“Now can you begin to comprehend how unprofessional you are?”
“Unprofessional?” Ari bristled in disbelief and looked at Farah as if she would have some opinion about the matter. No one had ever called him that before.
Samir opened his drawer and slapped some papers down on his desk.
“Here is the permission from the military censor, stamped and signed!” Samir flipped over the next page. “Here is the permission from the head of the crew union, stamped and signed!” He turned over the next. “Here is the approval of the script from the minister of the interior, stamped and signed! And the social censor, who makes sure we are not filming anything against morality, but that is the easiest one, because we pay him not to show up on set. You have waited for one entire day in the back of the airport. Do you now know what is involved in getting all of these permissions?” Samir scooped up all the papers in his hand. “You are only beginning to understand! It takes six weeks, at a minimum! Here, take them and go! Get out of my office! GO!”
Samir tossed the papers down onto his desk, and they slid across the barren glass top toward Ari, who picked them up and looked at the black Arabic words floating around on the pages.
“But, Samir, I can’t even read these,” he protested.
“And if you could you would read that the permissions may only be given to an Egyptian company, and that these permissions do not even belong to your movie!”
“I can’t do this job without you.” Ari was getting irritated, coming close to his own boiling point. Samir can’t talk to me like this, he thought as he commanded every muscle in his face not to react.
“These are the property of my company.” Samir pointed down at the papers. “I could not give them to you even though I want to. They are now worthless, like your empty American smile! Take them and get out!”
Ari slammed his hand down on the desk to anchor himself from Samir’s onslaught.
“Do know what’s really unprofessional?” Ari’s voice started to rise. “A million times more unprofessional than what I did?” Ari scooped up the papers defiantly. “GIVING UP!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. “NOT GETTING THE SHOT!”
Ari had a big voice, very big, which he seldom used. Samir blinked, surprised by the outburst, never expecting it, his anger incapacitated by an even greater one. Farah smirked, nodding in enjoyment.
There was nothing, short of violence, left for Ari now except to make an exit. So he walked out.
Chapter 20
Ari bounded down the stairs and out into the street clutching the permission papers in his hand. Hamed jumped out of his car and opened the door. Stopping himself, Ari leaned against the car door and looked at the precious and yet potentially worthless papers.
“Give me a minute, Hamed.” Ari knew he couldn’t drive away and leave. What would he say to Beth? To Frank? To the studio? To the whole crew that was coming over? And the movie stars that would follow them? The whole mess would rest only on Ari’s shoulders.
Ari started to pace back and forth in front of the building’s entrance. Samir had opened up such fury in him at everything he’d been through since getting off the plane: the customs guards who took the camera, the whispering women from the Press Ministry, the minister of defense, the tourist police.
He knew he had to go back up and say something. He looked at the permits that tied him to Samir. What could he do? Offer Samir more money? No, he wasn’t ready to go that far. He kicked the air, muttering to himself, wanting to break something.
“These people are impossible. Can I get my camera? Inshallah. Can I fly a helicopter? Inshallah. Can I shoot a shot? Inshallah.” Ari paced past the front door of the building. Samir’s sister stood inside the doorway watching him.
“When does anything happen around here?” Ari sputtered to himself. “When does anybody actually do something? Can I get a cup of coffee?”
“Inshallah,” they both said simultaneously, she mocking him.
“That was a very dramatic scene. But what are you going to do now? He’s very stubborn, my brother. He’s not going to come down here to the street to see you, Mr.…?”
“Basher. Ari.” He studied her knowing brown eyes. She seemed to understand his predicament better than he did.
“But will you go back upstairs to beg and grovel at his feet?”
“What would you do?” he asked.
“Even Samir can’t yell forever.” She tilted her face upward toward her brother’s office, her long dark hair splaying down behind her shoulders. “He will soon run out of breath.”
Ari caught the scent of some wild flower essence in the night air. “Why does he get so angry? It’s not smart.”
