“The little girls look like a formation dancing team.”
“Women aren’t allowed to dance.”
“I know, Yasmin told me that. Men dance. When they have a get-together.” She turned her head away, and caught sight of her face in the wing mirror; her obstinate mouth. “Andrew, about the flat, the point is …”
“The one thing I have never understood,” Andrew said angrily, “is this way you have, of suddenly developing concern about complete strangers.”
“Why? Don’t you think I care about people, as a general rule?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know whether you do or not. But you’re very down on people, aren’t you? You take them apart.”
“Is that what I do?”
“You have your own ideas, about how people should live. And God help anybody who doesn’t come up to your standards.”
“Oh well then, I’ll stop.” She seemed spiritless, withdrawn; she licked her lips, dry from dust. “I’ll try just to have everyone else’s ideas, shall I?”
“That might be better, for the while. And everybody’s idea about the empty flat is that it’s a bit of a joke. And none of our concern.”
“Okay,” she said meekly.
He squeezed her hand. “Come on. Prayers must be over now.”
These monotonous marble halls again. The supermarkets are all well stocked, but there is always some elusive item; this breeds the desire to go to more supermarkets. Shopping is the highest good in Saudi life. Every need and whim under one roof—Lebanese pastries, a Mont Blanc pen, a diamond snake with emerald eyes; a pound of pistachio nuts, two tickets to Bermuda, a nylon prayer rug with built-in compass. Perhaps some blueberry cheesecake ice cream, and Louis Quinze
They made for the pharmacy. There was a young Indian behind the counter. “Could I have a bottle of paracetamol?” Frances said.
The man looked down at the glass-topped counter. He heard. His face, impassive, was dimly reflected; his black mustache, his melancholy eyes. “Or aspirin? Something for a headache?”
She felt Andrew’s presence behind her. The pharmacist looked up, over her left shoulder. “Sir?” he said. “Large bottle, sir, or small?”
They stood outside by a goldsmith’s shop. “Am I visible?” she asked.
“Perhaps too visible,” Andrew said. “Shall we get some takeaway pizza, and save you cooking?”
She seemed to have come to a dead halt—mulish, the bottle of pills in its blue plastic bag held between her hands.
“There’s Marion,” Andrew said. “Hi there, Marion.”
There was a small fountain, greenish water against mosaic tiles: THESE SEATS FOR FAMILY ONLY said a notice. Saudi youths occupied them, stick-thin, aquiline, blank-eyed, and watched Marion advance, puffing a little, pushing her shopping cart, her thin Indian smock pulled tight across the bolster of her bosom.
“Hi,” Frances said. “The man in the pharmacy’s just ignored me. He gave me what I wanted but he pretended that Andrew had asked for it. As if I were a ventriloquist’s doll.”
“Oh, well, yes.” Marion scraped her foot along the floor, as if in embarrassment; her baby-blue eyes were downcast. “That’s what they do.”
“They’re afraid,” Andrew said. His voice seemed unnecessarily loud. “They’re afraid of looking at strange women. In case they’re accused of something. Where’s Russel?”
“He’s at his field-camp. I’m with Jeff. He’s buying a newspaper. Jeffs very good,” she said to Frances. Her soft, toneless voice, if it had expression, would have been defensive. “He takes me shopping. You know Russel never will.”
Frances too shuffled her feet; looked at her watch not too surreptitiously, to indicate, let’s not wait around for Jeff.
“What have you been buying?” Marion asked.
“Headache pills.”
“Oh.” Marion sounded disappointed, as if she would have been just as happy to take part in someone else’s spending. She indicated the pharmacy. “Only they’ve got an offer on Chanel No. 5.”
They made for the nearest exit. The indoor streets were kept icy cold; as they stepped outside, the door held open for them by an overalled Filipino, the hot air would drop over their heads like a blanket. A dozen TV sets, in the shop windows, showed Prince Sultan arriving at an airport; the screen flickered, the scene changed, and there Prince Abdullah was arriving at another. Between the bursts of commentary the national anthem played; it was a frisky, unmemorable tune. Before the Pierre Cardin boutique, turtles swam in gritty pools.
“Of course, you know what they do?” Andrew said.
“What who do?”
“The police—they seal this place off from time to time, wait until it’s really crowded after night prayers, and then they block all the exits. They separate the men from the women and everybody has to show their identification. Then they match up the men with the women. And if the person you’re shopping with isn’t your wife or near relation—you’re in trouble.”
They drove out of the car park. “What sort of trouble?”
