Princess Sultana's Daughters

and
taken a younger wife, though they had seemed a well-satisfied
couple in the past. Fatma’s husband, Abdul, doubled as our gardener
and family chauffeur, and the couple had often said they considered
themselves fortunate to work for wealthy people who paid a good
wage and who were rarely in the country. They were guaranteed
plenty of free time to spend with their children, who lived in an
apartment in Cairo with Abdul’s mother. Yet, I knew that by law
Egyptian men, like Saudi men, have full power over their women, and
it was not unusual for an old man to take a second wife, or even to
divorce his first wife and take a younger, more attractive woman
into his home.
    The experiences of my life have taught me
that men are generally at the root of female grief. Thinking of
Fatma’s bitter words of female misfortune, I imagined a man as
their cause, for nothing is more demoralizing to a woman of Fatma’s
age than to be abandoned by a husband of many years.
    Abdullah, Amani, and I led Fatma to a chair
in the sitting room, while Maha tended to her unfinished tasks.
    Fatma moaned as she walked, holding her hand
on the top of her head, like someone trying to stop the pain.
    Wanting to get to the cause of her grief, I
waved my children from the room and asked her point-blank, “Fatma,
has Abdul divorced you?”
    Fatma raised her head and looked at me, her
languid eyes blinking at my question. She repeated my words,
“Abdul? Divorce me?” She then smiled, but only with her lips. “That
old man? Let him try! I will crack his bald head like an egg and
fry his brains on the sidewalk.”
    I had to struggle to keep from laughing
aloud, for in the past, Kareem had often commented that in his
opinion Abdul lived in fear of his wife, and that there was at
least one married woman in the Arab world who had no need of
feminine advice from me.
    Abdul was half Fatma’s size, and once Kareem
had come upon the couple unexpectedly and had seen with his own
eyes Fatma strike her husband on the back with a large board.
    I asked, “Then, if it is not Abdul, what is
the problem?”
    Fatma’s heavily wrinkled face fell, and she
became lost in her own morose thoughts. She sighed so heavily that
I knew her sadness had a heartfelt source, and I asked myself with
dismay what could be the cause of her anguish.
    “Fatma?” I reminded her of my presence.
    Suddenly her face turned bright red, and
Fatma’s despair burst forth.
    “It is my granddaughter Alhaan! Her father is
an evil being, a donkey of a man, that Nasser! I would kill him
with my bare hands if my daughter would allow it! But no! She says
she and her family must live their lives as they see fit!”
    Fatma’s eyes flashed with anger, and her huge
bosom heaved with indignation. “My own daughter demands that I stay
out of her family matters!” She looked at me aghast and asked, “Can
you imagine that? To have no say in my own granddaughter’s
life?”
    Feeling utterly bewildered, I asked, “What
has Nasser done to his child? To your granddaughter?”
    Surely, I thought to myself, if the mother of
the child has no objections, the harm to the child must not
exist.
    “That Nasser! He is from a small village.
What does he know?”
    I drew back in surprise as Fatma spat upon
our newly carpeted floor.
    Fatma was talking in every direction, cursing
Nasser, crying out for her daughter, and begging God to help her
grandchild.
    I lost my patience and, raising my voice,
demanded to know. “Fatma! Tell me, now! What happened to your
granddaughter?”
    Disconsolate and at a loss, Fatma tightly
squeezed my hand and said, “Tonight. Tonight they will make Alhaan
into a woman. They have an appointment with the barber at nine
o’clock. This ritual I do not believe is necessary. None of my
daughters were so treated. It is that Nasser! Can you help me,
mistress, please...?”
    The past surged up in my mind. How well I
remembered the horrible story told to me by my oldest sister, Nura,
when she too had been made into a woman.
    Kareem and I had not yet wed, and I was
young, only sixteen years old. My mother had recently died, and
Nura, as the eldest daughter, was instructed to answer my questions
regarding female circumcision. I had not known until that time that
Nura and our two sisters closest to her in age had endured the
horrific rite, and as a result had been subjected to lifelong pain
and suffering.
    In Saudi Arabia’s not so distant past,
circumcision of women had not been