Water from the Well   By Melissa Tawn   How far would a Muslim woman go to protect the secret of what is really between her legs?

CHAPTER 1. JASMINE
 
Her mother taught her how to balance a full jar of water on her head, while walking barefoot up the stony path from the well to their tent. The Bedouin encampment was on a parched and barren hillside, with only sparse vegetation in some of the arroyos for the goats to feed upon. Soon, that would be gone too, for the black goats pulled the grasses up by their roots, and they would not grow back again after the next rain. Then the tribe would move on to another encampment.

Jasmine smiled to herself when she thought of those days, now long past. She lived in Amman now, in a beautiful luxury apartment on the seventh floor of a modern hi-rise apartment house with two elevators. Water for washing came not from the well, but from indoor plumbing, and water for drinking came in plastic bottles, imported from the foothills of the Italian Alps. She no longer went barefoot, but preferred light sandals with a low heel — black to match her long jet-black hair. The lasting effect of those clay water jars, however, could still be seen in her erect bearing and her slow and determined pace. She looked like a model walking down the runway displaying the latest fashions from Beirut, London, and Milan. Of course, she observed due modesty as befits a Muslim woman — she never wore skirts above the knee, nor did she bare her shoulders. She was proud of how she walked, and proud of how she looked.

Jasmine Shukri, Attorney at Law and one of the Golden Women of Amman society -- how ill that fit when superimposed on the image of a Bedouin urchin from the south. Who would have believed that the bedraggled Bedouin brat would now regularly eat at the expensive Fakhr El-Din restaurant, or be on the board of Friends of the National Gallery of Fine Arts, or be regularly invited to receptions at the Palace or at the various foreign embassies.

Jasmine liked the diplomatic receptions best of all, especially those at the American embassy, where she was a very frequent guest. The American ambassador took an interest in the tall dark Jordanian beauty, and so, especially, did the Cultural Attaché, Bill Vroliak (who was, so rumor had it, really the CIA station chief in Amman). Bill used Jasmine’s association with the National Gallery and his formal title as an excuse for frequent meetings between the two on the terrace of the Grand Hyatt Amman or Le Méridien hotels, as well as at the openings of various art exhibitions and gallery showings. At first, he tried to flirt with her, but when she indicated that, as a good Muslim, she preferred that he desist, he immediately took the hint and their relations were on the purely friendly level, c’est tout. Still, even among friends many topics are discussed.

CHAPTER 2. A SPECIAL WOMAN

Bill Vroliak was just one of many men in the Jordanian capital who thought that Jasmine was a very special woman, but none of them knew just how special she was. Indeed, Jasmine was much more unique than any of them suspected — biologically, she was a male.

The story is a very complex one. When Fatma, Jasmine’s mother, was in her last month of pregnancy, she suffered very severe infections and illnesses. Even the tribe midwife, who believed she had seen everything and could handle everything, realized that her sole medical training — a six-week course taught by a Red Crescent fieldworker — was not enough and persuaded the tribe leaders to summon an ambulance and have Fatma rushed to a government hospital in Aqaba. There she hovered between life and death for several days. The baby was delivered safely, but at the cost of an operation which left Fatma unable to have any further children. Furthermore, the fever seems to have permanently affected her mind. She had been convinced that she was pregnant with a girl, and when the baby turned out to be a boy, she refused to believe it. “It is a girl, I know it is!” she kept on repeating, and insisted on calling the baby “Jasmine”, even though the official birth certificate carried the name “Ali”.

By Islamic and Jordanian law, Jasmine’s father was entitled to take another wife, now that his first wife could not bear any further children. However, he was a gentle man who truly loved Fatma, and it was hard for him to do so. For a year, he brooded and brooded while his wife insisted on raising “their daughter Jasmine” and the other men in the tribe made fun of him behind his back. Then, one day, he just disappeared. He had never shown interest in politics and was only laxly religious. However, two weeks later, the media reported that he had crossed the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank, strapped a Hamas-supplied bomb to his waist, and blew himself up at an Israeli army check post, killing two soldiers and five innocent bystanders, purportedly (at least so said the Hamas) in protest of “Israeli atrocities in Gaza”. He was declared a shahid — a martyr — and a well-known charitable foundation (covertly funded by the Iranian government) awarded his widow a pension of 1,000 dinars per month in memory of his sacrifice for the glory of Islam.

