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

day through.
    Only Omar slept in a small room in the main
house. A long golden cord hung in the main entrance of our villa.
This cord was connected to a cowbell in Omar’s room. When Omar was
needed, he would be summoned by the ringing of this bell; the sound
of the bell, day or night, would bring him to his feet and to
Father’s door. Many times, I must admit, I rang the bell during
Omar’s naps, or in the middle of the night. Then, lungs bursting, I
would rush to my bed and lay quiet, an innocent child sleeping
soundly. One night my mother was waiting for me as I raced for the
bed. With disappointment etched on her face at the misdeeds of her
youngest child, she twisted my ear and threatened to tell Father.
But she never did.
    Since my grandfather’s day, we owned a family
of Sudanese slaves. Our slave population increased each year when
Father returned from Haj, the annual pilgrimage to Makkah made by
Muslims, with new slave children. Pilgrims from Sudan and Nigeria,
attending Haj, would sell their children to wealthy Saudis so that
they could afford the return journey to their homeland. Once in my
father’s care, the slaves were not bought and sold in the manner of
the American slaves; they participated in our home life and in my
father’s businesses as if they were their own. The children were
our playmates and felt no compulsion to servitude. In 1962, when
our government freed the slaves, our Sudanese family actually cried
and begged my father to keep them. They live in my father’s home to
this day.
    My father kept alive the memory of our
beloved king, Abdul Aziz. He spoke about the great man as if he saw
him each day. I was shocked, at the age of eight, to be told the
old king had died in 1953, three years before I was born!
    After the death of our first king, our
kingdom was in grave danger, for the old king’s hand-picked
successor, his son Sa’ud, was sadly lacking in qualities of
leadership. He extravagantly squandered most of the country’s oil
wealth on palaces, cars, and trinkets for his wives. As a result,
our new country was sliding toward political and economic
chaos.
    I recall one occasion in 1963, when the men
of the ruling family gathered in our home. I was a very curious
seven-year-old at the time. Omar, my father’s driver, burst into
the garden with a manner of great importance and shouted for the
women to go upstairs. He waved his hands at us as if he were
exorcising the house of beasts and literally herded us up the
stairwell and into a small sitting room. Sara, my older sister,
pleaded with my mother for permission to hide behind the arabesque
balcony for a rare glimpse of our rulers at work. While we
frequently saw our powerful male uncles and cousins at casual
family gatherings, never were we present in the midst of important
matters of state. Of course, at the time of each female’s menses
and subsequent veiling, the cutoff from any males other than father
and brothers was sudden and complete.
    Our lives were so cloistered and boring that
even our mother took pity on us. That day, she actually joined her
daughters on the floor of the hallway to peek through the balcony
and listen to the men in the large sitting room below us. I, as the
youngest, was held in my mother’s lap. As a precaution, she lightly
placed her fingers on my lips. If we were caught, my father would
be furious. My sisters and I were captivated by the grand parade of
the brothers, sons, grandsons, and nephews of the deceased king.
Large men in flowing robes, they gathered quietly with great
dignity and seriousness. The stoic face of Crown Prince Faisal drew
our attention. Even to my young eyes, he appeared sad and terribly
burdened. By 1963, all Saudis were aware that Prince Faisal
competently managed the country while King Sa’ud ruled
incompetently. It was whispered that Sa’ud’s reign was only a
symbol of the family unity so fiercely protected. The feeling was
that it was an odd arrangement, unfair to the country and to Prince
Faisal, and unlikely to last.
    Prince Faisal stood apart from the group. His
usual quiet voice rose above the din as he asked that he be allowed
to speak on matters that were of grave importance to the family and
the country. Prince Faisal feared that the throne so difficult to
attain would soon be lost. He said that the common people were
tiring of the excesses of the Royal Family, and that there was talk
not only of ousting their brother Sa’ud for his decadence but