American Chick in Saudi Arabia (5 page)

Just as Peter and I enter the souk, an old Bedouin woman beckons to me. Like the other women, she is selling homemade wares, but she seems to be quite the businesswoman and is sitting slightly apart from the others. In front of her is a display of handmade silver jewelry and cans of orange soda, which is the favored beverage of the Bedouin.

Thirsty, I stop and dig through my small handbag for two riyals, which I offer to her.

When she hands me the soda, I notice that her fingers are worn and that her thumbs are huge and out of shape.

I've been told that the Bedouin women are responsible for much of the routine work of Bedouin life, including caring for and setting up the goat-hair tents. Such difficult work would certainly disfigure fingers and thumbs.

I accept the soda and lift the hem of my veil slightly to sip the warm liquid.

Her Bedouin veil style is unlike my own. While my entire face, including my eyes, is covered by black cloth, her eyes are revealed. Her black eyes flash character.

Her cloak is old and frayed along the edges. She is a true Bedouin woman, with hennaed hands and calloused feet that show from below her floor-length
abaaya
. The country's oil wealth has not trickled down to her.

I am eager to ask this woman many questions. Once again I silently berate myself for not speaking Arabic.

She and I exchange long stares of curiosity. I know with an unexplained certainty that she senses I am not who I pretend to be. She knows that I am an impostor. Is it the manner in which I drape my scarf or veil? Is it the way I hold my cloak?

Accustomed from puberty to the complete veil, Saudi women exhibit a distinct grace, holding their cloaks firmly in place with poise and style.

I feel a surge of joy as I see the wrinkles tighten around her eyes, the only part of her face I can see.

She is smiling.

With her encouraging smile, I am moved to recklessness. I
must
talk to this woman! I motion for Peter to come forward. He will translate.

Peter Sasson is a rare man who has mastered his emotions, taking every man and woman as he finds them, without attaching his expectations to their beliefs and behavior. While he often claims I am more emotional and melodramatic than even the dramatic Italians he knows, he appears to enjoy our dissimilarities.

He watches my swathed face as if he can see it.

I catch a small flicker of amusement as I explain. "Peter, I've
got
to talk to this woman. Tell her who I am, and..." I pause. I must think of a credible reason for veiling. The truth might offend her. My words come in a rush. "Tell her that I veiled out of respect. Tell her that I wish to speak with her."

I can see Peter's big grin. He dips his head in agreement. "All right, then."

Peter squats to the ground. He bunches his
thobe
under his legs and stares at the woman for brief moment. He then speaks slowly in Arabic.

I'm happy to see that he carries his Saudi prayer beads in his right hand.

Peter explains the situation to the woman, asking if she will talk with me.

The Bedouin woman looks from Peter to me. I am a veiled woman in a souk in Saudi Arabia. She is most likely questioning why I need a translator.

The lines around her eyes loosen and I know she is no longer smiling.

The barriers of custom and religion threaten the encounter before it begins.

"Is she a Muslim?" she asks in a demanding tone.

"
La.
La.
" (No. No.) He then puts forth the argument all good Muslims understand. "She believes in the same God, and your God is one God for the Muslims and the Christians."

She gives a slight nod at Peter's words. She continues to stare.

On impulse I lift the front of my veil and show her my American face.

The lines around her eyes tighten once more. She is smiling again.

I understand this Bedouin woman is unique when she pats the ground with her hand. She is inviting a stranger to share her mat.

I throw my veil over my head and sit. Several Saudi men stare at my unveiled face, but they do not move in our direction. None of the men are
Mutawain
, so I am safe. Should a religious man witness a veiled woman tossing aside her veil, she would be singled out for attack. These men probably assume that I am the foreign wife of a non-Saudi Muslim.

Peter continues to squat, prepared to translate.

I learn that her name is Malaak, which she proudly proclaims, means "Angel."

First I must answer Malaak's questions.

