Shooting the Sphinx

by Avram Noble Ludwig

  “Yes, like it’s alive, almost.”

  Beth picked up another piece of bread. “Now, I get hummus. I mean I finally get it.”

  “Ah, you’re starting to think like an Egyptian,” said Ari with mock sagacity. “Let me have some of that. If you’re going to do garlic, I’d better do garlic, too.”

  As Ari scooped up a dollup of hummus, Beth saw something over Ari’s shoulder and grabbed her handbag. “Ari look!”

  A young Egyptian man sprinted, full speed, around the corner then halfway down the street.

  “Who was that man?” asked Beth. “A thief?”

  Before Ari could answer her, another three young men ran around the corner looking over their shoulders. Then a government thug turned the corner chasing them and taunting them as cowards. Everyone in the café stopped eating to watch, their heads turning in unison.

  Suddenly the three protesters came to a halt and turned around. The government thug pulled up short. They stared at each other for a moment, then they all realized it was three against one. At this the protesters lunged backward and the chase reversed. The thug dropped his bravura, turned tail, and fled. The reversed chase disappeared back around the corner.

  “What the hell just happened?” asked Beth.

  Everyone in the café burst into spontaneous applause, including Ari.

  After dinner Beth and Ari rode back to Mena House in Hamed’s car. Ari sat up stiff in his seat, giving off no hint that he and Beth were lovers. Beth was busy texting.

  “Important?” asked Ari.

  “He yelled at Frank.” She meant Samir. “Everyone’s pissed.”

  Ari waited until Hamed was distracted while making a turn. Ari let the momentum lean him over to whisper in her ear.

  “We’re not alone.”

  Ari pointed secretly at Hamed, meaning not to say anything sensitive, then he slid his hand in between Beth’s legs. She stifled a gasp.

  They managed to make it to the hotel with only furtive touches in the backseat, but once they got into the elevator, they clinched into their viper kiss.

  They burst through the door of the suite. Ari and Beth careened violently against the walls and into the furniture. They kissed a rough spastic waltz all the way into the bedroom.

  An hour later, the sheet and pillows were on the floor. Ari lay with his head resting in the small of her back, sprawled naked across the heavy antique bigger-than-king-sized bed, which had somehow migrated a foot from the wall.

  He remembered the first time he saw her naked back. She was turning around to get dressed on the night their affair started in her office, months ago. It was the sexiest back he’d ever seen. He could have entire conversations with her staring only at her back. It always told the truth. Her shoulder blades, her spine recessed into a channel of soft white skin—her ribs would falter with her breathing, and he would know when there was an untruth or a half trust coming out the other side of her body.

  He turned over and kissed down along her spine and nibbled her buttocks.

  “Are you kissing my ass?” she murmured.

  “Yes, boss.” And he went back to it.

  She laughed and turned over, holding his head against her soft creamy white tummy.

  “What am I going to do with you, Ari?” With one finger she started to align his errant locks of sex-tousled hair.

  “You seem to know that pretty well.”

  “Should I blow up my home?” She grew serious. “Ask Glenn for a divorce?”

  Both scared and excited, Ari turned and looked up between her breasts into her eyes. “Would you … divorce him?”

  “Do you want me to? Do you? Really? Deep down?” A glimmer of hope, a memory of some first love, fluttered up in her for a brief breath. “Or…”

  “I love you,” he said. He knew from a lifetime of throwing his heart around that if you fall in love with careless people who betray you or forget you, it is possible to wear out the heart, and finally use up its capacity for love. That wellspring can grind down from misuse until it becomes only a pump.

  “Or…,” Beth continued, her gray eyes searching his, “… or is that your worst nightmare? Normalcy? Normality?”

  He didn’t answer. In the silence, they both knew that all he was and all he could ever promise to be was one of these movie men. She had worked with hundreds, all of them ever drawn back into a perpetual adolescence, wandering the world, catching little dreamlets on film. And she was the one who cleaned up after them.

