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An Apostle’s Tale 0.2 – After the Fall

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There came a crushing impact, and he distinctly felt every one of his bones shattered to splinters. And then he felt nothing except cool, damp stone against his hands and face.

In view of recent events he wasn’t ready to accept deliverance so easily, prudently remaining prone and motionless, preparing to meet whatever fresh abuse was about to commence with whatever dignity he could muster. No blow fell, however; no flame scorched him, no ice bit his flesh, no gaff pierced his vitals. After what seemed a sensible period of immobile anxiety, he relaxed enough to assess his new situation.

Wherever he was, the river hadn’t followed. Deep silence lay upon him like a heavy blanket. The stone under his hands felt level and smooth and reassuringly solid. Wherever he was, he couldn’t fall and wasn’t likely to drown.

So far, so good.

He opened his eyes and winced. A large, sandaled foot rested just inches in front of his splayed hands, ideally situated to launch a kick at his face, which seemed depressingly probable, under the circumstances.

Steady, now. Anything’s better than the river.

He drew a careful breath that sounded like a gale in that soundless precinct, lifted his gaze and beheld a striking apparition. A well-formed male of superior height stood over him, broad shoulders surmounted by the graceful neck and head of an ibis. He’d seen no end of images depicting otherwise human figures sporting the cap and countenance of lesser organisms, but meeting one up close and personal struck him as both comical and more than a little weird. A brilliantly white pleated skirt wrapped the figure’s waist, held in place by a belt of braided silver thread. Thick gold bands encircled its muscular arms, and beneath its long, curved bill hung an immense gold collar densely crusted with precious stones. Though not a religious man, he knew enough to recognize Thoth when he saw him.

He looks just like his picture.

Exactly what business the heavenly scribe had with him he couldn’t begin to guess. He cautiously raised himself to a kneeling position, keeping his hands respectfully open and palms-down on his legs, at the same time straining to keep his eyes on Thoth while holding his head piously inclined toward the floor. He held his peace, fearing it might be considered presumptuous to address a living deity without invitation. The god cocked its narrow head sideways in a familiar twitchy, disarmingly bird-like way and returned his gaze with a single round, unblinking eye. After what he thought an uncomfortably long time it seemed clear that Thoth was in no hurry to explain himself, which, he decided, gave him tacit leave to look elsewhere.

He saw before him a windowless rectangular chamber perhaps thirty feet long and twenty wide, dimly lighted from no obvious source. Six stout, square, and, he deemed, structurally unnecessary pillars supported the low ceiling, marching away from him in two even rows to the far wall, which lay cloaked in gloom. Apart from the bare stone floor, every surface was smoothly plastered and brightly painted. A large scale occupied the room’s center; two shallow copper bowls suspended from a plain wooden cross-tree perched atop a plain wooden post. A lone white feather was its only burden. At Thoth’s left heel sat the largest crocodile he’d ever seen, its eyes closed, to all appearances asleep, which didn’t make him feel any better about it.

Decorated stone benches ran the length of the walls on either side. The bench to his right stood empty, while that on his left held a stately panel of robed figures, perhaps a dozen serious-looking men, each sitting stiffly erect, each crowned by the regal menes headscarf and false beard reserved for kings, each wearing an identically stony expression that could be interpreted as solemnity, or possibly boredom, or even indigestion. None betrayed the slightest interest in him. On reflection, he preferred it that way.

As best he could tell, the wall above the empty bench to his right was entirely covered by unremarkable scenes depicting the unremarkable life of an unremarkable man – gathering bundles of grass; stooping under the weight of a heavy basket; dragging a large block of stone at the end of a rope, wielding a hammer and chisel. With a shock only slightly less jarring than falling into a flaming river, it dawned on him that the chamber was a tomb, and the unremarkable man was he, the unremarkable life was his, and the unremarkable scenes might be evidence at some manner of trial that appeared poised to begin.

