Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz
Naef Bin Abdul Aziz
Salman Bin Abdul Aziz
Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz
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The more prohibitions you have, the less
virtuous people will be.
-TAO TE CHING |
THOSE WHOM KAREEM and I love best have proved the
worst. Abdullah, our son and firstborn, troubles us; Maha, our eldest
daughter, frightens us; while Amani, our youngest daughter, puzzles us.
I felt no prophecies of doom as our only son, Abdullah, smiled with boyish
happiness when he recounted with relish his wonderful success on the
soccer field. Kareem and I were entranced, as most parents would be, upon
hearing the successful exploits of a well loved child. From a young age,
Abdullah was seldom surpassed in physical games, and this fact was a
particular source of glee for his athletic father. While listening with
pride, we took no note of his younger sisters, Maha and Amani, who were
amusing themselves with a video game.
When Amani, our youngest child, began to scream in alarm, it was with a
terrible shock that Kareem and I saw flames licking at Abdullah's
clothing.
Our son was on fire!
Acting on instinct, Kareem quickly threw our son to the floor and
extinguished the flames by rolling Abdullah in a Persian carpet. After we
assured ourselves that our son was unharmed, Kareem tried to find the
source of the unexplainable fire.
I cried out that the fire was caused by an evil eye, that we were too
boastful of our beautiful son!
Fighting back tears, I turned to comfort my daughters. Poor Amani! Her
small frame was wracked with sobs. While I held my baby, I motioned with
my free arm to her older sister, Maha, to come to me. Suddenly, I drew
back in horror, for Maha's face was a frightful mask of anger and hate.
Investigating the confusing incident, we learned a terrible truth: Maha
had set her brother's thobe on fire.
Maha, meaning "She Gazelle," has not fulfilled the promise of
her gentle name. From the time she was ten, it has been apparent that our
eldest daughter is possessed by the demonic energy of her mother. Often I
have thought that there must be a battleground of good and evil spirits
hovering over Maha, with evil spirits usually overpowering the good.
Neither her life amid imperial splendor nor the unconditional love of a
devoted family has tempered Maha's spirit.
Without justification, she has tormented her brother, Abdullah,
and her younger sister, Amani, for as long as they both can remember. Few
children have brought so many cries to one family as Maha.
In appearance, Maha is a stunningly attractive girl, with a frighteningly
seductive personality. She has the look of a Spanish dancer, all eyes and
hair. Combined with this great beauty is a gifted mind. Ever since her
birth, it seemed to me that too many blessings had been bestowed upon my
eldest daughter. With so many abilities, Maha is unable to focus on one
goal, and lacking a unifying purpose, she has failed to harness her
talents in any one direction. Over the years, I have watched as a hundred
promising projects have been started and then abandoned.
Kareem said once he feared that our daughter was nothing more than a girl
of brilliant fragments, and would fail to accomplish one single goal in
her lifetime. My greatest concern is that Maha is a revolutionary seeking
a cause.
As I too am such a person, I am aware of the turmoil raised by a mutinous
character.
In her earlier years, the problem seemed simple. Maha loved her father to
distraction. The intensity of her feelings increased with her years.
Whereas Kareem adored his two daughters as he did his one son, and strove
to avoid the resentments I endured as a child, the makeup of our society
drew Abdullah more closely into Kareem's life outside of our home. This
basic fact of our Muslim heritage was the first shock of Maha's young
life.
Maha's intense jealousy of her father's affections brought to mind my own
unhappy childhood a young girl who had chaffed under the harsh social
system into which she was born. For that reason, I failed to
comprehend the seriousness of my child's discontent.
After Maha set fire to Abdullah's thobe, we knew that her possessiveness
of Kareem went far beyond normal daughterly affection. Maha was ten years
old and Abdullah was twelve. Amani was only seven, but she had watched her
sister slip away from their game, fetch her father's gold lighter, and set
fire to the edge of Abdullah's thobe. Had Amani not cried out a warning,
Abdullah could have been seriously burned.
The second shocking incident occurred when Maha was only eleven. It was
the hot month of August. Our family had left the sweltering desert city of
Riyadh and gathered at my sister Nura's summer palace in the cool mountain
city of Taif. It was the first time in years that Father had attended a
gathering of his first wife's children, and his attentions were devoted to
his grandsons. While admiring Abdullah's height and figure, my father
ignored Maha, who was tugging on his sleeve to show him an ant farm the
children had built and proudly displayed. I saw Father as he brushed her
aside and proceeded to squeeze Abdullah's
biceps.
