The Green Bicycle (19 page)

I
qbal's battered car jolted into potholes and juddered over speed bumps, making its shaky way forward through the neighborhood. In the back, Wadjda and her mother sat, neither one speaking. Every so often, Wadjda's mother adjusted her
niqab
, pulling the veil tight around her head. But every new vibration and bump shook the fabric off again.

They stopped at a traffic light across from the toy shop, and Wadjda leaned over to see if she could spot her green bicycle. It should be there, waiting for her.

Instead, to her shock, she saw the shopkeeper talking to a man and his son. They were standing by her bicycle, staring right at it! Now the owner reached out, put his hand on the crossbar, and gestured to the seat. Though Wadjda couldn't hear what they were saying, a feeling in her gut told her they were bargaining.

No, no, no!
Wadjda pressed her face against the dirty window, squinting, trying to get a better look. At that moment, the owner raised his head and spotted her, saw her wide eyes staring longingly through the glass. Wadjda
saw his own eyes widen in recognition. But then he looked away, smiled, and kept talking to the potential buyer.

The man and his son wore crisp, shiny
thobes
.
They must have a lot of money
, Wadjda thought,
to afford that kind of fabric
. The man's white
ghutra
and neat black
iqal
resembled the ones her father kept for special occasions. The bike's eight-hundred-Riyal price tag was probably no big deal to them.

Iqbal shifted into gear, and the car rattled off down the street. For a desperate moment, Wadjda considered opening the door and jumping out, but good sense prevailed, and instead she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She wanted to chase away the man and his annoying son, to yell at the owner for even showing her bicycle to anyone else! Confused, her mother glanced over at her, and then peered out the window to see what had put her daughter in such a state. Behind them, the green bicycle sparkled in the sun.

A moment later, they rounded a corner, turning onto a big main street. Wadjda could no longer see the toy shop in the rear window. Fuming, she fell back into her seat, caught the hem of her
abayah
in her hands, and began twisting it into knots.

“Madame, only one hour,” Iqbal called from the driver's seat in his usual broken Arabic. “I have no time to wait for you. You are late, I go. You find taxi.”

“We understand, Iqbal,” Mother said. “Enough.”

To stop him from talking to her, she pulled out her phone and pretended to text. Wadjda's eyes roamed the interior of the car, looking for something to take her mind off the bicycle. She paused on the little girl's picture, taped—as always—to the dashboard. Wadjda folded her arms across the top of the front passenger seat and pushed her veil up out of her face, trying to get a better look. The girl in the picture had big dark eyes, a mole on one cheek, and a sweet smile, with one tooth missing.

“Who's the little girl, Iqbal?” Wadjda asked.

“This is my daughter,” he said, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I didn't see her for three years now.”

He shook his head, sad but smiling, and adjusted the picture to give Wadjda a better view.

“She goes to school.” He paused, and then added, “I didn't go to school.”

There was so much pride in his voice. It touched Wadjda, but she didn't show it. This was Iqbal, after all. Sarcasm was always the better option.

“Obviously you didn't go to school, because you don't have any manners,” she said, trying to tease him. In the rearview mirror, Iqbal saw the gleam in her eye.

“You, too, have no manners,” he retorted, half smiling. Wadjda gave him a grin, showing her teeth, and stuck out
her tongue. Her mother pulled her back into her seat, clucking impatiently. She needed nothing more than her eyes to show Wadjda that it was time to knock it off.

The car bounced and swerved as it sped across the empty desert. In the last week, the weather had cooled even more. Days like this one were almost pleasant. But it was also the time of year when the blasting storms, or
huboob
, rolled through, covering everything in sand. The
huboob
always seemed magical to Wadjda. Often, it moved into Riyadh like a rounded wall, the front edges of its sandy cloud reaching into every nook and cranny like the inquisitive fingers of a giant.

Would it come tonight? Wadjda wondered, pressing her face back against the window. Already visibility was limited. Gusts of sand, driven by the wind, covered the road ahead of them. But it wasn't a real storm, not yet.

T
he mall was bright, cool, and crowded, its arched hallways full of people rushing in every direction, trying to get their shopping done before the stores closed for dusk prayer. All the female shoppers looked the same, distinguishable only by the make and size of their handbags. The men looked more or less the same, too. Every one of them seemed to be wearing a white
thobe
and red-checked
ghutra
. And every person in the mall had the same harried look in his or her eyes—including Wadjda's mother.

The second floor, where they were heading, was especially crowded with figures dressed in black or white.
It looks like a giant chessboard,
Wadjda thought. But the pieces were shifting too fast for her to keep track of them. Her mother walked ahead, moving quickly, not looking at the masses of laughing, chatting people.

Behind her, Wadjda lingered, moving aimlessly. At a kiosk selling accessories and small pieces of jewelry, she stopped. Heading straight to the salesperson, she pointed accusingly at the rack of bracelets. They looked just like the ones she wove, but without the homemade touch that
made hers special. The sign above read, O
NLY 20
R
IYALS
!

“I make better bracelets than these,” Wadjda said, winding one of the poor imitations between her fingers. “How much will you pay me to make you some? Ten Riyals apiece?”

“No thanks,” the guy behind the counter said, laughing. “I buy them from China, little girl. For ten Riyals, I can get ten thousand.”

