Princess: Stepping Out of the Shadows, стр. 54

gaunt and frail, looking twenty years older than her actual age. Although she was not much older than my own children, she had been married so young and given birth to six children, one right after the other. Munira was still young when she became a grandmother. But now she looked lovely, with a delicate face, and she had gained weight and looked very elegant in her designer clothes.

‘Yes, I am. I know. I am rested,’ Munira said with a smile. ‘At least that is what the surgeons told me to tell people who asked – that I had rested. But I will tell you the truth, while in Thailand my children arranged for some talented surgeons to do corrective surgery to my face and body. I have lived too long with the legacy of my terrible marriage.’

After years of constant beatings, Munira’s face and body had been a testament to the viciousness of her husband’s brutality. She had endured unending physical assaults, leaving her with rough and reddened facial scars. Her nose was broken more times than we could count. Her arms and ribs had been fractured or broken frequently.

‘How wonderful for you, Munira,’ Sara exclaimed.

‘Are you thinking of marrying again?’ Amani asked.

‘Never! Never! I have been a slave once, Amani. Never again.’

‘Of course, Munira.’

‘I now get my pleasures from my children and grandchildren. Travelling is a second pleasure. I cannot take more happiness than I now know!’ Munira looked around the room. ‘God is good,’ she finally said with a big smile.

* * *

After the staff assisted Munira and Dalal in settling into their apartments in my palace, the six of us met for dinner in the courtyard centred behind my apartment. We ate in that small but lovely area, with lots of fragrant flowers, luxurious green plants and gentle fountains. It was a cool and relaxing setting. Most importantly, it is an enclosure for women only – a patio area not for the purpose of hiding women away but for keeping men out. In this beautiful setting women gather together and are free to say and do anything they please. There are no strict rules to guide our conversations.

The food was perfect, and the company pleasing. The evening was so joyful and enchanting, with stimulating conversation and genuine merriment, that no observer would have ever guessed that other than my two daughters all the women in attendance had been touched by enormous suffering and hidden anger. And all that grief and suffering was at the instigation of a man.

After eating, Dalal said, ‘This conversation has been so interesting that I will be thinking about all that has been said here for weeks. I do feel that I have been to Thailand and to Norway and to Japan and back, but, now, ladies, I am ready to spill some beans.’

Maha, who, much to my displeasure, had brought her favourite wine to the party, and had drunk several glasses while pretending to her sister Amani that her glass was filled with grape juice, giggled and said, ‘I believe you mean to say you are ready to spill the beans, Dalal.’

‘Whatever, ladies, I am spilling some beans!’

Dalal was a cute girl with a big personality and now she showed us why she was the type who refused to live with an overindulged Saudi male tyrant for very long. She stood up and waved her hands around, looking like someone getting ready to fly, or perhaps someone hit by an electrical charge.

‘If only my mother had lived, I would have nothing interesting to tell you on this evening because my mother would have cared who her daughter married and would have looked in every city and village to find someone suitable. But my darling mother did not live long enough and my fate was left in the hands of my father’s most insensitive sister, who was only looking for more money for my father’s pockets. So, let me tell you all about this man my father’s sister found for me.’

Dalal was right about her mother. My older sister Nura would never have allowed her daughter to be married to such a monster. It saddened me to think of what poor Nura would make of this situation. We all knew that Dalal’s husband was no Omar Sharif, a truly rare specimen of a man, exquisite and handsome and at one time the heart-throb of the East and the West. Even though Dalal’s husband was not movie-star handsome, we had hoped that he at least had a pleasing personality, for many times a distinctive personality can lead one’s opinion to change, as to a person’s appearance, from plain to handsome, cloaking many unattractive physical features.

But obviously, from what we were about to hear, that had not been not the case with Dalal’s husband.

‘He is shorter than this!’ She held a hand slightly above her stomach. ‘His head is too large for his body – there are times I fear that big head of his will cause him to fall over. I believe his head swelled up like that from the lies his family told him about his handsome looks and wonderful personality. With such attributes, the world, clearly, was at his feet!

‘Let’s not forget his nose. His nose way too big for his face, reminding me of one of those proboscis monkeys. We saw those big-nosed creatures in Indonesia when we visited there, and I pointed out to him then that I had found some of his lost relatives! Later in the hotel room I paid for that remark when he hit me twice while I slept, although he got a shock when I woke up and hit him back three times – and hard!

‘Ah, and those lips! He has lips so big that the lower drapes over his chin. I scream and push him away when he tries to get his lips close to mine. And, his brows. What brows he has! His brows are so bushy that on the