True Love, the Sphinx, and Other Unsolvable Riddles

by Tyne O'Connell

  “Yes, we’ve all decided to wear our galabias tonight,” Astin added, thinking on his feet.

  “Oh,” Carol said. “Well, that’s very ethnically embracing of you.”

  “Yes, erm, jolly good chaps,” Nigel agreed.

  We somehow made it through dinner without any more questions about Sam or Octavia.

  After dinner the dance started. I took Rosie’s hand in mine and led her out onto the deck. Underneath the canopy of the stars, she snuggled under my arm for warmth and I kissed her lightly on the lips.

  “You still haven’t let me thank you properly for the sheet music and the poem. I never really—”

  But I kissed her then, and even though it wasn’t the first time we’d kissed, it felt like the first real time. We were still kissing when Mohammed came out on deck. Rosie pulled away. “I’m, erm, that is, I’m going to check on Octavia,” she said as she ran off.

  I wanted to run off after her but Mohammed sat down next to me and said in Arabic, “I sometimes think these cruises are not Egypt. Not really. But other times like this I think this is very much my country, with all its history, the Nile, it stays constant. The source of all life.”

  Maybe it was because we were talking in Arabic that I confided my feelings for Rosie to him. I explained to him how she composed and how I’d never felt this way about a girl before and how I wanted to do something spectacular to mark our time together as it was going to be so short. Mohammed was a very soulful guy. He told me about how he had “wooed his wife.”

  “You know, my friend,” he said, switching to English. “You need to make the grand gesture. The Egyptian heart is full of the romance of a great nation. Rosie plays the piano and we have on this boat the grand piano.”

  “True.”

  “Yes, true, in the bar. Use these oaf boys of yours to carry it out here under the stars so she can play to the fishermen of the Nile. This will mean more to her than diamonds and show her the fullness of your heart, my friend.”

  The “oafs,” who’d been sneaking drinks from the bar, and were looking for ways to burn off steam, jumped at the suggestion to push the piano out on deck. They thought we were going to throw it into the Nile. By the time they got it outside, a chant of “Overboard! Overboard! Overboard!” went up. And sure enough, soon they began to lift it toward the railings.

  “Hey dudes, why not throw Nigel overboard? instead” I suggested, only half-joking.

  “Dude! That’s brilliant,” they cried, and chanted, “Nigel! Nigel! Nigel!”

  Nigel was duly dragged from the dance floor with a concerned Carol in tow. Kicking and wailing, he was unceremoniously tossed over the side of the boat. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!

  Carol screamed, “Nigel!” and dived in after him before anyone could stop her.

  The reception staff and some of the other crewmembers looked down into the dark waters of the Nile where Nigel and Carol were flailing about and calling for help. Eventually the captain himself joined the crowd.

  “This is not good,” said the captain. “I think the police will be called. No, this is not good. These are bad people,” he said, pointing to our floating teachers.

  “No,” agreed Mohammed. “This is not good. I am thinking they will be accused of buying hashish.”

  Rosie had turned up by that stage and was concerned. “Why will they be accused of buying hashish, Mohammed?” she asked. “They’ve been chucked in the water. Can’t we get a felucca to fish them out or something?”

  “We can, Allah willing,” Mohammed agreed. “But still, I think the police will take them. Tourists buying hashish is taken very seriously in Egypt. We are not liberal about such things as the West.”

  “But they are so clearly not buying hashish,” Rosie pleaded. “They’re drowning. You’ve got to do something, Mohammed.”

  “See?” He pointed as a police speedboat charged toward Carol and Nigel. “It is as I feared,” he said darkly. “They have been caught red-handed.”

  Chapter 20

  Rosie

  Later, I would wonder if I’d have even done it had Octavia been there, or had I not been in Egypt …

  There was a mad rush down to reception. Phone calls were made. There was lots of excited talk in Arabic and finally Mohammed confirmed that Carol and Nigel had been charged with drug smuggling.

  “Honestly,” I said, “have you ever met two more useless people in your life, Mohammed? I mean, have you seen Nigel’s knees? Can you really believe they’re capable of drug smuggling?”

