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AN ARABIAN PRINCESS

Original Edition © Copyright Delilah Jay, Annette Juengling

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Delilah Jay
c/o Pellybay Films GmbH
An der Alster 18
20099 Hamburg
Germany

Phots/Pictures © Frank Zauritz
www.frankzauritz.com

Cover Layout 2015 by Nicole Laka
www.nima-typografik.de

Illustrations shutterstock

Layout & Production 2015 by Anita Boening
www.typo-im-fluss.de

ISBN 978-3-7375-8876-8

I dedicate my novel

“An Arabian Princess”

to

Sara & Amani

With full respect and
honour from my heart.

All events
described in this book
are fictitious.

Similarities to
living or dead persons
were coincidental
and not intended.

The reason I started writing novels
was the overpowering wish I felt
when I was a teenager.

Telling the stories about extraordinary protagonists
expresses my deep desire for justice.
I met innocent women and children who were
abused by their families, their husbands, a religion,
the Mafia or even the media – in short words:
By the rich and powerful of this planet.

An Arabian Princess

Somewhere in the Middle East there is a country between the Blue Sea and the Persian Gulf. The two seas smoothly create a border to other Arabic countries. The Blue Sea has the deepest royal blue colour anyone can imagine. This Arabian peninsula is the size of Western Europe and many years ago a handsome, charismatic patriarch, who might have stepped right out of “One Thousand and One Nights” took over this piece of land between the two seas. His name was Ahmed Al-Assudi and he was born to conquer his empire.

He was often seen as a Lawrence of Arabia but actually he was much stronger and more successful than Lawrence. He was a conquerer, a visionary. He succeeded in every battle. He killed the governor of the largest town and then married his daughter. But as this wasn’t enough for him, he carried on to conquer the whole country racing on his beautiful white camels across the desert. He took over the Holy Place of his country and charged muslim pilgrims from all over the Middle East to enter the Holy Place.

Later he named his conquered land The Kingdom of Black Gold and proclaimed himself the King. Some years later fewer pilgrims were able to afford to come to the Holy Places in the golden Kingdom, due to the depression and King Ahmed found himself in financial difficulties. All of a sudden an American oil company offered him a sum of 200.000 US dollars. Ahmed consulted the British ambassador in the Kingdom of Black Gold who said: “Just take it. There isn’t any oil there anyway and if these stupid Americans want to pay you the money for nothing then go for it.” So he accepted the deal and only found out later that his Kingdom had huge resources of oil – the Black Gold. The Americans sent their oil drillers and workers into the country but not for long as the men had to be called into service for the Second World War.

“America faces crisis in oil!” – so the newspaper headlines said. After the war ended there were hardly any oil reserves in the US.

The American President invited King Ahmed to meet him and the king went to the US even though he suffered from severe arthritis. He was so disabled that the President offered him a wheelchair. In further discussions The President talked to the king about the Jews and how badly they had been treated by the Germans during the war. He asked if the king would be able to give the Jews a homeland? The king looked straight into the President’s face and said:

“Yes, it was terrible what had happened to the Jews but why couldn’t Germany give the Jews a homeland because it wasn’t the Palestinians who caused The Holocaust, they never would.” The President promised the king he would be consulted in the future regarding the homeland issue for a decision but the President died shortly after this. The next President of the United States of America supported the UN resolution for the creation of the state of Israel without consulting the King.

American Oil companies made a deal with the King who considered the Black Gold as his personal property and the Kingdom changed from one of the poorest countries into one of the richest in the world.

With the immense wealth came a hugely luxurious lifestyle …

“This is a part of the history of the country of gold, of the black gold. I was married to a member of the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Black Gold. My name is Sariah which means princess and I am a real Royal Highness, an Arabian Princess!”

“Hey, mum! Turn the page! This is Aamina’s mum in the newspaper! I know her!” Feliciano, my son, shouts out loud. We are on a flight from London to Berlin and I am reading today’s newspaper.

