Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (41 page)

Aziza posed by the little arched iron footbridge which crossed

the canal; then she climbed the bridge to pose again, leaning

on the railing and looking into the water romantically.

The Buick roared up just before sundown and we clambered

gratefully in. It was good to be rescued on the lonely road as

night approached and the only human habitation for miles

those unfriendly families in the mud huts. It was very cosy in

the car. The lights were on in El Nahra and it was actually

dark when we reached my door. On impulse, I asked the girls

to have supper with me, as Bob was eating in the mudhif.

Over cold chicken and salad, watered yogurt and tea, Aziza

became quite eloquent. The subject was tribal purity, and

Laila supported her effusively on every point. Neither girl, it

appeared, would ever dream of marrying a man not of her own

tribe.

“It is—it is—” fumbled Aziza, looking desperately for an

explanation which might appeal to my strange Western mind,

“it is like the British royal family,” she finished triumphantly.

“They do not sully their bloodlines. Why? Because they are

proud of their lineage. That is the way we feel.”

“But if a man from another tribe were very handsome and

very rich would you marry him?” asked Laila.

“I might like to, if I saw him and fell in love with him,” said

Aziza.

“I would, if my father asked me to,” burst out Laila.

“Any girl would do whatever her father asked,” retorted

Aziza, “but my father would never ask anything like that. In

our tribe we are very tall and we want to keep the tallness.”

“Of course,” said Laila politely, and then to make amends

she added, “your cousin is very tall.” “Yes,” said Aziza.

At that moment Mohammed called through the shuttered

window to ask if he could speak to me privately. I was

surprised, for Mohammed never interrupted or intruded when

I had guests, especially women. I excused myself, and Aziza

asked me as I went out whether Mohammed could walk her

home, as she did not like to return to the school alone in the

dark.

Mohammed waited in the kitchen.

“Sitt,” he burst out without even a prefatory greeting,

“something very bad has happened.”

“What?” I cried, my mind jumping to a vision of Bob lying

dead in a ditch out in the middle of the plain.

“It is Laila,” he said.

“Laila?” I echoed, in some perplexity.

“Yes, Laila. Isn’t she in your room now with the

schoolteacher?”

I nodded.

“Didn’t you take her with you this afternoon?”

“Yes,” I said, still not understanding.

“You should not have done that,” said Mohammed

solemnly. “In fact, you should never have gone at all without

asking your husband.”

My first reaction was one of irritation. What right had

Mohammed to tell me what I must and must not do?

“Thank you very much, Mohammed,” I said as calmly as I

could, “but I am sure my husband would not object. After all,

I was with the schoolteacher, whom everyone respects.”

Mohammed brushed my reply aside with a gesture of

impatience. I could hardly believe that this was Mohammed,

who never spoke like this to anyone, and had never presumed

to discuss my conduct with me. But he continued firmly, “Sitt,

you are a foreigner and although you wouldn’t, I should think,

want to ruin your good name, you don’t have to live here. The

schoolteacher’s cousin is a very bad man; he drinks and

gambles and stays with bad women in Diwaniya.”

I opened my mouth to interrupt but Mohammed held up his

hand warningly.

“Laila is in great danger,” he said. “If anyone”—he paused

and repeated “—anyone were to know that she went riding

with a strange unmarried man without men from her family

present, she could be killed. Her father would have to do it to

save the honor of the other women of the family. Do you

understand?”

Yes, now I did understand, with the sickening realization

that one has as a child of being caught in an act of serious

wrongdoing, conscious that there will be no discussions or

excuses, no opportunity to explain. It is done and one is to

blame and waits for punishment.

“What shall I do, Mohammed?”

“You must deny that Laila was with you. Say it was a

cousin of the schoolteacher. I know Laila went and so do

some of the children who saw you go, but I will deny it and so

will the children because they like Laila.”

“But Mohammed, she is here now, eating supper with me.

Everyone will know that, and will see her leave.”

Mohammed paused. “You could say that she camp after the

ride to eat supper with you,” he decided. “Perhaps you had

better explain to the schoolteacher.”

I went in to Laila and Aziza, where they sat chatting

happily, and told them what Mohammed had said. “We must

swear it was a cousin of yours in the car, Aziza,” I finished,

“and all stick to that story.”

“Yes,” said Aziza.

Laila’s holiday manner disappeared as I talked; she now

rose abruptly, knocking her half-full glass of tea all over her

abayah. I pushed my handkerchief at her, but she did not take

it.

“Never mind, never mind,” she said and wiped ineffectually

at the wet abayah with her hand.

“I must leave,” she said, shaking our hands perfunctorily

and going out quickly.

Aziza and I were left looking at each other. “I should have

known better,” she said. “I know how conservative these

people are; after all, I grew up as Laila did. That is why I

made a point of asking whether her father would allow her to

go. When she said yes, I was too careless to press it further.

“We must say nothing,” she added. “The least they can do

is to beat her. Let us hope they do nothing worse.”

Mohammed coughed discreetly outside the window where

he was waiting to escort Aziza home. He would walk, as he

walked with me, a few steps ahead to lead the way; and he

would wait until the school gate had clicked shut behind Aziza

and only then return.

Aziza took my hand.

“I’m sorry our lovely afternoon finished this way,” she said.

My face must have shown what I felt, for she added

quickly, “Don’t worry, please. If no one will admit that she

went with us, it will be all right.”

