Driving the Saudis Page 22

  I kept my head bowed, pretending to look at my ring, not saying anything. Maysam saw that I couldn’t speak. She leaned in close to me and softly pinched my cheek. Then she took my hand, patted it softly and smiled at me. “Yes, Janni, for you.”

  Mouna hurried into the room carrying an overstuffed hotel laundry bag bursting at the seams. Maysam and Zuhur extracted similar plastic bags from underneath the hotel bed, and the girls dropped the three heavy bags at my feet. I looked down and saw that the bags were filled with hundreds of the L’Occitane shampoo, cream, and soap amenities provided by the hotel. The girls knew that I loved them and had been squirreling them away for me. Even a few sewing kits and shower caps were thrown in for good measure.

  “Here, Janni, take, take! For you, Janni. Then you smell so nice, be so soft!” they chanted, showering my lap with tiny bottles.

  Many times in the preceding weeks, I had witnessed the girls shouting at the hotel maids, demanding something and then becoming livid if they weren’t immediately given what they had requested. It was the only time I’d ever seen them angry, and I now realized that they’d been soliciting more toiletries for me. The hotel maids must have seen the huge stash the girls were stockpiling and wondered why the hell they needed more L’Occitane and had attempted to withhold it.

  “I love L’Occitane,” I said. “You know I love it. This is just wonderful.”

  I opened one of the verbena-scented creams right away and smoothed the silky lotion over my hands and elbows. The girls grinned triumphantly, looking satisfied with themselves, and then Zuhur double-layered each L’Occitane bomb in another plastic laundry bag so that I’d be able to carry them downstairs without mishap. Mouna procured a gargantuan Jimmy Choo boot bag from Basmah’s room as camouflage for my booty so that the hotel security wouldn’t think I was making off with a two-year supply of their amenities, which of course I was.

  I carried the Quran around with me the rest of the day. I didn’t want to stash it with all the soaps and creams, and I didn’t want to leave it in the trunk of my car next to the spare tire and tool kit.

  —

  Just before the family’s departure, the lobby of the hotel and the breezeway were maelstroms of frantic commotion, with people shouting in frustration, flying about this way and that hustling to get the group ready to leave. As I waited in the convertible for my passengers, every now and then I would finger the envelope in my pocket. I tried not to think about it.

  I knew that Rajiya desperately did not want to leave and had been pleading with her mother to allow her to stay on for the rest of the summer with some cousins who had a home in Bel Air. I was afraid that they would expect me to continue being her driver if she stayed here, and I was simply not prepared for that. I was toast. Kaput. Totally done. Malikah said that the family wanted to be back in Saudi Arabia for Ramadan, which would commence in a few weeks. I was relieved when it looked as if Rajiya’s appeal wasn’t getting any traction.

  The cars were lining up in the breezeway directed by one of the doormen, and when he saw me approach in my vehicle, he immediately waved me to the front of a lane near the lobby stairs since he knew I was driving Princess Rajiya. The lanes were cordoned off by four-foot-high green pillars bolted into the driveway, which the valets could reposition as they managed the traffic flow. Somehow I completely failed to see the last pillar in the lane, and as I pulled up, I scraped the whole side of the convertible along it—making a heart-stopping screeching racket as if the car was tearing open against a wall of metal sandpaper. All the action in the breezeway stopped. Now my car was stuck smack up on the pillar. I couldn’t go forward or backward without scratching it further. I wanted to get out of the car and run.

  Several of the valets hurried over to check out the damage and then with the help of several more jostled the car so they could unbolt the pillar and let the car loose. I couldn’t muster up the courage to look at the destruction. One of the valets said, “Don’t worry, linda, it’s not so bad. It could have been worse.” Another said, “No, it’s baaaad.” Another said, “Si, it’s bad. Very bad.” Luckily the ravaged side faced away from the lobby and as there was absolutely nothing I could do then, I decided to forget about it until later.

  Most of the family had already come downstairs and gotten into their cars, ready for the drive to the FBO. No one except the hotel staff seemed to have noticed the debacle that just happened. Malikah and Rajiya were nowhere to be seen. Oh no! I thought. Maybe Princess Aamina caved! Just then I saw Malikah smiling at me from the top of the lobby stairs. Her eyes crinkled at me. “Don’t worry. We are ready; we are leaving,” they said. She said good-bye to all of the doormen and then got in the car. We had a few moments alone together before Rajiya and one of her servant girls joined us.

  At first we were just quiet for a moment and smiled at one another.

  “I am sure I will know you a long time,” Malikah said as she took my hands in hers.

  “It’s been wonderful to meet you, Malikah,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think I would been able to get through this job. And I’ve learned so much. Thank you.”

  “I have learned much too,” she said, “as I always do. In this way, we are very much alike, nam? And we shall see what Allah chooses for us and our futures. I know you have many dreams, and I pray to Allah that all of them will be realized.”

  She paused a moment then, as if she were remembering something she had forgotten. “I was a nurse in my country before I came to work for the family. When I go home now to Lebanon, it is hard to see my friends. One is the head nurse of the complete nursing department of the hospital, another has a big family with grandchildren even, and another is an author, with many books to her name . . . and I am a nanny.”

