Black Book of Arabia (10 page)

He just smiled as he swiped the door key and then yanked me into the room. He jerked the suitcase out of my hand and pushed me onto the bed. I knew what was coming next.
Not without a fight, where I rip you to pieces,
I thought. He put his hands up to lift his thobe from above, and I rolled off the bed, falling clumsily to the floor. My knees were jelly. There was nowhere to go.

That is when I saw someone grab the blackmailer from behind and throw him onto the floor. When I heard the click of the handcuffs, I knew my nightmare was over.

“Where did you come from?” I asked the police officer. He explained that when I had stopped in the lobby, my legs refusing to move, he had quietly approached the desk clerk. The clerk identified the man in the lobby who approached me and gave the officer a key to his room. The officer was already in the room when my blackmailer dragged me inside. The scene of the swarming police with me on the floor crying out of relief was a fitting end to all of my past crying. The horror was real; I could feel, see, and smell it. I tasted blood in my mouth because I had bitten my own lip in terror.

I thanked the officer and simply sat on the floor, thanking the Lord for His mercy. I had had enough electric shocks. I have no doubt my tormentor planned to shoot a video of him raping me to continually use against me. I kept thinking of his enormous strength when he had pulled me into the room. I never felt so helpless in my life. I would have fought him, but it would have been useless.

The blackmailer was sentenced to five years in prison. My ex-fiancé was tried as an accomplice, since he had told his friend to do his worst to me. He was acquitted, but was forced to do fifty hours of social work and undergo therapeutic and psychiatric help, and he remains unmarried. He has apologized to me several times, but I keep my distance from him. I have blocked him on all of
my social media networks and phones. The blackmailer remains in prison.

I went back to university and got a master's degree in psychology, as I felt the need to better understand human behavior. I am grateful to the Al Ameen service that saved my life, my honor, my future, and my sanity.

The Apple of My Eye

I am a perfectionist. I strive to be the best there is and I work really, really hard. Working hard teaches one how to appreciate practice, and the reward is success. I learned all I know from my mother, who was one of the few women of her generation to finish her college education and work full time. She was employed first in a school and then in the Ministry of Education whilst being a mother, and did so immaculately. The workaholic in her did not allow her to slack off in her home duties. She and my father were diligent about having a wholesome family and would spend time with us daily on developing our skills, studies, and personalities.

We were an average-sized family of two boys and one girl. My mother loved her children very much and invested all her spare time in them, especially her daughter. She wanted me, her beloved daughter, to be especially successful, beautiful and accomplished, and that I was. I was her dream created and realized. I aspired to exceed my mother's expectations and always make her proud. She was the envy of every mother, and I, the daughter, wanted nothing but to make her proud.

I eventually was engaged to a distant cousin who was my first crush as a child. My friends and I referred to him as Mr Heartthrob. Naturally, I was thrilled that he expressed an interest in tying the knot with me as soon as he graduated from his university in the United States. I was studying at Qatar University and very much looking forward to being Mrs Heartthrob.

I had a calendar of to-dos, as most brides do. I began working on my skin, hair, body, and nails; my wedding planning included flowers, favors, the guest list (friends, relatives, the ones I wanted, and the ones I did not want but had to invite anyway), the after party, the honeymoon, the bridesmaids, their dresses, crowns, the entertainment at the wedding and the parties—the list went on and on. I enjoyed every moment of organizing the wedding, so much so that I even thought of starting up my own wedding planning business after it was over. I had a knack for it, being detail-oriented and researching every minute necessity and luxury in the process of planning a project.

I was always Skyping with my fiancé, Jassim, keeping him entertained with my daily adventures. Everything was proceeding according to plan. I was so happy I felt like an over-inflated balloon that would burst at any moment. My family and friends would always tell me I should give thanks to God for being this happy and for everything working out so smoothly.

