A LITTLE HONEYMOON
For the five days we had left, we decided to go to Alexandria and the north coast along the western desert, up to Marsa Matrouh and perhaps to the Siwa Oasis. It did not really matter. This trip was not for sightseeing. It was for us. For a change. For our love. To be together day and night. Perhaps, mercifully, to get bored of one another, to make our parting easier. We left early the next day to avoid traveling in the midday sun. The weather was already getting warm. It was the beginning of May.
We traveled on the agricultural highway, crossing through the Delta and the principal towns north of Cairo. Benha, Tanta, Damanhour, Kafr El Dawar. Along the flat fertile land with its villages anchored in the past. Only just recently delivered from the bondage of feudalism by the Revolution. On to the bondage of the cooperatives and bureaucracy. With the ancient and the modern side by side. Here, a diesel motor pumping water out of a canal and into the fields, further down a water buffalo, eyes blindfolded, trudging in circles on a small circular patch of land, turning a huge wooden wheel that hauled the water to the fields. And not much further away a peasant turning Archimedes's screw, the up-to-date technology of the pharaohs.
We passed villages where we saw the men bent on the fields and their women washing clothes and kitchenware on the banks of the river, in the brown, murky waters. We saw loaded carts being drawn by peasants and ploughs being drawn by buffaloes. Rotund effendis holding white sunshade umbrellas astride small-bodied donkeys half their size, moving with the tiny steps of a heavy load. We saw packed, ramshackle railway trains with the excess passengers on their roofs, speeding unperturbedly by. A few camels whose gait swayed their riders and resigned anglers on the banks of the river awaiting a nibble. A few scarecrows, their rags scaring no one. And the fields, green and flat to the horizon, together with the ubiquitous date palm trees and the blue, blue sky reminding us that this was Egypt. The land of our birth, a land we loved and hated but were never indifferent to it.
Corina was very gay throughout the journey. The transformation of one remote and unsmiling Boston-to-Cairo passenger that chance placed in my path more than three years ago was proceeding most extraordinarily. While missing none of the scenery, she stuck to me, caressed me, sometimes not at all decorously and kissed me on the mouth endangering our lives. I often had to jerk away from a passionate kiss to keep the car on the road. I had become the adult and she the naughty child.
We reached Alexandria four and a half hours later. We could have done the journey in three but Corina's playfulness reduced our speed. We could not very well kiss at a hundred kilometers an hour. We did it at a more amenable sixty. With the gay talk and jokes, the petting and a spattering of serious conversation, time went by like a dream. We entered the city feeling the considerable increase of humidity in the atmosphere and headed for the sea. The city itself is built along the coastline, which makes it narrow and long. At the Cornish, the main artery running the whole length of the city by the seaside, we turned right to the east and away from the city center. There was a new hotel built at Montazah, on the grounds of King Farouk's summer residence in Alexandria. We would spend the night there. Alexandria was not, perhaps, the Pearl of the Mediterranean as was advertised by the government but the city in the early sixties was a charming place. Foreign residents had already started the exodus but many remained, preserving at least some of that cosmopolitan aura celebrated by writers and novelists.
The three main foreign communities were, primarily the Greeks and to a lesser extent the Italians and Armenians. The Greeks had fine schools, clubs and stadiums, a modern hospital and of course the Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, the seat of Orthodoxy for the whole of Africa. The Cornish itself had a special charm twisting and turning, following the outline of the coast, with buildings to one side of the road and the beaches on the other. The sea in Alexandria, to the east and west of the city, is open and unsheltered and has sizeable waves most of the time. A fresh but tangibly humid wind is always blowing and the smell of the sea intoxicates your mind.
'Corina, shall I give you a thumbnail sketch of its history?'
'Yes my love, if it pleases you. I would rather you gave me a kiss, though.
Some words of songs have suddenly acquired a new ring of truth for me. 'I hunger for your touch. I need your love.' Remember Frankie Laine? Michael, I hunger for your touch.'
'Oh Corina! Be serious, my girl. I'm telling you about Alexandria.'
'I am serious my love. Alexandria will always be there. It's our love that is fleeting.'
'But you should know a few things about Alexandria.'
'I do know a few things about Alexandria. I know a thumbnail's worth.'