“She is so nice. I really like her!” Felix, so I call him in short form, lets me know. I turn the page carefully trying not to spill the coffee over my white dress and read the headline

PRINCESS IN A VEIL GAVE WRONG IDENTITY

Next to this a photograph of Sariah, Aamina’s mum. Yes, Felix is right! We know her and she is such a lovely gentle lady. Felix went to school with Aamina some years ago in Chelsea and I remember when the two of them had play dates or met at the kid’s birthday parties. Sariah, Aamina, Felix and I had lunch a few times around Knightsbridge. So what is this all about?

I carry on reading …

They call her ‘the Princess in the veil’ and she has been accused of conning a property developer in Knightsbridge. She even might be sent out of the country … I can’t believe it!

“Mum, I’d like to see her again and Aamina! Please …!” Felix is begging me.

“Hang on. Let me read this.”

The paper doesn’t even know her age, so they write. But they accuse her of not being a princess, a Royal Highness. Oh I can testify to that! She is a princess, a real princess! She came to London asking for refugee status which she finally got after ten years of being in the country.

I remember that …Sariah was waiting a long time in London without a passport for herself and her daughter Aamina. It was very hard for her staying here waiting without knowing what will happen to her and her child. Then finally they got their passports and I remember how happy she was. The first holiday the two of them made was to Disneyland in Paris. Aamina was so excited!

Now I get back to the article in the newspaper and try to ignore my memories of Knightsbridge days hopping around Harrods and Harvey Nichols buying clothes for the children, going to one of the Sushi places or just chilling out with a mezze platter smoking a shisha and having a chai.

The newspaper says a certain Mrs. Chatterbox told the courts that Sariah is a penniless princess. She saw herself as being the victim in a court case where she claims that the princess robbed her fiancé by getting some blocks of apartments in the streets behind Harrods, worth around 20 million pounds, put in her name. Apparently Her Royal Highness the Princess Sariah is not a princess at all. She was described as being a prostitute from some African country before coming to London. So the newspaper wrote, this is what the journalists apparently learned from the property developers in the court. Reference to her car, a black Rolls Royce Phantom edition was made, as well as to her driver and her bodyguards.

I drop the paper. I just can’t believe a word of it. I order a glass of champagne. Oh yes, that’s what helps me now survive each line of the article!

“Here you are madam. Enjoy!” The young steward pleases me. Zzzz… the ice cold bubble thrills me. So I carry on …

The so called Princess Sariah is not the daughter of the Middle Eastern billionaire Moktader Al-Quad even though she carries the same surname. It is reported that by giving wrong identity she tried to con the Home Office as well as the property developers and one of the biggest of English banks to trust her because of her honorable name and so to get outrageous advantages for herself.

The champagne doesn’t help me. I drop the newspaper again.

“Mum, when can I see Aamina? Is she still going to the Chelsea School?” Felix nags me.

“No, I’ve heard she doesn’t but I also don’t know where she is at school now.” I remember the Headmaster of the Chelsea School telling me something about Aamina and her mum. Felix and I had visited the school about a year ago. I asked for Sariah but the only response I got was:

“Well, after all that has been in the news about her,” so the headmaster said. “She probably had to leave the country”, he continued knowingly. I didn’t know what he was talking about and I didn’t really know anyone who was close to Aamina or to Princess Sariah to contact. I remember having tried her mobile phone number a few years ago but with no success. She kept changing the number frequently. I didn’t ask why but I’m sure she had good reasons. I liked Sariah a lot. She was friendly and very natural and also very generous. She was easy, totally uncomplicated.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are landing in a few minutes at Berlin-Tegel airport. Please fasten your seatbelts …” The steward’s announcement drags me out of my peaceful memory.

“Excuse me, may I please have another glass of champagne?”

“Certainly!” Ringo is his name on the badge of his jacket. He is tall, cute and black. I love his accent. Must be from the Caribbean. Where would he be staying in Berlin, I’m asking myself.

“Felix, I don’t know how to get in touch with her. But I will do everything I can to find her. Promise!” With these words I take the glass full of sparkle in my hands touching Ringo’s smooth hand – coincidently, of course. Feliciano is rolling his eyes. I can’t hide anything from him. Is there anything they don’t know at that age these days?