Maha was stung by her grandfather's preference for her brother and his
indifference to her. My heart plunged for the pain I knew was in her
heart.
Knowing Maha's capability for creating a scene, I walked over to comfort
my daughter just as she assumed a masculine stance and began to curse my
father with fiery invectives of the coarsest indecency, peppered with vile
accusations.
From that moment, the family gathering rapidly declined. Though
humiliated, I had the quick thought that Maha had expressed to my father
his manifest due.
Father, who had never held a high opinion of the female sex, made no
pretense of his feelings now. Scornfully, he ordered, "Remove this
horrible creature from my sight!"
I saw plainly that my daughter had awakened Father's contempt for me. His
eyes were penetrating, and his lips were curled in scorn as he looked from
his daughter to his grand daughter. I overheard him mutter to no one in
particular, "A mouse can only give birth to a mouse.
In the blink of an eye, Kareem snatched Maha from Father's sight and took
her squirming and cursing into the villa to wash out her mouth with soap.
Her muffled cries could be heard in the garden. Father left
soon after, but not before announcing to the entire family that my
daughters were doomed by my blood. Little Amani, who is too sensitive for
such accusations, collapsed into hysterics. My father has not acknowledged
the existence of either daughter since that day.
Maha's belligerence and hostility did not prevent her from occasional
bouts of kindness and sensitivity, and her temperament cooled somewhat
after the incident in Taif. My daughter's angers ebbed and flowed. In
addition, Kareem and I doubled our efforts to assure both our daughters
that they were as loved and esteemed as our son. While this proved
fruitful in our home, Maha could not ignore the fact that she was
considered less worthy than her brother in the world outside our walls. It
is a distressing habit of all Saudi Arabians, including my own family and
Kareem's, to pour attention and affection on the heads of male children,
while ignoring female children.
Maha was a bright girl who was hard to deceive, and the uncompromising
facts of Arab life burned into her consciousness. I had strong
premonitions that Maha was a volcano that would one day erupt.
Like many a modern parent, I had no clear notion of how to help my most
troubled child.
Maha was only fifteen during the Gulf War, a time that no Saudi Arabian is
likely to forget. Change was in the air, and no one was more tempted by
the promise of female liberation than my eldest daughter. When our veiled
plight peaked the curiosity of numerous foreign journalists, many educated
women of my land began to plan for the day when they could burn their
veils, discard their heavy black abaayas, and steer the wheels of their
own automobiles.
I, myself, was so caught up in the excite ment that I failed to notice
that my oldest daughter had become involved with a teenage girl who took
her idea of liberation to the extreme.
The first time I met Aisha I was uncomfortable-and not because she was
unrelated to the royal family, for I, myself, had cherished friends
outside the circle of royalty. Aisha was from a well-known Saudi Arabian
family that had made its fortune importing furniture into the kingdom to
sell to the numerous foreign companies that had to stock large numbers of
villas for the swarm of expatriate workers invading Saudi Arabia.
I thought the girl was too old for her years. Only seventeen, she looked
much more mature, and acted in a tough manner that smelled of trouble.
Aisha and Maha were inseparable, with Aisha spending many hours at our
home. Aisha had an unusual amount of freedom for a Saudi girl. Later, I
discovered that she was virtually ignored by her parents, who seemed not
to care about their daughter's whereabouts.
Aisha was the oldest of eleven children, and her mother, the only legal
wife of her father, was embroiled in a never-ending domestic dispute with
her husband over the fact that he took advantage of a little-used Arab
custom called mut'a, which is a "marriage of pleasure," or a
"temporary marriage." Such a marriage can last from one hour to
ninety nine years. When the man indicates to the woman that the temporary
arrangement is over, the two part company without a divorce ceremony. The
Sunni sect of Islam, which dominates Saudi Arabia, considers such a
practice immoral, condemning the arrangement as nothing more than
legalized prostitution. Still, no legal authority would deny a man the
right to such an arrangement.
As an Arab woman belonging to the Sunni Muslim sect, Aisha's mother
protested the intrusion of the temporary, one night or one week brides her
depraved husband brought into their lives. The husband, disregarding the
challenge of his wife, claimed validation through a verse in the Koran
that says, "You are permitted to seek out wives with your wealth,
indecorous conduct, but not in fornication, but give them a reward for
what you have enjoyed of them in keeping with your promise." While
this verse is interpreted by the Shiite sect of the Muslim faith as
endorsement of the practice, these temporary unions are not common with
Sunni Muslims. Aisha's father was the exception in our land, rather than
the rule, in embracing the freedom to wed young women for the sole
pleasure of sex.
