Black Book of Arabia (8 page)

“God willing,” said Sheikha.

The officer asked a few more questions over tea and then left. Sheikha hurried upstairs to get her jewelry so she could drop it off at the jeweler's before it closed. The chauffeur
walked her into the shop for security. When Sheikha opened the box for the jeweler, she found to her horror that it was empty. She instantly called Lulu on her mobile, but she did not answer. The chauffeur drove Sheikha back home as she called Lulu's number again and again. There was no answer. When they got home, Lulu was gone.

Sheikha still found it hard to believe that Lulu could do such a thing. Yet it seemed clear that the culprit could be no other, and so she had no choice but to call the police again. As she waited for the captain to arrive, she received a text from Lulu:
I love you, Sheikha. You are all my family and more. It hurt me that you would think that I would bite the hand that fed me. You gave me a roof when I was a lost stranger here. Why would I ever want to hurt you?

Sheikha still did not want to believe that someone she had once loved could hurt her so much. She texted Lulu back:
Please return my things and there will be no scandal.

Lulu did not answer.

“What evidence do you have that she took your jewels?” asked the officer when he arrived.

“She saw I had taken them out of the safe and was putting them in the jewelry box, and now she is gone, and the jewels are gone. She must have gone through my room while we were down here discussing the case.”

“Do you have a picture of her?”

Sheikha sent a photo of Lulu to the police officer's phone.

“We will pick her up,” said the captain. “Do you know where she might have gone?”

“I have no idea.”

“If you hear from her or think of anything else, let us know.”

A couple days later, the secretary employed by Sheikha's family called Sheikha. Lulu had left her passport with him for visa renewal, and she had called to see if it was ready. The secretary informed her that it was not and, having heard about the theft of Sheikha's belongings, called Sheikha immediately.

“Do not give her the passport, give it to the police so she will walk into her own judgment,” instructed Sheikha.

A couple days later, Sheikha was shocked to receive this message from Lulu:
Honey, your only problem is that you have no proof. If I don't get my passport, I will ask my father to do what's necessary to get it from you.

Gone was the shy Saudi girl, and out came a monster. Sheikha notified the police of the new message and mentioned that her family had Lulu's passport. That gave the captain an idea. He suggested that they lure Lulu to the secretary's office by saying the passport was ready. The police would be there to apprehend her.

The plan worked. Lulu came to collect her travel documents and the police arrested her. This time, they were not so kind and patient. They locked her in a cell with several criminals. It did not matter. Lulu told them nothing. She was just as wild as the criminals she was locked in with and would fight verbally and physically like a stray cat. They searched the room where she was staying, but did not find anything of Sheikha's. Without more evidence, the police would have to let her go.

Sheikha had just twenty days to her wedding. She had no clothes, wedding gown, jewels, hair accessories, shoes, or underwear. Her phones, iPads, and credit cards were gone, as were personal items like her toothbrush, toothpaste, and bathroom slippers. A typical robber would take money and jewelry, but this one also had taken her hairbrushes, shampoos, eye drops, contact lenses, and sunglasses. Every day Sheikha woke up to find that something else was missing.

Each time Sheikha discovered something was gone, she updated her list for the police. One of these updates broke the case open. Sheikha remembered that she had purchased a Vertu mobile phone but had never used it. When she took the box out of a drawer, it felt unusually light. When she opened it, the phone was missing. She stood looking at the empty box for a moment and had a dim recollection of saving the number in her phone. She immediately checked, and it was there. She called the police with a description of the phone and the number. It was a thrill, as this was the first clue that might be traceable.

