An excerpt from my novel. Here, the group of Americans does its best to sail around Aswan without any more booze.
We all laughed at Finneas’ remark and drank some more. The Coke and whiskey was still cool in Dawn’s pouch and it went down smoothly and warmed my stomach. The combination of this coolness and warmth comforted me nicely for the rest of the bus ride and while I was eager to reach the river, I was perfectly content sitting in the back of the bus with my drinking companions. Kirk continued to relate his midnight wanderings to us as Dr. Olebowski instructed the rest on the bus about some interesting history on Aswan and the islands. Kirk’s excursion, however, took us down a dark labyrinth of dark alleys and streets not mentioned in our initial brochures. As he followed his newfound friend from the suq through town, Kirk nervously looked back over his shoulder in case insidious brigands or outlaws, shrouded in the darkness like the conspirators of Cassius, waited to ambush the misled American. Kirk expressed how nervous he was as he passed a group of men in an alley who suddenly stopped their smoking of a shared hookah as he neared. Was this the end, he thought. Would he be robbed and killed and never heard from again? But the enticement to see forbidden, naked belly dancers was too great for our college instructor, so he bravely pushed on.
Kirk was no Genji. It was funny to me how dangerous he had described the evening, and I thought about Lady Murasaki’s Genji, the fearless lover-prince who spent his nights roaming the gridded streets of medieval Japan looking for illicit rendezvous. Genji flourished at night like a prowling cat and only the most secretive of maidens does he visit and seduce in the narrative. This wasn’t our Kirk, and we all knew it, which is probably why his harrowing tale became so entertaining to us. The only victim would be his wallet, for Egyptians are culturally adroit at inflating unmarked prices and then convincing travelers that negotiating fixed rates is unheard of and mortifyingly insulting.
Kirk did arrive safely at the show and he did see three or four voluptuous dancers who didn’t really take it all off as promised. The evening cost him eighty dollars, which Kirk was convinced was a fair price for a verboten evening of danger, hookah, and skin. Frankly, he probably paid twice as much as it was really worth, since everything here in Egypt is negotiable. But the adventure made Kirk happy and gave him years, if not decades, of relatable stories for his friends and colleagues back home.
When our bus stopped at a pleasant curb lined with palm and date trees, the group began to disembark, and Dawn alerted us to a disaster of colossal proportions: her pouch was dry. Until we could find a duty-free shop or return to the ship that night to refill her backpack with more whiskey, she informed us that we would only have water to drink. This made Dawn a tad moody because it wasn’t even noon and as she said, “It’s so nice to sail around with drinks.” I reassured her that I had plenty of bottled water in my backpack which she was welcome to share. Dawn thanked me politely and stroked my shoulder, and we all caught up with the group being led to a fleet of feluccas awaiting us on the pier. Two of them were for us, and as we boarded, we were asked to remove our shoes and find a seat. My felucca held me and my drinking companions, Kirk, Dawn, and Andrew, along with the Hoskins and Margot. The other skiff accommodated Dr. Olebowski, Finneas, Brick, Carol, Chip, and an unknown German couple in baseball caps and pink noses who had been waiting on the dock to join a sailing party. When Brick heard them speaking to each other in German, he introduced everyone in his vessel with “und das ist” and “und dies ist” and everyone shook hands.
Our felucca captain and his sailing mate were a silent pair, so once we began to move, the details of our sights were left unexplained, leaving us to imagine the historical significance of ruined temples here and fallen pylons there. No matter how ancient the stone structures seemed, healthy green palm trees flourished on these tiny islands, marrying old civilization with new life. The disparity intrigued me, as did the large formation of rocks which resembled bathing elephants. Gigantic effigies emerging out of the seas. We sailed around these mighty mammoths in our assailable boat, and I felt incredibly insignificant as a momentary creature passing around their solid domain. It was one more incident to convince me that we tourists weren’t needed for Egypt to continue to thrive. She had done so for thousands of years without us and whatever would become of me and my companions, the land would outlive all of our passages. I once heard in English class that it takes a reader for a book to exist but I don’t think that this applies to places. Elephantine and the other islands with their nesting birds and swaying date trees would all survive just fine without us.
Dawn was drying out quite well during her unprepared prohibition, and as our boat caught a powerful gust of wind, she ran her fingers over the top of the rippling water and uplifted her face to the sun. The Nile had calmed us all. The warmth of the day and the movement on the water had soon transported me to a far-off place and I began to daydream about nothing at all. I might have sailed far off on my own if it had not been for the rattling of a tambourine which broke my trance, and as I looked up, our captain was shaking a rusted instrument in the air and singing a quick tune. We had left our ship the Serenade only to be captively serenaded.
