The Cairo Codex (4 page)

The Cairo airport was not what Justine remembered. The walkways were still a drab off-white, made even duller by dim fluorescent lighting. But there were quasi-lines this time, and an almost orderly check of passports and visas. On the periphery, young men in unfashionable suits and worn briefcases jockeyed for a place in line while a few women fully covered in black burqas milled around with small children in tow. Male family members steered them toward passport windows.

Justine offered her passport to the customs officer and smiled as he cheerfully said, “Welcome to Egypt . . .Welcome back to Egypt, Miss,” noting the earlier Egyptian stamps that she had retained in her passport despite having obtaining a new one.

“
Shukran
, thank you,” she replied, surprised that her Arabic returned quickly, as though she had put on an old record, one her mother had played for her as a child. She eased back into the crowd, surveying the people ahead, looking for her host. As she scanned the group of greeters just beyond the rope, she spotted the sign—
DR. JUSTINE JENNER
written in large block print. A middle-aged woman with a head of wild, graying hair held the sign with both hands, a bulky leather purse dangling over her right shoulder. Wide-set black eyes and shaggy brows crowned a deeply tan face with small lips. Sensible black shoes protruded from under a dark blue skirt.
Just as I had imagined her.

“Nadia. Nadia Mansour,” Justine cried out, waving her free hand. The two women had been in touch by e-mail and by phone on several occasions after Justine applied for the position with UNESCO, but this was the first time they’d met in person. Nadia was the Director of the Community Schools for Girls project and a part-time professor at the American University of Cairo. She would be Justine’s supervisor. Her gregarious personality had seeped through their earlier communications.

“
Inshallah
, you’re still in one piece,” Nadia observed.

Justine laughed as she reached for Nadia’s outstretched hand. “Dr. Mansour, I’m delighted to finally meet you!” she said, struggling to keep her carryons from sliding off her shoulder.

Nadia gripped her arm, steering her toward the luggage area. “You have a reservation at the Shepheard and your Garden City apartment will be ready when Allah sees fit,” she said. “But first, we’ll tackle the luggage.”

They stood and watched as an avalanche of motley bags tumbled out from behind a black leather curtain, some tied with ropes, others merely taped-up boxes filled with T-shirts, baby clothes, and plastic shoes intended for sale in the street markets of Cairo.

“See those bags?” Nadia pointed to the ragged assortment of containers. “A metaphor for modern Egypt: tied together haphazardly, containing Western goods brought in by eager entrepreneurs, products for all ages, all sneaking out from behind a black curtain. Our primitive economy.”

Justine laughed at the honest observation. She attempted to respond over the cacophony of voices, but when she realized she couldn’t be heard without shouting, she simply stepped forward and pulled her new luggage and cardboard boxes from the carousel.

Nadia picked up one of the suitcases and handed it to a waiting porter in old sandals and a flowing kaftan. “My car is just across the street!” she shouted, leading the way. The porter followed them across two lanes of traffic, pushing a squealing cart that carried Justine’s luggage and two boxes of books wrapped and tied neatly with dark green cords. “Taxis are no longer allowed directly into the airport, so traffic here has improved,” Nadia said, pointing toward her car. “My air conditioning doesn’t work. Sorry.”

Justine attempted to open the car door. The handle swung loose in her hand. “I’ll get that,” Nadia grinned, reaching across the passenger seat and opening the door from inside. “Better take off that cute jacket.”

Justine obediently removed her blue linen jacket and laid it neatly in the backseat. “How long into town?” she asked.
I hope I can survive this heat. I didn’t realize it would be quite so smoldering in April.

“Everything you remember about Cairo . . . traffic, size, pollution . . . just double it,” said Nadia, settling into her ancient Renault. “Today it could take a couple of hours to get downtown. Five million more people since you were here last, and I swear, they all have a car!” She handed Justine a bottle of warm Evian.

Justine couldn’t help smiling at Nadia’s capacity to be tolerant and exasperated at the same time. “Where does the British accent come from?” she asked.

“I attended a British school as a child. Even though the revolution was ten years old, my mother insisted: ‘You can never tell when those British colonists will come back and reclaim our land. Be prepared.’ That was 1962.”

