((1998, Egypt
The
Poet, Author, in Egypt
It was late
and every one had left the outside seating area who had been watching the
illumination show of the Pyramids, and Sphinx, except a hired guide given me by
Solomon: the Captain of the Bellboys, at the Sheraton Hotel, in Cairo, and a
hired policeman, who guarded the Sphinx, whom I paid well, a middle aged man,
as was Solomon and the guide—all paid well to take me after the show to see the
Sphinx—and there I waited in the shadow of the building, the Sphinx in the
darkness in front of the building beyond the dirt road that lead to the
plateau, and there I waited, against the electric light that appeared to be on
permanently.
In the daytime the dirt road in front of
the building and seating area overlooks the Giza Plateau, in that it is
visible—where the Great Pyramid is—now closed for repairs, in which I had to go
to the Khafra Pyramid in place of the Khufu Pyramid, the Sphinx being in front
of the pyramid, and causeway, the street was dusty, but during the evening dew
had settled the dust and now as it was close to midnight, it was quiet and the
heat of the day was cooled, and one could feel the difference.
The guide and the policeman were friends
of Solomon the Arab, all three were Arabs, and while he knew the two were good
contacts and associates, and took me as a client, paying only the policeman (and themselves), without paying the soldiers that guarded the
Sphinx, so they’d allow me to visit the Sphinx after midnight in person
—actually forbidden.
‘Don’t utter a word during the visit…’
said Solomon, after he had dressed me in a white tunic, and head-covering,
hiding my Irish-American look.
“Now don’t say a word,” said the
policeman—repeating what Solomon had said, meaning: be quiet there are guards
down there—soldiers, “we didn’t pay the soldiers, so we don’t want any trouble
with them!”
He looked—as he talked—with a slight
showing of despair within his eyes, and around the corners of his mouth, then
told another Arab that came out of the dark, to take me down to the Sphinx’s
enclosure, and in-between its arm.
And there I was.
We stood together, a full moon
overlooking the head of the Sphinx, then I got closer—as he remained at the
paws of the Sphinx, venturing inward towards the large stone plaque in its
center with its ancient writings, then I found myself against the wall of the
arm, and looked for a spot to climb up, found one and pushed upward three feet
or so, and the Arab whispered, more than a whisper, a hiss:
“No..oooo, you can’t climb i…T!”
I
was already a few feet up, I jumped back down—there was a thump, he held his
breath, “Why not?” I asked.
“Be quiet, we don’t want to alert the
soldiers,” he prayed.
Nothing seemed to move, not even a
slight wind; with the light of the moon, and the few stars: the Sphinx was
seemingly looking down on me as if it had a demon inside its rock riddled
carcass, as if it was awaiting a storm. I even visualized Seth: the ancient
Egyptian deity of storm and turmoil, as if he was gawking at me through this
representation of the head of Khaf-Ra, —as if he wanted to pull out his
legendary wings, move that robust lion’s body, and devour me, or its legs crush
me.
A streetlight shown in the far back,
gave, a little light in that I could see the Arab didn’t wear a head covering.
From the start to this point he was
constantly trying to hurry me.
I pulled a chip of stone from the side
of the Sphinx, put it in my pocket, then I took my camera and took a picture,
why I did this, I don’t know, I just don’t know—no excuse for it, but the light
flashed—with a swell effect throughout the whole plateau, and the Arab was
feeling worse for it every second, put his hands over his face, bending over as
if not wanting to be noticed, crouching like a dead vulture.
For a moment there was no communication
between us—then he said, disappointed, and disapprovingly, said—pointing, with
his hand and finger, and stretched out arm, pointing the way back, the same way
we came in: “Now,” he began, “now we finish…, we go, go… please, please we go!
Everybody sees!” he was scared, real scared, scared as if the hounds of hell
were going to be upon him.
He did not wish to be rude, but he was
terrified and so the tone of his voice showed it, and thus, it just came out
that way, and I was not seemingly in a hurry—as I should have been, but I left
because of his panic— heretofore, I felt indifferent, not really in any danger.