  I didn’t know what to say at first, but I certainly understood how she felt. It was as if we were both a little bit behind and needed to catch up with the possibilities of our potential.

  “Malikah, you know, here in America we can reinvent ourselves. My mom had ten kids, then she went to college and grad school in her fifties, then she had a career for twenty-five years, and now she is learning the tango. Anything is possible, and I’m counting on that. We can have one career at twenty, another at forty, and another even at seventy. That’s why I’m doing this job . . . to take care of myself, myself. You are so smart, Malikah, and talented, and you can do anything you want, I’m sure. You could do that too. Anything is possible.”

  “Nam, Janni. Insha’Allah.”

  “No, not if God is willing, if you are willing. I’m sorry but I don’t think it’s up to God; it’s up to you.”

  Malikah smiled. “I am a nanny, and I am happy. I would not change what I have done. I had to help my family. And Allah sees us all, and I will be rewarded. Nam, nam.” I didn’t know how to argue with that. She was at peace with who she was and how she lived. Assalamu alaykum.

  I passed her a slip of paper with my e-mail and a different phone number from the one I was using for the job. “Take this,” I said, “and please don’t give it to anyone else? And please keep in touch with me?” She promised that she would safeguard it and that I would hear from her. I was relieved that she didn’t present me with a parting gift.

  “I will see you again, Janni. I will see you again, and Allah sees us both, and we will be rewarded,” she said and gestured toward the sky with her palm open. I wasn’t so sure that there was a God in the heavens who would reward us. But I hoped for Malikah’s sake that there was an Allah who was watching her and that she would be rewarded.

  Rajiya jumped in the car, and one of her servants, a young shy Filipina girl named Lilia, joined us. She smiled warmly at me when she got in the car. She was a new hire to the family and had rarely left the hotel, but whenever I saw her, she would slip me a treat—a pastry or a handful of truffles that she had salvaged from the family’s rooms. The exchange of sweets had turned out to be common currency for all of us, of any nationality.

  “Okay, looks like
we’re off like a prom dress,” I said as I followed the family’s caravan of cars out of the breezeway. Rajiya stifled a laugh. This group was a smaller line-up, only nine or ten cars, as most of the entourage and servants had already left for the airport. I was bringing up the caboose, and the drive was immediately harrowing. The cars ahead of me blew through stop signs and traffic lights, dead yellows and even dead reds; I didn’t want to get left behind, so I ran through several lights too, my tires screeching as I made tight turns narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic. It dawned on me in the middle of one particularly hair-raising maneuver that what I was doing was just insane. It wasn’t as if I had a freshly harvested live organ on board to rush to UCLA Hospital to save the life of a waiting donor recipient. I wasn’t being pursued by a horde of bloodthirsty guerrillas trying to kidnap us. I wasn’t even trying to catch a plane. The plane was waiting for us at the FBO and would leave only when everybody was comfortably onboard. But something happens when you get in a caravan of cars. An urgency kicks in that makes you want to stay on each other and travel together tight at fast speeds, as if your life depended on it. But actually my life depended on my not getting broadsided on the last day of the job because I ran a stop sign while trying to kiss the car ahead of me. I tried to slow down a little. Rajiya began to power down the convertible top at a stoplight, and I quickly removed her hand from the button. “Wait until we get closer to the airport, please,” I said. “It’s too dangerous right now.” I was afraid the vehicle would roll at the speed and angles at which I was turning. She saw how hard I was working to keep up with the other cars and didn’t question me. Her favorite song came on the radio, and then a few minutes later it played again, and then, unbelievably, again, and by that time we were all singing the lyrics: “It’s like I’ve waited my whole life for this one night . . . ” Rajiya was beyond happy.

  When we got close to the FBO, I pulled over and powered down the top. Her special song came on again, and we all threw our hands in the air to celebrate. I gunned the engine, and we pulled up to the FBO gates just as the family was exiting their cars ahead of us on the tarmac. The FBO security buzzed us in, and I drove up to the plane. Rajiya jumped out without saying anything to me, but I knew she was just embarrassed to express any warm feelings for her chauffeur in public. Earlier she had shyly presented me with a piece of jewelry as a thank-you from her and her mother. It was an impressive gold antique reproduction cocktail ring with a large diamond flanked by two smaller stones. I’m betting it was a castoff that one of the princesses was tired of wearing. I had it appraised a short time ago just to see what it was worth, and was told that I could probably get several thousand dollars for it if I could find a buyer. The jeweler said that even though the stone was quite large, it had a shallow cut and was of inferior quality, or it would have been much more valuable. I much preferred the delicate one the servant girls had given me; I still wear it often and think of them fondly when I do. The gift from the royals was headed right for the back of my sock drawer in case I needed to hock it on a rainy day.

  Lilia smiled at me and ducked her head as farewell as she struggled to follow Rajiya. Her arms were overloaded with last-minute purchases that hadn’t yet been packed. The servant girls were busy carrying and arranging things as the family began to board the plane. They blew kisses and winked at me as they went about their work. Malikah lingered near the car to give me a final kiss good-bye.

