My guidebook says that tickets for trains to “Upper Egypt” can be purchased at a window somewhere past platform eleven. It’s called “Upper Egypt” even though it’s south of the rest of Egypt, which must be “Lower Egypt”. It must be a British thing, which I guess makes it sort of cool – Canada was once divided the same way. The lack of signage makes finding platform eleven harder than it really needs to be. Lucky for me, the Arabic symbol for the number eleven is pretty close to the Latin. I say this not completely comfortable that “11” is actually Latin, but I know it isn’t Roman, so I’ll go with it.
It turns out to be outside the main hall, though thankfully still partially covered by the roof, which keeps the sun from boring any deeper into my skull. One side of the platform fronts – as most train platforms do – train tracks, the other is a wall with a row of thirteen small ticket windows covered with bars. In front of each window stands a line of people waiting. It all looks fairly straightforward so far.
The lines being all more or less equal in length, I get into the second one from the left. The people around me in the various lines run the gamut of Egyptian fashion. Young men wear “western” style clothes, though they only really seem western because they resemble school uniforms – dark pleated trousers, white, slightly threadbare button-downs and thin ties bought too big some years ago, that they are now finally filling out; middle-aged women in black and gold hejabs exert an unspoken discipline over their children; older men and some of the boys appear poor but dignified in their crisp dishdashas – a light cotton garment that starts out at the neck as a tab-collared shirt and ends as a night gown. The idea of airflow between one’s legs intrigues me, but the lack of pockets is worrying.
I need to figure out if I’m in the right line, so I decide to ask the woman in front of me. “Pardon me,” I say as politely as I know how, trying to get her attention, but not daring to tap her on the shoulder. She turns around and looks at me. To my mind she is a vision of the 1950’s: a longish knit skirt paired with a long sleeved silk blouse and a hejab that smartly compliments the skirt, the leather straps of her purse are looped over her shoulder hugging the purse itself close up under her arm, and at her feet a matching suitcase that looks much too small to carry what any present-day person would need for a weekend. “Pardon me,” I say again now that I have here attention. I pronounce “pardon” with a sort of French inflection since this seems to give the word it’s most universal currency. I pair it with the word “Luxor,” which I don’t know quite how to pronounce at all, so I simply over-enunciate. I throw in a shoulder shrug while opening my palms to her, and raising the pitch of the last syllable in the hope of conveying a question. She says nothing, nor does her expression change in a meaningful way. I repeat, “Luxor?” shrugging, raising my eyebrows, and generally hamming it up like a Mexican gameshow host. She continues to stare at me unmoved until finally she smiles faintly, nods and turns back around.
This is not at all the confirmation I was looking for. I turn to the man behind me; he is middle aged with heavily-lidded eyes and drags on a cigarette while impatiently tapping a worn loafer on the floor. “Luxor?” I try again this time adding pointing at the ticket window at the front of the line. He lets his eyes fall shut and exhales slowly like someone with a headache before replying, “no, tickets to Luxor are over that way.”
I thank him a turn around remembering what Kent or his friend told me on the bus the day before. According to them, in Egypt you always ask someone in front of you whether you are in the right line. This is because the people behind you will invariably tell you that you are not, in order to get you to leave your spot, and allow them to advance. This is a bit of a dilemma, as the guy behind me –despite appearing to be annoyed by the sight of me – seemed to know what he was talking about, and the woman in front, who nodded at my question, looked at me like I was insane. I decide to stay the course fully ready to hate and glare at the guy behind me if it turns out I am in the right line.
Forty-five minutes later, instead of glaring I nod sheepishly at him, as the ticket agent points me further down the row of lines when I ask for a ticket to Luxor. Unfortunately, he is unable or unwilling to tell me just how far down the platform the line for tickets to Luxor is, and being too embarrassed to ask the guy behind me, I am left to guess again.
