Off the Beaten Track: Stories by Russian Hitchhikers

Tatiana Mazepina TRAVELING TO PARADISE

To Egypt by Land

“There are two ways to live: it is entirely proper and respectable to walk on dry land — to measure, to weigh, to look ahead. But one can also walk on the waters. Then one cannot measure or look ahead, one must only have faith. Lose faith for an instant — and you begin to sink.”

Mother Maria Skobtsova, 20^th-cent. Christian ascetic

I had left the house hundreds of times, walked past the pond with its little central island, down the overgrown crooked lane to the light-rail station. I had left the house hundreds of times on my way to university, to work, downtown… Today, 29 December, I am leaving it once again but this time I have a different purpose. I walk across the small square in the direction of the pond; the weight of my backpack forces me to look down but at the same time it gives me wings. I lift my head and it seems to me that I see, or maybe I really do see there, beyond the horizon, the sharp minarets of mosques rising proudly and invitingly heavenward. Pale blue, lavender, grey. I can already hear the muezzin’s call to prayer.

I am going to the Middle East. Eastern Turkey, Kurdistan, Syria, Jordan, Egypt…

Step by step, day by day, country by country I will walk along and come to mosques and minarets that I can see even now. To come walking is not the same as to come by plane. And even though I won’t be walking very much, my chosen means of transportation will afford me the opportunity to not just fly by, dash past or drive through, the opportunity to experience my journey to the fullest. I’m going by random cars: hitchhiking.

To live as our Lord commanded, even just for a short while, even for not very long, even for only a month, to place everything in His hands, everything, my very being, really everything I have. To give myself completely. To accept the priceless gift of His care, to accept that His will is upon everything. What is free will anyway when you place everything in His hands…

But it’s time to begin my story.

Chapter I. In a Turkish family

Early in the morning, the ferry brought me from Russian Sochi to Turkish Trabzon.

At night, the ferry still on the home shore, I look towards the line that separates sky and earth, towards that other world that I want so irresistibly to reach but still do not dare believe I will. I had spent five days in Sochi waiting for the ferry that, like everyone else, was celebrating the 2009 New Year. And every day brought the same disappointment: my call to the port was invariably answered with “There will be no ferry today. Call tomorrow.”

I got on the ferry in the end, but was nearly convinced that my native land would not let me go, that it would keep me tied to itself just as it held the boat, and that the dream of minarets in that other world would remain only a mirage.

But this morning I’m on deck breathing in the salty sea air with great pleasure and that other world is already in sight! The horizon parts — in front of my eyes lies the land of Turkey.

I am standing in line for a visa. With my big backpack I am a conspicuous presence among the crowd of identical suitcases on wheels. Masking her shyness with arrogance a Russian woman asks me:

“Where are you going?”

“First to Erzurum, then to Diyarbakir.”

The woman’s seriousness changes to surprise and she exchanges glances with her grown-up daughter.

“Are you traveling alone?!”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you know that it’s very dangerous to go to Diyarbakir now?”

“But maybe not as dangerous as they say on TV,” I say, expressing my usual skepticism towards the media.

“It is, of course, only right that you should wear a kerchief,” she notes with a studied air of expertise, and she turns back to the other women, a more grateful audience for her fantastical creepy tales.

Diyarbakir is the capital of Kurdistan, but no Turk will let you call it that. The Kurds express all too clearly that they have long wanted to establish their own state, and in response the Turks ban the Kurdish language and music and build military bases with large Turkish flags fluttering red and bold above them. All across Turkey, Kurdistan is known as a land of bandits and terrorists. But I know it isn’t so. Two years ago I was there with friends.

I am much more worried about the Turks. I have heard one too many unappealing reports about the behavior of Turkish drivers towards women traveling alone. Though the reports have been mainly about Turkish truck drivers working in Russia; and everyone knows it isn’t right to judge a whole nation based on those who come to your country to make a living.

I’ve finally found my way out of enormous Trabzon and am now on my way to Erzurum. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and I don’t even want to. I should look at the map but I don’t feel like it. I better figure out how to wave down a car, why bother? I just want to walk and walk. To look around me at the pink and blue five-story houses and breathe the special smell of Turkey which I know so well and which awakens sensations, ideas and experiences I gained during my trip two years ago.

I feel so fine that I decide: “I won’t go by car today. I’ll just walk.” Hitchhiking is not really so easy: you have to talk with the driver in who knows what language. I did write down a few Turkish words in my notebook but that’s not really enough.

A big truck with a trailer, slow and tired, stops in front of me. The door opens and a 40-year-old Turk with a black moustache asks me something in Turkish.

“Erzurum, Diyarbakir,” I say the only words that come to mind.

He waves his hand inviting me to get in the car.

In the cab it turns out there are two drivers. The one who hailed me moves to the sleeping area — a place in the back of the cab where the drivers sleep. The other, in his sixties with a grey moustache and a three-day growth of beard, sits behind the wheel. The truck moves swaying slightly. I look ahead at the road and it feels like I’m still walking, except that now someone is carrying me.

The drivers calmly continue their trip as if a young foreigner with a big backpack hadn’t just joined them in the cab. Where is she going? What for? They picked me up not out of greed (which I fear), not out of some other personal interest, but simply because why should someone walk when you could give her a ride. Indeed, very simple.

I open my notebook to tell them who I am and where I’m going. “Russian” in Turkish is Rusum, “to travel” is gidiiorum, “road” is yol. The drivers become curious and then concerned: am I maybe hungry?

You know, sometimes it seems like you’ve never eaten anything tastier. This is probably what happens when you’re truly hungry. And maybe when the food is simple and natural, for instance, cheese, fresh bread, olives. And maybe, when you share this meal with people you met just half an hour ago and for some reason feel that there is no one dearer people to you in this world.

A hair of the Prophet Mohammed

I’m walking again, now on a road trodden through the snow. Tall, wind-swept snowdrifts, and no more smell of the sea. The sea is far from here, this is mountain country.

It’s already dark when my mustachioed companions bring me into Erzurum. Plaintively furrowing their eyebrows, they pleaded that under no circumstances I hitchhike to Diyarbakir. They even took me to the bus terminal. And what did I do? I immediately went to the edge of town and I’m now standing by the roadside, hitchhiking fearlessly and without success. People rarely pick up hitchhikers in these parts and there is no one hitchhiking anyway. For some reason, no one wants to go to “the land of bandits and terrorists”, especially not at night. Yet, here I am.

Eventually, a car stops in front of me. Yes, I’ll make it to Diyarbakir today after all! I’m in a hurry: the goal of my trip is to get to Jordan and Egypt, and I need to get across Turkey and Syria as quickly as possible. Pleased with my success, I get in. The driver is a 25-year-old Turk. He understands quickly that he won’t get anything out of me besides ben gidijorum Diyarbakir — “I am going to Diyabakir.” He starts the car and drives back to Erzurum! Oh well… I won’t make it to Diyarbakir tonight.

It happens often when you’re travelling that a local offers to help, asks a lot of questions and then, having satisfied his curiosity, discovers that he can’t actually do anything to help you.

This guy has already spent twenty minutes trying to understand why I’m going to Diyarbakir, why on my own and in what capacity. Soon he’ll make me learn Turkish. With the help of my notebook I’m learning the language quite intensively. Five times I wrestled with the thought of just leaving him there. I’m annoyed: I want to get a ride not a chat. “And why does he care? So annoying! He isn’t even going to Diyarbakir! Is he just interested in talking to a foreigner?” I’m pressed for time: today I should already be in Diyarkabir. In the end, the guy calls someone and passes me the phone. I hear the voice of a man speaking Russian:

“Hi! Where are you going?”

“First to Diyarbakir, then on to Syria.”

“On your own?”

“On my own.” I sigh and shrug my shoulders expecting warnings to start falling on my head.

“And what is the purpose of your trip?”

“Are you with the police or what?”

“No, no…”

The Turk takes the phone back and listens carefully to his Russian friend, while I cast an eye towards the door handle and then back to the Turk. I notice his eyes: serious and slightly sad, those of someone who is genuinely concerned. I forget about the door… What drives this guy? Why didn’t he just let me be? Did he not believe me in the end when I said that I know what I’m doing? Why didn’t he leave me, why didn’t he just go home to his family, to warmth and dinner?

The guy tears himself away from the conversation and looks at me, a look full of compassion and care, concern and anxiety. I can’t hold back — rays of happiness replace the lightning-bolts of anger on my face. In response he breaks into a luminous smile that chases away the storm-clouds of anxiety.

I take the phone back.

“The guy who picked you up,” says the translator, “is inviting you to his home for dinner.

“And then he’ll bring me back here? It will be even harder to find a ride later on.”

“No, he’s inviting you to spend the night at his house. Tomorrow he will take you back to the road, if you like.”

“OK.”

The Turk immediately starts the car. At last we introduce ourselves. His name is Nurula. Before he starts the car he turns to me with the words:

“Mama, baba…”

Baba in Turkish means “father”.

He shows me the ring on his finger. He is married. He does this to dispel my concerns and fears, unaware that he’d already done so wordlessly.

Several women came out to meet me. At first it was impossible to figure out who was related to whom and in what way.

On the way home Nurula picked up his elder brother Ahmed from his antiques store. In his long beige coat and a checkered sweater Ahmed looked impressive and impeccably elegant.

The women help me take off my backpack. As I unlace my shoes, I look out of the corner of my eye and can’t see all the way to the end of what looks like a huge apartment. The women stare at me point-blank unceremoniously.

They lead me along the corridor. The living room is at the other end. Nurula goes in with me, while the women remain on the threshold. The living room is skillfully and tastefully furnished with a table of dark wood, sofas and chairs with elegant gold-painted legs. The walls are bright yellow. Three men are sitting there. The oldest of them is about 55, the second one around 40, the third very young. They are busy with their own conversation; I sit on an unoccupied ottoman and pretend to observe my surroundings.

“Hello!” The youngest of the men addresses me politely in Russian.

I turn around, surprised.

“Hello! Was it you on the phone? Are you Russian?”

“Yes. But from Dagestan. I study here. Where are you heading?”

At last I can explain everything in detail. At the same time I interrogate Ramazan, my interlocutor.

Nurula wants to show me something and he calls me up to a glass display case. Inside there is a black square bundle wrapped in velvet, inscribed with Arabic characters.

“This is a hair of the Prophet Mohammed,” translates Ramazan.

Nurula begins opening the bundle, but the oldest of the men stops him.

“They cannot show it to you,” explains Ramazan. “They only open it during important holidays.”

The women are preparing dinner but they can only show their hospitality from behind the threshold. Nurula takes the plates from them at the door and brings them to the table. Another brother appears, his two children run among us dodging the outstretched arms eager to pat them on the head. Eventually I am introduced to the men. It turns out that the eldest is the father and the second-eldest is the Islamic scholar Mohammed Said, a friend of the family. I blush embarrassed by my initial lack of politeness.

Before dinner I manage to meet the mother of the family. I go out from the living room into the hallway where a woman in a white shawl comes to meet me, her arms reaching out for a hug, her face radiant with welcome. She says something in Turkish, hugs me, then reluctantly but dutifully lets me join the men.

During dinner there is general conversation. At first quiet, like the trickle of a small stream, then as loud and free as an overflowing river. The scholar asks about Russia. It turns out that he has twice been to Kaliningrad. A friend of his, a Duma deputy, lives there. For young people’s religious education he had invited representatives of different religions to lecture at one of the colleges. Only Muslims responded to his invitation.

I ask lots of questions about young people in Turkey. I say that on first impression they don’t strike me as very religious. And that it seems that there are far fewer genuinely devout Muslims — those who pray every day — than those who are devout merely in name. The scholar and the others assure me that the devout make up no less than ninety percent of the total. I find that hard to believe.

Ramazan goes on translating conscientiously and I keep forgetting about the food. The father keeps pushing forward different dishes, coaxing me to eat more. But the conversation itself is the main dish, a delicacy that we cannot get enough of. The scholar, Ramazan and I speak the most, with the older brother and the father sometimes interjecting, and the middle brother and Nurula listening in silence.

One, two, three, four, five, six men and I am the only woman.

The wives and sisters cautiously look in from the doorway but then hide again shyly.

They would have certainly had dinner with us were it not for the male guests: the Dagestani and the scholar.

Ramazan translates for me:

“The women also want to listen, so they will be allowed to come in.”

One after another they come into the living room. The men make room for them at the table but they try to maintain some distance and some even remain behind the threshold.

“This girl looks a lot like a Russian girl,” I say pointing to one of the little girls wearing a bright pink scarf and raspberry-colored sweater.

Ramazan translates. She smiles and nods.

“She is Circassian,” explains Ramazan. “During the war between the Russian Tsar and the Imam Shamil many Circassians settled in Turkey.”

Cautiously and timidly the women ask why I am traveling alone, don’t I have a husband or father or brother to travel with me? I explain as best I can that I can do very well without them on the road but refrain from adding that it’s easier and more interesting this way.

Finally, at one point in our warm, sincere conversation, when it’s already hard to believe that we’re seeing each other for the first time and that I’m not a member of their family, the elder brother comes in and says that they have just telephoned their spiritual teacher and that he has granted them permission to show me the hair of the Prophet.

