Then, to his delight, Ari heard music and singing. He couldn’t help but sway slightly. He wanted to sing along, but didn’t know the Arabic words. A gaggle of about twenty young people came around the corner, a handsome guitar player in their midst. They were cool. They were students. They sailed along on a deep certainty that they were right and you would naturally agree with them if they could just get you to join in.
The fruit seller tossed pieces of fruit to several protesters as they marched by. Strumming and singing in Arabic, the guitar player walked straight toward Ari. The song was a call and response. Ari couldn’t understand the call, but the response was simply, “Ha, ha, ha.” Ari found himself chanting that word with everyone else, as did the fruit seller and the man with yellow mango circle in his white beard. The guitar player was wearing a golden T-shirt that had a cartoon of the Sphinx with the singer’s own head on it and the name RAMI in English letters above.
Rami stopped in front of Ari and strummed a final chord, ending the song. “Hey, man, are you a journalist?” he asked in English.
“No.” Ari shook his head. “I’m a filmmaker.”
“Are you here to film the revolution?” asked Rami, with a lick on his guitar.
“What revolution?” asked Ari bewildered. The gang of singing Egyptians clustered around him.
“You don’t know about the revolution, man?” asked one of them.
“Come with us. We’ll show you,” said a tall one with a harmonica.
Who were these crazy kids on a street corner in Cairo, with long hair, speaking English, wearing funny T-shirts, and singing along with a guitar? “I can’t,” said Ari, though he felt the tug of temptation. “I’ve got to get to bed.”
“The revolution comes while America sleeps.” Half of the kids laughed, and then translated for the other half, who also laughed. Rami clucked his tongue with a shake of his head. He strummed his guitar and moved on. The pack of hip would-be revolutionaries followed him off down the street. A guy with a Red Sox baseball cap brought up the rear.
“Hope and change?” asked the Egyptian Red Sox fan.
“Hope and change,” agreed Ari.
“Go Red Sox! Inshallah!” added the Boston fan.
It didn’t seem like the right moment for Ari to mention he was from New York.
A phalanx of thirty tough-looking men in leather jackets, along with a couple of police in uniform holding walkie-talkies, came around the corner slowly shuffling along after the kids. The police looked sullen and self-conscious, a marked contrast to the joy of the moments before.
“There are more police than protesters,” noticed Ari uneasily.
“Let them come.” The Red Sox fan turned to go. “We laugh at them.” The fan caught up with the rest of his merry comrades down the street, who were already chanting out their fearless refrain:
“Ha, ha, ha!”
PART TWO
It makes the heart to tremble when you open an undiscovered tomb.
—Dr. Zahi Hawass, leader of the Supreme Council of Antiquities
Chapter 9
As the concierge is very proud to tell you, the Mena House Hotel, built in 1869 next to the pyramids, was first a hunting lodge for the Egyptian King Ismai’l Pasha. The chandelier in the old lodge is so tall that it rises up through the second floor, through a gallery of balconies especially designed for beholding it. Ari couldn’t help but gaze upward as he passed beneath the unique lamp, staring up at a white glass globe with an Arabic pattern etched in gold overlay. His eyes were so tired from his twenty-hour journey that he could hardly focus them. The chandelier seemed to spin over Ari, although it could not move.
“This way Mr. Basher.”
The porter took Ari up one flight by elevator, then out onto the balcony around the chandelier. Its forty columns of suspended turquoise stones and glass refracted the white globe light at their center. His eyes saw with the hazy glare of sheer exhaustion. He felt as though he had stepped inside a kaleidoscope, all the glass bits of color suspended in midair. His voyage had finally become a hallucination. He staggered toward the pillow that he knew awaited him down the corridor.
Once inside his suite, Ari was about to tip the porter, but he noticed a pyramid that somehow seemed to be sitting on the balcony outside the room. He knew this was some sort of optical illusion. He had seen the massive pyramids from Hamed’s car, and his conscious mind understood that the closest pyramid was at least half a mile away from the hotel. This one seemed close enough for him to touch.