I tear the article from the newspaper and put it in my golden Zatchel handbag which I normally use for my events, filling it up with my latest novel Mistress – The Italian Way Part 2. I’m a writer and I never stop. I can’t stop my fingers typing on the computer, finding new plots that are too dangerous for other authors to tell. My previous book is called ‘A Liberal Temptation’ coming soon in English and German. It will rock the Liberals and some snooty snobs in the entire United Kingdom. “Be careful!” So my friends usually warn me in regards to the subjects I love so touch. But I am fearless!

Right now I’m on my way to the Leipzig Book Fair via Berlin. Here I will show up as the world’s one and only ‘It Girl of Literature’ – stylish in my white faux fur coat with my long blond hair extensions, my golden shoes and my golden school bag full of books.

Yes, I can see a new novel, a story I will tell for revenge and justice for Princess Sariah! As soon as I’m online I will start my precise research…

If anyone would know what it means being an Arabian Princess? They have no clue, how can they? And I cannot talk to them, can’t trust anyone. I am in danger even here in London, the so called civilised world, just like a beautiful white tiger in the jungle trying to hide behind the biggest leaves of the rain forest not to be caught.

I’m not talking about getting sued for the things I’ve never done, as the newspapers write, as my ex boyfriend Brian Pardon, the property developer, and his devious fiancée, Mrs. Chatterbox, testified in courts. No, my fear is based on real worries of serious dangers.

I was born in the Middle East and I even went to school, this is not necessarily an obligation for parents in my homeland. Especially when it is a girl and they send her to a western school. But I was privileged and loved every single day sharing little secrets with my girlfriends. We shared our beauty secrets, loved our designer outfits under the abaya and even got our hands beautifully painted with henna. My sisters and cousins went to the school as well. For me the days of sunshine and butterflies did not go on for long. After only two years my father took me out of school.

He said: “Sariah, you will be thirteen years old shortly. You will get married soon. So you will have to leave school and get ready for the big ceremony. Your mother will take care of you and you will be assisted by the servants in the palace.”

My father is Moktader Al-Quad. Moktader is an Arabic name and it means ‘The Powerful’.

And so he is: A Forbes List ranked billionaire, one of the wealthiest men in the world and the richest in his countries. He holds a few passports and calls “home” wherever he opens a company, a bank account or where he simply owns a property. He is a man of power, of success and he will make sure that nothing ever shakes his reputation for that. Women don’t have much say in my country and nothing to decide. So I felt my heart dropping when one day my father told me about his decision to take me out of school.

“Oh no, please, you cannot do that to me! I enjoy school so much! I want to have an education, please! I don’t want to get married!” He turned around and left me there. I was only twelve years old at that time.

“How can I find Sariah? I called the school in Chelsea which both kids attended. I spoke to the other parents of their school friends, but apparently nobody knew anything about Aamina. Should I go to Sariah’s house? Maybe that’s an idea!

I can imagine she must be very careful who she trusts at all …” Even I feel that I cannot talk openly about my new book project ‘An Arabian Princess’ either. The newspapers are full of the dangerous subject. Here I read:

“The Sultan of Shunai broke his Sharia Law with me” as today’s headline on HooHoo news. A woman tells her story. She had an affair with a member of the Sultan’s family when she was a teenager.

“These boys were just like normal guys”, so she says, “the only difference was that they were impossibly rich”.

She wondered what she would have done being in their shoes given the immense wealth and the power they have. She tells that she never found a satisfactory answer to the question which she asked herself so often.

Now the Sultan of Shunai, that ordinary guy from past days of her life, exactly the man she had an affair with, is implementing Sharia Law in his country that includes stoning to death for adultery, cutting off limbs for theft, flogging for abortion or alcohol consumption or homosexuality. She cannot believe this so she tells.

“I remember this friend and his pals drinking alcohol all night long in his penthouse in Malaysia where I went with him at the age of 17. I was very young at the time.”