“Prepare for all eventualities. Sounds like my parents, although each of them had their own notions of preparedness. My father is American and my mother’s Egyptian. Turned out to be an unworkable combination.”

“Your parents are celebrities of a sort here. Your father’s digs are as notorious as your mother’s beauty.” Nadia stopped at a booth to pay the airport fee, then jammed the Renault into gear, causing it to lurch forward.

Justine reached down for a seat belt that wasn’t there. “Notorious? That sounds romantic, but a bit ominous.”

“Well, some of your father’s discoveries have been controversial—like the dig at Darshur. I understand that a few questions remain within the Ministry of Antiquities and among the expats. I believe I was working with the Education Ministry at the time.” Nadia paid close attention to the traffic, her head swiveling back and forth, as she turned out of the airport and onto Sharia Al Uruba Boulevard, a street lined with symmetrical, towering palms.

“What have you heard? About Darshur.” Justine leaned forward and reached back to pull her damp silk blouse loose from her skin. Suburban Cairo gave way to the City of the Sun, Heliopolis. Polished chrome storefronts housed glitzy shoe stores and boutiques facing east toward giant hotels.

“I really don’t know the details, but it’s rumored that the Darshur find may have challenged exactly how the biblical exodus happened. As you can imagine, anti-Semitism is still strong enough here that some people savor any suggestion of fraud around the Jews’ favorite story. It raised quite a row for a while.”

“Dad told me the evidence wasn’t strong enough to claim validity. He likes to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. Personally, I think it’s a non-story.”

Nadia tilted her head slightly and pursed her thin lips. Justine couldn’t tell whether she believed her or not. She suspected not. “And my mother? What made her notorious?”

“Her beauty. Her flamboyance. Her ability to gather fascinating people around her. Your mother’s parties attracted royalty and important government officials. I gather that your father would have preferred to stay out of the limelight.”

“Sounds like Dad. He doesn’t like to mix business and pleasure. And he doesn’t consider himself socially suave—but I think he’s wrong there. Women seem to find him dashing. But how could you possibly know so much about my parents?”

“Cairo’s a small town. Nearly eighteen million souls and yet we all know each other’s business, especially English-speaking professionals. Sort of a class by ourselves, huddling together for reassurance and inspiration and gossip. We love gossip.” Nadia was still grinning when her cell phone rang. “Okay.
Shukran
. This afternoon across from the Shepheard.” She hung up and slipped the phone back into her skirt pocket.

Justine was mulling over Nadia’s notions about her parents and Cairo culture when she noticed the Baron’s Palace set back a few hundred yards from the street. “I vividly remember the night of the ambassador’s ball at that palace,” she said, pointing toward the ornate, Gaudí-like building. “I was only ten, but they let me tag along in my long blue dress. I was awestruck. But now you can hardly make out the elaborate exterior of Buddhas, elephants. Serpents too, I think.”

“It may return to its former glory soon. It’s being renovated. But don’t be too impressed by any of the façades along this boulevard. Go a block in either direction and the city is still the same.”

Nothing is ever quite as it seems, or as it is written, in Egypt.
“Tell me about the schools.” Justine understood Egyptian protocol: never move into business straightaway, ease into it like a warm bath.

“We’re really pleased with the project so far! The girls are learning so fast, as though they were born ready and waiting. Well . . . I suppose they were,” Nadia said. “And you, how did you find out about us?”

“My dad suggested I check out the State Department website and that’s when I found out about your new UNESCO project. To work with such a pioneering effort in girls’ education, and in Cairo, no less—it’s exciting to return here with my own job.”

“Good fatherly advice.” Nadia swerved to avoid an aggressive bus. “We’re excited to get you. With your training in anthropology, interest in women’s studies, and knowledge of Arabic, you were made for the job.” Beads of perspiration glowed around Nadia’s tiny mouth. They were both reluctant to open the windows to the onslaught of exhaust and noise, so the car was a virtual oven.

“I imagine that hiring an anthropologist for an education project isn’t the norm . . .” Justine let the words linger in the suffocating air.

“No, it isn’t. I had to do some fast talking. Tradition can be as firmly rooted in the U.N. as it is in the countries they serve. And in this case, we have to consider both UNESCO and the Egyptian ministries. But we can talk in more detail in the morning, when you’re rested––and we’re both cooler.”

