I did not want Mama to see me like this. I did not want her in this place with these noises and awful smells. Looking back, I think seeing me in prison must have been the most heartbreaking experience of her life. I was determined not to upset her more and kept smiling the whole time. Mama’s face was red, and she was drenched in sweat. She could barely speak; she had lost her voice from crying. She put her ear on one hole, and I put my mouth over another and tried to reassure her, shouting into the hole because there was no other way to be heard. I made up my mind that I did not want her to return. I was starting to feel as broken as she was. All around us, visitors were turning to stare at Mama and me. They were much more interested in me than in the prisoners they had come to visit.
During Friday prayers at mosques across the country, the imams stood up and applauded my arrest. In fiery sermons, they denounced me as a bad influence on other women. They condemned me for “corrupting the society” and they accused me of blasphemy and seeking to destroy Islam. I was referred to as a “whore” and a “prostitute.” According to the imams, prison was the only appropriate place for Manal al-Sharif.
I wrote and signed an official complaint about being denied a visit with a lawyer. After that, the prison head said I might meet with my lawyer in the presence of a soldier rather than a guardian or mahram. So on Saturday, the next official visiting day, I made my one phone call to a lawyer whose number I had been given.
“Is this Mr. Adnan?” I asked, hoping he would not hang up and my call would not have been wasted.
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Manal al-Sharif, I’m calling you from the women’s jail in Dammam. Is there any chance I could meet with you today?”
“Oh, my God, at last we have made contact,” he said. “I have come several times to the jail and tried to get in to see you. I tried to get them to show me the documents relating to your admission and interrogation, but no one would allow me to see anything without a power of attorney. I’m in Al Hasa [about ninety minutes away from Dammam] now, but I can get over there in no time. Are you sure they will allow me to meet with you?”
“Yes, we will be able to meet this time. Thank you. I will wait for you.”
Our morning break in the sun finished at 11:00 a.m. and, like sheep, we were herded back into the dark, smelly cells. I kept watching the clock on the wall. I calculated the drive, how much time it would take Adnan to leave his office, how much time to show his papers at the gate. I couldn’t take my eyes off the clock. I waited to hear the guard’s announcement, telling me, “Your lawyer is here.” But the hours dragged by and no one came.
At 5:00 p.m., my lawyer still hadn’t appeared. Finally they called my name and told me that my family was here. I had a sudden, nightmarish vision of Mama’s tear-stained face looking out at me again from behind those glass windows. “Please, God, not now,” I prayed. I didn’t think I could bear seeing her pain again or watch her face crumple up as she wailed. But the guard didn’t take me to the visiting room with glass windows this time. Instead, she walked me out of the first gate to the second gate, and then the third. “Are they releasing me?!” I thought. She led me to a small room in a building next to the women’s prison.
All she said was, “Wait here.”
I sat down on an aluminum seat next to a small desk, exactly like my teacher’s desk back in school.
A soldier walked in with a pile of papers and a pen in his hand. He asked my name and started interrogating me. There were new questions this time. They all came from the false articles being published in the Saudi newspapers Al Yaum and Alwatan. I had heard the same allegations from my friend at Aramco and later from the prison guards. The articles made it sound as if I was a foreign infiltrator, and that my driving was a plot to destabilize the kingdom.
The man rattled through his list of questions: “Do you have any connections with foreign organizations? Who helped you talk to foreign media? Where are the locations of the demonstrations?”
It seemed that Saudi intelligence was now relying on sensationalist newspapers for information. I wanted to comment, but I held my tongue. I answered everything patiently and signed another statement. Just as I was signing, Muneera walked into the room. Her face was covered and she was completely obscured in black, but I recognized her voice. I felt the most wonderful relief. But when she uncovered her face, I saw sweat on her forehead and that her cheeks were red, as if she had been running.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Muneera assured me that she was fine. “Your mother insisted on coming with me to the jail,” she said. “I remembered how you asked me not to allow her to come in, but what can I do? She cried and shouted hysterically. When we arrived, I asked the guards not to allow her in. I know how painful it is for her to see you like this.” She shuddered just slightly, saying, “I had to keep my face covered, but even so as you pass by the male prisoners’ yard, you feel they are eating you with their eyes.”
“Thank you, Mannori,” I said, using her nickname. “I really owe you a lot.”
As the soldier watched us, we sat there calmly talking about normal things—how the family was doing, if my brother had gone back to work, whether Aboudi was getting better—when I leaned in and took her hand. In my palm was a thin sheet of paper torn from my notebook. While pretending to straighten my abaya and my scarf, I had hastily scrawled a few lines on it with the pen I had used to sign the statement. She felt the paper, cupped her hand slightly, and slipped the note through her abaya. Then, as if making a slight adjustment to her clothing, she maneuvered it through her blouse and into her bra, without the soldier noticing. At least in the prison, the soldiers usually didn’t stare.
On the note, I had written, “Abouya should meet the king. If he doesn’t ask for his pardon, I will be here forever.”
The day I was arrested, almost as soon as he learned the news, Abouya had flown from Jeddah to Dammam. He didn’t know how to book an airline ticket; he had never done so before in his life. My friend Israa got him the ticket and told him that her driver would meet him at the airport. When Muneera told me on the phone that my dad had come, I thought, “Oh my God! Abouya is here. It’s getting bigger. It’s serious.” Now not only was I terrified for myself and my son, I was terrified of what could happen to my dad.