Leaning toward Peter while keeping her eyes on my face, she wants to know where I come from, what am I doing in her country, and what is the
true
reason I am veiling.

Malaak startles me when she reaches out and squeezes my arm with her hand.

"Too skinny," she declares.

Peter laughs, telling me her words.

She lightly brushes my face with her hennaed hand.

"Too white," she exclaims, then asks Peter. "Why did you wed a female too small to give you healthy sons? There are many strong Bedouin who can fill your home with children."

Peter laughs a second time.

I don't take offense, as this is a polite controversy. Within a short while of arriving in the kingdom, I listened courteously as Saudis politely informed me that large, robust women give birth to tall, healthy sons. At five foot and two inches tall and weighing one hundred and ten pounds, I am not up to their physical standards for top quality human reproduction.

With a twinkle in her eyes, she directs her next question to me and waits patiently while Peter translates.

"Tell me. Why do you veil?"

This wise Bedouin woman has quickly seen through me. I decide to tell her the truth.

My words come from Peter's mouth.

"I am from a country where women do not veil," I confess. "I felt drawn to live your life. To know how it feels to live under the veil."

She nods with a new force, believing I am envious. "The Bedouin life is best."

"I wish to know your Bedouin life."

"What is it you do not know?" Her voice carries a shade of surprise, as though she believes the Bedouin life is well-known throughout the world.

"Everything." I pause. "Your childhood." Yes, I would start at the beginning. "What do you remember of your childhood?"

She sits silently for a brief time.

How I long to see her full face, to sit freely as companions, discovering all there is to know about the other. Given the opportunity, I know in my heart that we could become devoted friends.

She begins to speak slowly. "I was the oldest of many children. I remember small things of the early life. There is a picture of my father's tent in my mind. It was made of black goat hair. Six poles kept it upright. I liked to swing around those poles. My mother was always cooking. I remember a sweet taste of goat meat and rice. I remember the goats and the camels." Malaak is smiling once again, pleased to entertain me. "That's what I remember."

"You say the Bedouin life is the best life. What was the best for you?"

She does not hesitate. "The family. The family was the best. The desert brings a family close. There are goats to be tended, meals to be cooked, tents to be mended, and water to be found. My father watched the sky for clouds. When rain clouds appeared, we took down our tent and gathered our livestock and followed the clouds across the desert."

I know that the term Bedouin means "people of the desert." The harsh conditions of desert nomadic life produced a unique people who had a fierce love for the desert, despite its brutalities. This Bedouin woman displays every unique aspect of the prideful Bedouin character that I had previously imagined.

I now come to the sensitive questions. I edge closer to Malaak.

"When did you have to start veiling?"

Her black eyes narrow under her veil. "My mother veiled. All the women veiled." She shrugged. "I wanted to veil. So I took the veil early, when I around eight years old."

"Eight? You
wanted
to veil at age eight? You were just a child."

Her eyes flash with pride. "Veiling is an honorable custom."

This is not what I expected her to say. I want to hear that she detests the veil.

Her next revelation startles me more. "I was the favorite child of my father."

"More than his sons?"

"I was my father's pet."

Disbelief sweeps over me. Surely this Bedouin woman has lived a life of deceptive euphoria, believing that she was the preference of her father, even over coveted sons.

"And marriage? Were you forced to wed?"

She laughs aloud. "The day of my wedding was a burst of glory. My father killed two young camels and six fat sheep. All the women in my tribe gathered in my father's tent to make me even more beautiful than I was."

She pauses, remembering. "My husband said that I was a gift from God. When he first saw my face his tongue could not move. He claimed that my beauty almost stopped his heart and put him under the sands, into an early grave."

Desperate to expose the hypocrisies and humiliations of Saudi female life, I hopefully ask, "Then, after you were married, did he beat you?"

She laughs once more. "Beat me? Never! He was a poet!"

Poetry enjoys such popularity among Arabs that poets in Saudi society acquire great influence. Practically every Saudi man I know is an aspiring poet.