I decide to give the second line from the end a try. There’s no real reason behind my choice, other than that the last one seems too obvious. None of the lines is significantly shorter than any other. In fact, there seems to be an uncannily equal distribution in the flow of human traffic to various destinations in Egypt. The man in front of me is a bit shorter than me and much older. He is almost bald except for thick, grey sideburns which continue, curving up above his ears and around the back of his head where they eventually connect. At some point I suppose they cease to be sideburns and become simply hair, but honestly the distinction is blurry in his case. It gives him a fast, sleek look that doesn’t go with his belly. He reminds me of Sadat, if Sadat had lived to be that old. I realize it’s probably insulting for every Arab to remind me of the handful I’ve seen on television, but the guy honestly looks like Sadat. I don’t even wan to tell you about he guy I eventually see behind the ticket window, how he’s a dead ringer for Quadaffi, but I swear if you saw him you’d think so too. This encounter is still a painful ways off, though, as I’m still at the end of the line. Thankfully, I don’t have much of a mental picture of Mubarik, so there is no chance of anyone resembling him – same goes for Naguib Mafouz.
I ask Sadat if I’m in the right line much the way I asked the others. He doesn’t say anything, just looks me up and down curiously while he mops perspiration from his forehead with a light blue handkerchief. This strikes me as damn good idea – much better than using your sleeve, as I’ve been doing – and I make a note to buy one. I think about asking him where exactly to buy one, as there is undoubtedly a handkerchief street, or district in Cairo where one goes to buy handkerchiefs and nowhere else, but just the thought of trying to pantomime the question causes more sweat to bead on my forehead. Finally, he responds with an answer that roughly mirrors the question: “Luxor?” he says, pointing at me, and hiking his curiously dark eyebrows up on his forehead.
“Si, Luxor,” I answer somehow slipping into Spanish, I’m trying so hard to communicate. “I mean, yes, yes, Luxor,” I nod like an idiot.
“Luxor,” he says again, but this time no longer as a question, and points further down the platform. It seems I am once again in the wrong line.
Looking for some further guidance, I ask again, “Luxor?” Only this time I add a point to the line next to ours and follow it with a quick “or” – a word that suddenly seems far too short – and another pointing motion, this one sort of like a jump shot arching up over the line next to us, and falling obviously (hopefully) into the line beyond it. Mr. Sadat looks confused, so I take another jump shot for him putting even more arc and spin on it, following through, my wrist extending to make sure the shot comes safely back to earth. He mutters something and looks a little annoyed, then he picks up the cardboard box tied with twine that is sitting at his feet and takes me by the arm saying, “Luxor.” I continue nodding not knowing what the hell he’s doing. Finally he deposits me in a queue three lines down the platform. Releasing my arm, he points at the ground and then up through the line toward the window and says with finality, “Luxor.”
I have found the line for tickets to Luxor! The sense of accomplishment at just finding the line is so great, I wonder how it might feel to actually go there. I smile at the little man and he smiles back; I can’t “sukran” him enough, and he “afwan’s” my every attempt. I think about telling him how he reminds me of Sadat, but think it might spoil a good thing. “Welcome to Egypt,” he says with a thick accent as he turns to resume his place in line for Alexandria, or Aswan, or Aleppo, or wherever his line is going.
Half an hour later the satisfaction of being in the correct line has more or less been replaced by an irritation at my lack of progress toward the window. The line has doubled in length and among those now strung out behind me I notice an American couple – or perhaps they are Canadians, as I know from experience that Americans certainly don’t own the franchise on ridiculousness. They are dressed from head to toe in Arab, Bedouin clothing. While I can’t help looking at them, I try not to make eye contact lest I might have to interact; I find them appalling. The man looks to be in his forties with reddish hair and bristling moustache. He’s short with a bit of a gut, which even his crisp, white robe doesn’t conceal. His glasses are thick with the heavy gold wire rims favored by engineers, software developers, or certain members of the Coast Guard. The woman is plain and fairly non-descript, and I don’t think it’s just the Bedouin getup. Her hair is mousey brown and a single thick braid snakes out from under her hejab down to the middle of her back. She wears similar glasses and clutches a hardbound book under her arm complete with a green-tassled bookmark. She is three quarters of the way through either the bible, a translation of the Quran, or a fantasy novel. If I had someone to bet against, I’d take the fantasy novel. They both wear leather sandals with white socks, white Bedouin robes and a hejab for her and a kafeyah for him. Besides looking ridiculous on a couple of tourists and rather out of place in Cairo, their outfits have a certain gift shop quality. Looking at them gives me the embarrassed feeling I would have if I ran across a family of tourists in full mariachi regalia walking the streets of Mexico City, or touring Amsterdam in wooden shoes.
