Talking With a Queen

Her white lace scarf is an emblem of the nation's sorrow. Day after day, as she received the thousands of Jordanians who came to pay their condolences, the yanis, as it is called in Arabic, framed a spirit for which her husband was renowned: courage with an admixture of warmth and charm.

On Friday the yanis still adorns Queen Noor al Hussein, 47, as she steps into the sitting room of her family home, Bab al Salaam (Door of Peace), to speak with a reporter for the first time since her husband's death. Jordan's official 40-day mourning period ended a day earlier, and in the course of a 2 1/2-hr. interview over lentil soup and tuna sandwiches, the Queen is, for the most part, strong and hopeful, at times bestowing her beguiling smile.

Yet with her favorite black-and-white photo of King Hussein framed in silver at her side, the story she tells of their last months and days together, especially "the sudden, vicious rebound [that] caught us all by surprise," is a heartbreaking final chapter to one of the Middle East's most unusual romances. Noor says the six months in the U.S. during Hussein's cancer treatment were among their most enriching times together since the former Princeton cheerleader (ne Lisa Halaby) married the Arab monarch two decades ago. They lived at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, kept up on work in Jordan via e-mail, spun around in a Volkswagen Beetle, browsed in bookstores, walked in nearby woods and watched Canada geese settling down for autumn nights. "I never managed to get him out Rollerblading," says the Queen, whose Arabic name means "Light of Hussein." And then her voice breaks as she explains how "these moments meant much more to us than ever before, knowing that each one was God's gift."

When the royal couple returned to Jordan in mid-January, they did not expect the King to die. Contrary to speculation, Noor says the 63-year-old monarch believed he was winning his battle against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. His physicians believed as much when they sent him home. But a week after, the King began to grow weaker. He was working on a draft of a document that would rewrite Jordanian history--a letter replacing his 51-year-old brother Hassan as heir with his son Abdullah, 37. When doctors advised him to return to the U.S., Hussein quickly finished the letter, had it read on Jordanian television and flew to the Mayo Clinic.

Even then, Noor says, she remained hopeful that a fresh course of treatment could revive the King. But "it became clear that we were fighting something that would not give way." They immediately returned to Jordan so that Hussein could die at home. Still, Noor says, she refused to surrender. "My husband was still alive, and I was still praying for the miracle, believing that it could be God's will." It was partly that hope that prompted the Queen and her children to leave Hussein's hospital and plunge into the emotional crowd of Jordanians keeping vigil outside despite a winter rainstorm. It was, she says, "to offer them some peace, and to ask them to pray for him."

Noor has been variously criticized for being an outsider, a jet-setter or a Western woman crusading in a conservative culture. Yet she is deeply rooted in Jordan, where her bearing through the King's illness and death won millions of hearts. She knows the torch has passed to her stepson King Abdullah and her own eldest son Crown Prince Hamzah, 18, who is studying at Sandhurst and bears a striking resemblance to his late father. Abdullah's wife Rania, 28, is expected to be named queen soon, but that shouldn't be a problem: Noor shared the title with Hussein's mother Queen Zein until she died in 1994.

Indeed, all seems quiet on the palace-intrigue front. When asked what Hussein meant when the last message of his 47 years on the throne referred to "slandering and falsehoods" against Noor, she replies curtly, "I don't even want to talk about it." She was clearly maddened by rumors that she manipulated the change in succession to gain power for her son.

As Noor enumerates her projects, it is clear that she would like to continue the activist role she pioneered for Arab women. Now that she has been released from the constraints of being the wife of a reigning King, she may speak out more forcefully. Famous for angering Washington with her views supporting Palestinian rights and, at one time, urging negotiation with Saddam Hussein, she is now tempted, it seems, to enter areas of advocacy that are politically taboo in the Arab world, such as democracy and human rights. Most dear to her is the new King Hussein Foundation, which seeks to promote debate and will perhaps offer a humanitarian prize. The work, in a way, would be an extension of Hussein's drive to modernize the Arab world. Noor says she doesn't feel it's a mission she'll face alone. "On a spiritual level," she explains, "I feel we are still making the journey together."