“So I’m dead after all,” he said in a low whisper that hissed about the soundless crypt like falling sand, “and now I’m to be judged.”

With the sober panel of dead kings lending gravity to the proceedings, Thoth would weigh his heart against the feather. Should it be found too heavily freighted with sin and falsity, the great reptile at his heel – Eater of Souls, he remembered – would consume the guilty organ on the spot.

The surety of one’s demise might, in another man, precipitate a sense of loss, a moment of grief, a touch of apprehension, at least. Instead, kneeling on the hard, gray floor of his eternal abode, he felt a wave of relief wash over him like wind off the river on a stifling afternoon. Muscles relaxed and anxieties bled swiftly away to nothing, leaving him feeling agreeably tired, like a diligent laborer who completes a difficult job to own satisfaction. He’d worked hard at difficult jobs for as long as he could remember in return for little comfort and no peace at all. Life held no particular joy for him, and the thought of being parted from it occasioned no particular sadness. Like all creatures, he preferred living to the alternative, if only in principle, but at that moment, kneeling before eternity, he could think of no good reason to plead for reprieve. If he expected no better from the next world than he had received in this one, neither did he expect any worse. And if he had been an unremarkable man, he had also been a reasonably honest one, and he saw no reason to fear much in the way of remedial action. He wasn’t really up on the procedures involved, but he was confident the transition could be accomplished in relatively efficient and straightforward order.

“I’m ready,” he said, spreading his hands wide before him and touching his forehead to the floor, “to take my place among the dead.”

“You are not dead.”

It wasn’t a voice so much as a sigh, at once everywhere and nowhere, the secretive murmur of a breeze passing through a papyrus swamp. But it was not Thoth who had pronounced his living status. He became aware of a white figure that he sensed had been present all along. There was a dead man seated at the far end of the room upon a carved wooden throne, atop a low stone dais, beneath a plain white canopy. The morbid figure was tightly bound to the neck in ribbons of white linen, pale hands crossed upon his chest, one grasping a golden hook and the other a jeweled flail. The dual crown of the Two Lands sat upon his head. It could be no other than Osiris, Lord of the Underworld, august magistrate of that spectral court and Egypt’s foremost authority on death.

“If I’m not dead, then what am I doing in my tomb?” He didn’t mean to sound impertinent or impatient, but the good news was surprisingly disappointing. If his ordeal of the last few minutes wasn’t prelude to the Gardens of Plenty, then somebody was jerking him around.

“This is not your tomb,” Osiris replied, his face blank and still and so pale as to be almost transparent.

Of course it’s my tomb, he thought. Isn’t that my life scribbled all over the walls? He was about to make that point when he remembered that his family owned no crypt – could scarce afford to dig a shallow hole in the sand, for that matter – and that the sumptuously decorated sepulcher around him lay far beyond his meager personal resources. Has a patron made some provision without my knowledge? Who do I know with money?

“If it’s not my tomb, then what is it?

“It is a place between.”

Well, that tells me exactly nothing, he thought, and then nearly gagged as it belatedly occurred to him that Osiris could conceivably have the capacity to hear mortal thoughts and might not appreciate sardonic commentary, however valid. When, after several tense moments, Osiris made no move to punish the unspoken affront, he concluded that his private musings were still private and decided to risk a cautious nudge; maybe encourage the King of the Dead to more helpful revelation.

“If you’ll forgive my ignorance, a place between where and where else?”

“Between life and death.”

An Apostle’s Tale 0.1 – The Fall

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He fell from darkness into darkness, tumbling weightless, surrounded by a cloud of his own fear and expecting at every instant to dash his fragile substance against indifferent earth.

At least I’ll die quickly, he thought.

He was mistaken. Time stretched away beneath him, agonizing seconds uncoiling like the rope of an anchor thrown in deep water, his body given up for dead, his mind clawing at emptiness, dread increasing with every beat of his racing heart.