The house storms into action. Women fuss about. Ramazan gets up as the upcoming event is explained to him. He automatically takes out a knitted white cap from his pocket and puts it on.

The women give me a skirt to change into for the ceremony. They tie my headscarf properly. One of them suddenly gives me a ring from her finger: a turtle studded with precious stones.

“No, no!” I protest. But her eyes express such trust and such openness that I put the ring on.

The valuable parcel is placed on a small table in the center of the living room. People sit staggered around so that everyone can see. Among them I notice some new faces. This is too important and rare an event to miss.

I can’t help asking:

“Isn’t it forbidden to worship objects or images in Islam?”

“This is not worship.” Ramazan points to the head of the family. “They are keeping this hair as a sign of love and respect towards the man who was sent by the Lord.” Ramazan translates my words and the father nodds confirming that it is an act of love.

They put me close to the precious parcel. Off to one side is the older brother Ahmed and the middle brother on the other side. Seven-year-old Ahmed is also here.

Everyone sings a greeting to the prophet:

“Salalahu aleihi va saliam! — Peace to him and praised be Allah!”

The two brothers start unwrapping the parcel. Under the velvet cover there is a colorful shawl, then another one beneath it, and another, and so on… It seems that all in all there are more than a hundred. I’m no longer afraid I’ll burst out laughing because I now have a happy smile on my face. If this happiness hadn’t already been inside me I would have breathed it in from the air all around. Happiness illuminats the faces of everyone present.

The shawls finally end and caskets begin: a biggish one with a smaller one inside, then an even smaller one. And finally there it is: a glass flask with a few dark hairs from the Prophet Mohammed’s beard.

The eldest brother raises it high. Then he passes it across his son’s brow. He catches the little daughter of the middle brother darting in and out among the adults and passes it across her brow as well. The father says something and the elder brother turns toward me. I obediently bend my head and the flask gently touches my forehead.

I look at their faces.

However beautiful the voice of each individual performer, when many voices blend in the choir it makes my heart stand still. Songs sound even more wonderful when sung in the name of the Lord.

The hair of the prophet is just a pretext, a wave of the conductor’s wand for hearts already filled with love and ready to overflow.

Nurula wouldn’t have left me there on the road in a million years. Why? Just look at his mother and father standing there. Or, I should say, standing before God — and that’s the real point.

Awfully sweet Kurdistan

In the morning Nurula came by, sad because there were no more bus tickets to Diyarbakir. He could do nothing but take me back to the same place where he’d picked me up yesterday.

Nurula said goodbye quickly and hurried back to his car as if afraid to see the Kurdish terrorists attack and kill me on the spot.

Towards midday, strangely enough still alive, I had made it halfway to Diyarbakir.

Once the passing drivers saw that none of their warnings about terrorists were working, they went on with more reasons for fear:

“There is no road to Diyarbakir.”

“The road to Diyarbakir is closed.”

“The road to Diyarbakir is snowed in.”

Here I am standing on the outskirts of a smallish town, rather worried. I almost believe that there really won’t be a way to go further. The road does indeed go through a mountain pass. The mountains surrounding me, covered in white duvets, assert themselves eloquently.

There are almost no cars.

All of a sudden I see a silvery car, a foreign make. I extend my arm, and it cautiously, as if fearfully, stops.

The driver is a young man, about 25, Turkish, in a business suit.

“Do you speak English?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers with a surprised-fearful, childishly sweet expression.

“I’m going to Diyarbakir, could you take me there?”

He gets out of the car, opens the trunk and shamelessly checks me out as I’m putting in my backpack.

Finally we set off. He turns to me, eyes full of wonder, eyebrows furrowed:

“Tell me,” he says, pronouncing the unfamiliar English words slowly, “how did you end up here, all on your own?”

“I’m traveling. I’m from Russia. I’m on my way to Diyarbakir. I’m hitchhiking.”

“But that’s very dangerous. You may run into very bad people.”

“But I ran into you.”

“You’re lucky.”

Oh, I know! How many times Russian drivers told me:

“Hitchhiker? No one will take you!”

“But you did.”

“You just got lucky this time.”

They believe they are the only ones capable of doing a good deed.

Soon we start talking. His name is Ozgiur and he is driving to Diyarbakir, where he lives and works. It turns out that he is only half Turkish; his other half is Kurdish. It is perfectly appropriate that he should be the one taking me from Turkey to Kurdistan.

The whole way we talk about Ozgiur’s job which puts him at odds with his religion since he sometimes has to drink alcohol at company events. He tells me about his family, about his parents, who are devout Muslims but who have never forced their children to be devout as well. Ozgiur wants to travel because he hasn’t been anywhere outside of Turkey. He has no time because of work, which “isn’t very interesting but in three years he will be a senior manager and after five more…”

We only stop once, for lunch. Ozgiur orders several dishes for me and only one for himself, which he won’t even eat because he isn’t hungry.

Diyarbakir welcomes us with the light of streetlamps as evening sets in. Ozgiur gives me a tour of the city. He invites me for coffee and traditional local sweets. He spends a lot of energy trying to convince me not to go any further, to spend the night here, in a hotel, where he would even get me a room. I don’t want him to spend more money on me. I’d stay if Ozgiur invited me to his house but he doesn’t, which puzzles me until I realize that he is simply afraid I would misunderstand him. I had the same problem at Nurula’s parents’ house in Erzurum. Why hadn’t the men in the living room paid any attention to me, a stranger and a guest? Because according to the rules of Islam, men are not even supposed to speak with women if they are not bound by family ties. Why did Ramazan look at my hands when talking with me? Because he wasn’t supposed to look at my face or make eye contact.

Ozgiur is also afraid of offending me. In appreciation of the tradition and the religion responsible for this attitude towards women I don’t mind sleeping in the open air. There was one thing I could not refuse — Ozgiur was unbending — he insists on buying me a bus ticket to Mardin, the next city in Kurdistan and very close to Syria.

Wishes fulfilled

Now I am in the very center of Kurdistan; it surrounds me from all sides, even touching my clothes. I am traveling in a bus crowded with Kurdish men and women. They have a different language, different facial features: bold noses and darker skin than the Turks. It’s time to remember all the warnings that haunted me all the way here.

I’m lost in my thoughts: what a long road I have covered today, from Erzurum to Mardin where we’re just about to arrive. But thanks to the eloquent darkness in the window, the clarity of my thoughts about the day is replaced by vaguer thoughts about the night. “Of course, I’m grateful to Ozgiur for the bus ticket, but… if I’d hitchhiked and someone picked me up it would mean he’s a good person. And a good person would have invited me home. When you are in someone’s car you are already his guest. On this bus I’m nobody’s guest… Where will I sleep tonight?”

A Kurdish man of about thirty-five turns to me shyly:

“Where are you going?” He suddenly asks in English, rather haltingly.

“To Mardin, then to Syria.”

“And where are you from?”

“From Russia.”

“Oh! From Russia!”

Soon we’re sitting on the floor, a large tin tray in front of us covered with plates of food: yogurt, fried eggs, rice with meat, homemade bread. For the first time on this trip I’m eating on the floor.

It turns out that the Kurd from the bus is a schoolteacher. He, of course, wants to know where I’m planning to spend the night. When he learns that I plan to sleep in a tent he thinks for about half a minute and says:

“My mother and I are going from Ankara to see my brother in Mardin. If you don’t mind, I would like to invite you to his house.”

In the darkness of the poorly illuminated streets we step out of the bus, my expectations for the evening already infused with the warmth of my travel companions’ hospitality.

The three of us walk home together and have a lively conversation. I remember all the warnings about Kurdistan and smils to myself quietly.

Chapter 2. Arabic Christianity

Neon crosses

Will I really have to sleep in a tent in Syria? Have I not been surprising my friends with stories about how Syria is the most hospitable country in the world, that you need only raise your hand on the road and the first car will stop? That you need only make eye contact and people will immediately invite you for tea or lunch, or offer you a place to spend the night.

The day is ending and night is taking over covering the sky with a black blanket moth-eaten by shining stars. Night finds me on the highway from Aleppo to Damascus. The highways are alive with cars racing at high speed, hurrying to finish the day in the warmth of their own homes. And my outline barely visible in the dim light of streetlamps is too weak to tear them away from their thoughts of home.

At some point I turn around to face the traffic and notice the inviting red rear-lights of a little truck which has stopped to pick me up. Syria is Syria — you only need to raise your hand…

The driver doesn’t speak a word of English and this is my first day in an Arabic-speaking country. With what words could I thank him? Involuntarily, I smile broadly. How can he express hospitality and good wishes? A small illuminated shop by the side of the road is selling hot chocolate. The driver slows down.

I’m holding a big cup of chocolate. I carefully take a sip and immediately burn my tongue. Waiting for the chocolate to cool, I concentrate on holding the cup so it doesn’t spill on the bumpy road.

I want to enjoy this tasty treat down to the last sip but the very last drops end up on my light blue jacket.

The driver and I exchange understanding looks and laugh merrily.

I take out my notebook and illuminate the Arabic words with the help of a flashlight. Somehow or other I have explained something to the driver. And it seems I have understood some things too: we are going in the direction of Hama, a city on the road to Damascus and Jordan. The driver’s name is Salim, and it even looks like I’ll have a place to sleep tonight.

The road tricked me again: it lulled me to sleep in Salim’s car. When I open my eyes I see huge crimson crosses glowing on the walls of village houses. I turn to Salim:

“Christian?!”

He nods and smiles.

Of course, I knew that there were Christians in Syria and I’d been curious to meet them. With wide-open eyes I look at the crosses and the reindeer with branching antlers harnessed to sleds.

My plan was to travel through Syria quickly and I didn’t intend to look for Christians. With Christmas only two weeks past, how can I be surprised at such an unexpected gift?

Salim took me to the house of his older brother. The whole family came out to greet me. You can recognize Christians by two signs: women with uncovered heads, their luxurious dark hair is an unexpected treat for the eyes; and a second sign: they offer wine with dinner which is even more unusual in an Arab country. Since there was still some time left before dinner I asked to wash my hands. The female half of the family fussed over me. One woman drew me a bath, another one took my formerly light blue jacket (now darkened with brown stains). They gave me shampoo, soap, a towel. The women spoke ceaselessly in Arabic, smiling, gently touching my arms above the elbow.

The door to the bath closed. I hadn’t even hoped I would be able to wash in privacy.

Once again, a tin tray spread with dishes is set in front of me. I am supposed to eat all of it but I don’t have a chance to swallow one bite as I first have to satisfy the hunger of those around me, patiently answering questions from all sides.

The younger daughter, eighteen years old, speaks English. Her name is Hanouf. I can’t come up with the answer to one question before she’s back with another:

“When are you going further?”

“Tomorrow.”

“No,” she says sternly. “Tomorrow you’ll be with us.”

“Really?” I thought for a second. “Well, OK then.”

In the morning, I hadn’t even opened my eyes before Hanouf’s parents came into the room. How long had they stood behind the door, waiting for me to wake up and give them the green light to enter?

The father sits on the divan, a smoking cigarette in his hand. He has black hair with a streak of grey and a black moustache which looks very good on him. He forgets about his cigarette, smiling with his moustache and looking at me from time to time while asking a half-sleepy Hanouf to translate. It occurs to me that he may have decided not to go to work today — what is going on in his home is too exciting: a real live foreigner! Today is a holiday for him.

The mother shows her welcome in a more practical way. Again a tray with food appears and large round flatbreads are being warmed on the stove in the center of the room. Five minutes later they offer me warm bread. They push towards me small plates with fried eggs, yogurt, hummus: a tasty dish made of mashed chickpeas. They carefully watch so that I keep eating. Two pairs of warm loving eyes stare at me as I eat.

Though the parents want us to stay, Hanouf and I leave to explore the neighborhood.

Nose to nose with a priest

Despite the fact that all continents appeared on earth many eras ago, you have to rediscover the world again and again. Or rather, how wonderful that you can rediscover it again and again! To see with your own eyes, to explore with your own hands, to disprove all the things people so love to say against one another.

You’ve probably heard about the relationship between Arab Muslims and Christians. But have you heard about Christian Arabs?

You couldn’t call this village anything but Christian. Orthodox and Catholics live here side-by-side much the same way. “My” family — Salim’s — is Catholic.

Hanouf and I walk in the direction of the church — only the Orthodox church is open during the day. Without Hanouf I wouldn’t have been able to guess that it’s a church. No domes, though there is a small square-shaped bell tower. The whole building looks like a tall house.

We go in, cross ourselves, each in our own way: Hanouf from left to right, I from right to left.

It was unusual inside too — benches as in Catholic churches, no gilding and not many icons. But I recognize familiar saints in the images.

“Would you like to go see the priest?” Hanouf asks once we’re back outside, pointing to the house next to the church.

“No-o-o,” I answer shyly.

Instead of going to see the priest, we go and visit two Belorussian girls. Their mother married an Arab and moved with her children here when the girls were still young. Now they are both married and have three children between them — these blond-haired kids are running around. The husband of one of the sisters and his mother are sitting inside. Right away they offer us tea and crackers.

Taking advantage of the situation and my native language, I bombard the Belorussian girls with questions, which they answer gladly until we hear the call to prayer.