  Beth didn’t wait for her answer. She dropped his head and got out of bed.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Ari pretended he didn’t understand what had just evaporated between them.

  “It’s morning in America.” Beth started getting dressed with a hardened, war-weary resolve. “I’m going to have to order a wire transfer for a lot of money.”

  She threw Ari’s clothes off the floor at him.

  “Hey! What the…?”

  “We have a meeting.”

  “Now? It’s the middle of the night.” Women, he thought to himself as he pulled on his underwear. What did I say?

  PART EIGHT

  All things truly wicked start from innocence.

  —Ernest Hemingway

  Chapter 45

  Ari wandered out onto his terrace, putting on his shirt and looking at the black outline of the Sphinx, the light show extinguished for the night. The pyramids were dark black triangles up on the Giza plateau. A sharp knock sounded. Ari poked his head back in.

  “Somebody’s at my door.”

  “It’s Omar,” Beth said, in the bathroom tying her hair back.

  “Oh no.” Ari felt that vertigo sensation again of spinning, losing control.

  “I’ve asked him to join us,” she called from the bathroom.

  “You are making such a mistake.”

  “Open the door, Ari.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing.” He shook his head. “You have no idea.”

  “Open the door!” she ordered him.

  “I can’t open this door, Beth.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are no secrets in Cairo!”

  “Do you want me to tell people that you’re losing it?” Beth charged out of the bathroom.

  “I’m not losing it. I am crystal clear about what is happening here.”

  Ari opened the door. Omar stood there in the hallway holding Samir’s budget.

  “Come in,” said Beth.

  Omar walked in with respect. He made a little half bow, half nod to each of them. Ari couldn’t conceal his own incensed frustration at being set up this way, at this time of night, without a word from Beth.

  “Omar,” Beth began. “Just a couple of questions. Would you be able to shoot at Cairo International Airport with an Israeli citizen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?” Ari challenged him. “That’s not what we’ve been told.”

  “There is no law against it,” said Omar pleasantly, patiently.

  “But the Actors Guild forbids it.” Ari went into a hostile cross-examination.

  “We don’t tell them,” said Omar.

  “Not tell the union?” asked Beth, surprised.

  “Hey,” said Omar, “she doesn’t look like an Israeli. We just slip her into the scene on a tourist visa.”

  “What about the censor who follows us around on set?” asked Ari. “Won’t he check her passport?”

  “We pay him not to show up. Censors are like mosquitoes. We shoo them away with money. Why don’t you check with Khaled Nahkti? Ask him if he will he act with an Israeli?”

  “He will,” admitted Ari.

  “See, a real artist knows no borders,” said Omar without gloating, without smugness, simply instructing Ari.

  “What about Samir’s crew?” Ari pressed. “Will they stay and work for you?”

  “Crew?” Omar seemed nonplussed. “If you pay them, they will come. Is it not the same in your country? Besides, I have a whole studio full of
crew.”

  Ari searched his mind for another issue. “What about the permits?”

  “That is nothing.” On that point, Omar looked away and seemed insincere.

  “What about the permits?” pressed Beth. “We have them, don’t we?”

  “As Omar knows”—Ari jumped at his opening—“our film needs permits signed by the minister of defense, the Ministry of the Interior, the Actors Guild, the Crew Guild, and the social censor. Samir already got all those permits. The process takes six weeks.”

  “But they’re our permits,” protested Beth. “We paid for them.”

  “In Egypt, the permits don’t belong to the film.” Ari quoted from his fight with Samir on the night Samir gave the permits to him, the night he got hit in the head for rescuing Farah. “They belong to the local Egyptian production company. Those permits are Samir’s property. How do you propose to get them from him?”

  “Give him five or ten thousand dollars,” said Omar dismissively, “to go away.”

  “Absolutely not.” Beth shook her head.

