Black Book of Arabia (21 page)

“That's one thing I have always liked about you, Waleed: You are a terrible liar. I can always tell when you are not telling the truth. How old is she? Or should I say, how young is she?”

“Thirty-five.”

“So less than twenty years younger than you are. Congratulations on not robbing the cradle. What nationality is she?”

“Lebanese,” he said, his voice barely audible in shame.

“Of course she is,” I said. “Well, forget about me supporting you on your voyage of discovery. And forget about ours, too. I will go by myself.”

I hid it well, but my mind was reeling and deep inside I was writhing with countless emotions. I could not understand where I had come up short and what had justified his decision. For so many years he never so much as looked at another woman, in part because I had stood by his side, supporting him in every way to build his business.

Determined to stop him, I inquired in the local Fatwa Office about whether he could do this.

“Have you borne him children?” asked the interviewer.

“Yes. Three—two girls and a boy,” I said, emphasizing the boy.

“And did you contribute anything financially to the marriage?”

“I did. I worked part time when I graduated university and I managed the finances to build up the capital he needed to launch his business.”

“Were you a loving wife throughout the marriage?”

“Yes. Very,” I said. “And he was a loving husband. We were happy. Very happy.”

“Of course he has the right to a second marriage,” said the official, “unless the second marriage ruins, hurts or breaks the first.”

“That is why I am here,” I said. “It is destroying my husband's integrity in my eyes and crushing what little respect I have for myself. I will not make it.”

“That is not what I meant,” said the interviewer. “I mean, will this marriage impede your husband's ability to provide for your children?”

“Our daughters are married, and our son is on his own now,” I admitted.

“What about you? Will it impact your level of support? Will you be able to continue living as you are accustomed?”

“Living as I am accustomed?” I repeated. “I am not accustomed to sharing my husband with another woman. Who does this nowadays? Cavemen? My husband is an educated man. He lived in America for years. Apparently it did nothing to modernize his thinking.”

“Please, madame. I mean financially. Will you be affected?”

“Not financially, no. Only in every other way.”

“I will submit your application, but I cannot be encouraging,” said the interviewer.

I lost every battle, but I was determined to win the war. Citing a common practice in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait when housing two wives, I told Waleed that I would agree to his second marriage if he signed over the first floor of the house to me. Eager to avoid conflict, he readily agreed.

He began preparing for his wedding and I began planning my revenge. The day he married his precious protégée, I filed for divorce. Since he was getting married, the court granted the divorce instantly. By the time he was on his honeymoon, I was enjoying my sweet, cold revenge. He had originally planned to take her to Hawaii, on our trip. I demanded my compensation instantly, and that cut his finances short, so he was forced to divert from Hawaii to Malaysia, which was more affordable and yet seemed similar in terms of islands, sun, and sand. I had a scrapbook of the travel spots we were going to visit in Hawaii. She would never see Pearl Harbor or Sunset Beach, Oahu's hidden beaches or the Waimea Valley where we were planning on going on the volcano tour. I had ruined it all for them.

From the day my husband brought up the topic of getting a new wife, I had been working on my looks and saving money. Without my husband knowing it, he had paid for my breast lift, a lip enhancement, eyelid reduction, and the launch of my cosmetics business. Waleed thought I could not compete with his thirty-something fiance, but by the time they got married she was the one who could not compete with me.

Friends and acquaintances noticed my new look and I began to receive admiring glances I had not seen for quite a while. My attorney's law partner, Nawaf, was one of those who noticed my makeover. He sympathized with the pain I was going through with my husband's choice of a new wife and was friendly and welcoming whenever I came to the office. I started visiting the office more and more as we both came to enjoy one another's company and conversations. He admired my strength and work ethic, especially how I had handled the trials and tribulations of recent months with a level head and steady determination. When he knew I had been granted a divorce, he proposed marriage.

A fit, tall, handsome gentleman, he was a widower at just twenty-nine, having lost his young wife in an accident some years earlier. This tragic loss had matured him beyond his years, making us a good match. I did not want to rush into another marriage, so I publicized our engagement but took my time to get to know him better. He proved to be charismatic and gentle and by all counts seemed to be the answer to my prayers.

Nawaf had taken notice of the teary-eyed woman who would frequent the lawyer, and upon inquiring had found out my circumstances. He respected how I rose to face the storm and wanted to live proud and free. He said that he liked my face and wanted to be able to share his life with me. He said he wanted to be happy, and my happiness made him feel whole.

When Waleed found out that I was engaged, he became furious. My children were frightened for me, worried that
their father would hurt Nawaf or me. All my children were against their father's mid-life crisis choice of taking a second wife out of the blue. The children approved of Nawaf. They did not appreciate the pain that my ex-husband had caused and only wanted to see me happy. Of course Waleed would always be their biological father, but he had chosen to leave his family to build a new one and that was something that was unforgivable on an emotional level.

Waleed began stalking me, calling me at all hours of the day and night, texting and emailing me incessantly. I did not care. I really did not. He stopped mattering to me. He had simply ceased to exist and I paid no heed to his childish jealousy and curiosity. I was a free woman now and was spreading my wings, a most engaging experience. My new husband was from a different state and since I did not want to move away from my daughters, he came every weekend to see me.

To keep busy, I launched a social blog, Instagram and Facebook accounts which soon gained many fans, introducing me to many people and helping me to both improve and market my cosmetics business on a more personal level. Business was booming, and I was free to focus on myself and capitalize on things that I had never got around to doing in my first marriage. I became a social butterfly, celebrated as a role model for conquering the business world against all odds and succeeding financially. My ex-husband was against my newfound fame and TV appearances, but it did not matter as he now had no rights over me.