And as we started to walk back towards the Policeman, —perhaps feeling he had talked
too loud if not too much, because he was now mumbling in a near whisper, and
kept on saying:
“You d not un-er-stand da light…da
light…bad…!” nearly inaudible, as I patiently followed him with my eyes; hence,
I felt an impulse of apprehension creeping up my legs, spine, the hair of my
arms, goose-bumps.
Now I heard footsteps, coming out of the dark,
towards me and the policeman—someone had seen the flash, and my guide who was
waiting, and the Arab that had shown me the Sphinx, he was long gone, as if he
had disappeared into thin air, and I could see an unhappiness on the mouth of
the policeman; what was he thinking? I, at that point was unaware just how
costly that flash could be—that it would take an act of God’s intervention to
settle what was going to take place.
“Certainly you do not want trouble…”
said the policeman, who spoke better English than the Arab who took me to the
Sphinx, although I am giving him the benefit of a doubt here, “You should not
have flashed your camera!” and he wasn’t kidding.
What went through my mind was: what did
he fear? I mean it all could be explained, yet there was that fear or dread.
Then a soldier appeared, came up and out of the dark, evidently behind the
shadow of the back of the Sphinx, with an automatic rifle pointing it at me.
Consequently, I woke up, cooled and awakened to the ache of trouble.
Some words were said, and then the
policeman told me abrupt and perhaps a little obvious:
“He wants me to give you to him, but I
know if I do, he’ll take you out behind the plateau and kill you, and no one
will find you ever again—; he disapproves of you being here, resents me for
allowing it without notifying him.”
And then the soldier, a youth perhaps
twenty-three years old, an Egyptian in military black garb, grabbed my wrist
fiercely, and started pulling me towards him, and the Policeman grabbed my
other arm pulling me his way—the opposite way, then the guide ran away in a
cowardly fashion—he would ask me later on that evening, halfway down the dirt
road: not to tell Solomon about his cowardly behavior. He was the one who had
done some of the arrangements, announced to the Policeman that Solomon had
arranged this, paid him.
And there he was, the soldier:
“Give me this person,” the soldier must
have said, demanded, from the look on his face and sound and tone of his voice.
And my arms were being pulled every-which-way—both ways, stretched to the
limit—until my arms ached, neither one giving up, emotionally too.
I didn’t say a word, I stood erect
without a smile, with a dull stream of strain, knowing one or the other was
going to win this tug-of-war, and if it was the soldier I was dead. Oh, yes, dead buried in some sand heap, or
mound, behind the Sphinx or Pyramids, or out in the desert long forgotten—oh, I
was sure the policeman was not teasing me—to the contrary: for on the soldier
face, I could see clearly: I was nothing to him, no more than a pebble, or
stone in the sand, perhaps his thoughts were: ‘I’ll teach him,’ breathing
eagerly to have me all his own.
I looked at him without the slightest
idea of what was really in his head—his full intentions, although I felt he
wanted for a moment to dispose of me (remembering
what the policeman had alleged), and I
knew he’d not give up. Yet he seemed so young to me, I was fifty-one years old.
It was just a forlorn hope he’d let go but that never occurred at this
juncture, and I knew it wouldn’t—; one feels in the heat of danger, the
impression that it must happen, something must happen: take place, before the
unthinkable takes place, yet you must allow yourself time to figure it out, if
indeed you are permitted time, and therefore you must make it happen, and the
latter was drooping with dismay and disappointment: this was the dilemma, how?
I had to come up quick with a solution
to this situation, if not Catch-22: —the old-fashioned cliché: do or die was
staring me right in the face: in consequence, there would be no second episode!
The young soldier, He stood solid and
firm in the sand.
Thus, at this point, the policeman
talked and talked as if giving me time to figure out how to handle this, once
he had to let go, because he was weakening he knew he was weakening, and the
young soldier was gaining and the young soldier knew he was gaining—and the old
policeman did not look as if he’d pull out his revolver to save me: my mind had
been as if in a dark cave, but I was recovering my thinking—it wasn’t too
late—thus, once he’d let go I’d have to make my move:
‘Take him’ my mind said ‘…take him quick!’
