Strangers (6 page)

Majid’s mouth tightened. Accusations of leniency towards his untraditional wife stung. ‘Rights can’t be “given”,’ he said. ‘If these rights existed, then women would have them.’

‘Maybe rights can’t be given,’ Khalil said, ‘but they can be taken away.’

‘Not if they do not exist,’ Majid said flatly.

Before Khalil could reply, Damien became aware of increased activity behind the closed doors that led into the main courtyard of the house, a
bustle of movement and briefly, raised voices, women’s voices, angry and animated. He saw Majid’s quick glance of concern. It was time to go. ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he said, formally. ‘Unfortunately, I have to work this evening, so I must leave you.’

Majid’s attempts to persuade him to stay were sufficiently ritualized for Damien to understand he’d made the right decision. The two men embraced as he left. ‘I hope your family will be well,’ he said in oblique reference to the unnamed problem.

As Damien unlocked the door of his car, a movement caught his eye. He looked back at the house, at an upper window where the shutters were slightly open. A woman’s face looked back at him, young, beautiful and startlingly unveiled. She stood at the window, looking down at Damien, and didn’t draw back when she saw him watching her.

Her face stayed with him, hauntingly familiar as he drove back to his house. As he went in through the front door, the dark coolness surrounded him. He warmed up some bread and spread it thickly with hummus. He forked some tabbouleh on to a plate and poured himself some of the beer that Rai regularly brewed. He put the tray down on the table, which also served as his desk, and switched on a lamp. His mind was moving in directions he didn’t want it to go, and he picked up a book to distract himself.

The pool of light made the shadows darker as he ate, forking the food absently as he read one of the stories from
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
. This story, ‘The Sleeper and the Waker’, told of Aboulhusn and his life in the Khalif’s palace. The story had echoes of biblical parable and of old European tales, but the image of the sleeper who lives a fantastic life in a dream world that is almost beyond imagining, and believes it gone when he wakes, carried uncomfortable resonances for Damien.

The shadows from the intricate wooden grilles sent the moonlight in dappled shadows that traversed the stone floor as the night progressed. The intrusions from the modern world faded and, as Damien read, it seemed as though the dreams of the thousand and one nights were in ascendance.

Article from
New Societies
magazine, posted by Red Rose, 1 Shawwal 1425

Veiled Knowledge

Ayesha Chamoun

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is shortly to hold elections for the first time in forty years. Women have been banned from the poll. What is the view of Saudi women about this election?

Times are a-changing for women in the Kingdom
.
They are beginning to make their way in areas that have traditionally been closed to them–in academia, in the media and in industry. The role of women within the wider society is no longer a taboo subject. But does this debate–and a few minor reforms–mean that women can expect to make real progress in gaining significant rights?

The decision to exclude women from the poll has come as a blow to the fledgling movement for democratic reform. In the last year, leading male liberals have been imprisoned, and the news that prisoners would be allowed to vote whereas women would not, has angered many who hoped that Saudi Arabia was at last moving forward
.

But these voices are in the minority. For the majority of Saudi women, the concept of ‘rights’ is not an issue they even think about
. 7
see the way you live in the West, and it shows to me that women’s lives are very hard if their society does not look after them, ‘ says one student at Riyadh’s King Saud University
.

These attitudes, instilled in women by their education and by the way they live, are hard to uproot or challenge. All her life, a woman has a male guardian–her father, her husband, her brother or her son. She must have his permission before she can be educated, travel or go to hospital. It is difficult for a woman even to leave her home without a male escort…
.

At first, Roisin thought that their life in the Kingdom was going to work. They moved their stuff into the house they were renting–characterless, but comfortable enough, with more rooms
than they could possibly use–and tried to fight off the jet lag by exploring the compound where Roisin would spend all her time when she wasn’t working.

It was small but adequate. The streets were an uneasy pastiche of small-town America, a residential suburb with the sunlight reflecting off the road and sidewalks, off the pale stucco of the houses. There was a library, a gym, and a commissary where Roisin could get supplies. Inside the compound, Western rules and customs prevailed. She was allowed to wear what she liked, to drive, and to wander freely. Outside, she was restricted by cultural taboos that were rigidly enforced.

On their first weekend, Joe organized a trip to the desert. I’m going to be busy after this,’ he said. ‘I don’t know when we’ll get another chance. If you only see one thing in Saudi, you should see the desert sky at night.’ He borrowed an SUV, and they drove west of the city, out into the open wilderness. They pitched their tent where a sandstone canyon formed a jagged edge along the skyline and watched the sun set as the cold of the desert night began to close around them.