He felt certain he must be screaming because the circumstances so obviously called for it, but could hear nothing. His was equally sure his arms and legs were flailing wildly – those being the only affirmative responses available to falling persons – but he could neither see nor feel his limbs. He felt lighter than sunlight, heavier than granite, at once plunging and soaring, accelerating into the expanding void.

As often happens when the doomed are cursed with a moment to reflect before crossing the threshold between vales of existence, he sought comfort in memory, sifting accumulated trinkets for something bright and pretty to cheer him into his grave. He was not happy, but not surprised, to find his earthly trove composed of poor stuff, dull and shabby, unhappy souvenirs of days spent in toil and discontent. Facing the bitter end of life, he merely confirmed that his life had been bitter all along.

Finding no consolation in his mortal scroll, he thought it advisable to beseech heaven, ask that the gods grant him a swift death, a merciful reception, and peace and ease in the immortal realm, which new effort failed as miserably as the first. He’d had little use for gods in life, asking from them nothing, expecting nothing, and, as far he was concerned, receiving nothing. In the final extremity, he discovered himself incapable of constructing even the simplest of prayers and without the faintest idea where such appeals are best directed. At the moment when even a nodding acquaintance with the divine could best serve him, his habitual apathy toward all things religious ensured he would enter the next world friendless and unescorted.

The two most immediate lines of deliberation thus unsatisfactorily exhausted, his thoughts turned to precipitating events. He sensed the hot echoes of fierce emotion within his panicked brain; surprise, and shock, and a towering anger.

Was I pushed? Am I murdered? Falling to one’s death should rightly leave a strong impression on one’s mind, he reasoned, and being helped into it by nefarious agencies, known or otherwise, even more so. But he could summon no memory of how he had come to the brink of ruin. Likewise, he could conceive of no cliff so tall, nor shaft so deep, that it could afford a falling man more life than that required to comprehend the finality of his situation, yet he’d already enjoyed more thoughtful insights in the course of his protracted descent than would normally occur to him in a year’s time. Yet within those very contradictions he perceived the faintest glimmer of hope. If his manner of falling was clearly impossible, then he was clearly not falling.

This is a dream. A bad dream. Perhaps I am stricken with fever. Or maybe I am under some powerful and malevolent spell, and this is simply an infernal delusion. I must in due course awaken, alive and whole. It is only sense.

He was in a mood to be persuaded, and just as the faintest spark of uncharacteristic optimism began to loosen the freezing band of terror around his hammering chest, his fugitive senses exploded back to business with a stupefying crash and he fell, screaming and flailing, into an icy river of fire.

He sank like a stone into a new contradiction – water so brightly red that it seared his eyes through tightly closed lids, so cold that he felt as if his flesh were being flayed from his bones. His choking fear of falling transitioned seamlessly into a choking fear of drowning, and after reassembling some part of his scattered wits he commanded his newly compliant limbs to action. He flailed to good purpose, now, although in the blinding tumult of the river he couldn’t be certain if he was fighting for the surface or making straight for the bottom. It struck him as patently unjust that he might survive an improbable fall only to drown in an implausible river.

But he didn’t drown, emerging head up and sputtering just in time to swallow a single, grateful breath before smashing painfully into a jagged boulder sitting low in the water. The river was littered with rocks, stealthy ranks strewn across the torrent like an undisciplined army, their sharp shoulders and broad shields tearing the flood into fanciful crimson fountains and broad scarlet fans. The secret to survival, he saw, was in keeping head above the angry flood while maintaining his body in a downstream attitude whereby he might stand a chance of avoiding onrushing obstacles before they battered him shards and splinters. Paralyzing cold and numbing fear notwithstanding, he managed to maneuver past the next few boulders without serious hurt and, in the process, get better acquainted with his surroundings. He observed that the river holding him captive was itself a captive. Irregular stone walls curved up on either side, forming a great echoing throat that amplified the rush and roar into a thunderous howl. Massive stone teeth knifed down from an unseen roof, their menacing points tinged blood-red, like a fearsome seine eternally combing the channel for morsels to satisfy an insatiable hunger.

