Black Book of Arabia (6 page)

Her lies and excuses only made the prince angrier, but he held his tongue. He burned, tearing himself up inside at how stupid he had been. He felt gullible, naïve, and taken for a fool. What did this camel herder's daughter want? To trick him into marrying her and then give him a heart attack when he entered to meet his bride, only to find that she was a fake? They say life is a tragic comedy, but he was in so much pain at being deceived that he could only feel the horror of a broken heart, the disappointment, and the sweet-tasting lies poisoning him. What kind of sadistic joke was this?

As he waited for his flight to leave Kuwait, the prince decided to call the number his police contact had given to him, not the number Lady Lulu used to send him messages.
After rehearsing what he would say a hundred times in his head, the prince pressed the “call” button.

Sheikha answered. The princess had only spoken a few words to him at Fauchon Café, and they were abrupt and serious, but the prince instantly recognized the voice of his muse. It matched the seven-second voice message of her singing and began melting the ice that had frosted his heart. Her voice was warm and kind; he had not counted on that. He wanted to introduce himself and then tell her that he knew that she was engaged and soon to be married, that he respected that, but he wanted to speak to her for clarification of a situation. He wanted, needed, and demanded closure. Otherwise, it would burn him to his dying days. It was his right.

“
Salam alikum
,” he said, and then hesitated, forgetting his orchestrated lines. The anger bubbled inside of him.

“
Aliakum asalam
,” Sheikha responded quietly and collectedly.

“Lu- Sheikha?” All he could feel was a knot in his throat. He was drowning in doubt and was confused. What was supposed to be a romantic rendezvous had turned out to be a nightmare from which he could not awaken. Not only was this a scam, but he was trapped, because he had strong feelings for a person who did exist, but who did not even know he did.

“I am Prince Sultan,” he said, drawing out his family name. He paused. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“Why not begin at the beginning?” said Sheikha. She was expecting it to be someone asking for an interview or
financial support, or possibly a friend's relative who was in town, inquiring after something in Kuwait, and she would look into how to help him.

“Perhaps it's better to begin at the end,” Prince Sultan replied. “I spoke to your father to propose marriage to you, only to find out that I have been taken for a ride.” His voice was calm but strained, like a trembling volcano slowly waking and collecting momentum.

“My father mentioned that someone wanted to propose to me, or to Lulu,” said Sheikha. An awkward silence followed. “I'm married; umm, I will be in a month anyway.”

More silence.

“Lulu lied to me,” said the prince at last. “I was going to marry you. Even with this crazy idea of only speaking to you, and meeting you only on the wedding day. I loved you—I loved a lie. She used you. Did you know about it? Do you do this often? Have you no shame? I'm very angry. I'm not a toy! How dare you!”

Prince Sultan realized his eyes were welling up and his raised blood pressure caused a vein in his forehead to beat harder, becoming visible in his anger. He swallowed his ire, tears, and words. Waiting for an answer, he sat in silence looking down, with his head in his hands and the headset comfortably set in his ears. He could feel the perspiration on his forehead.

Sheikha was embarrassed that a prince from a foreign country had proposed to her when she was engaged to be married soon. How awkward. She also was frightened, because he sounded angry and she dared not ask him what
was going on. She could hear the brokenheartedness in his deep voice, and she was curious as to what had led him on. She had her suspicions, but she did not voice them.

“I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about,” said Sheikha. She dared not discuss with him what happened. Clearly he felt insulted, and she feared provoking him further.

“Princess, I know everything about you—your likes, your dislikes, where you have traveled, the animals you raised, your hopes, your dreams, your sense of humor. I fell in love with you, even though we had never met. I proposed only to find out that you are not even available.”

If bitterness and disappointment had a musical note, she could hear it in his trailing voice.

