“I’m from Canada,” she said.
“Canada is part of the United States,” said the younger Arab.
“The Canadian government controls the press too,” said the first man.
Emboldened, she was about to respond with a barnyard epithet, something not far from
“What is important is that this was an attack against the world of Arabs,” the third man said. “Why is it that the Americans never caught him, Bin Laden, if they say he was responsible?”
“How can they not know where he is?” muttered another man.
“Because he launched the attacks and then disappeared,” Alex said. “That or he’s dead.” And burning in hell, she might have added, but didn’t.
Her audience was having none of it. With no malice whatsoever, they ignored her.
Voltaire gave her hand another tap and threw a sharp frown at her. She knew he was reminding her to stay cool.
“Americans know everything,” the man who was speaking maintained, dismissing Alex. “They didn’t catch him because he hasn’t done anything. What happened in Iraq confirms this. The Americans attacked against Arabs and against Islam. They did it to serve Israel.”
“How true it is!” Voltaire said. “Zionist conspirators, all of them.” He turned to Alex and guided the conversation. “
“Better than I thought it would be,” she answered in French, “unless you’re talking about the smoke coming out of my ears.”
“Better smoke coming out of your ears than intemperate remarks coming out of your mouth,” he said succinctly. “No point offending my friends when there’s no chance to change their minds now, is there?”
Alex retreated into another drag from the hookah.
“The problem is that Americans are brainwashed by their leaders,” the first man said. “It makes no sense that Mr. Bin Laden could have carried out such an attack from Afghanistan.”
“There are a lot of Arabs who hate America, but this is too much,” the younger man said. He was more passionate than the older men. “And look at what happened after the September eleventh attacks! The Americans invaded two Muslim countries! They used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Afghanistan. Then they went to Iraq. They killed Saddam, they killed his sons. They killed tens of thousands of civilians and claimed they were ‘liberating’ them. They tortured ordinary Arabs in their prisons. They sent hostages to Cuba. How can you trust the Americans?”
“You can’t!” Voltaire said sharply. “Never! Filthy infidels!”
Alex felt like launching into them. But she retreated again into the smoke from the hookah and eased back. Voltaire was right and she was learning from him. She wasn’t going to change their minds, and they weren’t going to change hers.
She finished her drink.
She thought of many things to say and silently swallowed every one of them. Within minutes, the fuel in the hookah had burned down and the conversation had drifted to soccer and Egypt’s chances against Cameroon in the upcoming World Cup.
Her temper was easing down too.
“Do you know anything about sports?” one of the Arabs asked her.
“I know that Egypt’s national footballers are the best in Africa,” she said generously, playing her audience. Football here, of course, meant soccer. The men cheered and applauded. Alex had ended the conversation on an up note and had made friends. She didn’t chip in her further opinion that the glorious giants of world soccer-Brazil, Italy, Spain, and Argentina-would, if given the chance, annihilate the hapless Egyptians.
Instead, she turned to Voltaire. “I’d like to go back to the hotel now,” she said. “May we go?”
“It’s late. I’ll see that you get there safely,” he said. “Let’s find a taxi.” He rose to leave. “Come on along.”
Voltaire slipped back into Arabic and thanked his friends for their conversation. The men at the table returned his smile. They stood and bid Alex a warm farewell.
FORTY
Incredible,” Alex muttered to Voltaire when they were back out on the street. She took his arm as they navigated crowded pedestrian traffic toward a cab stand. It was almost 1:00 a.m. now, and the street was overpopulated with beggars, some ambulatory and others passed out on the sidewalk. “What they were saying was complete rubbish! I could barely control myself.”
“I know,” he said. “I was watching you. But what they think, what they say, all that is completely predictable.”
Then, for security on the street, he switched into Italian. He spoke close to her ear as they looked for a taxi. Alex spotted a couple of taxis and pointed them out.
“No,” Voltaire said. “I use a certain cab stand. It’s two minutes from here. You think I’d get into any Cairo taxi? Certainly not. I value my life more than that.”