'Such as?'
'Well, let me tell you a few things. Alexander the Great created here a new capital for his empire in the year 332 BC. It was a small village, well protected by a barrier of rocks around the eastern and western ports and supplied with water by a lake fed by the Nile. Alexandria quickly became the most important port of the Mediterranean and for the first time in history, a lighthouse or pharos was built which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. His successors, the Ptolemies, invited scientists, poets and philosophers to live in the city and built for them a palace, the temple of the Muses, where they would be able to work in peace and serenity.
Learning flourished and Alexandria became the intellectual capital of the time. It was a Hellenistic civilization, Greek being the spoken language. Cleopatra was the last queen before Egypt fell under the domination of Rome.'
'Silly of me to assume you would not have known about Alexandria.'
'After the Portuguese discovered the new route to India around the tip of Africa in the fifteenth century, thus rerouting the spice trade, Alexandria lost its preeminence as a port. It regained its importance only during the time of Mohammed Ali in the nineteenth century with the rise of the cotton trade and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. It soon became a cosmopolitan center, which attracted rich Europeans and adventurers of all kinds. The city, as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, is well described in the books of E.M.Forster and Lawrence Durrell.'
We reached the gate of the vast compound of the Montazah palace. A high, well-kept wall surrounded the park and the various buildings that comprised the palace. We entered with the car into a well-kept park of flowerbeds, rare, beautiful trees and grass and well kept roads leading to the various buildings and beaches. On the furthest corner, by the seaside, was the Palestine Hotel, a spanking new, modern building that contrasted with the rococo-Islamic style of the palaces. We parked, entered and booked two rooms. No question of residing together without a marriage certificate. We went decorously to our respective rooms where a few minutes later we received our luggage. Luxurious, spacious, double rooms with private bathrooms and a view to the sea. A quick wash, a skip and a jump next door to Corina.
She opened the door with a smile. The throbbing tension of the four-hour drive, the long-winded buildup of kisses and caresses, the obvious longing for intimacy mental and tactile, drove our bodies and souls, with no loss of time, to an urgent arousal and wild, vigorous lovemaking.
Two hours later, we got up and went round the corner, so to speak, to Aboukir for a late-late lunch. Aboukir is only a few kilometers further to the east of Alexandria on the coast, a fifteen-minute leisurely drive from Montazah. A sad, little fishing village with the bay that put its name in the history books. It was there that Nelson demolished Napoleon's fleet and cut him off from France. To Egypt's obvious profit, because Napoleon's stupendous energies, for a while were directed to the study and overhaul of just about every aspect of Egyptian society and antiquity. Anyway, there really was no reason to go to Aboukir other than that it had two or three seaside restaurants with the freshest fish available in Egypt. I had asked Corina if she liked fish.
'Of course I do. We Norwegians are a nation of farmers, fishermen and sailors.
Fish is our daily bread.'
'Good. Because if we are to continue at this pace, I need nutritious food to back me up. And fish is supposed to have aphrodisiac properties.'
'Yes my love. Let's eat fish day and night.'
So on to Aboukir, to the run-down eateries with the sexiest food in town. We crossed the depressing little village with the small mud brick houses where the swankiest building was the mosque. Smiled at the hand waves of the schoolchildren returning home, with their off-white apron-like school uniforms, their dusty, worn-out shoes and droopy socks, their heads shaven for the prevention of lice and expense. We entered a Greek restaurant called Xenophon, a vast area with simple wooden tables and chairs and white, overworked tablecloths. On the seaward side was a wall of windows; most of them open. A strong cool breeze blowing in almost wet with humidity and the smell of seaweed and the sea. The best part of the decor. The hour was late and the restaurant had few customers. We sat down in the empty vastness and ten waiters converged like vultures on their prey. We ordered the salads and the wine but had to go to the kitchen to choose the fish.
Back to our table, while the fish were being grilled, I grilled Corina.
'Tell me, Corina, have you heard the name Constantine Cavafy.'
'I wanted to tell you that perhaps we ought to visit his house at Lepsius Street. A pilgrimage to a great poet.'
'No, it's not possible! Corina, you amaze me.'
'But I love Cavafy's erotic poems.'
'They are the erotic fantasies of a homosexual.'
