Princess Sultana's Daughters

myself: complete power poisons the hand of the person
that holds it.
    Cheated of my blood, Ali is displeased and
gruff in our parting. He would like nothing better than to see me
placed under house arrest, but he cannot risk the wound to his male
pride that would come from being associated by blood with such a
one as I.
    I give him an especially warm farewell,
whispering in his ear: “Ali, you must remember that not everyone in
chains can be subdued.”
    It is a great triumph!
    *
    Kareem is sullen and stubborn as we make our
way home. He smokes one cigarette after another, soundly cursing
the Filipino driver on three occasions for not driving to suit his
master.
    I lean my face against the car window, seeing
nothing of what we pass on the Riyadh streets. I brace myself for a
second battle, for I understand that I cannot escape Kareem’s great
anger.
    Once locked in our bedroom, Kareem grabs the
pages of the book. He begins to read aloud the passages that most
insult him: “His facade was wisdom and kindness; his very bowels
were cunning and selfish. I was disgusted to discover that he was
merely a shell of a man with little to commend him, after all!”
    There is a strain of sympathy in my thoughts,
for what human would not feel pain and fury at public notification
of their weakest traits. I fight the emotion, forcing myself to
recall the activities of my husband that led to my own pain and
grief so vividly portrayed in the book.
    I am in a dilemma, knowing not whether to
laugh or to cry.
    Kareem solves the problem for me with his
exaggerated behavior. My husband waves his arms and stomps his
feet. I’m reminded of the Egyptian puppet show I had attended the
previous week at my sister Sara’s palace, a hilarious event
featuring puppets in full Saudi dress. The closer I look, the more
Kareem resembles Goha, a lovable but eccentric imaginary figure in
the Arab world. Goha the puppet had been his usual foolish self in
the play, prancing across the stage, disentangling himself from
complex situations.
    My lips quiver with the urge to laugh. At any
moment now, I expect my husband to fall to the floor and throw a
childish temper tantrum.
    “He swore, he blushed with shame; I thought
perhaps he was angered by his inability to control his wife.”
    Kareem glares hatefully at me. “Sultana! Do
not dare smile! I am truly angry.”
    Still battling conflicting emotions, I shrug.
“Do you deny that what you are reading is the truth?”
    Ignoring my words, Kareem foolishly continues
to seek out the most damning passages concerning his character,
reminding his wife of the particular traits of her husband’s
temperament that had led her to leave him years ago.
    Actually shrieking, he reads aloud, “How I
yearned to be wed to a warrior, a man with the hot flame of
righteousness to guide his life.”
    His rage growing with every word, Kareem
holds the book under my nose and points with a finger to the words
that he deems most insulting, “Six years ago, Sultana was stricken
with a venereal disease; after much distress, Kareem admitted that
he participated in a weekly adventure of sex with strangers...
After the scare of the disease, Kareem promised he would avoid the
weekly tryst, but Sultana says she knows that he is weak in the
face of such a feast, and that he continues to indulge himself
without shame. Their wonderful love has vanished except in memory;
Sultana says she will stand with her husband and continue her
struggle for the sake of her daughters.”
    Kareem is so angry at that particular
revelation that I fear he will start weeping. My husband accuses me
of “poisoning paradise,” claiming that, “our lives are
perfect.”
    Admittedly, over the past year I have
regained some of my earlier love and trust of Kareem, but it is at
moments such as this that my dismay grows over the cowardice of the
men of our family. I realize from his behavior that Kareem gives
not a thought to the reasons I risked my safety and our happiness
to make known the events of my life, or to the very real and tragic
events ending the lives of young and innocent women in his own
land. Kareem’s only concern is for how he is portrayed in the book,
and for the fact that he has fared poorly in many passages.
    I tell my husband that he and other men of
the Al Sa’ud family alone hold the power to make change in our
country. Slowly, quietly, in their subtle manner, they can pursue
and encourage change. When he makes no response to my plea,