“Well, he was not always that way. He was … very sweet as a boy. But that is a question for another time.” She stepped out of the doorway. “I will leave you to your predicament. Don’t worry yourself too much. I have come to believe that if Samir is not yelling at me, I’m doing something wrong.”
Ari watched her walk away. Tight jeans; flat, practical boots; a black leather jacket—she looked less student and more biker chic than she had last time, he thought. She disappeared around the corner.
“Hey, hey, hold on!” Ari started to jog after her. “Maybe you could help me talk to him.” Ari rounded the corner to see four men get out of a parked car and surround Farah. She pushed on through them and kept walking. They ran up and started taunting her in Arabic. One of them made a circle around her face with his finger as he spoke, then tapped her on the top of the head. Ari guessed he was mocking her for wearing no hijab. She ducked out from under his touch and spouted an Arabic tirade at him.
The men just laughed. The bold one started to pinch her on the breasts and on the butt, then the others joined in. She swatted their hands away but couldn’t repel every grope. This delighted them. They bellowed with laughter.
Ari couldn’t comprehend such behavior. It seemed so teenage for men until the bold one, the first to have touched her hair, grabbed her into a headlock. His hand at her throat, he expertly choked off her breath. With dead seriousness, he muttered some sort of threat in her ear.
Ari sprang from his stupor of disbelief and without thinking found himself running toward them.
“Let her go!” he demanded.
The thugs looked at him in amazement for a few seconds. Farah gulped down a great breath of air.
Then Ari yelled indignantly, “Help! Police! Help! Police! Police!” expecting the four thugs to flee into the night. Instead they burst out laughing, unfazed by him in the slightest.
Ari shifted the film permits to his left hand, then reached in to grab Farah by the wrist. He yanked her away. This made the thugs angry and they grabbed her back. Ari saw a fist with a signet ring on the middle finger coming straight at his head. He felt the ring bite into his temple, and his head bounce sideways. He spun around and down. He saw the permission papers fly up in the air as his vision went gray, becoming two little narrow cones of sight.
To keep from blacking out, he dropped to his knees and put his head down. A car engine roared, coming closer. He looked up. The only thing he could see were two headlights aimed straight at his face. He knew he would be run over, killed in a second. But the tires screeched. The grille stopped a foot from his head.
The thugs jumped out of the way. Hamed’s voice yelled in Arabic. Ari could hear the words, “American!” and “Hollywood!” Ari’s tunnel vision started to widen. It was Hamed’s car.
Ari felt Hamed grab him by the arm and lift him to his feet. Hamed, brandishing an old piece of pipe, swiped at the air with a swoosh. The thugs backed away. Two of them still had a hold of Farah. She screamed when she saw Ari’s face.
“What’s wrong?” Ari asked, just noticing that there was blood dripping off the tip of his nose. From above came the rhythm of metal clanking. Ari looked up: an old woman was leaning out the window banging two pots together. She was making a cry of alarm. Windows opened up above them. Outraged, women of all ag
es leaned out banging their pots on their window ledges.
Farah tried to squirm loose. The thugs waved at Ari for him to go away.
“No, not without her!” Ari pointed at Farah.
Hamed banged his pipe on the sidewalk. Men, too, started yelling from balconies above. The entire street seemed to be hanging out the windows. The thugs started to back away from the sheer noise raining down upon them. Across the street, twenty young people ran out of a building following a familiar young man with long hair.
“Rami! Rami!” yelled Farah.
It was the singer and his band of protesters.
“Farah!” Rami yelled back, and his gang dashed across the street, swarming around the thugs, who had to let Farah go. The thugs and protesters exchanged a few kicks and punches. Experienced street fighters, the thugs made a formation, but against twenty they couldn’t hold out.
A protester with a camera filmed the fighting.
Farah yelled out in Arabic, pointing at the thugs’ faces, “Kamyra lifa! Kamyra lifa! Kamyra lifa!” which Ari took to mean “film them.” Everyone joined in with her chant, including Ari until he realized that his film permits were underfoot. Ari sank to his knees, trying to gather up the precious papers.
