Strangers Page 7

  He came downstairs in jeans and a T-shirt, looking more relaxed. She made a quick salad using some of the cold chicken. She poured them each a large glass of the homebrew and they sat on the settee and ate with fingers rather than forks.

  When they’d finished, he lay down with his head in her lap. ‘I thought today would never end. But it kept the best bit to the end.’

  She played with his hair. ‘Listen, next weekend it will be the end of my first week at work. Let’s go into the desert again.’

  ‘If I can.’ He looked at her. ‘I don’t want to promise something and let you down again.’

  She nodded, not completely happy. ‘I unpacked that last case of stuff that was in the study.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that. I would have…’

  ‘When? I nearly broke my leg on it twice today.’

  ‘Right. Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to leave it for you. It’s just been…’

  ‘It’s OK. It didn’t take long.’ She trailed her fingers across his face. He hadn’t shaved and she could feel the roughness of stubble. ‘I found an article. About this place.’

  She felt him stiffen. ‘What article?’

  ‘The one about the guy who was executed. I put it with your papers. Is it important?’

  ‘No. I don’t know why I kept it.’

  ‘Was it someone you knew?’

  ‘I said…’ His voice was sharp, then he stopped himself. ‘Sorry. I told you, I don’t know why I kept it.’ He pushed himself upright. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m still on UK time.’

  Later, lying in bed, she was the one who couldn’t sleep. She told herself it was because she was starting her classes soon, stepping out of the security of the compound and into the strangeness of the Saudi world.

  As she floated somewhere between an uneasy sleep and wakefulness, words on a screen scrolled down in front of her eyes:…died of thirst in the desert…executed…never to come back…and she was in the square where they had stood the day they first arrived. It was empty and silent. Her feet were on the patterned stones that vanished into the distance. She was moving forward, reluctant step by reluctant step, to the ornate centre of the mosaic. The shadow from the minaret lay across it like a warning finger. It’s time.

  And under the pillars, in the shadows, someone was watching.

  9

  Damien watched the shadows playing through the closed shutters as he lay on the bed. Beside him, Amy was lying with her eyes closed, asleep, or lost in her own thoughts. The heat in the city this summer was extreme–he’d recorded forty-four degrees at noon. Even the Saudis were slowed down by it; the old men were absent from the street cafés and the souk had been somnolent in the blaze of the sun.

  The temperature was dropping now and against the dampness of his skin the air felt cool. He pulled the sheet up to cover them, and Amy stirred. ‘Damien,’ she said.

  He leaned over and kissed her lightly. ‘Who else would it be? No, don’t answer that.’ Her body was outlined against the sheets, long slim arms and legs, a smooth, flat stomach. Her skin was a pale glimmer in the half-light and her mouth was the delicate pink of rosebuds. He could picture her face half an hour before, flushed and warm, her lips the colour of crushed raspberries, and he could still hear her gasps of pleasure as she’d dug her nails into his skin.

  She laughed softly and rolled over towards him. ‘Nobody else but you.’ She reached across him to where a bottle of wine was cooling in a terracotta jar, and poured them each a glass.

  ‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘Why are you here?’ It was rare for them to meet spontaneously like this. The Saudi system made meetings between unmarried couples difficult. Damien preferred it that way. He had his own issues with commitment–his marriage had been enough to warn him away from those deep waters and Amy seemed happy enough with the status quo.

  She ran her fingers lightly over him. He could feel himself responding to her and took hold of her wrist. ‘Do you need to ask?’ she said.

  ‘Amy, I know I need to ask. What’s wrong?’ Amy always kept her own counsel, revealing only as much as she had to about herself. He had said to her once, ‘Has it ever occurred to you that I might do what you want if you just told me what was going on?’ She had given him a veiled look but hadn’t answered.

  She hesitated, then sighed. ‘I don’t know. That’s the thing. I was talking to one of the new guys today–only he’s not so new. He’s on his second tour. He must be crazy.’

