In the Land of Invisible Women (22 page)

It was enormously difficult to turn my back on the House of God and leave where I felt most happy. But without leaving there could be no return, and tonight I was leaving the city of Mecca without delay. Pilgrims are instructed to return to their homes immediately after a final farewell to the Ka'aba. I was filled with an intense and purified spirituality, forming concentrated distillations of hope and beginnings.

I left the Hajj complex and scurried toward our waiting bus, which was rumbling just outside the center of the Mosque complex. I had time to grab several prayer mats, which I wanted to gift to friends and family on my return. The markets of Mecca are famed, but I could have no chance to see them. I had to exit the city rapidly.

I ran into Qudsia, the nurse from my hospital who had also traveled with my group. She was munching away on an eight-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders had made it to Mecca too. She washed her chicken down with a giant cup of soda from Dunkin' Donuts, which had a strong following among Meccans. I directed her to the bus which would take us to the King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah and from there, home. The rest was a blur of exchanged addresses, scribbled phone numbers, and sincere embraces. In no time I was aboard a Saudia flight and then I landed in Riyadh. In my few days away, Riyadh had transformed. For the first time, it felt like home.

I unlocked the door to my apartment, greeted by my bewildered cat who was wondering if I would ever be back. I stroked her until she soothed, and after a long hot shower in my own bathroom, I dressed in my pajamas. As I got into my inviting bed, I put on my cozy cotton socks and crawled under my goose-down comforter. The air-conditioning was already glacial. Surrounded by the comforts of my home to which I had returned with new and genuine appreciation, I fell into a luxurious, deep sleep.

I felt pure.

MUTAWAEEN:
THE MEN IN BROWN

I
WOKE UP TO A coughing spasm so severe it ended in a bout of vomiting. I had been back from Hajj for a day and was lying in the on-call room trying to snatch a few hours of sleep. I was physically exhausted. I understood now why Hajj is prescribed only for the able-bodied. In the morning, I stayed on to review new chest X rays with the daytime team of doctors. Mobeen and Imtiaz were recently arrived from Mecca, and like me, freshly minted Hajjis. Shy at their new baldness, they each had covered their nicked, stubbly scalps with Balauchi caps Imtiaz had brought from Pakistan especially for his post-Hajj hair.

I had not veiled after Hajj, though many believe that completion of Hajj warrants a woman permanently to veil herself in public. I had no intention of that, needing to address a number of more fundamental concerns regarding my performance as a Muslim, much more important to me than who could see my hair. As a result I had returned to the ICU much as I had left it, except for the racking cough and a suddenly thinner frame.

“Salaam alaikum wa rahmat-allah wa barakata hu!”

Dramatically, the full-scale formal greeting of Muslim salaams was repeated again in precise Najdi Arabic, first to Mobeen and then to Imtiaz. It was Wadid, the surgeon-cum-terrifyingly-rigid-Muttawa.

There were a number of hybrid clergy-physicians working at the hospital. On one end of the spectrum was Faris, a friendly, easy-going, Canadian-trained Saudi pulmonologist who, rumor had it, had once been a Muttawa before he became a medical man; and, at the other end of the spectrum, infrared in his orthodoxy, was this man: Wadid.

A brilliantly facile surgeon, Wadid was famed for his narrow views which definitely did not include allowing the satanic temptation of unchaperoned women at the workplace (a matter on which he delivered speeches within the hospital in the presence of his Saudi female physician colleagues, even if they were multiply boarded, American-trained specialists).

Toward me, therefore, Wadid took specific and very visceral umbrage. He recoiled from the disgrace of my unmarried, Western Muslim status crowned by my offending short and quite clearly visible hair. We loathed one another with a mutual intensity. Today I felt extra-repelled, encountering him after experiencing such loving Muslims in Mecca. I especially thought of Haneefa.

In profile, his gaunt cheeks sunk into hollows directly beneath the flat obsidian of his eyes. His eyes were emotionally dead, conferring an inanimate appearance. As usual, he had appeared to the ICU in his customary monastic attire. He was dressed like the “Men in Brown,” as I called them; identical to the Mutawaeen who hounded women in the mall or who had patrolled the 129 gates to the Holy Mosque.

