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.