The Rebel

Amina-2

“You wouldn’t be his zillionth wife, Amina. Saud sheikh’s spouse has only recently died. He is a widow, and that’s why he wants to get married again.

I stare at her with big eyes. is this supposed to be good news? Should I be happy that he is a widow? Why did his wife die? How old was she? Was she his only wife? Did they love each other? Do they have children? Thousands of questions come to my mind, but I can only utter one.

“So, his wife has died?”

“Half a year ago,” my mother nods.

“How did she die?”

Irritated, she shrugs her shoulders, and quickly turns her head to the window.

“I have no idea. Why does it matter?”

Why does it matter? Every little detail counts.

“It matters to me, damn it!” I shout, yanking my hand out of hers. I jump up, walking agitated circles in my room, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the sheer shock on their faces. I know that my behaviour is less than impressive, but I’m unable to control my reaction. I hate to disappoint, yet, I can’t silently endure as they arrange my life behind my back, not even asking what I think. I’ve been like this since my infancy, and I’ve always had the feeling it’s this passion my father is so fond of about me.

“Mind your words, Amina!”

“But why him? And why now? I don’t even know him. Does he know me at all?”

“He’s seen photos of you and liked you very much.”

“And I’ve seen him on TV,” I lie. “And I really didn’t like him.”

“Amina!” my mother shouts out loud, her voice is getting filled with hysterical rage. “The sheikh is a good man. Your father’s cousin and friend.”

“Of course, they are friends. After all, they are almost the same age,” I yell at her with anger, knowing I have crossed a line.

Rafa is still kneeling on the floor as I should be, but I press on like a tigress. I am not about to surrender. My mother is furious, she gets up as well and starts walking towards me.

“Shut up, shameless child!”

I don’t want to seem weak, yet, my tears begin to flow. I wipe them off sullenly with the sleeve of my blouse.

“Here is Rafa. Why didn’t you give her to the sheikh? I’m sure she would love to be a 43-year-old widow’s wife.”

My words are impertinent and endlessly provoking, but my sister doesn’t even protest. my mother and I fix our eyes on her, and she is just blinking her eyes behind those long eye lashes. It just dawns on me that she probably wouldn’t object to marriage. Her room is full of wedding magazines, the other day she rushed to hide one under her mattress when I happened to open the door on her. Since her tender age she has been nursing our cousins while they were little. Rafa was born to be a wife, a specimen of the perfect mother. While I pressured my father into allowing me to attend school in England, she had no intention to leave the country. She chose to learn from private tutors within the walls of the palace. I want to study, earn a degree, travel. She on the other hand wants to put diapers on babies, and dreams about her wedding day. Oh God, how much easier it would be if I were also like her! An obedient, good child who does not care to ask why, and does not drive her parents crazy with her stubbornness.

“I’ve always known that it wouldn’t end well. Your father has been too lenient with you from the start. A girl like this should have been kept in a much stricter way. Damned European blood,” mother sniffs in an alarmingly high voice, and I look at her, all puzzled. “To hell with you, European school, English boarding school. You are impudent and obstinate. You bring shame to our family,” she shouts into my face, and I forget to breathe.

A sharp pain pierces through me at her words: “I bring shame to the family”. And what does she mean by “a girl like this”? What kind of girl am I that one needs to be ashamed of? She has never talked to me so harshly, and it hurts really bad.

“I don’t want to marry someone I don’t even know. What’s so strange about that? We are no longer in the Middle Ages. If I was ever to marry, it should happen out of mutual love, not because an aging oil billionaire has seen my photo and came to like me. Is it so hard to understand?”

She looks at me with a shock, trying to catch her breath. I know she wasn’t asked either, whether she wanted to marry Tariq bin Khalid bin Faisal al-Hosani, or not. They simply shared with her the good news and expected her to nod to it with eyes cast down.

“You are soon turning twenty-one,” she shouts with such accusation as if being unmarried at this age was considered a crime to be punished, by itself.

“So?” I spread my arms, with the tears still rolling down my cheeks.

I look at Rafa and see that she’s crying too.

“Others your age have long been—”

“… have long been mothers. I know,” – I complete the sentence for her. I’m sure she was going to say that, because at this age she also was one. Mum was hardly 18 when my brother, Kareem was born. In her eyes, I am already at least two years late. “But why should everybody walk the same path? I don’t want to get married yet either to Saud sheikh or anybody else. And I don’t want to have children,” I scream, but a big slap in the face makes me stop.