“The priest is here to bless the house,” says one of the girls. “It’s a tradition every Christmas.”

Before I could ask how one should behave on such occasions the priest entered the room preceded by his own singing. Tall, imposing, he was wearing a black robe under which you could see the contour of a round belly; he had a dark brown beard and curly ringlets and behind his glasses he resembled a huge soap bubble. And his pure joyous singing resembled the play of sunbeams on a soap bubble. And just as a soap bubble bursting flies apart in all directions, the priest liberally threw holy water at all of us. At some point, the priest turned towards me and…the holy water sprinkler in his hands and the prayer on his lips both froze. Puzzled, he turned to our hosts and asked something in Arabic. Eventually, with a bright happy smile illuminating his face, he sank into an armchair. Break-time.

They offer him tea but he doesn’t notice watching those present and asking about this and that. We start a conversation with the help of one of the sisters. I talk about the Church in Russia, ask him if he’s been to our countryIn the end, duty calls. The priest takes up the holy water sprinkler and his prayer fills the house even more fully than before. And I, hearing Arabic singing from the mouth of an Orthodox priest, try to convince myself that this is in fact quite real.

Cross and Kaaba

“OK, we need to turn back,” Hanouf said all of a sudden, although the village street looked interesting further on.

“Why?”

“This is where our village ends.”

“And what’s down there?”

“Muslims.”

“Let’s go there.”

“No!” Hanouf protests fearfully.

“Why?”

“I’ve never been there alone.” She means, without a man.

“And what are you afraid of?”

“Wait,” she agrees and makes a few steps towards a crowd of Arabs standing by a shop on the Christian side. A tall, broad-shouldered young man approaches us.

“This is my cousin,” Hanouf introduces him. “He’ll go with us.”

The guy smiles bashfully.

There is no border between the two villages. Houses with kaabas begin where houses with crosses end. Kaaba is a cube-shaped temple in Mecca, the main place of pilgrimage for Muslims.

Today is Friday — the holy day for true believers. Almost all the shops lining the road are closed. From the mosque, through a loudspeaker, comes the call of the Imam.

Here I attract even more attention than in the Christian village. I look back at Hanouf and suddenly I also experience fear building a wall between me and these people. People whom days ago I completely trusted with my own life. And whom I’ll trust again tomorrow.

“Don’t you have friends among Muslims?” I ask Hanouf.

“No.”

“Are there no Muslims in your school?”

“We have different schools: we have our own school and they have their own.”

“Does it ever happen that a Christian girl marries a Muslim man?”

“No! Never!”

Unlike Hanouf, her cousin is completely calm. He is shaking hands with someone.

“Does he have acquaintances here? Muslims?” I ask.

“He was shaking hands with Christians.”

At a mechanic’s shop like the one in the Christian village, a handful of men — Muslims and Christians — are talking. They are likely discussing important business: how to fix a carburetor, or whether it makes sense to overhaul the engine. They seem to be oblivious of any silly fears, rumors, or feuds that have been started by someone for some unknown reason.

The Syrian Church

In the evening, Hanouf’s father takes us to another nearby village, which is bigger and has four churches.

We drive up to the huge Orthodox church, which was built quite recently. Its white walls glow in the violate twilight.

The large carved wooden door turns out to be locked.

“It’s very beautiful inside!” Hanouf makes me even more sorry that we cannot go inside.

Instead, we go to the old Orthodox church and find a wedding service. The priests recite the rites and prayers in Arabic. I recognize the word for God, which in this language is still “Allah”.

I look at icons with Church Slavonic inscriptions in the little church shop. A man comes in and we begin talking in English. He apologizes for his Canadian accent:

“I worked there for a long time.”

“What did you do?” I ask, already guessing the answer.

“I’m a priest.”

I smile broadly:

“And could I ask you for a blessing?”

“Yes, but I don’t like it when people kiss my hand.”

“I won’t do that.”

He blesses me, and meanwhile another man comes in. There is no need to ask him about his profession: his robe speaks for itself. Hanouf says something to him, and it turns out that he is the senior priest of the church that was closed.

“Let’s go!” Hanouf calls.

“Where?”

“The priest has agreed to show us the new church.”

I’m holding the cup, plate, and spoon for Communion. I’ve never held anything like this before.

“These inscriptions are in Old Church Slavonic,” I say to the priest. Like the “Canadian,” he too speaks excellent English.

“Read it to me,” he says and so I do.

The inside walls of the church are as white as the outside. But here within they shine even more brightly, flooded by the electric light.

“Are there many worshippers here?” I ask, looking at the vast space filled with benches.

“On Sundays the church is full.”

There aren’t many icons on the walls, and the priest tells us that most of them were brought from Russia.

We walk out of the church.

“And where did you study to become a priest?” I ask.

“In Lebanon.”

“And where is your patriarch?”

“Constantinople.”

I don’t know how long we would have gone on talking if Hanouf’s father hadn’t been waiting for us in the car.

In the end I can’t hold back and ask:

“Listen, are you really an Arab?”

“Yes,” he smiles, understanding the reason for my question.

No matter how difficult it was for me to comprehend this, I carried undeniable proof: the Gospel in Arabic, a gift from the priest.

The village of brothers and sisters

Hanouf has two older sisters and a younger brother. Salim — the guy who brought me here — already has three children, even though his wife is not yet thirty years old. Hanouf’s father has about ten brothers and sisters. A big family needs a big house, which is why homes in this village can be adjusted to increase in size. No magic is involved. On the roof of each of the houses there are concrete pillars. When a son brings a wife, and they need a place to live, they build another floor using those pillars. There’s no need to split up, families can stay together: one big family in one big house.

We visited an uncountable number of houses as we walked through Hanouf’s village: Hanouf’s aunt, her grandfather, cousin, her best friend from school… In each house they wanted to feed me, to offer me at least some tea, some tangerines, some cookies. They were so earnestly hospitable, so genuinely happy to meet me that I found myself again and again agreeing to just one more visit. It turns out we didn’t skip a single home in the whole village.

Hanouf has so many relatives that there’s not a single part of the village where she can’t turn her head to say: “Oh, there’s my cousin (walking, standing, running).”

Even when one steps out of the house he is still within his family as family members surround him on all sides. All around you are your own people.

It was already dark and we were on the way home when we stopped at the house of yet another friend of Hanouf’s. This friend studies at the university, and she has an older sister already graduated. They also have an older brother. He came out to meet me wearing a white shirt, black pants and a serious expression. He works as a lawyer.

“This is my girl. We’re engaged…”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-two.”

“And you?”

“I’m thirty.”

I look at this handsome grown-up man, silver hair already streaking his dark head, and he’s only just engaged! Knowing local tradition I know that his fiancée has not yet become his wife in any sense.

Hanouf’s father got married at about the same age.

Hanouf and I and one of her uncles are strolling on the already-sleepy village road.

“I would also like to go with you,” he smiles.

“Come along,” I answer and smile back.

“First,” he said, “I need to bring up my daughters.”

“And how many daughters do you have?”

“Three. The oldest is eight and the youngest is not yet one.”

I look at him; he doesn’t look younger than forty.

“And how old were you when you got married?”

“Thirty.”

“And why so late?” I finally ask my long suppressed question.

He looks at me with surprise.

“What? I first had to earn money, build a house. I first had to prepare everything for my future family. And only then could I finally get married.”

My eyebrows go up as if this is the first time I hear about this approach to family life.

Chapter 3. Venerable Jordan

In Turkey, at the house of the schoolteacher in Mardin, I had jotted down lots of Turkish words from a book he gave me, even though I would part with Turkey the next day. Now I don’t want to deprive myself of the pleasure of dreaming how I might one day live in Turkey. In Syria I decided that I’d definitely return and live here, even for a short while. Here people surround you with such sincere care and love that you want to come back.

“They live in poverty. For them a foreigner is a novelty. Their concern is no more than curiosity.” Some people would probably be satisfied with this simple and convenient explanation.

The bright and spacious building of the Jordanian customs office shines with cleanliness. I present my passport. The customs officer cannot keep from smiling, even if it reveals the gaps in his teeth.

“Is this your first time in Jordan?” He asks almost laughing, exultant.

“Yes.”

“Excellent! Welcome! Would you like some tea?”

Two years ago I was shocked by an offer of tea on the Syrian border. Back then, they didn’t even ask, they simply brought us tea. While they stamped your passport why not have a glass of tea in the boss’s office? Tea is traditionally a hot sweet drink which is drunk from a glass. The Syrian office had a shabby couch and dusty floor. The Jordanian customs office is different, but the offer of tea is the same.

Accelerating goodness

Huge shiny Jeeps drive up to the customs building. Slowly, some Jordanians get out of the cars. Only later do I learn that they are not Arabs but Bedouins, a different nationality: darker skin and stronger facial features.

Their white robes reach down to their feet, and they wear red-checkered headscarves. Their unhurried movements convey an awareness of self-worth. Jordan is a rich country. Although I’ve heard countless positive comments about Jordan I still wonder: “And what if people here are not as hospitable? And what if they won’t pick me up when I hitchhike?”

Passport in hand, I walk in the direction of the last customs booth. Once I show them my entrance visa, I’m in Jordan, and I’m here for the first time.

The customs official notices me from afar. He follows me attentively and even calls for reinforcements from another booth.

I notice their impeccably-fitting military uniforms, their berets playfully pushed to the side. Most of them wear neatly trimmed moustaches.

“As-salem, va rahmat Llahi, va va barakyat! Peace be with you, mercy and blessings of the Lord!” I greet them loudly.

“Va-aleikum assaliam,” they answer, brows furrowed, forgetting to smile politely.

I understand their surprise since they only ever see Mr. and Ms. White in big tourist buses accompanied by guides and interpreters. And now they see someone going on foot! And a girl! Alone!

I show my passport and begin to move on.

“Where are you going?” One of the border policemen stops me.

“To Amman.”

“And where is your bus?”

“Mafi. Ana mashi. There is no bus. I am here on foot,” I answer in Arabic.

“Mashi? One hundred kilometers! On foot? One hundred kilometers!

“Tamam. Fine.”

To me this is tamam, while they just blink helplessly. I take pity on them and explain:

“Shvaye-shvaye mashi, seiara. A little bit on foot, and then by car.”

The poor customs officers experience a wave of relief. They cheer up:

“So wait then, we’ll get you a cab.”

“But I don’t need a cab. I need a free ride.”

“OK, OK.” The customs officials are ready to agree to anything just to prevent me from going on foot. “How’s that possible anyway, to go on foot… all the way to Amman?”

I lean on the fence so that the gazes of the border policemen, fixed on me from all sides, don’t knock me over. As soon as I raise my eyes they look away, like tiny mouse-thieves scattering across a room when someone suddenly turns on the light.

In the end, they call me up to a tall black Jeep. I say a warm goodbye to the customs officials.

Inside the Jeep, there are three Arabs. One of them leaves us rather quickly. The driver has a big bushy beard, a great rarity in both Jordan as well as in Syria. An Arab businessman is sitting in the front seat. He is wearing a white shirt, a leather jacket, and sunglasses. His phone rings and he answers in fluent English.

“I’m sorry they stuck me in your car,” I address him cautiously.

“No problem, it’s fine,” he answers and turns back to the windshield.

Some time later he casually asks me where I am going and why, but without any keen interest. Then he falls back into indifferent silence.

We arrive in Amman. The twilight enveloping the city brought on similarly murky thoughts: “Arriving in an unknown city at night…where even by day… you can’t find a hostel… And in a car the customs officials put you into, you didn’t even stop it yourself…”

“Where should we drop you off?” asks the businessman as if reading my thoughts. “Where will you sleep?”

“In a tent. I just need to find a park. You don’t happen to know of one?”

“I do,” says the Arab as if it were an everyday occurrence for some random foreigner to ask about a park where she could spend the night. “There’s one not far from here, I’ll show you.”

And so, despite my assurances that I only need walking directions, the Arab releases his driver and accompanies me, taking all his briefcases and laptops with him.

“I could invite you to my house…” he volunteered in a low hesitant voice.

“No, thank you,” I refuse, seeing clearly that his offer was merely polite.

We find the entrance gates locked.

“It’s OK. I’ll find another entrance, thanks,” and I rush to say good-bye to the businessman who has so kindly wasted his time with me.

“If you wish, you may spend the night at my house,” he offers again, unexpectedly.

I fall silent, trying to guess the reason of his proposition.

“You can have some dinner, take a shower,” he adds. “If you so wish…”

“Of course, I’d be delighted, but won’t I be a bother?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right then!” I answer, genuine gladness on my face, impossible to conceal.

“Then we need a cab.”

We leave our things at his house and drive to dinner in Joseph’s car. Joseph, that’s the Arab’s name. We eat fried potatoes with chicken and vegetables, and we drink Pepsi. He doesn’t let me pay for it.

It turns out that Joseph is from Lebanon and works in Amman, where the company rents an apartment for him and his family.

Without a trace of indifference this time, in fact, quite the opposite, Joseph asks me with sincere curiosity about Russia and the countries where I’ve been.

That evening I managed to expand the boundaries of my journey to cover yet another country as Joseph told me of his beloved Lebanon with much enthusiasm!