The police found that the stolen phone had been used to call three numbers: two in Kuwait and one in the Yemen. The numbers pointed to two Egyptians—one working in Zain Telecommunications and the other in a local driving school—and a Yemeni in Yemen working in a cargo company. The Egyptian men were brought to police headquarters. One of the Egyptians was released, as he appeared only to have received the stolen phone for his brother, the driving instructor. The driving instructor told the police
he had done nothing other than receive a suitcase from a young woman, which, in his fright, he brought to police. It was his cut of the deal, and the police promised him they would go easy on him if he would admit to all the crime details and help clear the case as soon as possible. He tried to play the gullible fool, saying he had been tricked into taking the goods as payment for helping the woman send a few suitcases to his friend in Yemen. According to the Egyptian, the Yemeni was instructed to store the pieces until further notice. Under pressure from the police, the driving instructor gave up the woman's name and pointed her out from behind a glass when they brought her to the headquarters.

It was Lulu.

The Egyptian had recommended that Lulu send her items to Egypt, but the goat herder's daughter thought it would cost too much since Egypt levies a tax on the entry of large quantities of goods. She did not want to pay the taxes, or risk having her cover blown. She decided to send the suitcases to a friend in Yemen, who would then forward the stolen goods to Riyadh, where Lulu would sell them in her mother's salon. Nothing would be traceable to her. She could leave Sheikha's house, have her luggage searched at the airport or even upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, and no one would find proof that she had done anything. Did they not say you are innocent until proven guilty? She thought that by giving the Egyptian the new phone she found among Sheikha's things to make the arrangements, nothing could be traced. She was wrong.

The police contacted the Yemeni, who returned items out of fear of being arrested. Every thief had taken a rather large suitcase and selected what he would like from the batch. The bags arrived at Sheikha's palace amidst celebration. The elation did not last long. The first suitcase contained Sheikha's wedding gown, or what was left of it. It was torn, snipped, and burned, and had muddy shoe prints on it. The delicate silk embroidery and crystals had been crushed. The dress was ruined. There is no wedding when there is no gown.

Over the next few weeks, the police returned to the palace again and again with broken pieces of Sheikha's life. Her wedding was ruined, and half of her jewelry had been sold in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, and could not be recovered.

Every day, Lulu sent Sheikha messages and apologies, but friendship is like a porcelain cup, precious and rare: Once broken, it can be mended, but a crack will always be there.

The police threatened Lulu with life imprisonment in a high security prison if she did not return a Piaget watch worth $150,000. Naturally, she led the police to the watch's new owner, who had paid only $2,000 for it on the black market. Lulu had sold the watch when Sheikha was still unaware that friendships have expiry dates, and that jealousy twists even iron ore in its wrath of fire.

Lulu's parents came to Sheikha's family's palace and begged to have their daughter released. They promised to return any stolen goods or to pay the difference. Generous
and forgiving, Sheikha's family arranged Lulu's release. After she and her family left to Saudi Arabia, they disappeared.

Lulu studied makeup art. She dazzled her customers and, with the coming of Instagram, rose to stardom. As her reputation grew, she instructed the Moroccans who knew her to call her Sultana Lulu, after the blockbuster Turkish historical soap opera,
Hareem Al Sultan
(The Women of the Sultan). Afraid of having to pay the debt that she was guilty of, she went to another matchmaker and paid her in makeup and salon services to find a new suitor. The matchmaker brought her an older man. His wealth was small, but his cousin was married to a powerful judge who they thought could pull a few strings on Lulu's behalf. Lulu married her suitor within a few weeks. He paid a dowry of only 100,000 Saudi riyals, leaving the matchmaker furious because neither Lulu nor her husband had the decency to pay her customary fee.

Despite Lulu's hope that her ordeal was over, her crimes would not simply go away. A lawyer for Sheikha's family contacted her new husband, demanding payment. When her husband asked Lulu about it, she denied everything. Her husband was furious and understood from his wife that it was all a lie made up against her. He said the lawyer was slandering his wife. Lulu should have told her husband the truth. Instead, when her partners in crime came clean, she was ordered to pay restitution.

It was a debacle, especially since she was married to someone from the judicial system who had a duty to represent all that was just and true and yet ended up
defending a common thief. She embarrassed an entire nation in front of another royal who did nothing but show her kindness.

