Passing the Gauntlet

Nada leaned back on one of the extravagant cushions decorating the couch, more European than her father would’ve liked but one her mother insisted on, waiting. Her lower back ached from the bolt upright posture she assumed as she curled her lip at her guests' tardiness. Although according to her mother, she waited thirty-six years and could stand to wait a century more for her suitor to show. 

According to her mother, this was her last chance. That didn’t mean she was going to ease up now.

She ran over what she knew of the man, which was slim to nil. She didn't even have a name. Though, Nada never did like to background-check her suitors, she was more than comfortable in allowing her parents to vouch for his decency and trust her first impression. Lest she loosen her tight hold on her heart in face of his achievements before meeting him, a particular rabbit hole that spewed hellfire and shrapnel.

I’ll double-check the contract, Nada thought rapidly, barely resisting slotting her worn thumb through her teeth, agree to let him take as many wives as he wants after me if it means keeping my job, make sure he doesn’t try to swap the contract with a fabricated one like that wretch Waleed did, argue for my work even if it costs me the marriage.

She was dimly aware of her cousin stopping by right before the suitor arrived, offering comforting homicide if he tries to pull anything on her. Her father rushed in immediately afterwards, adjusting his ghutra as he took his seat beside her, and soon after the man and his father entered.

Nada thought her heart had long stopped skipping with every new man that came asking for her hand. Until she actually saw him and thought:

Ah. Shit.

-

Jamal knew when an angry woman stormed into his office asking who the hell was the new guy in charge of editing the research findings that he could’ve fallen in love with her.

“That’d be me, Missus Boss Lady,” he drawled, raising his hand an inch.

Her eyes were furious as she stomped over to him, scolding him on professionality and similar Western ideals. He followed the hands liberally gesturing in outrage and knew that yes, he could definitely fall in love.

Wow, he thought, staring up in wonder at her angry proclamations that she should fire him. Wow.

And so Jamal didn’t stop at off-hand witticisms in his editor’s note, but went off with mad serenades of hilarity, preening every time she marched into his office. Pretty soon, his charm won her over and she started to hold the elevator for him, a huffed laugh and eyes twinkling amusement his reward for a night’s travail in orchestrating the perfect ‘that’s what she said’ joke.

And it was when she rapped her fist on his desk on her way home with his revision tucked into her bag and said, “You’re losing your wit, employee,” that he gladly fell off the edge.

Then he heard she was unmarried the same moment he realized her parents were still searching. And it took little planning to tell his sister to pass the word onto Nada's mother at Nada's cousin's marriage that he'd be interested, with them replying 'how about Monday?'

Jamal barely held back from telling them he was good any day and arrived with his father almost too punctually at the family's mansion.

He calmed his pounding heart as he was led into the lavish sitting room, eyes immediately going to his Nada trying to school her expression into neutrality at the sight of him.

She has black hair, he mused in quiet wonder, drinking up her features and finally painting a picture of his love, having never seen her face uncovered.

He barely dragged his attention away from her to incline his head in a nod after his father introduced him to Nada's. A lumbering man with a beard that scratched his stomach and the hands of an army redneck that could crush his skull in one hairy, sweaty grip. Jamal wasn’t intimidated, though. He knew the man couldn’t risk chasing him out like all the others that flooded in when Nada was twenty and adorable.

"Yes? And how are you?" He asked her smoothly in charming tones after their fathers put their meddling to rest and leaned back to watch the two birds dance around each other.

She turned red, out of what Jamal liked to think was attraction to his attractive air, "Fine, and you?" she squeaked, tone incongruous with eyes that sent pointed daggers his way. Jamal raised an eyebrow back.

Despite what Nada thought, Jamal wasn't stupid.

He knew the slightest suspicion of the Hamdi's clan estranged daughter having the slightest unprofessional relationship with any male would cause outrage. On the ride over, his stomach clenched as he mulled over the best that could happen, them disowning her, to the worst, her lovely head burning on a spike. But he didn’t let go of things easily and didn’t really believe the lie that acting required years of practice. He did realize, sitting there, that telling Nada beforehand would’ve helped them both in that regard, but she only really talked to him once every blue moon and he couldn't very well catch her alone with her brothers prowling the halls like confused bulldogs.

But Jamal trusted her enough to know that she wouldn't throw them both under the bus like that. Trusted her enough to know that she would play along until they found themselves alone and she could scold him thoroughly and lovingly.

Only if she accepted, he reminded himself. And gosh, how much he wanted her to accept.

-

Omar had problems with his problem child, Nada, named after delicate morning dew twinkling on gossamer, but was everything but.

She had asked, fourteen and fairy-light, "Baba, can you please, please let Fahad lend me his science textbooks? Please? I just want to read them."

Fine, Omar had thought, no one wants dumb women nowadays, let her educate herself. And he held his middle son by the hair until Fahad agreed to provide their crown jewel with all her heart’s scholarly desires.