When Aziza had gone, I sat appalled at the possible

consequences of my thoughtlessness. I tried to busy myself

tidying up our two rooms, but I had a bad hour, alternately

imagining Laila weeping and beaten, or Laila thrown into the

canal and drowned (would they tie her hands and feet?). There

should be something I could do to help, but, alas, there was

nothing. What I had done could not be repaired by any words

or action of mine.

Bob’s appearance was hardly reassuring. He had just spent

an extremely uncomfortable half hour in the mudhif being

scolded by Nour for his husbandly neglect in letting me go out

alone. Poor Bob had been at a disadvantage, for he had been

away from El Nahra the entire afternoon and knew nothing of

what had happened.

“I covered you, I think,” Bob said, “by saying that I had

told you beforehand that you could go, but I didn’t know

anything about the sheik’s women, fortunately. When they

asked me who was in the car with you, I said quite truthfully

that I had no idea. But I have never seen Nour so upset. He

spoke very abruptly. He has never acted this way in all the

time we have been here.”

Bob was as upset as I.

“I’m afraid you’ve made quite a blunder,” he said. “You

might have asked me before you went. You’ve made me look

foolish and compromised your friend.”

“I know, I know,” I wailed, “but what can I do?”

He thought for a moment. “I think you probably should stay

here, but I had better go back to the mudhif and act as if

nothing were wrong. Maybe I can find out what is

happening.”

We both knew this was unlikely. Whatever Laila’s

punishment, it would be administered behind the high walls of

her house. What actually took place would be known only

long after.

Bob on his return had little to report. Nour had seemed

calmer, but had repeated his earlier strictures on Bob’s

conduct. “Nour is being overconscientious because Sheik

Hamid is in Baghdad,” Bob said.

“If only the teacher’s cousin hadn’t been such a rake,” he

added, “I have the feeling it might not have been so bad. Nour

may be afraid that the cousin will gossip about Laila and you

in the Diwaniya coffee shops. Then the tribe will lose face.

This business of the good name of their women being the

honor of the tribe is no joke.”

Neither of us slept much that night. I reproached myself

again and again for being so thoughtless. After all, Aziza had

asked Laila and she, Laila, had made her own decision about

going. It was not all my fault. But I knew that I should have

been perceptive enough to realize that it was an almost

unheard-of action for as sheltered a girl as Laila. I was older

and, as a married woman, theoretically I was more

responsible. On the other hand—and so I argued back and

forth.

Mohammed, when he came in the morning, had not

dropped his role of counselor-adviser. This must mean that the

situation was still grave, but when I asked he said he did not

know what had happened. He told me not to visit Laila’s

house but instead to visit the sheik’s house. This seemed like a

good way to appear unconcerned and a wise move in general,

but I found it very difficult to walk up the path that morning,

past Laila’s house (what was going on inside?) and into

Selma’s courtyard. I sat down in the bedroom and prepared

myself to face questioning. Selma and Samira sat with me,

and Kulthum came in to drink tea. Several other women

stopped momentarily, but an hour passed with no mention of

yesterday.

Bob told me at lunchtime the men too had stopped talking

about it in the mudhif. I asked Mohammed at nightfall if he

had heard any news.

“Laila is all right, I think,” he said, “but she hasn’t been out

of her house all day, and neither have her sisters.”

At this I felt a great sense of relief, although Mohammed

warned me again never to mention the episode to anyone. It

would, he said, be all right for me to visit Laila the next day.

Laila greeted me cheerfully. I had just about decided

Mohammed had exaggerated the seriousness of the whole

affair when Laila left the room, and her three older sisters

came in and closed the door. They proceeded to give me the

politest, most cutting lecture I have ever received.

I was thoroughly embarrassed as the girls pointed out the

damage I had nearly done.

“We know that you don’t understand our ways,” said

Fatima.

“We realize you didn’t mean any harm,” put in Nejla.

“We just wanted you to understand …” Sanaa left her

sentence unfinished.

None of the three actually mentioned the facts of the case,

and when I put in, rather crossly, that after all Laila had come

of her own accord, they merely looked at their hands.

Finally Fatima said, “Yes Beeja, we know she should not

have gone. We have scolded her already, but she is young and

silly. You are older and a married woman and have been to

school. If our father knew for certain, he would beat her very

hard. We were all so frightened for Laila last night.”

The three girls stared at me in a somber way, while I felt

they were willing me to imagine the things that might have

happened to Laila. I dropped my eyes before that steady,

virtuous, oppressive gaze, saying I was very sorry for the

trouble I had caused.

Fatima caught me by the hand. “We will never mention this

again,” she said.

Gradually our pattern of visiting re-established itself, the

men in the mudhif no longer discussed the question, and I

thought the incident forgotten completely. But two months

later I was drinking tea with Selma. We were discussing I

don’t remember what, when she casually asked, “Who was in

the car with you, Beeja, when Sitt Aziza took you for a ride?”

“Aziza’s cousin from Diwaniya,” I replied promptly.

“What was her name?” inquired Selma, pouring a little hot

tea into the saucer and blowing it.

“I’ve forgotten.”

“Many people say that it was Laila in the car,” said Selma,

offering a little of the cooled tea to her three-year-old

daughter, who sipped it noisily.

“They are wrong,” I lied.

One of the women said, “But my daughter told me she saw

Laila get into the car.”

“So did mine,” put in another.

My uneasiness was growing, but Selma cut the two women

short.

“Didn’t you hear Beeja?” she asked. “Are you calling our

guest Beeja a liar?”

No more was said. But I began to realize that Bob and I

would never be other than foreigners, even though our efforts

to conform to the local customs might prove ingratiating. No

one would seriously blame us for our lapses, but we had to