She continues to make payments to her former friend's bank account today.

I Will Never Leave You

One would think that breaking up with a bad boyfriend would be the end of the nightmare, but that is not always the case. My worst nightmare began after I broke up with my fiancé, whom I had known since high school.

I was studying multimedia at the American University of Dubai and had been engaged to a doctor completing his residency in a local hospital. He worked long hours and had plans to further pursue his studies abroad. When we discussed our future, he made it clear that he did not want me to distract him by possibly having children. His plan was to leave me behind in the Emirates and visit whenever possible, depending on his workload in the United States, Germany or wherever he was accepted to study and work. We politely and amicably ended it, because I did not feel I was a priority in his career-driven life and was worried I would be emotionally starved over the long term.

During Eid, I received a welcome phone call from my old friend, crush, and high school heartthrob Hamdan, who was studying in Boston, Massachusetts.

“Happy Eid, Sawsan,” he said. “I heard you are graduating before me and that you broke up with your fiancé.”

Silence followed and we both laughed. I was happy to hear from an old friend I had truly missed.

“I'm glad you broke up,” he continued, “because I wanted to tell you something: The truth is I've always been in love with you. I wanted to propose to you, but you got engaged before I graduated. I had given up all hope, but then I heard your engagement is off. So before I'm too late again, I'd like to get a hold of you before someone else proposes. Will you marry me, Sawsan?”

It happened so fast that for a moment I thought he was joking. The silence that followed insinuated that he was serious. I think he expected me to digest this and respond within moments, but I was flabbergasted and lost for words.

The phone call was too early in the morning and was too much of an answered prayer to be true. It was too sudden and intense, and I was in the hospital recovering from a serious car accident, trying to use my drugged senses to understand it all. Here was the coolest, funniest, and tallest person I knew, proposing to me. I was speechless. Gone were the carefully rehearsed responses in front of the dressing room mirror to such a perfectly sweet request. There was no introduction, and no need for it. I automatically said “yes,” and was left feeling numb. I casually forgot to ask for my parents' permission and felt completely giddy.

In those early days of our engagement, he spoke about how he had always known that I was the one destined to be his wife, the mother of his children, and his friend for life. Nothing on earth could have been better than those sweet
moments shared between blooming hearts in the spring of their youth. I was sleeping on clouds, walking on air, and picking daisies whenever he called, sent me a text message or brought me flowers, chocolates, or gifts.

Hamdan asked my father for my hand in marriage. My parents were a little surprised at the sudden news, especially so soon after I had ended another engagement, but they were delighted for me because everyone knew I had always been obsessed with him. My sisters and friends were thrilled, and we began to discuss the preparations for the wedding. We set the date of the wedding for one year from the engagement, when both of us would have graduated. We called it our graduation and wedding dinner ball. I do not remember ever having felt quite so ecstatically happy before.

Trouble began the first week of our engagement. Hamdan would ask to speak with me all the time. I thought it was sweet that he was so attached. I thought that was what I wanted, was it not? In my still-adolescent mind, I related his exaggerated attachment to how much he truly cared about me. At night he did not want to put the phone down; he sheepishly asked if he could stay on the phone even after I fell asleep. He wanted to hear me breathing as I slept. He said he simply could not wait for me to be by his side, sharing a bed. He asked to stay on the phone, headset, and speakerphone with me all day and night—as much as fourteen hours a day, ignoring all other calls.

After the first week, the novelty wore off; his requests and fixation on me became annoying. He began to ask
if he could stay with me twenty-four hours a day, even in classes, during discussions with my friends, and when I was doing my homework. The attachment was turning into obsessive-compulsive behavior, and I was not feeling comfortable with the changes in my fiancé. He was not the same happy-go-lucky and witty gentleman who had captured the attention of every girl with his smile, his charm, and his chivalry. He had turned into a nuisance.