Princess Sultana's Daughters

respect and
love, for Jafer never accepted Kareem’s generous invitations.
    Abdullah added to the mystery by saying that
his friend was polite but firm in refusing all offers of female
companionship. I was puzzled but so consumed by the problems
presented by my daughters that I thought little more of Jafer’s
private life.
    Looking back, I wondered how we could have
thought that a full-blooded, sensual man like Jafer would scorn all
that love had to offer?
    The truth as to why Jafer had deferred
marriage was made known in a most devastating manner that
threatened to end in tragedy.
    *
    Abdullah, who had loved Jafer with perfect
sincerity, now let his grief swell to great proportions. There was
something disarmingly childlike about him as he complained, “Jafer
never told me about Fayza.”
    It was the darkest time of Abdullah’s young
life. My son’s disheveled innocence pierced my heart, and it was
difficult for me to believe at that moment that he would soon
celebrate his twentieth birthday.
    At that moment Kareem arrived, as angry as
Abdullah was sad.
    “Abdullah!” he shouted. “You have risked your
life and the lives of innocents!”
    Kareem told me that when Abdullah was
informed of Jafer’disappearance, he became distraught and left
Kareem’s offices in a dangerous mood. Fearful for his only son’s
safety, Kareem followed in hot pursuit. My husband claimed that
Abdullah drove his automobile through the streets of the city at
high speed. Kareem said that at one point Abdullah’s car crossed
the center lane and forced a line of drivers from the road.
    “You could have been killed!” Kareem was so
agitated at the possibility that he reached across and slapped our
son’s face.
    The sharp slap shocked and silenced my
husband.
    Over the years of my children’s turbulent
growth, I have pinched and slapped all three of them with
irresistible pleasure.
    Never had Kareem struck one of our children!
Kareem was as stunned by his action as I, staring down at his
offensive hand as though it were not his own.
    He embraced his shivering son and apologized,
saying that in the course of following Abdullah’s reckless path, he
had gone out of his mind with worry.
    The room was filled with emotion, and it took
many moments for the mystery of Jafer and Fayza’s hidden romance to
be completely revealed.
    Fayza was the daughter of Fouad, Kareem’s
partner in three foreign businesses. Fouad was not of the Al Sa’ud
family but distantly related by marriage to a daughter of a
royal.
    Many years before, Fouad was allowed to wed
into the royal family, even though he was not from a clan of the
Najd (the central area of Saudi Arabia), nor was his tribe
particularly close to the Al Sa’uds. Generally, Al Sa’ud women were
wed out of the family only for political or economic reasons. Fouad
was from a prosperous Jeddah trading family that had bitterly
fought the Al Sa’uds during the early days of the formation of the
kingdom.
    Anxious to forge a bond between his family
and the rulers of the land, Fouad offered an immense dowry for
Samia, a princess who, we often said in kindness, was spared the
distracting handicap of being a great beauty.
    No one in the royal family could believe
Samia’s good fortune, for she was long resigned to remaining a
spinster, cruel gossip about her bad skin, small eyes, and bent
back having stripped away all marriage possibilities.
    Fouad, determined to attach himself to the
respected Al Sa’ud clan, heard of Samia’s lack of beauty through
women who knew her family, but his only desire was to marry a woman
of many virtues. He had heard the lurid stories told by his female
relatives about alluring women who made the most miserable wives
because, carefully coiffed and richly garbed, they could think of
little besides expensive homes, many servants, and endless
jewels.
    Fouad knew sound advice when he heard it.
Denouncing the lure of beauty, he said that he desired a woman of
humor and warmth. The particular princess he sought, while
uncongenial to a poet’s dream, was one of the more popular royals,
well loved for her charm and grace.
    Thinking that Fouad was a fool, Samia’s
family accepted his offer, and a wedding was arranged.
    Fouad was well pleased with his wife, for she
had a sense of humor, which, Fouad knew, would see them through the
tribulations of marriage. His new bride facilitated matters by
falling deeply in love with her husband. Theirs was the happiest of
unions.
    Fouad