Road to Medina

By Alaa Alghamdi

Twenty-two-year-old Maryam, a Saudi woman living comfortably with her parents in Medina, is old enough to get married and old enough to get a job. She is also old enough to pursue postgraduate studies in English in Leeds in the United Kingdombut that option fuels her dilemma.
Her hesitation to study abroad stems from the fact she is a devout and traditional woman, deeply dedicated to her Muslim faith. She is initially ambivalent about leaving the world she has always known. Even so, encouraged by her mother, an academic who also studied and lived in the West, she ventures to this new place and encounters both enriching experiences and a sense of displacement. Whats more, her sojourn in the West leads to a new set of decisions to be made.
A story of contemporary womens fiction, Road to Medina follows Maryam from the age of twenty-two, when she is deciding to apply to study in Leeds, to her eventual return to Saudi Arabia several years later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491725641

Alaa Alghamdi

Dr. Alaa Alghamdi is an assistant professor of English literature at Taibah University, Medinah, Saudi Arabia. Educated in Saudi and England, Alghamdi published his first book, “Transformations of the Liminal Self: Configurations of Home and Identity for Muslim Characters in British Postcolonial Fiction” in 2011. Since then, he has been a prolific writer publishing academic papers and articles in magazines and journals worldwide on the subjects of postcolonialism and feminism. This is his first novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1

T he road to Medina always seemed to Maryam to be the ultimate affirmation of all that was right. The land was flat, and even the hills didn’t change that. It was like the hills were just placed there on that flat ground as magical formations, a special gift. Growing up, Maryam thought that’s what hills and mountains were all like. Lots of the English books she had read described mountains and mountainous land. Heidi , for example—well, that wasn’t really an English book, but one that was translated into English—was about a girl living in the Swiss Alps. Climbing those Swiss mountains was arduous. It was as if the land was always shifting and rolling. The mountains were craggy and dangerous. At age ten, Maryam thought Heidi must be exaggerating the difficulty of the climb. More than that, it seemed like all the characters in that book were playing hide-and-seek with one another and with the different spaces that defined their world: the long climb up to the alm, where wheelchairs had to be carried up by strong men but could be deviously rolled down the steep decline; the little village that seemed to be somehow underneath the mountain, close but hidden from the grandfather’s domain so that one always seemed to tumble down into it; and on top of all that, the vegetation and nature itself that seemed to be overwhelming in that far-off world. Wind and snow would whistle and bite, and the wind in the pine trees haunted Heidi and beckoned to her even in far-off Frank furt.

Growing up, Maryam never even considered that it could be real or realistic. It all seemed so exaggerated. In real life, a hill was just a hill, and a mountain was just a larger hill. They were smooth and clear undulations on the landscape. Anyone wanting to live on a hill—or a mountain, for that matter—would have a fairly straightforward walk up or down. And such a person might be a little aloof or a little bit of a hermit, a little eccentric perhaps, but he could never be truly isolated.

This land rises around and includes everyone. A stretch of magnificent mountains seemed to engulf her, just as this holy land seemed to embrace all visitors from around the world. That’s what Maryam thought on the drive to Medina. And also, the place just seemed right. It seemed the right place for humans to live and to find peace in their hearts. The flat land with small surrounding hills seemed to cup her in its hand. The long history of the place provided a sense of constancy. Nothing could really change. The line of palm trees that she was passing now, like a curved colonnade into the city, welcomed her. They grew slowly. They were in no hurry. They offered a small, but very satisfying, burst of green and freshness. They suggested a desert oasis, of course, but they really pointed to so much more.

The driver and the car were both smooth. Maryam could always feel the difference in how someone drove. She had not had this driver before, and he was quiet and respectful, an employee from her father’s company. This driver handled the vehicle expertly. He was going a little fast, but Maryam enjoyed that. When she was younger, she used to think about driving. She used to dream about having that wheel in her own hands and steering the car. She wondered whether, if she someday went to study in the UK, she would learn to drive while she was there. Father laughed when she told him. He didn’t get angry. Not even I would venture to drive in that stew, he said. You’d be a better man than I. His laugh was deep and rich.

Now, at twenty-two, Maryam admitted to herself that she had lost her nerve with regard to the idea of driving. But at least, at any rate, she hadn’t lost her nerve when it came to being driven. At least she wasn’t like her mother, who would cry out and clutch the seat histrionically if the driver began to swerve or if he was going just a little too fast. Salwa, her mother, always seemed uneasy in the big outdoors, although she had traveled extensively (nowadays mainly through her books). Who could live like that? Maryam was never frightened; it was like the car was a large, smooth cradle or flying carpet, taking her where she needed to go. But this car was mostly for the freeway. Once in Medina, she was almost embarrassed by its newness and flash. The city was about older and quieter things.

