Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [40]
We kids hung around to learn what might happen next.
Much to the driver’s good fortune, the police captain left the incident to the bin Laden family. The driver was plainly relieved, until he realized that our father was yet to be told, and his worry resurfaced yet again. I can’t remember who made the decision, but someone in authority for our family resolved that since Sa’ad had survived without serious injury, our father could live without knowledge of the incident, at least so long as he was in Afghanistan.
Happily for all, by the time Father returned to Saudi Arabia, Sa’ad had fully recovered from his injuries. Although Father was shocked to learn that his son had been struck by a car, he held no earthly being accountable. “The accident was not the driver’s fault,” our father said. “It was God’s will that Sa’ad be hit. It was God’s will that Sa’ad survived. We can thank God.”
While it is difficult for any human being to describe their own personality accurately, I know enough of myself to be convinced that the life my father decreed for his sons also shaped me negatively.
The years before I started primary school were the best of my life. I greedily enjoyed my mother’s full attention before my younger brother Osman was born, at least when my father was away in Pakistan and Afghanistan. After Osman was born, my brother consumed much of my mother’s attention. That is when I began to spend more time with our Yemeni driver, the kindly man I have spoken about earlier.
When our father was away, our mornings would start with the first prayer of the day. Afterwards, our mother would be waiting with a simple breakfast of bread, cheese, and eggs. At the end of breakfast, my brothers would be taken to school by our driver. After Osman was born, I began going along for the ride.
At the time I felt sad that I could not attend school with my brothers, for I was lonely when they were gone. After returning home, I would sometimes play with the driver’s children, who lived with their parents in my father’s home. If I grew bored, I would go to my mother and follow her around for a while before she put me to bed for a nap. After my nap I would have lunch with my mother. Generally we ate salads and chicken and rice.
After lunch our driver might take me with him on his errands to purchase food and personal items for our family. Later in the afternoon we would return to the school to collect my brothers.
As the years passed, I became even more solitary. I read books alone. I played with the animals alone. A born lover of all animals, I got a thrill from studying any birds that might alight in our garden. When we traveled to the farm, there were many animals to observe or to play with. I became so accustomed to being alone that I began to relish solitude. When our family traveled, I enjoyed finding an isolated corner for my bed, but too often my father noticed and he would order me to put my bed next to my brothers’.
With my willful personality, I tried my parents’ patience many times.
On one of those occasions, I wanted to go to the shops to buy myself something special. I knew from my experience observing our driver that a person needed coins to exchange for goods. I didn’t know how I might find myself some coins. Suddenly I had a flash of recollection: My mother kept a few gold coins in a bedside cabinet in her bedroom. Those coins were gifts from family members presented each time she gave birth to a son.
I was deceitful, watching to see when mother busied herself. At my first opportunity, I dashed into her bedroom, opened the drawer to the cabinet, and spotted two large gold coins. Now I know that each coin was worth about 1,000 Saudi riyals, or around $300 each.
I ran out of the house, slipping through the front door, and made my way to a shop I routinely visited with our driver. The