The documentarian stuck the camera in the thugs’ faces and shouted questions at them. They tried to grab it. The protesters pushed them away.
Rami stepped forward to speak, and the melee settled down. In the relative lull, Ari crawled around snatching up papers.
“Were you pinching her like this?” Rami said to the camera in English, and he reached out and pinched one of the thugs on the butt. All the protesters joined in, even Farah, pinching the thugs’ asses, tweaking them on the chest. The thugs tried to swat the forty hands away, but they were outpinched.
“Hamed, Hamed! Get the permissions!” yelled Ari, desperate to save the permits from this new pandemonium. Still bleeding a little, he had to keep the white papers out from under his bloody nose. Ari crawled through the scrum of protesters snatching up the last of the papers until someone stepped on the back of his hand.
“Ow, Hamed! The permissions! Get them off the ground!”
The thugs had had enough. Their back against the wall, they retreated slowly down the street, yelling menacing threats and punching anyone who got too close. Hamed picked up the remaining few papers. Ari couldn’t lift up the last one. His hand was bloody and shaking.
Rami leaned down and picked up the paper, reading it.
“Ministry of Defense?” Rami laughed. “Here you go, man.” He handed over the paper and began to sing, joyously, victoriously, and everyone joined in the refrain, even some of the younger people hanging out of the windows:
“Ha, Ha, Ha!”
Chapter 21
“I don’t need stitches?” asked Ari. He sat on a stack of cardboard boxes of medical supplies. He cradled the film permits in his arms, his hands and face crusted with drying blood. Farah rummaged through a box and pulled out some packets of gauze, medical tape, and cotton balls.
“It’s nothing. Just a quarter of an inch. Head wounds can bleed a lot.” She pulled a bottle out of the box. “I’m afraid we only have rubbing alcohol, so this will sting.”
She cleaned out the gash, the source of the streaks of dried blood on his temple.
“Ow, ah.” Ari flinched.
“It’s tiny. Hold still.” Farah dabbed the cool alcohol on his forehead with gauze. “You can go to the hospital if you want, but it’s a very clean cut, and it’s already closed up. I’ll put a butterfly on it just in case. Come into the bathroom if you’d like to see yourself in the mirror. You should wash your face, too.”
Farah led him through the apartment to a bathroom. It was a big place with high ceilings and French doors that opened from room to room. The protesters were settling back down to work blogging. Laptops were everywhere, on every surface. The young people had a feverish concentration. The thugs spooked them just enough to fuel their determination with rage. They sprawled over the floor pounding out their stories on their computers, tweeting on their phones.
Farah taped a butterfly bandage over Ari’s cut, then rinsed the blood off his face and hands in the bathroom sink. Her fingers lingered on his cheek.
“Thank you,” she said, and her eyes welled up for a moment. She tried to control herself, but fell against him shuddering.
“It’s all right. It’s okay. It’s over.” He embraced her, feeling the warmth of her breath on his neck. Her hair stuck slightly to his lips.
She choked down a soft sob. “I was so frightened that they would take me into their car and then…”
“Hey, so was I. They’re scary guys. I’m still shaking.” He held up his quivering hands. With trembling thumbs, he wiped the tears from her face. “What is this place?”
She stepped back and composed herself bravely, but he was happy, almost gleeful that she had leaned against him. “Come, I’ll show you.”
She led him into a bedroom. Six sleeping protesters lay fully clothed, crashed out across the bed sideways. Piles of rope, tarps, paint, and materials to make signs were everywhere. Three protestors sat in front of a professional video-editing system set up on a dresser. They were already inputting the footage of Farah being abused by the thugs.
“We are spreading the word,” she said to Ari. “We are showing everyone that if they beat us down, we bring more people; if they beat them, we bring even more, until one day soon, there will be too many people to beat. If we overwhelm them, you see how easily they give up? Because they don’t believe in what they are doing. They are cowards only beating people for government money. Why don’t you put that into your Hollywood movie?”
