as she went to unlock the doors.

As I tidied up the break room, I wondered if I was doing the right thing by helping Dalia. I tried to convince myself that Dalia was right that we two could do anything as long as we did it together.

We had learned girls’ rules together. Now, at twenty-five, for the first time in our lives, we were specifically thinking of challenging them. When we were little, neither society nor our families distinguished between boys and girls. It didn’t seem to matter where, how, or with whom we played. As time went on, our list of rules steadily grew, until by the age of ten we were no longer allowed to associate with boys not related to us. We never questioned the reasons for this change, since we were at an age when we preferred to play with girls anyway. Looking back, it’s clear that the foundation of our future was being built then, but in a way that felt gradual, incontestable, and unavoidable.

Our mothers, like all mothers of daughters, did their job by training us to live in an unsympathetic, protected, male-dominated world. I’m certain no woman raised in Jordan escaped her childhood and young adulthood without hearing things like: “A woman’s honour, once ruined, can never be repaired’, or “Better to lose your life than lose your reputation’. They told us about the woman who chose to kill herself and

die honourably rather than allow a potential rapist to assault her, and of the woman who didn’t preserve her honour and was raped, only to be murdered by her own family who were protecting their ‘good’ name.

Our parents wove into everyday life the idea that all men are superior to women. We were not beaten into a state of slavery with whips and chains, but rather persuaded into it by the words and teaching of centuries-old traditions. It was not our faith in those words that continued to bind us but our fear of the consequences if we ever went against them. This was the first time that either of us had even thought of challenging these conventions.

When we’d finished cleaning up and had hidden our cigarettes, we unbolted the doors and waited for Dalia’s brother and his friend. Fifteen minutes later we heard a pickup pull up in front of the salon and Mohammed got out, laughing and talking loudly. He rushed in and dropped off our carrot juice and falafel sandwiches. To our surprise he only stayed long enough to find out when he should come to take us home and lock up. Then, he made a quick phone call to confirm that his friend still wanted to go to Auto World. This was a thrilling day for him; his friend had managed to hunt down the headlamp Mohammed had been searching for since he’d bought the pickup. After he’d hung up, he dashed out of the salon yelling, “Call me on my cell phone if you need anything,” and disappeared into the gloomy afternoon.

Mohammed loved his pickup. He’d bought it the previous October and saw it as far more than a means of transport. It was his hobby, his baby, his full-time job. Although he’d bought it loaded with all the possible options, he was ceaselessly improving it.

For Dalia and me, Mohammed’s preoccupation with the

pickup was the answer to our prayers. It gave us hours of private time together.

For years the only Mohammed-free moments we’d had were during lunch. Not much happened during the four and a half years we’d operated the salon that our fathers didn’t know about from Mohammed. While Dalia and I didn’t appreciate having a spy in our midst, there was nothing we could do about it. If we complained, it would only make our families suspect that we had something to hide. It would go against everything we’d been taught.

Like most Jordanian women, Dalia and I were not permitted to argue with the men in our families. Even if we were right, the simple fact that we were female made us wrong in the eyes of society. We were unable to challenge the principle. It was a universal Arab creed, one that cut across religion and class.

Dalia had been agitated all morning. Now, as I was wrapping up a perm on my five o’clock appointment a few days after the Michael revelation, she sat at the front counter flipping through a magazine. She had forty minutes free before her next client and although she was reading about new hairstyle trends and fashions, she was obviously preoccupied with thoughts of Michael. She rummaged through the piles of papers and notebooks we’d accumulated over the years, restlessly trying to keep herself busy.

“You know, we really should clean some of this out,” she said as she pulled out a notebook with the word “Scorebook’ written in black across the cover. “I think we can stop keeping score it’s pretty obvious that I’ve won, don’t you think?” she said, holding the notebook up for me to see. This was a private joke between us that went over the head of Lucy, the young girl nervously waiting to see the result of her perm.

Dalia opened the notebook to the first page: 26 July 1990, Written in bold red letters. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. It had begun innocently enough, with a chat about one of Dalia’s regular clients who’d been in that morning. Um Suhal was pregnant with her second child. During her appointment Dalia asked her whether she was hoping to have a boy or girl, and her reply-a boy-later led to one of her diatribes.

“Norma, you know what really gets to me?” she said.

“What?” The look in her eyes told me that I was in for a long, drawn-out lecture on the state of life in Jordan and the plight of Jordanian women in particular.

“Every time you ask a pregnant woman if she wants a boy or a girl, she always says a boy.”

“Oh, come on, the women who say that probably only do it to make their husbands happy. You know all men want a son.”

“I think there has to be more to it than that,” she announced. And so we’d started keeping score.

In the years we’d kept the score book we’d asked 193 women. Only fifteen of them said they wanted girls, the remaining 178 wanted boys. This was all the evidence Dalia needed. As the numbers increased in her favour over the years, so did her passion for reform. She envisioned a New World for women, a place where we would share equal rights with men. A place where we’d have the right to make our own choices and decisions about all the issues that influenced our lives -careers, marriage, and family. Where a pregnant woman would want to

have a girl. \020”I believe that a lot of women think like us,” she said now. “And, if that’s true, sooner or later things will have to change.”

“Why do you assume that? There’s nothing they can do to change things, just like there’s nothing we can do.”

“You’re wrong. Our mother’s generation lived like this because they believed in the Arab way of life, not because they

were afraid to take a stand. We live like this because we’re afraid, not because we believe in it. So sooner or later things will have to change.”

“Dalia, I think you need to face reality. For all the cell phones and computers and women doctors and activists, what’s changed for us? People in this country have had these customs and beliefs for centuries and it’ll take centuries to change their way of thinking,” I protested.

