Princess Sultana's Daughters

free arm to her older sister,
Maha, to come to me. Suddenly, I drew back in horror, for Maha’s
face was a frightful mask of anger and hate.
    Investigating the confusing incident, we
learned a terrible truth: Maha had set her brother’s thobe on fire.
    Maha, meaning “She Gazelle,” has not
fulfilled the promise of her gentle name. From the time she was
ten, it has been apparent that our eldest daughter is possessed by
the demonic energy of her mother. Often I have thought that there
must be a battleground of good and evil spirits hovering over Maha,
with evil spirits usually overpowering the good. Neither her life
amid imperial splendor nor the unconditional love of a devoted
family has tempered Maha’s spirit.
    Without justification, she has tormented her
brother, Abdullah, and her younger sister, Amani, for as long as
they both can remember. Few children have brought so many crises to
one family as Maha.
    In appearance, Maha is a stunningly
attractive girl, with a frighteningly seductive personality. She
has the look of a Spanish dancer, all eyes and hair. Combined with
this great beauty is a gifted mind. Ever since her birth, it seemed
to me that too many blessings had been bestowed upon my eldest
daughter. With so many abilities, Maha is unable to focus on one
goal, and lacking a unifying purpose, she has failed to harness her
talents in any one direction. Over the years, I have watched as a
hundred promising projects have been started and then
abandoned.
    Kareem once said he feared that our daughter
was nothing more than a girl of brilliant fragments, and would fail
to accomplish one single goal in her lifetime. My greatest concern
is that Maha is revolutionary seeking a cause.
    As I too am such a person, I am aware of the
turmoil raised by a mutinous character.
    In her earlier years, the problem seemed
simple. Maha loved her father to distraction. The intensity of her
feelings increased with her years.
    Whereas Kareem adored his two daughters as he
did his one son, and strove to avoid the resentments I endured as a
child, the makeup of our society drew Abdullah more closely into
Kareem’s life outside of our home. This basic fact of our Muslim
heritage was the first shock of Maha’s young life.
    Maha’s intense jealousy of her father’s
affections brought to mind my own unhappy childhood—a young girl
who had chaffed under the harsh social system into which she was
born. For that reason, I failed to comprehend the seriousness of my
child’s discontent.
    After Maha set fire to Abdullah’s thobe, we
knew that her possessiveness of Kareem went far beyond normal
daughterly affection. Maha was ten years old and Abdullah was
twelve. Amani was only seven, but she had watched her sister slip
away from their game, fetch her father’s gold lighter, and set fire
to the edge of Abdullah’s thobe. Had Amani not cried out a warning,
Abdullah could have been seriously burned.
    The second shocking incident occurred when
Maha was only eleven. It was the hot month of August. Our family
had left the sweltering desert city of Riyadh and gathered at my
sister Nura’s summer palace in the cool mountain city of Taif. It
was the first time in years that Father had attended a gathering of
his first wife’s children, and his attentions were devoted to his
grandsons. While admiring Abdullah’s height and figure, my father
ignored Maha, who was tugging on his sleeve to show him an ant farm
the children had built and proudly displayed. I saw Father as he
brushed her aside and proceeded to squeeze Abdullah’s biceps.
    Maha was stung by her grandfather’s
preference for her brother and his indifference to her. My heart
plunged for the pain I knew was in her heart.
    Knowing Maha’s capability for creating a
scene, I walked over to comfort my daughter just as she assumed a
masculine stance and began to curse my father with fiery invectives
of the coarsest indecency, peppered with vile accusations.
    From that moment, the family gathering
rapidly declined. Though humiliated, I had the quick thought that
Maha had expressed to my father his manifest due.
    Father, who had never held a high opinion of
the female sex, made no pretense of his feelings now. Scornfully,
he ordered, “Remove this horrible creature from my sight!”
    I saw plainly that my daughter had awakened
Father’s contempt for me. His eyes were penetrating, and his lips
were curled in scorn as he looked from his daughter to his
granddaughter. I overheard him