City of Veils (6 page)

Disorientation gripped her as the truck turned onto the road that led to their neighborhood. From the outside, it was a stranger’s land, a man’s land. Her knowledge of it was limited to the walls of her building and the occasional brisk walk to the grocery store.

Now she saw the view that she didn’t often get, a sprawling neighborhood teeming with immigrants from Sudan, Somalia, and other Muslim countries, men who spent their days picking trash from the streets—but not in their own part of town. There were Saudis, too, in their white robes and scarves. A young man wearing a baseball cap over his headscarf walked past their car and spit near the fender. Miriam grimaced and thought that these men spit too much to be descended from people who believed in conserving body fluids. But these weren’t Bedouin, and this wasn’t the desert. This was Jeddah, humid port, stewing in the endless moisture of the sea.

When they’d first moved into their apartment, Eric had convinced her that it was safer than living on a Western compound. But the unspoken reason that they lived here was that he hated the segregation of Americans. He respected Muslim culture and wanted to be a part of it, at least while they were here. He spoke Arabic from his years in the military, and two tours in Iraq had taught him that there was more to the Muslim way of life than a handful of extremists and some hookah smoke. It went against everything he believed in to cloister himself in an English-speaking compound, even if it was the only place where women could wander around freely, walk their poodles, and lounge in their swimming pools.

In the beginning, she had pushed hard to live on a compound, arguing that he could see all the city he liked, while she could spend time in more familiar territory. But he wouldn’t have it. According to him, there were two types of compounds. The bigger ones were enormous, with upwards of five hundred homes and all the amenities an American could hope to have, including shopping complexes for military personnel. But why live in Saudi Arabia if you were just going to rent a slice of America? The smaller compounds had a wider variety of people, even Muslims, but they weren’t reliably safe. Ever since the bombings in Riyadh in 2003, all compounds were required to have heightened security—that is, until some of the smaller ones began evicting their Western tenants. If they got rid of the American and European residents, they didn’t have to pay for the security anymore. Two friends of Eric’s had been evicted in the past six months and been forced to move to more expensive homes across town. So that was the choice—living in mock-America, or living somewhere more integrated where you might be kicked out for being American. Miriam would have liked to live at the sprawling Arabian Gates compound, because whether it was fake or not, she wanted some freedom.

“It’s one of the biggest al-Qaeda targets in Jeddah,” he had told her. “We can’t live there.”

The truck turned onto a narrow street, a dusty splinter, slowing down as they approached their building. It was much like its neighbors, boxy and stucco white, except that theirs was the tallest on the block; a plaster wall enclosed the roof, adding an extra ten feet of height. Black wooden panels shuttered every window, and the front door, studded with upholstery tacks, looked as if it could resist a tank.

They drove past. It was always difficult to find parking on the little street, but especially at night. It took an effort of will for Miriam to stop herself from griping about it. Instead she stared numbly out the window as they crept through the streets, first circling their block, then the surrounding blocks one by one. Eric approached the problem methodically, eliminating one block at a time. After only a few minutes she was utterly lost and couldn’t remember in which direction their apartment lay. All the streets ran together. Some were full of homes, others full of shops, all unfamiliar at night.

Finally, they parked in the middle of a block. Miriam climbed out of the car and a dull, black pain spread behind her eyes. She was deeply exhausted. As they walked back to the apartment, she tried to prepare for the shock of confinement. When Eric was at work, she found it difficult to leave the house. There was a time when he’d encouraged her to get out more often—“for your own good,” he’d say—but she’d learned from experience that it was a terrible idea.

“You’re American,” he said once. “They won’t bother you.”

“I’m a woman. That’s all that counts.”

Early on, every time she left the house, she drew the neighbors’ attention. Hearing footsteps in the hall, they poked their veiled faces out the door and warned her that unescorted women could be picked up by the religious police and sent to jail.
They
had problems with the religious police, they said; it would be twice as bad for a Western woman!

At least that’s what she thought they said. Talking with most of the neighbors was a game of pantomime and guessing. Miriam thanked them and went out anyway. On the street, she felt safe and terrified by turns. Some days she could wander freely, going where she liked as long as she wore her cloak and headscarf, and kept her burqa at the ready in case she started to feel too exposed. Sometimes people stared blatantly, even occasionally stopping to gawk at her. Sometimes women would greet her politely. But on other days she would encounter resistance. Men would notice that she was out alone, and they would stop her by whistling and even standing in front of her, blocking her passage. They would tell her to go home. They warned her that it wasn’t safe to be out. She believed them. Even though she was never arrested as her neighbors had promised, she felt more and more unsafe as the weeks went by. She began to think that it was only a matter of time before something horrible happened.

They finally reached the building and ascended the wide marble staircase. She stopped at the second-floor landing to listen for noises from the Assad household, but it seemed they’d gone out—probably to a relative’s wedding or funeral. The women seldom left the house at night for any other reasons.

Miriam followed Eric up the stairs. Before turning the key, he admitted that he hadn’t had time to clean.

“You haven’t cleaned for a month?”

“Well, I did do
some
work.”

She slid through the door and glanced around at the bare white walls, the cold stone floors. Truth was, there wasn’t much to clean. While Eric dragged her suitcase into the bedroom, she wandered into the kitchen. Except for a can of fava beans and some stale pita bread, the cupboard was emptier than she’d left it, and for a moment it seemed unfamiliar, someone else’s kitchen. Paint curled from the cabinets. The stove, thick with grease, wore a bonnet of carcinogens and barbecue scum. Eric had written “biohazard” on the dirty oven window.
Jerk
, she thought, forcing a smile. Once white, the linoleum looked like cauliflower mold, its tiles guttered with rivers of grime.