  He knew at once who she was talking about. ‘Joe Massey.’

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded surprised. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Not really. And…?’

  ‘He was here when that man got caught taking the drugs. Remember?’

  Haroun Patel.

  That was the connection that had been nagging at him. Joe Massey must have been in Riyadh at the time Haroun Patel had died. Majid had mentioned the drug theft the other night.

  Damien had known and liked Haroun. He had been intelligent and energetic, a young man determined to do well in life, and not afraid to cut corners on the way. Only he’d chosen the wrong corner to cut and he was gone. The local police had landed every outstanding case of drug pilfering on his head, and then they had cut it off. His trial had been quick and secret, the evidence laid before the judges with no chance for Haroun to plead his case. By that time, anyway, he had confessed his guilt. As far as Damien knew, there had been no diplomatic fuss, no pressure to gain him a fair trial or a more proportionate sentence, just a small and quickly forgotten protest from people who had known him during his time in the UK. Haroun had been one more third-worlder, another immigrant worker trying his luck.

  ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘Why are you asking?’

  Amy sat up, and the sheet slipped away to lie in a pool round her hips. ‘It was just…this Massey guy said something that got me thinking. The case against Haroun never really made a lot of sense…’

  ‘They caught him with the stuff. That’s all the sense a case needs, here.’

  ‘I know. But it wasn’t the first theft, and I don’t see how Haroun could have done the others…’

  ‘You’re right. He probably didn’t. Amy, they caught him with enough stuff to land a trafficking charge on him. That was the crime that got him. The rest was just convenience. They needed a drugs trafficker, they got a drugs trafficker. They just cleared up anything outstanding. He was going anyway, he might as well take some extra baggage with him.’ He was deliberately brutal. He didn’t want her getting involved any further with this.

  Amy ran her fingers through her hair. ‘It’s a lousy system. You know that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Have you only just found that out?’

  ‘You seem happy enough with it.’

  It was happening already. If they weren’t having sex, it wasn’t long before they were sniping at each other, looking for the weak points in each other’s armour. He knew about the iniquities of the system–he didn’t need Amy to point them out. This was one of the reasons he’d left the diplomatic service. ‘You take their money, Amy. You know the score. It’s just the way it is.’

  ‘So no one’s going to do anything about it?’

  He pushed the sheet off in exasperation and got out of bed. ‘Do what? What would be the point?’

  She was silent, chewing her lip as she thought about it. ‘He had a family. I thought it might be better for them if they knew he’d only stolen drugs once.’

  ‘He got caught once. He might have done it loads of times–and then he got careless. Leave it.’

  She stood up. Draped in the thin cotton sheet, she looked as though she had stepped out of an engraving for one of the stories of the thousand and one nights. ‘Maybe.’ Her tone didn’t denote agreement, just that she wanted to close the subject.

  She wouldn’t leave it. He knew Amy.

  10

  KING SAUD UNIVERSITY WEB SITE

  English Department

  Studen
t discussion forums

  Students may post articles or topics

  for discussion.

  All contributions must be appropriate

  and must be in English.

  Topic: Veiled Knowledge

  Ibrahim: Red Rose, why did you post this article for us to read? If you think as a woman in Islam you have the right of leadership, you are totally wrong, because this kind of job is only valid for men.

  For women to read and understand.

  Allah Subhanahu Ta’âla (Az-Zukhruf: 18) says clearly that women are deficient in intellect and understanding. Women are physically weak and unable to fulfil the duties of leadership. It has thus been made the right of men only.

  These are the rules that a Muslim woman should obey and these make her unfit for leadership should she be foolish enough to aspire to such a thing:

  1. A woman should at all times remain in her home, but if due to any shar’ie necessity (eg Hajj, visiting her parents, visiting the ill, etc), then she should cover her entire body including the face.

  2. She must not try to seduce strange men by making her voice low and attractive when speaking with them and she should not walk in such a manner that would attract the attention of men.