Occupied by the plight of helpless girls and women in my land, I
questioned Aisha closely about the indecent practice I had heard discussed
by a Shiite woman from Bahrain whom Sara had met and befriended in London
some years before.
It seemed that Aisha's father did not desire the responsibility of
supporting four wives and their children on a permanent basis, so he sent
his trusted assistant on monthly trips into Shiite regions in and out of
Saudi Arabia to negotiate with various impoverished families for the right
of temporary marriages with their virginal daughters. Such a deal could
easily be struck with a man who had four wives, many daughters, and little
money.
Aisha sometimes befriended these young girls, who were transported into
Riyadh for a few nights of horror. After Aisha's father's passion waned,
the young brides were sent away, returned to their families
wearing gifts of gold and carrying small bags filled with cash. Aisha said
that most of the youthful brides were no more than eleven or twelve years
old. They were from poor families and were uneducated. She said they
seemed not to know what exactly was happening to them. All the girls
understood was that they were very frightened, and that the man Aisha
called Father did very painful things to them. Aisha said all of the girls
cried to be returned to their mothers.
The hard-eyed Aisha wept as she related the story of Reema, a young girl
of thirteen who had been brought to Saudi Arabia from Yemen, a
poverty-stricken country that is home to a large number of Shiite Muslim
families. Aisha said Reema was as beautiful as the deer for which she was
named, and as sweet as any girl she had ever known.
Reema was from a nomadic tribe that roamed the harsh land of Yemen. Her
father had only one wife, but twenty-three children, of whom seventeen
were girls. Even though Reema's mother was now shriveled and bent from
childbearing and hard work, she had once been a lovely girl and had given
birth to seventeen beautiful daughters. Reema proudly said that her family
was known as far away as San'a, the capital of Yemen, for the beauty of
their women.
The family was very poor, with only three camels and twenty-two sheep. In
addition, two of the six sons were handicapped from difficult births. One
son's legs were twisted and he could not walk; the other jerked in a
strange motion and could do no work. For these reasons, Reema's father
strove to sell his sought-after daughters to the highest bidder. During
the summer months, the family would travel through high mountain passes,
along narrow, tortuous roads into the city, and a deal would be struck for
the daughter who had reached marriageable age according to Islam.
The year before, at age twelve, Reema had reached puberty. She was her
mother's favorite child, and the girl attended to her handicapped
brothers. The family had pleaded with her father to let her remain with
them a few more years, but he sadly confessed that he could not. There
were two sons after Reema, and the sister closest in age was only nine
years old. Reema's younger sister was small and
undernourished, and her father feared the girl might not reach puberty for
another three or four years. Reema's family could not exist without the
marriage money.
Reema was taken to San'a to be wed. While her father scouted the city for
a suitable bridegroom, Reema remained in a small mud house with her
sisters and brothers. On the third day, her father returned to
the hut with the agent of a rich man from Saudi Arabia. Reema said her
father had been very excited, for the man represented a wealthy Saudi
Arabian who would pay much gold for a beautiful girl.
The Saudi agent insisted upon seeing Reema before he paid the money, a
request generally met with the blade of a Yemeni sword rather than humble
compliance from a Muslim father. The gold in the agent's hands overcame
the religious convictions of the family. Reema said she was inspected in
the same way her father inspected the camels and sheep at market. Reema
confessed she did not protest the shame, for she had always known she
would go to another family, as the purchased property of another man. But
she squirmed and pushed when the man insisted upon viewing her teeth.
The agent pronounced Reema satisfactory and paid a portion of the agreed
sum. The family celebrated by killing a fat sheep, while the agent had
Reema's documents prepared to fly to Saudi Arabia. Reema's father happily
announced that the family could now wait out the four years until Reema's
younger sister reached the proper age, for the man from Saudi Arabia had
paid a large sum for Reema.
Reema herself forgot her anxieties, even becoming excited, after her
father told her that she was the most fortunate of girls. Reema was going
to a life of leisure, she would eat meat every day, have servants at her
beck and call, and her children would be educated and well fed. Reema
asked her father if the man might purchase her a doll, one like she had
seen in a discarded European magazine the children had
discovered in the trash bins of San'a.
Her father promised that he would make Reema's request a high priority.
