Strangers. Danuta Reah

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СКАЧАТЬ with familiarity, or if they were condemned by custom and protocol to travel this route in silence for the next year.

      They were leaving the city centre now, travelling fast along an eight-lane highway. She could see a haze of green in the distance, and as it drew closer the driver pulled across and took a turn-off, pulling up at a security gate.

      Roisin remained mute and invisible in the back while the driver carried out the negotiations. Beyond the checkpoint she could see a landscaped park with packed red earth, green lawns, palm trees and low shrubs. As the car moved slowly past the barrier, she could see that the grass of the lawns was patchy as it fought to survive in the dry terrain, but otherwise, she was looking at a futuristic arcadia on the edge of the biggest desert in the world.

      The buildings were high with curved, sweeping roofs, lifted off the ground on pillars or pointing, needle thin, to the sky. Even this early in the day, the campus was busy. Students wandered across the open spaces, young men in white thobes with red ghutra. There were no women visible, apart from her, and she was enclosed in the separate world of the car, hidden behind her abaya and headscarf. No one glanced her way.

      The driver stopped at a second gate. ‘Woman college,’ he said. Only the second time he had spoken.

      Roisin made sure her headscarf was in place and got out of the car. ‘Thank you. Twelve thirty,’ she said to the driver, who nodded abruptly and pulled away.

      She stepped through the door into the building that housed the women’s campus.

      Cool twilight enclosed her. She was in a long corridor of high pillars, the ceiling punched with holes to admit the light that fell across the shadows in beams of gold where the dust motes danced. It was cloister-like in its silence. There were no groups of young women passing time chatting and laughing. The few women who were there moved purposefully, their footsteps quiet, their eyes cast down. Even though men did not come here–the male teachers taught their classes over video link–they wore the hijab and long skirts. Roisin hesitated then loosened her own headscarf and let it fall round her neck. Until someone told her otherwise, she was going to leave it off. She shook her hair free.

      She followed the signs along the corridor, thankful that they were written in English as well as Arabic, until she found the office of the professor who would be her supervisor. Souad al-Munajjed was an internationally respected academic who taught and researched in the area of foreign language teaching. Roisin was curious to meet her. She knocked on the door, and when a voice responded, she went in.

      Souad al-Munajjed made a lie of any preconceptions that Roisin had brought with her about Saudi women. She was in her late forties, married with children, and a professor of English at the prestigious university. She wrote books, attended academic conferences all over the world and enjoyed an international reputation for her work on translation.

      She stood up from her chair as Roisin entered, moving forward to greet her. ‘Good morning,’ she said in heavily accented English, then switched to Arabic. ‘Peace be upon you.’ She was small and pretty. Like her students, she wore the hijab. Hers was folded in a style that made it drape elegantly over her hair and round her shoulders. Her dress was black and ankle-length, subtly ornamented with silver stitching.

      ‘And upon you peace,’ Roisin responded. Wa-alay-kum as-salam.

      ‘Salaam,’ Souad al-Munajjed corrected her pronunciation and nodded her approval of Roisin’s courtesy. ‘It is good that you speak Arabic,’ she said, reverting to English.

      ‘I speak very little.’

      ‘But you try. This is good.’ She studied Roisin in silence. ‘The bangles you wear, they are very pretty.’

      ‘Thank you. My husband bought them for me when we first arrived, from the market.’

      Souad nodded as if this pleased her. ‘We have good silversmiths here. Now, these first meetings are important, are they not? I would like to introduce to you one of our graduate students who will be your teaching assistant today.’ She indicated a chair in the corner of the room where another woman was sitting, unnoticed until now.

      As she stood up to greet Roisin, it was obvious she was pregnant. ‘I am Yasmin,’ she said.

      She was beautiful. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a black hijab that emphasized the fairness of her skin. A curl of chestnut hair escaped the confines of the scarf. But she looked tired. Roisin could see dark circles of fatigue under her eyes, and lines around her mouth that denoted some kind of strain. ‘I am most pleased to meet you,’ she said. She spoke English with a slight French accent.

      ‘And I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Roisin Gardner.’ Roisin hadn’t had time to get the name on her teaching papers changed to reflect her new status. ‘Will we be working together?’

      ‘Sometimes. I would like to learn better English.’ Her smile to Roisin was cautious. ‘I think I will be your student.’

      ‘Yasmin will assist you in some classes,’ Professor Souad explained. ‘But I cannot spare her all the time. Some days, she teaches in the villages. We have a big programme, funded by our government, to bring education to the village women. Now, my dears, I think we should have tea.’ She picked up the phone and spoke briefly, then sat down and gestured for Roisin to sit next to her. ‘What is your impression of our university?’

      ‘It’s beautiful. But I was surprised there were so few students–in this part, I mean. I thought you had more women than men here.’

      ‘Yes indeed. Our education policies are more enlightened than we are given credit for. But the girls don’t arrive before classes start, unless they are here to see their tutors. Saudi girls don’t waste their time in gossip and “hanging out”.’ She gave the phrase an ironic emphasis. ‘Isn’t that right?’ she added to Yasmin, who smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t worry. Your class will be waiting for you. Now you must tell me about yourself.’

      Over the next fifteen minutes, she subjected Roisin to a friendly but close interrogation, interrupted briefly by the arrival of tea and pastries. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when Roisin told her she had no children. ‘But, my dear, you are already thirty-two!’

      ‘I only got married a few weeks ago,’ Roisin said.

      ‘I had four children when I was your age.’ Souad patted Roisin’s hand. ‘Take my advice. Don’t delay.’

      ‘A lot of women in the West wait until their thirties.’ Roisin noticed with some amusement the flash of slightly contemptuous pity in Souad al-Munajjed’s eyes.

      ‘The students,’ the professor said briskly; ‘you have seen their work online–what do you think of them? And you like our discussion forum? This was my idea.’ She refilled Roisin’s cup unasked, and put a sweet, crumbly pastry on her plate.

      ‘There have been some interesting postings recently.’ Roisin broke off a piece of the pastry and put it in her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue. Its intense sweetness was mellowed by the flavour of spices. ‘I was surprised about the…’ She hesitated for a moment, but these women were too intelligent not to be aware of what she was thinking. ‘I was surprised at the openness of the discussion about women’s rights. And about the vote.’

      The professor nodded slowly. ‘Truly we discourage openly political topics. There are some hotheads who do not understand about debate. Otherwise, why should the girls not discuss what they wish? You must be aware that sometimes they talk without СКАЧАТЬ