I’m not the only one wondering about these two. Egyptians all around me are sneaking quick, embarrassed glances at these two freaks dressed like Lawrence of Arabia in the Cairo train station. A few people behind the pasty pretenders, stands a rather tall man also in Bedouin garb. While he also looks a little out of place in the train station, there is no question of the authenticity of his attire – white dishdasha buttoned to the throat, a red and white checkered kafiyeh held in place with the thick black cord that looks like a coiled bicycle inner-tube, and sunglasses. The sunglasses and his thick, dark moustache make him look straight out of Hollywood, and I picture him racing Burt Reynolds and Dom Delouise across the country in a black limousine.
I imagine he is himself a tourist, maybe from Jordan or Saudi Arabia – I saw a few other guys in similar dress wandering around the lobby of the Nile Hilton. But he looks a little more working class. He didn’t shave today, and the small beads of sweat on his forehead make me feel better about the rivulets running down mine. He is staring at the two tourists in front of him, and he doesn’t look happy.
“Hey,” he calls to them in surprisingly lightly accented English, “hey, man.” The tourists continue to look obliviously around, an irritating serenity on both their faces. “Hey, I’m talking to you, man.” Finally, the irritated man catches the eye of the male, electrical engineer looking tourist who smiles his irritating, serene smile back at him. “Where are you from?” The tourist continues to smile and simply nods. “Where are you from?” The irritated man is becoming visibly more irritated. I am loving this.
“Here,” answers the tourist, his wife or girlfriend now joining him facing the irritated man.
“Here? You’re from Egypt?” The irritated man looks puzzled, then irritated again. “No, where do you come from? You American?”
“Yes, but we’re living here now.”
“You’re living here in Cairo?” This is blowing the irritated man’s mind.
“Yes, right now.” He smiles throwing in a “Salam haleyekum”
“You speak Arabic?”
The tourist answers with a word of Arabic that is beyond my fifteen word vocabulary, and his wife, not to be outdone throws down an entire phrase. Whatever it is she said, it seems to have taken a bit of the edge off of the irritated man. This disappoints me.
“Why do you wear Arab clothes? Is it some kind of joke?” I’m thinking he’s getting his edge back.
“No, no – we like them. They’re comfortable.”
“Why do you wear them?” asks the woman.
“I am Arab, these are my clothes.”
“We are Arab too – we want to be.”
“You want to be Arabs? Why do you want to be Arabs?”
“We like the culture.” The woman adds something in Arabic that seems to please the irritated man. “Where are you from?” She asks him.
“Me, I am from Syria.”
“We have been to Damascus,” reports the tourist.
“You have seen Damascus?”
“Yes,” the woman assures him and again adds some Arabic.
“I live in Damascus!” The irritated man smiles and no longer looks irritated. “You are Christian?”
“We are Muslim.”
The irritated man looks puzzled again. “Muslim?”
“Yes,” the tourist answers again saying something in Arabic. Soon they are talking like old friends of the sights of Damascus, and the irritated man has invited them to his house. I am now the most irritated man in the line.
As the line finally begins to inch forward, my attention is thankfully shifted away from Cat Stevens and his wife behind me chatting with the formerly irritated man, who is now quite pleasant, and back to the window still far ahead of me. I’d like to tell you something interesting happens in the next three hours, but it would be a lie. Time becomes geologic as the temperature slowly climbs and, I shuffle toward the ticket window at the speed of a fucking glacier.
