I wanted to cry to my mother, “I’m all alone, Mama. I’m in a hotel room in a strange city, I’m completely broke, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.” But I knew I couldn’t. Mama and Abouya would demand that I come back home.
I sat on the bed and removed my earphones. The silence made every stray sound seemed larger and louder. My room connected to the neighboring room via a locked door, and when night fell, I heard voices beyond the door, a man and a woman. At least I have neighbors, I thought. But when they began to have sex, my peace of mind turned quickly to panic. I was terrified by the sounds I heard. I’d never seen sex in a film and I’d never heard people having it.
I turned on the television. As the woman’s voice became louder and louder, I kept raising the volume to try to drown her out. Finally, with the audio blaring as high as it would go, I broke down in tears and sobbed like a little child.
The next day, I asked the front desk for a room without a connecting door, and I called one of my former classmates. I described what had happened in the hotel and she told me that she could help. She had an uncle who lived nearby. She called him, and then called me back to say that she had given him my number. “He said that he can rent a furnished apartment for you—he’s married and has a family ID. He’ll be waiting for you in front of the hotel tomorrow morning.” Tomorrow was Thursday, then the first of Saudi Arabia’s two weekend days. (It’s now Friday and Saturday.)
The uncle pulled up outside the hotel in a black Mercedes. I’d never ridden alone with a man before, aside from Uncle Ali (the Aramco driver) and a few anonymous taxi drivers. I opened the door hesitantly and climbed into the backseat. “Am I the driver now?” he asked. “Ride with me in the front.” I felt my face grow hot. I threw my black scarf over my face, reluctantly moved into the front seat, and pressed myself as close to the door as possible.
“How are you, Uncle?” I asked. In Saudi culture, it’s customary to refer to older people as uncle and aunt as a mark of respect, hence Uncle Ali—we don’t call anyone by their first names unless they’re the same age as we are or younger.
This uncle wore dark glasses. “I prefer that you use my name,” he responded.
I told him I was looking for a furnished apartment, but instead of looking for a place, he started driving me around Khobar City. “Here’s Al-Rashid Mall, here is Khobar Corniche, and the corniche restaurants.” We spent hours going around in his car, but I felt as if I could say nothing.
As we waited for a traffic light to turn, he asked, “Do you intend to cover your face the whole way?”
I ignored his question and asked, “Can we please go and look for an apartment now?” But we didn’t visit a single place. I was trapped in that car. My hands trembled. I pretended to call my parents on my cell phone. Eventually, the uncle pulled into the parking lot for a grocery store and asked if I wanted a drink. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t speak, I simply shook my head no. I wanted to open the door and run, but I wasn’t even sure where we were. I knew no one.
When he got back in, he was carrying a drink I’d never seen before. “This is called Power Horse. It lets you run like a horse all night long.”
Suddenly I was terrified. “I’m calling your niece now,” I said, feeling my body shake beneath my abaya. “Please take me back to the hotel.”
That apparently was enough. “Okay, okay,” he replied. “But do me a favor, and don’t tell her that we didn’t look.”
This time, I did dial my classmate for real. I told her, “Yes, I’m with your uncle now. We’re on our way back to the hotel.”
I spent my second night in the Eastern Province in tears, just as I’d spent my first. The uncle called and messaged me relentlessly afterward, but I ignored every call and text.
On Saturday, our next work day, I asked Abdulhadi to help me. He promised to find me somewhere to live in the next few days. The week passed very slowly. When I paid attention to the work, I was interested, but my mind was constantly preoccupied with a very different question: where was I going to live? Finally, Abdulhadi called me. “I’ve found you a residential compound in Khobar,” he told me. “They have a collection of prefabricated buildings and they’ve agreed to lease one to you.”
Residential compounds are like islands, completely cut off from Saudi society. They permit their residents to do all the things that are forbidden in Saudi culture; for this reason, Saudi citizens are usually not allowed to live in them. The compounds’ residents are normally Europeans and Americans; their companies cover their rent, which is typically around four or five times the cost of a regular apartment. I told him that I didn’t have any money to pay up front. “Can I pay for this month when I receive my salary?” I asked. Abdulhadi promised to lend me the full amount, with the understanding that I’d pay him back once I got my housing allowance.
He gave me the address of the compound and I took a taxi there. My future home was part of a collection of temporary units still in need of the most basic things like windows, doors, and furniture. “We’re in the process of finishing them,” the compound manager promised me. “They’ll be open by the end of the week.” When the end of the week arrived and I could leave work for the day, I gathered up my things from the hotel room and headed to the compound. The temporary houses were still not ready; in fact, nothing had changed since my first visit. No furniture, no windows, and not a door in sight.
My knees grew weak and the world started to spin before me. I dialed the division planner’s number and prayed to God that he would answer—he didn’t have to, since it was after official working hours. Relief surged through me when he picked up. “I’m here on the street with my bag,” I told him. “My housing was supposed to be ready today, but it didn’t happen. Can you call the hotel again? I’m forever grateful . . . I promise I’ll find somewhere to live within a few days.”
I called Abdulhadi every day the following week, but he no longer answered his phone. I’d either become a nuisance, or he’d changed his mind about lending me rent money. The division planner had no advice; he just told me emphatically that I had to leave the hotel at the end of the week. I talked to the division head, the man who oversaw our division, but he had nothing to say. I was lonely, desperate, and angry. At that moment, I truly understood what it meant to be a Saudi woman. It meant being confronted with every possible kind of obstacle and discrimination. It meant being told that if you want to race with men, you’d have to do it with your hands and legs cut off. I started to wish I had been born somewhere—anywhere—else.
There seemed to be no other option except to back down, admit defeat, call my father, and request to return to the gloomy apartment in Mecca. That night, I slept without crying. My tears had dried up.