It was a defeated voice now, bitter and choked with rage. He had not intended to say any of that, but his heart was breaking. It was not fair to have so much feeling for someone and for that person to be completely unaware of what even the sound her voice did to his quaking heart. This must be what they called one-sided love, and the worst part was that she did not even know he existed. She did not even know who exactly he was. There were thousands of royals, and no one deserved to be tricked like that. It was shameful being a part of this fiasco, even if only as an audience, because of the risk of being thought to be an accomplice.

Sheikha was beginning to get worried. With her wedding preparations already underway, she did not need a scandal at this time. She thought someone had proposed
to her as a joke because her wedding was in a month. Or that it was actually sweet that someone had proposed to her friend Lulu, thinking that she was her sister. “Prince Sultan, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “My apologies, but please explain what I've done and what I can do to rectify or make amends. I'm deeply sorry for the muddle-up, but I had no idea whatsoever that this was happening under my roof.” Her tone was firm, but she was trembling and hoped that she could explain that she was innocent. “I have been busy with my master's thesis, work, and family.”

“I know your schedule, where you go and what you do—your application and bugs, your horses, your family, and this was all a lie.” He interrupted himself and then trailed off as if he were thinking and reminiscing.

“It was your friend Lulu,” said the prince. “She took your identity and almost tricked me into marrying her. What kind of sick, demented people do you keep in your entourage as your hairdressers or friends?”

He needed to head to the plane as it was taking off, so he began walking toward the boarding gate. He revealed everything that he had been told and shown: her pictures, writing, poetry, travel, animals, and lifestyle.

“Why do you have a daughter of a camel herder escorting you?” he blurted out.

“I swear, I didn't know,” trembled Sheikha. “I'm in love with my fiancé and I'm very happy with him. I had no idea about any of this. Lulu is sometimes impulsive, but I
did not expect that she would do anything like this. This is beyond absurd!”

Her voice trailed off. The prince could not hear her nervousness; she seemed serene and almost amused, but he needed to voice his pain, otherwise he would die, drowning in his sea of misery. In a rage that eventually cooled, he told her he met “Lady Lulu” through a persistent matchmaker who promised him a dream wife who would be the love of his life. He thought since matchmaking was commonly done in the region, why not give it a try? He was single, and his mother had been nagging him to settle down with a woman she would approve of. She was at a late stage of cancer, and he promised her that he would entertain the first suitable bride, if any. He warmed to the idea when he saw Sheikha's picture and heard her details. His communication with her was via texts, emails, online chats and the images of her and her life that were sent. He was caught in a net that entangled him more and more every day. Now he was angry at the wasted time and feelings, the insult to his name, and the humiliation of having to involve another royal in this mess. He left in the middle of convention week in the States with several entertaining speakers and many opportunities to discuss business yet to come because he thought he heard his heart calling. He was a straight shooter and wanted to understand better what he had gotten himself into. He apologized again, but felt that he was apologizing to his own feelings. When were they going to invent a painkiller for heartbreak?

Sheikha held back from saying how betrayed she felt but could not stop telling the prince how sorry she was for having been used as the bait, pawn, and carrot in a cruel game. She was ashamed of this ugly action by her friend. She admitted that it would have been an injustice for her to allow this debacle if she had known about it, but swore that she had nothing to do with it. She had heard Lulu speak with bright eyes about women who were given wealth, a title, and a house when they divorced but had dismissed it as silly talk. As she thought back, she remembered Lulu had remarked how it was done all the time and how normal it was. She was sorry she had not heeded the drums of war. The simple girl had devised a strategic plan to achieve her status with no thought of how it might go wrong or who it might injure.

The prince was hurt, disappointed, and insulted; Sheikha could hear it, but acknowledging it further would border on concern that could be misunderstood as affection and tenderness, and she already was red in the face from embarrassment. She was firm but polite, apologizing and praying this would end quietly.

Prince Sultan expressed how much he had enjoyed hearing about her life. He stopped short of telling her how much he would miss her news. He had fallen in love with a spirit, and, as distorted as it was, could not dissolve the attachment to it. His ice was thawing, and his heart was warming. It had been the shortest and sweetest intimacy he had known in his life.