“I don’t think so, not when women keep their place through fear instead of belief. Fear can be overcome. Think about it. When someone fears something, there’s a chance she may one day find the courage she needs to force a change. But if she believes in the status quo, she has no need to change it. If our generation doesn’t change things, then maybe the next one will or the one after that, but eventually the fear will be overcome and changes will be made. Change always follows, you’ll see.”

I, and many of Dalia’s other friends, believed the same thing, treasured the same dreams. But we were silent dreamers. Dalia would be the first person to protest in the streets, while the rest of us stood by. We lacked the courage, or the passion, to take it that far. But despite her leadership, she made other women feel equal to her, pulling us along to higher levels of courage. She was always highlighting the positives about you, making it impossible to feel inadequate in her presence. She was a force of nature, driven by an inner power I can only describe as a gift. But I understood how Jordanian men would find a woman like Dalia: as menacing as an attacking army.

To Middle Eastern men, Dalia’s beliefs made her an enemy, a sharmuta, and they would have only one way to deal with her. They would silence her before she had the chance to influence others with her scandalous views. The long-established way to

get rid of sharmutas was execution. There would be no question, no judge, no jury, and no chance for a defence. Her death wouldn’t warrant an investigation or cause the filing of any criminal charges. Her death would be considered justifiable since she was a threat to the Jordanian quality of life and to the customs, morals, and values Jordanian society had upheld for thousands of years.

While I envied her spirit, I’d feared for my friend’s life for years. How many times had I warned her, “You’re blessed with an angel’s face but cursed with a devil’s tongue.” Not because anything she said was wrong, but because everything she said was critical of ancient laws. Desert laws.

For buried deep within the history of Jordan was a secret way of life, with its source in the nomadic Bedouins, the desert dwellers. Though they make up less than one per cent of the Jordanian population, they and their views dominate the country. Some have opted for city life and many have settled down to cultivate crops rather than drive their animals across the desert in search of food. Approximately forty thousand, however, choose to continue to live according to the old ways. They camp for a few months at a time in one spot and graze their animals. Their goat-hair tents (known as belt ash shair) are seen all over the east and south of Jordan. The tents are usually segregated a harem for the women and a section for men, which is where the modern practice in our homes, mosques and public places comes from.

Most men of the desert continue to wear the traditional long flowing robes, along with a dagger, which symbolizes a man’s dignity. Women tend to dress in layer upon layer of more colourful cloth, which covers them completely. Unlike some Muslim women, they rarely veil their faces, opting for intricate patterns of facial tattoos instead. Similar to their modern counterparts, their heads and hair must always be veiled when in the presence of men. Although female infanticide and female circumcision are extremely rare among Jordan’s urban citizens, it’s not unheard of among the desert dwellers. It is a way of life so important to, and so idealized by, Arab men that they will not hesitate to sacrifice women in an attempt to preserve it.

It had been a little over two weeks since Dalia or I had seen or heard from Michael and we searched for excuses for why he hadn’t come in. He wasn’t interested in her or maybe he cared for her so much he was protecting her from risk. He’d been in a terrible accident and was maimed, perhaps killed. Dalia began each day hoping he would appear or at least call, but as the hours crept by, worry would cloud her face. By closing time, she looked as if she was going to a wake. She tried to keep disappointment and bitterness away as the excitement she’d felt began to turn into a growing fear that she might never see him again.

For the first three or four days after his last visit to the salon, our conversations had been dominated by Michael. We conjured up countless scenarios for how Dalia could see him again, without anyone who knew her seeing her with him; we came UP with plans. We knew the risks involved but we believed we would not be found out.

Sometimes Dalia tried to pretend she didn’t care whether or not she saw him again. He was only a client like any other. But she was not convincing; her anguish showed more each day.

As the third week drew to a close, Dalia dragged herself around the salon silently cleaning up as I prepared for the final client of the day. The client was a referral named Jehan, who had phoned in the morning and begged me to fit her into today’s schedule. Given the way Dalia felt, I knew she would have refused to take her, but Jehan sounded so desperate that I didn’t have the heart to turn her away. I glanced at my watch and saw that I still had about ten minutes before she was due to arrive. I wanted to talk to Dalia about the way she was feeling but had no idea how to begin. Neither of us had any experience of love, so I just decided to avoid the whole subject. When she was ready to talk, she would. But she was descending into deeper depression.

The minutes stretched as I watched Dalia and waited for Jehan. I tried to imagine our future and for the first time I wondered if this salon was our destiny-if we were destined to remain single all of our lives. The thought of being married to an Arab man turned my stomach, as it did Dalia’s, but this first realization that I might end up totally alone disturbed me. How would I feel if I found myself attracted to a Muslim man? I wondered. The gravity of Dalia’s dilemma began to weigh heavily on my mind. How would my parents and brothers react to something like that? The killing and imprisonment of women who broke the rules wasn’t just Islamic; it crossed religious lines. Now that the informal affection of childhood had been replaced with rigid control over me, I could picture my brothers battling with my father over who would cast the first stone.

If you learn nothing else growing up in Jordan, you learn two things very early: the first, that Muslims and Christians

must never intermarry, and the second, which was just as important, that you must never lose composure in public regardless of how serious your personal problems were. I suspect that no other nationality ever believed so vehemently in that old aphorism, ‘never air your dirty laundry in public’. Christians and Muslims were perfectly friendly and hospitable towards one another in public, but they would never, ever let their children marry.

My brothers had worked very hard over the years to maintain the ‘honourable family image’ my parents insisted we portray. If you met my brothers in public, you’d find four well-educated, professional, refined young gentlemen. Ranging from twenty-three to thirty-two, from average-looking to handsome, they appeared to be modern young Arab men. But this was a facade that demonstrated none of the dynamic that went on behind the closed doors of our home.