Then she turned eighteen and denied her first marriage proposal, "No, Baba, I don't want him, not before I graduate. I'll die of grief if not allowed to finish college. And besides, would you settle for anyone less than a prince for your Nada?"

This is fine, Omar mused, scratching his head at her whispered denial, pressuring her is no-good with Allah as my witness. And he chased out the slobbering dog out of his house with the calm air of a man whose daughter still had enough suitors for a sizable army.

Then she, twenty-three and still serving tea to a father instead of a husband, demurely requested, "Baba, light of my soul, my nearest gate to heaven, I have too much free time and you have too many empty plots of land. Can you, please, consider lending me one? And wasn’t the prophet’s first wife one of Mecca’s richest merchants?”

Fine, Omar conceded, despite his wife’s windmill gesticulations of disapproval, let her pull her own weight, and when she told him she wished to start a research center instead of the expected minimarket or laundromat, Lieutenant General Omar Hamdi waved his hand and so it was.

Then she was twenty-nine and sobbing for forgiveness at his feet, and his hand was poised to strike the one child he had never beaten, “I had to employ those men, Baba, it was the only way to gain recognition. And- and we enter through different doors and I never truly mingle with them outside of the lab. I don’t even know their first names!”

Fine, Omar relented, fury huffing out his nostrils, fine fine fine. But he still demanded she employ his lazy, useless sons in whatever job those poor sods were capable of, ignoring her pleas of scientific minds and intelligent researchers. She could have them lick the floors clean as janitors, for all he cared, just not be there alone with strangers following her beck and call.

And so with all these problems that would’ve been resolved if only she was more like her cousins, he was quick to raise an eyebrow when he heard the news that some kid who worked at a certain research center was asking for her hand.

“Don’t even imply something like that, Omar,” his wife squawked, “Not with her brothers there, at the most, he noticed she was unmarried and decided to go for her to alleviate his position. Not anything dishonourable.”

His wife having thus definitively squashed his suspicions of some shotgun marriage, went back to giving him an overview of the man’s background, family, and miscellaneous bits of gossip she gathered from her all-reaching network of housewives.

He wasn't all that convinced when he was face-to-face with him and the poor kid couldn't keep his eyes off Nada.

Despite what his daughter thought, Omar wasn't stupid.

She couldn't pull a fast one right in front of him and expect him to yield like he always did. Omar squared his shoulders, narrowing his eyes at the two, military-trained senses searching for any red flags.

The kid's father, a man that Omar could imagine himself dining with, flicked his eyes at Omar and Omar nodded, allowing the kid to address his daughter.

He pounced on the chance, blabbering, "Yes? And how are you?"

And Omar could tell that there was no secret liaison from the way Nada turned an irritated pink, an all-too-familiar segue into her leaning over and saying, No, Baba.

"Fine, and you?" she coldly replied and Omar leaned back, awaiting the signal that allowed him to kick out whatever trash crawled to his doorstep, already dreading his wife's frustrated midnight weeping.

-

Years ago, Layan’s grandmother held her hand and hissed to her the universal truth, “All men are snakes.” And then Layan’s grandmother subsequently passed away.

Layan recalled those words frequently even though she was a simple girl with simple girl dreams of marrying rich and early. She was everything but her cousin, Nada, who went around spreading propaganda with a spoon about the importance of being career-focused and entrepreneurial. Layan was the simple type of daughter her uncle would’ve preferred.

Of course, her plans of simple womanhood were accompanied by the realization of the simple woman fantasy of milking your husband like the cash cow he was before, at the slightest breath of trouble, go running to your father and uncles and hustling half his fortune and the kids while your men exact merciless lawsuits, European-style.

“You’ll fall in love with him before you get the chance,” Nada remarked knowingly, as if she was a proper consultant on the subject. Layan remarked as much from her lounge on the bed, lazily staring up at her cousin biting her lip in order to eclipse the smile that always arose when she read through her reports. 

Despite what her cousin might think, Layan wasn’t stupid.

She saw how her toes curled and her hands clenched and she heard the trill of a giggle that always threatened to emerge. "He just reviews the papers and edits them and sometimes he makes witty comments, that’s all,” she replied, feigning nonchalance.

All men were snakes, Layan didn’t say because Nada’s mother, Rama, already entreated her not to stoke the fires of her daughter’s independence. And also because Layan was horrified by future visions of her dear cousin being that one hag living underneath the staircase with no children to carry her home. 

So Layan kept her truths to herself. Until she spotted Rama advertising her daughter like lamb on the market at her wedding. She dug her nails into the groom’s knee and vowed to never forgive this offence.