I’m in a cave, he thought. That can’t be good.

Neither was he pleased to learn that he wasn’t alone. Lifted high on the crest of a wave, he glimpsed a grotesque figure leaning out from the bank, scanning the surface with a hundred staring eyes, a forest of drooling fangs bristling in its gaping mouth, a huge ax in its powerful grasp, raised and ready to strike. The current swept him past the monster almost before he had time to fear it, and he presently came to a massive gate leading to a chamber in which burned a vast fire. The figure of a beautiful woman stood before the gate in flickering silhouette, her sweet voice lifted high in a plaintive psalm that struck him as vaguely familiar. She beckoned to him with arms that were snakes, and her breath carried to him a ghastly stench of infection and decay. He slammed hard against another rock, and by the time he recovered he had drifted within reach of a giant, as tall as a giraffe and with the head of a great hyena, who stood upon a narrow shelf of stone by the river’s edge and repeatedly stabbed at the frantic swimmer with an enormous barbed spear.

If I survive this spell, I’ll kill whoever cast it.

Dense billows of darkness vomited from the mouth of another passage, and the red river shrieked aloud as the black effluent fouled its bright waters. He prudently began kicking for the opposite shore, nearly swimming straight into the grinning jaws of three enormous crocodiles lounging on the bank, spouts of crimson water reflecting like tongues of flame in their glassy black eyes. Reversing course again, he managed to regain what he took for the middle of the stream. But he was approaching the end of his strength. Blinding terror, brutal cold and frenzied exertion had taken their toll, and he knew that he must make for dry ground or perish. As he twisted awkwardly, sluggishly about, scanning the banks for any place not guarded by sharp stones or infested with dubious characters, he detected a change in the river’s mighty voice; a low growl, as much felt as heard, was rising within the prevailing howl. It was a sound he knew only too well: the boom and crash of falling water. In the span of perhaps only a few minutes he’d survived things that should rightly have killed him at least twice over, but it was the approaching cataract that finally defeated his will.

I give up.

He stopped thrashing and lay back in the boiling stream, filled with an unexpected quietude. Desperate efforts on behalf of life seemed suddenly pointless, even foolish.

I’ve always done my level best to look after my mortal property, he silently lamented, and to present myself in marketable condition. Spell or no spell, I’ve had it.

A soft and fatal peace enveloped him, and he was only distantly aware that a new sound had risen within the commotion, a faint and light and musical sound he absently recognized as the jangling cadence of a sistrum approaching from behind. Motivated by nothing more imperative than careless curiosity, he swung around to see who dared create a joyful noise within that terrible place. A stately barge bore down upon him; clean planks neatly joined, rails gilded sun-bright, great falcon’s eyes regarding him from either side of its sharp prow. A small forest of oars dangled from its sleek hull, apparently unmanned and carving wild arcs through the air as the ship careened through the maelstrom. It may have been a trick of the light, or perhaps a phantom of his overwrought imagination, but he conceived a fleeting impression of passengers aboard the vessel, robed in white, seated erect and still as death, expressionless faces staring straight ahead as the river carried them toward their fate. The menace was at last perfected, his doom inescapable, the terror exquisite. Just as a surplus of fulfillment can dull the mouth’s appetite for food, so does overindulgence eventually mute the mind’s capacity to fear. As the final course in such a lavish banquet of horrors, the spectral barge seemed rather bland fare, more absurd than menacing. He would have laughed out loud, but could no longer summon the energy.

If I survive this spell, I’ll have to congratulate whoever cast it.

Raised high by the surging water, the barge’s golden keel crashed down upon him even as the flaming river fell away beneath his idle feet, and he found himself again falling through darkness, this time surrounded by a rain of blood-red stars and the rapidly diminishing roar of the cataract.

At least it’s over, he thought.

He was wrong again.

