visions périphériques

In Cairo, Friday is the start of the weekend. It’s also a day of prayer, so today—for the first time since 2005—I heard a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, his voice blaring through the noisy streets and over the ramshackle rooftops by way of an impressive loudspeaker system. Muezzins at midday in a country without violence are not nearly as scary as muezzins in the early morning darkness on streets laden with IEDs and populated by packs of mangy, feral dogs. In fact, today’s muezzin was clear and soothing, though not quaint in the way that church bells are on lazy days in Europe.
I’m now installed in the apartment of Will Rasmussen, who graduated from Harvard, not UVA as I previously thought. The apartment is incredible. It’s on the tenth floor of a high rise in a neighborhood called Zamalek, Cairo’s less ritzy equivalent to the Isle St. Louis. Zamalek is an island in the middle of the Nile, and home to Cairo’s embassy district. Most of the architecture bears a distinctly French motif, beautiful and ambitious in its stature but still subtle and conservative. The architects who designed Zamalek’s citizen palaces where not prone to Arabesque over-ornamentation. If God could descend from the heavens and give Zamalek a good powerwashing, the neighborhood would sparkle. But since that’s not going to happen, I’ll have to content myself with looking past the layers upon layers of dust and diesel exhaust to envision the buildings as they once were, clean and magisterial, guarded by servants in livery, inhabited by the princes of the world.
Cairo was a British protectorate during the colonial age, but for some reason the architectural and cultural impact of Napoleon’s brief visit seems to have quite an effect as well. Three times already I’ve heard phrases combining Arabic and French. What would one call that combinated, Frarabic? Arabench? I don’t know. Anyway, yesterday I was walking by a group of carriage drivers idling alongside their clearly exhausted horses, and one of them pointed to his carriage, looked at me, and said, “Toi aussi?” You too? I’m not even sure if that’s proper French, but it was an unmistakable attempt at it. I replied, “No thanks.” Today I stopped to allow a man to pass me on the sidewalk, and he said, “Shukuran, monsieur.” Instinctively I said, “Pas de problème.” Then, only a few minutes later, I was sitting in a trendy little coffee shop called Costa Coffee and began to feel small, toothy creatures gnawing at the lining of my stomach. I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since the falafel I ate at about 3 p.m. the day before. I ordered a croissant, and the waitress said, “Avec?” And I said, “Aux amandes.” “Oui,” she said. The experience was entirely weird. I don’t look French.
Last night I met up with a guy named Theo May who’s been living here for about two months, but this is his second long-term stay in Cairo. He came as a student in 2006 for six months, and now he’s here as a journalist for a year. He graduated from Middlebury. I got his e-mail address from Will, and I received a quick and enthusiastic reply to the first e-mail I sent. He met me at Costa Coffee and took me over to his friend’s apartment, another astonishing penthouse with a massive terrace. His friend, Tom, works for an American construction company that’s engaged in the business of outfitting Cairo’s elite with luxury apartments, or something like that, I didn’t get the whole story. Tom is a financial analyst for the company, which isn’t Halliburton (I asked). We watched some of the Democratic National Convention and talked about the media coverage of the upcoming elections. It was good to talk to other human beings after three days of rather isolating travel.
After we left Tom’s, Theo and his girlfriend took me to their favorite shisha café. Shisha is the gummy, often flavored tobacco smoked out of a hookah in the Middle East. It’s become a fad among U.S. college students to smoke shisha at parties, but I’ve never been crazy about it, although I do enjoy it for the sake of blowing smoke rings. The smoke is thick and plentiful and not nearly as harsh as cigarette smoke, although that’s probably because I’ve only smoked the flavored stuff, which I think might make me a woman. Oh well. Poor Theo answered my barrage of questions graciously, and today he even helped me get a cell phone. We met around noon for coffee and I had a cell phone a couple of hours later. The process was totally painless, nothing at all like registering for a cell phone in the States, which can take hours. I bought the phone for about $40, including a sim card (the little chip that holds the phone’s unique data), and then I prepaid another $20 for minutes. I signed a contract, but the contract was totally optional and only exists to ensure that the phone guy doesn’t sell my number to another person. I’m under no obligation to Vodafone whatsoever, no monthly bills, no e-mails, no early termination fee, no registration fee, nothing. My number is: +2 016-531-7465. Try to call me, see if it works.