When the man returned a week later, Reema first learned the terrible
truth, that the marriage would not be honorable, that it was a marriage of
mut'a, a temporary union. Her father became angry, for his honor
was at stake, his daughter should not be treated in such a lowly manner.
He pleaded with the man from Arabia, saying that it would be difficult to
find another husband for his daughter, who would no longer be considered
fresh and clean. He might be forced to provide for Reema for many years
while seeking a man who would accept her as a second, less honored wife.
The man sweetened the deal with a bundle of bills. He said that if Reema's
father refused, he would be forced to insist upon the return of the money
already paid.
Reluctantly, Reema's father relented, admitting that he had already spent
a portion of that sum. Ashamed, he turned his face to the ground and told
Reema that she must go with the man, that it was God's will. Reema's
father asked the Saudi man to find Reema a permanent husband in Saudi
Arabia, since there were many Yemeni laborers working in that rich
country.
The agent agreed that he would make an effort. Otherwise, he said, Reema
could become a servant in his home.
Reema said goodbye to her family and left the land of her birth, haunted
by the pitiful weeping of her two handicapped brothers.
During the trip, the man promised a homesick Reema that he would purchase
her a doll, even though such an item was expressly forbidden by the men of
religion.
Like most Arab girls, Reema had full knowledge of a wife's
responsibilities. She had slept in the same room with her parents since
the day of her birth. She understood that a woman must submit to her
husband's every wish.
Aisha said it was the girl's calm acceptance of her life of slavery that
she found so distressing, recalling that the girl's tears belied her
declaration that she was not displeased with her lot. Reema wept for the
six days she was in Aisha's home, all the while defending the right of
Aisha's father to do with her as he pleased.
Aisha revealed that her father's employee easily located a Yemeni man who
was employed as a tea boy in one of their offices, a man who was willing
to accept Reema as his second wife. The man's first wife was in Yemen, and
he admitted that he needed a woman to cook his meals and serve him.
The last day Aisha saw Reema, the young girl was clutching a small doll,
obediently following one man out of their home to go and wed another man
she did not know.
Aisha's mother, a pious Sunni Muslim, became so distraught over Reema's
situation that she went to her husband's family to complain. This
desperate deed created quite a furor in the family, but nothing the man's
parents could say or do convinced their son to cease the godless act.
Their advice was for Aisha's mother to pray to God for her husband's soul.
I often wondered what became of those children, the mut'a brides, for it
is quite difficult in the Muslim world to arrange a good marriage for a
girl who is no longer a virgin. As dispensable girls in fortuneless
families, they were, I suppose, eventually married off as the third or
fourth wife to a man without wealth or influence, much in the same manner
as Reema, or of my childhood friend Wafa, who had been wed to such a one
against her will by her own father as punishment for socializing with men
not of her family.
Aisha's home life was agony for a thinking girl, and the stress and strain
of her father's debauchery pushed her into inevitable teen age decline.
My daughter, Maha, naturally imprudent, was captivated by Aisha's antics.
Recalling my own rebellious youth, I knew the futility of forbidding Maha
to meet with Aisha. Forbidden fruit is too tempting for all children,
regardless of their nationality or sex.
During the height of the Gulf War, our king harnessed the most aggressive
of the roving bands of morals police, forbidding them to harass Western
visitors to our land. Quite sensibly, the men of our family knew it would
not do for journalists from the West to view life as it really is in our
country. Happily, the women of Saudi Arabia benefited from this royal
order. The absence of sharp-eyed religious police patrolling the cities of
Saudi Arabia, searching for uncovered women to strike with their sticks,
or spray with red paint, was too good to be true. This policy endured no
longer than the war itself, but for a few months we Saudi women enjoyed a
welcome respite from probing eyes. During this heady period, there was a
universal call for the women of Saudi Arabia to take their proper place in
society, and we foolishly thought that the favorable situation would
continue for ever.
For some of our women, too much freedom given too quickly proved
disastrous. Our men were disappointed that all women did not behave as
saints, without understanding the confusion caused by the
contradictions in our lives.
Now I know that Aisha and Maha were two Saudi girls not yet
psychologically prepared for unfamiliar and complete freedom.
Because of the unusual times brought about by war, Aisha managed to have
herself appointed a volunteer at one of the local hospitals, and nothing
would do but for my daughter to seek the same appointment
at that institution. This she did two days a week after her school day
ended. It was a marvelous experience for Maha, for although she was forced
to wear her abaaya and head scarf, she was not required to
wear the hated veil once she was inside the hospital doors.