  Omar made a fist and clenched it tight. A deep reptilian violence flashed through his eyes. “Then we crush him.”

  Ari didn’t quite understand. “Crush Samir?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Can you please not crush somebody I consider a personal friend?”

  “We squeeze him,” said Omar. “We accuse him of stealing money from us. There are special police for foreigners, to protect foreigners. We use that complaint to justify taking the permits.”

  “Brilliant.” Ari couldn’t hide his distaste for this tactic. “We call the cops on him? He hasn’t stolen any money from us.”

  “We don’t intend to prosecute him,” explained Omar, “only to go to the various ministries and guilds to take his permits away.”

  Ari pressed. “And why would they want to favor us?”

  “Because I do so much more business with them. He is nothing.” Omar opened his arms as if he held the world in his hands. “I am Studio Giza.”

  And what could Ari say to that?

  “Have you read Samir’s budget, Omar?” asked Beth, pointing at the papers in his hand.

  “Yes, it’s a little tight.” Omar thumbed through the pages, looking at his notes in the margins. “Some of the salaries are low, but I will commit to doing the shoot for exactly the same money as Samir.”

  “The same, not less?” asked Beth.

  “I don’t think you can cut this budget,” said Omar.

  “If we’re getting it for the same money, why switch?” Ari asked Beth.

  Omar spoke up. “You’re getting the Israeli actress at Cairo International Airport. Exactly what the director wants.”

  “For the same money?” Beth looked Omar in the eye.

  “You have my word,” said Omar, solemnly raising his right hand.

  “You could easily get us halfway through the shoot and then raise the price,” said Ari.

  “So could Samir, if he hasn’t already,” countered Omar.

  “Why should we trust you?” said Ari, unable to mask his distrust.

  “Because I want your poster on the wall of my studio. I want you to have a good experience, to tell everyone in LA, all the studio heads, and then come back with more and more films.” Omar kept his amiable disposition, but Ari felt as if he were facing a crocodile who could devour him without warning. “Don’t you think that bringing movies to Egypt is in my own interest?”

  Beth cut in before Ari could answer the question. “Okay, okay, I don’t think we should impugn anyone’s motives here. Omar, can you give us a minute?”

  “Of course.” Omar walked over to the door and let himself out into the hallway.

  Ari didn’t wait for the door to close. “You are out of your mind.”

  “Ari, all the producers have taken a vote.”

  Ari was stunned. “Without me?”

  “Everyone wants to dump Samir.”

  “How are we equal on this? I’ve been here. They’ve been on a computer.”

  “Maybe you’ve let yourself get too close to Samir? You just called him your friend.”

  “Omar is just telling you exactly what you want to hear. You Americans, you’re not listening!” Ari started pacing around the room, then pointed out at the Sphinx for what seemed like no reason. “Beth, nothing goes in a straight line here, nothing.”

  “Ari, you’re not making sense.”

  “Even if Omar could pull this off and get the permits away from Samir, which I doubt—don’t forget every government ministry is swamped with all these demonstrations going on—it’s not going to be easy because Samir’s not just going to go away.” Ari started to speak quickly, almost maniacally. “This will soak up all of my time, and the film won’t get prepared properly because I’ll be running all over Cairo in some crazy bureaucratic game of chess with Samir and police and lawyers and judges and ministers and guilds, stuck in traffic, sitting in dusty, dark Kafkaesque hallways waiting to see somebody and drink another cup of tea!”

  “That’s your job,” said Beth.

  “Where I won’t be is at the studio making sure things get organized for Frank when he gets here!” A fleck of foamy spittle flew from Ari’s mouth and landed on the arm of Beth’s blouse. She looked down at it.

  “It’s decided, Ari.”

  “You’re not hearing me.”

  “No, you’re not hearing me,” she said firmly. “He yelled at Frank. We can talk to Omar. He’s one of us.”

  Beth walked straight to the door and reached for the antique doorknob.

