Jean P Sasson - [Princess 02] (7 page)

Weeks later, while reading one of these short but disturbing stories from her notes, given freely from Maha's hands to her parents, Kareem and I discovered the depths of our child's plunge into a world more sinister than either of us could ever have imagined.

Living in the Mirage of Saudi Arabia

or

The Harem of Dreams

by

Princess Maha Al Sa'ud

During the dark period of Saudi Arabian history, ambitious desert women could only dream of harems stocked with hard-muscled men, well-endowed with instruments of pleasure. In the enlightened year of 2010, when the matriarchal family ascended into power, with the most intelligent woman crowned queen, women became the political, economic, and legal authority of society.

The great wealth accumulated during the oil boom of the year 2000, the boom that had crippled the powers of the United States, Europe, and Japan to that of third world powers, assured the land of Arabia plenty for generations to come. With little but time on their hands, women addressed social issues that had plagued the land for more years than they could remember.

A small minority of women voted to abolish polygamy, the practice of taking four husbands, while the majority, remembering the evils the practice had spawned when the kingdom was a patriarchal society, recognized that while the system was not the best that they could devise, it was the only social system that embittered women would receive. The pleasures of love that had been forbidden now wormed their way into the mind of every woman, even that of the waif-like Malaak, the daughter of the queen of Saudi Arabia.

Malaak danced a hot dance of love, challenging her favorite lover, Shadi, with a gold sovereign between her lips, motioning with her head for the man to pull it out with his teeth.

Malaak was small and brown-skinned with delicate features. Her lover was large and heavy with muscles of steel. Wanting desperately to achieve his goal of being appointed the most influential man in the harem, Shadi moved his tongue over every part of Malaak's body, enticing her senses in an agony of passion.

In a frenzy of movement, Shadi removed the coin with his teeth, and lifted Malaak into his arms, taking her behind the flimsy curtains of his assigned section of the harem. There, the lovers pressed against each other, the warmth of their breath spreading over their faces, and down their necks, to their chests. Shutting out the world, they began to kiss.

Malaak opened her eyes to watch her lover perform his rhythmic movements. Her muscles tensed when she saw that the man Shadi had softened into a woman!

Life having produced a cynical soul, Malaak adjusted herself to the power at hand, and she became enamored of the loveliness of the woman who shared her bed. Choosing between being feared without love and being loved without fear, Malaak could not sacrifice the love.

With Machiavellian subtlety, Malaak became what she had to be in the circumstances and atmosphere of her time.

With a pale, sickly look, Kareem laid the pages of Maha's journal on the doctor's desk. Bewildered, he asked, "What does this mean?" He gestured toward the notepad, his tone accusatory. "You said that Maha was much improved. This writing is nothing more than the ramblings of a lunatic."

I know not the source of my instinct, but I knew what the doctor was going to say before he said it. I could not breathe, I could not speak, I saw the room through a haze of blue. The doctor's voice came to me as from a distance.

The doctor was gentle with Kareem. "It's quite simple, really. Your daughter is telling you that she has made the discovery that men are her enemies, and that women are her friends."

Kareem still did not comprehend what the doctor was saying. He was impatient in his ignorance.

"Yes? So?" 

There was nothing else but to speak bluntly. The doctor verbalized what I already knew. "Prince Kareem. Your daughter and her friend Aisha are lovers."

Kareem was quiet for many minutes. When Kareem regained his senses, he had to be restrained and kept from Maha's side for three days.

Muslims are taught that love and sex between two of the same is wrong, and the Koran forbids experimenting: "Do not follow what you do not know." In Saudi Arabia, love and sex are considered distasteful, even between those of opposite sexes, and our society pretends that relationships based on sexual love do not exist. In this atmosphere of shame, Saudi citizens respond to social and religious expectations by saying exactly what is expected. What we do is another matter altogether.

Arabs are by nature sensuous, yet we live in a puritanical society. The topic of sex is of interest to everyone, including our Saudi government, which spends enormous amounts of money employing countless censors. These men sit in government offices, searching out what they deem to be odious references to women and sex in every publication allowed into the kingdom. Rarely does a magazine or newspaper make it past the censors without losing a number of pages, or having sentences or paragraphs blacked out by the censor's ever ready pen.

This form of extreme censorship against all conventional social behavior affects every aspect of our lives, and the lives of those who compete to claim our business.

Asad, who is the younger brother of my husband and the husband of my sister Sara, once contracted with a foreign film company to make a simple food commercial for Saudi Arabian television. The manager of that foreign company was forced to adhere to a list of restrictions that would have been amusing had it not been authentic. The list of restrictions read: 

1. There can be no attractive females in the commercial.

2. If a female is included, she cannot wear revealing clothing such as short skirts, pants, or swimming suits. No flesh can be exposed other than the face and hands.

3. No two people can eat from the same dish, or drink from the same cup.

4. There can be no fast body movement. (It is suggested in the contract that if a female is used, she has to sit or stand without moving at all.)

5. There can be no winking.

6. Kissing is taboo.

7. There can be no burping.

8. Unless it is absolutely necessary to sell the product (it is suggested) there should be no laughter.

When the normal is forbidden, people fall into the abnormal. That, I believe, is what happened to my daughter.

In my country it is prohibited by religious law for single men and women to see each other. While inside the country, men socialize with men, and women with women. Since we are prevented from engaging in traditional behavior, the sexual tension between those of the same sex is palpable. Any foreigner who has lived in Saudi Arabia for any length of time becomes aware that homosexual relations are rampant within the kingdom.