Nonsense, her friend Fatima said when Maryam once confided this thought. We are as modern as any other city in the world, surely. Fatima gestured out the window, and the wide folds of her jeweled abaya sleeve fell to reveal a smooth, bronzed wrist and forearm. We have Al Rashed Mega Mall. We have state-of-the-art hospitals and technology.

Sure, Maryam agreed, her original thought still echoing in her mind. It was timeless all the same. The prophet is buried here, and I am aware of that every time I put my foot down. Of course that wasn’t true. It was something she told herself and occasionally felt. But that made it true enough, perhaps. At least she did think of it.

The car was pulling onto her street. It glided so smoothly over the curb and into her curved, white-graveled driveway, stopping just outside the door without the slightest trace of a jerk. Maryam continued to sit with her hands folded in her lap, calmly waiting till the driver came around and opened her door. She nodded to him gravely in thanks as she got out. He greeted her, his voice as quiet and reserved as her own.

Maryam got out of the car and crossed the twenty feet of driveway to the house. The soles of her sandals were thin, and she could feel every pebble. Well, they weren’t really sandals, but thin-soled sling-back shoes with closed toes. She’d never gotten around to actually painting her toes, although Fatima encouraged her to and said they could do each other’s. Maryam didn’t see the point. She would never show them—not that it wasn’t an option. It just felt contradictory to her—bare toes, covered hair, covered face. She didn’t mind covering her hair and face; it was foolish to mind. Covering face and hair was something even Maryam’s mother, Salwa, didn’t understand, but then Salwa had been educated in England, where she now was strongly encouraging, if not pushing, Maryam to go. One point against, Maryam said in her mind, counting it off like a tick. She hadn’t bothered to make a formal list. She could see it in her head, conjure it up clearly whenever she wanted. The points against were clear and neat, a black row of ticks on a white marble tablet. The ticks in favor were bright and messy splotches of color, little explosions. They never remained stable, and she couldn’t trust them, but she couldn’t look away from them either.

The air outside was softer than she’d thought it would be; in the car, when she cracked the window open, it had rushed by her, rough. Here it settled, a soft caress, drifting like clouds of quiet and sleep on her face and hands. The brass doorknob was warm from the tepid air, and the door was unlocked. It always was, except at night. Would she be able to keep her door unlocked in small bedsit or a university residence dorm in some cold, rainy city in the UK? Doubtful. And there would be no family around to protect her. Another tick against. Black and sharp.

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The air inside the house was cool, almost aggressively so. She would have to ask Zainab not to turn up the AC so high. It wasn’t that hot out. We should open windows instead, let the fresh air come in, she imagined explaining to Zainab but heard immediately in her mind the other girl’s scornful laugh. Raised in the village, Zainab had had enough fresh air to last her three lifetimes. She loved the air conditioner. Maryam decided not to complain. She hung up her abaya and reached for a sweater. She let her scarf fall from her hair and settle around her neck and then, looking in the mirror, reflected that it was definitely a favor to herself to wear it. She knew the term bad hair day from the cheesy, old American shows that were streamed online, like Friends and Seinfeld. The head scarf was a brilliant solution, but then you paid for taking it off; Maryam’s hair was flat from the scarf and frizzy from the humid air, all at once. It was uncontrollable, really. She should have it cut. If she went to England, would she have to? The thought came unbidden. Have to—what did that mean? Of course she wouldn’t have to. That was the whole point of freedom, freedom of choice, wasn’t it? You didn’t have to do anything. She found an elastic on the bureau and pulled her hair back in a thick handful, wrapped the elastic around it, winding it twice, and pulled the hank of hair through again so that it was more like a neat bun than a hanging tail. She went in search of family and food. She was hungry for both, and she had not seen anyone since her return, but that was not surprising. Since Zahra, her older sister, had married last year, evenings were unnaturally quiet. Her mother would be in her study, if dinner was finished. Father might have gone back to the office, and Saleh and Ahmad were rarely here anymore, almost never before midnight. Maryam wondered periodically what Ahmad did with all the time he spent away. Both of her brothers claimed to be studying at the university, and it was certainly true of Saleh, but she doubted it strongly in the case of Ahmad. Not that she suspected him of anything nefarious. She just doubted he was studying. That was all. For one thing, their house was the most studious place around, so why wouldn’t he at least sometimes crack a book open around there?

Maryam was aware of a sudden, nostalgic flash of wanting them all to be together again, all in one room, listening to music or to Mother reading from a storybook. But really, what was she remembering? That had rarely happened. Rarely. But that didn’t mean never. She could picture them now, herself at ten, Zahra twelve, the twins still little, gathered in the front room, salted almonds and popcorn and fruit on a tray, all of them picking and eating. She had cuddled up with Mother, listening to her read. Their cousin Sabreen had been there too, actually. That was why they were all gathered like that, so idyllically, like a perfect family. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise, not quite like that. Still, it was good that it had happened at all, wasn’t it? Better than if it hadn’t? But it wasn’t normal or common. Mostly, in this house there was emptiness—the word came unbidden in Maryam’s mind, and it made, for the very first time, a tick, sharp and definite, on the other side of that ledger in her mind—on the pro side, pro England, anti staying here. I’m just hungry and tired, Maryam told herself, but she knew that made no difference, really. Those definite, hard ticks stayed. She would have to contend with that one in the pro column now. It was staying.