When I am at last close enough to the front to witness the transactions taking place, I see a great deal of discussion and what looks like debate before much of anything happens – much more than simply handing over cash for tickets. Breathlessly long sentences, and wild gestures on the part of prospective rail customers are met with an arms-crossed impassiveness from the man behind the bars, who simply shakes his head or nods at whatever it is they are saying. It seems that before buying a ticket you have to convince him that you deserve one.
When my turn comes, though hardly able to stand anymore, I am ready to approach the exchange like a fencing match. I make a slight, deferential bow of my head, smile and say, “Merhaba, Salam halayekum,” and then, in my best slightly accented English, the opening move: “I would like to buy a ticket to Luxor.”
The man looks at me with what I take to be disdain, and says in a voice I can only just hear, “moment,” before sliding a small piece of wood in front of the opening at the bottom of the iron grate through which, hopefully, tickets and money will at some point be passed. Time for a smoke break, he steps back and lights one, never taking his eyes off me.
I could smoke a pack in the time this guy takes to get through one cigarette, and I don’t smoke. He stands leaning against an old filing cabinet, his hair hanging in dark ringlets like bunches of grapes over his oversized, gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses that make him look like a cross between Muhmar Quadaffi and a Mexican Federale, raising and lowering his cigarette to and from his mouth in an achingly slow motion. What is obviously already an immensely pleasurable experience for him seems enhanced by the fact that he is causing me and everyone behind me to suffer in the heat.
About the time the ticket clerk’s cigarette has burned halfway down, a rather small young man appears beside me and smiles. “Hello,” he says, still smiling, “just one moment, O.K.?”
I smile back and answer, “O.K.,” not really knowing what I am agreeing to. It’s easier when they build the desired response into the question. The small man then quickly squeezes into the small space between where I am standing and the ticket window. It isn’t really enough room for a person to occupy in the lines I’m used to, say at the bank, or the post office, or grocery checkout, but he seems content with it. Instinctively I step back, and onto the toes of the person behind me in an effort to give him what seems to me an appropriate amount of room. He presses his face to the bars and makes an inquiry of the ticket clerk, still smoking against the file cabinet. Whatever they are discussing requires lengthy explanations by the small young man, and simple shakes of the head or nods by the clerk. The small man fills his tiny space with shrugs and hand gestures until he is eventually satisfied. Then he smiles at me again and says, “thank you.”
“Sure,” I nod and smile back, “no problem.” He disappears down the platform. Within seconds there is another man, a little bigger than the first, at my elbow. He holds up his index finger and says, “moment.” Apparently he needs just one moment. “O.K.?” he asks.
“O.K.” I nod. It’s just one moment after all. Like the small man before him, he squeezes in front of me and talks with the clerk. Again the clerk looks unmoved, but eventually the man fishes a small wad of bills out of his breast pocket and slides it through the bars. Finally, the clerk abandons his slouch, walks over to a desk, picks up a small piece of paper, and hands it back through the bars to the man. The man thanks me, and I’m a little confused when the clerk goes back to his smoke break rather than help me. The now departed man is immediately replaced by another who steps into the void in front of me with a simple warm smile. Before he has even completed his transaction another man appears on the other side of me smiling and ready to slide in when the slot is vacant.
Asking a quick question of the clerk while he’s on his smoke break is one thing, but these guys are buying tickets and it’s annoying me. In this, of course, I am not alone. The shifting, sighing and grumbling behind me has grown audible over the ambient din of the station.
When another fellow appears at my right side, smiles and raises a finger in what has become the universal symbol for “I’m going to cut in front of you now,” I shake my head “no”. It makes no difference, I have become the portal to the front of the line. The man ignores me and, still smiling politely, slips in front of me. Two more men appear on either side of me. I hear yelling behind me and turn around quickly to see the angry man from Damascus’s red face. “Stop letting people go in front of you!” he screams.
“I’m trying,” I answer, a little put off by his anger directed at me. Cat Stevens and his wife mutter something to the angry Syrian man, they all being close friends by now, and shoot me glares filled with daggers. I want to rip the fucker’s smagh off his head dress and strangle him with it. Word has now gotten around Ramses station that the fastest way to get things done is through me, and there are small lines forming on either side.
