The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 20

The cruise ship docked at Sharm el-Sheikh just before dawn, edging towards the quay as the sun came up. I put on make-up to hide the tiredness round my eyes and crossed the border on my Australian passport, hid amongst the tourists. Egyptian Arabic is very different from the standard and Sudanese dialects I spoke, and though I could pick up a fair amount, replying with fluency proved difficult. Even had I been able to speak, the locals weren’t very interested in conversation.

“You want see pyramids? I take you! You want buy icon? I have all the icon you ever want, ancient goods, good goods, you come, you see! You want taxi? You want restaurant? You want see Nile? You want tour? I know best, very very best!”

Only one local woman in the resort seemed willing to engage with me, switching to Syrian Arabic in response to my accent and saying, “You’re not a tourist?”

“Social worker,” I replied, “with Médecins Sans Frontières.”

“Ah! You working in Egypt?”

“Sudan.”

“Terrible place; you are a good woman to go out there.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Terrible place — the people! — just terrible.”

“Egypt isn’t without its problems.”

“Sure, but at least here your problem is only the government.”

“Can I buy you a coffee?” I asked. “I’d like to hear more about that.”

“I’d love to,” she replied, “but someone might think you are a journalist.”

Rebuffed, I tried talking to the tourists, focusing on anyone travelling alone. Sharm is hotels, palm trees, swimming pools and restaurants, each more expensive than the next. Once, the crystal blue waters and salt lagoon attracted Americans and Germans. In recent years the clients were changing, and the surface of the water shimmered with a slick of suntan oil. I watched a Russian father throw his weeping son into the sea, shouting, “Swim, swim, swim!” while the boy bobbed and gurgled and half drowned in his desperation to please. I saw Brazilian daughters sniff at the food served to them on crystal platters and exclaim, “No good, too many calories!” sending it back to the kitchen.

“Liquid foods only,” explained a Portuguese princess. “I have to watch my weight.”

I slept during the worst of the heat, recovering from my stowaway time on the ship, and at sunset went looking for company. Crossing the town in British weather would have taken less than an hour. In the Egyptian boil, I had to stop every ten minutes to cower in shade. Even my hair felt hot to the touch.

At night I log into the darknet, looking for Byron14.

Byron14 is not there.

Another day spent pacing the town, bored now, bored with the sun, bored with indolence, bored with being on the run.

“I lost five stone through Perfection!” said a British woman I swam with in the salt lagoon. “I’m at seven hundred and fifty thousand points, and it automated my online shop because I was buying too many fatty foods, put me on a seasonal diet of greens and nuts, isn’t it wonderful?”

I looked at her, a perfect body, the perfect shape, the perfect curves, the perfect teeth, the perfect hair, the perfect smile, and realised I hated everything about her, and everything about me, and everything about this place, and snapped, “When was the last time you fucking thought for yourself?” and swam away from her as fast as I could, and dived underwater to hide the shame of my imperfect self, and stayed down until I could no longer hold my breath.

In an ice-cream parlour at night, I logged into the darknet, waiting for Byron14 to call. When he appeared, it was one in the morning, and the party was still going strong in the nightclub next door.

A photo, the man in the café in Muscat, taken another time, another place. He looked old in this picture, his shoulders down, head turned to one side, like a man who’d forgotten where he put his wallet — not like the stranger with a gun who’d come to claim my prize.

I licked melting pistachio ice cream from the back of a spoon, watched the beautiful and the wealthy ambling by.

A moment.

I sit back, and find to my surprise that I am already counting, looking out of the window. I count sports cars (three) and cars whose weight on their wheels suggest reinforced bodies and bullet-proof glass (two). I count beautiful young things in shoes ladder-high, and handbags with a value of more than two hundred British pounds. I count leaves on the carefully planted palm trees, and the number of street lamps I can see. An immaculate white four-wheel-drive passes by, briefly pulling my attention. At its back, on a trailer, is a large white yacht, its hull and cabin adorned with stickers proclaiming, “Free Palestine”. I realise I am laughing, and people are watching me, and so I stop, and return to the keyboard. Byron14 is waiting.

I count.

My breaths.

My world.

I type slowly, carefully.

A moment, to consider all this. I could find nothing in it to pick apart.

I wrote, and was surprised to see that I had written it:

Nothing.

I ran my fingers between the keys on the keyboard, the lightest of touches, feeling their shape.

When learning to lockpick, roll grains of salt between your fingertips to increase sensitivity.

I half closed my eyes, felt the tiny irregularities in the keys, dirt stuck to the sides, the raised bump of the letters.

I waited for Byron14 to reply, and wondered if he too was counting his breath.

Byron14 was gone.