That summer I developed an obsession with bathing; morning and night, I would soak in the bathtub for hours. For the first time ever, my bathwater flowed from the taps on demand, and I was determined to enjoy it.
I began my duties as a trainee in the employment office, working under a man named Abdulhadi. He was young and animated. Everything about him was quick: his speech, his steps, how he moved his hands. It was hard to understand half of what he said, but he was cheerful and I loved working with him. Abdulhadi assigned me a number of tasks, many of them completely new to me, and one by one I learned to carry them out. This won me respect and appreciation, especially from the department administrator. At the end of the month I received my first paycheck. I bought Rado watches for Mama and Abouya. Mama wore her gold watch with a circle of tiny diamond chips around the face until she died; Abouya still wears his each day.
As the end of the summer approached, the administrator told me there was a vacancy in the department. “Why don’t you submit an application?” he asked. But Abdulhadi had already suggested my classmate Marwa for the position. So he set about trying to find another vacancy for me. One morning he told me that a new division for information security had been established in the Information Technology Business Line. They were hiring recent graduates. If I wanted to go for an interview, there was a good chance I would get a place. The division was a lot more relevant to my field of study: the Employment Office had limited opportunities for someone with a computer science background.
I had two interviews. Although my competitors were all graduates of American universities, I was offered a position. “They gave you an official post?” Abdulhadi asked me afterward. “I thought they’d only hire you on a contractual basis. You’re very lucky.” I didn’t understand the difference at the time—all that mattered to me was the job—but later I learned that I had indeed been very lucky. Contract employees were only hired for one year at a time; your services might be terminated at any point, and you didn’t have the right to medical insurance or various other privileges the official employees enjoyed. Because of this, an official post with Aramco was very hard to come by. When I signed the contract, I couldn’t believe the starting salary—8,000 riyals, with an extra 400 added due to my graduating with honors. This was double what my classmate Maram (who’d told me my best hope was to become an instructor in a training institute) had predicted.
There was, however, one clause in the contract that had been crossed out in blue pen: “At the employee’s desire, the company will provide them with a residence in the dedicated staff compound in the location of their work.” I asked why it had been erased. “I’m sorry,” she told me, “Saudi women aren’t allowed to live there.”
“Is it permitted for Saudi men?” I asked.
Yes, she replied. Saudi males could live there, along with men and women of other nationalities.
“But I’m an intern,” I said, “and I was given a house there. Why not now, since I’m going to be a full-time employee?”
“After this year,” she said, “the company will no longer provide accommodation for female interns either.”
No one was ever able to explain why. There were rumors the ban had been ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. But, if so, why did they not ban women from driving, ban the consumption of alcohol, end mixed work environments, close the movie theaters, and require women to wear an abaya? Others said that it was the result of bad behavior by a Saudi woman, who had been forced to leave. Whatever the reason, the consequences were more serious than I could have imagined. The Ministry of the Interior prohibited Saudi women from living in a hotel or furnished apartment without her guardian or a mahram. The rules also prevented landlords from leasing to women; the lease agreement had to be in the name of a man, even if it was a woman who would pay the rent.
As I signed the employment contract, I briefly wondered if I was making a mistake. I had a way out of Mecca, but how would I find a place to live? I didn’t mention my housing worries to my father for fear that he’d refuse to sign my papers; I still needed a guardian consent form.
When I called my mother to tell her, our conversation was formal and bittersweet. “Congratulations, Daughter,” she offered, somewhat sadly.
“It’s good news, Mama!” I reassured her. “We’re not going to live in poverty and need anymore; we’ll lead a new life, a better one, I promise. You won’t need your sewing machine after today.”
“But you’ll be far away from me.”
“I’ll visit you, Mama. It’s only two hours on the airplane.”
Despite everything, I was certain I’d miss my father and mother very much. But I couldn’t for one moment pretend that I’d miss our neighborhood. Nor would I miss our problems, our unhappiness, or the constant interference in my private life. These were the things I’d already been trying to escape.
After talking to Mama, I called my old classmate Maram. “Please congratulate me,” I said, “I signed a contract with Aramco, and my salary is twice what you predicted I would earn. Isn’t it good news?” I was shocked by her cold response.
“Aramco, and you’ll work with men! You’ll never marry, Manal—not now, not ever.”
After that, I didn’t call Maram again.
The summer internship program ended, and I was forced to return to Mecca until the employment papers were complete. Earlier in the summer, the landlord of my parents’ apartment building had decided to tear down the building to construct new, furnished apartments to house pilgrims traveling to Mecca, and my family had been evicted. I was shocked when I saw where they had moved. If I had thought that our previous apartment was old and miserable, it was nothing compared to this one. I phoned the Aramco employment office every week to find out when I’d be able to return. The longer I stayed in Mecca, the more suffocated I felt, and I prayed to God that it wouldn’t be long. To pass the time, I spun dreams about the future: I would use my first two paychecks to move my family to a new apartment, in a new neighborhood. I couldn’t wait.
Before I could do any of this, however, I had to find my own place to live. Otherwise, I would be employed but homeless. After two long months, at the beginning of October 2002, Aramco said the paperwork was ready. All that was needed was for my father to sign the guardian consent form. Then I would be given a plane ticket to the Eastern Province.