The Words of the Mouth
Page 28
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I awoke one morning to find myself weak and trembling, scarcely able to move; I had come down with a bad case of 'flu. Chafing impatiently after a wasted day in bed, I rose the next morning before sunrise, in spite of my illness, and cycled for miles towards the Valley of the Kings, following a road that climbed out of the Nile valley, a steady killing incline leading into the foothills and the desert.
There was no shade. Soon it was over 100 degrees fahrenheit, and the temperature was rising every minute. My head was spinning and I felt ill and tired, but I was determined to get there and I knew I would be unable to go on if I stopped.
The intense heat, the exhausting effort, the aching dizziness of the 'flu were all at war with my fanatically stubborn refusal to give in.
Suddenly, with the heat and stress, I began to hallucinate: I saw a vista of many generations of people like a thread of individuals, stretching from 5000 years ago in Ancient Egypt, across Europe to Scandinavia, and from there to Scotland, 1 was the last person in the thread. I felt all my ancestors were within me, wanting to become alive again, warring for control of my personality. I knew that all their potential was mine as well, but I had to undergo physical ordeals in order to learn to trust in my abilities and to purge myself of all that was rotten and overbred. My father's family had specialised in literary scholarship, and my mother came from a long line of classically-educated ministers: the hothouse intensity of the cerebral tradition I had been born into was poisonous to me; my dark side was fighting with blind ferocity against it.
Somewhere inside, a transmuted self was awakening.
I came to and discovered myself to be cycling with invincible power up this slope, filled with renewed strength.
But after I had visited several tombs, the euphoria wore off and I felt drained. A hidden ravine beckoned to me, and I slumped against a rock to rest.
In the tombs, in places all over Egypt, the rocks were covered with carved graffiti from around the world: Greek, Roman, Turkish, French, German, English - but I had seen nothing from Scotland. 1 wanted to leave a sign from Scotland, something small that would not deface. All around me the rocks were bare, and as I gazed blankly before me, my eyes picked out a little square, only a couple of inches across: it contained a St. Andrew's Cross and the words “TAM SCOTLAND 1978”
Astonishing! It was exactly what I had in mind; no need to bother now; someone had done it already.
At the Medinet Habu, there were French, German, Swiss and Egyptian people staying. The predominant language was French, and I was the only English speaker, apart from a secretive English artist of great talent who refused to talk to me because his girlfriend, a Bedouin named Lorna, who had been to England and cast aside the veil, spent a lot of time in my company, having intensely interesting conversations with me, while he glowered intolerantly in my direction.
One girl, from a party of Swiss secretaries, wanted me to go to bed with her, and when I didn't show interest, they all took offence. I began to feel like a focal point for hostility.
I had befriended a young Egyptian man who offered to show me around several tombs. The night before the tour, we wandered along a track through fields of sugar cane, chewing on pieces of cane, talking,..and remarking on the beauty of the stars. Then he announced: "I am going home to make love to myself,"
"Oh, really? Well, good for you; have a nice time."
"I want you to come with me."
"No, see you later," I said, disentangling myself as quickly as possible from his. company.
Unwisely, 1 kept our appointment the next day, because I had said I would be there. He was offhand and unmannerly. I noticed him having secretive conversations with Arabs, sniggering and pointing at me. He grew more and more disrespectful, then went away.
Before long, everyone in the small, closely-knit community began treating me rudely, sometimes laughing and sneering when I was near. It simply no longer was possible to have friendly relations. He must have gone round saying I had slept with him, making sexual jokes at my expense; there was nothing I could do to repair the damage; denials were impossible.
I had warm and friendly feelings towards all these people, but the adverse reaction I was getting began to depress me; I felt vexed and vulnerable, and began to think of moving to a different hotel. The Arabic mind is very probing; it looks at you, picks out any weaknesses, and works on them. I feared that my emotions would be showing on my face, that they could read me.
"You haf the strange face of a European," said an Egyptian guest at
the Medinet Habu to me, out of the blue. Something in my mind went click - These people do not understand me at all ; I was a complete mystery to them; they could speculate, but at any time I could explode their theories by whatever outrageous or theatrical impulse I had, and justify it as a European custom, or as just me.
I felt free, I didn't care any more. Every time I have gone abroad, there has been a perception like this, a veil I have had to pull aside in order to understand what I am being taught.
Next to the Medinet Habu is one of the oldest temples, one which I had overlooked, so on my last night there, I resolved to pay it a visit, even though it was closed at night. Knowing there was a watchman about, I removed my shoes and crept into the darkened building. Snakes, I remembered, inhabited the ruins, and I put my feet down carefully.
I was crossing an open area when my senses warned me, 'There's something alive up ahead.' Cautiously rounding a corner, I saw a pack of about forty wild dogs. I froze, thankful I was standing in a shadow,and a gentle breeze was blowing into my face from the dogs.
Then one looked directly at me, the silhouette of his ears and head exactly likethe wall paintings of Anubis, 'I don't exist,' I projected, 'I'm a ghost.' The dog looked away. With the utmost care I stepped back silently the way I had come.
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The last purchase I made in Egypt was a pile of dates wrapped in a page torn from a school text book. It contained a colour diagram of the human circulatory system and the heart. It was like a sign telling me I had got to the heart of the country.