Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel

“Ah, a confession.”

“It must be voluntary. The person must know what they are admitting. They must know the punishment.”

“Why should anyone confess then? Unless of course they were forced to?”

“You always think the worst, Frances.”

“It’s a reasonable question.”

Yasmin dropped her eyes. “Guilt. You know of guilt? Also, of course, if you take your punishment in this life you will not get it in the next.”

Frances took a sip of her herb tea. It had a bitter taste, which she couldn’t place. “What is it?”

“A family recipe.” Yasmin relaxed. “My mother should be here to make it for you. My poor mother. She has been on one short visit since I was married, but she has the family, she is kept very much occupied. Raji’s mother, of course, is a widow. He is always the favorite son.”

“I have the impression you don’t get on.”

“In Pakistan it is unknown for the wife and the husband’s mother to agree.” Yasmin made a minute rearrangement of the folds of her long skirt. “Whatever I do for him can never be enough. And that is only the starting point. That is the rule laid down before we begin.”

“You must stand up to her.”

Yasmin laughed shortly. “I cannot. That is not our culture.”

“Why do you let your culture make you suffer? Can’t you break out of it?”

“And besides, it is me, it is not just our culture, it is me, myself, Don’t you see that? I am not married until twenty-nine, an old maid as you say. Oh, my family is good, the best—in origin we are Persian, Frances, did you know? But then again I am tall and have a long nose and have got myself overeducated. Let me tell you, the fight for Raji was long and expensive. And only then because his fiancee died … So you see, I am lucky to be a daughter- in-law at all.”

“I thought education was valued in Pakistan.”

“So it is, but then there are certain things which go along with education, as you know yourself, that if they reach the ears of young men make your value slip a little.”

“Like what?”

“Like asking questions,” Yasmin said. “Like arguing. Like praying too much.”

“Do you pray too much?”

She shook her head, emphatically. “No. It is just a perversion of the Prophet’s real message to believe that women have a secondary kind of soul.” Frances put down her cup. “Some more?” Yasmin said politely.

“No thanks.”

“It’s nasty, but it’s good for you. You will soon feel better.” She smiled.

In the hall, seeing her out, Yasmin picked up her dupatta and draped it over her head. “My driver is coming,” she said. “There is a big party tonight and I am going, so I must be taken to the bank to get my jewels out.”

“Oh, women will be there?”

“Yes. But of course we will have our own party. In our own room.”

Crossing the hall, Frances was angry with herself. Yasmin made her feel clumsy; yet she seemed to want to explain things to her, and sometimes, in an obscure way, she seemed to be asking for help. But what way could that be? Of course she can’t break out of her culture, Frances thought. No more can I break out of mine. No more would I want to; no more does she.

Frances Shore’s Diary: 24 Safar

All right, so I will put down what Andrew told me about the empty flat. I suppose I was being stupid and paranoid last week. Who on earth would want to read my diary?

Andrew was told by someone at Turadup that the flat is kept empty for the use of the Deputy Minister’s brother. He is a married man, and meets a married woman here. It seems it’s a long-running affair.

Even Yasmin had to admit, it does go on. Even in the Kingdom people aren’t perfect. I don’t suppose they have much alternative to setting up an arrangement like this. As Andrew says, they can’t go to a hotel, can they? I suppose they can meet each other outside the Kingdom, but then even if they have their husband’s permission to go abroad, women here don’t travel without a retinue of relatives. Only it seems so risky.

I wonder if Yasmin knows? Or the people upstairs? Is it just gossip at Turadup (because Turadup pays the rent for the whole block) or is it gossip among the Saudi men as well, down at the Ministry? Is it a thing that happens so seldom that everybody’s terrified? Or so often that people just raise their eyebrows and giggle?

And where did they meet? How do a couple meet, and strike up a relationship in the first place, if Saudi social life is what people tell me? How do they get to the stage of having an affair?

I asked Andrew all this and he said he didn’t know. He said that people at Turadup don’t really talk about it. You’re told, but just so that you don’t put your foot in it. I said to him, is it true? He said, of course it’s true, why would anybody want to make it up?

Then I wondered if my questions were naive. You have to understand that there’s a lot of hypocrisy, Andrew said. You mustn’t believe the picture you get from the newspapers.

When Yasmin got home from the bank with her jewels she phoned me up. She quite often phones me, it’s easier for her than getting dressed up to walk across the hall. She said there was something she’d forgotten