Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [142]
I decided that I should travel to Sudan to find a proper bride, and Sa’ad resolved to accompany me. Since Sa’ad was nineteen years old and I was seventeen, our father did not forbid the journey. Our dear mother was not one to forbid anything, but said, “My sons, I pray to God to look over you, keep you safe, and bring you the happiness you want.”
Sa’ad and I packed a few things and traveled by taxi to Pakistan, where we boarded a plane for Syria via Iran. When we passed through Iran, I reminisced about the day I had accompanied my father from Khartoum to Jalalabad. Although that trip had occurred only two years before, to me it felt like a hundred lifetimes. The dreary life in Afghanistan had a way of expanding time.
It was fun to be in Syria, especially when we surprised my mother’s family by walking through their door unannounced. We stayed for only a few days, but were there long enough for me to realize that my grandmother suffered greatly from my mother’s prolonged absences. It had been so long since my mother had been in a position to call them over the telephone or to write letters that the Ghanem family did not yet know about my mother’s last daughter, Rukhaiya. They were so eager for details regarding my mother and her children that they couldn’t stop asking questions. Mainly they were worried about my mother’s health and physical safety once they heard the barest details about life in Afghanistan.
They asked few questions about my father and his current activities. Some topics in life are best left unexplored. After a very pleasant visit, they bade us farewell and we boarded a plane to Sudan.
When Sa’ad and I finally arrived in Khartoum, I felt a surge of affection for the land and the people. I felt like a prodigal son returning home, for I had never forgotten the friendly people and the joy I felt during our time there.
My father had provided us with some names of government officials who might offer us some protection. I could feel their fondness for the sons of a man they had known as a magnanimous friend. They expressed sorrow that the government had been forced to expel our father, and gave us official permission to travel to any part of the country, which was unusual in those days.
Sa’ad and I quickly parted company. He found a family to stay with, as did I. This was for the best, for Sa’ad’s endless chatter quickly grates on the nerves. We conducted individual searches for our wives, relying on old friends to ask around if there were any attractive young women from good families whose parents might approve of their daughters marrying one of the bin Laden sons.
But before looking seriously for a bride, I sought out the horses we had left behind. I had thought often of our horses, praying that some kind person had purchased them and treated them well. I took a quick trip to my father’s stables, where the horses had been left.
I entered into a nightmare. I was told all the horses but two had either starved or died of untreated illnesses.
Adham and Lazaz, two of the strongest, were still alive. But poor Adham was sick to the point of death, so weak that his once muscular legs would no longer support his body. It didn’t take a horseman to know that Adham would not live out the week.
Lazaz, the proudest horse I had ever known, was so scrawny that his bones were sticking out, trying to break through his flesh. The horse with a spirit so proud that he nearly defeated my dominant father now seemed confused, unsure of who or where he was. He had no memory of me.
Sorrow seized hold of me. I attempted to save Lazaz’s life. I failed. The subject is so painful that I find I cannot return to those memories. After that horrifying discovery, my heart was so heavy that the joy