“Orf. You broke orf.”
“Good, we agree. I broke no traffic code.” It was a small victory, but I wanted to prove to at least the men in the room that I had broken no Saudi statute by driving.
“Still, you have to sign the pledge. Or else, sadly, we must put you in detention,” the police chief said.
My brother signed the pledge. I signed the pledge. I said to myself as I wrote my name, “I’m going to use the fact that I broke orf and no code to keep going.” Orf was not a reason not to drive. When it was done, I asked for a copy of the pledge. The answer was no.
It was after eleven when we were released from the station.
“I had no idea it would turn into this, I am so sorry. We didn’t mean to keep you here this late,” the chief said. His face and his words seemed genuine, and I wondered for a moment if he was sorry for more than the five hours that had passed.
We were halfway out the door when we were told that we couldn’t go home in my brother’s car. It had been impounded. If he wanted it back, he would have to plead his case at the governor’s office. Exhausted, my brother and I decided we would return in a few days to deal with his car and to file complaints. The traffic police called a taxi for us.
Just behind the taxi were three unfamiliar cars packed with men. We got in the cab and the driver sped off, with the three other cars following in close pursuit. One pulled near to us, and I watched as a man leaned out the window and pointed a long, probing camera lens at me. I never heard the click of the shutter, but I saw the explosion of the flash, lighting up the darkness, blinding me. I put on my scarf and sank as low as I could in my seat.
Saudi roads have checkpoints, where authorities can randomly stop you at any time. As we neared the checkpoint before the Aramco compound, we lost two of the cars, but the third one flashed its high beams, signaling that it wanted us to stop. My brother told the cabdriver to pull over at the checkpoint, and he got out of the car. The reporter following us was from the paper Al Yaum. He told my brother he wanted to talk to me. Pointing to the time on his watch, my brother said no. I squeezed my brother’s hand when he got back in the car and said thanks.
I never expected my detention to be national news, and I thought that I would come home to a silent house, but instead there was a small crowd waiting. After my one furtive phone call from my brother’s car, not only had the local papers reported on what had happened but Ali Alalyani, the host of the 8:00 p.m. Ya Hala show on the Rotana Khalejia channel, had broadcast news of my detention to the entire nation along with these kind words: “We pray that Manal will get back home safe.”
Another Saudi activist, Kholoud, had gone with her driver to the traffic police station and waited outside of the walled compound for hours, phoning in updates. My sister-in-law had contacted Ahmed, who managed the Women2Drive Twitter account. He tweeted out what had happened, thousands more retweeted it, and international press outlets picked up the story. Someone else had put up a “Free Manal” Facebook page, and within a couple of hours it had more than five thousand likes.
My friends were giddy. “The entire world is talking about you!” they exclaimed. “They’re calling you the Saudi Rosa Parks!”
My eyes were watering with emotion, but I couldn’t help laughing. “You are all so silly to worry about me!” I said. I explained that the police chief had crossed out the line about cancelling the June 17 event. I thought that was significant. We had tacitly been given the okay to drive that day. “We won!” I said. “I told you! My dears, you are scared over nothing! We won!”
After such an exhausting day, I wanted to pass at least a few easy hours before dawn broke and a new day began. That, however, was not to be. Before I ever went to bed, the secret police were at my door.
When I finally got to sleep, it was nearly twenty-four hours later, and I was locked inside Dammam Women’s Prison.
My first morning in jail, it was the smell that woke me, the overwhelming stench of cooked food, stale sweat, and human waste. Then I felt the hard surface beneath me and heard the clucking and rolling of unfamiliar vowels, trilling consonants, and sharp, truncated sounds. Any slight pause was filled with the rough buzzing of the overhead lights, which made it always daytime in the windowless room. I closed my eyes tighter: I knew the artificial brightness would stab even more than if I looked out across the gleaming golden desert sand at midday.
Only one thing could get me to sit up that morning: the belief that in a few hours I would be leaving and going home.
I quickly discovered that just as everywhere else, jail had a hierarchy and a routine. There was a woman called Umm Misha’an, who collected our ration coupons and our orders for breakfast. The better-off women refused to eat the prison food; Umm Misha’an would order them freshly cooked falafel sandwiches. The rest of the women were forced to eat the horrible food from the prison’s very dirty kitchen. After Umm Misha’an had gathered up the coupons and the requests, she passed them to a guard who would go to the tiny grocery store next to the prison gate. The guard would return before the gates opened at 9:00 a.m. with everything from feminine hygiene products to shampoo and toothpaste and plastic plates and spoons. At nine, prisoners were allowed out into a very tiny yard with high walls. It was outside, but not open: there was a ceiling that stretched across it, covered with metal shingles.
The first day, I refused to order anything to eat. I kept insisting that I would be leaving. I remember saying, “They are going to open the door now, and I am going to ask about my lawyer. I don’t even know why I am here. I want to leave.”
Umm Misha’an shrugged and said, “Just sit and have breakfast with us.”
So I sat with them. On the second day, I ordered the falafel.
One woman, Maha, was already outside most mornings. She was locked in solitary confinement, but each day, the guards opened the door to her cell and let her into the tiny prison yard. I believe she had been jailed after being accused of murdering her own daughter, but her daughter’s actual murderer was already inside the prison. That’s why Maha asked to be in solitary confinement. Umm Misha’an and Nuwayer would go out and sit with Maha on the ground and eat falafel. In an odd way, it reminded me of my school days and how I would sit with my friends and we would all eat breakfast together.