'Does that make them less beautiful? Does that diminish the language, the feeling?'
'Of course not. He had an unequaled mastery of the Greek language. And one controversial characteristic of his writing is the way he mixed the formal, semi-classical katharevousa style of writing, which was widely used at the time, with colloquial, spoken Greek.'
'I wish I knew Greek to read the original and not a translation.'
'A strange detail struck me when I was reading one of the many books written about him. He lived, as you know, in the period 1863 to 1933 and worked for eight years as a simple employee in the Irrigation Services department. An Egyptian fellow employee remembered that Cavafy was talkative and fussy where his office work was concerned and extremely reticent about his private affairs. He was asked what language they communicated in. 'In English of course.' 'Did he know Arabic?' 'He did not know formal Arabic, nor could he read and write the language.' 'Spoken Arabic?' 'Very little.' So here we have a Greek intellectual, born, bred and working in a government department in Egypt who hardly knew even the so-called kitchen Arabic used in the street. What does that tell you about the circumstances of the time?'
'It testifies to the complete foreign domination of a country where the administration of government was in the hands of foreigners, where the official languages used in everyday life were English and French, where Kings and Prime Ministers were puppets of the foreign powers and finally where the Egyptians themselves were held in contempt.'
'Exactly. It is a trauma that carries to the present day. A feeling of inferiority vis-à-vis the European and a consequent instinctive rejection of his values and his presence in their country. The bitter resentment of the oppressed. But we are getting off the subject. Cavafy was the first of the modern Greek poets and certainly if not the best, one of the very best. Some experts consider him as one of the three greatest poets of the century, together with Elliot and Pound. He started writing poetry at the age of twenty- one and published them in the literary periodicals of the time. His work was introduced in England and Europe by E.M.Forster, another homosexual by the way. He was a controversial figure in his time. Even to our day, books are published either to attack him for a promiscuous life or to defend him with a counterclaim of absence of proof. His homosexuality was never in question. His lifestyle was. But his poetry, which is what finally matters, is the poetry of a hugely gifted, gentle, subtle and sensitive man. A man of genius no doubt, a lover of beauty, male in the main, and a hater of hypocrisy and lost opportunities. A streak that is in you too, Corina.'
'A streak that tends to appear when one feels the years slipping by and not much time is left.'
'Aha, the food is coming. So let's eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.'
'Eat my love but before we die, please, a few kisses more.'
We ate in the fresh fragrant breeze, drank wine to the sound of the waves, talked and laughed with the help of a second bottle and by the time we finished our dessert the sun was starting to set. As we were going to the car, a mite unsteadily, I had an urge to kiss Corina. I looked at her, she looked back and we exchanged thoughts that were identical. The fish had not died in vain. The wine was not called the nectar of the Gods for nothing. With well-concealed impatience, we made our way to our rooms in the hotel Palestine.
At around ten in the evening, we drove to town and ambled in the streets getting the feel of the city. One still heard Greek being spoken and to a lesser extent Italian. Much more so than in Cairo. We entered Athineos for our ten o'clock tea and cakes and went up to the Cornish for a whiff of the sea and a look at the heaving, phosphorescent waves. Then at about midnight having criss-crossed the city center and gone up and down Safia Zaghloul street we decided to go to a Greek bouzouki joint. The bouzouki is a popular string instrument similar to the mandolin. We went by car because it was some distance away in another district. Not exactly a swanky place, it was slightly run down and the clientele plainly working class. The musicians ranged in the traditional manner of the popular bouzouki band. A row of chairs where the singers sat together with one or two bouzouki players and guitarists. The music was neither western nor eastern, somewhere in between, with the bouzouki the principal sound accompanying the singer. The singers sang sitting down, often with their legs crossed. Every now and then when a particularly well known song came along the audience joined in, much to Corina's delight. Nothing like it would be likely to happen in the northern latitudes.