Then he allotted me a separate room and even made up the bed, despite my assurances that I could do it myself. He kept coming up with more things to do for me as if he derived some kind of pleasure from it. Like a child who has just mastered a new skill and can’t get enough of it. It was so fun for him!

Bottles filled with sand

I’m looking at the Israeli shore glowing with bright yellow lights; the lights of Egypt are shining a bit further, to the right. I am in Jordan. Between us lies the Red Sea, but the heavy warm blanket of the night has covered the red and turned it to black. The sea is softly tossing in its sleep, the waves splash unhurriedly onto the shore, mumbling and snuffling drowsily.

This morning I arrived in Aqaba, a city on the border of three states. I got picked up by a mini-bus on the outskirts of Amman where Joseph had left me. All the other passengers paid for the ride, but the driver kept reassuring me that I was riding for free.

I am walking in the very center of a wide boulevard. Jordanians are sitting on benches under the trees, together with their friends and families. They don’t pay any particular attention to me. They see too many tourists — this is a well known international tourist resort. Largely because of this I’ve decided not to stay here for very long. Too many shops, restaurants, and streets full of green cabs. It’s hard to make friends in such a city.

All I need is to find the office where I can get my free visa, since I’ve arrived in Aqaba — a “free economic zone,” as the Jordanians themselves call it. I’ll leave the city as soon as I get my visa.

A souvenir stall on the corner is selling bottles filled with multicolored sand. Behind the counter stands a young shopkeeper in dark glasses. He is expertly pouring purple mountains, brown camels and orange clouds into a bottle.

My attention is immediately arrested by these mountains, camels, and clouds, and I can’t tear myself away.

“Hello!” The shopkeeper greets me loudly and cheerfully, in English, fully aware that he’s got me hooked. I can see myself reflected in his dark glasses: a potential customer.

“Where are you from?”

“Russia.”

“Oh! Russia, Moscow! You can put down your backpack, have a seat and you can watch.”

“No, no, I’ll be going, just for a second.” Naively making my apologies, I am still unable to tear my eyes away from the exquisite sand filling up the bottles.

“Are you alone?” Knowing he’s got me hooked, he reels me in easily with his casual but interested tone.

“Yes.”

“Come on, put down your backpack.”

I take off my backpack and sit by the little table, gazing wide-eyed at the Jordanian’s work. He is pleased by my attention, and continues to envelop me in a web of standard questions: where from, where to, how.

A minute, two, three, and now he, having taken off his glasses, is the one staring at me. I simply told him where I’m from, where I’m headed and, most importantly, how I’ve been traveling.

“I can’t believe it…Would you like some tea? My treat,” he adds. “My name is Ibrahim. What is your name?”

He calls an assistant and asks him to bring us some tea, then hurriedly turns his gaze back to me, and I see a completely different expression than before. He now speaks quietly and not as insistently as before, so I answer his questions more willingly.

“Why do you wear a headscarf?”

“Well, your women wear headscarves, so, out of respect for tradition…”

Judging by his reaction, Ibrahim has never yet encountered a foreign woman wearing a headscarf, nor such an explanation.

As invariably happens in Muslim countries, we end up talking about religion. Ibrahim believes in the absolute truth of Islam but when I ask if he prays the namaz he answers in an uncertain and unsteady voice:

“No.”

He can’t explain why. As we continue our conversation wholly engaged, a young Arab around twenty-seven comes up to Ibrahim’s table with a slow and arrogant gait, obviously going for the European look: blue jeans, black sweatshirt, blue baseball cap, sunglasses. A thick gold chain seems to gleam only in order to draw attention to his dark tanned neck. He gives me a nonchalant sideways glance and says hello to Ibrahim who enthusiastically starts telling this guy about me and our conversation.

The guy’s name is Khalil. Hearing that we’ve been talking about Islam, he sits down to join us. He has an excellent command of English and with unexpected openness begins talking about what religion means to him, about his studies of the Qu’uran and his thoughts about what is written — all this without a tinge of arrogance or condescension. He speaks without a break, looking at me and holding eye contact, seemingly afraid that if he loses eye contact I will disappear like a mirage in the desert before he gets a chance to have his say.

Like Ibrahim, Khalil is convinced as to the absolute truth of Islam, and in speaking about it he resembles a man who has just discovered a treasure and wants the world to share in the joy of his discovery.

“And what about you? Do you observe all the teachings of the Koran? Do you pray?” I ask, full of hope. On my second day in Jordan I’m already asking these questions with hope, rather than with the certainty of a positive answer as I had in Syria.

Echoing Ibrahim, Khalil answers:

“No.”

“Why?”

He drops his head, then suddenly raises his eyes as if I were the one expected to answer and not he.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I feel that the less I pray, the more I become alienated from God, but there is nothing I can do.”

Then he glanced back at me:

“I don’t understand why I’m telling you all this. It feels like we’ve known each other for a long time. I have never said this to anyone before.”

I feel my cheeks burning and look at Ibrahim as if he could offer me a way out, and suddenly I remember:

“I need to go to the visa office.”

“I have a car,” says Khalil.

“Ibrahim says it’s not far from here.”

“I have a car all the same.”

Shops, restaurants, hotels flicker past in the car window. At the office they tell me to come back tomorrow. I’ll spend the night in this city after all: Khalil’s parents have left for England while his brothers and sister are at home.

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“There are ten of us all together.”

“Ten! And you all have the same mother?”

“Yes. My father married when he was thirty, and my mother gave birth to the last child when he turned forty.”

The brother

The large house was a mess of the sort only twenty and thirty-year-old sons can create when their parents are on vacation. One sister cannot cope with this chaos on her own, especially when she lives elsewhere and visits only in order to cook for her brothers. This is what she is doing when we arrive at Khalil’s — a girl around twenty, with beautiful facial features. She welcoms me very warmly and despite my insistent offers does not allow me to help.

We sit down to dinner. Khalil introduces me to his younger brother Sufiyan. Another one of Khalil’s brothers comes into the room. The first thing I notice about him are his huge arms with bulging muscles. Well, well! I wonder why he needs such muscles.

“This is Iyid, my brother,” Khalil introduces us.

Iyid carefully studies me and smiles with sad-looking eyes, or maybe I’m just imagining it.

“What’s your name?”

“Tatiana.”

“Wha-a-t?” He frowns uncertainly.

“Tatiana.”

Later he tells me he misheard my name as santyana which in Arabic means the part of a woman’s underwear worn on top, and he was confused.

“Where are you from, Tatiana, Germany?”

“No, from Russia.”

“A-a-ah!” He exclaims significantly.

I would find out about the meaning of this reaction only later, in Khalil’s office. He works as a tourist guide. When his boss heard I was from Russia he chuckled slyly:

“From Russia with love?”

I already have some idea what this implies, but I still ask:

“What do you mean?”

My slightly indignant tone change the atmosphere. The boss doesn’t answer. Although, of course, it isn’t really his fault that the majority of women working in the Aqaba nightclubs (not as waitresses) are from Russia.

Iyid’s scornful tone is most likely for the same reason, but it doesn’t last long. Khalil goes to fix his car and Iyid begins showing me photos on his laptop.

“This is my older brother, he lives in England. Our parents have gone to visit him. This is my second brother, he lives in France. And this is my crane. I work on a crane in the port.”

“You need such big arms to work on the crane?”

“No,” he smiles. “I work out. And this is me in Egypt. I really love Egypt.”

“Do you go there on vacation?”

“Yes. It’s warm there.”

“Like it’s cold here?”

“Now it’s cold here, it’s winter.”

One of the most entertaining things to do while travelling is to scare the locals with stories about Russia. To tell Austrians who can cross their country in five hours, for instance, that in order to get from Moscow to Vladivostok it takes six days by train. Or to tell a Lebanese person, who lives in a country of four million people, that in Moscow alone we have ten million.

Later, Iyid and I go for a walk on the beach, and as we stand on the dock, I look into the blue water of the Red Sea and wonder whether to go swimming or not. I tell him that some Russians swim in winter.

“We go down to the river, break the ice and jump into the water.”

If I could have photographed Iyid’s face at that moment it would have been the most unique shot of the entire trip.

Khalil comes back late that evening. We hang out with Iyid. He has an excellent sense of humor and we laugh the whole time. Still, it seems to me that for some reason his eyes are sad.

“Can you whistle?” Iyid asks me as we were walking out of the house early the next morning.

“Yes, but not loudly.”

“I can’t whistle at all, so I always ask my friends to hail cabs.”

Iyid wants to show me the office. A green cab whisks us to the center of the city.

“Can I ask you something personal?” I ask him on the way to the office.

“Yes, sure…”

“You have very sad eyes. Why?”

He doesn’t answer immediately.

“I have many sad thoughts. And I think them all the time.”

“What kind of thoughts?”

“If I tell you about them I won’t think them anymore.”

“So wouldn’t that be better?”

Most likely not, because Iyid doesn’t answer.

Such a familiar situation: when melancholy lives inside you for a long time, in the end it becomes a source of pleasure and you won’t give it up for anything.

Once I have the stamp in my passport we go for a walk.

“Let’s go to the beach,” Iyid suggests. “I’ll show you my sand bottles.”

“You can make them too?!”

The table is covered with these wonderful handcrafted objects, but there’s no one to look after them.

“Nobody looks after them?” I ask in disbelief.

“No. But no one will take them. I leave them like this even overnight.”

“And what if someone wants to buy something?”

“They’ll give the money to them,” Iyid says and points to some venders nearby. They are his friends, and offer us some of the sunflower seeds they are selling.

“I’ll make one for you, OK?”

“Why don’t you sell your little bottles like Ibrahim?”

“You make too little money this way. And I have to pay for the gym. I work out for a couple of hours almost every day.

After Iyid makes me a present for me we take a walk along the embankment. To the right the noise of the sea seems to gently push us towards something.

“So why do you spend so much time at the gym?” I ask. “Is it really so important?”

However hard we try to talk about something general and simple the conversation keeps coming up against locks impossible to open, and I see that there is no way to free him of his sad thoughts, no way for him to let them go.

Iyid stops and leans against the low stone wall. I sit next to him but he turns away and crosses his arms on his chest as if holding on to something inside. In a little while he says:

“Because I want to be strong. I think that there is strength in this. I am really weak. Part of me wants to cry, but I can’t cry because I’m a man.”

I see his face and I hear his pain. Talking about this brings tears to his eyes.

“Several years ago I had a girlfriend. I loved her very much, I did everything for her. But she turned out to be… She was just after money. We went to nightclubs, I began drinking. I stopped praying. In the end I began taking drugs because of her. The last thing she made me do was get this tattoo… I never want to trust anyone ever again… And I think that I’m terribly weak. That is why I go to the gym.”

I touch his shoulder. Iyid straightens up and I jump off the wall. We slowly walk on. I take his big warm hand and it feels like I’m holding a child’s hand. The warm clear rays alight in his eyes. The keys and the lock click goodbye to us from the low stone wall left behind. All is well, there’s no need for them any more.

The funny Dead Sea

Today the sun rose for the tenth time to illuminate my road. But am I on the road? I spend every night at someone’s home and this usually becomes much more than just a roof over my head. It becomes a home in itself, hard to leave every time. I’ve never been hungry on this trip and I’ve not spent any money on food yet.

I already have more than ten new numbers in my phone beginning with un-Russian 0s and 2s. Every day I receive text messages from my new friends. They worry about how I’m doing and regret that I only stayed with them for a short while. They are all people whom I’ve met during this journey. I even have a Jordanian brother now! He writes more often than the others and in almost every message says how grateful he is to have met me and that he will never forget me.

So am I on the road? Or am I at home, a home with dimensions larger than I could ever imagine?

I’m striding along a paved road; to my right is a village. Beyond it lie the Jordanian mountains: low, with peaks painted in pink, orange and red. The sun paints them every day with its hot touch at sunset. They are its trusted harbingers and even in daytime they carry a promise of the unusual color feast of the sunset.

I look at these mountains, at the sky, at the desert to the left of the road. All this is mine, native to me. So many times I have heard people say to me with complete sincerity: “Make yourself at home!”

Like on the first day of my trip, when on the road from Trabzon in Turkey I was picked up and carried, so I’m still carried by people.

The driver takes me to within fifteen kilometers of the Dead Sea before he has to turn. But that’s for the better: I need to find out where exactly on the shore the hot springs are. After swimming I’ll need to wash off the salt in their warm fresh water so that I don’t dry up to a crisp from all the salt.

I’m walking along the side of the road looking back at the one-story concrete houses stretching out close to the road and thinking, “How can I meet someone in this village who speaks English well enough to explain how to get to these hot springs?” On a road to the side of the main one a car slows down and a young Jordanian man in his early thirties with skin the color of chocolate gets out and addresses me in excellent English:

“Hello! What do we Jordanians say when we meet a foreigner? Welcome! Can I help you in any way?”

Of course, I’m not going to lie to him. The hospitable Jordanian knows where to find the hot springs but agrees to tell me about them only after I have tea at his house and meet his family.

My new friend’s name is William. Not only he tells me all about the hot springs, but also offers to take me there.