"He was a poet." I repeat numbly.

Her voice rises slightly. "Yes, a poet." She pokes my arm with her finger. "My husband did not beat the females in his tent." She chuckled, "He wrote them poems."

I fret under her knowing stare, speaking lowly. "Poems. He wrote poems."

At my look of disappointment, her eyes mirror amusement. She volunteers. "Here is my favorite."

Peter falters as he translates. Although he grew up in Egypt and spoke good Arabic as a child, the years of living in Europe without Arabic friends, have taken a toll on his Arabic language skills. Additionally, there are notable differences between Egyptian Arabic and Saudi Arabic. I can see that Peter is struggling.

Malaak repeats the poem several times to make certain her words are understood.

"The black veils of Arabia hide her from all eyes.

She is my secret, revealed only to me.

She is my rain cloud.

By God! I dream of her eyes, locked on my face!

There was no thought before her.

There will be emptiness without her.

My black-veiled woman!"

The blend of Malaak's musical voice combined with the swaying of her covered head is almost hypnotizing.

After Peter roughly translated, she looks at me expectantly.

I compliment her husband's talents. "That was lovely."

She grunts with satisfaction.

I look around the souk. "Where is this poet?

"Dead. For many years."

"Oh. I am sorry."

"No. I am an old woman, soon forty-three years on this earth. Besides, who am I to question God?"

I try to hide my surprise. From what I could see of the flesh around her eyes, I had judged her age to be no less than sixty-five years old.

I want her to lift her veil so that I can see her entire face but I don't dare make such a request. This Bedouin woman would be deeply offended at the idea.

"What happened to your husband, the poet?"

"An accident."

"Accident?"

She quickly explains. "One day my husband traveled with three other men to a small village to trade goatskins and camel bags for sweet water and food in a can. They visited a family in that village. This family had a musket gun left behind by the Turks from the time of war and the small round pellets to put inside the gun. Some men were sitting by the coffee fire admiring the musket when a young boy picked up the long thread that holds the pellets, and for some reason only known to God, tossed the pellets into the fire! One man was killed. That man was my husband."

"Oh my. How dreadful! I am sorry."

She is touched by my sympathy. She pats my gloved hand. "I have had my happiness. I am content." She stares straight into my eyes and whispers, "My husband seems dead to everyone else, but he is not dead to me."

At that juncture, I instinctively remove my black gloves and stroke her hennaed hands. This Bedouin woman is only eleven years older than me, but her hands tell a tale of hardship and premature aging.

I take a deep breath.

"Peter. Thank her for telling me about her life. Tell her that my knowledge has grown because of her."

She nods her head several times.

She then turns to Peter and dispenses sound advice. "It is all right to keep this wife for her sweet beauty. But take a second wife for size and strength — a strong woman who can give you many strong sons."

I'm smiling when I stand. Pulling the veil back over my face, I say my goodbyes once again. Malaak and I part and then Peter and I begin walking through the souk to Peter's parked automobile.

I try to unravel my confusion. With my own eyes, I have seen and I know the blatant discriminations against women in Saudi Arabia. By my Western standards, every female heart in Saudi Arabia should be spilling over with misery. Yet I have just met a woman who has lived her entire life behind the veil, and she feels she has lived a better life than my own. Of course, she has no knowledge of the female freedoms so cherished in my Western world.

After moments of consideration, I feel a surprising spark of gladness. I'm relieved that Malaak has lived a good life, a happy life.

Peter is walking ahead of me, and forgetting my need for secrecy, I speak loudly. "It is good that Malaak does not know about women's freedoms."

Peter grunts and gives an indifferent shrug.

"She simply cannot imagine a life different from the one she has lived. If she could, she would rebel," I say with assurance.

"Right," Peter responds.

Yes, I am truly glad that Malaak is a satisfied woman and is happy living under the black veil of Arabia. Since change will not come to her life, I am thankful she is unaware of anything more.