Soon, individual males started getting up to dance those peculiar Greek solos. Cigarette in mouth, hands outstretched, fingers clicking and legs bending, body twirling with esoteric legwork patterns coming straight from the soul. Slapping their shoes and slapping the ground, I envied their unselfconsciousness and their ability to express their feelings and passions through the dance, a vital need of the Greek psyche. Corina was thrilled. She was seeing something completely unfamiliar. After a while, one of the women singers got up and literally pulled a number of women from their tables and they all danced together Greek folk dances. That was the start. Women and men started going to the dance floor to join in. Corina got up and joined the chain of dancers, throwing glances and smiles and little gestures urging me to join in. She was doing her best to follow the steps with a smile on her face. When she returned to the table, she was panting and told me she was completely out of shape. 'The only exercise I have had since I came to Egypt, is exercising my jaws through eating and another obvious part of my anatomy.'
I laughed.
'That's good exercise, too.' I said.
'So was the dancing. It was fun. Quite an experience.'
'So what conclusions do you draw about the Greeks?'
'Oh come on! On the basis of a sample of a few dozen people in a second-rate bouzouki shop in Alexandria?'
'Yes, Corina. A first impression, not a thesis. A thumbnail's worth.'
'Very unscientific but let me try. Physically, eastern Mediterranean. Faces you would meet in southern Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria and Lebanon. Further to the east and south already they start to differ. They are more Semitic. Darker, shorter, frizzy haired and unmistakably Arab. I have the feeling that the Greeks are sociable, garrulous and gay. Whereas, I have heard that the Turks are rather more somber. Seeing them here enjoying themselves, you see an extrovert bunch, which, by the way, is unlikely to be a representative sample. However, one can divine characteristics that to some extent the rest of the population shares. Such as the love of music, singing and dancing. An important part of the Greek culture. An expression of solidarity. I have read that during the war of liberation against the Turks, the Greeks before going to battle used to dance. They used to dance at a victory and dance when there was no hope. Then, this love for enjoyment in the company of others and the need for a good time, means they are probably not very industrious. Is not the kapheneion, the coffee house, central to the life of the Greek village? What else? Yes, well, you can see they are obviously very friendly and hospitable. In any case, hospitality is a Middle Eastern - Mediterranean attribute.
Sadly lacking in the north. The music is varied and plentiful which attests to an artistically sensitive people and probably extends to the other arts. That's about all I can think of now.'
'Bull's eye, my dear. This was sociology, psychology and anthropology, all in one.'
She laughed.
'Yes, a little of everything. A thumbnail's worth.'
In our rooms at the hotel, we slid into another session of lovemaking and it was just before dawn that I went to my room for a few hours' sleep. That day we decided to remain at the hotel for another night and go to Agami for a swim and a day at the beach. Agami is about twenty kilometers west of Alexandria. On the way there we had to go through town and I passed by a friend who had a cabin on the beach at Agami, to ask him if we could use it for the day. Old Laki, hospitable as ever, told us a young Bedouin called Ahmad would open the cabin for us and look to our needs. We left the city center and headed west passing outside the Western Port, the principal port of Alexandria, and crossed an old, decrepit section of the city not much better than a slum. We passed by Mex where one branch of the Nile entered the sea and changed its color to a muddy brown for a rough semi-circle with a radius of half a kilometer before the sea resumed its original deep blue. Next, the village of Dekhela and beyond it for a short while we traveled on a stretch of semi desert, amid plantations of fig trees.
At a certain point, we turned right onto a milky-white, sandy dirt road and in the distance, we glimpsed the sea. Laki's cabin was a worn out wooden shack the size of two small rooms. Its charm was in its emplacement. On a hillock, at the edge of the vast beach of fine white sand, extending as far as the eye could see. But the sea! Oh that sea! A luminous turquoise-green, near the beach, turning to a darkish purple half way to the horizon. Its waves a frothy white. A sea, like a femme fatale, beautiful, inviting and treacherous. There were currents in that sea that tugged at you from the very edge of the water.
The beach was deserted. It was ours. The weather, perfection: sunny and fresh.
We just stood around taking deep breaths, looking at the sea, waiting for Ahmad to materialize. Sure enough, we did not wait long. A boy of twelve or thirteen, dark, good looking, with shining, intelligent eyes stood in front of us with an inquiring smile.
'Ahmad?'
'Yes.'
'Laki sends you his salamat, his greetings, and asks you to open the cabin for us and if possible to help us if we need anything. He will be coming here on Friday.'
'Ahlan beekoum, you are welcome. I am your servant. I'll go get the keys from the house.'