The tribe rallied around Fatma and allowed her to live with her “daughter” in the encampment. However, after several years, when it became clear that no man was willing to marry her, and little children began calling her “the crazy one” even to her face, she decided it was time to leave and moved to the slums of Amman, where she managed to live off of her pension and from selling home-made baklava from a stall in the open market. At the time, Jasmine was a beautiful girl of eight. She was also very intelligent, and within a few weeks managed to catch up with her schoolmates, though she had never been in a formal classroom before. By the time of her first report card, she ranked first in her class.

In the middle of her first year in school, a government nurse came to give all of the children a checkup, and discovered that, underneath her dress, Jasmine was biologically male. She told the principal, who called Jasmine’s mother in for a conference. Fatma, of course, insisted that Jasmine was a girl, and that the fact that she was a girl had been prophesied in a dream before she gave birth. It did not take long for the principal to realize that there was something very wrong here and, following the procedures of the Ministry of Education, she brought the case to a Ministry social worker. The social worker, Rania Birouni, interviewed both Jasmine and her mother, and then consulted psychologists and other experts. She also consulted the qadi of one of the Amman religious courts who dealt exclusively with gender problems (which arose in Islamic countries from time to time, though they were never reported in the media). From her interviews with Jasmine, she concluded that the Jasmine was quite well-adjusted as a girl and that any attempt to force her into a male role would be a major traumatic experience both for her and for her mother, and might have permanent effects on her sanity, since there is a chance that she inherited her mother’s mental instability. Moreover, there seemed to be no gain to be had from such a move. The qadi (who was quite enlightened and, beside his religious training, had a master’s degree in psychology from the Sorbonne) concurred and issued a decree allowing Jasmine to begin hormone replacement therapy so that she would never undergo male puberty. The funding would be done through another charitable foundation, which specialized in “rectifying special medical problems”. When Jasmine would reach adulthood, she would be given the option of having SRS surgery.

And so Jasmine passed from girlhood to womanhood, without ever having experienced anything else. She knew, of course, that she was “built differently” from other girls, but the rules of Islamic modesty allowed her to avoid showing her genital area to her classmates, even during physical education classes in school (the showers in the gym were built in closed private stalls; the girls did not see each other undressed) and, since her hormone treatment gave her breasts just like all of the other girls and prevented a change in voice or the formation of facial hair, nobody had any reason to suspect anything was wrong.

When Jasmine reached her 18th birthday, she was summoned to the qadi who, in the presence of a psychologist, explained to Jasmine exactly what her situation was and what surgical options were available to her. Surprisingly, she refused surgery. She was a woman, she said, and would always be one, but she saw no reason to alter her genitals. A vagina without a womb was, in her opinion, analogous to a picture frame without a picture — and just as useless. Since the purpose of sex with a man was to create children, something she would not be able to do even after surgery, she would have to abstain from sex altogether, and in that case the surgery would be superfluous.

Jasmine was too preoccupied, in any case, to think much about sex. She had graduated from high school with highest possible honors, including one bestowed by the Queen herself, and was headed to the University of Amman to study law. She would be safe there -- if she made it clear that she took her religion seriously, the boys would respect that not bother her for dates or harass her in other ways. Paradoxically, universities in Arab countries are safer for women than those in the more permissive (and less supervised) West.

CHAPTER 3. THE LAWYER AND A CLIENT

Jasmine finished her pre-law and law degrees Magna Cum Laude, and began attracting attention in the “right” places. While a student, she volunteered to work as a paralegal for a clinic that specialized in helping Bedouin caught in the kingdom’s legal maze, and at another that specialized in women’s issues. This drew media attention, and she was interviewed several times on state television, where she proved herself to be an eloquent spokeswoman for the rights of poor or neglected minorities. After she took her degree and passed her bar exams, she was invited to participate in various panels on the legal rights of women in Islamic societies. She once gave a long interview on the subject to the BBC Arabic-language broadcast. She was profiled in women’s magazines and once, even, in the in-flight magazine distributed on Royal Jordanian Airlines.

