***
When she woke the next morning she decided to leave for Aswan straight away. The brandy was not mixing well with the orange and yellow wallpaper. Perhaps she could stop off at Luxor on her return to Cairo and see the temples in peace.
In the hall she found Ali. He had a small cut above his right eye and a bruise on his forehead. If he was surprised to see her bags, he did not show it.
‘Oh Ali, what happened to your face?’
‘There is a train for Aswan at 10.00.’
‘Yes.’
They waited in silence for the brother-in-law. She glanced at Ali and thought she saw some emotion flicker briefly in his eyes, but in the gloom it was impossible to tell what it was. Angry voices could be heard and eventually the brother-in-law shambled through the curtain. He took her money and key, handed over her passport and grunted something without looking at her.
‘Shukran,’ she said, smiling.
He nodded and glanced towards the kitchen, in which there was the sound of something being thrown. With a scarcely perceptible shrug he returned to his wife.
Out in the narrow street Ali strode ahead even faster than usual. She had come down with her rucksack already on her back and he did not offer to take it from her; it was not clear why he was accompanying her at all. She was almost running as he scythed a path through the beggars and small children and he did not appear remotely inclined to talk.
He did not come into the station building but said goodbye on the steps. He still barely looked at her.
‘I’m very sorry about the Magic Man.’
He shrugged. ‘He is with other tourists now. It will make no difference to him.’
‘And … and I’m also very sorry about last night. It was my fault.’
He looked out over the square. ‘They are very ignorant people. They do not read books.’ His voice was stony. ‘It will be better when they go back to Cairo. There is no place for them in Luxor.’
He turned at last to face her in the fierce light and she saw precisely what the emotion was.
Twenty minutes later she was sitting in the train and rocking along the banks of the Nile towards Aswan. All around her men in gallabiyas were chewing sugar-cane and staring at her. The air was clogged with cigarette smoke and the hard wooden seats were chipped and besmeared with spittle and decaying food. The train gathered speed. She peeled a banana and looked out of the window, imagining Neri standing before a uniformed Ali for some minor offence.
Recapitulated
Gruffydd Jones
The Voyage: Edited by Chandani Lokuge & David Morley Page 30