Eric appeared in the doorway. “I’m going for food.”

“That’s okay, I’m not that hungry.”

“I always know when you’re hungry.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his keys, pointed them at her. “You start chewing your lip. Leave the door locked. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him leave. “Hurry back,” she said, but he was already gone.

M
iriam inverted her purse on the table and sorted through the junk. Receipts, bus tickets. She tossed out candy wrappers and American pennies, and extracted a sheet of folded paper that she’d received from the consulate when they’d given her a visa. It was a State Department warning. She’d read it before, but she scanned it again to refresh her memory.

American women should exercise extreme caution in matters concerning personal security. Maintain a low profile, reduce travel in the kingdom, and report any suspicious activity to the U.S. Embassy at once.

The religious police, known as mutaween, have the same powers as normal police. To ensure that conservative standards of conduct are observed, the mutaween harass and arrest women for the following infractions:

– drinking alcohol

– wearing trousers or other Western clothing

– eating in public restaurants

– driving a car or riding a bicycle

– dancing, listening to music, or watching movies in public

– associating with a man who is not a husband or family member

Women mingling in public with unrelated men may be charged with prostitution, which can be penalized by arrest and death.

The penalty for drug trafficking is death. Saudis make no exceptions. U.S. officials have
NO POWER
in Saudi courts to obtain leniency for American citizens in any circumstances.

When she’d first read this note, she’d been chilled by its severity. She remembered with a sting that when they’d decided to come to Jeddah she’d dreamt about nomads and dark men on horses, swords sheathed in leather, and hawks soaring above their white-turbaned heads. Saudi was romantic, if you were a man.

She crumpled the paper and tossed it in the trash. Now she was back—officially back—and although she’d been home for only twenty minutes, she was already waiting for Eric to return, to come back from the store, back from work, from a world she was afraid to enter without him. Wait, wait some more. Her suitcase was jammed with distractions she’d never engaged in back in the States: cross-stitching, embroidery, knitting needles. She was going to knit in the desert. Someday she’d laugh, but right now it wasn’t funny.
Look at that
, she thought,
I’m even waiting to laugh
.

From the bottom of her purse, she scooped out the remaining handful of junk, and a small piece of plastic appeared on her palm. She threw the junk aside and inspected the thing. It looked like the memory card from a digital camera, but it wasn’t hers. Distractedly, she put the card in her pocket and decided to ask Eric about it when he got back.

H
eavy with dread, Miriam opened the back door and clattered up the staircase to the roof. At least here she could pretend that she was still in the States, in a world that granted her fresh air, sunshine, and her own set of keys. To the east, a pair of stars sparkled blue on the horizon. She leaned against the wall and took a whiff of a night that was heavy with jasmine and the frankincense smoke rolling up from a neighbor’s window. It was a comforting smell. She thought instantly of Sabria, her downstairs neighbor, and how much she enjoyed sitting with her in the smoke-filled room, drinking coffee and talking.

But as the minutes ticked by, the suffocating heat wove itself around her. She thought again of the American compound—swimming pools sounded like paradise now.

Five more months
.

She noticed that Eric had hung out his laundry—days ago, judging from the stiffness of the fabrics and the fact that the sun had bleached the top of his shirts. A thump on the other side of the roof made her turn. She saw the neighbor’s roof-access door swing open and a girl’s face peeked out.

“Sabria!” she said.

The girl grinned and came rushing over to embrace her. Miriam went forward, stumbling on a clothesline and cursing with a laugh. “I’m so glad to see you!”

Sabria kissed her cheeks, squeezed her shoulders, and frowned. “You were gone too long! What am I going to do when you leave for good?”

“You’ll have to come with me.”

“And leave my family? Are you kidding?” She smirked. Precisely how her family drove her crazy was one of their favorite topics of discussion. Sabria lived downstairs with her parents, six sisters, and a profoundly devout older brother. She was the oldest of the girls, and much of the burden of housework and child-rearing fell on her shoulders, but a few months ago she had cast it off when she took a job working in her aunt’s beauty boutique. Her parents did not approve.

“We’re just about to leave for my cousin’s wedding,” Sabria said. “Everyone’s going. My parents already left, but I forced my cousin Abdullah to stay behind because I wanted to see you. I thought you’d be home earlier.”

“That’s so sweet.” Miriam felt an irrational swelling of tears. “We were held up at the airport. Don’t hold up your plans on my account. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, but I wanted to let you know: I’m getting married next month.”

“
What?
To whom?”

“My cousin Omar.”

“Congratulations.” Miriam felt her throat constrict. “Is he the one who lives in Riyadh?”

“Yes, the one I told you about.” Sabria glanced nervously at the clothesline.

“Are you happy about the wedding?”

“Yes, I am, it’s just…” She shrugged. “It’s happening so fast.”

Miriam nodded. She took a dim view of how anxious Sabria’s parents were to marry off their girls.

She heard a clatter in the kitchen below. “Listen, Eric’s home,” she said. “Can you come down for a few minutes? He brought dinner, and I’m starving.”

“No, Abdullah’s going to leave without me if I don’t get down there.”

“Oh, right.” Miriam hugged her again. “Come up when you get back.”

“I will.” As Sabria trotted back to the door, Miriam was reminded how young she was. Seventeen on the outside and—most of the time, at least—twelve on the inside, with rare and beautiful flashes of maturity.

“Have a safe trip!” Miriam cried, and a muffled response came up from the stairwell. She smiled and grabbed the laundry bucket. They didn’t have a washer. She cleaned their clothes by hand, and although she complained about the constant housework, deep down she was grateful. It gave her something to do.