And the stars came out and blazed in their thousands. Roisin sat outside the tent, her hands wrapped round a mug of coffee, entranced by the icy, indifferent glory. Joe sat behind her and put his arms round her waist as they pointed out the constellations to each other. ‘There’s Orion,’ she said, surprised that she could see the same
constellations that shone in the night sky over the northern cities. ‘The hunter.’

She felt rather than heard him laugh. ‘Orion wasn’t just a hunter. He was the most beautiful man in the world. The gods sent a scorpion to kill him, and Diana asked for him to be placed in the sky so she could remember him.’

They made love under the stars, and she lay awake for a long time afterwards, listening to the sounds as the desert, so dead during the day, came to life. And as she listened to Joe’s quiet breathing, she wondered about the goddess huntress who had had to be content with her lover blazing in the night sky instead of in her arms.

They were going to be happy here.

She wasn’t due to start work for a fortnight, so she threw herself into the task of getting the house organized, and of familiarizing herself with her new country. She wanted to see more of Riyadh than the brief tour that Damien O’Neill had given them on their first day. Usually, when she came to a new country, she spent time exploring. She liked to walk, to drive around and get the feel and measure of the place. Here, once she left the compound, she had to rely on taxis, and her ability to explore was severely limited. It wasn’t wise for a woman to be on her own on the streets of Riyadh.

The city hid itself behind a veil. The centre was a sweep of concrete, ugly, dirty and crowded,
where the past had been eradicated. She remembered Joe’s fascination with finding the lost sectors of old cities–the hidden rivers and wild enclaves in the centre of London, the forgotten remnants of the past.

There was little of this here. The old city was fast disappearing but, despite the changes, the narrow streets of the old quarter still carried the remnants of the original labyrinthine pattern. Here and there she could still see the old buildings: houses made of clay, the doors and windows obscured by
mashrabiyaat
. These grilles allowed the people inside to look out on to the streets, but excluded all strangers. They were like the eyes of the women, dimly visible when the light caught the covering over their faces.

Other ex-pats told her that the city was changing so fast that landmarks could disappear overnight, whole blocks razed and replaced by newer, higher, more elaborate constructions. A culture built on sand has no sense of permanency.

By the end of the fortnight, she knew the compound from end to end. She knew the staff in the commissary, and she had attended coffee mornings at the houses of ex-pat wives who, having little prospect of work here, seemed to devote their lives to gossiping and complaining about their host country. The only thing she learned from them was how to make wine from fruit juice and bread yeast.

She got to know the gardeners–Filipinos,
mostly–who worked quietly and inconspicuously keeping the lawns green and immaculate and the gardens blooming. They were friendly and helpful to a newcomer who was trying to find her feet. She got into the habit of taking them fruit juice and biscuits while they were working, and sat on the step in the shade talking to them. They lived in poor conditions–mostly in segregated hostels. They weren’t allowed to bring their wives and families with them, and they all seemed to be supporting extended families at home. They were cheerful and resourceful. She helped them with their English and, in exchange, they taught her a few words of Tagalog, including a useful obscenity or two.

She worked hard on the house. It was the first home of their marriage, and she wanted it to be comfortable and welcoming. Most of all, she wanted it to be theirs. They’d rented it furnished, so she tried to add some personal touches. She framed some of her Newcastle photographs and hung them on the wall. She bought a red glass vase on one of her trips into town and put it on a low table where it made a splash of colour against the neutral walls.

The kitchen alone was probably as big as her flat in London had been. Their pots, pans and crockery huddled in forlorn isolation in the cupboards, and Roisin’s shopping from the commissary barely filled half the shelves of the massive ice box that dominated one corner of the room.

She spent a lot of time alone. Joe was working long hours. His department in the hospital had been without a senior pathologist for several weeks, and he had a massive backload of work to catch up on. He left the house at six each morning, and was rarely home before nine. By the end of her fortnight of enforced idleness, Roisin had had enough.

It was Wednesday afternoon. The weekends ran from Thursday to Saturday, and Roisin was due to start work the following week. Joe had promised to be home early, and they planned to spend the evening together. Roisin had hoped that they might be able to go into the city on Thursday or Friday and do some more exploring, but Joe said he would probably have to work.

‘You haven’t had a day off since you got here,’ Roisin had protested.

‘What do you think they pay these salaries for?’ he’d said as he disappeared upstairs to shower. The subject hadn’t come up again.

She looked at the clock: four thirty. The hands barely seemed to have shifted since she’d last looked. Joe should be back in half an hour. It would be their first proper evening together for a fortnight, and she’d planned a small celebration. She’d bought a chicken and it was simmering on the stove in coconut milk and spices, filling the house with its fragrance.