He wore a brown Muslim overcoat edged with a thin strip of gold thread. Under it, his white thobe ended high above his bare calves. On his feet he wore the de rigueur sandals. Most days, Wadid didn't wear a white coat. He was a fanatical Wahabi and wanted to be seen as such even (or perhaps especially) by his patients, who were probably just as scared of him as I sometimes felt.

Naturally, Wadid made no attempt to even feign any greeting to me, let alone warrant me a greeting as a Muslim. He hardly interpreted me as a Muslim. Doubtless he considered me a Westernized heretic. To resolve the dilemma between reality and his distorted perception, conveniently for him, he merely pretended he didn't see me. For him, I didn't exist.

“Mabrook on your Hajj!” began Wadid, expressing some distant, embryonic memory of joy. Like most überorthodox Wahabis, Wadid expressed two emotions only: ascetic patience and fire-breathing intolerance. There was nothing in between. Reptilian eyes widened imperceptibly as he held Mobeen and Imtiaz's unabashed joy in view, eliciting his distaste. He viewed as profanity their redundant displays of happy self-congratulation.

Unaware of their offending emotional incontinence which was becoming increasingly uncomfortable for the Wahabi, Mobeen and Imtiaz thanked him, accepting his felicitations graciously. Wadid's eyes had by now turned back to stone, the fetal joy within them stillborn. There was a pregnant pause. Ever sensitive, pained at my very public neglect, my colleagues felt compelled to say something,

“Qanta has also completed Hajj, Mashallah,” they both offered, clearly excited about my accomplishment.

Wadid did not even move to look in my direction. He said nothing, withholding even a phony “Mabrook” from issuing between lips worn thin with hate. Choosing not to respond, he began reviewing the X rays of a patient I had admitted a few hours before. Mobeen and Imtiaz shifted nervously, glancing toward me, fearing my customary eruption of rage.

I swallowed my venom, ignoring the insult. Instead, I did what pained the misogynistic Wahabi most: practiced medicine. I barked through the patient history, all the while making blazing eye contact at his superciliously half-closed eyelids shielding his eyes, which were unable to behold my offensive person.

Emphatically, I moved around Mobeen and stood directly next to Wadid. A week at Hajj and I had forgotten about the poisonous ways of the Wahabi Kingdom. I had also forgotten all my exercises in patience, self-control, and resolve in the face of ignorance, but I didn't care about any of that now. My blood was boiling. Any feelings of belonging among other Muslims had evaporated in two minutes in front of this creature. I had been rudely reminded of my nihilistic and rather repugnant status in Riyadh in the eyes of men like Wadid.

After presenting the problems of my patient, I excused myself. Pointedly, like a child, tit for tat, I refused to acknowledge Wadid. I stamped off, clicking my shoes noisily on the floor, another no-no for women in Riyadh because female footsteps are thought to be an invitation for sexual admiration. The magic of Mecca had dissipated in my all-too-familiar clash with the male of the Wahabi species. Wadid had rudely reminded me of the realities of every day life in Riyadh and the Men in Brown.

I had first glimpsed a Muttawa while abbayah shopping with Maurag, my assistant. Since then I had encountered these religious policemen in the glossy malls of Riyadh, or scurrying in the depths of the jewelry market in Deera, or even once at an outdoor market, buying groceries from the security of a car.

At my instruction, my driver had pulled up close to a bank of zucchini. I stared hard through the glass to assess their freshness, ignoring my headscarf puddling around my shoulders. A wooden nightstick rapped on the car window, startling me. Cover your hair, he mouthed through the tinted glass.

The Men in Brown were stealthy. As I grew bolder and shopped alone in the mall, examining Orrefors crystal at a boutique inside the al-Faisaliyah Mall, I was again unaware my head was suddenly exposed (the perils of cheap polyester). A Muttawa appeared silently, looming up immediately behind me. I almost dropped the costly goblet in shock.

Their omnipresence in Saudi life was physically and psychologically oppressive. The Muttawa are part of the Committee of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. They operate under command of the Saudi King and are empowered to arrest or apprehend individuals if accompanied by Saudi police, with whom they usually patrol. There are naturally no female Mutawaeen; only males have this authority, which they gain after specifically training at Wahabi clerical school, the center of which is in the Deera area of Riyadh where jewelry shoppers and jihadists collide.