Jasmine attracted several well-paying clients, among them some wealthy foreign businessmen. Her law office, which soon grew to include a dozen associates, began to specialize in commercial law, though she still insisted on devoting 20% of her personal time to pro-bono work with the poor. It was in this connection, she assumed, that she received a request for an appointment sent by one Sheik Nasr Abu Zain, a bearded and turbaned man who was obviously as far from the business community as one can imagine. She granted the appointment, and when Sheik Abu Zain requested that they meet at a mosque in the city, rather than at her office, she agreed to it, understanding that some of her pro-bono clients feel distinctly uncomfortable in the luxurious surroundings of a modern law office.

The mosque turned out to be a dingy one indeed in a poor area of town. When Jasmine walked in, she found nobody there except for a ragtag student from a religious school, reciting verses from the Quran to himself. “You will follow me, Attorney Shukri,” he said rather impolitely. “Sheik Abu Zain will meet with you not far from here.” Jasmine followed him, trusting that a religious Islamic male, whatever his desires, would not attack a lone woman, and went with him through several twisting streets until they entered an unmarked door in a low and rather decrepit building. Sheik Abu Zain waited for them there, standing in semi-darkness. He dismissed the student with a wave of his hand, and then turned to Jasmine.

“Welcome Jasmine, I have been waiting for you for a long time. I knew your father, and in fact I was the one who sent him on his mission for the glory of Islam. It is now your turn, and you will prepare yourself to join him in heaven. In a week the Americans will be celebrating their Independence Day with the traditional diplomatic reception. You are a frequent and welcome guest in their embassy, and unlikely to be body-searched when you arrive. This time, however, you will be wearing the same sort of belt that your father wore, and when you shake the hand of the ambassador, you will set it off, for the glory of Allah.”

“No!” shouted Jasmine. “How dare you even suggest such a thing to me?” “Please understand,” replied Sheik Abu Zaid calmly, “you have no choice in the matter. I know what is under that fashionable skirt of yours and if you do not do what I just told you to do, the world will soon know it as well. I am quite able, and quite capable, of destroying you utterly. Never, for a moment, forget that. You will now begin to prepare yourself for your martyrdom by fasting and prayer. In three days, we will talk again.” At, Sheik Abu Zain calmly opened the door and walked out. The student, who had been waiting outside, motioned to Jasmine to follow him, as he led her back to a main street, where she would be able catch a taxi which would take her back to her office.

CHAPTER 4. A SECRET REVEALED

Jasmine did not go back to her office. Instead, she went to a café in downtown Amman which, she knew, still had old-fashioned public telephones (in this age of cell phones, they were becoming as scarce as typewriters) and used one of them to call a number which Bill Vroliak had given her for use in emergencies only. Her call was answered on the first ring and the receptionist promised her that an unmarked embassy car (she gave the license number) would pick her up within 10 minutes. Half an hour later, Jasmine was seated across from Bill Vroliak in a safe house on the outskirts of town. Nobody tailed them, the driver of her car and that of the backup car which followed them made sure of that. Jasmine was sobbing hysterically, and Bill, who had never had seen her when she was other than under perfect emotional control, was trying as best he could to calm her down so that he could find out what the problem was.

Finally, after a long time, she was able to tell him about her meeting with Sheik Abu Zain, though she did not reveal to him what secret about her he knew, merely that it was “something that could destroy my life”. He did not seem surprised that there would be an attempt on the life of the American ambassador. “He has tried before,” Bill explained. “His name is not really Abu Zain, by the way, and he is no sheik. His real name is Abdulla ibn Musa Yihye, though he usually goes under the pseudonym Abu Jilda, naming himself after the famous bandit of the early 20th century. He is a high-ranking member of the Hamas, and sometimes acts as a liaison between them and the Iranian government. We have a big file on him. I think that I will be able to help you, but you must tell me what hold he has on you.”

