It was impossible to move with the two men holding my
arms above my head. My skirt was not short because I know how that inflames the Arabs, and I know also how
quick they are to assume any foreign woman is a whore, and fair game. In any case, the length of my skirt did not matter any
more because the man who was not sitting on my arms had taken it off me.
He had long,
thin hands, like a girl's. That was one of the few things I registered about him. Also that he hesitated when my skirt was
off. He was looking at my panties. Surprised, perhaps, because they were full panties, waist high, loose, white cotton and
modest. Not what he had been expecting, I think.
'Please, sir,' I said in English. 'Please don't do this.' Still he hesitated, and something in his eyes said doubt
about what they were doing had entered his mind. 'I am a virgin, sir,' I said, which was true. He looked at the other two
and I think at that moment he was prepared to stop.
Then one of them spoke to him in Arabic, very sharply. He took the waistband of my panties in his thin girl's hands
and pulled them down.
I suppose I thought they might kill me afterwards but they did not. They watched while I dressed, slowly because they
had hurt me, and then they told me to get into the back seat of their Land Cruiser. When we reached Le Meridien, they opened
the door and told me to get out. I could see the man in the turban who opens doors and calls taxis staring at me. No doubt
wondering what a Malay girl was doing in a Land Cruiser with three well-dressed Arabs. And no doubt answering his own question
inside his head. It would be an answer not flattering to me.
Mister John Meredith lived in a house on the Corniche near the new Sheikh Zayed Bridge.
Only one man in a big house, six bedrooms, and my friends, by which I mean other Malay maids as well as some Filipinas, thought
I was so lucky. It is true he never beat me, as the wives of some Arab and many rich Indian men beat their maids. He had never
forced his way into my bed, as was common, or made me stand on a ledge on an upper floor and threatened to push me off because
I had worked for fourteen hours and was tired, as had happened to one maid I knew. He never burned me with a cigarette end,
threatened to spray bleach in my face or said he would get my work permit revoked and have me deported. He even let me keep
my own passport.
But he often had visitors, and sometimes guests who stayed a few nights, and the work was more arduous than some other
maids imagined.