'What a lovely boy,' said Corina. 'He looks so bright. What a waste of a life here in the desert. He could be a doctor or a scientist some day. A boy like that, I'd be willing to adopt and educate.'
'One thing this God-forsaken socialism managed to do in Egypt was to give even boys like Ahmad the opportunity of education. Education is free and admissions in universities are solely by merit. It is one part of the system that managed to stay uncorrupted. The question is, would a boy like Ahmad living here, practically in the desert, have the incentive and the push from his family to study and excel?'
Ahmad was back in a jiffy. He unlocked the door and told us to wait a while. He opened the windows, took a broom and started sweeping energetically the tiled floor.
Then he dusted the furniture and told us we could come in. We entered a small living room with rickety tables and chairs and a small table with a backgammon board, cards and a monopoly game. In a corner lay two or three sun-bleached beach umbrellas and a few wooden rackets with some tennis balls. The rest of the cabin consisted of a tiny bedroom with just a bed and a bathroom-toilet-kitchenette, all in one. We went into the bedroom to put on our bathing costumes.
'The water is still cold at this time of year,' Ahmad told us.
'The lady comes from cold climates and she likes the water to be cool.' He laughed at this surprising information.
'If you swim, do not go in very deep. The currents here are very strong. In summer when the beaches are crowded, we have people drowning practically every day. Have you lotion for your skin? The sun hits hard the white people.'
'No. We did not think of that.'
'Laki has always some to spare. I'll get you some. And also two hats.'
A real treasure, little Ahmad. He brought us the lotion and we spread it on each other while he looked on, amused. Unimaginable familiarities for Bedouins. Corina in a two-piece bikini, quite audacious for Egypt at the time. Young Ahmad could not take his eyes off her. We had forgotten the suntan oil but thought to bring some of the hotel towels with us. We took our towels and sun lotion, put on our white fishermen's hats and moved off to the deserted beach, squinting at the sun's glare on the white sand and enjoying the feel of its warmth and softness. Towards the clear, green water.
'Good thing the beach is empty, Corina. You would have caused a riot with this bathing suit. You might even have been arrested. I don't think two-piece bathing suits are allowed in Egypt.'
'Oh shucks. I'll go naked if I want to.'
'You'll go naked to jail, my girl. This is Egypt not St Tropez.'
The sea was nice and cool when we stepped in it. Ahmad was right, perhaps a little too cool for us Middle Eastern softies. Corina found it just right, perfect. We did not go in straightaway. We walked for some time and left behind us the deserted settlement until there was just sand and sea, a blue sky, a pitiless sun, tamed somewhat by the pleasant breeze, and two human beings. Walking hand in hand, talking, smiling and happy, stopping now and then to kiss and then walk on.
One novel experience after another, that day. Lovemaking in the sunshine, on a deserted beach of a puritan Moslem nation. Swimming in the nude in the cool, turquoise, crystal-clear sea. With the exhilarating sense of freedom and tactile sensations that this nakedness produced in the water. Corina frightening me by ignoring my warning and wading deep inside the sea, swimming like a dolphin. Feeling the current's gentle and treacherous pull. Then outside on the sand sunbathing unclothed, covered only by the thin film of suntan oil we spread on one another in an intensely sensual massage. However, we dared not linger too long for fear of sunburn. Egypt's sun is not to be trifled with. Especially when a fresh breeze is blowing, cooling you off, disguising the relentless roasting of your skin.
We put on our bathing suits and walked back to the cabin, showered, changed into our clothes, bid good-bye to Ahmad with our thanks and a tip and on to Mex for fish, shrimps and their restorative proteins.
We left the Palestine after the second night to continue our adventure in orgasms, as Corina qualified our jaunt. We headed west for Marsa Matrouh. Across Alexandria, pearl of the Mediterranean since Alexander the Great but only up to a recent past. With a soft spot in our hearts. With a future impossible, clogged with humanity and vehicles and lapped by polluted seas. Bypassing Mex and Dekhela and Agami again, all destined to suffer from God's exhortation to his children to live and multiply. And on to the western desert at a snail's pace due to Corina's playfulness and good humor. She told me stories of her youth and her family and friends where all through the high spirits there was always the serious streak to her character. Then, again, gaiety, jokes, caresses, kisses, swerves on the road and close calls to disaster.