Egyptiana IX: The Duel

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The Ninth Part in which Steve comes Very Close to a Real Camel

 

Scaffolding sphinx

The wonders of Giza quickly overwhelmed any lingering guilt regarding poor Mahmud. We clambered about the stones, visited Khufu’s burial chamber, marveled at the Sphinx, kicked around the royal cemetery. Camels were everywhere, and watching less savvy tourists awkwardly mount them and lumber about in train to bored-looking guides, we shared a sense of smug superiority. By 3 o’clock the crowds had fled to shadier regions. We bought two of something that may have been peaches and split a can of Coke, then headed off across the sand toward the transportation kiosk. We had plenty of time to get to the airport. My pocket held less than five Egyptian pounds, all of it change. Sweet Apricot had no money at all.

Our path took us near the low hulk of a stone wall all but buried by wind and time. A camel stood upon the ruin, its saddle and reins strung with silver and tassels. On its back sat an old man, or an old-ish one, anyway, ramrod straight and draped from head to toe in Bedouin splendor; layered robes, a jingling curtain of chains hanging down his chest, a broad, curved knife in a jewel-crusted leather sheath thrust into his thick fabric belt. His skin was the color of mahogany and deeply seamed. His salt-and-pepper beard nearly brushed the camel’s back. Thick, wild brows shaded black eyes that seemed remote and wise and filled with ancient secrets. He was a figure straight out of Lawrence of Arabia, and I was impressed. He raised an arm and beckoned us to come near.

“No baksheesh,” I said, not slowing. If I don’t talk to him, he can’t ask me for money. “No baksheesh,” he replied, evenly. He was a baritone, with a whiff of desert campfire in his voice. “Come! Come!” He sounded friendly enough, an oasis of calm self-possession. Sweet Apricot wasn’t buying it. “No baksheesh,” she said. He merely smiled a patient smile. “No baksheesh,” he repeated. “I want to show you something.”

His tone was easy, reasonable, a little bemused. “No baksheesh?” asked Sweet Apricot, still wary. She maintained a charmingly innocent surety that forcing him to re-state his position somehow locked him into it. It’s how she lived her life – as long as the deal was clear and she held up her end of it, she was “a basically good person” and could sleep the sleep of the just. It wasn’t a bad policy, simply inadequate to local conditions. “No baksheesh,” he assured her.

Reaching his right hand into the cavernous sleeve of his left, he produced two scarabs the size of jelly beans indifferently carved from some unremarkable gray stone. They were the least of souvenirs, available wherever money changes hands in Egypt for 50 piestras a pop. He leaned down from on high and held them out to us, one in each hand. “These are gifts. For you. Take!”

Our Trojan Horse

It wasn’t our first rodeo, and we both felt the lariat tightening. This was a transaction, plain and simple, and Sweet Apricot’s reaction was automatic and justified. She took two quick steps back and snapped “no baksheesh!”, then glared at him defiantly, silently daring him to admit his treachery now that his feeble charade was exposed. He merely sighed a tired sigh and shook his head. His voice grew conciliatory, indulgent.

“I am Muslim,” he said, as he might speak to a slow child. “It is Ramadan. I give you these gifts for Ramadan. That is all.”

That set us back on our heels. If it was a trick, it was a new one in our experience. It was certainly Ramadan, after all, and he looked about as Muslim as anyone we’d ever seen. We didn’t want to get soaked again, but neither did we want to insult a pious man who was simply obeying the teachings of his church. Sweet Apricot and I looked at each other for a long moment, then at the ground for a long moment, then Sweet Apricot hammered in one more nail of certitude; let there be no misunderstanding. “No baksheesh,” she repeated. It was a statement, a warning, and a guarantee. “I give these to you,” he said softly, soothingly, deliberately, “for Ramadan.”