I’m trying to stop what I somehow let start, but it’s impossible. I grab hold of the bars on either side of the window turning my arms into the human equivalent of a velvet rope cordoning off the window. This has virtually no effect – the line crashers simply duck under them. There are now two of them in front of me and I’m starting to be pushed back away from the window. I tighten my grip on the bars and start using my elbows to block, or knock heads as they attempt to duck under. There is a surge of pressure from behind me that keeps me from losing any more ground.
It is said you can tell a lot about a culture by its lines[1]. Basically, there are two kinds of people: chaotic and orderly. According to this theory, the Japanese are order people, and know it. The same goes for the Germans. Trouble seems to come, as it always does, in cases of dissonance. For example, Americans and British think they are order people, but are in fact chaos people. Being, as I mentioned before, technically Canadian I’m not sure where I register culturally on the spectrum, which probably makes me as Canadian as anything else about me. Worst, the theory goes, are the French who believe that they are chaos people, but are in fact, deep down, order people who love a good line as much as the Japanese or the Germans. Up until about a minute and half ago, it appeared that the Egyptians were quite fond of orderly lines. I have uncovered their national secret.
The chaos instincts are taking over, and it will simply be a matter of moments before my line disintegrates around me, followed shortly by the lines next to it, and those next to them, etc. rippling out like a shockwave from my epicenter of stupidity. I have probably unwittingly sparked the revolution that has been simmering in this country since sometime after Nasser. I’m sorry.
I do the only thing left to do: with the help and strength of the fifty or so line-loyalists still behind me, I hurl my body against the bars of the window making it impossible for anyone to transact business between myself and the bars. Surprisingly, or not, it works. People to the sides of me are reduced to trying to reach around or over me, but I am too big, I cover too much of the window to allow for any meaningful communication between them and the ticket man. Gradually the clusters of people at my sides dissipate, and I am left pressed up against the bars staring at the ticket man out of the one eye that can see him. He is finished his cigarette at long last, and is now gathering himself to resume his duties, and face me. I think he realizes, that as much as he may wish it, I am not going away. In fact, as much as I may wish it, I can’t go away. I’m being held up against the bars by the not oppressive, but steady pressure of those behind me, like a leaf on a drain.
After what I suspect seems like a longer time than it actually is, the man steps forward and slides the piece of wood away from the opening in the bars, looking at me as if he’s never laid eyes on me before. “I would like a ticket to Luxor, please,” I more or less gasp. He considers me a moment, then exhales the final lungful of smoke, tipping his head back in a sigh as if he has just finished having sex in the middle of the afternoon, and simply shakes his head.
“What do you mean?” No answer. “I want to buy a ticket to Luxor for three days from now.
He shakes his head again, and says softly with a slight shrug, “complet.”
“Complet?!”
He shrugs, puckering his lips, and nods. What the hell does “complet” mean? “Yes, complet, full.” He says “full” in a way that sounds suspiciously like “fool.”
“What about the next day?”
“Complet.”
“Complet?”
“Yes, full.”
“The day after that?”
“Full”
“What about tomorrow?”
“Complet.”
“The day after tomorrow?”
“Complet.”
“So, it sounds like everything is pretty much complet, then?”
He nods. It bothers me that he isn’t typing a hundred and fifty characters into a computer the way the airline people do whenever you ask them about an aisle seat. There isn’t even a computer anywhere to be seen. He could have checked a book at least. I stand there, eyeing him coolly and consider my next move. And, considering that I have no next move, I slide out from in front of the window. The crowd behind me relaxes, grateful to be rid of me. I don’t look up at Cat Stevens, his wife, or the angry man from Damascus as I pass, but I can hear them chatting enthusiastically about mutton. I hate them.
[1] For a much better discussion of this, and a much better travelogue, see Tom Bissell’s work. I’d give you the exact cite, but I can’t remember it – just trust me this observation was lifted straight from him.