“China won't do the national colors!” Wadjda countered.
Her custom bracelets are a far superior product,
she thought, examining the one in her hand closely. This twine was cheap. The color would fade, or it would break, after only a few wears.

“You mean like this?” the salesman spun the rack, pointing to bracelets in several variations of Saudi green and white.

“Wadjda! Where are you? Wadjda!”

Oops.
Standing on tiptoe, Wadjda searched the mall, striving to make out the source of her mother's voice. The shout came again, this time clearly from above. Wadjda looked up and saw her mother, already on the upper level, glaring down at her through the small slit that exposed her eyes. Waving off the ignorant shopkeeper, who had no idea how great a business deal he'd just blown, Wadjda raced to the escalator.

On the way, she passed a series of posters. The first advertised the most Islamic method of wearing the veil. The second was about the importance of acting decent in mixed-gender
places, like the mall and the big open-air marketplace of the
souq
. Running around wasn't okay, apparently.
Too bad
, Wadjda thought, shuffling as fast as she could up the escalator.

When she caught up to her mother, she was dawdling in front of a dress shop at the far end of the corridor. A large assortment of gowns filled the window. They were in every color of the rainbow, and most were embellished with crystals and beading. A beautiful red dress stood out among the others, and it was this fantastic creation that Wadjda's mother was staring at hungrily.

They walked inside, and her mother reached out to feel the fabric of the red dress. She caressed the silk, letting it run across her fingers. Something about the way she studied it broke Wadjda's heart. There was such yearning in that gaze. Or maybe it was the contrast between the bright red garment and her mother's featureless black
abayah
.

Suddenly, as if she'd snapped out of a trance, Mother dropped the sleeve of the red dress and walked over to the salesman.

“May I see the red dress in the window, please?” she asked. From her body language, Wadjda could tell she felt uneasy talking to this strange man. Her mother's shoulders were stiff, and she hung back cautiously, not coming close to the salesman as they talked.

Turning away, Wadjda plopped down on a chair near
the entry and stared out at the action in the corridors. From the corner of her eye, she saw the salesman remove the dress from the mannequin in the window. Quickly, he covered the naked form with a cloth. Then, critically, he ran his eyes up and down the full length of her mother's body. His scrutiny made her blush. Wadjda saw the tops of her pink cheeks beneath her veil.

“It's a beautiful dress,” he said, “but maybe a little big for you.”

Her mother nervously tucked her hands into her
abayah
, like a turtle retreating back into its shell.

“What size is it?”

“Large,” the salesman said. Wadjda's mother was petite, and he seemed confident that it would overwhelm her slender frame.

“That's all right.” Her mother spoke fast, like she was hoping to end the conversation as soon as possible. “Can I try it?”

“Sure,” the salesman shrugged. “You can use the women's bathroom.” He pointed toward the public washroom at the very end of the corridor. “If it turns out to be big, we can tailor it for you. After you pay a deposit, of course.”

Dressing rooms were not allowed in individual shops. It wasn't okay for women to take their clothes off in open, unprotected places—or so the reasoning went. Wadjda had heard that salesmen sometimes put up secret cameras or
drilled holes in the walls so they could see naked women while they changed. To stay safe from prying eyes, women had to try on clothes in the public bathrooms instead.

In the small, cramped room, Wadjda perched uncomfortably on the hard edge of the sink while her mother changed in the stall. The bathroom had a squat toilet, nothing more than a hole in the ground with grooves on either side for the feet. The floor was wet from splashing water, so her mother changed gingerly, standing on tiptoes, trying not to let her clothes touch the floor. Positioning her body awkwardly near the door, she struggled to finish zipping the dress while holding its hem up between her legs.

“I know it's a lot of money,” her mother whispered, “but I have to show your father that he can't do better than me.”

Her mother wasn't really talking to her,
Wadjda thought.
She was just trying to comfort herself.
Since no reply was needed, Wadjda kept playing with the soap dispenser: pushing the lever, filling her cupped palm with soap, then rinsing it off and watching bubbles foam up in the sink. It was boring, but at least it was something to do.

Despite all the distractions of the mall, her mind was still full of thoughts about her bicycle. That stupid rich kid was probably riding it around now, getting it all muddy. And here she was, trapped and helpless, playing with
soap
, totally unable to stop him.

After what felt like forever, her mother opened the stall door and stepped out. She spun in a slow circle, showing off the dress. Even in the dank, smelly bathroom, with its flickering fluorescent lights, her beauty was undeniable. But Wadjda, leaning over the sink, holding her mother's
abayah
in her nonsoapy hand, was still too preoccupied with thoughts of her bike to do more than give a half nod.

“Do you think your father will like it?” Mother asked, twirling around. Again, she spoke more to herself than to Wadjda. As the shopkeeper had predicted, the dress was way too big. She had to pull the sides tight around her waist to imitate a proper fit. Noticing this, Wadjda shrugged and held her hands out to either side, to show how huge the dress looked.

“Let's take it back to the salesman. I'll give him a deposit so he can start getting it fitted.” Mother sounded annoyed that Wadjda wasn't being more supportive. “Then we have to go quickly, before Iqbal gets angry and leaves.”

She raised the dress up to her ankles and went back into the stall. Wadjda jumped off the sink and handed her the
abayah
, passing the bundled cloth carefully over the door.

“Don't worry,” she said quietly. “He won't leave.”

Strangely, it was true. She trusted him.