Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [156]
“It was a magnificent specimen, the most powerful animal I had ever seen. I had a plan to ride the bull, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be much different from riding a horse. If my family would not allow me to have a horse, perhaps I could have a bull! I slowly approached, but the bull didn’t react to my presence. I assumed that he was accustomed to human hands. The bull remained indifferent, chomping on green grasses, content in his own world.
“I quietly approached from the side, then, in a flash, I leaped from the ground and onto the back of the bull. The bull was instantly determined to throw me from his back. I wrapped my arms around his neck, making him even more defiant. He bolted, first one way, and then another, running as fast as a bull can run. He twisted. He turned. It was the wildest ride of my life. I hung on, but realized that I was going to be seriously harmed. I braced myself, then jumped off, tumbling over and over, smelling the new grass as my face and body skidded helplessly across the field.
“Najwa’s brothers were watching. Other people had walked past to witness my attempt at bull riding. Your mother’s brothers made it their business to dash to your mother’s family home, shouting that Osama had been tossed from a bull’s back.
“Of course, my mother and Muhammad were terrified by my caper. They decided then that I needed something to ride and that a horse would be much less dangerous.”
Muhammad al-Attas nodded. “You know your father, once he sets his mind to a thing, never thinks about turning back. He will not stop until he gets what he wants.”
Yes, we knew that aspect of our father’s character. Such a trait can be good, or it can be bad. From what I knew of my father’s life, his stubbornness had brought him many problems. Once he wished for something, he never gave up, even when his wish had a twin, and that twin was called ruin.
But that evening was a rare opportunity for us to be a real family, and I was not complaining. It did me good to see my mother’s serene, happy face, and to watch my serious father enjoying himself for a change. While he was usually so stern about everything, in his mother’s presence, he seemed an ordinary son, father, and husband. My mother and grandmother exchanged many affectionate glances, and I could tell that my grandmother was very worried about my mother.
Although that first night was perfection, the remainder of my grandmother’s visit did not go as well. We learned later that for her this was not simply a family visit. She had been sent to my father by King Fahd, who hoped that my father’s great affection for his mother would work a charm. Grandmother Allia had come to Afghanistan to plead with my father to give up his Jihadi path, to come home, to make amends. It was not too late, Grandmother Allia said. King Fahd was making one last effort, promising my father that he would not be imprisoned or turned over to the Americans, but would be guaranteed a quiet life if only he returned to Saudi Arabia.
Although he understood that his mother truly believed the king’s promises, my father did not. He was convinced that if his feet touched Saudi sand, he would be imprisoned for the rest of his life, or given to the Americans so that they could have a show trial, the way they did for Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment. Over the years, my father had repeatedly declared that he preferred death to the filthy grasp of the hated Americans.
He so loved his mother that he felt no anger at her words, but merely replied that he could never return to the kingdom. His eyes would never again see Saudi Arabia. His feet would never again walk on the streets of Jeddah. He was finished with the country he loved.
Thus that joyful