Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson

older aunties of our family. I saw her as
they wrapped the white linen shroud around her thin body, worn down
by childbearing and disease. Her face was peaceful, now free of
earthly worries. I thought Mother appeared younger in death than in
life. It was difficult for me to believe that she had given birth
to sixteen children, of whom eleven had survived.
    Our immediate family, along with all of
Father’s wives and their children, gathered in our home; a verse
from the Koran was read to offer comfort. Mother’s shroud-wrapped
body was then placed in the backseat of a black limousine and
driven away by Omar. Our custom forbids females at the burial site,
but my sisters and I showed an unyielding front to our father; he
relented on the promise that we would not wail or pull out our
hair. And so it was that our entire family followed the car of
death, a sad but silent caravan, into the desert.
    In Islam, to show grief at a loved one’s
passing indicates displeasure with the will of God. Besides, our
family comes from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia, and our people
do not publicly mourn the passing of loved ones.
    A freshly dug grave in the endless desert of
our land had already been prepared by the Sudanese servants. The
body of our mother was tenderly lowered, and the white cloth
covering her face was removed by Ali, her only earthly son. My
sisters huddled far from Mother’s final resting place, but my eyes
could not leave the gravesite. I was the last child born of her
body; I would stay with her earthly cloak until the final moment. I
flinched as I watched the slaves push the red sands of the Empty
Quarter over her face and body.
    As I watched the sands cover the body of one
I so adored, I suddenly remembered a beautiful verse by the great
Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran: “Mayhap a funeral among men is
a wedding feast among the angels.” I imagined my mother at the side
of her mother and father, with her own little ones gathered in her
arms. Certain at that moment that I would, another day, feel the
loving touch of Mother, I ceased weeping and walked toward my
sisters, shocking them with my smile of joy and serenity. I quoted
the powerful verse God had sent to erase my pain, and my sisters
nodded in perfect understanding at the wise Kahlil Gibran’s words.
We were leaving Mother behind in the empty vastness of the desert,
yet I knew it no longer mattered that there was no stone placed to
mark her presence there, or that no religious services were held to
speak of the simple woman who had been a flame of love during her
time on earth. Her reward was that she was now with her other loved
ones, waiting there for us.
    Ali seemed at a loss, for once, and I knew
his pain was keen also. Father had little to say and avoided our
villa from the day of Mother’s death. He sent us messages through
his second wife, who had now replaced Mother as the head of his
wives. Within the month, we learned through Ali that Father was
preparing to wed again, for four wives are common with the very
wealthy and the very poor bedouin in my land. The Koran says that
each wife must be treated as the others. The affluent of Saudi
Arabia have no difficulty in providing equality for their wives.
The poorest bedouin have only to erect four tents and provide
simple fare. For these reasons, you find many of the richest and
the poorest Muslims with four wives. It is only the middle-class
Saudi who has to find contentment with one woman, for it is
impossible for him to find the funds to provide middle-class
standards for four separate families.
    Father was planning to marry one of the royal
cousins, Randa, a girl with whom I had played childhood games in
what seemed like another lifetime. Father’s new bride was fifteen,
only one year older than I, his youngest child of my mother. Four
months after the burial of my mother, I attended the wedding of my
father. I was surly, and refused to join in the festivities—I was
awash with pent-up emotions of