She carries on about the lifestyle that included sex and drugs and the glorious luxury that, of course, impressed her. But here and now we are in 2014 and exactly this same man is going to implement Sharia Law in his country! Stoning is one of the most brutal forms of violence perpetrated against women to control and punish their sexuality and freedoms. And this man probably escapes with his private jet to a European destination of freedom to get a few under age young girls to his posh hotel suite, and at the same time making laws that legislate morality!

Slowly I think I start to understand Sariah. The mothers at Chelsea school always talked about her. First because she was hardly around at all. Her daughter Aamina was brought to school and picked up by her nanny. I remember I said to a friend: “I hardly see Aamina’s mum at the school.”

Another mum replied: “Well, and even when she’s there one can hardly see her.” Everyone laughed. I actually didn’t get the joke in the first place. What she meant was one can’t see Sariah as she is always totally covered in her burqa and the veil. My thoughts went on and I believed Sariah is a Muslim so she wears a burqa and a veil that completely covers her face, her hair and her body. Of course the whole discussion was of interest to all the other corporate married banker’s wives as Sariah was a Royal Princess. At that time she was one of the mums who were rarely at the school. But she came to see the school plays in the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square where Aamina played the role of one of the kids in ‘Oliver’ singing and dancing on stage. Amos, my ex-love, who also is Feliciano’s father, came there as well.

“What a poor woman,” he said and he was talking about Sariah. He was referring to the burqa and the veil. Amos is Italian and I often thought that Italian men also made sure that women in their country also don’t have many rights. I had to learn it for myself living there and being dragged into law courts fighting for custody of Felix in that macho country, Italy. But nothing compares to Sharia Law and being a woman who lives in such an Arabic country!

I couldn’t change my father’s mind. So I had to leave school. I was very sad and started having a deep depression. My mother kept me in the palace close to herself until the wedding. All my maids and servants were busy with the preparation of the engagement party, the Al-Khotobah. The party is an announcement to the groom’s relatives that he is getting married. I considered this ridiculous as I was going to be his fifth wife.

I was not even thirteen years old at the time. The man I was going to marry was a member of the Royal family, in his late seventies. I had dreams and expectations to life. I wanted to become an educated young woman living in a country where freedom is reality and not just a word that doesn’t belong to a woman’s rights. I planned to go to university, maybe in London or Paris or in America. One of my girl friends at school told me about Nice in the south of France and Paris where the sun is shining but not so hot that you can fry an egg on the bonnet of your limousine with the 40 degrees night temperature as in my country.

I see the colourful markets and no matter what is sold there – fresh fish or vegetable, I can even smell the tomatoes and red apples with a deep wish to take a bite, or the golden sandals they sell for the beach. A pink towel, some sun cream, a straw hat, Christian Dior sunglasses and off I go to the Monte Carlo Beach Club, later lunch at Alain Duchasse at the Hotel de Paris in Monaco where my driver would wait for me in the Bentley. I would have oysters, the best of the Fine de Claire in the world! But here all is different: women wear black cloth and men white so the black burqa should take the heat of the sun away from the men and they can stay as fresh as a daisy – at least as much as that is possible. Women are abused in many ways but I will have to learn more about it …

I was given as a gift to an elderly member of the Royal family. The wedding preparation went on. The Al-Khotobah is a private celebration between the families of the bride and the groom. My father grew in pride that day. Moktader, the powerful, achieved what he didn’t have before now: Becoming a part of the mighty Royal family of the Kingdom of Black Gold. Giving me, his daughter, to this old geezer to be his fifth wife would make it happen. In the western world this would be called rape allowing any man to have sex with a thirteen year old girl.

The air was filled by ‘habibi songs’. Everyone was happy at the Al-Khotobah; the only one who wasn’t was me. I think my mum understood my thoughts even though I tied not to express them. She was worried I could do something that could harm me. My mother knew very well what it meant living in this country, a woman or a girl, obeying the Sharia Law. In other words: being a lifetime slave. Even though my father travelled all his life all over the world living in many western countries, the Islamic tradition was the key to his power and wealth.