“It is the pyramid of Khufu,” said the porter with a proud little bow.
“Yes.” Ari tipped him. “I must get some sleep.”
Alone, Ari kicked off his white tennis shoes and began to peel off the rank clothes he’d worn for the past thirty-six hours.
“Laptop,” he reminded himself. He slid it out of his backpack and set it to recharge on an old Moorish carved wooden desk. An Ethernet cable sat at the ready like a coiled snake that could lunge out and strike him in the night. He plugged the cable in and turned on the machine.
He craved a shower, but the bed loomed before him, immense, larger than king size, he thought. A giant bronze headboard shaped like a scallop shell etched with finely detailed filigree patterns, eight feet in diameter, hung on the wall. Ari could see his golden face reflected, and like Narcissus, he fell toward himself, with a bounce onto the bed. As his head settled deep into a crisp white pillow, his computer rang.
“Uuggghhhh.” Ari arose, imitating a mummy in a monster movie, and staggered toward the ringing knowing that Beth was the only person it could be.
Ari pasted on a smile and hit accept. “Hey, babe!”
Beth’s face popped up on his screen. “Darling!” She sat at her desk, holding a cup of coffee, daylight streaming across her face. “How was your flight?”
“Eleven hours in coach,” he mumbled, wondering how he should tell her about the SpaceCam.
“Coach?” she asked with a slight hint of suspicion.
“I had to switch flights.”
“Why? Did we make a mistake with your booking?”
“No mistake. But I got a whole row, four seats. I could stretch out.”
“Wow, lucky you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Ari decided that now was the moment. “They took the camera in customs,” he confessed.
“What?” The warm glow dropped off of Beth’s face. A poised catlike energy took its place. “The whole SpaceCam?”
“Everything.” Ari waited for her reaction.
“Oh my god! You’re supposed to fly on Monday. What are we going to do?” He could see her mind whirr into action.
“You know me. I’ll put on my smile, go back down to the airport, and charm their pants off.” Ari tried to seem relaxed about all of it. “Like I did to you.”
Beth’s nostrils flared. She was both angered and grudgingly amused at what she knew was more than a joke. “Are they women?”
“Uh, no.”
“Did you tell anyone at the studio?”
“No, Beth.” Ari had to quash this idea fast. “Let’s not freak anybody out. Let’s tell them all on Monday morning when they’ve got other things to think about.”
Beth shook her head. “I don’t work that way.”
“Look, if I send an e-mail now, the damned SpaceCam’ll be all they’ll think about all weekend long. I’ll get a million calls. There will be stress. And stress where it can’t do me, or you, any good. Wait till I get back to the airport tomorrow and figure out what’s really going on. Look here, girlfriend.” Ari picked up the computer and carried it to the balcony. “What do you see?”
“I’m not keeping secrets, Ari.” He aimed the computer outside. “Surprises give you cancer … Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Is that a pyramid outside?”
“Yes, the great pyramid of Khufu!” He had successfully diverted her, for the moment.
“You lucky bum! You have pyramids in your backyard.” Then her producer face came ba
ck on. “How much is that hotel room costing?”
“You approved it.”
“I did?” She was dumbfounded.
“Yes. Back when you thought you might come along. I noticed you didn’t mark up that line item. Look at the bed: Pharaoh size. The sheets are like … to die for. If you roll over here, you can even see the Sphinx from in bed.”
“Don’t torture me.”
“Why don’t you jump on a plane and come over and join me?” he teased.
“Very funny.” She made a face. “You’re not the center of the universe. One of us has to finish this film. I still have movie stars to babysit on the set in New York.”
“Look, Beth.” Ari grew serious. “How much cash do you have on hand in the safe right now?”
“Why?”
“Do you have twenty thousand?”
“I might.” She became still, poker-faced. “What happened to the ten grand I gave you?”
“I still have it. See?” Ari reached into the waistband of his pants and unzipped a hidden pocket. He pulled out the bundle of one-hundred-dollar bills she had given him. He rifled the money like a deck of cards before the camera on the laptop. “Can you get another twenty grand to the SpaceCam guys to give to me?”