Okay then. We accepted the worthless trinkets, looked them over with feigned admiration, and thanked him politely. Fact is, I was pleased with mine. Sure, it was a throwaway, but it had a story to go with it, and I would always associate it pleasantly with the striking Arab who gave it to me for Ramadan in the shadow of the Pharoahs’ pagan majesties. He accepted our thanks humbly, then rose up straight in his saddle, patted his camel’s neck, and looked down on us with a triumphant smile.

 “Now,” he said, “ what will you give…for Ramadan?”

We gaped at him, both of us struck dumb.

Damn.

We were caught and we knew it. He didn’t just take us, he took us with ease.

This is the part of the story where I’m supposed to say something about the fortunes of war, about contests fairly won and honor in defeat, and how I conceived a grudging admiration for the dusty camel driver who so ably outwitted us. But I didn’t conceive a grudging admiration. Just a grudge. And I didn’t feel honorable, just defeated. We weren’t the kings of Egypt, or even savvy travelers confidently navigating foreign lands armed with no more than native cleverness and raw moxie. We saw – too late! – that we were just two more feckless American tourists, fish in a barrel, long on vinegar but short on salt, easy game for an inventive Egyptian with a camel and a dagger and a lifetime’s practice coaxing a poor living from the aforementioned.

To his enduring credit, the canny Bedouin didn’t gloat, but his placid expression stung more than anything he might have said. I gave him everything in my pocket, and he silently took it. We shuffled off toward the city. I glanced back once to see him still sitting motionless upon his camel, watching us go. We boarded the plane a few hours later, a mortally humbled pair without the wherewithall between us to buy a stick of gum.

Greece was a relief. Things cost what they cost, cabbies took us where we wanted to go, public bathroom stalls were adequately supplied, and nobody ever, ever asked for baksheesh. It was orderly, predictable and, quite frankly, a bit tame. We were loaded for bear in rabbit country.

The warm feelings shared by Egypt and America seem to have turned a bit frosty of late. I’d still very much like to return to the Land of the Nile one day, but, for the foreseeable future, I’m not exactly in the way of scouting cheap airfares. And for what it’s worth, and because you’re wondering, I wouldn’t be going back to settle any old scores.

I belatedly appreciate that Egypt’s economic woes run deep and its safety nets are few. I suspect that Mahmud was simply doing his best to put food on his family’s table by the only means available to him. I’m guessing that relentless little souvenir shark at Karnak would be in school working toward a more secure future if dire financial circumstances didn’t demand otherwise.  Those young hotel herders likely had no choice but to scramble for poor scraps from second-rate hotels that weren’t doing much better. Our crafty airport greeter was probably trying to augment a pauper’s wage by grifting people who, to be perfectly honest, could afford it. I expect Mr. Maghdi had a wife and kids at home who owed their precarious existence to whatever meager kickbacks he could squeeze out of cagey perfumers. And I’m dead certain that all the old men who haunt Egypt’s ancient precincts would much rather spend their seniority in dignified retirement instead of spending the long, hot days of their decline nickel-and-diming resentful tourists. And when I think about it, and every now and then I do, I like to think that masterful swindler on the chintz-bedecked camel was Mahmud’s cousin.

Looking back, I guess I was kind of a baby about the whole thing. Should I ever again find myself in those parts, I’ll still count my change and watch the cabbies like a hawk, but I won’t get my nose out of joint if I get hustled now and then. What’s more, I’ll bring along a sizeable fund earmarked for baksheesh alone, and I’ll cheerfully dole it out whenever, wherever, for whatever and by whomever I’m asked, with or without assault rifles.

I’d like to think I grew a little bit in Egypt. If true, that would come as a surprise to anybody who knows me.

