Princess (15 page)

I discovered that I had known little about men and their sexual appetites. The surface of life is nothing more than a façade; with little effort I uncovered the evil that lurks under the thin crust of civility between the sexes.

I, for the first time in my young life, comprehended the impenetrable task facing those of our sex. I knew my goal of female equality was hopeless, for I finally recognized that the world of men harbors a morbid condition of over-fondness for themselves. We women are vassals, and the walls of our prisons are inescapable, for this grotesque disease of preeminence lives in the sperm of all men and is passed along, generation to generation—a deadly, incurable disease whose host is male and victim is female.

Ownership of my body and soul would soon pass from my father to a stranger I would call my husband, for Father had informed me I would be wed three months after my sixteenth birthday. I felt the chains of tradition wrap tightly around me; I had only six short months of freedom left to savor. I waited for my destiny to unfold, a child as helpless as an insect trapped in a wicked web not of its making.

Chapter Ten: Huda

It was ten o’clock at night on January 12, 1972, and all nine of my sisters and I were spellbound with the telling of Sara’s future by our old Sudanese slave, Huda. Since Sara’s traumatic marriage and divorce, she had taken to studying astrology and was convinced that the moon and stars had played a determining role in her life’s path. Huda, who had filled our ears from an early age with stories of black magic, was pleased to be the center of attention and to provide distractions from the sameness of life in dull Riyadh. We all knew that Huda, in 1899, at age eight, after straying from her mother who was busy digging yams for the family supper, had been captured by Arab slave traders. In our youth she had entertained the children of the house for countless hours with the saga of her capture and confinement.

Much to our merriment, Huda always reenacted her capture with great flair, no matter how many times she retold the story. She would crouch by the sofa and sing softly, pretending to scratch in the sand. With a wild screech, she would yank a pillow cover from behind her back and pull it over her head, gasping and kicking against her imagined tormentors. She would moan and fling herself to the floor and kick and scream for her mother. Finally, she would leap onto the coffee table and peer out the sitting-room windows, describing the blue waters of the Red Sea from the ship that transported her from Sudan to the deserts of Arabia.

Her eyes would grow wild as she fought imaginary thieves for her small portion of food. She would snatch a peach or a pear from the fruit bowl and hungrily gobble all but the pit. Then she would march solemnly around the room, hands behind her back, chanting to Allah for deliverance as she was led to the slave market.

Sold for a rifle to a member of the Rasheed clan of Riyadh, she stumbled as she was led from the streets of Jeddah through blinding sandstorms to the Mismaak fortress, the garrison for the Rasheed clan in the capital city.

Now, in her reenactment, Huda lurched from one piece of furniture to another. We would squeal with laughter as Huda leaped around the room dodging bullets from our kin, the young Abdul Aziz and his sixty men, as they attacked the garrison and defeated the Rasheeds, reclaiming the country for the Al Sa’ud clan. She would throw her fat body over a chair and scramble for cover as the desert warriors slew their enemies. She told of her rescue by my father’s father and would end her playacting by wrestling the nearest one to the floor and kissing her repeatedly as she swore she kissed our grandfather upon her rescue. This is how Huda came to be in our family.

As we grew older, she diverted us from our various dramas by frightening us with supernatural claims of sorcery. Mother used to dismiss Huda’s proclamations with a smile, but after I woke up screaming about witches and potions, she forbade Huda to divulge her beliefs to the younger children. Now that Mother was no longer with us, Huda returned to her former habit with gusto. We watched with fascination as Huda peered at the lines running across Sara’s palm and squinted her beady black eyes as though she saw Sara’s life unfolding before her like a vision.

Sara seemed scarcely affected, as though she expected those very words, as Huda solemnly told her she would fail to realize her life’s ambitions. I groaned and leaned back on my heels; I so wanted Sara to find the happiness she deserved that I found myself irritated with Huda and loudly dismissed her prophecies as the mumbo jumbo I wanted them to be. No one paid me any heed as Huda continued to scrutinize Sara’s lifelines. The old woman rubbed her prominent chin with her hand and muttered, “Hmm, little Sara. I see here that you will marry soon.”

Sara gasped and jerked her hand from Huda’s grasp. The nightmare of another marriage was not what she wanted to hear. Huda laughed softly and told Sara not to run from her future. She added that Sara would know a marriage of love and would grace the land with six small ones who would give her great joy.

Sara gathered her brow in a worried knot. Then she shrugged her shoulders and dismissed what she could not control. She looked my way and gave a rare smile. She asked Huda to read my palm, saying that if Huda could foretell what actions her unpredictable baby sister would take, then she, Sara, would be a believer in Huda’s powers until the end of time. My other sisters rocked with laughter as they agreed with Sara, but I could tell by their looks that they loved me with a fierce tenderness, their little sister who so tried their patience.

I lifted my head with a haughtiness I did not feel as I plopped myself down in front of Huda. I turned my palms up and demanded, in a loud and bossy manner, to know what I would be doing one year from that date.

Huda ignored my youthful rudeness and studied my upturned palm for what seemed like hours before announcing my fate. She surprised us all with her posturings; she shook her head, muttered to herself, and groaned aloud as she pondered my future.

Finally, she fixed her eyes on my face and uttered her soothsaying with such confidence that I feared her forecast and felt the sinister hot wind of magic in the words she spoke.

In a freakish deep-throated voice, Huda pronounced that Father would soon inform me of my upcoming marriage. I would find misery and happiness in one man. I would rain destruction on those around me. My future actions would bring good along with bad to the family I loved. I would be the beneficiary of great love and dark hate. I was a force of good and evil. I was an enigma to all who loved me.