Getting into Will’s apartment last night was an adventure of the highest degree, and one that resulted in a completely drenched shirt, jeans, and underwear, and an exhausted pair of legs. I took a cab from the hotel in Garden City to Zamalek, and had a bit of trouble explaining that my destination was 13 Marashli St., mostly because I don’t know the word for street and the cab driver didn’t know Marashli. He tried to drop me off about five times, turning around and saying, “This okay? Okay?” I’d say, “No. Marashli,” and he’d return the pedal to the metal. Of course I had no clue which street was actually Marashli, because only one out of every twenty-eight streets has a sign, and only a fraction of those have English translations. I finally felt secure after the driver stopped for directions the third time. Third time’s the charm. It’s a truism the world over. When I saw a police officer point to the corner and say, “Aiwa, blah Marashli blah blah,” that’s when I knew I was okay. The cab driver ripped me off to the tune of $1, but I was too frazzled to care, and much more worried about how I was going to search for the street number while carrying the 375 lbs. of luggage slung on every appendage of my body (Yes, my shoulder still hurts like a bastard. It’s prone to sudden agitation; for example, today I reached for a handful of water from the faucet only to realize that it was a few degrees from boiling, and when I jerked my arm and lobster-pink hand back in horror, my shoulder reminded me that it has not healed. OOWWWW!!). I walked this way and that way and this way again, until finally I saw a sign for a dentist across the street, with the words 13 A Marashli St. written in English underneath his name. Eureka, je suis arrivé.
Naturally, I wondered if there might also be a 13 B Marashli, but since the building was flanked on either side by restaurants, I figured my odds were good that I’d found the right place. So I strolled on up to the elevator behind two wide-eyed tenants of the building, who were peering at me with jaws agape, trying to figure out what beast of burden was hiding underneath that giant yellow L.L. Bean bag that appeared to be stuffed with human corpses. I smiled and said, “Salaam alyekum.” They smiled, and then got out of there as quickly as they could. Already, what little hair I have was drenched in sweat, and I must’ve looked an awful sight. All I knew was that Will’s apartment was on the 10th floor, and that it wasn’t the one next to the elevator, but the one across the hall. I pushed the button for the elevator. Nothing. A head peaked out from an open door and said, “Broken.” Shit. I looked at the staircase and started to cry. Not really, but I wanted to. Instead of crying, I started the long march. Immediately, I knew I was in for trouble. The building had half floors, and I couldn’t remember whether Egyptian buildings use the European system, in which the ground floor is 0 and the first floor is 1, or the American, in which the ground is 1 and the next floor is 2 (the logical system of the two, obviously). I dropped the bags on what I calculated to be the 5th floor, caught my breath, and then continued up, counting every second floor on my fingers until I got to . . . 9. Shit. Shit shit shit.
I figured they must be counting half floors as whole floors, so I tromped down the stairs back to the ground floor and began my count again. When I arrived at my bags, I had counted to ten. This must be it. My key slid in easily. My heart jumped. The key wouldn’t turn. Okay, I thought, they must be counting the ground floor as 0, so 10 must be the next one up. The next one up was very far away from the elevator, not even on the same floor, and also belonged to an agency called Red Sea-Fort Arabesque, Inc. I didn’t try my key. Instead, I grabbed my bags and walked down the stairs, out into the sweltering night. I sat on my duffel bag in despair, resigned to wait a half hour for Theo to appear and save me.
Meanwhile, the pharmacist was looking sympathetically and curiously at the pathetic creature seated, or rather sprawled, on the big yellow duffel bag outside his door. He must’ve been wondering if the poor man had died of heat exhaustion. He was only slightly alarmed when the creature rose and strolled into his pharmacy, asking, “Do you know if there is another 13 Marashli?” It was a question I should’ve asked before my impromptu stairclimber session. “Aiwa,” he told me, “13 Marashli is on the other side of the restaurant. Welcome to Egypt.”
The elevator in 13 Marashli worked beautifully, and so did my key.