  “That Nigel is a hot head and disrespectful to the girls in his charge,” he insisted, which as far as he was concerned rendered Nigel capable of anything.

  Mr. Bell and Ms. Doyle went off to the police station along with the boat’s captain. I didn’t hold out much hope in the persuasive abilities of the teachers. If anything, having a man in a straw hat with a water bottle sticking out of the crown and a woman in camo could only make things worse. The captain had seemed as convinced of Nigel’s guilt as Mohammed. With the boat now classified as an Authority-Free Zone, a cry went up to party and everyone tore upstairs to the bar.

  Nigel might be an idiot but I still felt awful imagining him and Carol rotting away in an Egyptian jail. So I pleaded and groveled and cried until eventually Mohammed agreed to “do what he could” about getting the charges dropped on the condition I perform one of my compositions.

  My legs went a bit soggy at first. I had never performed in the true sense of the word. I was a composer, not a performer, and never planned to play to real audiences. Audiences were Octavia’s forte, not mine. I played for my music teacher and examination boards and various friends had heard me play, but I was so not a performer.

  Mohammed was holding his hand out though. “Deal?” he asked. So I shook hands, reasonably confident that my promise wouldn’t become a reality. For a start, the piano was in the bar, where the party was in full swing. Ha, ha, ha.

  Only it wasn’t.

  The bar was empty.

  Mohammed led me outside to the deck. The piano had been moved outside under the stars. There were candles everywhere, flickering in the still night. I looked at the scene before me. Salah was standing beside the piano. It would have been a beautiful scene were it not for the fact that absolutely everybody else, from staff to students, was sitting cross-legged on the deck and looking at me expectantly. I turned to Mohammed. He grinned with pride. I froze with embarrassment. They expected me to play to an audience? Oh no.

  Salah pulled the seat out and opened my composition. It was only because my knees were buckling with fear that I managed to sit.

  Mohammed introduced me and during the whistles, cheering, and applause, I somehow managed to compose myself. I’ve heard it said that if you imagine your audience naked, it kills your nerves, but it’s not true. From habit more than anything, I held out a trembling hand to touch my music. It was the score I’d been scratching away at since I got to Egypt, illuminated now by a line of fairy lights.

  But I didn’t need to see the score to know it because the piece wasn’t something I’d learned. It had come through me. It had come through Egypt and the Nile and my muddled heart and my madder-than-mad mixed-up feelings for Salah. This composition was who I was in that moment and as I ran my hands lightly across the keys, I closed my eyes, fell into myself, and began to play.

  The notes tingled down my arms and through my fingers. Slowly, as I lost all sense of where I was, my fingers moved with greater authority over the keys. I opened my eyes and looked up at the stars. It was an amazing feeling, actually performing in front of an audience.

  I was so pumped with adrenaline by the time I finished that I didn’t even realize how mental the cheering was. Deep down I suspected the rapturous applause was due to the drunken exuberance of the crowd rather than my own talent, but I loved every minute just the same. I’d never performed in public before and honestly, I never imagined that I would.

  Later, I wondered if I’d have pla
yed if Octavia had been there, or if I hadn’t been in Egypt, or if I’d ever perform again. But I wasn’t analyzing it then. I was enjoying the moment. I wrapped my arms around Salah. I was just so glad he had made it happen. It was a perfect gift and I really wanted to say something deservedly monumental but words, as ever, failed me, so I kissed him and whispered, “Thank you.”

  • • •

  I awoke as the sun was coming up over the Nile, my hair tangled about my face, my head on Salah’s chest. It took a while to get my bearings because we were under the grand piano, which up until last night had been in the bar.

  Salah woke up and kissed me. I was certain that my breath must be gross as I hadn’t cleaned my teeth, but he tasted like rose water. I had fed him rose water–flavored Turkish delight last night before we fell asleep, and he still had the sugar dust on his nose. I licked it off.

  After breakfast, Carol and Nigel arrived in a disheveled state, moaning about police heavy handedness and the rampant injustice and corruption of power.

  “And I’ll tell you something for free, Carol, I’ll be damned if those police weren’t the same ruffians who arrested us at Edfu,” Nigel whined.