She went upstairs to shower–she was going to surprise Joe with the new dress she’d bought
just before they’d left the UK and hadn’t had a chance to wear. She’d lived in jeans for the past week. She was drying herself when the phone rang and she went into the study to answer it, catching her shin on the last unopened packing case. It was Joe’s and it contained his medical books and notes. He’d said that he would unpack it himself, but it was still there, sitting uncompromisingly in the middle of the floor.

She swore and grabbed at her leg as she picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Sweetheart, it’s me.’

Her heart sank. ‘Joe.’ She could hear the flatness in her voice–she knew what was coming.

‘I’ve got to stay late again. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about it. You wouldn’t believe the chaos here.’

He sounded tired. She swallowed her disappointment. ‘OK. I’ll be fine. The chicken will be a bit dried out.’

‘Did you do something special? I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

She bit her tongue on a sharp comment. They’d discussed their plans before he’d left that morning. ‘It’s OK. I’ve got things to do.’

She finished drying her hair, and pulled on some jeans. The smell of spiced chicken that had been making her feel hungry seemed unpleasant now, rich and cloying. She went downstairs to switch off the stove, then stood in the vast empty kitchen wondering what to do with her evening.

Her leg was hurting where she’d caught it on the packing case. She rubbed it, wincing as her fingers touched the tender spot where a bruise was starting to form. It was OK for Joe to say,
I’ll do it
, but he was never here. And it wasn’t him hacking his shins on it every time he tried to get into the room. She went back up the stairs to the office and tried to push the box into the corner where it wouldn’t be such an obstruction, but she couldn’t get enough grip to get any traction. It was too heavy to lift. She decided to take all the stuff out, put it somewhere where Joe could sort through it, and get the box put away.

It was filled to the top with books. No wonder it was too heavy to move. She knelt on the floor and began taking them out, big medical tomes with dark covers and forbidding titles:
The Pathology of the Foetus and the Infant; Foetal and Neonatal Pathology
…

Underneath the books, Joe had stacked various papers and journals, which she moved carefully on to separate shelves, and right at the bottom of the case was a folder full of personal miscellany. She spent a happy ten minutes flicking through old magazines, looking at a postcard she’d had made of one of her photographs with a message she’d scrawled on the back in the early days of their relationship. And there was a photograph, slightly creased, of their wedding.

She sat on the floor, looking at it, remembering how, when they had come out of the register office,
someone had thrown petals that came down in a shower and clung to her hair and to her dress. The photographer had caught them in that moment, laughing in a cloud of brilliant colours.

The phone rang. She made a long arm and picked it up, her eyes still on the photograph. ‘Roisin Massey.’

‘Oh, Mrs Massey. Could I speak to Dr Massey please?’

‘He isn’t here. Do you want to leave a message?’

‘It’s Mike Alport, his technician.’

‘Hi, Mike.’ She had talked to Mike on the phone but she hadn’t met him yet.

‘Sorry to disturb you. I thought he’d be back by now. Could you ask him to give me a ring when he gets in? Tell him it’s about those results he wanted. They came in just after he left.’

Roisin stared at the phone.

‘Mrs Massey?’

‘Yes. I’m here. Sorry.
When
did you say he left?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘Yes. Of course. He said he might stop at the shops.’ Her voice sounded odd and artificial. ‘I’ll ask him to call you, OK?’

She sat looking at the phone after Mike had rung off. Joe must have…He was probably still in his office, dealing with a backlog of admin. He wouldn’t necessarily have told Mike that. He’d want to be left alone to get on with it.

Her fingers reached for the phone, pulled back, then reached again. She dialled Joe’s direct line,
the one that went straight to his office, or to his pager if he was on duty and away from his desk. She listened to the phone ringing, then to the automated answering service that told her he wasn’t available and invited her to leave a message.

He wasn’t there.

She stacked his books carelessly on the shelves. One of them toppled off and fell open on to the floor with a heavy
thud
that resonated through the silent house. A dog barked in the distance. She picked up the book, trying to avert her eyes from the pictures, afraid she would see photographs of dead babies, babies with terrible diseases, but instead the infants looked normal: tiny, wrinkled, newborn, their minuscule fingers clenched, their eyes dark and curious.

One day…She and Joe had married in a hurry, but one thing they both knew was that they wanted children. Roisin, at thirty-two, didn’t want to wait much longer and they had a tentative plan to try for a family after his contract in Riyadh ended. But, in the back of her mind, she could see his face, suddenly cold, turned away from her, and she could hear her mother’s voice:
Rosie, you hardly know him!