“Well…” Ari couldn’t think of a less likely subject for Hollywood.
The room lights turned on garishly bright.
The sleeping protesters rolled over, grumbling in Arabic. One opened his eyes and said to Ari in English, “Hey, man, we’re trying to sleep. Turn off the lights.”
“But it wasn’t me.” Ari replied.
Samir stood by the door with his hand on the light switch.
“So this is your revolution?” he said to his sister scornfully. “This is how you are going to change Egypt? Everybody sleeps in one bed? Shameful.”
“Is this her Muslim brother?” grunted one of the sleepy protesters, annoyed.
“Yes. Quick, film him!” said another. “Put him in tonight’s video blast.”
The cameraman lying on the bed raised a camcorder that seemed permanently attached to his hand.
“Come with me, Ari.” Samir tugged on Ari’s arm. “We must get you out of this place.” He switched off the lights just as the camera started recording. “Oh, excuse me for disturbing your dreams,” Samir said in the dark.
Chapter 22
Down in the street, Samir and Ari walked in silence except for their footfalls scraping on the sidewalk. Ari still held the film permits. Samir noticed that they were wrinkled and dogeared. Pursing his lips, chewing over words he couldn’t say, he frowned down at the pavement. Guilt and rage, thought Ari. Which will be stronger?
Samir finally spoke. “Thank you for saving my sister.”
“Don’t thank me, aala wajib,” joked Ari. (It is my duty.)
“Oh no, now you have been in Egypt too long.”
“Since I saved your sister’s honor”—Ari saw his opening and took it—“doesn’t an old Arab custom mean that you owe me some sort of debt of gratitude?”
Samir groaned. “I take it back. You are still a Jew.”
“Then I’ll collect my pound of flesh, please.” Ari held out the film permits to Samir. “So we’re back together again? By the way, did the money hit your account, the twenty-five thousand?”
Samir didn’t answer.
“You never got the payment?” Now Ari understood the violence of Samir’s outburst. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
They walked into Samir’s building and went up to his office, where he opened his
laptop and slid it across the desk. Ari dialed.
“May I borrow your sunglasses?” asked Ari.
Samir took a pair from his pocket and handed them over. Ari put the glasses on over his forehead, hiding his little butterfly bandage.
Beth appeared in bed. “Hel … lo?” Her husband did not.
“Beth it’s me.”
“Oh, Ari … what time is it over there?”
Ari ignored her question. “I’m here with Samir.”
“Hello, Samir.”
“We are so sorry to wake you.” Samir was contrite.
Ari was not. “The money did not hit the account.”
“What do you need the money for?” asked Beth nonplussed.
“You didn’t send it?” asked Ari.
“You can’t shoot anything yet.”
“Unbelievable!” Ari slammed his fist down on the desk.
“Elizabeth.” Samir trained the computer on himself. “If I may speak.”
“Of course.”
“The day we get the money is an important day,” said Samir slowly.
“How so?” asked Beth.
“Then Ari can go back to the airport to get the SpaceCam.”
The statement hung in the air. Whether the money was needed for bribery or some legitimate reason, Beth couldn’t ask. She had no choice but to pay. She obviously didn’t like it.
“Samir, how are you doing on your budget?” she did ask.
“We will go over.”
“Why?” she demanded.
Samir looked over at Ari. “Some occurrences that could not be foreseen.”
“Thought so.” Beth rubbed her temples. “After this payment, we are not sending any more money until I see a new budget that we both sign off on. We must know how much the rest of the filming is going to cost before we agree to pay.” She pressed her point.
“Of course.” Samir nodded with a courteous little bow. “That is the way it should be.”
“How is it going with permission to fly on another day?”
“I am working on it,” admitted Samir.
“Can I speak to Ari?” Beth rubbed her temples again. A headache seemed to be brewing.
Shooting the Sphinx Page 8
