The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [143]
“His crime would be marrying you, Fatima,” Zaynab said.
“Oh, right.”
Zaynab was not joking. In the world the girls lived in, marriage was a union of families, not just individuals. It seemed to Zaynab that Fatima had forgotten who she was. (Of course, Fatima had no say about whom she would marry; her eventual husband—one of bin Laden’s followers—would be killed four years later in the evacuation of Kandahar.)
Life was very different in Umm Khaled’s house—quieter and more organized. Unlike Umm Abdullah, Umm Khaled made an attempt to educate her three daughters and one son. A private school for the Arab boys started up in the compound, but the girls studied at home. Umm Khaled, who had a doctorate in the subject, helped Zaynab study Arabic grammar, and she often pitched in with the girls to make dinner. Bin Laden taught his daughters math and science, spending time with them every day. Sometimes he would give them quizzes to make sure they were keeping up.
Umm Khaled’s oldest daughter, Khadija, liked to read history and biography. Although in Zaynab’s opinion none of the children were well educated, she thought that Khadija was “very, very bright.”
Umm Hamza had only one child—a son—but in Zaynab’s opinion, compared to the other wives “Umm Hamza was the greatest.” She was also the oldest, and seven years older than her husband. Her eyesight was weak and her constitution frail. She suffered frequent miscarriages. As a Saudi woman from a wealthy and distinguished family, she exuded a regal quality, but she was deeply committed to the cause. When bin Laden had proposed to her, Umm Hamza’s family was deeply offended because she would be his second wife, but she consented because she wanted to marry a true mujahid. Umm Hamza was very popular in the al-Qaeda community. Other women felt that they could go to her, and she would talk to them as if their problems were important to her. “We knew things might collapse around us, and we’d get depressed,” said Zaynab. “She’d keep everybody going.”
Bin Laden also depended on her. Although he tried to treat his wives equally, as the Quran commands, everyone knew that Umm Hamza was his favorite. She was not beautiful, but she was sensible and devoted. Her house was always the neatest. There was a bed in the house and a box that contained all her clothes. She would have a shalwar kameez (the typical Afghan gown) on the back of the door clean and ready for bin Laden. In the bathroom there was a small shelf with a bottle of perfume for her and one for her husband.
Umm Abdullah was extremely jealous of their relationship. Although she was first in the rank of wives, and the mother of eleven of bin Laden’s children, she was also the youngest and least educated. Her beauty was her only advantage, and she worked hard to keep herself attractive. Whenever other women traveled, especially to Western countries, Umm Abdullah gave them a shopping list of brand-name cosmetics and lingerie, preferring American products that no one else would consider buying. Bin Laden’s wives all lived within a small inner court in the larger compound, and Umm Abdullah would put on a jogging suit and run around the perimeter to keep in shape. “She would always be fighting with Osama,” her friend Maha Elsamneh recalled. “I would tell her this man could be taken away from you in the blink of an eye. You should enjoy him while he is with you. Don’t make him so miserable every time he’s around.”
The girls sometimes played childish pranks on each other. On one occasion, when Fatima didn’t want Zaynab to go home, she cajoled her younger sister Iman into hiding Zaynab’s shoes and her head covering until the curfew sounded, so she was stuck there all night.
Bin Laden’s children did not see him as being nearly as pious and intransigent as the rest of the community did. When Fatima wanted to borrow several cassette tapes, Zaynab told her, “I’ll give them to you on one condition. Your dad shouldn’t hear