Everyone loved me but at the same time blamed him on so many levels. I passed through the stage of anger and revenge-seeking to feeling sorry for him for the ridicule, pity and disgust people leveled at him for his actions. I simply replied that I had let fate take care of itself.

After I married my sweet, young husband we moved into my house. This was more of a convenient move than a vindictive one as I wanted to remain close to my family, my business, and my new friends. My ex-husband could not believe that I had done this. Here was his ex-wife of twenty-one years living with her attractive, young husband right under his own roof. It was too much for him to bear. My new husband was as handsome as he was suave, the kind of man who would step into a room and make other men nervous, jealous and shaken by his gentle demeanor and firm boldness. Waleed could not stand his new wife looking at Nawaf. Even his name was mysteriously attractive and his smile would win hearts. On occasion, Waleed would check on our children, but their faces would light up for Nawaf while remaining basically unresponsive with Waleed. That hurt him to his very core.

We lived in the same house and I would cross through the ground floor with Nawaf on a daily basis. I felt younger and more attractive every day. In terms of dependence, Nawaf was the opposite of Waleed. Nawaf wanted to help me grow, and we began speaking confidently in English.
My English even surpassed Waleed's. I enjoyed Nawaf teaching me, and we would watch movies together in the living room upstairs. Due to his support, I was at last able to truly pick up the language.

Nawaf was everything that Waleed was not. I went to Mecca with him and we prayed together. I placed a lock with our initials on the Bridge of Love and Remembrance. We went to Hawaii and visited the Kilauea Volcano and enjoyed the sun, love, and nature. I lived my life without pause or interruption, without being someone's secretary, or playing the role of the taken-for-granted wife. Nawaf always wanted me to be happy. He believed in the saying “Happy wife, happy life.” I would even speak at self-help seminars, emphasizing how we need to love ourselves more and enjoy our own successes no matter how small they were.

I became a successful face in society while Waleed sank into depression. I did not know because I was too busy embracing my new life. Television shows hosted me and people began to recognize me on the streets and in malls and restaurants. Meanwhile, Waleed began to lose friends, employees, and eventually profits. He tried to speak to me, even work with me, but I had chosen to leave him forever.

He soon began bickering with his new wife and slowly losing his mind. My new husband and I heard them fighting late into the night. On a couple of occasions we heard his young wife screaming, so we called the police. He was
admitted to a mental asylum after his second attempt on his wife's life and threatening to take his own.

I am now pregnant with a boy and enjoying my new, full life with a man who truly knows my worth.

From Riches to Rags

My father is a Lebanese dental surgeon in New York. My mother is a half-Lebanese, half-Egyptian accountant who went to the United States in search of a golden future. They were two wandering souls drawn to each other by a shared understanding of the world. Once they found one another, they clicked and were immediately inseparable. After a whirlwind romance that lasted only a few weeks, they were married in a small ceremony on the beach in Malibu, California.

However, once back in New York after the honeymoon the romance died quickly as my mother began to make demands of my father regarding ownership of the house and how he should run his dental office, claiming that she was technically an equal partner in the business. My father was a proud man and had built a successful practice on his own. He resented my mother's interference and the implied criticism that his practice was not doing as well as it could. Furthermore, he did not appreciate the financial control that she forced upon him and felt her persistent inquiries into his property ownership as well as her need to share everything were exaggerated.

Next, her brother, my Uncle Adam, moved in and conveniently forgot to move out. Habitually unemployed,
Uncle Adam made himself a permanent fixture on the sofa in front of the TV, where he always had a bag of sunflower seeds and a cold drink at hand. We had a picture of him and his pot belly, and every time I saw him, he was in front of the TV, casually sitting, guarding his drink and contributing to his ever-growing stomach. He constantly criticized the television shows on offer, gambled on sports, and even had the nerve to ask my father to subscribe to satellite TV so he could watch international football leagues. Uncle Adam never worked and probably got whatever money he had from his sister or his side dealings when he would go out, which was a rare occurrence. My father was reserved, but when his patience finally ran out he told my mother that her brother was no longer welcome in their home. This ignited another battle as my mother took her brother's side, belittling my father for having forgotten his Middle Eastern roots and turning against her family. She argued how family was above all and that especially as strangers in a strange land we must always guard, nourish, and support our own. After all, shouldn't benefits always go to family first? Sharing is caring.

I was born in the eye of the ensuing divorce storm. My mother was on several antidepressants and was constantly angry because she and my father had had a religious wedding instead of a legally binding one. This meant that if they were to get a divorce, she would receive less than she was legally entitled to. Money was always an issue, a life threat and a reason to fight. We had enough, but the insecurities embedded within her were unquenchable. When
the divorce was eventually finalized, she could not collect a decent settlement because the marriage was not legally recognized. Furthermore, she was unable to find a job. Because of her unemployment, abuse of antidepressants, and aggressive behavior, the court determined that she was an unfit parent. My father gained full custody of me, and my mother was allowed one supervised visit per week.

I grew up adoring my gentle father, who picked me up from school, sang to me, and read me stories before I went to bed. We went for picnics in spring and built snowmen in Colorado in the winter. Unlike other parents who always were in a hurry to get somewhere, my father would stop whenever I saw a carnival with a Ferris wheel and kiddy rides or a Halloween pumpkin patch with a giant slide. I was happy as a child and wanted for nothing. He had loved my mother and was heartbroken after the divorce, and so he compensated by being overly loving with me.

In contrast to the feelings toward my father, I did not particularly like the “Mother” who would come once a week to lecture me, greeting me with knitted eyebrows, a smirk, and a sarcastic comment. She always had something negative to say about my father and always made comments about how ungrateful I was to have silks, furs, and velvet for clothes. She said that I lived like a princess with Daddy raking in millions and that I, the product of her womb, was living the life that she had been denied.