Excerpt from Confessions
of a Knight Errant
By Gretchen McCullough
We had fled Cairo to Malta from the people who must remain unnamed, two years before: Kharalombos and me, his wife, my face covered with a black veil, a complete niqab. Of course, if Yasser Arafat could escape the Israelis across the Jordan River in 1967 fully veiled, disguised as a mother carrying a baby, why not me? Hiding out in Malta, I made wax knights at the Knights Templar Museum and enjoyed giving tours with factual tidbits to curious British tourists—a refreshing change from duties on tenure committees. Meanwhile, Kharalombos coached Spanish dancers, who preened and lunged in Who’s Got Talent tango Contests. I was a rogue professor wanted by Interpol; Kharalombos was wanted by the Egyptians for a problem too sensitive to be named. Even though we had rooms in a pension, with balconies overlooking a shimmery Mediterranean, and feasted on fried squid and red mullet almost every day, I still worried a SWAT team armed with assault weapons could burst through the doors at any time.
But
now, we had sneaked back into Cairo to find Kharalombos’s son. My novel had
been erased by the publishing conglomerate, Zadorf. In a hurry to get out of
town, I had dropped my flash drive down an elevator shaft. The very last hard
copy of my novel nestled underneath my bed in my old flat in Garden City—I had
to find it, or else risk certain obscurity. This time around, I was disguised
as a tourist in a loud Hawaiian shirt, wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and a Howard
Cosell-type toupee. Clad in a white suit, with a panama hat perched on his
head, Kharalombos resembled a British colonial. I expected the police to appear
with handcuffs the moment we got off the plane—straight into the box. My new
identity: a vacuum-cleaner salesman from Ames, Iowa, who was going on a
once-in-a-lifetime Nile cruise, a bonus for selling beyond quota; Kharalombos
was a Greek olive farmer.
We
sailed through the airport all the way to customs. Flashing on the arrival
sign: Budapest, Cancelled. London, Cancelled. Munich, Cancelled. Moscow,
Cancelled.
Only
one officer manned the series of booths, immaculate in his black wool winter
uniform. He was buttoned up to the collar. When he saw us gaping at the arrival
monitor, he gestured to us, “Come in. Come in. You are jumping into the fire!”
Kharalombos
asked, “Is it really that atrocious?” I could see he was tempted to lapse into
Arabic.
Yawning,
the officer cleaned his ear with a pen. Why didn’t he answer? Then he mimicked
the American saying, “Have a nice day!” He stamped the passports, without the
usual bureaucratic sense of conviction.
A
rail-thin Pakistani, who looked like a student from Al-Azhar, stood next to us
at the baggage claim, but avoided eye contact. He clutched a huge Quran, the
cover decorated with gold. Did he think we were suspicious?
Our bags came in five minutes—unheard-of in
the history of Cairo airport.
Grabbing
my tiny suitcase, full of costume props, off the belt, I said, “Kharalombos,
are you sure Happy City Tours will pick us up?”
“There
have been demonstrations,” Kharalombos said, heaving his monstrous suitcase.
“Didn’t you see the monitor at the Valletta airport?”
True,
we had watched the Al-Jazeera video at the Valletta airport. But there were
frequent demonstrations in Cairo over the years, all of which had fizzled out,
or been squashed. Egyptian citizens raised banners, festooned in Arabic
handwriting: “Justice Now!” They chanted: “Bread. Dignity. Freedom. Social
Justice!” The image of yet another young man who had been tortured to death in
a police station flashed on the screen: his face was disfigured beyond
recognition.
We
had dragged our bags through the Cairo airport, and exited the hall. The
parking lot was completely deserted, except for a few cars. Only one
streetlight gleamed; otherwise, it was a forbidding black—four o’clock in the
morning. Usually the place was mobbed with relatives, hasslers, and
enterprising entrepreneurs. Tour guides who intoned strange-sounding names as
they raised their makeshift signs high. But this evening there were no drivers
with signs. No Happy City Tours, either. And even the fleet of battered,
black-and-white taxis that usually lined up to harass the weary traveler had
disappeared. Where were they all?
Kharalombos
pulled out his mobile phone. “I’ll call my uncle.” His uncle was a psychiatrist
at the mental hospital, where I had been sent two years before. Kharalombos was
my sane, colorful roommate—he was simply hiding in the hospital from the people
who must remain unnamed. We had become fast friends and had teamed up to escape
the authorities.
“What’s
wrong?” I asked.
“No
line,” he said.
“Maybe
there’s something wrong with your phone?” I asked. “You need another SIM card.”
“No,”
Kharalombos said. “That’s not the problem.”
He
sauntered over to the exit doors, where a policeman stood puffing on a
cigarette.
“You’ll
blow your disguise!” I hissed.
But
Kharalombos was unconcerned and ignored me.
He
lumbered back to where I was standing. “The government cut the networks.
There’s a curfew.”
I should have stayed in Valletta. Why had I
let Kharalombos talk me into returning to Cairo? For the sake of a little
adventure, I was going to be arrested for a crime I hadn’t committed! I
was no Julian Assange. One could understand, though, why Kharalombos would take
such a risk to see his new son, Nunu. But was my novel worth ninety-nine years
in jail, or even dying? Did I fancy myself the next John Kennedy O’Toole? Or
maybe I was more like a dunce. I brushed this disturbing thought out of my
mind, like a horsefly, before it had time to bite.
“The
policeman said the demonstration against the BIG MAN and HIS MEN has become
violent,” Kharalombos said. “Anyone who disobeys the curfew will be shot.”
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2 comments:
Love this excerpt -- you feel the chaos in the narrator's mind and what's happening in real time. Thanks for sharing!
In real life, I came in on the Day of Rage, January 28th, 2011. No networks. No taxis. A Spanish diver latched onto me and we were about to drive into the city, but we turned back when we saw a tank! Gretchen
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