As he closed the phone and fastened his seatbelt, the prince had tears in his eyes. He wished he could have a cigarette to calm his nerves. He had deliberately put the call off until the last minute because he did not know what to say or how to say it. As the plane took off, all he could think about was the images he had pictured while he sat opposite his love at the café. Now he regretted that he could not call Sheikha again, for everything that he wanted to say was said; however, there were things he needed to hear that he could not get closure on now. The call he made to vent his anger had come full circle, completing the perfect image of the independent and beautiful woman he had wanted to have standing beside him for tomorrow and for the rest of his life. He had been so happy, but now he sank to a deep level of sadness. To realize exactly what you have lost before you ever possessed it is a tragedy.

Before the call from Prince Sultan, Sheikha had been walking on clouds. She was soon to be married. Already her trousseau exceeded any girl's dreams—a cavalcade of iconic, silk-wrapped boxes: blue from Tiffany, red from Cartier, brown from Louis Vuitton, silver from Chaumet, and navy from Graff; all delivered in a train of luggage from Goyard and Hermès. The excitement had made her lose touch with reality. Reality struck when the prince told her that Lulu, the Saudi student who had moved in with her family, had used Sheikha's pictures, interests, and even voicemail message to lure him into an engagement. All this was overwhelming and emotionally draining.

Sheikha felt partly to blame for the fiasco with the prince. Preoccupied with the preparations for her marriage, she had largely ignored Lulu for almost a year. They had stopped going out together and spoke at home only when they met by chance. Not that Lulu seemed to mind. Once she failed in school, she simply stayed at home, treating the palace as a well-appointed, free hotel, coming and going with little or no attachment to Sheikha or her family. When finally asked to leave, Lulu would cry and say she felt more at home and loved than she did in Saudi Arabia and would promise to study harder and succeed, because she did not want to return to her home country. Sheikha realized that if she had been closer to Lulu, her friend might not have concocted her crazy plan, or, if she did, she might have discovered it. Regardless, the time had come for a quick, clean break.

Sheikha confronted Lulu and asked her to leave. Lulu was in tears. She said she did not mean to hurt Sheikha. All she had wanted was a bridge to reach her secure home, and she sincerely believed the prince would have loved her eventually—it happened, or at least it
could
happen. She only needed an opportunity to marry her prince. Simple.
Only
an introduction. The end justified the means, did it not? And everyone would end up happy. She felt she had earned the right to borrow her friend's character, face, status and all else if the character, face and status she wanted to be with in order to be happy required this entrance. Pure Machiavellianism at its best. After all, was Machiavelli's book not called
The Prince
?

Lulu apologized to Sheikha for stealing her identity but stubbornly clung to her justification for her behavior. Everyone, she said, would have been happy in the end. Sheikha smiled at the thought of Prince Sultan being happy with Lulu as his bride. A few minutes over the phone with him were enough to know that Lulu was everything he would not have wanted in a woman.
No sense arguing
, Sheikha thought, and, although it broke her heart to be so cold to someone she once loved, she told Lulu she was no longer welcome in her home. Lulu was to collect her travel documents and belongings and leave immediately and quietly. The family need not know of her fiasco. Sheikha, who had already scheduled a flight to Paris, would pay for Lulu's flight back to Saudi Arabia. When she returned from Paris, Lulu needed to be gone.

The night before Sheikha's flight, Lulu stood outside her door and begged to speak with her again. Sheikha had locked the door to her bedroom and welded closed the door to her heart. Her fiancé spoke to her that night and she told him that Lulu was leaving. He had never liked Lulu and was pleased, especially since he had thought Sheikha was feeling sad at having to soon leave her family and her friend behind. Lulu had betrayed her in ways no one ever had before, embarrassing her in front of another royal and country. Sheikha never wanted to see or even think of her again. As Lulu whined and cried outside her door, Sheikha deleted and blocked her from WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Viber, and Twitter.