We leave the car on the side of the road and walk through a field of tomatoes. I look carefully at the smooth surface of the sea opening out before us trying to discern what is unusual about it. Only when we get to the beach do I notice the enormous rocks covered with a thick salt crust like white icing. The sea rolls onto them in licking waves but the waves do not, like cows or elk do, lick the salt off but rather leave the rocks even saltier.

The beach is completely deserted. William brings his family here so his wife can swim just wearing a bathing suit rather than the long shirt that Muslim women wear on public beaches.

I’ve heard many a horror story about the danger for one’s eyes of even tiny drops of water from this sea. So the first thing I do is head off with a mug to a stream of warm fresh water coming down from the mountains.

With a mug of water in place of a first-aid kit waiting on shore and with William waiting for me a little further off I can finally explore the most unusual sea in the world.

The water is not at all summery — this is January after all. At the bottom there are stones encrusted with salt. I discover just how sharp they are when I get back to the beach, my feet striped with crimson marks.

I have to work hard to keep the waves from knocking me off my balance. I have absolutely no desire to fall into this awful water — there’s so much salt that the water tastes bitter more than salty. Eventually I find myself in water up to my shoulders and I lie down carefully stretching out my neck to protect my eyes.

It is indeed impossible to sink. But you can’t really swim, either: your legs keep getting tossed up like a floater. It’s more comfortable on your back: you sit on the water as if in a large armchair. It’s so funny! Hop! With one easy push you turn on your own axis. Hop! You turn in the other direction. You spin like a top, and just like a child watching a spinning top can’t conceal its joy and delight, so I too share my impressions with William, not in words, but with a ringing laugh.

The sun apparently wants to follow my example and have a swim. It’s already slowly sinking into the sea. Or maybe it just wants to look closer and see who’s having such unabashed fun there laughing and tumbling in this big salty puddle.

As the day’s ending I can’t refuse William’s invitation to spend the night in his house which makes the hospitable Jordanian sincerely happy.

At home, especially for me, his wife prepars a dish of chicken with rice. For dessert they offer me their wedding photographs. I open the album — it is empty. What’s this? I opened it from the wrong end: here albums, like books, begin with the end. Though, it’s the end for us but for them it is the beginning.

In the morning William persuades me to go have a look at a beautiful mountain valley not far from their village. Our conversation turns out to be more interesting than the view.

“Tell me,” asks William, “is it true that in Russia there are people who put their old parents in the care of special institutions?”

“That is true,” I answer. I don’t go into details, knowing that here it’s impossible to abandon elders or sick children, that it’s impossible to leave the neediest people without help.

William asks about the relationship between men and women. News about our “freedom” in such relationships is renowned even in these parts.

“I was engaged for a whole year,” says William. “And all that time I did not even touch my future wife. And I am happy it was this way.”

William actually practices his religion. When the time to pray comes he leaves me and goes to pray.

So what can I say about this striking “freedom” in male-female relationships? Or about the old people’s homes and the orphanages? How can I explain this to him? And I tell him about how the moral and religious foundations in our country were completely destroyed and only now are being restored.

In parting, William hugs me tight:

“You are the most surprising individual I have ever met.” And he adds with a secretive air: “You are like a sister to me now. Think of me as your brother.”

I smile to myself as William tells me something that I already know.

Chapter 4. Unexpected Egypt

First meeting

The ferry takes me across the Red Sea that separates Eurasia from the African continent. We are about to arrive in the Egyptian town of Nuweiba and I will step onto African soil for the first time in my life. But I’m not expecting anything good to come of this.

Egypt is one of the few countries where hitchhiking is officially prohibited. I’ve heard dozens of stories from friends about roadblocks where my friends had to get out of cars that had picked them up. Inside the car you have to hide from the police, to play “cat and mouse” with the police, as my friend Anton Krotov put itt.

Locals are prohibited from inviting foreigners to sleep at their house. By the same token it is prohibited to invite foreigners to visit.

Sleeping in a tent is prohibited.

All these prohibitions are supposedly aimed to improve security for tourists. In fact, obviously, they ensure income for the tourist business.

I don’t expect anything good from Egypt. Will I be able to hitchhike there? Or will it be a constant cat-and-mouse chase and I’ll get sick of it and quickly regret having come here?

These restrictive laws are not even the main drawback of one of the world’s most visited countries. The tourism network has ensnared the country and people’s minds so completely that Egyptians now perceive white people exclusively as walking fat wallets.

“The prices are automatically raised two or three times for tourists,” they told me about Egypt. I’d also heard plenty of stories from friends who exposed these frauds by being able to read the Arabic prices and pointing it out to the sellers.

“They ask for money for the smallest service. Even for things you don’t need and they’ll go on pushing them on you.”

I’d also heard any number of frightening rumors about the prevailing chaos and messiness in Egypt.

“Even in Jordan,” my friend Igor was telling me when we ran into each other in the port, “if they see some weirdo on the road driving in a slapdash way they say, ‘Oh, he’s got to be from Egypt.’”

Two or three hours ago to my question: “When will we leave?” the driver replies: “In half an hour,” and later he repeats the same thing.

“In fact, the bus won’t leave until it is packed to bursting,” explains Igor, a seasoned traveler used to the way things work in Egypt.

Finally, the last passenger who wants to go to Cairo gets on. They are carting a huge wheelbarrow filled with a mountain of trunks.

“But there’s no more room on the roof.” I look puzzled at the packed roof-rack.

“What do you mean?” Igor is also surprised. “It’s practically empty.”

Indeed, through some miracle and a few ropes, the driver and his helpers manage to tie on all the luggage of the last passenger. But just as I was hoping for our imminent departure, a huge cardboard box falls from the roof onto the pavement with a loud thud. The driver and helpers look on impassively. Then they decide to see what’s inside. The box contains nothing less than a TV set. Somehow no one is particularly worried. No big deal.

Cairo sketches

There are only a few truly large cities in the world. It’s just not easy to get an accurate count of the population, to separate the city from the suburbs, and so a few of the world’s biggest cities fight to be considered the largest and most populous: Shanghai, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, and Cairo.

Cairo! It’s hard enough for me to live in Europe’s biggest city, Moscow. And now Cairo!

I’m walking along sidewalks thick with pedestrian traffic on Tahrir, one of the main streets in Cairo. On intersecting alleyways the cars are parked so close together it’s impossible to squeeze between them, they seem to be leaning in for notso-tender kisses.

No turbulent river could compare with the noise rising from the madly rushing street traffic. And the noise gets even worse when the traffic jams. Car horns are used much more in Egypt (as in most Arab countries) than in Europe or Russia. Is it simply that the desire to communicate is stronger here?

I observe the language of traffic with amazement while still on the highway. The driver wants to pass: HONK! Giving a warning, apparently. But then once he’s already passing and even with the other car: HONK! As if to say, hey, I’m passing you, look out. And then once he’s passed: HONK! As in, everything’s fine, see you later. A tractor by the side of the road: HONK! A man walking: HONK! A donkey: HONK!

So now just imagine what happens in a city teeming with taxis when none other than a foreign woman is walking along the side of the road. All the taxi drivers salute me and offer their services, not suspecting that I can’t stand the noise.

Along the sidewalk packed with all sorts of traders, pedestrians and parked cars, a motorcyclist goes speeding by. How is this possible when even pedestrians can barely make their way through the crowds? The motorcyclist doesn’t take his hand off the horn. Still, everyone is so accustomed to this sound that the motorcycle dude has to apply his finest driving skills.

And then right behind him a guy on a bicycle comes rolling by with a large wooden construction filled with freshly baked bread on his head. How can he keep hold of all that while pedaling at the same time?! And how can he find his way among the dozens of people walking, standing, sitting? The guy asks people to step aside.

“Ps-s-s, ps-s-s, ps-s-s,” he hisses softly. And people, oddly enough, make way for him.

Road theme, continued

Traffic lights and pedestrian crossings are rare. How do you cross these streets, clogged twenty-four hours a day? You just have to throw yourself into the stream; at least the current’s not too fast. You won’t get knocked over although cars don’t really stop either, they’ll just continue to move on slowly waiting for you to make your way through and jump back out onto the sidewalk.

And even when there are traffic lights… In Russia I never walk on red and here I wait just as patiently for the green. When the little green man appears I walk with him even though the cars continue driving across the black-and-white pedestrian walkways. Fortunately, I’ve learned to get by even without the stoplights.

Metro

Because of constantly rising prices in the Moscow metro I’m anxious to find out about the price of metro tickets in Cairo. I breathe a sigh of relief and surprise when I see that it isn’t much: one pound (this means five rubles).

On the platform, here and there you can see placards with the image of a woman: there are special train-cars for women only. There are no men in these cars, well, if you don’t count the occasional brazen salesmen offering all sorts of trinkets for which women worldwide seem to have a weakness.

I rode in these cars several times. It seemed like the women would burst out laughing any moment.

Women can ride in the other cars too, especially if accompanied by a husband or male relative. I also noticed a couple of single women. Apparently they’re not too fond of the chicken-coop either.

The AFT House

In Cairo I didn’t stay in a hotel. In this unusual city I had a chance to stay as a local rather than a guest.

My friend Anton Krotov, a true traveler, writer and founder of the Society of Free Travelers, thought up a new way of exploring the world. Instead of just travelling in the sense of getting there and going through, you rent a house or an apartment in an interesting country for three or four months. You live in this interesting place and make short trips to the environs.

So in late December 2008, Anton rented an apartment in downtown Cairo and filled it with a whole crew of interesting people and travelers, myself included. The place was on the sixth floor of an ordinary building with Egyptians living in it, a hardware store on the ground floor and a mosque right around the corner. The call of the muezzin and the Friday sermons resounded through our apartment. It was just a pity we couldn’t understand a word.

Culture

On the first day Anton led me out onto the balcony of our apartment. The very center of the city — Tahrir Square (after the main street) — was indeed only steps away. The roofs of the tall buildings surrounding us were piled with trash.

“There you go, take a nice long look,” laughed Anton. “Only the tallest buildings are clean. All the other ones get dumped on from the windows of the surrounding buildings.”

Coming out of the building I often had to jump over piles of trash left by people taking out their trash to the dump. You either have to jump over it or walk around it.

Subway tickets are cheap but not always so easy to get.

One man pays while the next one is holding his money ready, and I’m third in line. When it’s my turn to buy a ticket, an Egyptian man nonchalantly shoves his money to the cashier right under my nose. Discouraged, I look back at him while another guy does the exact same thing. It’s just my perception of the situation that I was next in line: they don’t have this concept. Or at least I never picked up on any signs of its existence.

Cairo Museum

I always used to think that my favorite museum was the Tretyakov Art Gallery. Now I’m not so sure anymore.

In front of the famous Museum of Egyptian History there is a papyrus plant growing in a small shallow pool, its leaves spread out like the fingers of a hand. It’s one of the few papyrus plants left in Egypt. In his book Ra, Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian traveler and ethnographer, writes about how difficult it was to find Egyptian papyrus to build a papyrus boat.

“Miss! Ma’am! Mister!” Swarthy Arab sellers surround you as you exit the museum.

“Papyrus! Papyrus! Original papyrus!” They are hawking large “papyrus” posters with images of the pharaohs, pyramids, and symbolic maps of Egypt.

“Ten pound!” They fix you with an anxious gaze while you patiently make your way forward.

My friends and I wonder what they actually make these “original papyrus” from — probably just dried palm leaves.

I have the good luck of getting a guided tour of the museum. Otherwise I’d have a hard time getting oriented among the five thousand pieces on exhibit.

An hour, two, three, four… and my eyes are still wide-open, my lungs still giving out sighs of astonishment.

The Cairo Museum amazes with the wealth of its historical treasures, despite the fact that it is also the most burgled museum in the world.

I was there at the very end of my journey and nevertheless decided that I would have come to Egypt just to visit this museum.

Food

An apt observation: in cheap countries you spend a lot more money than in expensive ones. When everything is expensive you don’t buy anything. But when everything’s cheap you don’t hold back and buy everything on sale.

I’ve never tried fresh-squeezed orange juice in my life. Until now. Two pounds — ten rubles in Russia, or around 30 cents — and the shop-keeper picks one orange ball out of the pile, a second, a third, slices them in half and into the maw of his squeezer. A minute later, the juice comes pouring out in a cheerful, fidgety stream into the thick transparent glass.

And the fruit cocktails they make there!

I’ve already made short work of my cocktail but I still remain standing by the kiosk to watch the nimble hands of the cocktail-master at work. A white (probably milk-based) beverage pours into the bottom of the glass, then yellow (probably mango juice), then strawberry. The whole thing is crowned with a headdress of banana, apple and strawberry slices carefully arranged and lined up against the sides of the glass. But why does the vendor have a small plastic bag? Oh! He pours all of this beauty inside. It turns out this particular cocktail has been ordered to go by a woman wearing a dark-red burqa. So the decoration process was just to give her aesthetic pleasure?

Kosheri! A mysterious word, right? Amazingly, the ordinary hotel tourists who come to Egypt don’t know this word. So why am I bringing it up? The kosheri spot is another place I love to observe the vendor’s dexterous work, unable to keep from drooling.

I get my portion to go (this is cheaper, by the way): so the vendor produces a plastic box, puts in a pile of rice, different kinds of pasta, peas, deep-fried onion and all of it bathed in a thin tomato sauce, plus two other sauces in small plastic bags. I am holding a warm box giving off a tempting tasty aroma.