 

 

Egyptiana VIII: The Lion’s Den

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The Eighth Part in which Steve recieves a Free Beverage

Booked on an evening flight back to Athens, we had yet to visit the pyramids. Bright and early we parked our packs at the hotel desk (baksheesh was, alas, unavoidable) and hopped a bus to Giza. We had perhaps LE10 between us, just enough for two admissions to the Great Pyramid and maybe some cheese and a can of pop for lunch. Our travails had rendered us irrationally cheap, and although we were about to stand in the shadow of truly extraordinary history, to walk in the footsteps of the Pharoahs, to immerse ourselves in ageless mysteries of the human experience, we weren’t about to change a $20 traveler’s check and have to eat a second five-percent cambio fee changing half of it into drachmas the next day.

A grand finale

A young man seated at the front of the bus moved back and parked himself directly across the aisle. His name was Mahmud. He was tall and skinny and dressed in sneakers and a mis-matched sweatsuit. Were we going to see the pyramids? Yes we were. No baksheesh.

 Mahmud asked if we would be hiring camels while on the plateau. We told him we had no money for camel rides. He clearly didn’t believe us. His cousin rented camels, he said, and he could get us a sweet deal on a couple of real cream puffs. Thanks, but, like we said – no money. To this day I’m not sure how it happened. We knew with absolute certainty that we weren’t going to rent a camel at any price, yet a short time later found ourselves marching behind Mahmud through the narrow streets of a 17th-century Cairo suburb wondering how we were going to get out of it without embarrassing ourselves.

Mahmud’s home was built along classic local lines – two stories, plaster domes atop square blocks, an interior courtyard where all the work of the house was performed. Also along classic local lines, his mom and sister were busily performing all the work of the house. A half-dozen chickens clucked and strutted around them. Mahmud shooed an honest-to-gosh goat off the stairway and showed us up to his receiving room. It was large, completely unadorned, and unfurnished save for a shiny, like-new, four-piece, green velvet Louis XIV livingroom set huddling against one wall. He motioned us to be seated in the two chairs, then lay back grandly on the sofa, like an Oriental potentate, throwing both arms over the back and breaking into a broad smile. He could get us two camels for only LE35. Each. We were getting nervous. We were on his turf, far from friendly tourist haunts, and we were about to waste his whole morning.

We complimented his home (we were both genuinely charmed) and praised his command of English. We waxed eloquent about Egypt’s many wonderful attributes. We said it again. “Thanks, Mahmud, but no. We really don’t have enough money to rent camels.” He leapt from the couch and stuck his head out the glassless window. “You see? You can see the Great Pyramid!” Sure enough, by leaning dangerously far out over the rutted dirt street below and craning our necks west, we could discern through the maze of buildings a thin sliver of tan blocks that appeared consistant with ancient pyramid construction. “That’s awesome,” we said. “But we should probably get going.”

I think that’s when it occurred to him that we might actually leave without renting camels. If we’d blown half the morning getting sucked in by Mahmud’s hyper-persistent gravity, he’d blown it buttering up a couple of pikers. He barked a sharp command and in short order his mom appeared with three cans of local-brand lemon-lime soda on a gleaming silver tray. Sweet Apricot and I exchanged uneasy glances. By accepting refreshment we’d be beholden, and that meant baksheesh, or worse. “Thanks a lot, but we’re really not thirsty.” Mahmud would have none of it. His hospitality had taken on a slightly desperate edge, and he watched intently as we sipped our drinks, all the while lowering his cousin’s bottom line on camels and determinedly ignoring our increasingly firm rebuffs. It was Sweet Apricot who finally saved us. She stood up. “We have to go,” she said, and simply walked out the door. Mahmud looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and dawning realization. Like the coward that I am, I shrugged a weak apology and skipped out after Sweet Apricot. We were wending our way through close, littered lanes in the general direction of the pyramids when Mahmud suddenly appeared behind us, walking fast. I expected an unpleasant scene, but he hustled past without a word. A single glance – an accusatory blend of bewilderment, disappointment and bone-deep irritation – served as our just rebuke. We’d come into his home, drunk his lemon-lime soda, and let him down. He was doubtless heading back to the highway in hopes of salvaging the day with a better class of tourist.