  “Nigel, I really think you’re being paranoid. Edfu is a long way away from Aswan. Why would they come all the way here to arrest us when they didn’t even know we’d be trying to buy hashish?”

  “For the last time, WE WERE NOT TRYING TO BUY HASHISH, WOMAN!” he railed. Then he muttered something about Octavia being behind the whole thing.

  “Where is Octavia, anyway? I wouldn’t put this whole prank business past her.”

  Carol glared at him. “Oh, how typical of you to blame a teenage girl. I think you need anger-management therapy, Nigel, and in the meantime I’m going to take a shower and then go to bed!” With that she stomped off.

  All was not well in their garden of love.

  Later, Mohammed, Mr. Bell, and Ms. Doyle escorted us into Aswan. Mohammed took us to a slipper shop and then to a pancake shop and finally suggested we might all like some free time before rejoining the boat for lunch.

  Salah and I had already texted Sam and arranged to pick them up outside their hotel, where a long line of caleches were gathered.

  Octavia was stroking one of the horses while Sam nibbled her ear.

  “Darlings!” she cried, throwing her arms around Salah and me. “We almost died from missing-you pains,” she said, giving me a cuddle.

  “So, we really got away with it?” Sam asked Salah, giving him one of those odd little American handshakes.

  “Thanks to Nigel and Carol, who were arrested for trying to buy hashish.” said Salah.

  “Cool. I never took Carol for a hash fiend,” Sam said.

  “Can we take a caleche back to the boat, Sam, darling?” Octavia begged, jumping up and down.

  The drivers all looked on with cartoon dollar signs popping out of their eyes. At that stage there was a lineup of over thirty carriages and no prospect of customers. Some of the horses looked pretty thin and weary. I felt sad for a couple of poor little skinny ones that didn’t even have nosebags. The drivers were calling out to us in every language you can name, cajoling and joking, trying to engage us.

  Salah started to talk to one of the guys in Arabic, which drummed up a lot of interest from all the other drivers.

  “Oh Rosie, the hotel was divine,” Octavia said, linking her arm through mine. “We had the most amazing view. It was so unbelievably romantic. I never knew the sort of boy that makes you laugh can make you swoon as well.” Sam nibbled her ear and gave me a grateful sort of look. Salah started to point at us as he spoke to the caleche drivers.

  “Let’s go see what Salah is up to,” Octavia insisted.

  “What’s happing, man?” Sam asked.

  “I’m trying to see how much they will charge us to let us race up the Corniche.”

  “Excellent!” Sam said.

  Octavia jumped up and down on the spot while I went off to get some water, which I gave to some of the sadder ponies.

  “So how much?” Octavia asked, as the men talked rapidly among themselves.

  “They haven’t agreed to do it yet,” Salah admitted, looking a bit hopeless about it all.

  Octavia spoke to one of them in her special persuasive way and then turned to us and said they’d do it for two hundred pounds Egyptian, with Sam’s watch as deposit in case anything happened to their horses or carriages, or we get arrested.

  “How did you get them to agree to that?”

  “I pointed out that they had no other business and that Sam’s watch would pay for an entire stable of fresh horses. Also I mentioned that if they were fast enough they could probably have it copied and sell it and he’d never know the difference.”

  Salah was suitably impressed. I realized it was the first time I’d seen him look on Octavia with anything other than irritation.

  Then Sam and Salah wandered down the line of horses to choose their mount. Salah did some last-minute haggling in Arabic while Octavia and I climbed into the carriages.

  “Okay, so we’ll each take a driver for commands but we get to take the reins,” Salah explained. “The winner gets to keep Sam’s watch.”

  “Yeah, not wanting to be a party pooper here, but how did my watch even get involved in this?” Sam asked, clearly troubled as he looked lovingly at his watch. “My father gave me that for my bar mitzvah.”

  “No he didn’t, you bought it for yourself last Christmas. I was with you,” Salah said.