Two pounds! Ten rubles! And you’re full.

You find yourself trying to convince yourself over and over that you’re hungry again.

All she needs is a hookah

All of the ground-level floors along the street are occupied with shops. Sometimes the shop-windows move apart as if to let one into the cave-like semi-darkness. A tea-room! Small tables only big enough to accommodate a few small tea-glasses and two pairs of elbows. You never see any women in these places. But they never go without men. To accompany the tea and conversation there are hookahs and backgammon.

I love tea but in Russia we don’t drink just plain tea. So first I go peek into my favorite shopl, the one selling sweets. What a pity we don’t have anything like these sweets in Russia. Enormous round metal trays present finely sliced baked goods of every possible variety. Sweet and very rich. Sometimes with pistachios, their green color highlighted dramatically against the golden-yellow background. They are really lovely but you have little time to admire them before you eat them up.

I’m carrying a plastic plate with these Eastern sweets, enjoying its weight. This time I take a table outside. The waiter brings out a glass of hot sweet tea and a glass of water to wash it down with. Casting glances at my solitary feasting, Egyptians promenade past. I don’t pay attention to anyone and peacefully enjoy my treat.

“There she is! Look at her! All she needs is a hookah,” a familiar male voice rings out loud and slightly indignant nearby.

It’s a friend from the AFT apartment coming back from his trip round the environs.

“What, can’t I sit here?” I say apologetically for no apparent reason, also smiling in response, and invite my friend to join in my exotic feasting.

Religion

The spot! Half of all Egyptians (men) in Cairo have a dark plum-sized spot right in the center of their swarthy brows (the percentage of spotted men is much lower in the rest of Egypt).

Like a medal, this spot is a mark of particular piety and religiosity. Muslims touch their foreheads to the floor several times during the namaz. So they develop this sort of callus. But why don’t other, no less pious peoples have such spots, like in Afghanistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia? We put this question to a number of Egyptians. And hear several different explanations in response:

Egyptians have softer skin than other nationalities.

The prayer rugs in the Cairo mosques are made of very rough material.

Egyptians are more fervent than the others: they don’t just touch their heads but bang them against the floor while praying.

We have our own explanations too. Egyptians probably just paint the spots on their foreheads. Maybe to demonstrate their piety. The second explanation: the prayer rugs in the mosques are not rough but just dirty.

Anton suggests the third and most convincing: due to unsanitary conditions, some kind of fungus is widespread on the mosques’ prayer-rugs and leaves its mark of devotion on the Egyptians’ brows.

In fact they don’t need any proof of their religious devotion. The space in front of the mosques, completely occupied with the faithful on Fridays, bears eloquent enough witness, and that’s not even all of them — they simply all can’t fit inside.

Women

The most freethinking city in any country is always the capital. As concerns religion an indicator of this pattern can often be found in women. The capital cities of Muslim countries usually have a higher percentage (in comparison to the provinces) of women with uncovered heads. In Egypt everything is different: it’s nearly impossible to see a woman without a headscarf on the streets of Cairo. If you do run into one she’s either a foreigner or a Christian.

The Coptic Quarter

More than five hundred years before the Catholic and Orthodox churches were formed the Coptic Church already existed. On Sunday I go to a church in the famous Coptic quarter. There are many bare-headed women there. Here and there you can see big stone crosses on the wide domes of enormous cathedrals. I go into one phenomenally big church that is empty; another one is empty too. Sunday and no service?! Finally, I find a girl who agrees to take me to a church where there is supposed to be a religious service. Side streets, narrow passageways, a few steps down — the service is being held in a small lower church.

No more than ten women are sitting on wooden benches, with no more than five men seated on the other side. Without thinking I sit down on the left-hand side, the one with more space. Shortly thereafter someone, probably a novice, comes up and asks me to switch my seat to the ladies’ side.

The service lasts around two and a half hours, like in an Orthodox church. The priest says something in a singsong voice in a language I don’t understand. Finally, they move from words to action. Another priest, different from the one conducting the service, comes out to administer communion. He looks like he has a higher rank.

To my shock, I discover that the churchgoers take off their shoes before communion and that for some reason everyone gets snow-white, embroidered and lace-edged handkerchiefs. Finally, the parishioners move towards the communion chalice shaped as a little house-box containing bread from which the priest breaks off hefty chunks and hands them to the parishioners. The men come up for communion first, the women only afterwards. After the bread, the people go up to the deacon for deep spoonfuls of holy wine. This is when those handkerchiefs come in handy: the parishioners wipe their lips with them.

At the very end, the people come up to the priest who gives them bread and his smile. I’m pleased: not because it’s finally over but because I‘ve got here after all.

Matchless silence

The January sun is beating down mercilessly. And I don’t have a drop of water on me. I’m so thirsty it seems like my entire body has been squeezed dry. I’m alone in the midst of the Sinai desert.

At the last post where I’m stopped the frightened policemen yells after me:

“Where are you going?”

“To Saint Catherine,” I name the village at the foot of the famous Moses’ mountain.

“That’s a hundred kilometers,” they attempt to appeal to my good reason.

“No problem,” I smile.

“What if I really do have to walk the whole way?” I think, my smile fading. My confidence that I’ll get picked up by a car evaporates with the remnants of moisture in my body (for some reason I hadn’t brought any water with me). I’d already turned around a few times at the sound of a motor. Tall tour buses rush by without even slowing, blasting me with the wind from their speed.

Well, I’ll just keep walking then. Maybe there’s a special meaning in this. After all, the Israelis walked a long time before they reached Sinai and earned their wondrous prize: the wonderful Ten Commandments.

A car picked me up in the end but not for long. There are no cities in this part of the country, but there are Bedouin villages. One of these Bedouins, wearing a long white robe and a beautiful white headscarf, is giving me a lift. We turn off the road in order to visit his friends who treat me to some life-saving sweet tea.

Soon I find myself back on the road, alone with my thirst.

From time to time I lift my head heavenward and its cool azure assuages my unbearable thirst, at least slightly. At the same time I am glad that after the dark months of Russian winter I am finally able to meet face-to-face with the sky, free from the storm-cloud barrier.

Behind me, I hear the hopeful hum of a motor. I lift my arm at the new white foreign-made car. It slows down but drives past and disappears around a bend. Although the people inside signaled something to me. “Maybe the driver just didn’t want to brake on an uphill?” I think hopefully and start running after the car feeling the air grate against my dry-as-sandpaper tongue.

The car really is waiting for me, but it turns out to be a taxi: the Bedouin driver is taking an elderly German couple to Saint Catherine. Without much faith in success I make my request. Surprisingly, the driver agrees. And in response to my question about water he hands me a full bottle of water.

Though the four of us chat cheerfully the whole way to Saint Catherine, I keep thinking that the Bedouin may have not understood me and will probably demand money in the end.

The driver, whose name is Suleiman, leaves the Germans at their hotel and turns to me:

“You’re probably hungry?”

I nod involuntarily and the Bedouin orders four different dishes for me in a roadside café. He watches me trying to manage it all.

“I’m taking a group of Romanians up the mountain today, want to come along?” He suggests and adds right away, “Absolutely free.”

I had the earliest wake-up call in my life that night — 00.40. Suleiman came to pick me up at the campsite, where he’d also fixed me up with his friend for free.

The evening before he’d invited me to look at the stone with “Moses’ eyes.” I couldn’t understand what this meant until I saw the enormous chunk of cliff, taller than me, with oblong depressions. Legend has it that this is the very stone from which Moses drew water for the thirsting Israelis. How? Well, how did I manage to meet a tourist guide in one of the most touristy places on the road to Saint Catherine who started taking care of me quite selflessly?

The sky is alight with myriad yellow stars as if a million eyes are following me. Twinkling as if winking. I smile at them in grateful response.

The road leading up to the mountain looks a lot like a busy city street, a bit like the Arbat in Moscow. People move in masses, constantly turning on their flashlights, shouting, screaming, laughing:

“Camels, camels!”

Aside from English the Bedouins here have also learned good Russian. For the Russian tourists who usually can’t speak English.

The group of Romanians is moving too slowly. I overtake them, agreeing to meet Suleiman at the last café on the way, a coffee shop, as they call it here.

Nearly at the top of the mountain there are some steep, tall steps. A young Bedouin overtakes me.

“Can I lend you a hand?” He asks in Russian.

“For money?” I smile, remembering all the stories I heard.

“No.”

I accept his help. At the last coffee shop I say good-bye to my helper and sit down on a bench covered with a colorful blanket, waiting for Suleiman to arrive with his Romanians.

There come loud cries: “Blankets, blankets!”

These are coffee shop workers offering to rescue the tourists from the cold while lightening their wallets.

I’m so sick of hearing “camels” and “blankets” that when some Bedouins ask me where I’m from I answer in an annoyed tone:

“Not telling.”

“From Russia?” One of them guesses. He is strong, tall, and is wearing a headscarf.

“No,” I say, shamelessly denying my homeland.

My attempt to go incognito quickly becomes a joke. A Bedouin with a headscarf comes up to me. I expect him to try to sell me something.

“You don’t have a Russian accent,” says the Bedouin, paying me a compliment without knowing it. “But you’re from somewhere near Russia, no? Where from?”

“I’m not telling.”

“OK, OK. As you wish. Let’s say you’re from the Moon.”

I show my appreciation for his sense of humor with a bright smile.

“Do you work in the café?”

“Yes, this is my coffee shop.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“And do you like your work?” I ask expecting him to complain about the endless streams of tourists.

“Yes, I love the peace and quiet. There is no one here during the day.”

I take in his burly appearance, sports pants and a worn grey sweater, and I can’t believe it’s him saying these things.

“What’s your name?”

“Joseph,” he answers. “Would you like some tea? My treat.”

“It’s too expensive here,” I say not having heard his last words.

“My treat,” he repeats.

The sweet aroma of the strong, life-giving drink rises up along with the steam. Once again it saves me from thirst, and once again in an unexpected way.

After I greet the sunrise on the peak, I come down to the coffee shop and Joseph again treats me to a cup of tea. He invites me to come inside the little store. Tired foreigners hurry after their guides while at the same time pricing souvenirs. I am meanwhile sitting on top of one of the most touristy spots in Egypt holding a cup of hot tea. The steam from the tea melts along with all of my silly fears about Egyptians’ incorrect and selfish behavior.

Joseph lives on top of the mountain six days a week, and on his day off he goes down to his village. Today happens to be Friday.

“We can go together,” he offers. “I know a different path. It’s beautiful but not easy.”

“All the better.” I agree without a second thought.

We leap from stone to stone. I look back at Joseph:

“So why aren’t you offering me your hand?”

In touristy places like this Bedouins and Arabs usually try to seize any opportunity to take white women by the hand.

“If you need a hand you’ll ask,” Joseph answers.

I look back at him again with astonishment.

We go to see his brother. Once again I am holding a glass of tea, this time made from hibiscus. His brother then leaves to run some errands and we stay behind to guard his goods.

“Look,” Joseph points to the peak of one of the mountains surrounding us. “There’s a chapel up there. There are a lot of them here. Monks used to go up there a lot to pray. Now they’re almost always closed.”

“So do you pray?” I ask expecting a negative response. In these touristy spots the foreigners often infect the locals with their materialism and Western values.

“Yes,” answers Joseph.

“Five times a day?”

“No, not always. Sometimes I don’t pray for a whole week. I don’t want to lie to you… And sometimes during prayer I think about what I need to buy for the shop. That’s not right either.”

I look back again at this Bedouin who spends six days a week on top of this mountain. But he spends those six days on a mountain that is far from ordinary.

We come out to the start of our difficult journey. Below us, the buildings of the St. Catherine monastery lie like rectangular boxes.

“How long will it take to get there?” I ask.

“Two hours.”

The sun is still high.

“Let’s sit here for a bit,” I suggest.

“All right.”

We sit down on a big yellow rock at the edge of the mountain. I sit face-to-face with the sky. I feel like I’m seeing it for the first time. To the right the peak of Moses’ mountain looks eloquent at us. Everything is seeped in matchless silence. There is not a single sound coming from below, so it seems as if the world below does not even exist. And you don’t feel like going back there, all the possible fullness of life is here, in this proximity to the matchless azure silence. I look back once again at the mountain thinking of Moses and the Ten Commandments. Yes, in this silence you could hear many things!

Ring of oases

Sahara means “desert” in Arabic. This morning I am heading there. On the map the road I’ll be going by resembles the ribbon of a river. But in fact, there are no rivers all around for hundreds of kilometers in every direction.

The first oasis I’ll reach — Bahariya– is indicated on the map by a few little palm trees. But what will it look like in reality?

The paved road that leads from Cairo to the southwest is empty, evidently because it runs through the desert. Maybe it’s not too late to run back to Cairo, heed all the warnings about the oases being far off and hard to reach? I sit down on my backpack by the side of the road. The road is empty ahead and behind me. To the left and right lies empty desert.

“If the road is paved, there have to be cars on it. And if there are cars, then you’ll get picked up,” Anton instructed me. Having been in complicated countries like Afghanistan and Sudan he really knows what he’s talking about.