  3. Intermingling of the sexes is prohibited in Islam.

  Red Rose, I’ll tell you a real story about an American Muslim woman who worked as a professor; she came to the King Saud University in Riyadh for a lecture. She said strong words to the girls that she saw with their bad behaviour and clothes. She said, ‘I wish that I was born in a Muslim family so I could do as much as possible to bless the great one, unlike you who are wearing unsuitable clothes and behaving in an immodest and foolish way, like the women in my country do.’ That was said by an American Muslim woman. How do you answer this?

  Red Rose: Ibrahim, too many men in our country are thinking like you. I am good Muslim, but I have travelled. I have been to place where good Muslim women drive car, vote and travel without the permission of husband or father. I think it is time we see the difference between Islam and custom in this country too. Maybe you will be liking this article better. This one was written by a Saudi man:

  Women and Islam–a new perspective

  What is perceived as the rise of fundamentalism in the Islamic world has led to the criticism that women pay the price for the reestablishment of faith. Is it true that women are oppressed within Islam, or is this a distortion of what the Q’ran itself teaches?

  When these accusations are made by the secularists, then the Islamists must turn again to the words of the prophet…

  The university was on the main road to the north east of Riyadh. Roisin sat in the back of the car, enveloped in her abaya, and tried not to flinch too visibly as her driver carved a straight route through the weaving traffic. The inside of the car smelled faintly of leather and spices. The chill from the air-conditioning made a disorientating contrast to the hard glare of the sun outside.

  The driver hadn’t spoken apart from a response to her Arabic greeting, and a nod of assent when she told him her destination. He would be driving her three times a week, and she wondered if he would unbend with familiarity, or if they were condemned by custom and protocol to travel this route in silence for the next year.

  They were leaving the city centre now, travelling fast along an eight-lane highway. She could see a haze of green in the distance, and as it drew closer the driver pulled across and took a turn-off, pulling up at a security gate.

  Roisin remained mute and invisible in the back while the driver carried out the negotiations. Beyond the checkpoint she could see a landscaped park with packed red earth, green lawns, palm trees and low shrubs. As the car moved slowly past the barrier, she could see that the grass of the lawns was patchy as it fought to survive in the dry terrain, but otherwise, she was looking at a futuristic arcadia on the edge of the biggest desert in the world.

  The buildings were high with curved, sweeping roofs, lifted off the ground on pillars or pointing, needle thin, to the sky. Even this early in the day, the campus was busy. Students wandered across the open spaces, young men in white thobes with red ghutra. There were no women visible, apart from her, and she was enclosed in the separate world of the car, hidden behind her abaya and headscarf. No one glanced her way.

  The driver stopped at a second gate. ‘Woman college,’ he said. Only the second time he had spoken.

  Roisin made sure her headscarf was in place and got out of the car. ‘Thank you. Twelve thirty,’ she said to the driver, who nodded abruptly and pulled away.

  She stepped through the door into the building that housed the women’s campus.

  Cool twilight enclosed her. She was in a long corridor of high pillars, the ceiling punched with holes to admit the light that fell across the shadows in beams of gold where the dust motes danced. It was cloister-like in its silence. There were no groups of young women passing time chatting and laughing. The few women who were there moved purposefully, their footsteps quiet, their eyes cast down. Even though men did not come here–the male teachers taught their classes over video link–they wore the hijab and long skirts. Roisin hesitated then loosened her own headscarf and let it fall round her neck. Until someone told her otherwise, she was going to leave it off. She shook her hair free.

  She followed the signs along the corridor, thankful that they were written in English as well as Arabic, until she found the office of the professor who would be her supervisor. Souad al-Munajjed was an internationally respected academic who taught and researched in the area of foreign language teaching. Roisin was curious to meet her. She knocked on the door, and when a voice responded, she went in.

  Souad al-Munajjed made a lie of any preconceptions that Roisin had brought with her about Saudi women. She was in her late forties, married with children, and a professor of English at the prestigious university. She wrote books, attended academic conferences all over the world and enjoyed an international reputation for her work on translation.

