Married to the Sheikh (5 page)

Nobody said anything. No one greeted her or offered her tea as they should have done according to local custom. Finally, Sarah came forward and presented herself to the sheikh’s wife, which was followed by a long silence. Neema eventually gestured to her to sit.

“Why are you here? What do you want?” Neema asked. She was an older woman and had the same dark blue tattoos on her face that Akbar’s mother, Fatima, had.

“I’ve come to thank you for attending my wedding,” Sarah replied. The cushion she’d been offered was hard and lumpy and she found it difficult to get comfortable.

“She doesn’t look like a wife,” one of the women said to Neema.

“Not like a wife at all,” another one said.

“Definitely not the wife of an important sheikh,” a third woman added.

Soon all the women in the tent had come to an agreement that Sarah was not the sheikh’s wife.

“I am Sheikh Akbar’s wife,” Sarah asserted. “Some of you came to my wedding. You saw me marry him.” At least she thought some of them came. Akbar had told her that a lot of people from this tribe had attended, but he didn’t tell her which women, if any, and she hadn’t thought to ask.

“The woman who married Sheikh Akbar was covered in gold and fine clothes,” Neema said. The other women nodded in agreement and began talking about how much they had admired the veil of coins and the beautifully embroidered clothes that the bride had worn.

Sarah looked at what she was wearing. Although she wasn’t wearing heaps of gold and coins, she was certainly well-dressed. That morning, she had carefully selected her best pair of black trousers and a loose tunic-like blouse with a high neck and long sleeves that wouldn’t affront local sensibilities. In addition, to further ensure that she didn’t offend anyone, she’d tied back her blonde hair and put a light blue scarf over her head. Compared to Neema, in her faded cotton dress, which looked more like an old nightgown than a dress, Sarah looked very smart, even after a drive through the open desert. However, Neema was wearing large gold earrings and numerous gold bangles sparkled on both her wrists.

“I’m not wearing any jewellery because I was worried we might get attacked on the way and it might get stolen,” Sarah explained.

The other woman all agreed that it was foolish to travel around wearing a lot of gold. Sarah wondered what it was about her appearance that they didn’t like. “Is it because I’m white? A Westerner?” she asked. “Do you think Sheikh Akbar shouldn’t have married a foreigner?”

“Arabs have always married foreigners. We travel, we trade, we come into contact with new people,” Neema said. “My own grandmother once met a woman with white skin and yellow hair like yours who lived with a Bedouin tribe.”

“Was she married to a sheikh?” Sarah asked.

Neema thought a while and drank some tea. Sarah noted that she still hadn’t been offered any.

“I can’t remember. It was a long time ago.” Neema took another sip of tea. “But it is possible, quite possible.”

All the others began to nod and agree until they came to the conclusion that it was not only possible, but almost certain that this other Western woman had been the wife of a sheikh, but that Sarah was not.

“So why do you think I’m not Sheikh Akbar’s wife?” she asked, more surprised than offended.

The women all looked at one another and then back at Sarah. Finally, a young woman, sitting on the far side of the tent, spoke up. “If you’re the sheikh’s wife, why aren’t you covered up?”

“But you aren’t covered up. None of you are wearing veils or abayas,” Sarah replied, referring to the voluminous black garments that the local women wrapped themselves up in.

“But we’re not travelling around,” the younger woman said. “If I left this tent, even for a minute, I would put mine on.” She lifted up a shapeless garment that was lying behind her. All the other women agreed and pulled out their own abayas for Sarah to see.

“My husband lets me dress as I please.” The subject of how Sarah dressed had never arisen between her and Akbar, and because she always tried to dress modestly in public, she didn’t see any reason it should. However, when it came to her underwear, modesty went out the window, but that was another matter.

“My husband would beat me if I went out like that,” one woman said, pointing a broken fingernail at Sarah’s clothes.

“My husband would be so ashamed that he would send me back to my parents’ village,” another woman said.

“If my husband saw me walking around, showing off my face and my body like that, he would not only send me back to my village, he would demand money from my father to pay for the cost of another bride and then my father would cast me out and leave me to die in the desert.” All the women fervently agreed that their husbands would do the same.

“But why should you have to cover up?” Sarah asked. “Why can’t you go out dressed as you are now? If each and every one of you stopped covering up, surely your husbands couldn’t throw you all out.”

The women stared at Sarah.

“Why would I want another man to look at my body?” one of them asked.

“The only man who has seen my face for the last forty years is my husband,” Neema added.

 “Women who enjoy other men looking at them are whores,” the young woman in the corner said.

So that was it: they thought she was immoral just because she’d come to their camp uncovered. She knew that no matter what she said to these women, they wouldn’t change their minds. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

The next time they visited a Bedouin camp, Sarah wore a full black abaya that covered her from head to toe. Over her face, she wore the thinnest veil possible, made of black gauze, but it was still suffocating. Every time she breathed out, the veil kept the hot air close against her face and her vision was so reduced that she was forced to walk very slowly so she didn’t bump into anything. However, if this was the way to earn the respect of the other women, she would put up with it for both her sake and Akbar’s.

He’d laughed when she’d first told him that she wanted to veil up. He even teased her and said it wouldn’t be long before she wanted to have some traditional tribal tattoos on her face as well. However, she couldn’t fully explain her reasons for covering up as she didn’t want Akbar to know that the other women had indirectly accused her of being a whore.

Akbar’s meeting with the Mansoori men had gone well and he was so happy about the prospect of peace between the Al-Zafirs and the Mansooris that she didn’t want to disappoint him by telling him that her visit with the women had been far from successful. Instead, she just said that the meeting had been quiet and the women were curious about why Sarah had travelled without an abaya or a veil. Akbar told her that she was free to dress as she pleased and she shouldn’t be pressured into wearing what others thought she should. However, Sarah knew that the other Bedouin women wouldn’t listen to her if they regarded her as some kind of prostitute, so she put on a veil, covered up and endured the discomfort.