My wedding was at a beautiful time of year, when spring is ending but summer has not yet begun. The
weather was pleasant. The guests coming from neighboring countries would not be too troubled because I specifically booked it post-school and pre-summer travels, when there is an exodus of Gulf Arabs leaving to Europe, Asia, and Africa.

My mother had a dress made by Reem Acra New York and wore Badgley Mischka shoes. Her gown looked like something that Audrey Hepburn would wear, which suited her, as she was naturally slim and tall. Her winged eyeliner made her look like Marilyn Monroe, with her mole in the same spot and her hair the lightest it had ever been.

My gown was Elie Saab, majestic and grand. When I tried it on for the first time, I had not slept in days and was nervous that the gown would look too sexy for a saintly bride. Mother cried when she saw how beautiful I looked in it. We hugged, and I cried and told her how much I loved her and how everything I had become was because she loved me that much.

My friends and cousins were all dressed just as stylishly, because everyone knew that if you were coming to my wedding you were expected to be dressed to the nines. And dressed to the nines they were. I commended and complimented everyone, and we took pictures so we could always look back at this beautiful day.

We had Hussain Al Jassimi, a popular Khaleeji singer, sing our favorite songs. My mother went on and on about me saying my prayers, because I looked like an angel. The makeup artist was applying my makeup and telling wild stories about what the evil eye had done to people she
knew personally. There were stories of people breaking their heels, falling, getting a burn, and other unfortuitous events. There was a tale of a man who could down a helicopter with his evil eye. Another about how a woman got pregnant seven times, and each time gave birth to a stillborn perfect baby. Mother was fearful for me and was telling everyone to bless me and remember that all the beauty I had was from God.

I had said my prayers enough times that I did not have stage fright. I felt safe. I walked down the aisle, sat on the sofa, and looked upon my guests in the full ballroom. But then, all of a sudden, with no warning, the brightly lit ballroom went black. I could hear music and voices, but I could not see anyone or anything. No color, no shadow, no light. Pitch black. I blinked and blinked, but the darkness remained.

The noise of the celebration loud in my ears, I stretched out my hands until I felt a hand that I recognized from its softness as my mother's. I almost fell from the chaise lounge, where I had been waiting for my husband to take pictures with me and carry me away to Paris.

I felt clumsy and handicapped at how much I needed my sight, even for balance. I wasn't scared; I was terrified. I needed an explanation. I felt an arm around my waist and I recognized my maid's voice, asking me how I could trip while sitting down. I began crying and told her I could not see her. Why had they switched off the lights?

She asked me again and again if I could see, but I could not. My adrenaline kicked in, and I could not understand
her explanations. I wanted to run, to gasp for air; perhaps outside the streetlights were on, and that would restore my sanity and calm my fright.

No one goes blind all of a sudden. Unheard of. Simply plain mad. I did not even wear glasses. I had gone to a doctor only once for my eyes, when I had conjunctivitis at twelve years old. I never wore contacts for vision, although I had once tried colored contacts for a picture years before. I suffered no ailments worth mentioning. I needed my mother, I needed my husband, I needed everyone to hold me, to tell me it was a bad joke and that it was fixable. I wanted it to be something science could explain and correct. Panic, shock, bacteria, a virus—something that surgery, medicine, or even psychological therapy could reverse.

My mother began reading verses of the Qur'an and, after ten minutes, when nothing happened, she requested that the gates be closed and that everyone in the ballroom come and bless me because it seemed that an evil eye had struck me. The music stopped, replaced by loud whispers about this cruel strike of fate. Someone had looked at me with so much envy that it was like a spell cast on me that blinded me. Usually if such a thing happened, it was milder: an eye infection or failing eyesight that might require glasses. But this was an extreme case. Things like these did not happen to normal people like me, and especially not on my wedding day and in public. The tragic comedy of my situation left me in tears. I wanted and needed to understand what was going on.

