Princess Sultana's Circle

farewell, I
left the palace without informing
    Khalidah that Faddel’s
birds were no longer living in his earthly paradise. My reasoning
for this deception was that I had optimistic plans to return these
birds before they were missed.
    As I walked down the long
hallway to the entrance of the palace, Maha rushed toward me. We
took each other’s hands. Out of breath from her running, she
wheezed, “Amani has disappeared, and so has our driver!”
    Taking a deep breath, I
almost smiled when I remembered an ancient proverb often repeated
to me by my mother. “Remember, Maha, ‘no matter how high a bird
flies, it is destined to land somewhere.’ We will find Amani. And,
those birds will be with her.”
    Questioning Mustafa, the
Egyptian doorman, I quickly learned that our own driver had
assisted Amani in gathering Faddel’s birds and had then driven my
daughter and her illicit cargo away from the palace. Mustafa
mentioned that he was surprised that his mistress had given my
daughter an Eid gift of so many birds. He whispered behind his hand
as if sharing a secret, “My master and his mistress are very
attached to their earthly belongings.”
    I looked thoughtfully at
this poor man. Clearly, all was not perfect in Faddel’s
paradise.
    In the Islamic religion,
there is a great duty for almsgiving, both mandatory and voluntary.
For many years, I had heard rumors that Faddel, who was one of the
richest Al Sa’uds, always made a great show of paying the
obligatory zakat, (which is the small percentage of income, like a
tithe, required by law of every Muslim) yet refused to contribute a
single Saudi Riyal voluntarily to charity. In the Arab world,
generosity is expected, especially of those who are wealthy, but
even poor Arabs are generous to a fault, believing that to receive
more than one gives is a great humiliation.
    Faddel, however, was
evidently a greedy man in satisfying his own desires, while miserly
in his dealings with others. Faddel would pay his staff meager
wages, I guessed, and would happily grind the faces of the poor
into the desert sand without remorse. Such a man would surely
demand the return of the birds that his money had
purchased.
    As these thoughts raced
through my mind, Mustafa arranged for one of Khalidah’s drivers to
return Maha and me to our own palace.
    Once we had settled back in
the limousine as it moved through the streets of Jeddah, Maha
became impatient to bring the subject of the young girls in
Faddel’s harem to my renewed attention.
    Mindful of the driver, I
silenced my daughter with a look and a nudge, and whispered,
“Darling, I promise I will hear you out, and we will help those
young women, but first, we must return these birds before they are
missed.”
    The moment my feet touched
the driveway in front of our palace, I started calling out for my
youngest daughter. “Amani!”
    Three of the Filipino
gardeners, Tony, Frank, and Jerry looked up from their
pruning.
    “ She went there, Ma’am,”
Tony said, pointing in the direction of the women’s
garden.
    “ We helped her carry many
birds, Ma’am,” Jerry added.
    Good, I thought, I will
speak with Amani while the servants are re-loading the
birdcages.
    At that moment, I saw
Kareem’s automobile slowly wind down our driveway. I steeled myself
for what was to come as I watched him emerge from the back seat and
walk toward me. He seemed to be in good humor after spending all
day with the King and other royal cousins, and smiled
cheerfully.
    I felt a flicker of sorrow
for my husband, knowing that his good temperament would soon
dissipate.
    I raised my eyebrows in
greeting, but did not smile or speak when he squeezed my
hand.
    Kareem knows me well. “What
is the problem, Sultana?”
    “ You will never believe
what I have to tell you,” I said, wearily.
    As I confided the
afternoon’s troubles at the palace of Faddel, Kareem’s face turned
several shades of red as his anger grew.
    “ And, now, Amani is in the
garden with the birds,” I concluded.
    Kareem stood speechless as
he tried to grasp the consequences of his daughter stealing a large
number of birds from a royal cousin.
    The persistent ringing of
Kareem’s cellular telephone interrupted our fretful thoughts, and
to my irritation, Kareem answered the phone. I quickly realized
that the conversation was not to his liking, for his face turned
even redder.
    “ Yes,” he said in a calm
voice, “What you have heard is correct. Yes. I will attend to the
matter