Maryam went on a search for her family or, failing that, for Zainab. Maybe she would say something about turning down the AC after all. There was no one in the living room, but a light was on under her mother’s study door. Maryam rapped softly with her knuckles and listened for her mother’s soft yes before entering.

The room was beautiful. Maryam wasn’t surprised Mother spent so much time there. The big bay window looked out over the garden, and the evening sun now infiltrated it. But didn’t she feel lonely? No, there were a million books in there for company. Well, not a million, of course. But perhaps a thousand realistically. Maryam understood the appeal fully. She had spent hours in there herself. Salwa was a scholar, an English professor, and right now she was deeply engaged in D. H. Lawrence. She was writing a paper on themes of birth and rebirth in Lawrence’s early novels, something Maryam felt vaguely repelled by. She had read a little Lawrence—well, a bit more than a little. As a teenager, she had started with The Virgin and the Gypsy and gone from there, always feeling vaguely that her mother should be putting a stop to it, surely by the time she caught Maryam slipping The Rainbow back onto the shelf and then sliding out, with trepidation, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. But then, in university just a few years later, she had taken a half-semester course on Lawrence and Hardy. His salacious ruminations were legitimate enough, she had learned; they were literature. But she had never gotten over her initial feeling of mild but sustained shock that such things were written down. Yet he was a literary giant. But why? And how? Mother laughed at him and called him a dirty old man, a pagan. And yet, she got that hushed, reverent look on her face when she was reading some obscure book by him, talking about coal miners at the turn of the twentieth century or something. She would want to read aloud, in English, to any one of the family who would listen for a few minutes. You have no idea what springtime is like over there, she would say. She had said it more than once. Better than here? Maryam always wanted to reply, but she knew her tone would come out caustic. So she abstained.

Some of the books in the study were very old, cheap paper editions of English novels that Mother bought and brought or sent back home when she was a student, picked up from antiquarian shops. Some of these books were considered old even twenty-odd years ago. Others were handsome hardbound editions of English and Arabic novels and criticism. They stood side by side on dark wood shelves, like they were all equal, standing there. They catalogued a change, an upswing, in fortunes. Thirty years ago, her mother could only afford the cheap British Penguin editions. She could replace them now with better ones, but for some reason she didn’t want to.

But she was by no means resistant to all upgrades. She had a new Macintosh computer with a huge screen, an iPod, and a digital reader. She was not going to buy any more paper books, she said. She’d just download them. It would save space and dusting. She’d say that, and then next thing you knew, another box of books would be delivered to the house, as her mother now purchased them without ever leaving the chair in her study.

She was small among all those tall shelves. She smiled at Maryam. She made no move to leave her seat but responded warmly when Maryam bent to hug her. How was it, darling? she said a bit vaguely. How is Manal? Did you girls stay up talking and gossiping?

Well, a little, Maryam said. The truth was, neither she nor her cousin, three years younger, gossiped. That was one reason they got along. Salwa, for that matter, didn’t gossip either, but she seemed to think that all other women did. Maryam’s time with Manal had been spent in comfortable coexistence, each reading or browsing online; neither had much to say to the other. It was with her aunt and uncle though that the ideas flowed. Maybe that flow of ideas was, in part, the reason for Maryam’s warm elation on the drive home. They were true companions. Talking to them was invigorating, almost intoxicating. Tick for staying here. But not really. If she stayed in Medina, she wouldn’t see Asma and Ibraheem any more than she did right now. And there was no major university where they lived, not one with a good postgraduate program in English literature. She could not get any closer to them than she was now. The thought depressed her. She directed her mind back to the present. It was good, Ommy, she said. They send their love. They sent baklava too, she said, remembering. Her mother looked studiously indifferent, and Maryam laughed. Salwa was always trying to watch her figure. She would give a convincing pretext of not liking sweet treats. She would even look disapproving when they came into the house, and then, lo and behold, somehow the treats would be gone and honey or chocolate encrusted plates would be found in her mother’s study. Zainab didn’t tidy up in there; Salwa always insisted on doing it herself.

Baklava. The thought was making her hungrier, but not for sweets. Did I miss dinner? she asked with forced casualness.

Her mother said, Yes. Then, sighing slightly, she added, But there are leftovers. There’s rice and … that chicken dish, you know … with the sultanas and little onions. No one would guess that Salwa was actually an excellent