This was the influential woman, a multinational star who straddled two worlds with gracious ease, that the Bale family thought would hear their case and cut through the Jordanian legal system with a wave of her gloved hand.
"She could make it happen with a snap of her fingers," says Haifa Bale. The hope is not entirely irrational. The State Department and Middle East experts acknowledge that the Royal family can intercede in court proceedings.
Ahmad Jridi on his wedding day. The arranged marriage was destined to become an international odyssey of spousal abuse and kidnapping. Jridi is now wanted by federal and local authorities for taking his daughter to Jordan.
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The seeds of this plan were born in the mind of Leila Ben Debba, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. According to Haifa and Scott Bale, Ben Debba said the queen herself would hear the case.
That seems to have been an overstatement, at best. The plan was, in reality, little more than a letter-writing campaign to the royal secretary. No progress was made, and no face-to-face meeting was arranged. The Bale family waited, hearing nothing.
"I don't know if she herself has heard the case," Ben Debba says of Noor's involvement, telling the Observer what she still hasn't told the Bale family. "We have her signatures on letters, but we don't know they're really hers."
One letter, penned by the director of the queen's office, denies aid and coolly suggests that Haifa hire an attorney to represent her in Jordan. Attempts to get an interview with Noor and her office were unsuccessful because of the queen's "very tight schedule."
It seems that contacting Queen Noor now would be futile, because of the death of King Hussein in February. "We appealed to the new queen, and that's still in the works," Ben Debba says. "One problem is that she's pregnant and due to deliver. We can't get her attention."
These failures were not told to the Bale family, who waited in Garland under the impression that big wheels were turning. "I had been told that Queen Noor did hear the case," Haifa says. "I asked what her reaction was, and Leila said she was thinking about it."
Scott Bale sees it in a dour context: "It's a real disappointment if that's not what happened. But it goes with everything else that has happened." He feels overwhelmed and let down. The woman smiling at him from the left-hand lane is now his wife, and the little girl he loves has been taken to another nation. "This is completely beyond me," he says. "We'll get our hopes up, and then things you never imagine would happen, happen. He's managed to slip through the cracks."
Those disappointments have taken a toll on Haifa. She worries about the traumatic effects of the ordeal on her daughter, about the "brainwashing" to which the Jridi family is undoubtedly subjecting her, about the conditions in which she's living. She has not spoken a word to her child in nearly four years.
Sympathetic cousins in Jordan occasionally call with reports that they've seen Bara'ah, who is now 7 years old. One told her she was seen playing unattended in the street, barefoot. Another saw her at a nearby store, again unattended. These family members have no direct contact with the girl; any information Haifa receives just generates more questions to which there are no ready answers. One smuggled photo shows the pretty little girl standing before the dirty khaki-colored apartment buildings of eastern Amman, with a small grin on her face. Information is scant: They are not sure if the girl is even being schooled.
Reports of Ahmad Jridi's life in Jordan give rise to the hope that he'll return the child if U.S. authorities drop the charges against him. Members of Haifa's family in Amman say that he has operated two businesses--one a child-care facility--but that both have failed. By all accounts, Ahmad Jridi loved the loose ways of the United States, the multitude of liquor stores and available women. But he shipwrecked that life in America to gain vengeance on his wife.
Haifa is still here, happily married and working on having another child. "I am fully Americanized. I'm glad I'm here. I wake up sometimes from nightmares that I'm in Jordan. Then I wake up in happy tears that I'm still here."
So she has what he wants, a life in America. He has what she wants, her daughter. Arranging a swap is a long shot, and the Bale family has undergone too many disappointments to get their hopes up.
"I really lost a lot of faith," Haifa says. "I had really given up, big-time. Without Scott telling me to never quit, I don't think I could go on. I still have faith in God, that this is happening for a reason."
She pauses. "I'm still trying to find out what it is."