The two astonished Egyptian drivers exchange glances. They have seen lots of different kinds of tourists, of course, but probably none of them has ever tried to stop their big old truck.

No, they fail to understand the point of my words shvaye-shvaye mashi, seiyara — “a little bit by foot, car.” When it’s time for me to get out I have to take a few pieces of dry bread from them which they push on me against my will. They pour the remains of their water into my bottle mixing my bought drinking water with their tap-water which is dangerous for untrained foreign stomachs. One of the drivers goes for his wallet.

“Lya-lya! — No, no!” I almost screamed.

They exchange glances but once again there’s no arguing with them. I’m forced to take fifty pounds, around two hundred fifty rubles (about nine dollars) and in Egypt you can buy a lot more with that money than in Russia.

By midday I am in the oasis of Bahariya. The simple clay huts alternate with palms whose dull branches barely give off any green. Apparently there isn’t enough water in the oases for them.

I look for the next clump of palm trees in the mist of yellow desert on the map — Farafra. Found it… then drive right past it in the evening darkness.

The next day, just past Farafra, a pick-up truck driven by a sturdy young Arab comes to a screaming halt. It turns out he’s driving to Kharga, the penultimate oasis, where his uncle’s family lives. I’ll get to cover a significant distance! But my joy can’t compare to Muhammad’s, the name of my new friend. He immediately invites me to meet his relatives. And it seems he’s hurrying to get us there faster so that he can provide me with all the necessary hospitality in the proper fashion.

I’m met by their entire enormous family. The only one missing is the father. But the mother, around sixty-five, is there with her numerous adult married and unmarried children, grandchildren of all ages, all the way up to near-adults. The oldest, thirty-year-old Mahmud, speaks a little English. The impossibility of communicating through words is compensated for by our irrepressible desire to make friends.

We sit for a long time in the living room. They bring in supper especially for me — the others have already eaten. A few of them join me in eating, slightly embarrassed. Then tea is served. Despite the fact that it’s after midnight and I’m tired from the journey, despite the fact that we don’t even have a common language, we simply can’t get enough of this communication and our laughter won’t quiet for even a second.

Even if I remembered the law forbidding Egyptians to invite foreigners into their homes I’d probably not believe in its existence and that anyone could possibly observe it.

Chapter 5. The Valley of the Nile

Sugarcane

I’m sitting by the fireside — red coals smoldering in a metal tank — surrounded by a big Arab family. The mother sits opposite, watching me, and crinkles of joy run across her tired dark face.

Her thirty-year-old daughter brings two sticks. She hands one to me and starts gnawing on the other one. I wonder in horror whether I have to do the same.

The whole family responds with gleeful laughter at my perplexed and frightened expression. With her teeth, the woman peels the bark off part of the stick, breaks off a piece and hands it to me. It’s sugarcane, of course. My mouth fills with sweet juice. Now they look worried and signal to me that I have to spit out the pulp.

The mother can’t hold back her feelings, she comes up to me and places her work-rough hand on mine looking at me with her clear eyes. She doesn’t say anything. But does she really need to?

She has a little tattoo on her forehead: a tiny cross. The whole family, indeed the whole area around here is Christian. This time they’re Orthodox.

At the exit post from Baris, the last village in the ring of oases, the poor policemen are quite perplexed not knowing what to do with me. But happily, a big new van soon appears that is driving to Luxor. The driver is amazed to find a white tourist with no money, but to the sincere joy of the policemen he agrees to take me.

“Muslim?” he asked, pointing to my headscarf.

“Lya, masykhi. — No, Christian.”

“Ana masykhi. — I’m a Christian too,” says the driver, pointing to a small copy of the Gospels in its familiar blue cover, sitting on the dashboard. He asks whether I might like to come for a visit — maybe joking, maybe serious. It’s not hard to guess my answer.

The final 120 kilometers run through unchanging yellow desert. Finally the desert parts before us and we approach the Nile. As if waiting for us the sun starts leaning down over the horizon which opens out into a blue full-flowing river. Meanwhile, the palms flanking it and spreading their luxurious juicy-green branches against the transparent blue sky, sing a silent hymn to the celebration taking place: the closing of yet another day on Earth.

The driver takes me to see his sister. The wooden door of the apartment shows an image of Christ walking inside. In a glass cabinet are porcelain statues of the Virgin Mary and saints. The sister starts bustling about animatedly.

After supper we go to the local church. At least twenty women have gathered for an evening meeting with the priest whom I don’t notice at first behind the podium.

On the way to see their mother, the sister introduces me to her friends and I greet them all politely, carefully pronouncing the unfamiliar markhaba — hello. I’ve already screwed up a few times with the greeting as-salaam aleikum — who would have known that it’s only for Muslims, that Christians don’t use it?

Europeans in Africa

The next morning, my hostess takes me to see the famous Luxor church. We take a bus with a closed cab that does not seem intended to carry people. This church has a whole gallery of small sphinxes and large statues of pharaohs traditionally depicted in ceremonial step and clutching their seals, sometimes with little statues of their wives at their feet.

Luxor is bursting with tourists of all possible nationalities other than Russians. Hurghada is not far away, but why would they want to take any time away from the sea, the beaches and hotels?

Ignoring all the inviting calls I walk along the embankment and look at the even blue canvas of the river. My eye is accidentally caught by some interesting knick-knacks in a souvenir kiosk and the young Arab vendor is there right away. He starts a conversation in decent English, invites me inside.

“But I’m not going to buy anything,” I warn him right away.

“Of course, of course. Where are you from?”

“Russia.”

The guy looks me over with greater attention.

“Would you like some tea?” He suggests once I’m inside and looking at the funny little drums and unusual one-stringed instruments.

The vendor brings out a chair and some hot sweet hibiscus tea. When we’re already making friendly conversation, Ahmed — that’s the vendor’s name — suddenly asks:

“So why are Russian women so easy?”

I blink helplessly.

“European girls too,” Ahmed explains, “but the Russians… When I heard you were from Russia I thought…”

Hurghada, frequented by Russians, is very near to Luxor. But in order to find out about Russians’ behavior in other countries you don’t have to go to where they are as their fame extends far and wide.

Later, in Luxor, I notice the special reaction to the mention of my homeland. Once I even asked a riddle:

“I’m not going to tell you where I’m from. But I’m from a country whose women are known to behave pretty badly when they come here.”

“I think I know where you’re from,” the Arab answered. “Are you from Russia?”

On the way from the souvenir shop I am once again attacked from all sides by all sorts of offers. The most tempting of them is to go down the Nile on a felucca, a small sailboat. And even though money is very tight I can’t resist the temptation and agree, won over by the discount.

But when I find myself in the felucca with the boatman, the price rises from ten pounds to forty.

“Ten pounds is the price if you can find three more passengers,” the swindler explains raising his eyebrows naively.

Angry, I leave. But I swiftly get caught again by another tempting offer.

“Khamstashara ginei? — Fifteen pounds?” I ask the twenty-year-old boatman for the fifth time.

And he answers for the fifth time:

“Aiva. — Yes.”

“And you won’t ask for more afterwards?” I finally ask him directly, in English.

“No.”

One-thirty p.m. I note the time so that the boatman will take me for a whole hour and not skimp.

Four-thirty p.m… I hang from the boat with my hand trailing in the cool transparent water.

“Look,” Ali points at a brown object floating nearby. “It’s a crocodile.” I don’t have time to be afraid before he starts laughing, showing an even row of white teeth, a bright patch highlighted against his darkly tanned face.

“They’re just palm branches.”

I splash water at him and laugh along with him.

He’s twenty-three and has a fiancée whom he’s known since early childhood. Their parents agreed a long time ago that their children would marry when they grew up. Now he just has to pile up some money and he’ll be good to go.

We sail to the opposite bank and go to find something to eat. Ali won’t let me pay for the kosheri but I treat him to some tea. We can’t stop chatting. I feel like I live in this city and that I just went off this morning with my older brother to work — taking tourists around on our family felucca. And that for some reason there aren’t any tourists right now so we enjoy our time together, just the two of us, having fun, joking and chatting. We splash each other and fearlessly swim around in the Nile. What do we have to fear when we’ve grown up on these riverbanks? This river is our homeland, it has watched over my whole life, and I am dear to it. How could it be otherwise when I have seen myself in it every time I look into the water to see directly into its eyes. When evening comes we return home. Mama feeds us foul, and I help her feed the animals and mix up the bread dough for tomorrow. I walk down to the river to get water, fill the clay water-jars to the brim; when I tire I dip a mug into these same water-jars drinking down huge gulps of the fresh water with its familiar dear scent, and then I go to bed. Today has been a good day.

On the threshold of Africa. Aswan

Ali tries to convince me to stay:

“Where are you going to go so late at night? Stay, you can leave tomorrow.”

“No, I’m going now. If I have to I’ll sleep somewhere on the way.”

For some reason I really want to go to Aswan right now. I head off towards the exit from the city. Luxor disappears along with the last rays of the sun. In the darkness mixed with the light of streetlamps I stand on the main road that leads to Aswan, Egypt’s southernmost city. There aren’t any roads that go further, just the water-route to Sudan.

Will I manage to cross any distance at all today? Will I manage to find a warm place to sleep? There’s nothing to do but once again, for the umpteenth time, to hand over my whole life into the hands of He Whom I trust implicitly.

An empty tour bus delivered me to Aswan at three a.m. Lucky for the policemen, this bus was driving past their post and generously agreed to take me along for free. Otherwise these guardians of public order, shocked by my appearance, would have had to let me get into some other random car since I categorically refused to go back to Luxor.

Aswan greets me with a warm southern night as if the true Africa were pressing me to her breast. Despite the late hour the streets are filled with people and the souvenir shops are open. I’m surprised, though this suits me. Where better to look for a place to stay than among people? I go down one of the main streets, walking past the cheery souvenir kiosks.

“Hello, hello!” a young Arab shopkeeper hails me.

This time I won’t try to avoid conversation. I’m right: a stool and a glass of hot tea are quickly produced for me. A few of the merchants, mainly young guys, crowd around me, asking questions and expressing surprise. One of them is already offering a present: a little scarab-beetle, one of the symbols of Egypt.

“Where will you spend the night?” asks the guy who first noticed me.

“In some cheap hotel,” I answer, seeing that none of my “admirers” have thought to invite me home, or are just shy.

The same Egyptian, very forthcoming, offers to accompany me. One hotel turns out to be closed and we go into another one.

“Hello, you are looking for a room?” The employee sitting behind the desk quickly gets down to business when he sees me. Another young, rather well-fed Arab stands next to him, elbows on the desk.

“Yes, I want your cheapest room.”

“Of course, forty pounds.”

“Oh, no, I’d like a room for fifteen.”

“We don’t have rooms for fifteen,” the well-fed Egyptian butts in; he is evidently the boss. The man behind the desk falls silent.

“But I will only take a room for fifteen,” I shrug.

“All right, we’ll give you one for thirty with no shower.”

“But I’ll only take one for fifteen,” I start putting on my backpack.

“My last offer — twenty.”

“I only have fifteen pounds.”

“I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

I turn towards the stair and my astonished companion follows me.

In the stairwell the fat guy chases me down with a serious, somewhat angry expression on his face, although he began the conversation calmly and wasn’t at all desperate to keep his customer.

“But where are you going? You won’t find anything cheaper!”

“Well, I’ll spend the night somewhere else.”

“Where?!”

“Well, probably in somebody’s house.”

“Whose?!” He is really surprised.

“Well, your place, for instance.”

The guy stares at me wide-eyed.

“Well, OK,” he says finally.

Now it’s my turn to be silent.

“Only, don’t get any ideas,” I decide to make myself clear. “I just need a place to stay, and that’s it.”

“I’ll give you a room,” he says and directs me down the hallway to one of the hotel rooms. “Here.”

It’s a little room with a bed, bedside table, dresser, shower and toilet.

“Oh, well, I feel bad, I’ll give you fifteen pounds all the same.”

We’re sitting in the dining room. Right now no one else is around. The young manager still hasn’t managed to overcome his amazement.

“Wait,” he says.

In a minute he comes back with a plateful of cheese, bread and jam. I don’t wait to be asked and start eating.

“Do you know what this is?” He waits for me to eat everything before asking this question. “This is breakfast. But it’s not included in the price of the rooms for twenty pounds.”

“Ah, I see. Thanks!”

His eyes are still wide-open in amazement. But who does he find so amazing? Probably himself.

Funny cordon

“Lya, lya, lya — No, no, no.” I yell at the ambulance driver and in desperation add in Russian: “Don’t do this.”

But to my dismay he wants to rescue me all the same and brakes at the roadside police post. I get out of the car with a distressed and displeased grimace. The driver watches me go guiltily and with sympathy as if accompanying me to the scaffold. “It’s not your fault, brother,” I want to tell him: “It’s not your fault that I don’t know how to say in Arabic: a little further or a little closer but not at the police post.”

The gazes of the policemen flock to me like moths to a flame: a single foreign woman with a backpack climbing out of an ambulance at 1.30 a.m. I hoist on my backpack and in my despair start walking into the darkness thickening beyond the police post knowing full well that this is senseless.

“Hey! Ma’am! Please!”