With a piercing cry, Huda threw her hands in the air and asked Allah to intervene in my life and protect me from myself. She unseated me as she lunged toward me and wrapped her arms around my neck and began to lament in a wild, high-pitched howl.

Nura jumped to her feet and rescued me from Huda’s smothering grasp. My sisters comforted me as Nura led Huda from the room, mumbling under her breath for Allah to protect the youngest daughter of her beloved Fadeela.

I was shivering from the impact of Huda’s prediction. I began to sob and blurted out that Huda had bragged to me once about being a witch, that her mother had been a witch before her and the power had flowed from her mother’s milk into the suckling infant that was Huda. Indeed, I moaned, only a witch could recognize such a one as evil as I!

Tahani, one of my older sisters, told me to hush, a silly game had gone awry and there was no need for dramatics. Sara, in an attempt to lighten the mood, brushed my tears away and said my sorrows were based on the worry that I could never live up to Huda’s wild predictions. Joining in Sara’s efforts, my other sisters began to joke and recalled with great peals of laughter some of the capers I had successfully pulled on Ali over the years. They reminded me of one of their favorites, which in our camaraderie we began to retell again.

The caper began when I asked one of my girlfriends to call Ali and pretend to be smitten with his charms. For hours we had listened in as he babbled nonsense on the telephone and made elaborate plans to be met by the girl’s driver behind a nearby villa under construction.

The girl convinced Ali he must be holding a baby goat on a lead so that her driver could identify him. She told him that her parents were out of town; it was safe for Ali to follow the driver to her home for a secret meeting.

The construction was across the street from my girlfriend’s home, and my sisters and I had joined her on her bedroom balcony. We made ourselves sick with laughter as we watched poor Ali stand for hours, holding on to the baby goat and stretching his neck for signs of the driver. Much to our amusement, the girl managed to talk Ali into the same situation not once, not twice, but on three occasions! In Ali’s eagerness to meet a girl, he had lost his sanity. I remember thinking that this silly veiling business works both ways!

Encouraged by my sisters’ laughter and confidence, I managed to put Huda’s rumblings out of my mind. After all, she was over eighty years of age, and was more than likely senile.

My consternation returned with a rush when Father visited us that evening and announced that he had found a suitable husband for me. With a sinking heart I could only think that the first of Huda’s predictions had come true. In my terror, I failed to ask Father the name of my husband-to-be and fled the room with darkness in my eyes and bile in my throat. I lay awake most of the night and thought of Huda’s words. For the first time in my young life, I feared my future.

Nura returned to our villa the following morning to advise me that I was to wed Kareem, one of the royal cousins. As a young child, I had played with this cousin’s sister, but recalled little she had said about him other than that he was a bossy brother. He was now twenty-eight years of age and I was to be his first wife. Nura told me that she had seen a photo of him; he was exceptionally handsome. Not only that, he had been educated in London as a lawyer. Even more unusual, he had distinguished himself from most of the royal cousins in that he held a real position in the business world. Recently, he had opened his own large law firm in Riyadh. Nura added that I was a very lucky girl, for Kareem had already told Father that he wanted me to complete my schooling before starting a family. He did not want a woman with whom he could not share mental exchanges.

In no mood to be patronized, I made an ugly face at my sister and pulled the bed covers over my head. Nura drew a long breath when I shouted out that I was not the lucky one; instead my cousin Kareem was the one with luck!

After Nura left, I called Kareem’s sister, whom I knew slightly, and told her to advise her brother that he had best reconsider marrying me. I threatened that if we married he could not take other wives or I would poison them all at my first opportunity. Besides, I told her, Father had a difficult time finding a husband for me since I had an accident in the school lab. When Kareem’s sister asked me what had happened, I pretended to be shy but finally admitted that I had stupidly dropped a flask of acid; as a result my face was hideously scarred. I had a good laugh when she hung up the phone in a rush to tell her brother.

Later that evening, Father stamped furiously into the villa with two of Kareem’s aunties in tow. I was forced to stand at attention while they looked me over for any signs of facial scars or misshapen limbs. I became so angry at the examination that I opened my mouth and told them to check my teeth, if they dared. I leaned toward them and made loud, chomping sounds. Looking back over their shoulders in dismay, they ran out of the room when I neighed like a horse and raised the bottoms of my feet to their faces, which is a terrible insult in the Arab world.

Father stood and looked at me for a long moment. He seemed to be battling his emotions, and then, to my complete astonishment, he shook his head and began to laugh. I had fully expected a slap or a lecture—never in my wildest imagination did I expect him to laugh. I felt a trembling smile form on my face, and then I too began to convulse with laughter. Curious, Sara and Ali came into the room and stood, with questioning smiles on their faces.

Father collapsed on the sofa, wiping tears off his face with the hem of his thobe. He looked at me and said, “Sultana, did you see their faces when you tried to bite them? One looked like a horse herself! Child, you are a wonder. I do not know whether to pity or envy your cousin Kareem.” Father blew his nose. “For sure, life with you will be a tempestuous affair.”

Feeling heady with my father’s approval, I sat on the floor and leaned across his lap. I wanted to hold the moment forever when he squeezed my shoulders and smiled down at his amusing daughter. Taking advantage of the intimate scene, I became brave and asked Father if I could meet Kareem before the wedding.

Father turned and looked at Sara; something in her expression touched his heart. He patted the sofa beside him and asked her to sit. There were no spoken words among the three of us, but we communicated through the bond of generations.

Ali, stunned at the attention given to the females in the family, leaned against the door frame with his mouth in a perfect circle; he was struck dumb.