  “All right! Winner takes the watch and don’t spare the horses!” Sam agreed, climbing onto the driver’s seat. He handed over his watch to the caleche owner who wasted no time in fastening the Breitling to his own wrist. “I suppose it’s better than one of my cameras,” he conceded cheerfully.

  The Corniche was a large avenue that hugged the Nile. There wasn’t much traffic on the road but what traffic there was, was really, really slow. I began to wonder if this was such a good idea, but we shot off so quickly I didn’t have time to argue.

  I was behind Salah, who was yelling his commands in Arabic. His co-driver was yelling with him. Sam was yelling too, and his driver was standing upright beside him screaming, “Breitling! Breitling! Breitling!” He was holding his watch up to the crowds of onlookers who swarmed along the Corniche. Aswan came out in force. Woman in black drapery, men in white galabias and turbans, shop owners, children, old people, and market owners with their chickens and donkeys all lined the street to cheer. Some of them took up the cheer of “Breitling!” The women made this amazing shrill sound with their tongues. Everyone was acting like they were at a Grand Prix. I’d never experienced such a rush of adrenaline. I don’t know what came over me but I started screaming “Go, go, go!”

  We raced the best part of a mile with our caleche inches ahead most of the way until just at the last turn when the roar of the crowd’s of “Breitling!” deafened even Sam’s decibel-breaking cries of triumph.

  It was totally amazing. Sam hugged his driver. Salah hugged his. But best of all Salah hugged me. Octavia jumped over to my carriage and hugged me and then we were all hugging one another. Mohammed, who must have been watching the race from the boat, rushed down to meet us, climbed onto the carriage, and hugged us all.

  “Now you are true Egyptians!” he told us, and for some reason this seemed liked the best thing anyone had ever said to us. “Completely, crazy, bloody Egyptians!”

  Of course even though he’d won, Sam still gave his co-driver the Breitling. It would have been un-Egyptian not to, as Octavia said later on.

  Saturday, Day 6

  Nefertiti docked at Aswan

  Sunrise: 06:26 Sunset: 17:58

  5:00 Wake-up call

  5:30–6:00 Breakfast in the Nefertiti restaurant

  6:10 Pick up for bus to airport and flight to Abu Simbel

  12:00 Return flight to Aswan

  13:00 Lunch in the Nefertiti restaurant

  19:30 Dinner in the Nefertiti restaurantr />
  Sail to Luxor for return flights Sunday

  Chapter 21

  Sam

  My love is unique—no-one can rival her, for she is the most beautiful woman alive. Just by passing, she has stolen away my heart.

  The next morning we flew to Abu Simbel an hour before dawn. Carol and Nigel came to breakfast but told us they were returning to bed since they were still recovering from their ordeal. They were not in the greatest mood. Octavia was wearing a tight orange T-shirt with a cartoon factory from which little boys were being manufactured. It read:

  STUPID FACTORY WHERE BOYS ARE MADE

  I cracked up with laughter.

  Nigel told her to take it off as we were boarding the bus to the airport, and she’d complied sweetly, exposing her pink bikini top.

  “That is not what I meant, miss, and well you know it!” Nigel snapped. “Cover yourself up at once.”

  “This very bad man that he tells you to undress,” Mohammed railed afterward. Later, on the bus to the airport, he was still working himself up about Nigel. “He is undignified and dishonorable. I do not like this man. Asking a young girl to undress is not proper.” He was still going on about Nigel at the airport. None of us took much notice.

  We touched down at Abu Simbel at 6:40 and hit the monuments ten minutes later. On the bus, Mohammed gave us his trademark blah, blah, blah about what we would be seeing at the site, but I couldn’t concentrate. Octavia was resting her head on my shoulder and I was drugged on the whole smell and feel of her. She’d slept the whole way through the flight and it had hit me that tomorrow we’d be saying good-bye to each other and flying back to New York and London.

  It seemed impossible that I had known her only a week and that after tomorrow I might never see her again. And I’m not even the sentimental sort of guy. A week is the shelf life of any relationship I’ve ever had, so why was I feeling so shortchanged?

  The tourists who’d arrived for the sunrise were wandering up from the monuments as we walked down the dusty path. We were the only group on the streets that led to the monuments to Rameses II.