Unfortunately, it would take more than clothes to get the other Bedouin woman to accept Sarah.

A week after they visited the Mansooris, they went to the Al-Mashid camp. Akbar assured Sarah that she would have a much warmer welcome at this camp than she’d had at the last one.

“Are you sure they’ll want to see us?” Sarah asked.

“Of course. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they prepared a feast for us and showered us with presents. The Mansooris didn’t do anything like that when we came because they are very poor and they had already given us gifts at our wedding.”

Sarah wondered whether the real reason why they hadn’t offered her any food was because of their low opinion of her. She remembered the meagre furnishings in Neema’s tent, but they hadn’t even offered her something to drink.

“If I were you,” Akbar continued, “I wouldn’t eat too much before we go. You’ll need to leave room for all the rice and lamb the Al-Mashids will prepare for us.” Akbar patted her stomach.

“But how can you be sure that the Al-Mashids will be friendly?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t they be?”

“I met a woman in the capital called Alaa Al-Mashid. She said that Sheikh Omar Al-Zafir killed her husband.”

“That’s why they’ll give us a feast. They’re scared of us! Ever since they fought against my brother and he slaughtered them like sheep, they’ve lived in fear of us doing it again.”

“But don’t we want peace, not fear?”

“We do, and that’s where you can help me. You can help convince the women that we want to be friends and then they’ll tell their husbands and sons, and assure them that my promises of peace are genuine.”

Sarah could see her husband’s reasoning, but it wasn’t without some anxiety that she went with him to the Al-Mashid camp in a small convoy of four trucks carrying her, Akbar, his men, and a pair of goats to give the leader of the other tribe as a gift. After the problems at the last camp, she made sure she was fully covered up, even though it was much hotter than usual that day when they set off across the desert.

When they arrived, she immediately saw that Akbar was right about the food. The air was filled with the smell of roasted meat, not just lamb, but goats, chickens and even a whole camel, which was being turned over a huge fire by two young men who were sweating copiously.

Without waiting for the men to discuss the multiple merits of the two goats that were being presented as a gift, Sarah was ushered into the tent of the leader’s wife.

“Welcome, welcome!” called out a middle-aged woman, who introduced herself as Ajira, the leader’s wife.

“Please feel free to remove your covering,” Ajira said. “You’re safe. It’s just us women here. No man would dare to come in!”

With relief, Sarah removed her black cloak and stifling face veil. With full visibility restored, she looked around her. The tent was beautifully decorated with silk hangings and Oriental carpets, though she couldn’t but feel that her own tent was finer. Sitting around the tent was a large group of women and young girls, all dressed in jewel-coloured silks and satins.

Sarah was given the highest seat in the tent and offered tea, heavily sweetened with honey, and a large silver tray full of pastries made of almonds, pistachios, and walnuts.

Soon the other women were asking her questions about her wedding and then about her life generally. Where did her parents live? What was England like? And so on. Sarah did her best to answer them and although she struggled to answer a question about how many camels her father had, she generally thought that they were all getting on well and after a while, she started to relax. As the afternoon passed, the women plied her with more tea, pastries, and sweets, and Sarah was glad that she’d taken Akbar’s advice about eating lightly before they went.

After a while a few of the women left, saying they had to check on preparations for dinner. Sarah was just wondering how she was going to manage a full meal on top of what she’d already eaten, when a little girl, no more than five years old, walked in holding the hand of an older girl.

“She doesn’t look like a whore,” the little girl announced, pointing at Sarah. “You told me that the Al-Zafir whore was coming to visit us today,” the girl went on, addressing her older companion.

Everyone in the tent fell silent. Sarah could feel the colour rising in her cheeks. Ajira stood, walked to the little girl and slapped her hard across the face. The girl started to cry. “Get out!” Ajira yelled. “Get out before I slap you so hard that you will never see straight again.”

The older girl picked up the crying child and carried her out of the tent. However, even though they’d left, everyone could still hear the little girl’s wails resounding through the camp.

“A thousand apologies,” Ajira said. “She’s a stupid girl. I’ll make sure that she’s suitably punished. Please take some more food.”

Sarah ignored the platter of cakes that Ajira shoved in front of her. “Please, don’t hurt her,” Sarah said. “She didn’t mean to be rude. She’s just a child.”

“I have no idea why she said that.” Ajira looked around at the other women for help. They were all embarrassed and looked away from Ajira and Sarah. “She’s obviously confused and thinking about another visitor. We get so many visitors and not all of them are as distinguished as yourself.”

“How many of your visitors are Al-Zafirs?” Sarah asked. “She quite clearly said ‘the Al-Zafir whore.’” If these women also thought that she was a whore, she wanted them to own up to it and give Sarah the chance to defend herself.

“The child was thinking of someone else. A different Al-Zafir,” said one of the other women.

“Which one?” Sarah asked.

“The one who visits men’s tents at night.Men who aren’t her husband.”

Sarah remembered how she would sneak into Akbar’s tent at night before they were married. Was this woman referring to her? “What’s her name?” Sarah demanded.

“Rasha. Her name’s Rasha.” It was the woman who asked earlier about how many camels her father possessed. Sarah remembered her because she had a squint in one eye.

“Shut up, you stupid girl,” Ajira hissed. “Don’t insult the relatives of our visitor.” Ajira turned to Sarah. “Again, please accept my apologies for this double insult. We mean no offence to your relative, Rasha.”