Free American Chick in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson

only imagine her physique, but she appears slight. She is wearing a thin gold chain around her small neck.
    Her searching eyes look at me.
    I smile with encouragement and find the nerve to place my hand lightly on her shoulder.
    My compassionate gesture causes her to burst anew into tears. While sobbing, she stretches her arms out so that I can look at her baby's face. "This is my fourth child! Three are already in the grave. Poor Shaker has lived three miserable months!" She shakes her head vigorously. "He will die soon, just like the others."
    Over the next hour, I learn her tragic story.
    Nayam is an educated woman. In 1975 she earned her degree at a well-known university in Beirut, Lebanon.
    Before 1977, Saudi women were permitted the freedom to travel abroad for their advanced education. But in 1977, an al-Saud family crisis, brought about by royal adultery, led to the public execution of Princess Misha'il, granddaughter of Prince Mohammed, the eldest living son in the al-Saud family. Her lover, Khalid Muhalhal, the nephew of the special Saudi envoy to Lebanon, was beheaded.
    In reaction to the humiliation of al-Saud adultery, and the international scandal revolving around public executions for the crime of unsanctioned sex, King Khalid decreed that all Saudi women were banned from traveling abroad without a " Mahram "-a close male relative, such as a father or brother, to whom the female is forbidden to marry-as an escort.
    Since few fathers or brothers are willing or able to take years out of their lives to accompany a daughter or sister abroad, virtually all Saudi women have stopped being educated abroad.
    Nayam is one of the lucky few who left prior to the confining royal decree.
    She tells me, "My parents are highly educated. Both of them. They are free-thinkers. My father was educated in Lebanon. He met my mother there. She has Syrian roots. They fell in love in a normal way. Their mistake was to come back to my father's country. I am one of six children. I grew up in Jeddah, thanks be to God. I did not even cover my face, unless the men of religion were on a mission."
    A tight smile pauses briefly on her lips.
    I nod. It is well known that women are not as restricted in Jeddah as they are in rigid Riyadh. Such a thing would never happen in Riyadh, the most conservative of all Saudi cities where all Saudi women veil. No wonder Nayam is quick to toss the veil over her head.
    "My parents encouraged all their children to get a degree, even their three daughters." She smiles proudly. "I earned my dentistry degree easily." She sighs, "I planned to work as a pediatric dentist. All my patients would be children, so there would be no cause for complaint from my husband."
    At the thought of her husband, Nayam weeps quietly. "I did not complain when my parents arranged for me to meet a cousin, a cousin they wanted me to marry. This is our way." She sighs again. "My fiancée's name was Obeid."
    I pull up a chair and sit near her.
    "I even met him before we married."
    She looks into the distance, a frown on her face. "Obeid is not handsome, but I found him to be intelligent and interesting. He owns several contracting firms, and when we met he had been awarded a government contract to build a high school in the kingdom. In the beginning, Obeid seemed pleased and proud that his educated wife wanted to have a career. He even sketched a building design for my new office."
    She pauses to take a sip of water and to kiss her baby's little lips. "I ignored an early troubling indicator of things to come. Obeid's draft drawing of the dental clinic had separate rooms for male and female children."
    In Saudi Arabia, male and female children are sometimes allowed to freely mingle socially until puberty. Although adult Saudis are sex-segregated in almost every setting, they seldom insist on the separation of young children by sex, unless they are of the most conservative tribes.
    "He was so nice...at first. When I told him that I did not