A long walk

The episode with Mahmud cast something of a pall over our Giza adventure, but only a little one. If our escape hadn’t exactly been graceful, it had been decisive. We’d gotten ourselves into a tight spot, but acquitted ourselves with dignity more or less intact and with all the money we came with. We were still the reigning kings of Egypt, and that happy thought saw us through the long hike up to the plateau.

 

Next Time: The startling conclusion!

Egyptiana VII: The Watcher

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The Seventh Part in which Steve enjoys himself at Another’s Expense

Best supporting actor

 With our two-week tour drawing swiftly to a close. We reserved a sleeper on the night train to Cairo and spent the shank of the afternoon lounging in front of the Temple of Karnak, filling up the corners of our memories with mammoth pylons and soaring pillars and the entertaining chaos of tourists and vendors unfolding beneath them. Sweet Apricot left to mail a postcard and my attention drifted to a well-dressed, matronly woman standing about 30 feet away in the temple forecourt. She wore a flowered dress and a frilly, flowered sun-hat and carried a blindingly white purse. She looked for all the world like she’d just come from a ladies auxiliary meeting at First Presbyterian at the corner of Elm and Main. A little Egyptian boy danced and hovered around her like a new puppy. In his upraised hand he gripped a ferret-sized carved stone crocodile. I couldn’t hear a word, but I knew the script by heart.

He excitedly praised the rare quality of the sculpture’s workmanship, the luster of its stone, its impossibly low price. He flattered her dress and her hat and reminded her what great friends are Egypt and America. She thanked him, but, no, she had no need of a stone crocodile. She had no room for it in her luggage, and the price was out of her reach, and anyway she wasn’t fond of crocodiles, and where in the world is that tour guide? Every minute or so she’d make a break for it, gesturing with finality, turning her back and pacing quickly away. Each time she did, he’d bob around in front of her, walking backwards before her retreat and thrusting the object up to her face that she might better appreciate the remarkable detail of its scales and the incredible value she was being offered. As the duel stretched out, minute after long minute, my fascination grew until the crowds, the hawkers, the grand temples, the carriages along the Corniche and the feluccas afloat upon the placid waters of the Nile dissolved away until all that remained were just we three. I couldn’t look away.

After a solid 10 minutes, just about the time I was beginning to feel badly for the harried tourist, the over-matched woman surrendered. She put a hand gently on his shoulder, leaned down until their noses nearly touched, and said something. His face assumed a mask of somber seriousness and he nodded vigorously. A deal struck and sealed, she fished some money out of her purse and exchanged it for the crocodile. The boy immediately took off at top speed, smiling from ear to ear and holding the hard-won cash high above his head as he ran.

The strange little drama concluded, I sat back in my chair, well-satisfied. As people-watching goes, that was good stuff. I played the highlights over in my mind, and may have actually chuckled out loud. Defeated, but at peace, the woman stood there alone holding her crocodile, still waiting for her tour guide to appear, I supposed. Suddenly the little boy streaked up at a dead run, literally skidding to a stop in front of her. He held a carved stone bust of Nefertiti up to her face. I looked away. I couldn’t go through that again. I just didn’t have it in me.

But that wasn’t us. We were better than that. Stronger than that. We were seasoned veterans who’d seen the elephant, saddled the beast, and now rode astride it like warrior kings. We spent our last two days in Egypt knocking around Greater Cairo, and I didn’t lose a thin dime to baksheesh the whole time. My Formica armor was high-grade leather, by then, more than a match for local wiles. Although I’m not proud to admit it now, a good part of our conversation turned around self-congratulation. Egypt’s tough, sure, but we had its number. We moved about at will and were nobody’s fools. How smart we were, and how much to be admired. Now that we’d mastered that land’s exotic customs, there was nothing else for it but to return at our first opportunity and show some folks – the airport greeter figured high on our list – that the American Tourist is a person to be reckoned with.

Stone of contention

We were insufferable.

 

Next Time: Trapped!