“I will never forgive nor forget,” Layan announced a week later, marching into her Uncle’s villa. Only to be hushed and ushered forcibly into a sitting room, which was no way to treat a bride with honeymoon sores! She huffed, shifting one of the ornate divider panels surrounding the sitting area and glared at her dolled-up cousin.

“I will never forgive nor forget,” she started before noticing Nada’s stiff posture and gritted teeth. Layan softened, marching over and unceremoniously plopping down next to her, if only to prove that honeymoon sores were a myth and Nada should know better than to listen to the household help.

 “I’ll be behind the panels, give the word and I’ll launch at him with a butcher’s knife,” she assured tenderly. Nada shook her head once, eyes sharper than the horse bust welcoming visitors in the hallway.

Layan’s hand entwined with her cousin’s for a moment, “I’ll be there either way,” she promised right as the doorbell sounded. Layan assumed her stealthy position, careful not to lean too much onto the panels lest they collapse, and listened.

The snake and his father introduced themselves unremarkably. A research assistant when Nada should’ve been married to princes, to sultans.

“Yes? And how are you?” The snake, Jassim or something plebian like that, asked with a distinctly slimy voice. Layan vehemently wondered if he had a nasal issue, she hoped he had a nasal issue and suffocated on it.

“Fine,” Nada tiredly replied in a resigned tone that chilled Layan with its implications, “and you?”

And Layan stilled, her sky falling around her from the realization that while she wanted her married as much as the next relative, she was never truly prepared to let her go. Nada was supposed to be the one that broke through, the supporting pillar that reassured you you didn’t need to sell yourself if you didn’t want to. Nada was supposed to be always there. 

Layan reached for a vase but got silently taken done by Rama’s lackeys before she could embarrass herself with battery. Then Layan broke her promise and was escorted out with news her husband was on the way. 

Later, while the dry Arabian landscape swished past the passenger window, she rubbed at her dry eyes and vowed to present Nada with the shiniest gold at her wedding. Glaring abandonment issues thus placated, she fiddled with the radio, searching for a music station when her husband caught her hand over the armrest and stroked slow circles into her palm. 

Stop trying to seduce me! Layan wanted to scream hysterically because she had a three-step plan for him, but she just couldn’t seem to pull her hand away. 

-

Rama Bashaar, mother of Zayn, wife of Lieutenant General Omar Hamdi, Rapunzel of Damascus, was above scrounging for suitors at third-rate party halls with new money aiming subtle jabs at her age. She told her husband as much while she clasped on heavy earrings, sitting on the edge of the bed preparing to leave for that fool Layan’s wedding. He threw an arm around her waist murmuring, “that’s our Nada” and chuckling.

“Fine, but don’t come crawling to me when she asks to fly to the moon,” and with that Rama threw her veil over her elaborate braid and set out with the distinct dread that she’d be coming home emptyhanded.

But by the end of the night, she was thanking Allah that she wore her best. Now it was up to her fool daughter not to make a mess of it.

“Mama, please,” she snapped, leaning her head away from the brush that was dabbing blush onto her cheeks. 

Rama hushed her, clutching her by the chin and tilting her head this way and that, “This is your last chance, my heart, don’t squander it.”

“Even though,” her daughter retorted, always obstinate, always disagreeable, “I’m not going to nod and agree to everything like a sheep, I’m not relenting because there’s no one else.”

Rama clucked her tongue, sashaying out of the room with a swish of her hair, her daughter following and ranting about her rights or something along those lines.

“And so, Mama, I cannot and should not be backed into a corner like this, I can refuse like I did all the others-”

Rama turned on her, pointing a crooked finger at her and hissing, “No, you’ll listen to me for once, and not sacrifice the opportunity of a family for your ideals,” she straightened, shooting a look of distaste at the maid that scurried by, she was getting too old for this. She breathed in right as Nada opened her mouth, cutting her off, “You embarrass me, Nada,” she said in a quiet tone meant to cut.

It did the trick and Rama walked away, leaving her daughter stabbed and bleeding in the hallway. Rama had better things to oversee. There had to be the finest choices of both spearmint and peppermint tea, for one, the dates had to be curated by the best eye, and the coffee presented in the finest thermos. The only thought she spared for her daughter's feelings was sending Layan her way.

When the doorbell finally rang, Rama called out for her husband. He shouted back, hurrying past her. Rama briefly tsked at the short, dark hairs peppering the front of his collar from his shave before deciding to let that particular dog lie as the men were let in and she went to wait in the next room.

Rama controlled her meddling for as long as she could before she gave in, eavesdropping through the cracked open door just in time to catch Nada's exchange with the suitor's.

"Yes? And how are you?"

"Fine, and you?"

"Perfect."

Rama didn't know whether her daughter thought she was stupid and frankly didn't care, but she heard something in those words that took her half a century back to her own betrothal.

And she wasn't a smiling sort of woman but the one that split across her face would've made anyone bet that she was as she huffed, Finally.