payments. The privacy screens were pathetic, and Katya could hear everything—even the bank clerk in the corner who hummed Nancy Ajram every time she counted bills. The front door opened with a whoosh of hot air, rustling the succulent leaves of the potted plants and swirling
abaayas
around bodies. A woman entered, her high heels clattering angrily on the polished marble floor. She walked straight into the manager’s office and was greeted with cloying adulation. The manager rushed out to fetch coffee and dates. The new arrival dumped an obnoxiously large Dior purse on the desk. A few of the women in the waiting area began to grumble, and one sighed loudly in exasperation.
Were men’s banks so infernally slow and bureaucratic? Katya had been in a men’s bank on one occasion, when her mother (bless her), in a fit of outrage at the service in the women’s bank, had marched across the street and pushed past the guards with the intention of speaking to the notorious “man in charge” without whom, apparently, nothing could be decided in the women’s section. She had brought a black pall of silence to the bank’s vast interior. Fifty men had turned to stare at her, their faces cold with disapproval. Katya had scrambled after her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back outside, but her mother, then practically in the death throes of the cancer that had killed her, refused to budge until she spoke to the manager.
Even if they wanted to work, even if their husbands and fathers agreed to let them interact with strange men, even if they had drivers and ID cards and babysitters, Saudi women struggled to find jobs. This grand country, which could import anything it needed, also imported 90 percent of its private-sector workers. She had heard the anti-immigration cry from other countries—Europe wanting to send its Muslims home; America keen to close its doors to the Mexicans—but Saudi had let itself become a kingdom of strangers. It welcomed its immigrants because they lent the illusion that all Saudis could afford hired help, because the immigrants did the jobs that most Saudis would never dream of doing—housekeeping, trash collecting, taxi driving—and because without them, absolutely nothing would get done.
But these bankers were Saudi, part of a movement among more reformist companies to get Saudi women working (albeit in women-only banks). If this was the Saudi-ization of the workforce, Katya reflected, then the country was heading for trouble.
She sat back in the armchair and shut her eyes. She ought to give up waiting and just go home, but this was the first time in a month she’d been alone and without any responsibilities. She hadn’t wanted to face this moment because what was waiting forher here was a marriage proposal and the man she hoped she loved standing patiently at the edge of her life. Here also was her mind-numbing terror at losing her job.
If you don’t get married
, she thought,
you
will
lose your job
. She had lied and told them she was married because in order to work in her department, she had to be. Only Osama had found out the truth. He hadn’t fired her yet, but the threat hung over her every day. It constituted the greater part of her antagonism for Daher, who had seen her at work late one night and said: “You don’t
act
like a married woman.”
She knew he meant
You’re acting like a man
, but it chilled her anyway, and she found herself worrying about him most of all. Would he find out that she wasn’t married? It would be as simple as his heading down to the records office and running a search.
But a marriage might just turn out to be a pretty, tree-lined avenue to the dead end of her dreams. She thought of Nayir and tried to remember the longing she felt for him, but fear had neutered her desire. Nayir wasn’t the type to be comfortable with her working such long hours. And what if they started having children? How would she work and raise kids—and clean house and cook and
abaayas
around bodies. A woman entered, her high heels clattering angrily on the polished marble floor. She walked straight into the manager’s office and was greeted with cloying adulation. The manager rushed out to fetch coffee and dates. The new arrival dumped an obnoxiously large Dior purse on the desk. A few of the women in the waiting area began to grumble, and one sighed loudly in exasperation.
Were men’s banks so infernally slow and bureaucratic? Katya had been in a men’s bank on one occasion, when her mother (bless her), in a fit of outrage at the service in the women’s bank, had marched across the street and pushed past the guards with the intention of speaking to the notorious “man in charge” without whom, apparently, nothing could be decided in the women’s section. She had brought a black pall of silence to the bank’s vast interior. Fifty men had turned to stare at her, their faces cold with disapproval. Katya had scrambled after her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back outside, but her mother, then practically in the death throes of the cancer that had killed her, refused to budge until she spoke to the manager.
Even if they wanted to work, even if their husbands and fathers agreed to let them interact with strange men, even if they had drivers and ID cards and babysitters, Saudi women struggled to find jobs. This grand country, which could import anything it needed, also imported 90 percent of its private-sector workers. She had heard the anti-immigration cry from other countries—Europe wanting to send its Muslims home; America keen to close its doors to the Mexicans—but Saudi had let itself become a kingdom of strangers. It welcomed its immigrants because they lent the illusion that all Saudis could afford hired help, because the immigrants did the jobs that most Saudis would never dream of doing—housekeeping, trash collecting, taxi driving—and because without them, absolutely nothing would get done.
But these bankers were Saudi, part of a movement among more reformist companies to get Saudi women working (albeit in women-only banks). If this was the Saudi-ization of the workforce, Katya reflected, then the country was heading for trouble.
She sat back in the armchair and shut her eyes. She ought to give up waiting and just go home, but this was the first time in a month she’d been alone and without any responsibilities. She hadn’t wanted to face this moment because what was waiting forher here was a marriage proposal and the man she hoped she loved standing patiently at the edge of her life. Here also was her mind-numbing terror at losing her job.
If you don’t get married
, she thought,
you
will
lose your job
. She had lied and told them she was married because in order to work in her department, she had to be. Only Osama had found out the truth. He hadn’t fired her yet, but the threat hung over her every day. It constituted the greater part of her antagonism for Daher, who had seen her at work late one night and said: “You don’t
act
like a married woman.”
She knew he meant
You’re acting like a man
, but it chilled her anyway, and she found herself worrying about him most of all. Would he find out that she wasn’t married? It would be as simple as his heading down to the records office and running a search.
But a marriage might just turn out to be a pretty, tree-lined avenue to the dead end of her dreams. She thought of Nayir and tried to remember the longing she felt for him, but fear had neutered her desire. Nayir wasn’t the type to be comfortable with her working such long hours. And what if they started having children? How would she work and raise kids—and clean house and cook and
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