I understood more those days than any young teenager in the east or the west of the world. I knew I would break the rules, all of them! I just didn’t know which ones first and when but even back then I was a renegade, a free spirit and I survived by slipping into my own reality of dreams …

Habibi ya nour el-ain

My darling you are the glow in my eyes

Ya sakin khayali

You live in my imagination

A’ashek bakali sneen

Wala ghayrak fi bali

I adored you for years

No one else is in my mind …

And there he comes, my real prince … I dream away … I am in my mother’s palace, away from the men. A golden long silk skirt, a red organza top showing my little breasts that had just started to blossom. No bra, no knickers – naughty. My long curly hair flies with my dance. I look in the mirror, I see myself, my lips desire a boy’s kiss. I close my eyes …

Habibi, habibi ya nour el-ain

Habibi, habibi …

Amr Diab

I change the record …

Habibi, I love you I need you.

Habibi Ghannili w Khallini Ma’ak

Habibi, I love you I need you,

Habibi Duwweni f Nar Hwak

Ahmed Chewki Pitbull

My golden bracelets rattle with the racy rhythm of the tune. I pick a fresh flower from the bouquet of roses and put it in my hair. There is the lipstick. I’ve taken it from my mum. The cool wind coming through the open windows makes my breasts hard and my nipples grow strong.

I dream of a beautiful boy like Leonardo di Caprio. He would take me in his strong arms, looking deep into my brown eyes. I can feel him breathing. I want a young man in jeans driving off with me on his motorbike, maybe a Harley Davidson. Or it could have been James Dean picking me up from university in his Porsche Spyder wearing a cool leather jacket …

“Oh hello, this is Aelita. I am actually looking for Princess Sariah’s barrister.” I call the office of the QC’s who looked after the Princess’ case in the Courts.

“You have to call her solicitor, I’m afraid. I can give you the number.” The helpful PA informs me. “She is not a client any more since the case is closed.”

“Thank you so much.” I am totally happy, feeling I achieved at least something in chasing the Princess. So I call her solicitor who asks me to send him an email. So I write to him asking if he would forward this to Princess Sariah. I’m coming as a friend and I believe that this is exactly what she needs these days. I attach some photographs of Aamina and Feliciano from the Chelsea School. They look lovely in their carefully designed blue-magenta school uniforms.

A few days later I get an email from the solicitor’s office letting me know they will pass my message on to Princess Sariah the next time they meet her.

I am totally happy and wait patiently. Feliciano is asking every day about Aamina.

“When can I finally see her?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’m sure Sariah will get back to us. The Easter holidays are just about to start and they might be going away as are we. Just be patient, Felix. Maybe she didn’t get my message yet.” I try to calm my son’s overwhelming enthusiasm.

Back to my research about Arabia and princesses, I listen to Arabian music and wish so much that Sariah would contact me. I would like to help her by telling the world the truth about her: She is a real princess and an honest lovely young woman who had to go through so much before coming to England and still more since she was here. That’s what I know about her since Sariah and I met. I can see through the veil of the lies the newspapers write about her.

It is early in the morning, Felix has just gone off to school. I’m still enjoying my coffee, sitting in front of two computers – as usual. I cannot talk to many people about this book project ‘An Arabian Princess’ as it is totally secret. But Matthew knows about it. He is my very good friend and he just popped in for a coffee.

“Good morning, how are you? I think I just found something that would be very interesting for you, Aelita.”

“Would you like a coffee?” I ask him. No reply.

“Have you ever heard about the film ‘Death of a Princess’?”

“No. What is it?” I want to know.

He grabs one of the computers. “Here it is on Youtube.”

And so we start watching …

Kingdom Of Black Gold, July 1977

Headlines:

‘I SAW PRINCESS DIE’

‘PRINCESS EXECUTED FOR LOVE’

‘LA PRINCESSE L’AMANT …
ET LE BOURREAU’

‘KOPF AB!’

DEATH OF A PRINCESS

A Film by Antony Thomas

Based on interviews recorded in London, Paris, Beirut and Arabia between July and November 1978

I cannot believe what I see, what I hear! A 19 year old Arabian Princess was driven to a square and dragged out of a truck. Hills of sand around the scene. She is totally covered in a black burqa and endless veils, she can’t see.