“Ugh. On a Saturday morning?” She groaned. “Everything’s always last minute with you. It’s illegal to carry more than ten thousand, cash, on your person out of the country.”
“Oy vey. So split it in half. Give ten to Don and ten to Charley Foster. They’ll give it to me when they see me.”
“Why don’t you get it from your fixer?”
“Things happen fast in the field. Look, I probably won’t need it, but I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not—”
“Don’t bribe anybody, Ari.”
“C’mon, Beth.”
“It’s against the law. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Feds’re cracking down on all the studios now.”
“I’m a big boy. You don’t have to tell me how the game is played.”
“I didn’t hear that.” Beth put her hands over her ears as her cell phone buzzed. “Shit.” She moved her coffee mug and looked at the phone incredulously.
“Who?” asked Ari.
“Brad Pitt’s manager is calling me.”
“On Saturday morning at … what the hell time is it over there?”
Beth didn’t even notice Ari’s question. She was completely focused on the phone.
“Darling?” asked Ari, trying to woo her attention back.
“What?” Beth was annoyed by the distraction.
“I love you.” Ari felt a pain deep in his gut and a powerful contraction in his stomach.
Beth looked back into the camera in disbelief. “What did you just say?”
“That wasn’t the first time.”
“Almost.”
He breathed through his teeth to relax his insides. “Don’t forget the money.”
“Don’t play with me, Ari.” She shook her head, fondly disappointed. “’Bye, you bum.” She had reached over to shut off the conversation, but stopped when Ari doubled over in pain. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Ugh!” Ari jumped up, unbuckled his pants, and ran for the bathroom.
“Ari? Are you okay?”
Ari yelled from the bathroom. “I had some bad mango juice!”
“La, la, la! Too much information!” Beth yelled to him in a sort of singsong way as she reached for her computer keyboard and the screen went blank.
Chapter 10
Holding an empty plate, Ari moved through the sumptuous breakfast buffet at his hotel. Except for the absence of bacon, Ari could have been in any five-star hotel in the world. He passed a sous chef cooking omelets, another making crepes and waffles and pancakes. Ari hovered near a row of chafing dishes holding Middle-Eastern food.
“Would you like some eggplant?” asked a server.
“No thank you.” Ari shook his head at a steaming ragout.
“Some beans?”
“Oh no.” Ari shook his head again. “I’ll just take some of that plain white rice there. No, no, just a spoonful. Less than that.” The mystified server doled out a small pile of rice. The two of them stepped over to a station of fruit juices. Ari spotted his nemesis.
“Some mango juice, sir?” asked the server.
“I shouldn’t really.” Ari lingered longingly. “Maybe just half a glass.”
Ari ate looking out at a green manicured lawn and palm trees. He could have been in LA, but for the pyramids and the faint acrid smell of some distant fire that one often smells in the third world, the burning of garbage. After a few half-hearted bites, Ari went to find his ride.
In the driveway a security guard with a mirror on a stick and a bomb-sniffing German shepherd were making a cursory check of Hamed’s car. Ari got right in and the dog and man abandoned their task.
Hamed drove to the airport through heavy but fast-moving ever-honking pre-rush-hour traffic. They parked in the lot and walked up to the modern glass-and-steel terminal. Inside, Hamed and Ari passed by a huge palm tree growing up to the ceiling. They threaded their way through the bustle of white robed Arabs from the Gulf and colorfully dressed Africans, until they reached the farthest corner of the modern terminal. There in the wall was a panel—not really a door, but a door-sized rectangular cut in the wall. Hamed pulled out his cell and dialed. The wall opened.
A short, wizened Egyptian stood on the other side expecting them. Behind him, a steady stream of grayish drone people scurried up and down the corridor holding forms or chits out in front of them with singular purpose. In a hushed urgent tone, Hamed spoke to the man in Arabic. Ari figured out his name was Walid. Walid beckoned, but Ari hesitated.
“Mr. Ari, you go in. Walid will stay with you. I wait here,” said Hamed.