They walked a few blocks. One or two beggars accosted them aggressively. Voltaire rudely ignored them and at one point physically shoved away a man who had drawn too close to Alex.
“By the way, where’s Abdul?” she asked.
“Why? Do you miss him?”
“Just asking,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll get you back to the hotel safely.”
In Cairo, the newer cabs were yellow. The older ones were painted black and white, often with mismatched doors and panels, the result of the Demolition Derby aspect of Cairo traffic. They found one of the older cabs parked by itself at a cab stand. The cab was black with one green door and a white trunk. The sign on the top said OFF DUTY. Voltaire opened the door and told Alex to climb in. She did.
The driver turned up a moment later. He looked like a punk, about twenty-five years old with attitude. He wore a Western-style windbreaker and a white baseball-style cap that carried the blue and white logo of a French soccer team, Olympique de Marseille. He had black hair slicked back.
There was no meter in the cab. Fees were always negotiable.
At first, as was his habit, Voltaire sought to negotiate the cost of the ride in English. A noisy, contentious argument ensued in Arabic between Voltaire and the driver as Voltaire insisted on being taken to the Metropole Hotel and the driver loudly refused.
Other drivers, also off-duty and sharing smokes, looked and laughed. The driver massacred his English, and then switched into Arabic. Voltaire followed into Arabic, apparently much to the driver’s surprise.
Voltaire seemed experienced at this, however. He knew how to strike the proper deal. He flashed some extra money and the driver acquiesced.
Then they were off. The cab was not air-conditioned and it rattled. The driver smoked, against the recent law, and held his cigarette-another Eastern European stinker-out the window.
“These old cabs are rolling death traps,” Voltaire muttered cheerfully to Alex, returning to English. “But they’re extremely reasonable in price, even if the drivers are complete idiots like this one-and sometimes can’t find the ocean from the end of a pier. One can rattle one’s way clear across Cairo for little more than it would cost simply to step into a cab in London or New York. And, of course, there’s also the fear factor and the thrill of taking one’s life in one’s hands. Take this complete imbecile of a driver, for example. Eventually he’ll get someone killed. Let’s just hope it’s not us tonight.”
No response from the driver, who seemed intent only on getting this trip done.
Alex nodded. The taxi jockeyed through traffic. Nighttime Cairo fascinated her, in its wealth and its sleaze, the latter even more visible now in the early morning hours. They passed a row of nightclubs. Local wise guys were piling into Mercedes limos and Rolls-Royces, accompanied by an armada of sleek women in short party dresses and the latest fashions from Europe. The driver spotted someone he knew, a chauffeur, and shouted a greeting at him in Arabic.
“I’m still recovering from the conversation at the cafe,” Alex said to Voltaire. “It’s one thing to know how people feel. Another to hear it spoken to your own face.”
“You’ll hear worse than that if you stay here long enough,” Voltaire said. “Was that the worst anti-Americanism you’ve experienced firsthand?”
“Far from it,” she said. “I may look young but I’ve been in the field for a few years. I’ve heard things. The conversation this evening just stands out as among the most warped.”
“That is the problem the United States has in this region,” he said. “In order to fight the really bad people, you have to convince people that there really is a real evil. They have to believe it in order to help you. That’s a battle we’re losing.”
“We?” she asked.
“I’m on your side,” he said. “I serve America and I root for America. And I deal with the dangers and the misunderstandings here every day. That’s why I brought you here. You saw it for yourself.”
The driver turned the corner abruptly. Alex watched him.
Alex looked around. “Do they have seat belts here?” she asked.
“Seat belts in the Third World?” Voltaire asked. “Got to be kidding. Why don’t you ask for a diet soda, while you’re at it?”
“Okay,” she said.
“This driver is a complete moron, one of the worst I’ve ever encountered. Probably doesn’t even have a license,” Voltaire said. “Do you know the difference between a chimpanzee and a Cairo cabbie?” he asked. “The chimp can be taught to drive a car.”