When the war ended, Maha refused to go back to the old ways. She held
tight to her newfound freedom and begged her father and me to allow her to
continue her work at the hospital.
Our approval was reluctantly given.
One afternoon when Maha was expected at the hospital, our driver was
waiting in the front drive. I decided to go and hurry her along. By some
whim of circumstance, I happened to enter Maha's room just as my daughter
was putting a small caliber pistol into a brown leather holster strapped
to her upper leg.
I was struck dumb! A weapon!
Kareem happened to be home for the after noon siesta, and upon hearing our
raised voices, he came to investigate. After an emotional scene, Maha
confessed that during the war, she and Aisha had begun to arm themselves,
in the event that the Iraqi army broke through to Riyadh! Now that the war
was over, she thought she might need protection from the morals police,
who had begun to threaten women in the street.
The "morals" or "religious police," sometimes called
the mutawwa, are members of the "Committee for Enforcing the Right
and Forbidding the Wrong." Now that the foreign journalists had
departed the kingdom at the end of the Gulf War, these zealots were more
active than we could ever recall, initiating arrests and prosecutions
against women in my country.
Maha and Aisha had decided they would not endure the attentions of these
zealots let loose upon innocent women. I looked at my daughter in alarm
and disbelief! Was she planning to fire upon a man of religion?
Kareem learned that the weapon belonged to Aisha's father. He, like many
Arab men, had quite a collection of firearms and had not missed the two
pistols his daughter and Maha had stolen.
Imagine our horror when we learned that the pistol was loaded and that it
had no safety feature. Maha tearfully confessed that she and Aisha had
practiced firing the pistols in a vacant lot at the back of Aisha's home!
To Maha's dismay, her enraged father confiscated the illegal weapon and
bundled her into his Mercedes. Dismissing his driver, Kareem drove like a
madman across the city of Riyadh to the home of Aisha in order to return
the gun and warn Aisha's parents of our children's dangerous activities.
The result of our bizarre discovery was a hasty conference called between
ourselves and Aisha's parents. Both our daughters were sent to Aisha's
room.
Aisha's mother and I, covered still by our black veils, sat in our world
of separations and discussed the children we had brought into the world.
Oddly enough, for once in my life I was pleased to be veiled, for I could
stare in undisguised contempt at Aisha's father, a man I knew to be a
molester of young girls. Surprisingly, he was a youthful man of dignified
appearance.
I thought to myself, beware of those who look like a rose, for even roses
have spikes. With our daughters the main topic of the evening, I had
little time to dwell upon the dark secrets of the home we were
visiting.
What Kareem and I uncovered that evening about our eldest daughter's
shocking convictions will haunt our memories until we cease to walk the
earth.
While I question the unjust practices and cruel customs inflicted upon the
female population of Saudi Arabia by those who so rigidly interpret-and
thus often misinterpret-the laws laid down by the Prophet, there is no
doubt in my mind of the existence of one God as preached by his messenger,
Mohammed. Our three children have been raised to revere the teachings of
the Prophet and the Koran, which was passed down from God. That a child of
mine would curse God and denounce his word brought a chill to my heart and
numbed me.
When it was announced to Aisha and Maha that their parents had reasonably
concluded that the two girls should henceforth avoid each other's company
and seek out other friends and new interests, my
daughter yanked the veil from her face, raised her head in fury, and
displayed such a look of evil that terrorized her own mother, who had
carried her in her womb and suckled her at her breast. If I had not heard
Maha's words with my own ears, no person could convince me of their
validity.
Her full lips tight with determination, our daughter yelled, "I will
not do as you say! Aisha and I will leave this land we hate and make our
home in another place. We hate it here! We hate it! To be a woman in this
awful country you must defile your life with the most tremendous
injustices.
Spittle dripped from Maha's lips. Her body shook with uncontrolled rage.
Her eyes sought mine. "If a girl lives modestly, she is a fool. If
she lives normally, she is a hypocrite. If she believes there is a God,
she is an imbecile!"
Unable to move, Kareem did manage to find his voice. "Maha! You
blaspheme!"
"Blaspheme? What is there to blasphemy? There is no God!"
Kareem jumped to his feet and squeezed Maha's lips together with his
fingers.
Aisha's mother screamed and fainted, for such a statement can cost a life
in the land of my birth.
Aisha's father shouted out for us to remove our unbelieving daughter from
his home.
