My final semester at university passed by in a blur of essays, pop quizzes and exams. I’d stopped wearing make-up and instead of wearing my shayla halfway across my head with my flat-ironed fringe sticking out, I brought the hemline of the front of my shayla forward across the top of my forehead, framing it around my face and wrapping it tightly around my head.
Baba thought I’d suddenly become religious and was a lot nicer to me. He’d even started calling me, “Su Su” again, his pet name for me as a child. But the truth was that I felt I was partly to blame for what happened with Nawaf and by disguising myself as a ‘religious’ woman I hoped it’d put guys off from approaching me.
I decided to combat my guilt and rid myself of my sharmootah ways by staying as far away as I could from men. I wanted to be invisible. I was going to dress like a good Muslim woman—bare-faced, hair completely covered, and in my most plain and shapeless abayas.
“Are you okay?” Heba asked as we walked to our next lecture together. “You’ve been acting strange lately.”
“Acting strange?” I asked. I thought I’d been doing pretty well at carrying on as if nothing had changed.
“You’ve been really quiet the past few weeks. I haven’t heard you complain about your dad and you haven’t gossiped with me once about guys. You’re wearing your shayla differently. You’re not wearing make-up. I’m your best friend, I know when something’s going on.”
“I’m just stressed about getting good grades so that I graduate with a first-class degree. I mean it is our final semester.”
“Hmm,” Heba replied. She didn’t look satisfied with my answer. “Well, if something’s up you know you can tell me.”
She didn’t have to tell me this. I confided more in Heba than I did in my own mother and sister. I felt I couldn’t tell Mum or Saffa everything because I knew Baba was capable of forcing out confessions if he thought I was up to something.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Heba about the rape when I’d promised her that I wouldn’t go out with a Gulf guy again. I knew she’d try to get involved and use her wide circle of guy friends to find him and beat him up, and getting into a brawl with a member of the royal family was a very bad idea. If he didn’t get revenge by murdering them he’d have them put in prison. I wouldn’t drag Heba or her friends into this and put their lives in danger.
The worst thing was the flashbacks. Sometimes I’d feel physically sick. I tried really hard not to allow myself to dwell on those thoughts and tried to focus on university.
I was in the toilet in the corridor-like building that housed the Political Science department when I overhead a conversation between Jawhara, Moza and Layla, three Gulf women in my programme. They were applying lip gloss in the mirror and re-arranging their shaylas. Then I heard his name. His full name. They were talking about Nawaf and his wife and daughter. I felt as if I was going to vomit and rushed back into the cubicle I’d just come out of, and stood over the toilet bowel, dry retching.
I heard a knock on the cubicle door.
“Are you okay in there?” Moza called.
“I’m fine. La tahateen—it’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Nawaf was married and he had a daughter. Could this get any worse?
*
Carrying my secret was becoming a heavy burden. There were occasions when it’d just be me and Mum in the kitchen and I’d feel the urge to tell her but I’d stop myself. If for any reason it got back to Baba that I’d been out with a man to the middle of the desert and was raped, he wouldn’t blame Nawaf, he’d blame me. He’d say it was my fault for going out with a man who wasn’t my husband in the first place.
What would happen if he found out? No doubt I’d get the worst beating of my life. Would Baba go as far as killing me? How would he do it? Strangle me to death? No, I had to keep my mouth shut.
“You alright Sara, you seem to be off with the fairies again?” Mum asked, waking me up from my nightmarish daydream.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just thinking about all the studying I have to do this evening,” I replied, and tried to crack a smile.
She gave me a funny look but didn’t question me further.