“I can’t do that,” replied Jasmine, “just telling it, even to you, will bring my world crashing down. It is absolutely horrible.” “I know many secrets,” said Bill, “that is my job. Believe me, they usually turn out to be much less horrible than you imagine, once a bit of light shines on them.”

Jasmine knew she had no choice, and, without saying a word, stood up and unbuttoned her skirt. After it fell to the ground, she removed her panties. Bill saw what there was to see, and then calmly suggested that she get dressed again. The expression on his face did not change.

“I can understand your sense of fear, Jasmine”, he began, “but first of all you have to understand that it is misplaced. There are more women like you out there than you know, or can even imagine. If it makes you feel a tiny bit better, at least two of the staff of our embassy are built like you, as is one of our ambassadors in a major world capital. They choose not to tell people about it, and that is their prerogative. If you were living in the United States, you could, if you wished, be quite open about yourself and have the full protection of the law, as well as the acceptance of most people. I understand that your society is different, but it is changing too. I know of at least one high-ranking person in the Palace — you know her too — I won’t tell you who it is, of course.”

“Let me ask you one question, though. Why did you never have an operation to have your genitals modified?”

“I was young and silly, I suppose, when things were first explained to me” replied Jasmine. “I thought that it didn’t make much of a difference. Now I wish that, at the time, I had made a different decision.”

“In that case,” replied Bill, “the solution to your problem is simple. I can arrange for you to be operated on in very short order. That will destroy Abu Jilda’s hold on you. In case he tries to spread the story, we can have several unimpeachable women testify that they saw you naked and that what he says is simply false. Meanwhile, we will work out a plan to catch him red-handed.”

“Can you really do that?” asked Jasmine.

“No problem”, replied Bill. “Give me half an hour to make the arrangements.”

As Bill retired to another room, Jasmine waited patiently, praying to Allah that things would work out. Before half an hour was up, Bill came back and laid out his plan: “OK, this is what we will do. You will be driven back into the city, to a street near the university. You will leave the car and walk across the street. Unfortunately, another car will hit you (not very hard, don’t worry); you will fake being unconscious and will be rushed to University Hospital, where you will be put in a special well-guarded private room normally reserved for members of the royal family, still apparently unconscious. When you emerge from there two days later, I can assure you that you will be equipped to win a beauty contest in a nudist colony. Meanwhile, I will meet with members of the Jordanian security services, and we will prepare a few surprises for our friend Abu Jilda.

CHAPTER 5. A NEW WOMAN

It happened as Bill said it would. Within 24 hours, a team of CIA doctors flown from the US had operated on Jasmine, after studying the results of medical tests and x-rays which were emailed to them while they were still in the air. While the surgery would take time to heal, and there was much follow-up work to be done, there would be no question that any outsider taking a close look at Jasmine would just see a perfectly normal genetic woman who had just undergone pelvic surgery in the wake of being in an automobile accident, which is what was written in her hospital records. Indeed, these records were surreptitiously consulted by one of the hospital’s doctors — another known Hamas supporter — and his entry into the computer was recorded by waiting agents. When he left the hospital, and later when he met with Abu Jilda, members of the Jordanian security forces were there to arrest both of them. Abu Jilda was tried in secret, with Jasmine deposing that he had threatened to invent a false story about her to defame her character. Not surprisingly, he was sentenced to death by firing squad, a sentence which was carried out that very afternoon, before the Hamas could organize a rescue attempt.

The embassy’s Independence Day reception was a great success. Jasmine did not attend, as she was still recuperating from her operation. The ambassador and his wife visited her in the hospital, though, and brought a piece of the red-white-and-blue cake which was served to the distinguished guests.

EPILOGUE

Ten years after the events of this story, Jasmine Shukri was invited to give a lecture on the role of women in Islamic law at a conference at Georgetown University. She managed to get away from the conference one evening, however, to meet for dinner with Bill Vroliak, now reassigned to a desk in Langley. Unexpectedly, Bill brought along his daughter, a blonde and bouncy 14-year-old teenager wearing a bright pink t-shirt decorated with rhinestones and a denim mini-skirt. “I wanted you to meet Jenny,” he said. “I hope that you will be able to find time to talk to her. You see, she has the same problem you used to have.”