The same old story for the hundredth time.

I have to play “cat-and-mouse” with the police every day and very nearly every fifty kilometers. They manage to catch me pretty often but I tear away from their claws every time. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard, but it’s always fun.

So even now I can’t hold back a grin when I find myself surrounded by about eight hefty soldiers with automatic weapons blinking helplessly and discussing something amongst themselves. I recognize the Arabic words mit vein — “where from?” which one of them says to the other, evidently about me. And I shock the poor policemen even more by saying in Arabic:

“Min Rusiya. — From Russia.”

“Tatakalyam arabik?! — You speak Arabic?!” Their eyebrows shoot up.

“Shvaye-shvaye. — A little.”

“Shvaye-shvaye.” Cheered up tremendously they repeat after me.

The first fright passes — I’m a foreigner but at least not from another planet, I even speak like a human being, in Arabic, that is. Their faces grow warmer and the policemen become brave enough to start questioning me.

I hear the familiar le — “why”, which apparently relates to my most recent mode of transport, and start giving them my usual spiel:

“Ana seikha. Min Rusiya — Tyurki, Ordon, Syuriya, Mysr. — I’m travelling. From Russia to Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt.”

“Mashi? — By foot?”

“Lya mashi. Mashi shvaye-shvaye. Ana seiyara beduni fulius. — Not by foot. A little by foot. I go by car with no money.”

“Beduni fulius,” one of the policemen repeats this unusual combination, all the more unusual coming from a foreign girl.

“Aiva, seiyara beduni fulius. Lya taksi, lya bus, lya shorta, lya mushkele. — Right, by car for no money. No taxi, no bus, no police, no problem.”

The last two phrases provoke a flash of delight, but it goes silent suddenly. The boss is approaching. All the bosses at all the posts look suspiciously alike as if they all had a special subject at school: rules for police-boss behavior.

They’re always dressed better than the others, but never in uniform. The relationship between the boss and his soldiers recalls that between a grandee and his vassals. He often sits at a desk somewhere in the shade if it’s daytime, or inside if it’s night. If he wants to smoke someone takes out a cigarette and gives it to him, and someone else lights it; if he gets thirsty yet another guy goes running for a Pepsi. The boss accepts these services as his due, with a self-important and arrogant look. It all reminds me of kids playing at being king. One sits on the throne while all the others serve him. Until someone thinks up a coup.

The boss often knows English. But this doesn’t really help us come to any understanding. This time too he commands:

“A bus is on the way, you’re going to Luxor.”

But Luxor lies behind me, I’ve just left the city.

“I’m not going to Luxor, I’m going to Aswan.”

“No, you’re taking the bus to Luxor!”

“I don’t need a bus, I need a free car.”

“There are no free cars!”

“So how do you think I got to Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt from Russia?”

The boss has no answer for this and after giving his subordinates some kind of orders he leaves. The soldiers look at me with sympathy, expressing clearly that they’d be happy to help but do not have the authority to act against the will of their boss.

Like an enormous hedgehog with splayed spines, swaying from side to side, a tractor comes crawling by, its trailer filled with sugarcane.

I point to the treat:

“Oh!”

One of the soldiers tears off, still holding his gun, catches up to the tractor, yanks off a piece of cane and starts peeling it vigorously with his teeth on the way back. Pleased, he offers me a piece of the white sugarcane which I take right away. The policemen and soldiers watch me attentively like nannies pleased they have a treat for their “charge.”

Suddenly, an empty tour bus appears and generously takes me on board for free. Before boarding I turn back to my automatic-weapon-bearing yardkeepers:

“Shukran! Masalyam! — Thank you! Good-bye!”

“Masalyam!” They yell after me waving.

But the game heads in a new direction every time.

I’ve never been kicked out of a car before, though this didn’t prevent the policeman leaning in the driver’s window from interrogating him tediously and at length about how a foreign woman got into his vehicle, where she is going and… At one point I suddenly started speaking loudly in Arabic:

“Mafi mushkele! Tammam! Yelle, yelle!” — There’s no problem! Everything’s fine! Let’s go, let’s go!”

The discouraged policeman didn’t know what to do with a foreign woman unexpectedly speaking Arabic and he had to let us go.

Afterwards I learned to cover my face with my hand as we approached the police posts. When the policemen see only a headscarf they obviously take me for a local woman.

Sometimes I break the rules shamelessly.

With a firm stride I walk past the post towards the road and the unknown. For the first few seconds, the policemen can’t believe their eyes. Then they wake up and start calling to me:

“Hey! Ma’am!”

I don’t turn round, I keep looking ahead and imperceptibly increase my speed heading towards a saving turn I can see lying ahead. Just a few more steps and… The voices grow quiet, I disappear from the soldiers’ field of vision and they evidently decide I’m merely a vision not to be chased down. They probably just repeat to themselves: “Auzu bi lliakhi min ash-shaiti radzhim — I turn to the Lord away from sly Satan.”

But the “cat” doesn’t always let the “mouse” go so easily.

One time I walked past a post under cover of dense night. But slightly further on I ran into an ambush: a patrol car on the side of the road. I decided to convince the two policemen who came leaping out that I did not in fact exist. Not responding to their cries I proudly and fearlessly moved off into the darkness. But when I decided I was already safe the timid hum of a motor came from behind. Turning back I saw that a police van filled to bursting with policemen and soldiers was creeping along behind me in first gear.

Knowing that I had no chance I nevertheless kept going, choking with laughter. Finally, I decided to have mercy and stop. The policemen came pouring out onto the road and began moving towards me cautiously while I held onto my sides chortling and swaying rhythmically to and fro. After a few seconds of extreme confusion, finally some of them became infected with my laughter and smiles flickered to life on their faces one by one like streetlights in twilight. I laughed out loud wiping away tears from my eyes.

The posts in Egypt are located every fifty kilometers; it seems I managed to spend time at all of them. Each post has between five and thirty policemen and soldiers. No enemy could sneak past them. At least, no foreign girl with a backpack, that much is for sure. As for the rest, inshallah — as God wills it.

On the road by the posts there are barrels standing like chess pieces; cars can’t get past the posts at top speed because they have to navigate between the barrels. This rusty dented barrel, painted in the colors of the Egyptian flag, is none other than a symbol of Egyptian statehood.

You can draw conclusions as to the military preparedness of the menacing forces of Egyptian law and order from the uniforms alone: ill-fitting pants coming apart at the seams, boots with scuffed backs, sweaters stained with foul.

At the post in the village of Baris the policemen call me into their concrete shelter with one wall missing. They pour sweet cane syrup out of a plastic bottle into a metal bowl. Everyone breaks off a piece of white bread and dips it into the syrup which drips onto the ground, their pants and sweaters.

“Khalas! — I’m done!” I pat my belly.

“Le? — Why?” They push the bowl towards me suggesting that I eat more.

It’s no wonder that tiny little Israel took over the whole Sinai Peninsula in just a few days. These guys are brilliantly sloppy and, it seems, utterly unsuited to do battle.

A van shows up at the post near Baris and agrees to take me. Five kilometers later, though, I get stopped at the next post. And when I’m all ready to start making a fuss they explain to me that I forgot my map at the last post and they radioed ahead and asked them to hold us. Ten minutes later my familiar policemen come driving up to return what I’d forgotten.

“Shorta mushkele? — Police problems?” they ask handing me the map and remembering my recent complaints.

I smile without saying anything acknowledging my error.

The van takes me away while the policemen line up on the road and wave goodbye to me. Their guns swing uselessly at their sides bringing to mind little boys who have run and played all day and are tired; now their mothers will stick their heads out the window and call them home. We had a good time playing. It was awfully fun. Too bad we have to finish the game and part ways. But maybe not forever.

One more familiar faith

I leave Aswan in darkness again. What am I looking for with night coming on? The moon lies in the velvety dark sky with horns raised. It feel tired, lie down and admire the stars probably thinking about something personal. The moon is lying down! I can’t tell whether it’s waxing or waning the way I could if I were looking at the moon in my own country. In Russia the moon is always on guard, always standing up, while here it’s lying down. I tear myself away from it but I keep looking up to check if it’s still reclining.

The tall dark-green grass ripples by the roadside, playing with the warm southern breeze. Where will I spend the night? The cars don’t notice me in the darkness and if they do see me they are just surprised. Aswan is a tourist city and the drivers probably think that I need an expensive comfortable tour bus.

All the same, an old car slows down. There’s a whole family inside: mama, papa, a fourteen-year-old daughter and nine-year-old little boy. The women don’t have headscarves, so they must be Christians. I wonder which kind they are this time. The girl speaks English, putting together the words memorized for dictation with difficulty.

“You’re Christians?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Orthodox or Catholic?”

They have a hard time answering, searching for the right words.

“Protestants?” I guess.

“Yes,” answers the girl.

So now I have met with representatives of all three main Christian confessions. I give my usual answer to the question of where I will spend the night: “In my tent.” The father falls into obviously perplexed thought. Finally, they decide to take me to their village church, where the elder will most likely allow me to spend the night.

“You see,” the head of the family explains, “we’re forbidden to invite foreigners into our homes.”

“Of course, of course,” I reassure him.

It’s clear that his perplexity continues. From the back seat, where I’m sitting next to the boy and girl, I can see the mother’s concentrated profile fixed on the father. He probably feels this profile too even if he can’t see it. The mother says something gently to the father and he turns towards me.

“But we’d still like to invite you to our house if you don’t mind, of course.”

“I’d be delighted!”

No perplexity remains, the tense atmosphere disappears. The mother, son and daughter all start talking at once, laughing. The father happily speeds up.

“What do you usually eat for supper?” At the house, the girl translates her father’s question.

“Whatever there is.”

In the middle of the living room, at a big table covered with a white tablecloth is a large platter of hamburgers (god knows where they came from!) We fold our hands and pray. The father thanks the Lord for having brought me to their home and asks that He show them the important message they are meant to convey to me.

The next morning, when I’m already leaving, the father hands me a slightly worn book with a colorful cover.

“This is the New Testament in English,” the girl explains.

“I’ve been dreaming of having a copy.”

I’d given away my own copy a few days ago to that Orthodox woman in Luxor, the one who took me in and treated me to sweet sugarcane at the campfire.

The road from southern Egypt to Cairo seems to run alongside one long endless village. For this reason every time I get out of a car I find myself in the thick of Egyptian life.

“Hello! How are you?” Little boys yell to me from their village cart hitched to a donkey.

“Where you go?” A group of young men walk up to me in business-like fashion.

Often someone invites me over for a cup of tea, worries that I’m hungry. They exchange e-mail addresses with me and promise to write.

The police keep refusing to let me on my way, consult with each other for a long time before finally cranking up their dark-blue clunker: it has two seats up front for the driver and one more person, then a little truck-bed behind with no doors and wooden benches. Despite their insistence, I throw my backpack in the back. My attendants sit down next to me. I pick up a stick of sugarcane from the floor and start awkwardly peeling it with my teeth. One of the policemen takes it from me and in a few seconds hands back a white piece all prepared. I gulp down the sweet juice looking back at the palms bordering the grey road behind us. Or the road ahead?

Conclusion

It’s ten minutes walk from my friends’ place in Tahrir to the airport-bound bus. What a shame it’s so short. I get the crazy idea of shaking the hand of every Egyptian in the city. But you can’t shake hands with all eighteen million.

They’re about to announce the flight. I understand that it’s almost impossible to leave. Can you really leave paradise so easily? Can you say: “Thanks for everything but it’s time for me to go… I have stuff to do at home.”

Of course I have stuff to do. Important and necessary stuff. But how can you leave paradise? A place where you are surrounded with tender care twenty-four hours a day. Where it’s impossible to feel lonely for even a second. Where people give you gift after gift with selfless and sincere warmth and goodness. Where the sky does not abandon you in daytime, shining with clear blueness, or night, showering you with sparkling gems whose weight you can sense even if you can’t touch them.

Where does this all come from? What did I do to deserve this?

When I left home exactly one month ago, and set off into the world, I left more than just my familiar comfortable home, my warm bed and regular meals, I also left the ubiquitous striving to plan, calculate and organize everything in my life the way I think it should be, the way I think would be best. But nothing at home had ever worked out the way it had during this month on the road. Why?

Here on the road, I stood in the dark on a path made through the snow in the outskirts of Erzurum, or near the rustling reeds of Aswan, bearing eloquent evidence of the roadside swamp, and I didn’t know where I would spend the night, whether there would be any supper after a whole day of active movement; whether I would be safe. I didn’t and could not know. I couldn’t organize or plan anything. As a last resort, I would turn round to ask. And He Whom I asked would delightedly extend hands filled with gifts to me — hands He Himself was tired of holding back. These hands are always extended, and I turn to them so rarely. And no wonder because I’m not used to being in paradise.

I’d travelled so much before. I’d accepted these gifts so many times before. But never before had they been so generous. Why?

Well, because they aren’t going to just fall on your head from the sky. They need hands into which He places them. Here, in these countries I’d gone through, I could see for myself how open palms were raised five times a day in order to accept and fulfill His will. You know this will when you give yourself entirely into His hands.

But it’s time for me to finish my story.

March — November 2009

Translated by Ainsley Morse & Mihaela Pacurar