I press my palm against my aching cheek while we stare at one another, gasping out of breath. She has never lifted her hands against me before. Her eyes are aflame, her cheeks are red as she turns her back on me with hands lifted to the sky. Her voice becomes hysterical.

“You should be thankful that the sheikh shows interest for you at all and is willing to marry you regardless your bloodline.”

Suddenly, she goes quiet, and her words are followed by silence. I also freeze, as she broods over her last sentence with embarrassment. Rafa, like an alarmed little rabbit, blinks her eyes carefully between mother and I. The silence is now becoming alarming, but mum is not turning towards me. She stands there, facing the window, stock-still. I wait for her to go on, to continue shouting and scolding me, but there is nothing, so I speak up.

“What problem would the sheikh have with my bloodline? You yourself have said that he and dad are cousins.”

A strange, shiver-like worry starts from my stomach, making its way higher in my chest, like a gigantic anaconda. Soon it will be choking my neck, and I feel that if I don’t get a quick response to what has been said, I will explode. She is still quiet, what’s more, she presses her hand to her mouth. At once, I begin to ponder what could possibly give a cause to Saud sheikh to be dissatisfied with my bloodline. My father is a member of the royal family, the emir’s cousin brother, so that cannot be a problem.

“Mum,” the words leave my mouth in my bewilderment, because I only see one possible explanation. I step up to her, right behind her back, and ask her almost pleadingly, “Is dad not my father? Am I not his real daughter?”

She turns around and looks at me as if the most horrible blasphemy has left my lips. And this is when she slaps my face a second time. Nothing in the course of twenty years, and now, during just a few minutes, two. I lift my hand to my face with a shock, and by now I can see my mother regrets what she has done. “The greatest weapon of a woman is the beauty of her face and the spell of her eyes” – as she always says, and my two weapons seem to be in a very poor state right now. My eyes are bloated with crying, and the mark of her fingers are burning on my face. Her eyes well up and her mouth is quivering as if we were not at the Persian Gulf but in Siberia.

“Do you think I would still be alive if it was true? If you weren’t your father’s daughter?” she asks with bitterness.

For my father to be a different person, my mother would have had to cheat on her husband, and not only that, but to do that when she had already given birth to two sons with him. Absolutely out of the question. That leaves us with only one solution, though. I turn my back on her and grab the windowsill. The marble is ice cold under my sweating palms, I wish I could squeeze my forehead too against it.

“But… that means –“I groan.

This can only mean that my mother is not my real mother. I have to swallow, but there is a gigantic lump in my throat. I feel nauseous and dizzy. What’s going on? This morning I still had a happy life, I was the privileged princess of the world’s most beautiful emirate, then it is dumped on me that I have to marry an aging sheikh, as well my family is not my family at all. This can only be a nightmare. I want to wake up! When she speaks at last, her voice is nothing but a sigh.

“Just forget what I said.”

She can’t just dump a statement like this on me, and then pretend that nothing has happened. But it really looks like she considers our conversation finished on her part, because she begins to walk towards the door of my suite. I simply can’t believe my eyes. Does she really want to walk out on me? She can’t do that to me!

“Mum!” I scream and run towards her. I grab her arm just when she is about to walk out the door, but she yanks her arm out of my hands, and without looking at me, rushes on down the hall. Repeating her name, I run beside her, pulling at her abaya like some lunatic, but she just keeps on walking, looking forward. “Please, just say something. You can’t just leave me here like this.”

By this time, she’s crying too, her black mascara is smeared and running down the corners of her eyes, but she won’t stop. She’s running from me. In the meantime, we reach the West wing of the palace where her suite is, but I’m still on her like a shadow. The hall is entirely empty, none of the staff wants to witness the drama. I am certain they are watching us from behind the corners, but that’s the least bothering me now. As we reach her door and I’m still determined to stay, my mother tells me, sobbing:

“Just leave me alone, Amina. I can’t do it, I can’t talk. Can’t you understand? Your father will kill me if he finds out.”

She grabs the door handle and I let go of the edge of her dress. My hand falls, I feel utterly desperate. If my father hasn’t seen it fit to enlighten me about my bloodline – whatever may be in the background –, then he had a strong reason for it. My mum having spilt the beans, will make him angry, it’s sure as death. I don’t even know who is in bigger trouble: she or I. I wouldn’t like to be in her position. She opens the door, enters, and as she turns around, she cast another painful glance at me. She is really broken. but she’s not asking me to keep the newly found information a secret from my father. She knows me too well, she knows I couldn’t do that, and how right she is. The door closes in front of my eyes, and I am left to stand there, in the middle of my collapsing little world.