On and on, until bang, we bumped into El Alamein and the cemeteries of World War II and had the smiles wiped off our faces. Face to face with the folly of humanity. The waste of young lives. The dangers of human organization when headed by depraved, evil minds of demagogues that bring out what is most base and despicable in a people instead of what is noble and good. We walked slowly for an hour hand in hand between the rows of crosses of these forgotten men in the deserted, desert cemetery. Some of them heroes, most of them ordinary, surely a few of them faint-hearted. All of them human. English and French, Germans and Italians, Greeks and soldiers from the British colonies, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, Ghurkas and others. It was a meaningless and useless gesture this walking around between the graves, this meditation on the savagery of man, this tribute to the fallen. The sadness for people long dead, for strangers not known. Meaningless and yet a need. Strangely also, a message of hope, of gratitude for being alive. A strange message to derive from the slain and the dead.
On we went, a little solemn, a little thoughtful, a little faster. We stopped at a spot called Sidi Abdel Rahman, where the road skimmed the beach, and walked a while on the sand, shoeless, hatless and humorless. I told her a joke to change the mood. She pretended to laugh and splashed some water on me with her foot. I tried to do the same and missed. She moved out of range. I chased her. She was fast. I caught her and we fought. She was strong. I could not overpower her. Could not kiss her by force. Could not have raped her. Good for you Corina. You have the makings of a superwoman. A surprise for Nietzsche. He had only staked on supermen. A presumptuous male chauvinist who said, 'If you go to a woman take along your whip'. Corina nearly whipped me but the struggle ended with a kiss. Then back to the car, back to a subsonic sixty, back to gaiety, back to kisses and swerves and near plunges in the sand.
We stopped, now and then, at roadside canteens that catered to a Bedouin clientele and Corina cheerfully consumed the local tea in barely rinsed glasses and at open-air spots, improvised toilets, to relieve ourselves. As for food, we had been prudent enough to bring along sandwiches. We even stopped, after lunch, for a nap in the car at a spot by the sea and dozed off with the sound of the surf our lullaby.
Oh that this holiday would last forever. Corina's second law precluded it. It states, if things are going well, do not expect them to last. Well, we knew the trip would not last. What we did not know, was how marvelously well things would turn out. We were in perfect harmony, mental and physical. We were in good shape and if we looked a little haggard, it was from never-ending orgasms. You would think we were out to satiate our souls for the time we would be apart. Moreover, our bodies obliged.
At Marsa Matrouh, there was not much to do. It was a drab, large village. The sea in the morning, the same fantastic sea and sandy beach again deserted just for us. In the afternoon, long walks. At night, darkness with hardly a street lamp and a detour to a local coffee house with Corina the only woman there, stared at as if a new, unknown human species. Enjoying the attention, laughing, caressing me often, scandalizing our coffee-drinking, narghile-smoking gurgling neighbors. My stern fellow passenger of the Boston-to-Cairo flight. In between, lovemaking, passionately, desperately, madly.
Two days and two nights at Marsa Matrouh. No question of going to Siwa. Our time was up. We left early in the morning. Considerably sobered, driving faster, our driving speed an inverse indication of our happiness, of our high spirits. Talking seriously of projects and plans, with tightened hearts and clouded faces.
We traveled towards Alexandria and after Agami turned right for the desert road to Cairo bypassing the city. The traffic thickened slightly on the main highway, which was used mainly by private cars traveling from Alexandria to Cairo and back. There were no towns or villages on the way. Just four, out-of-sight, Coptic monasteries off the main road in the desert to the west. At a spot called Wadi Natrun, there was a lone rest house and most of the travelers stopped there if only for a pee. It was an impressive building and boasted a decent restaurant and tearoom. We were famished by the time we reached it just after three and entered the restaurant for lunch. However, no fish and giant shrimps for Corina's last night in Egypt and no wine to lull me to sleep at the wheel. Just beer Stella, the nationalized local brand, which two times out of three was flat and frothless. Not the thing for froth-blowers.
We sat next to a large window where we could see the constant movement of cars arriving and departing. The passengers emerging from them, clothes creased, bodies bent and hair messy from the long drive and the wind. Climbi