Logic left the hall, and everyone began paying advice and panicking. I could hear murmurs, weeping, and whispers. People began calling God's name and asking for mercy. All of this made me nervous and scared. I began to realize I might never again see my family's faces, my husband's face as he spoke comforting words to me, my future children; all of these thoughts drowned me. They felt like waves crashing over me again and again, reminding me that I would never see the birthday cakes I would attempt to make (or buy and act like I made because I knew the technique). I would not be able to look at people's faces to see if they believed me or not, and then their expressions after I burst out laughing because I was kidding.

I shut my eyes, knit my brows, and opened my eyes again as wide as I could, and still I could not see. I was drowning, but I was on the wedding sofa, beseeching my mother and husband to help me. Tears ran down my cheeks, neck, and chest, and I did not care anymore about the pretty pictures or what people saw and thought. They were strong, smart, dependable people, and they would know what to do. Everything can be fixed if we try.

My husband was in the ballroom by now and tried to soothe my worries, saying that if it came on suddenly, it might disappear suddenly. I could not see—not now and maybe never again. So why should I care? I wept until I felt faint and my husband carried me away. He tried to reassure me, and I wanted to believe him. I made him promise that he would do his utmost to help me regain my sight and to understand why this had happened.

We changed our honeymoon trip from France to Germany to visit the doctors there, as they are highly respected. I went to sleep in tears on my wedding night, thinking about how my perfect day had been ruined. Jassim tried everything to console me. He told me how much he loved me and how we were married and he was happy and all that mattered was that we were together, man and wife, and all would be resolved in due time. For the first few nights, we lay together like virgin lovers, and he would whisper sweet nothings and promises that his heart would not change toward me. These words meant so much to the blind perfectionist who had lost her crown on her coronation day. He was gentle and kind, and I was grateful for the gift of having a rock to lean on when fate had been so cruel to me.

It pained me that I could not see him. He told me to use my fingers to see him. I was a child, learning to see the world in a different way. It was slow, but intense. The suggestive nature of how the cheek protrudes, the lips curve, the short facial hair prickles, the limbs quiver, and the breath quickens into short gasps was as alluring as it was stimulating. I was eager to soon see and enjoy the full view of my experience with my better half.

He believed my condition was treatable, and I believed him, because I would have killed myself then and there had I known I was going to be diagnosed with dead optic cells once I arrived in Germany. The tests were too many, and the results were too slow. I heard too much foreign scientific language and too little hope in it. The daily tests were
becoming mundane and maddening with their dead-end findings. I was fully analyzed. They tested my head, hair, history, DNA, teeth, kidneys, sugar levels, blood pressure, heart, brain functions, and bodily functions. They found other minor things wrong with me, but nothing to do with my eyes.

They treated my stressed shoulders, which I think were due to the wedding preparations. I had low iron, and that was treated with a diet of more liver, spinach, and beetroot. I began gentle exercise with a coach and started seeing a psychiatrist. They tried to find out if my loss of vision was a deep-rooted, psychological problem. They even thought I was imagining it, willing it, or a really talented actress. A foolish attempt to shock me by telling me that my family had died in a car accident left me crying and shivering. It did not work, and I did not appreciate it. I was reduced to a mere piece of a human being—someone who felt defeated, damaged and handicapped.

Our perfect Eiffel Tower park strolls and Cannes beach trips were exchanged for medical wards, MRIs, doctors, eye specialists, and psychoanalysts. I came home after three or four months, still blind and feeling sorry that I was never going to read a book, paint a picture, take a photograph, or even sit back and select the picture that I would want hanging in our bedroom of us standing together as man and wife.

I suffered from such deep depression that I was put on antidepressants. I eventually grew used to sitting with
old women, having tea and reminiscing about the old days. Old people often discuss the beautiful old days and what they saw. That was a conversation I could participate in wholeheartedly. I learned to “see” people from the way they spoke, the words they chose, and the rush or patience they had in divulging their emotions. How they began and ended their tales told me how they felt about their stories and illustrated all that I could not see with my eyes.