In another vehicle a young man arrives, two men drag him out of the car. Then one of them takes a gun and shoots the young woman. The boyfriend had to watch her being executed. Lots of man gathered together in that square to watch what’s going to happen.

They then blindfolded the young man’s eyes; He had to kneel down. One man came up to him with a huge scimitar in his hand. With many hacks he chopped off the boy’s head. But it didn’t fall down! It sat on his shoulders while he was bleeding to death! Matthew and I stop breathing while we watch.

A young English worker who just arrived in the square watches the execution of the young Arabian princess and her boyfriend. Later in an interview he tells Antony Thomas, the famed English filmmaker of the documentary “Death of a Princess” all about what he had seen. Very bravely he got to the highest point of the square where he could watch the most of what happened and hid his little camera carefully in a cigarette packet.

I watch the very first scene of the movie again: Antony Thomas at a dinner party and it all looks so natural and is where he finds his interest in the princess. A last minute invitation to this social evening – he even thinks he must have been invited because someone more important dropped out and cancelled their invitation – he meets one of the most influencial men of the Middle East and consequently the whole world – who starts telling the story of the Princess:

“Do you know who that Princess was? Her grandfather was the King’s brother and she was his favourite granddaughter. He loved her and she traveled all over the world. At a certain age, the family found her a husband who of course is a cousin, a member of the Royal family. Even though she was married, she had her own ideas. She rebelled. She wanted to go to university in Beirut where influences are very different.

The family finally agreed to her wish. So she went to Beirut and there she met a young man from her own country. She forgot who she was: A Royal Princess, the King’s niece, a married women.

In my country execution for adultery happens very rarely. There have to be four independent and honorable male witnesses or eight independent and honorable female witnesses who can witness the actual penetration.

The other way the accused can be condemned is out of her own mouth by saying three times in front of a court ‘I have committed adultery’. And so that’s what she did.”

Antony Thomas could not believe that the young princess went back to her country with her boyfriend and said three times in a court ‘I have committed adultery’ knowing exactly what would happen to her and her boyfriend – just for her principles. The young princess loved her boyfriend and she loved her life and her plans for their future. Why would she do that?

“I am shocked! Where did you find this, Matthew?” I ask.

“The film was on TV in the late seventies, maybe beginning eighties. There was a huge controversy after an advertisement by Mobil Oil, the American oil company, protested against the documentary. This was after the film was shown in America and England. When you talked to me about your secret project of the Arabian Princess which you were researching, I thought this is something you ought to see.” Matthew tells me.

I still cannot believe what I’ve just seen on my screen and cannot stop thinking of Sariah.

“Look at this article here …” I start reading the five or six year old articles in the English newspapers again and again. I remember Princess Sariah telling me that Aamina’s father is English. So Princess Sariah was pregnant by someone else – not by her husband if I can believe what the newspapers were writing …

So in the view of an Arabic family, a Royal Arabian Family from the Kingdom of Black Gold, Sariah committed adultery!

She must have been in such a dangerous position then – or maybe still is … Apparently this is the reason for wearing the burqa and the veil all the time… Was she hiding from her own family the burqa covering her whole identity? She must have been so frightened …

I fall asleep on my purple golden silk pillows after having taken my preferred Barbie from her golden box. Barbie lies next to me on the bed when I wake up. The beautiful heavy sweet fragrence of white lilies and pink English roses freshly flown in from Continental Europe every morning by my father’s private airplane draws me into my teenage dreams and sweet imaginings.

Barbie still lies next to me and I wonder what she would do if she’d be in my shoes? Would she wait for Ken, the man of her love, or would she just go with it and do what her father tells her to do? Marry an old member of the Royal Family? Given away as a gift?

Tomorrow is my thirteenth birthday and that means I will be married soon.

We already had the engagement party and the most important step for my father’s vanity has been made: the Katb Al-Kitab, the marriage testimony under Islamic Law. Now the mighty and powerful Moktader, my father, can be sure the Royal groom Mustajab, which in Arabic means ‘The one who is heard’, cannot step back anymore from the commitment of marrying me nor can his family. It is the legal act of proof of the actual marriage so the wedding will take place.

