Nile Shadows

had lost interest in cafe agitation almost at once, due to his increasing fascination with buried graffiti and forgotten facts and subterranean reality in general the everyday spadework of Egyptology.

What Ahmad had been referring to when he admitted that the black scholar had gone underground.

But it was also apparent that Ahmad didn't like to dwell on this subterranean aspect of Menelik's life.

And the reason Ahmad couldn't accept these underground truths, refusing even to acknowledge their existence beneath the shifting sands of Egypt, was because he wanted so desperately to believe the founding of a dragomen's benevolent society in Cairo had been the most dramatic event of the nineteenth century, and therefore the most significant cause that anyone could have taken part in then.

And all because that was what his father had done.

Democracy in action, boomed Ahmad, all his old enthusiasm returning. My father and his fellow dragomen discussed everything under the sun as they lounged away the hours in cafes, and there were superb speeches and vivid manifestos, not to mention all the poignant true-life stories that were constantly being retold and retold. The times were alive then, and there was even talk of founding a new nation or a new world-order dedicated to pure dragomanly ideals.

And so we had verandaism, thundered Ahmad. And we had radical nocturnalism and revolutionary hotel-lobby restructuralism, and a revisionist humanist wing with no furniture, and the inevitable backroom lobby filled with cigar smoke, for the disabled. . . . Oh it was all there. And each faction had its hour of shrill ascendency as the final truth took shape, and then finally the enraged shouts erupted and the fighting slogans were unwound, and the downtrodden dragomen of Cairo rose up as one angry man and marched out of the cafes and into the streets. They just weren't going to take it anymore, and thus was born the International Brotherhood of Dragomen and Touts. Or simply the Brotherhood, as they were known to their supporters. Or the DTs, as their detractors so viciously referred to them.

There's never been any respect for minorities, said Joe.

Ahmad's massive nose flared. He sighed, gripping his powerful fists together.

I have to tell you things didn't turn out well for my father, he said in a quiet voice. In his later years my father became increasingly bitter and eventually refused to see anyone at all, even Cohen and the Sisters, and that's shocking when you think of it. For hadn't their midnight sails on the Nile once been the very talk of Cairo? Those bawdy tender nights when the four of them had dressed up in costumes and drifted riotously on the currents of the great river, drinking champagne from alabaster cups of pure moonlight?

Singing their songs to the stars and caressing the night with sensual laughter?

Oh yes, the four of them had been famous friends once, yet there came a time when my father stopped going out and refused to see even them. . . .

Ahmad lowered his eyes.

Underwear had always been my father's trademark in his professional life, the finest erotic underwear imported from Europe. But when he stopped leaving his rooms, he also stopped wearing underwear. At home, with just me around, he refused to wear any at all. The fantasy's gone, he used to say. My illusions have departed like an ancient scroll rolled up.

Ahmad hung his head.

And it was all because he felt the Movement had betrayed him. It's grown fat, he used to say. It's just not the same anymore, it's not what it used to be. And in his bitterness he began smoking more and more hemp, which increased his appetite so that he ate more and more, which made him fat.

Ahmad glowered.

Bloat. Revolting. The dragoman's anathema.

Ahmad's scowl deepened.

My father had worn a beard all his life, ever since he was a sleek young man. But when he rashly decided to shave it off thirty years later, what did he find lurking beneath his beard, time's cruel reward for his decades of selfless sacrifice on behalf of the Movement?

My God, said Joe, what did he find?

Wattles, thundered Ahmad. Deplorable. I have wattles, he confided to me one evening, his face all bandaged up to hide the fact, so heavily bandaged he looked like a mummy. In those later years people got into the habit of referring to him as Ahmad the Fat, and quite naturally they called me Ahmad the Thin. And since everyone else was using those names, we picked up the habit ourselves.

How is the fat one today? I would ask. Bitter and lonely, he would answer, and how is the thin one? . . .

Meaning me.

Ahmad shook his head sadly.

Sometimes when you feel defeated the world just seems to bear down on you, insulting you and humiliating you. I saw that happen to my father and it was terrible. He became a recluse and there was nothing I could do to make it any better for him. He played solitaire and read old newspapers and kept his face bandaged like a mummy, and he smoked hemp and never wore underwear and never stirred from his rooms. At least a game of solitaire can't betray me, he used to say. At least thirty-year-old newspapers can't lie.

Ahmad sagged heavily against the counter, his voice sinking.

Toward the end, the only thing that gave him any pleasure was listening to donkey bells. There were donkeys everywhere in Cairo in those days and he loved listening to the gay tinkling sounds of their bells.

Nothing else could ease his terrible loneliness.

Ahmad looked away.

The end came in the autumn. The Nile was still red with the topsoil of the Ethiopian highlands, and the nights were cool and no longer filled with desert grit. But the great river was ebbing swiftly and with it my father, a lonely beaten man with the life going out of him. He'd had an operation on his throat by then and he couldn't speak, so he penciled notes for me on a pad of paper he kept by his hand.

Raise me up off the pillows, he wrote that last evening. Let me hear the lovely bells one final time. . .

.

And that was the end. He died in my arms.

Slowly Ahmad raised his eyes and looked at Joe, his huge boyish face tormented, his voice a whisper.

Don't you see? I only pretend the Movement was important in order to honor my father's memory, even though in my heart I know it was nothing more than a farcical oddity once used by someone to justify his life. . . . Every life has its Movement, of course it does. But what does it matter in the end? Who cares? .

. . But what I really can't understand is why my father didn't spend his life with donkey bells? Why didn't he make them or sell them or do anything while riding around on a donkey, when he loved those gay tinkling sounds more than anything in the world?

Ahmad's lips quivered. Pain creased his massive face.

Why don't people do what would make them happy? Why do they let themselves get trapped into things? Why don't they just? . . .

But Ahmad was unable to go on. His whole body sagged and he covered his face with his hands, softly beginning to weep.

***

Noisily, Ahmad blew his nose.

Please forgive me that outburst of realism, he muttered. I try to keep them down to a minimum, given the way things are.

Ahmad blew his nose again and drew himself up on his high stool. His face brightened.

But see here, may I offer you an aperitif in some interesting attractive place, by way of apology?

You must be able to read minds, said Joe. Are you going off-duty then?

No, not exactly. But my town house is so conveniently situated, duty is no problem at all, said Ahmad, slipping off his high stool and disappearing down behind the counter. Joe thought Ahmad was retrieving his sandals, so he raised his voice.

A town house, you say? Does that mean there's a country house too?