Princess Sultana's Daughters

three limousines to meet our
plane and transport our family and baggage from the airport to the
villa.
    Actually, at one time the villa had been a
palace belonging to a French aristocrat and had over sixty rooms,
so there was more than enough space for our combined families. None
of my sisters was married to a man who had taken more than one
wife, so our group of eight adults and sixteen children was
unusually small for an Arab gathering of four families.
    There are three highways going from Nice to
Monaco, but none of us wanted to travel the coastal road, or the
Inferieure Corniche, which is generally traffic-packed. The Moyenne
Corniche is the middle road, and the Grande Corniche is the high
road.
    I expressed a desire to take the Moyenne,
since I knew it was the best of the three and had wonderful views
of the coastline.
    Kareem disagreed, saying that our daughters
should choose the road we would travel.
    I pinched the flesh on his leg, indicating
that his idea was not sound, but he continued to ask their
opinions.
    As I knew they would, Maha and Amani began an
immediate squabble, each of them insisting upon a different
route.
    I whispered to Kareem, “I told you so.”
    Our daughters have never reached agreement on
any issue, regardless of the subject, since the time they learned
to speak. I admitted to myself that nothing in our lives had been
simple since I had given birth to three children.
    The driver settled their argument by saying
that a truck loaded with eggs had suffered a mishap, and the
Moyenne was temporarily blocked. Since two of the three roads were
congested with traffic, he suggested that we take the Grande.
    Like the baby she is, Amani pouted, but Maha
and Abdullah were joyful, pointing out various interesting sights
they had not remembered from our last trip to Monaco over three
years before.
    The Grande Corniche was built by Napoleon,
and he had his builders follow the route of the ancient Roman road.
The drive took us along the southern slope of the Alpes Maritimes,
and the scenery was spectacular.
    I mentioned that after the uninspired brown
and beige shades of desert countries, the lush greenery of Europe
was restful to my eyes.
    Amani took my comment as a slur upon the home
of the Prophet, whereupon Kareem lost his patience and asked his
daughter please to omit religious interpretations of the
simplest social remark.
    I thought to myself that my own precious
daughter was becoming thoroughly unlikable. My love for her flowed
as strongly as ever, but there were moments when I suffered extreme
distaste for Amani’s overbearing and holier-than-thou attitude.
    Pleased that my family’s confined journey was
coming to an end, I was happy to see my sisters Sara, Tahani, and
Nura, when our car pulled up the circular driveway to the front of
the villa. How welcome it made me feel that the three of them had
evidently been eagerly waiting by the door for our arrival.
    My pleasure was short-lived.
    “Reema has been hospitalized!” Nura announced
as soon as we had completed our greetings and my three children had
gone to seek out their cousins.
    “What?” I responded, trying to imagine what
illness had struck the fifth sister in age in our family.
    “She has been injured,” Sara volunteered,
while exchanging a meaningful look with Nura.
    “Yes?” My voice was so low that the sound
barely left my throat. I had a sudden fear of an automobile
accident, for traffic accidents are a main source of death in Saudi
Arabia, where many young boys recklessly race their vehicles
through the streets.
    My sisters and I stood without speaking,
awkwardly facing one another. I moved my weight from foot to foot,
waiting for someone to enlighten me about my sister’s
condition.
    Kareem and Asad stood to the side, watching
but not speaking.
    When no one spoke, my stomach churned. Was my
sister dead, and was there no one in my family with the nerve to
tell me?
    Finally I asked weakly, “Is her injury
serious?”
    “It appears that it is not life-threatening,”
Nura stated.
    The Arab manner of avoiding bad news is
maddening! I felt the urge to scream, for someone to tell me all
that there was to know, to release me from the agony of attempting
to force small bits of information from my reluctant sisters.
    “What has happened?” I demanded. “Anything is
easier to accept than this torturing doubt!”
    My sisters looked at one another strangely.
Surely, Reema was dead!
    “Let us go inside,” Asad suggested as