  When you board for travel at a regular airport via the airline’s movable jetway attached to the door of the plane, you have very little sense of how big the plane is in relation to you because you’re enclosed the whole time. But outside in the bright sunlight on the tarmac, I had driven up to and was now standing 50 feet from the family’s 747 looking up at it.

  The plane has a wingspan of almost 200 feet, it has three levels with over 4,000 square feet of space, and its tail is more than six stories high. It’s truly immense.

  Traveling in such a big bird is a nice way to fly, especially with only fifty people onboard instead of the usual four hundred. Air Force One is a 747, and no doubt the president of the United States, his staff, and the press corps fly pretty comfortably too.

  The family had arrived seven weeks ago in a plane that bore the Saudi Arabian Airlines blue and gold logo on its tail, but this jet had no such markings, just the required FAA identifying numbers. The royal household would have many jets to choose from, which the extended family probably swapped out as needed. Maybe this one belonged specifically to Princess Zaahira’s husband; that’s why it had no logo. I didn’t know, and I couldn’t find out.

  I assumed it was reconfigured for VIP accommodation, and I was dying to go in it to check it out. Maybe it was tropical themed and had a pool bar that you could loll around in while sipping virgin piña coladas.

  “Is it nice inside?” I asked Malikah.

  “Yes,” she said smiling. “It is adequate.”

  “No doubt,” I said.

  “I will see you again,” Malikah reminded me as she kissed me on both cheeks. “And Allah sees us all.” I missed her before she even walked away. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve become such fast friends with someone so quickly, and most of them I’ve never seen again in spite of our heartfelt promises to keep in touch. I hoped that this wouldn’t be true with Malikah.

  The servant girls blew more kisses at me. “We love you, Janni; we love you! We pray for you and your husband!” they cried from the plane stairs. They looked so trusting and full of affection for me.

  I felt a pang of remorse—not a big one, just a little ouch. I am sure Malikah, Maysam, and all the girls would be aggrieved if they knew that I had lied to them about Michael, my imaginary husband. I invented him because it was easier for me than telling the truth and maybe, even more significant, I invented him to get what I wanted.

  As a married lady, I got out of the casino torture because my fictitious husband’s wishes were respected. I didn’t have to explain over and over again why I was single, which I didn’t think was anyone’s business but my own and also made me extremely uncomfortable to answer, and in keeping with their social mores, my status was elevated because of my make-believe domestic bliss. I was welcomed into traditional adult female society with open arms, even though it was all based on a ruse. I have real married friends who use their husbands as an excuse as well, sometimes without even realizing it, to get out of things they don’t want to do or to promote things they do want to do. Just last week I overheard a friend say, “I am so sorry, but I don’t think we’ll be able to be there. Although I’d positively love to, I cannot drag Bob to another school play against his will. They just bore him to tears, and I’ll never hear the end of it. We have to pick our battles, don’t we?” I knew the truth: school plays without her kids in them bore her to tears, and she’d rather pluck out her eyes than sit through a three-hour high school version of Long Day’s Journey into Night.

  There were many times during the course of the seven weeks, especially at the end, when I was tempted to confess to the girls. Often I could barely stop myself from blurting out: “I’m sorry, I made him up. There is no Michael. Please, don’t waste your prayers anymore. He’s not sick, so you can stop praying for him. He doesn’t exist. I’m sorry. You can just pray for me if you have to pray for somebody. I’m the one who needs some divine intervention and attention.”

  I didn’t say anything because it was better for me to keep the truth to myself. People lie because sometimes it’s just plain easier, and they do it even when they know it will profoundly hurt the person to whom they’re lying. Perhaps the girls would have chuckled about my mendacious act, but I doubt it. They might have felt that I had betrayed their trust, which of course I had and am perhaps even doing now as I write about them. I hope that they would forgive me.

  —

  The drivers were instructed to wait at attention until the plane was wheels-up. There were now far fewer of us than on the day we had started, and I didn’t even re
cognize many of the others. I’d heard that there had been so many firings that Fausto had to recruit short-term reinforcements at the last minute. He had some difficulty doing so because word had gotten out that this was an unusually demanding family and the more professional drivers didn’t want to leave their steady employment for a little extra cash. But Charles told me that this job was no worse than any other Saudi detail he’d done in the past. It was always the same. “All that money makes you wacky in the head,” he said. “That’s why they need to travel with a psychiatrist. They do some crazy shit.” I didn’t really see it that way. I think they traveled with a psychiatrist because many of the people in the group were lonely, unfulfilled, and depressed. That can make you crazy far more easily than too much or too little money.

  We watched the plane ascend far into the sky, and then Fausto relayed to us the procedures for dealing with the cars, which all needed to be returned before the end of the day. I had parked my vehicle facing away from the plane and away from the other cars, so no one had yet seen the slash of green paint that ran along the side of the car. I couldn’t tell what kind of structural damage was done because there was so much paint defacement. I pulled Sami aside and showed it to him.

  “Chica! What did you do?”