  She stood up from her chair as Roisin entered, moving forward to greet her. ‘Good morning,’ she said in heavily accented English, then switched to Arabic. ‘Peace be upon you.’ She was small and pretty. Like her students, she wore the hijab. Hers was folded in a style that made it drape elegantly over her hair and round her shoulders. Her dress was black and ankle-length, subtly ornamented with silver stitching.

  ‘And upon you peace,’ Roisin responded. Wa-alay-kum as-salam.

  ‘Salaam,’ Souad al-Munajjed corrected her pronunciation and nodded her approval of Roisin’s courtesy. ‘It is good that you speak Arabic,’ she said, reverting to English.

  ‘I speak very little.’

  ‘But you try. This is good.’ She studied Roisin in silence. ‘The bangles you wear, they are very pretty.’

  ‘Thank you. My husband bought them for me when we first arrived, from the market.’

  Souad nodded as if this pleased her. ‘We have good silversmiths here. Now, these first meetings are important, are they not? I would like to introduce to you one of our graduate students who will be your teaching assistant today.’ She indicated a chair in the corner of the room where another woman was sitting, unnoticed until now.

  As she stood up to greet Roisin, it was obvious she was pregnant. ‘I am Yasmin,’ she said.

  She was beautiful. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a black hijab that emphasized the fairness of her skin. A curl of chestnut hair escaped the confines of the scarf. But she looked tired. Roisin could see dark circles of fatigue under her eyes, and lines around her mouth that denoted some kind of strain. ‘I am most pleased to meet you,’ she said. She spoke English with a slight French accent.

  ‘And I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Roisin Gardner.’ Roisin hadn’t had time to get the name on her teaching papers changed to reflect her new status. ‘Will we be working together?’

  ‘Sometimes. I would like to learn better English.’ Her smile to Roisin was cautious. ‘I think I will be your student.’<
br />
  ‘Yasmin will assist you in some classes,’ Professor Souad explained. ‘But I cannot spare her all the time. Some days, she teaches in the villages. We have a big programme, funded by our government, to bring education to the village women. Now, my dears, I think we should have tea.’ She picked up the phone and spoke briefly, then sat down and gestured for Roisin to sit next to her. ‘What is your impression of our university?’

  ‘It’s beautiful. But I was surprised there were so few students–in this part, I mean. I thought you had more women than men here.’

  ‘Yes indeed. Our education policies are more enlightened than we are given credit for. But the girls don’t arrive before classes start, unless they are here to see their tutors. Saudi girls don’t waste their time in gossip and “hanging out”.’ She gave the phrase an ironic emphasis. ‘Isn’t that right?’ she added to Yasmin, who smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t worry. Your class will be waiting for you. Now you must tell me about yourself.’

  Over the next fifteen minutes, she subjected Roisin to a friendly but close interrogation, interrupted briefly by the arrival of tea and pastries. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when Roisin told her she had no children. ‘But, my dear, you are already thirty-two!’

  ‘I only got married a few weeks ago,’ Roisin said.

  ‘I had four children when I was your age.’ Souad patted Roisin’s hand. ‘Take my advice. Don’t delay.’

  ‘A lot of women in the West wait until their thirties.’ Roisin noticed with some amusement the flash of slightly contemptuous pity in Souad al-Munajjed’s eyes.

  ‘The students,’ the professor said briskly; ‘you have seen their work online–what do you think of them? And you like our discussion forum? This was my idea.’ She refilled Roisin’s cup unasked, and put a sweet, crumbly pastry on her plate.

  ‘There have been some interesting postings recently.’ Roisin broke off a piece of the pastry and put it in her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue. Its intense sweetness was mellowed by the flavour of spices. ‘I was surprised about the…’ She hesitated for a moment, but these women were too intelligent not to be aware of what she was thinking. ‘I was surprised at the openness of the discussion about women’s rights. And about the vote.’