Beneath the Surface
When I was 21 years old, I fled my abusive husband and went to stay/hide with my father, who was working in Saudi Arabia. My time in the Middle East was boring, awe-filled, infuriating, captivating, and more. We were based in Riyadh, and stayed in the compounds during the week, or ventured into the desert with my dad on the weekends. During the three months I spent there, we took a few longer trips, including a road trip to the city of Jeddah in the west.
Here’s an account of one day on that road trip….
We checked in to the hotel late, but the manager most accommodating. We’d been driving for days and I was looking forward to a proper bed instead of the camping cots, and solid walls instead of the canvas of the tent.
"You have a pool?" I asked.
When we were at home in our compound in Riyadh, I swam two hundred laps every day, partly because I was living in a place where I couldn’t lace up my boots and go for a hike. I missed the freedom of Canada, and swimming was the closest I could find in this country.
"Yes, yes," the manager said. "You swim?"
I nod, and the manager and my dad agreed I could use the pool early in the morning. Walls enclosed the pool. He could lock me in. My modesty could be protected.
In the morning, my father came down to the pool with me. He brought a book. I wore my swimsuit under my black abaya. The manager greeted us with a smile, then locked us into the outside pool area.
I dove into the water, swam beneath the surface for as long as I could before I needed to come up for air. I swam back and forward, pounding out the stiffness in my muscles after four days in the car, and the constraints of this society that seemed to lodge themselves in my body.
Barely ten minutes had passed before there was a banging at the door.
"You must come out," pleaded the manager through the closed door.
My dad went to talk to him.
"There is a complaint."
He wrung his hands in an agony of indecision. I dressed quickly and was soon engulfed in my flowing black robes.
It seemed a guest could see me from his room. I looked up at the hotel tower block rising directly above us. If a guest pressed his face to the glass and didn't look away, then I supposed he could see me. I stamped out my resentment as we followed the manager back into the hotel. It wasn’t his fault. This country was hard on women.
The essay Bye, Bye Barbie, published in Dorothy Parker’s Ashes also looks at my time in Saudi Arabia, and explores what identity meant to me and how my appearance reflected my ideas of who I was.
You can read the story here.
Photo by chrissie kremer on Unsplash
