The Camel Club

Muhammad received the first revelation of the Qur’an from the angel Gabriel. But Muslims use the lunar calendar, so Ramadan comes earlier every year. My parents have celebrated Ramadan during winter and also during summer.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to celebrate Christmas in July. And I can’t imagine fasting like that. Djamila, it can’t be healthy for you.”

“Actually, it is very healthy. And the women with child or nursing, they do not have to fast. The sawm, how you say, the fasting, it purges the body of bad thoughts. It is a cleansing, focusing time of life. I enjoy it very much, and I do not feel hungry at all. I eat the sahur before dawn, and after sunset I can eat the meal. It is not much of a sacrifice.”

Djamila didn’t add that one American meal typically equaled three of hers. “Then at the end of Ramadan we celebrate. It is called ‘id al-fitr. We wear new clothes and exchange nice meals and visit with our friends and family. It is very much fun.”

“Well, I still think it’s unhealthy.” Lori Franklin looked out the window. “It’s a beautiful day, so why don’t you drive the boys to the park and let them burn some energy up? That way the house will be a little quieter when I get home.”

“I will take them, miss. I like to drive very much.”

“Women aren’t allowed to drive in your country, are they?”

Djamila hesitated and then said, “It is true that a woman cannot drive a car in Riyadh, but that is just a local law that has nothing to do with Islam.”

Franklin looked at her with pity. “You don’t have to make excuses. There were lots of things you weren’t allowed to do over there. I know. I watch the news. Forced marriages and men having lots of wives. And you had to wear all those veils and things to cover up your body. And no education. You have no rights at all.”

Djamila looked down for a moment so Franklin wouldn’t see the resentment reflected in her features. When she looked back up, she forced a smile and said in a positive tone, “What you say is not Islam that I know or that most Muslims know. Muslim women are not forced to marry. It is a contract between man and woman, and also between their families. If a divorce happens, God forbid, the woman she is entitled to much property from the man. This is her right by the law, you understand. And a man may have more than one wife, but only if he can support them all equally. Unless a man he is very rich, he only has one wife. And Islam says all should learn, men and women. I receive a good education.

“As for dress, the Qur’an does not say wear this or that. It tells both men and women to be modest and righteous in their dress. God is loving. He knows if one believes in him, that person will make the right choices. Some women choose the veil and the abaya, what you call a body cloak. Others do not.”

“Well, it’s very different here, Djamila. In America you can do anything you want to. Anything. That’s what makes this country so great.”

“Yes, I have heard that. And yet sometimes is doing everything you want to do really that good?”

Franklin smiled. “Absolutely, Djamila, especially if you don’t get caught.”

“If you say so,” Djamila replied, but she didn’t believe any of it.

“Women really run this country, Djamila, we just let men think they do.”

“But women in America, they were not allowed to vote until the twentieth century, is that not so?”

Franklin looked a little put off by this comment but then waved her hand dismissively. “That’s ancient history. Let’s just say we’ve made up for lost time. And the sooner the Muslim women figure that out, the better.”

Djamila chose not to respond to this. She had been instructed not to address such issues with her employer, and yet sometimes she could not help herself.

Franklin said, “I wish you’d reconsider and come live with us. This house is huge.”

“Thank you. But for now I would like to keep our arrangement the same.”

“Okay, whatever you want. I can’t afford to lose you.”

She blew kisses at her sleeping family and left. As Franklin pulled out of the driveway, she glanced at the white van parked there. It had never occurred to her that it was somewhat odd that a woman who before coming to the United States had never driven a car would have shown up for a new job with her very own van and valid driver’s license. However, Franklin already had far too much to occupy her mind than to worry about such a trivial incongruity.

She was in fact not going to play tennis or cards at her country club. In the small bag she carried was a negligee of breathtaking sheerness. She was already wearing the matching thong, and she had seen no reason to wear a bra for what she would be engaged in doing that afternoon. Her only problem would be convincing her very young lover not to tear them off her body.

Djamila went to the window and watched her employer drive away in her little Mercedes sports car. On one afternoon when George Franklin took the day off to spend some time with his sons, Djamila followed Lori Franklin to the country club, where she got into the car of a man who was not her husband. Djamila followed them to a motel. She suspected that that was where the woman was heading now. After all, it was a bit difficult to play tennis without a tennis racket, and Franklin’s was still hanging on a peg in the garage.

Men were clearly not kings in America, Djamila had concluded after only a few weeks in the States. They were fools. And their women were whores.

After her charges’ nap she took them to the park, where they played to exhaustion. Djamila smiled as she watched the oldest boy take great pleasure in running circles around his brothers. Djamila wanted sons, lots of them. And then her smile faded. She doubted that she would ever live to become a mother.

She fed the boys snacks from a picnic basket she’d prepared. After that, Djamila had to chase down the oldest boy, Timmy, to retrieve her cell phone and car keys from him. He’d done this before whenever she left her purse in a place he could reach. She didn’t mind; all children were curious. She loaded the boys into the van, where they immediately fell asleep. Then she took out her rug and performed her midafternoon prayer next to the van. She had brought a small bottle of water and a pan with her to perform her ablution.

While the boys slept, she drove all around Brennan, Pennsylvania. As had often been the case in this area, the town existed because the railroad gods had long ago decided to put a station stop here. These trains carried some passengers but mostly coal and coke to the steel mills and the eastern ports. Now Brennan was rebuilding itself into a posh suburb of Pittsburgh. The town had quaint shops and restaurants, regentrified homes and a sparkling new country club.

Djamila stopped often to take pictures with a small digital camera no bigger than her index finger. As she did so, she spoke into a small recorder, describing things that should have held little importance to a foreign-born nanny shepherding three slumbering boys around; however, all of it interested her. Then she covered the outlying areas, paying particular attention to road configurations.

Finally, she pulled up in front of a beautiful fieldstone estate that was set well back from the road and behind a low wall of locally quarried stone. Such a pretty home, she thought, but far too big. In America everything was too big: from the meals to the houses to the cars to the people. The only things that weren’t big were the clothes. Djamila had seen more butts, breasts and bellies in the last few months than she had seen in all the preceding years of her life. It disgusted her.

Give Djamila the jilbab and a khimar to cover her body, give her even three other wives to compete with, over such “freedom.”

She frowned as she glanced at the sleeping children. Yes, her employers disgusted her with their money and loveless marriage. Even the children in the backseat in one sense disgusted her because they would grow up one day and believe they ruled the world simply because they were Americans. She put the van in gear and drove off.

Djamila would report in tonight on her computer, at the movie site. According to her memorized schedule, the chat room for this night dealt with a film called To Kill a Mockingbird. It was a strange name for a movie, but Americans, she knew, were strange. Yes, strange, violent and, most frightening of all, completely unpredictable.