‘Go on…’ my mind unfrozen murmured,
“He’s absolutely yours,” but he wasn’t, not yet.
The darkness of night, I figured, would
draw the cover for me once the policeman let go, this would be my chance, my
one and only chance.
‘Wait for that opening, that move then
make a defensive strike, not one strike, but several—put him out cold!’ My
second self said.
I figured I had nothing to lose, should
the policeman lose the grip on me, so I’d have my right arm free, and once
free, I would have to react quick, my left hand would be useless, but I could
push with it until he let go, and kick with either my left or right foot,
equally, I knew karate well, and a good kick to the groin or chest, and my
right hand punching him in the left side of the head—a knockout punch, and once
the left hand was let free grabbing the rifle or his wrist that held the mussel
in balance, now aimed upward towards me,
thus pushing it downward, I’d have a chance.
Odds were better than half I figured,
but what I had not contemplated, or calculated was: if I did get the upper hand
my back would be to the policeman, under such changing circumstances, whose
side would he take? He could change the
equation. —my plan had holes in it but
it was my only plan, there was no other one.
On another note, I assumed the soldier
figured I knew nothing of combat or counter attacking, that was my weapon, my
surprise weapon: this was not the first time I found myself in harm's way, yet
it was perhaps the most entangled, if not most unanticipated—but I was given
that time to deliberate—and to be honest, I wasn’t afraid of the assault. Call
it luck or providence, or even call it instinct or knowing what I knew in
karate technique. —again, the
handwriting was on the wall, do or die, do or die. Thus I was going to—one way or the
other—going to pull down the curtain—figuratively speaking, or die trying.
“What’s the
matter?” said a voice, as if this situation was not as it should be.
The soldier didn’t answer him, but the
policeman did. The young soldier just looked as if over our heads and said
something to the effect, “What’s yours? This man is mine!” his left eyebrow
pointing upwards.
He continued kindly, “You speak
English?” he asked me.
“What,” I said in an awed voice
“English, do you speak English?” he said
the second time.
“Yes,” I echoed obediently.
“Are you an American?” he asked.
“Yes?”
I said firmly: the situation as a whole was seemingly being defused, I
considered, hoped, but who was this stranger, with a comrade to his right side.
The man reached over and took the
soldier’s hand off my wrist, unsatisfactorily to the soldier’s expression, but
he was in disarray as if for that
instant he was out of sorts, off balance, unprepared for this scene, and the
policeman let go—I drew a long breath—this was seemingly like magic.
“Go, and don’t look back…!” said the tall
Arab in the white tunic, as if he was some guardian angel: I mean he appeared
as if out of nowhere. The soldier held his rifle at waist level; he had lowered
it some, but looked as if it would not remain lowered too long—I was
overwhelmed at this point but I felt it was a darn good thing he showed up when
he did:
“I think it will be better if you go, now!”
he said again—more matter of fact; and finally, I was gone—I didn’t care what
the soldier thought, said or felt at this point—I had hesitated but not long.
I felt an awful silence as I rushed
towards the dirt road as if the soldier was going to come running after me,
yelling “Halt!” Perhaps even shoot me in the back.
Consequently, into the dark I faded,
leaving the Sphinx looking on, and into the blurred compromise.
The
Devilment of Seth
My mind conjured in anticipation: how
many years had Seth as a demonic form, embodied the Sphinx, tried to touch fury
in man’s soul, and conqueror its visitors who dare to pluck its paws, its long
arms. The Sphinx—I figured, along with the soldier must have smugly kept
watching… so forethought told me, I never did look back; I think Set, again
Seth inside the Sphinx was groping, if not griping of this annoyance—saying
perhaps: ‘…who’s this guy think he is who dare comes to wound the beast and
walk away free, and say nothing apologetically.’
#915 (written between: 5-31 and 6 -2-2-2012) for
Diane Horton
