Demon Box

The din across the river jumps even higher in response to the chanting dawn. We turn back toward the city just in time to see first the fluorescent tubes across the bridge, then the landing lamps on the opposite bank, then every light in Cairo blow out—zam! Allah be praised! We turn to each other again, eyebrows uplifted. He whistles a low note of applause to the occasion: “Ya latif!” I nod agreement.

The amplifiers have been silenced by the power overload, but the chanting in the streets hasn’t stopped. In fact, it is rising to the challenge of the phenomenon. Wireless worship. A voice spun from fibers strong as the fabled Egyptian cotton—longest staples in the world!—spindling out of millions of throats, into threads, cords, twining east toward that dark meteorite that draws all strands of this faith together like the eye of a needle, or a black hole.

The soldier watches me write, kindly leaking a little light onto my notebook. “Tisma, ya khawaga,” he says. “Een-glees?”

I tell him no, not English. “American.”

“Good.” He nods. “Merican.”

My throat is dry from the wind and the moment. I take my canteen from my shoulder and drink. I offer it to the soldier. After a polite sip he whistles a comment on the quality of such a canteen.

“Merican army, yes?”

“Yeah. Army surplus.” Ex-marine friend Frank Dobbs had helped me pick it out, along with my desert boots and pith helmet. “United States Army surplus.”

He hands back the canteen and salutes. I salute him back. He gestures toward my notebooks, questioning. I point to the sound from across the river, cup my ear. I lift my nose and smell the Nile wind, then scribble some words. Finally I make a circle with my hand, taking in the river, the sky, the holy night. He nods, excited, and lays his closed fist on his heart.

“Egypt?” he asks.

“Yes,” I affirm, duplicating his gesture with my fist. “Egypt.”

And all the lights of Cairo come back on.

We lift our eyebrows to each other again, as the amplifiers skirl back up, and the lights and the traffic join again in noisy battle. When the soldier and I unclench our fists there’s maybe even tears. I fancy that I see the face of Egypt’s rebirth, charged both with a new pride and the old magic, silhouetted innocent and wise against that skyline of historic minarets and modern highrises—the whole puzzle. I must get a picture! I’m trying to dig the Polaroid out of the bag when I notice the light in my face.

“No.” He is wagging the light from side to side. “No photo.” I figure it must be some religious taboo, like certain natives guarding their souls, like me with Annie Liebovitz.

“I can dig it. I’ll just snap a shot of that skyline dawn across the Nile.”

“No photo!”

“Hey, I wasn’t aiming anywhere near you.” I start to stomp away, down the wall. “I’ll shoot from somewhere else if you’re so—”

“No photo!”

Slowly I take my eye from the viewfinder. The flashlight has been put aside on the wall to leave both hands available for the carbine. Too late I realize that it is the bridge he is guarding, not his soul.

I put the camera away, apologizing. He stands looking at me, suspicious and insulted. There is nothing more for us to say, even if we could understand each other. Finally, to regain a more customary relationship, he puts two fingers to his lips and asks, “Seegrat?”

I tell him I don’t smoke. He thinks I’m lying, sore about the picture. There is nothing to say. I sigh. The puzzle of Cairo shuffles off to stand in token attention on the abutment, his collar up and his back turned stiffly toward me.

The light is coming fast through the mist. The wind dies away for a moment and a sharp reek fogs up around me. Looking down I see I have stomped into a puddle of piss.

October 16. The Ramadan holiday. Erstwhile Egyptologist Muldoon Greggor calls, tells us to come over to his place; he’ll go with us to the pyramid tonight after his classes.

“Check out of that morgue right now!” he shouts through the phone static. “I’ve reserved rooms at the Mena House!”

So it’s outta that rundown Rudyard Kipling pipedream through the surging holiday streets up seven floors to the address Greggor gives us. A shy girl lets us in a ghetto penthouse. Jacky and I spend the rest of the afternoon drinking the man’s cold Stella beers, watching the multitudes below parade past in their gayest Ramadan gladrags. The shadows have stretched out long before Muldoon Greggor comes rushing in with a load of books. We barely shake hands before he hustles us down to catch a cab.

“Mena House, Pyramid Road! We want to get there before dark.”

So it is at dusty sundown that I see it at last: first from the window of the cab; then closer, from the hotel turnaround; then through the date palms walking up the hill; then—Great God in Heaven Whatever Your Name or Names!—here it is before me: mankind’s mightiest wedge, sliced perfect from a starblue sky—the Great Pyramid of Giza.

III: Inside the Throne