Read Online Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson - Free Book Online

gathered me into her loving arms and held me tenderly as
the plane taxied to the terminal. She was veiled, but I knew her
every expression, and I heard her breathe a long, tortured sigh. I
said good-bye to the kindly Americans. I hoped they would fly us
back to Riyadh, for I felt a camaraderie with the two men who had
lent such importance to a child’s foolish and feverish
questions.
    Arriving at the clinic, we heard wails and
crying as we walked through the long corridor. Mother stepped up
her pace and gripped my hand so tightly I wanted to complain. Sara
was alive, but barely. We were distraught to discover that she had
tried to take her life by placing her head in the gas oven. She was
very quiet, deathly pale. Her husband was not there, but he had
sent over his mother. Now, in a loud voice, the old woman began to
scold Sara harshly for embarrassing her son and his family. She was
a mean old hag. I wanted to scratch her face and see her run, but I
remembered my promise to Mother. Instead I stood, barely breathing
from anger, patting Sara’s smooth, still hands.
    Mother threw her veil over her head and faced
the old woman. She had fretted over many possibilities, but the
discovery that her daughter had attempted suicide was unexpected
and devastating. When she turned in a cold fury to the husband’s
mother, I wanted to stamp and cheer. She stopped the woman cold
when she asked what her son had done to make a young girl want to
take her life. She ordered her to leave Sara’s bedside, for this
was no place for the ungodly. The old woman left without replacing
her veil. We could hear her voice rise in anger as she cried out to
God for sympathy.
    Mother turned to me and saw my admiring
smile. I was awed by her anger, and for a brief, shining moment, I
felt God would not desert us. Sara would be saved. But I knew
Mother’s life would be one of misery when Father heard of her
words. Knowing Father, he would be angry, not sympathetic, toward
Sara for her desperate act, and he was sure to be furious with
Mother for defending her daughter. In Saudi Arabia, the elderly are
truly revered. No matter what they do or say, or how they behave,
no one dares confront someone of age. When she faced the old woman,
my mother had been a tigress, protecting her young. My heart felt
as though it would burst from pride at her courage.
    After three days, without calling once,
Sara’s husband came to the clinic to claim his property. By the
time he arrived, Mother had discovered the source of Sara’s agony.
She confronted her son-in-law with contempt. Sara’s new husband was
sadistic. He had subjected my sister to sickening sexual brutality
until she felt her only escape was death. But after Father traveled
to Jeddah, even he was repelled when he heard of his daughter’s
sufferings. But Father agreed with his son-in-law that a wife
belonged with her husband. Sara’s husband promised Father that his
relations with her would conform to a life of normalcy.
    Mother’s hand trembled and her mouth
stretched in a howl when Father told her of his decision. Sara
began to weep and tried to leave the bed, saying she did not wish
to live. She threatened to slit her wrists if forced to return to
her husband. Mother stood over her daughter like a mountain and,
for the first time in her life, defied her husband. She told him
that Sara would never return to the house of a monster, and that
she, Mother, would go to the king and the Council of Religious Men
with the story, and neither would allow such a matter to continue.
Father threatened Mother with divorce. She stood fast and told him
to do whatever he had to do, but her daughter would not return to
swim in such evil.
    Father stood, unblinking. He probably
realized that in all likelihood, Sara would be forced by the men of
religion to return to her husband. If the past were any precedent,
they would advise the husband to deal with his wife in the manner
spelled out by the Koran, and then they would turn