I have attended many all female concerts and functions where quivering beauties and suggestive behavior triumph over heavy veils and black abaayas. An orderly gathering of heavily perfumed and love-starved Saudi women festers into spontaneous exuberance, bursting forth in the form of a wild party with singing of forbidden love accompanied by lusty dancing. I have watched as shy-faced women danced lewdly with other women, flesh to flesh, face-to-face. I have heard women whisper of love and plan clandestine meetings while their drivers wait patiently in the parking lots. They will later deliver these women to their husbands who are that same evening being captivated by other men.

While the conduct of men is overlooked, the behavior of women, even with other women, is often carefully guarded. This is made apparent by the various rules and regulations governing females.

Some years ago I clipped a small item from one of our Saudi Arabian newspapers to show to my sisters. I was particularly irritated by yet another foolish restriction placed upon women. A ban on cosmetics had been announced in a girls' school. Recently I ran across this clipping while throwing out some old papers.

This article reads:

Cosmetics Ban in School

The director of Girls' Education at Al Ras, Abdullab Muhammad Al Rashid, urged all students and staff of the school under the directorate to refrain from using cosmetics, dyestuffs, ornaments, and other makeups inside the school compounds.

The director added that some staff and students were noticed of late to have been using transparent garments and cosmetics as well as high-heeled shoes, hence, such adornments are prohibited.

While the students must keep uniformity in dress, the teachers should set good examples to the students. The authorities would not hesitate to take punitive measures against violators of school regulations, Al Rashid added.

I remember well what I said to my sisters at the time. I waved the clipping angrily under their noses, raging, "See! See for yourself! The men of this country want to regulate the wearing of our shoes, the ribbons in our hair, the color of our lips!"

My sisters, while their anger did not equal mine, sullenly complained that our men were obsessed with controlling every aspect of our lives, even that part of our daily living that was supposedly private.

In my opinion, the control fanatics who govern our traditional lives had driven my daughter into the arms of a woman! While I was greatly distressed and did not condone my daughter's relationship with another woman, I understood, in view of the harsh restrictions she had inherited by the mere fact of being born female, how she had come to seek solace with one of her own kind.

Knowing the problem, I now felt more capable of seeking solutions. 

Kareem feared that Maha's character was now marred by her experiences. As a mother, I could not agree. I told Kareem that Maha's wanting to share her darkest secret with those who love her best pointed to her recovery.

I was right in my assessment of the situation.

After months of professional treatment, Maha was ready for maternal guidance. For the first time in her young life, she drew close to her mother, wanting to communicate, tearfully acknowledging that from her earliest memory she had hated all men but her father. She had no ready explanation for it.

I felt a twinge of guilt, wondering if my own prejudices against the male sex had seeped into the embryo I had given life. It was as if my daughter had been forewarned of the wicked nature of men while lying cradled in my womb.

Maha confessed that the early trauma she had endured on the occasion of her parents' long separation had further eroded her trust in men. "What was so wrong with Father that we had to flee from his presence?" she asked.

I knew that Maha was speaking of the time Kareem had tried to take a second wife. Not wishing to share my wifely status with another woman, I had fled the kingdom, fetching my children from summer camp in the Emirates and taking them with me to the French countryside. France, with its humane people who shelter those in distress, had seemed the perfect spot to protect my young while I negotiated for those long months with my husband over his scheme to wed another woman.

How I had tried to shield my children from the trauma of my own failing marriage and our separation from Kareem!

What folly! As a parent, I know now that it is preposterous to believe that even minor parental conflict does not interfere with the emotional well-being of a child. Hearing Maha say that my actions had increased her mental pain, allowing abnormal thoughts to creep into her consciousness, caused me more anguish than any previous agony I have known. I had a moment of renewed anger at my husband, remembering the distress he had brought upon our three children.

Maha confessed that even after Kareem and I had patched over our differences and brought our family together again, our continuing strife had pierced the safety of the cocoon in which my children dwelled.

When I prodded my daughter about her relationship with Aisha, Maha confided that she had not known women could love women and men could love men, such a possibility had never entered her mind, until the day Aisha showed her some magazines she had taken from her father's study. The magazines had displayed photograph after photograph of beautiful women in acts of female love. At first the photographs were a novelty, but later Maha came to see them as beautiful, sensing that the love between women was more tender and caring than the aggressive, possessive love of man for woman.

There were other disturbing revelations.

Aisha, a girl who had experimented with many social taboos before knowing my daughter, thought nothing of spying on her father's sexual misdeeds. The girl had made a small peephole in the study adjoining her father's bedroom. There, she and my daughter had watched as Aisha's father deflowered one young virgin after another. Maha claimed that the cries of those young girls had closed her mind to wanting a relationship with a man. 

She told me an unbelievable tale that I would brush aside as fabrication had my own daughter not witnessed the event.

Maha said that on one particular Thursday evening Aisha had telephoned her, urging her to come over quickly. Maha said that Kareem and I were out, so she'd had one of our drivers deliver her to Aisha's home.

Aisha's father had gathered together seven young girls. Maha did not know if he had wed the girls or if they were concubines.

My daughter watched as those young girls were made to prance naked around the room, each with a large peacock feather stuck up her backside. With these feathers, the girls were forced to fan and tickle the face of Aisha's father. Over the course of a long night, the father had performed sex with five of the seven girls.

Afterward, Maha and Aisha had stolen a feather and played together on Aisha's bed, giggling and tickling each other's bodies. It was then that Aisha showed Maha the pleasure women could have with one another.

Ashamed of her love for Aisha, Maha cried in my arms, sobbing that she wanted to be a happy, well-

adjusted girl with a productive life. She cried out, "Why am I different from Amani? We came from the same seed, but we have blossomed into different plants!" She screamed, "Amani is a beautiful rose! I am a prickly cactus."

Ignorant of the ways of God, I could not answer my child. I held her in my arms and comforted her with the thought that the remainder of her life would be that of a beautiful flower.