Nobody could see the tears of my heart that I didn’t let fill my eyes but my soul was crying. For my father it was a deal, a transaction of responsibility. Now my husband will take care of me.

My maids, my servants and even my mother were busy getting me ready for the actual wedding ceremony.

“You must look very pretty for the wedding night, Sariah!” So my maids, my mum, my sisters and my cousins told me. But did they really mean it? I always had my doubts because deep in their eyes I could see a fire, a desire and a hunger for love and freedom.

I was not allowed to leave the palace but all the couturiers sent their one and only made for me wedding dresses to the palace. Today a Christian Dior and a Chanel dress arrived. Each of them is a masterpiece! They probably came on the same private jet from Paris. Barbie would have loved the colours, the fabrics, the bows but I didn’t even want to look at them. My maids made my small body fit in the white and champagne cream tuff tuffs. I hardly have any breasts yet and I cannot fill any of the tops of the wedding dresses. I know I am not a woman yet, I do not even menstruate. I know about all these things, yes, even being an Arabian Princess!

My personal maid Khatiba told me everything a young modern woman has to be aware of. I am aware that I will be able to have babies only after the bleeding begins. But I don’t – not yet, so that might save me for the time being as I cannot get pregnant by that old geezer who will take my virginity. Khatiba means ‘speaker’ in Arabic and she speaks. Secretly she showed me movies … oh … and sometimes I am allowed to use her mascara and her lipstick. She was the one who brought all the Barbie dolls from her trips to Paris and London. She smuggled them with bottles of vintage champagne from Harrods into our holy Kingdom of Black Gold.

“Be careful! You know what’s going to happen if they find out!” I warned Khatiba. But she laughed at me.

“How should they find out? Everything comes with the personal shopping from Harrods directly delivered for my attention. I know someone in there, in Harrods, I mean. He is the manager of the security department and he makes sure my orders will be packed with the caviar labeled ‘strictly private & confidential’ and delivered to the palace’s kitchen and no one is allowed to open the boxes except me. Shall we both have a bubble?” I remember Khatiba saying with a smile.

“Ouch! That hurts!” I scream to one of my other maids who is trying to stitch with needles into the silk of a wedding dress. I know it’s not her fault.

To avoid getting more grumpy I drift away in my world of dreams and desire and suddenly the Christian Dior dress fits: I see a beautiful young woman with long wild curly black hair in the mirror wearing the most exciting, elegant and stylish wedding dress with tiny little roses on the long skirt. Not even Princess Diana had a dress like this! My mum told me when the collection was ordered the bridal veil had to be the longest, widest, most extraordinary the world had ever seen!

Six months has past since the Katb Al-Kitab, the day we legally under Sharia Law promised each other to be married, and soon the wedding will happen.

If I hadn’t gone into my own dream world I strongly believed in I would have been dead by then or at least my soul would have died. I take a look in the mirror and realise that I have to put Barbie away for a while …

Some day my prince will come

Some day we’ll meet again

And away to his castle we go

To be happy forever I know…

Yes, and it will be Leonardo di Caprio on a Harley Davidson or a young man looking like James Dean in a Porsche Spyder…

Some day when spring is here

We’ll find our love anew

And the birds will sing

And wedding bells will ring

Some day when my dreams come true …

SOME DAY MY PRINCE WILL COME
‘Snow White’, Walt Disney

I take Barbie out of my golden chest of drawers decorated with pink roses and thorns and open a separate black and golden box. Here I keep Ken until the day Barbie will meet him …

I can’t stop thinking of her, Sariah, the Arabian Princess. I wish so much she’d be in touch with me. Not necessarily for the novel I’m writing, not only for my research, oh no! I feel an urgent need to help her and the deeper I get into articles in the newspapers, the more often I watch the film ‘Death of a Princess’ by Antony Thomas the more I feel I have to protect her from the ongoing violence that’s happening to her.

She was such a young girl – actually