“Okay…” With trepidation, Ari left the comfort of his driver/translator and stepped through the portal. Walid, who seemed to speak no English at all, swept Ari into the tide of bureaucrats. They were off into a netherworld part Soviet socialism, part British colonialism run amok, as if those two forces had mated and produced some metastasized progeny alive well beyond its historical moment, like that old Japanese soldier who never surrendered still in his cave forever on some South Pacific isle.
Ari’s eyes had to adjust to the dark corridor. Bare lightbulbs hung from old wires out of light fixtures long ago broken. He found himself on line with the drone people shuffling between walls gray from decades of dust. The architectural detail had a 1930’s feel. There were windows into darkness and doors leading nowhere. Ari figured that he must be in part of an old terminal that had not been torn down but engulfed by the modern buildings around it. The Egyptians, the original builders of history, must never demolish anything, he thought.
Walid led Ari down a busy well-worn flight of stairs to a small dark office with windows that opened out into a narrow blackness.
“Oh, good morning, Mr. Basher,” said the young woman from the Press Ministry with the cat’s-eye glasses. “Please sit down. Would you like some tea?”
“Tea?” asked Ari.
“Mint tea?”
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”
She seated Ari in a chair next to her desk, which was covered in neatly organized piles of paper. She disappeared for a moment, then returned with a tea in the Arabic style: fresh mint tea in a small glass mug on a glass saucer, a sugar cube on the side.
“Thank you.” Ari looked at her without blinking, never taking his eyes from her face. He adopted a slight smile, which he increased with an ambiguous hint of flirtation whenever she glanced at him. This made her anxious to turn her attention to her desk, the result Ari was hoping to create.
“You do remember,” said Ari, “that my permit to fly around the Sphinx from the Ministry of Defense is for tomorrow only?” Get on with it, he thought, and get me out of here.
“Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Basher.” She nervously ran through the papers on her d
esk. He noticed that today she was wearing the hijab over her chic haircut, but her cute cat’s-eye glasses poked out with a hint of stylish defiance. She selected a paper and excused herself.
Ari looked down at his tea in the small clear glass. He picked up the sugar cube. As he had no teaspoon, he dropped the cube into the tea and tried to stir it with his pinky, but the greenish liquid was too hot. Ari just watched the sugar dissolve.
After a while, he drank his tea. He looked around the dimly lit room and decided that this part of the building must have been built during the 1950s because one wall was entirely of aluminum-framed windows that swung open into the black void. When Ari lost any expectation that the young woman would return, she did so. Ari set his teacup down and stood up.
“Mr. Basher, please come with me.”
She took him out into the hallway, up several flights on the busy staircase, then to a corner office also looking into that same black void. An older middle-aged woman sitting at the desk was surprised when Ari walked in wearing his disarming smile. The young woman approached the older one and leaned forward, whispering in her ear. Ari guessed from slight gesticulations that she was telling how the SpaceCam had been taken in customs the day before.
Ari got the distinct impression that the two women didn’t know what to do with him and were arguing over some course of action that frightened them. Glancing every so often in his direction, he would smile and they would force polite smiles back. Their whispers reached a soft crescendo. The middle-aged woman picked up the phone and made a phone call. Some minutes later the fax machine rang and a fax came in.
“Very well,” said the middle-aged woman. “I will take this to the head of customs, General Moussa.” She started for the door, then she stopped, remembering something important. “Would you like some tea?”
“Tea?” Another cup of tea, thought Ari. That’s the last thing I want right now. “Thank you. That would be so very … kind.” And he flashed his million-dollar smile.
Chapter 11
Ari looked at the tea leaves in the dregs of his cup. He slowly swirled around the viscous sugary syrup, studying the sweet muck, as he had nothing better to do. He stood. He walked to the windows and looked out at what once must have been an exterior view of the runway or the desert, but now was a black wall of shadows. What if I don’t get the SpaceCam today? What will Frank think…? Stop it, he commanded his brain. What if we miss our date with the military? Stop it, or you’ll lose your cool, and you need to be cool.
Shooting the Sphinx Page 4