Kareem and I struggled with Maha, who suddenly had the strength of a
giant. My daughter had lost her mind! Only the insane have such unnatural
power! After much pulling and pushing, Kareem and I managed to shove our
child into the back seat of the automobile and we raced back to our home.
Kareem drove while I tried to quiet my child, who no longer knew her
mother. Finally, she lay still, as someone in a swoon.
We summoned an Egyptian physician, who was trusted by our family
physician. In a vain attempt to calm us, he said there were many such
disorders in teenage girls the world over, and proceeded to cite
statistics on the strange malady that seems to affect females only.
The physician had his own theory. He claimed that at puberty, a girl often
receives large spurts of hormones, and such an event drives her crazy for
short periods of time. He said that he had treated many such psycho
logical cases within the royal family, without any complications or
permanent effects. He grinned and stated that he had not lost a patient
yet.
In the doctor's opinion, Maha should be kept sedated for a few days; she
would recover from the case of hysterics on her own.
Leaving us with an ample supply of tranquilizers, he said that he would
return in the morning to check on his patient.
Kareem thanked the doctor and walked him to the door. When he returned, we
exchanged a long and thoughtful look. There were no words necessary
between us.
While Kareem arranged for our private plane to be readied, I telephoned my
sister Sara and gained permission for Abdullah and Amani to stay with her
until our return. Kareem and I were taking Maha to London. She was in
desperate need of the best psychiatric care available. Sara was asked to
keep Maha's condition a secret. If inquiries were made, our families were
to be told that Maha was in need of dental care that required a number of
visits to London.
Many members of the Saudi royal family routinely travel abroad for medical
and dental treatment. Such a trip would arouse little curiosity.
While packing Maha's clothing, I came across disturbing books and
documents hidden among her underwear. There were numerous writings on
astrology, black magic, and witchcraft. Maha had underlined many passages
detailing revelations and prophecies. Most alarming to my mind were
malevolent items that were supposed to wreak dire evils upon people who
had offended her, or induce love at a glance, or cause death by a spell.
My breath caught in my throat when I saw an item of Abdullah's clothing
wrapped around a black stone with some bits of loose, gray-colored
substance I could not identify. I stood, hand to forehead, thinking. Could
it be true~ Had Maha plotted to harm her only brother? If this was the
case, I was a failure as a mother.
I moved about in a turmoil, collecting damning evidence of my child's
barbaric interests. Confused, I traced in my mind Maha's activities from
the days of her childhood. From what source had my daughter
learned of such matters, accumulating a treasure house of dark
paraphernalia?
I remembered Huda, my father's long- deceased slave, and her obvious
abilities at predicting the future. But Huda had died be fore my
daughter's birth. As far as I knew, there were no other freed slaves or
servants from Africa in our homes who possessed Huda's power of sorcery.
I recoiled, as if hit by a blow, as I thought of my mother-in-law, Noorah.
It had to be Noorah! Noorah had disliked me from the first moment we met.
When I wed her son, I was a young and foolish girl, whose bold, rebellious
character made a bad first impression on my mother-in-law. Disappointed
that her son had neither divorced me nor taken a second wife, Noorah had
never ceased to hate me, although she was careful to hide her dislike
under a thin veneer of false affections.
From Kareem's revelations to his mother, Noorah had detected with her
eagle eyes that Maha was my weakest point. From a young age, Maha's mental
life had been one of conflict and pain, and Noorah had
seized on that pain and in it found a vulnerability.
It was plain to see that Noorah had always favored Maha over her other
granddaughters, and her attention had been gratefully received by the
confused child. Maha had spent long hours alone with her
grandmother. Noorah, an avid believer in the occult, had clearly lost no
time in teaching my daughter her own ominous beliefs. How could I be so
stupid as to believe that Noorah had my best interests in mind?
I had been a fool, for my heart had been softened by Noorah's obvious
delight in Maha, and I had often expressed my pro found appreciation for
her generous attentions toward my most troubled child. Noorah,
because of her dislike for me, had chosen to lead my emotionally fragile
daughter deeper into the abyss.
I knew that I must confide my findings to Kareem. My words would have to
be delicate, for Kareem would have great difficulty in believing that his
mother was capable of such a shameful deed. The truth could
become twisted, and I, Sultana, might bear the brunt of his anger, while
Noorah would sit contentedly in her palace gloating at her most hated
daughter-in-law's failure as a mother and wife. |
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