  “Beth, wait a second! Take a breath.”

  She stopped.

  He continued. “Before we go down one path or another just try to ask yourself: Is this personal? Are you mad because we shot the Sphinx before you approved the cost?”

  “Yes, I am mad at that. Yes.”

  Ari softened and went over to her. “So is this between you and Samir, or … between you and me?” He reached out and touched between her shoulder blades.

  She stiffened under his fingers. “It’s business, Ari. It’s always business with me. Omar’s our man. Do you want to tell him or should I?”

  Ari knew he had lost. He reached around her and opened the door. Omar was standing there with a big smile on his face. Ari still thought he looked like a crocodile, even more than before.

  Chapter 46

  Ari sat next to Omar in the back of his car. Omar’s driver pulled out of the Mena House driveway into the dark empty Giza streets.

  Omar broke the silence. “You should offer him ten thousand.”

  Ari looked down at his belt where his secret pocket held the bundle of cash. “Beth won’t go for it.”

  “It will happen in the end, might as well get it out of the way,” said Omar.

  Ari folded his arms and looked out the window. He made it clear he didn’t want to speak. They rode in silence all the way to Samir’s office, where Ari knew Samir was working on his budget.

  When they turned onto Samir’s street, Ari looked up and saw Samir’s light was off.

  “He’s gone,” said Ari contemptuously. “Looks like we took this whole ride for nothing.”

  Omar’s car pulled up in the dark quiet street. Ari got out and jogged to the building. He was going to go up to the office in the elevator and check. At that moment, Samir walked out of the front door holding a clean, new budget. They ran smack into each other.

  Ari didn’t know what to say to fire Samir. He hadn’t planned his words. He just said, “That’s the new budget?”

  Samir started to hand it over, but didn’t let go.

  “You were at Studio Giza today.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Are you negotiating with me to lower my price?”

  “No, Samir. We … they … when you yelled at Frank in front of everybody…” Ari didn’t finish his words.

  “Do you think Frank is right?” asked Samir.

  “It doesn’t
matter what I think.”

  “But what do you believe? You? By yourself?”

  “Blacklist an actor?” Ari felt he was being asked to choose and he had to choose his own kind right or wrong. “Of course he’s right. The director is always right. He has to be, or you’ll never finish the film.”

  “Here is my budget for your shit movie,” sneered Samir. “Give it to Studio Giza for them to copy.”

  “It’s not shit.” Ari was deeply offended. Why that word should bother him at this moment, he could not understand, but the film and its message had become a kind of crusade to him.

  “I’m finished with you.” Samir let go of the budget and started to walk away. Ari followed him and walked up beside him.

  “You’ve got to be professional about this. These things happen. No one is any good until they’ve been fired.”

  Samir stopped and turned to face him. “I’m no good? You should fire yourselves.”

  “Samir, it’s happened to me, when I first started out, and so I learned how to go with the flow. That’s how you learn it.”

  “And our contract?”

  “Samir.”

  “So your word, your bond is toilet paper to you? Did you get the shot?”

  “What shot?”

  “Of the Sphinx?”

  “At twice the budget. How much of that money did you really spend and how much did you keep?” They both knew that Samir had overcharged for that shot. “Let’s get real, Samir, I need the permits.”

  “Never.” Samir started to walk away again, his shadow from the streetlight sweeping around on the sidewalk behind him.

  “But you already gave them to me?” Ari ran up beside him again. “Threw them at me.”

  “That was my choice,” said Samir defiantly.

  “Then I saved Farah from being … raped … right here, right here on this street.”

  Samir stopped again. He could not disagree. He wavered there for a moment, staring at his shadow on the sidewalk.

  “I’m begging you, as a friend. Think about your future. If we can’t shoot because you gave us a problem, the insurance companies will make sure you never work again on an international production.”

  “You are threatening me.” Samir looked at Ari, surprised, and a little sad. His anger was melting into sadness.