Riyadh, I had soon discovered, was a hornets' nest of Mutawaeen. I had spied the Men in Brown patrolling in squadrons of brownness as they drummed shoppers into the mosque in Deera at prayer time. Salaat (praying) was mandatory! Banging their staffs on the railings of shops or the glass counters of display cabinets, they swarmed into shops, malls, and the labyrinthine jewelry market to ensure all business was closed to observe prayer. Nowhere was out of their corrective reach.

Under the shadow of towering Mutawaeen, shopkeepers bustled to worship under compulsion, leaving behind acres of unsecured gold jewelry. I never saw anyone set a burglar alarm before leaving the glittering jewelry cabinets unattended. In a country where theft can be punished with amputation, the necklaces and bracelets twinkled in a safe silence, assured that none would dare steal them.

Thus, in a few short minutes, even before the Azaan was over, the shops were desolate. All browsers were gone from sight, men scrambling out of their shoes and into the mosque and women scuttling to pray in discrete areas set aside for ladies' prayer (usually subterranean, screened alcoves down a single flight of steps). Other women were sitting out their prayers on low walls around the shopping center, excused by way of menstruation.

Thankfully the Mutawaeen never demanded proof of their periods, but still the women huddled, nervous and exposed, wishing prayer time would pass uneventfully and squirming as they waited for the termination of their public embarrassment. Christians cowered alongside them, hoping the Muttawa would leave them alone. Tasked with preserving virtue and prosecuting vice, the Mutawaeen moved fast. In the field, the Mutawaeen dissipated into individual islands of enforcers. Most hunted for offenders alone, save the companionship of a single Saudi police officer who was authorized to apprehend anyone to whom the Muttawa objected. Nowhere was off limits for either man, even entering sections of restaurants restricted to women. I already knew their intrusions were frightening. I remember one event in particular.

Zubaidah and I were shopping in the Sahara Mall in central Riyadh. Hungry, we settled on one restaurant in the food court. Our shopping bags rested next to us on empty chairs. Around us women, almost all of them orthodox Saudi, were already eating. Most managed to devour their food, without ever removing their facial coverings to eat, simply just lifting the cloth away from their mouths and scrupulously inserting food underneath. Food disappeared into invisible mouths shielded by the black curtains covering their mysterious mouths. I watched several veils slurping on rapidly declining milkshakes.

Zubaidah wore her customary hijab and could eat without removing her scarf. Even so, she allowed the folds of the cloth to loosen, exposing some of her honey-flaxen hair. In segregated quarters, this discreet relaxation of silent cloth sliding off hair (like men releasing neckties) was a feeling that always signaled the easing of the noose that is public Riyadh life. Behind the screened area, I also allowed my polyester headscarf to expose my hair completely, sick of wearing it even on the short journey to the mall. We had ordered food through a filigree screen beyond which a male silhouette took our requests. Later, perhaps the same man whisked the food to the table. I began to eat with appetite. Zubaidah sipped her trademark mint tea. A noisy rustle, a tubercular cough, and then a hasty scraping of chairs stopped the room abruptly. The diners were immediately silenced.

I looked up and saw two Mutawaeen enter our strictly female section. Everywhere, women quickly flung their head covers into place. I turned to question Zubaidah but she had already disappeared behind the end of her veil which now covered her entire face. Sensing safety in mimicry, I rushed to do the same, my fingers thick and clumsy with fear. One Muttawa approached and, horrif-ically, stopped directly at our table. He scanned the room like an ominous Dalek turning his entire body the length and breadth of the restaurant. Myopic eyes assessed the diners, rich in our evil-doing. I found I was holding my breath.

A constricted exhalation grew into a sharp pain of anxiety under my left breast. I wished to sigh but was too afraid to make even that sound. He was dangerously close. From here, I could see his nose hairs and the beginnings of gum recession. My eyes followed his fat fingers as they raced through his unadorned rosary, counting the wooden beads in a blurred frenzy. Maybe he was counting expletives. I noted his nails were flattened in the characteristic spoon shape of anemia. For all his corpulence he was malnourished. His skin was sallow, a combination of inadequate sun exposure and jaundice. Icteric eyes scoured the room with their milky gaze. His distaste at the sight of so many unaccompanied women engaging in such profane and public pleasure was palpable. The disgrace of economically independent women exposing themselves by eating in public (instead of within the security of high-walled homes) pained him.