I wonder what kind of opposition I’ll face, particularly among those who resisted hiring me?
“Fine with me. My mind and questions will be clearer after a rest.” She took a packet of Kleenex from her purse, handed one to Nadia, and pressed another to her perspiring forehead and upper lip.
What I would give for a bottle of cold water
, she thought, sipping the warm water Nadia had given her.

As she leaned back, she noticed how little green could be seen, even surrounding the palm trees. Abandoned by the rich floodwaters of the Nile more than half a century ago, when the Aswan Dam was built, ancient fields of green had been replaced by a vast coverlet of concrete. The car descended the flyover onto Sharia Ramses and Ramses Square, and Justine quickly recognized the ornate blue and white train station, a sign that they were getting close to the center of Cairo.

“Tahrir Square is coming up,” announced Nadia. Within moments, they approached the world-famous Egyptian Museum on their right and merged into the Square, the center of the Cairo beehive. People moved every which way, weaving in and out of traffic; horns and the ancient engines of cars bought in the ’70s and somehow kept alive buzzed nonstop.

Fanning out to their left was the massive downtown leading to Islamic Cairo. Further ahead sat the notorious Egyptian administrative center lovingly known as the Mogamma, a citadel to brittle British bureaucracy. Veering right, they could see the Nile and Garden City just ahead. All familiar now.

“Tahrir Square is known as the busiest intersection in the world,” said Nadia by way of warning. “In order to cross these crowded lanes, you either take your life in your own hands and move offensively, or look for a friendly traffic cop to stop the traffic.”

“I’ve never driven here. At least not yet.”

“Better wait a while before you try it. Watch the rhythm of the traffic and you’ll get the hang of it. Notice the women.” Justine watched as a family with three children wove like ducklings through the traffic ahead of them.

Women everywhere were wearing the hijab, the headscarf; a few were fully covered with the niqab. “The headscarf is everywhere. I didn’t realize things had changed so much.”

“Fundamentalism is raising its head . . . and covering it. More than ninety percent of the population is Muslim now, and almost all of the women are wearing the hijab, at least in public. Otherwise they get hassled on the street. The daring few who don’t wear the scarf are of the upper classes or work for Western companies. And then, of course, there are the Coptic Christians, who stand out more than ever.”

“You’re Muslim, aren’t you?”

“If your question is why don’t I wear the hijab, I guess there are a number of reasons,” said Nadia, adjusting the scarf she wore loosely around her neck.

Justine blushed slightly. “I’m being too inquisitive,” she said.

“Not at all. You see this bushy, wiry hair of mine? It’s hard to tame. But that’s not the real reason. I’ll admit: I’m a bit of a renegade. I like to think of myself as a modern Muslim. As far as I’m concerned, the headscarf takes away a woman’s individuality. We all begin to look alike. And besides, it’s just too hot.”

Justine looked directly at the scarf laying on Nadia’s shoulders and grinned.

Nadia pulled at the fabric. “Just in case.” She smiled. The traffic opened slightly as they merged from the square onto a side street. The Shepheard Hotel appeared on the left. The Nile glistened silver and turquoise just ahead, a cement railing separating the river from the waterfront promenade known as the Corniche. Two men dressed like palace guards appeared at the car window.

“Will you both be staying with us, my lady?” inquired the older of the two guards.

“Only my friend.
Shukran
,” Nadia replied.

Justine gazed up at the towering façade and memories of the original Shepheard crowded her mind. The memories were older than she was, and they didn’t belong to her but rather to her grandmother Laurence, who had spent many afternoons having tea on the sweeping terrace with her parents.

She remembered hearing stories of the great hotel as the playground of adventurers and travelers from all over the world. The shaded terrace where her grandmother must have sat in deep wicker chairs held a commanding view of Ibrahim Pasha Street. The grand entrance encircled a spiral staircase leading to the Moorish Hall, deliciously cool and dimly lit by rays coming through a huge dome of colored glass. Laurence had described plump, embroidered chairs set around little octagonal tables. Intimacy with discretion had been the watchwords of its glamorous clientele: Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia, Roosevelt, princes, sheiks, queens, and great authors. The original Shepheard, like the glory days of Cairo, had been consumed by fire some fifty-five years ago.