Between Terror and Tourism. Michael Mewshaw
“Okay, but which one is warmer? I’ve never seen snow.”
“They both have snowy winters.”
“Okay, but where won’t I need a car?”
“I think you’ll have to drive wherever you go.”
“Yes, America is so big,” he fretted. “My field is science fiction, but they want me to teach Arabic and comparative literature. What I would like to do is work on my own novel. Do you think I’ll be permitted to take a creative writing course?”
“I’m sure you can arrange that.”
“What I’d really like is to write for the movies,” he said.
“Sorry, that’s not my field.” Someone gripped my elbow and steered me toward the exit. I assumed it was Siberell rescuing me.
“But one of your books became a movie.”
“I wasn’t involved. Good luck to you.”
On the carpeted loggia that had served as a prayer rug, a caterer had set out sweets and soft drinks. I noticed then that it was a young man, not Siberell, who’d been clutching my arm.
“Unless you want to be stuck answering questions all night, I’d suggest getting out of here,” he said.
His name was Michael Nevadomski, and he was an undergraduate from Middlebury College in Vermont, spending a year in Alexandria to improve his Arabic. He was already quite fluent and had translated some of Durrell into Arabic. The son of a Polish-American father and a mother from the island of Guam, he had been raised in Florida and looked like a preppy New Englander in his tweed jacket. But he was completely at home in Egypt.
At Michael’s suggestion, we went to Pastroudis, another Art Deco relic from the Cosmopolitan Era. Although we had the paneled dining room to ourselves, waiters scurried around as if we had arrived with an entourage. Mineral water and a bottle of Obelisk wine promptly appeared on the table. A booklike menu came inscribed with a quote in English from Durrell about “Alexandria, the Capital of memory” and paragraphs of commentary about Cavafy and Mahfouz and King Farouk, Egypt’s deposed monarch, whose immense girth might have qualified him as a food critic. All the dishes had French names and were described at length in that language-which was strange since none of the waiters spoke a word of it. Michael ordered for us in Arabic.
In the adjacent bar, a radio played Lionel Richie. “He’s the most popular singer in the Arab world,” Michael said. “A lot of people don’t know any English except for his songs.”
From pop culture, he moved to local lore and arcana. Michael seemed to have read every book and to know every bit of minutiae about Alexandria, Egypt and Islam. He discussed sects and sub-sects. Not just Sunnis and Shiites, but Sufis and Salafi’ists.
When I mentioned that I was headed for Libya, he warned me that the border was littered with mines—some left over from World War II, others from more recent conflicts. He hadn’t crossed the frontier and didn’t know anybody who had tried to. But he had traveled by bus throughout the western desert and he urged me not to miss the oasis at Siwa, where Alexander the Great had consulted the oracle and discovered that he was divine.
While I wondered when my Libyan visa might come through, Michael went on to say that he’d take me to a mosque this Friday where worshippers chanted Dhihr—a repetition of the ninety-nine names of God, or the repetition of one of his names ninety-nine times. Then, on Sunday, since we were both Catholics, we could attend a Sudanese Mass, with drumming, at Sacré Coeur cathedral.
I liked his eagerness and energy, his curiosity and intelligence, his sense of adventure. It occurred to me he might have friends who were fundamentalists, maybe members of the Muslim Brotherhood. If so, I wanted to meet them. Because I didn’t care to put him in danger, I didn’t mention that I actually wanted to interview a terrorist. Why travel all this distance and not meet the Beast everybody raved about?
“I know a few hard-core believers,” Michael said. “Let me ask around and get back to you.”
After dinner, he strolled with me toward the hotel. Actually, “strolled” is the wrong verb. We “vaulted” ditches. “Traversed” construction sites. “Clambered” up and down slag heaps. “Tiptoed” over a sidewalk inexplicably flooded with water. “Dodged” cars and trolleys. “Picked” our way past café tables where men smoked sheesha and played dominoes in the glaring light that splashed from open doors. And “swam” against the tide of pedestrians until we achieved the relative sanctuary of the Corniche.
Young couples perched on the seawall. The daring held hands. The brazen embraced and kissed. Not unnaturally, we wound up talking about women and love, but since we were both bookish guys, we thrashed out the subject through literature. Michael asked what I thought of Durrell’s Justine. Not the novel but the sexually predatory title character, the inscrutable beauty who leaves half the men of Alexandria panting in her fragrant wake.
World-weary and wise, I observed that I accepted Justine’s assessment of herself as “a tiresome hysterical Jewess.” But at his age Michael was alive to the mysteries of sexual allure. What impressed me, though, was the allure he exercised over young Egyptian girls, who gave him sidelong glances as they glided by.
Michael whispered, “The girls behind us are talking about us. They wonder whether you’re my father.”
This flattered me. I was closer to his grandfather’s age.
Arms linked, a trio of girls speeded up and pulled level with us. They wore tight jeans and tight sweaters, and although they had on headscarves, they didn’t hide their smiles. Surging ahead, they darted kohl-rimmed eyes over their shoulders at Michael, flirting outrageously.
Hands in pockets, wind tousling his hair, he called out to them in Arabic. I expected that to send them scampering. But the girls didn’t suddenly go silly and goosey. They stopped, and one of them, the cutest, told him in English, “You are very handsome.”
“Shukran,” he replied.
The three young buds showed no interest in me. So much for the respect Egyptians supposedly accord their elders. With eyes and ears for Michael alone, they were willing to linger there in the parade of pedestrians as long as he stayed too.
They were university students, they said. The prettiest one majored in geography and was about to take her end-of-term exams. She had finished cramming and needed a break tonight. What was Michael doing, she asked. Why was he in Alexandria? Did he like Egypt? Where did he learn Arabic?
It looked to me like Michael was about to get very lucky. All he needed to do was take his choice of Charlie’s Angels—or, what the hell, invite the three of them to a café. But a minute later, he blew them off. He did it suavely, with flourishes of Arabic as decorative as the fretwork on a harem screen. Still, there was no mistaking that he had sent them packing.
“What was that?” I asked.
“It happens to me all the time,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
“No, seriously, it does. Because I’m blond.”
“You’re not blond. You have brown hair.”
“Well, by comparison to an Arab I’m fair.”
“Why didn’t you ask them to have something to eat or drink? At least, ask for a phone number.”
He shook his head at my ignorance. “That’s not done here.”
“It looked to me like they were up for anything.”
“Ready for a marriage proposal, maybe,” Michael said. “But not a date. They were wearing hijabs. That’s what gave them away.”
“Gave what away? They couldn’t have come on any stronger.”
Slightly pedantic, yet never condescending, Michael attempted to