It's late. The road is empty of cabs. The sentries nod me past. The searchlights and speakers of the evening's Sound and Light are shut away in their tombs and bolt-locked, but there's plenty of illumination: the moon heralded new by that Ramadan cannon two weeks ago is now nearing full; the Great Pyramid shines mournfully under it for lack of anything better to do.
On the moony slope I find the seat where we were brought by Muldoon that first night. There's more wind than I thought. I roll a page from my notebook and light it with my last match. I didn't twist it tight enough and it flares up but I'm determined to get one hit, sucking so frantically at the hookah mouth tube that I'm unaware I have company.
"Good evening, Mr. D'bree."
I see his little face glittering so close that I think at first it's the flame itself. Hash sparks fly everywhere.
"You have trouble with hubble-bubble this good evening?" I tell him not anymore, no. With the last flicker we both can see the bowl is empty. I toss the ash into darkness. He tells me he is most sorry, but to come, follow him, for a more nicer smoke than hubble-bubble. Does he mean a joint? This hash and hookah business is very ritzy but a joint would be nice…
Marag takes me to one of the tombs down the slope where the limestone plateau just begins to drop away toward the village. There is a faint rectangle of light hissing from the tomb's door; Marag stops me with a feathery hand on my arm before we get too close.
"This is my friend," he whispers. "A young desert boy but already guard this corner. Very good position! Still, he is not at ease, it is not his home. You got hashish?"
"You're not gonna mix it with tobacco? I don't smoke, and cigarettes hit me harsh."
"No. No harsh cigarette. Good stuff, from Finland. You'll see." He reaches the door of the tomb just as a faceless form is coming out with a carbine to check on the noise. The light hisses brighter and they stand talking in it. Our desert boy wears a mask of shadows. I can see the rifle is an ancient American Springfield.30-.06 left over from the battle of Bordeaux, and I can see the way his hands fondle it, but his face I can't see.
Marag brings him over. He tells him my name but not me his; nor do we shake hands. He doesn't speak. The turban he has cowling his face is patched and frayed with age, though I judge him some years short of twenty. But not a boy; probably never a boy.
I get some kind of pass from this phantom because he lowers the.30-.06 and trades it for a carpet. He unrolls the carpet on the sand and nods us to sit. From his gellabia pocket he takes a tin box and opens it. Marag reaches again for my hashish and I relinquish it reluctantly.
The phantom carefully heats and crumbles the hash into the box. Nobody says anything. He's very meticulous and takes a very long time to roll three big sticks. We could have been smoking the first one while he practiced but nobody says anything. He finally lights and passes it to me.
"It is tobacco all right!"
"But not cigarette," Marag hastens to add. "It's pipe tobacco. And Finnish!"
The guy's wife steps from the door of the tomb into the moonlight, carrying a copper tray and three glasses. She is traditionally barefooted and pregnant and the fact embarrasses her. When she leans to place the tray on the sand you can feel the blush. Marag makes some crack in Arabic about her girth and she skitters back into the tomb.
The tea is wickedly strong and sweet but the Finnish tobacco, I'm forced to admit by the time we're done with the first round, isn't all that bad. The wife appears with a kettle as the husband is lighting the second joint – spliff, rather – refills our glasses, and disappears again, all in a moment. This round of tea is milder and they are running low on sugar, but right on cue with the third joint she appears to replenish us. Hardly more than hot water. She remains outside, indicating that the goodies are gone; if more is wanted it will require her trotting barefooted to the village. She stands as though weightless for all her swollen condition, the globe of her belly buoying her up. The husband finishes the weak drink and returns the glass to the tray before he shakes his head no; we've had enough.
She leans to take up the tray. This time the young husband reaches to her foot and affectionately squeezes her bare instep. Marag gasps at this most un-Moslemlike display.
"It is as they say." He clucks. "These kids smoke dope and our old ways of behave are forget."
I guess it must be Marag's version of irony, but it's hard to say. That last one did it. The gas light from the tomb hisses back down and the moon moons. We sit for a long time, looking at the stars and listening to the dogs keep each other abreast of the neighborhood night. When it's time to leave, we all three stand at once. The young guard puts the tin box in his pocket and rolls up his carpet. The shadow head on the shadow body nods goodbye and disappears after its mate.
Never a word. Never a chin or cheekbone let stray out in the prying moonlight. But that faceless presence has furnished a circle in the dirt with the grandeur of Araby.
We are scrabbling down into the village, where Marag is going to make another score for me. I'm high like a motherfucker. The Sphinx looks like a big old mouser purring by the path, fat on camels and Fiats.
"My young friend is far from his Bedouin home." Marag feels he must explain, looking back up the dim trail at me. "I get him this position. He is family. I leave that village too, when I am very little, very young. His relative get me position."
He was turned around walking backwards down the steep rut now.
"This young fellow, I think he will not stay long. He will go back to the desert for the birth. When he comes back I will get him another position. It is good, is it not? Having a person like family at the pyramid?"
I can't help wondering what he's trying to promote me into. Maybe I should make it clear that a wealthy globetrotter I am not. It could be years before I can afford to return, decades. He should save his pitch for a better prospect.
I can't go with him to score, he explains. I will wait at his home. I follow him down sandstone paths that get wider and leveler until they become miniature streets crisscrossing between a maze of tiny block dwellings. The streets are too narrow for cars but there's plenty of traffic-nocturnal strollers and striders, men and women, goats and kids. Cronies squatting against the wall grin and wink at Marag whisking past with a big live one in tow.
In the square of light before one of the doorless doorways a knot of kids are playing with homemade clay marbles. A little boy jumps up from the game and scampers after us. He looks about seven, which means he's probably close to eleven if you allow for the protein lag. Marag pretends not to notice him, then gruffly makes as if to swat him away. The kid ducks, laughing, and Marag takes him by the hand.
"This is Mister Sami," he explains, still gruff. "My oldest son. Sami, say hello to my friend Mister Deb-ree."
"Good evening, Mister Deb-ree," the boy says. "Is nice evening?" His handshake is as light as his father's.
We cross a shared yard jammed between four mud huts and enter Marag's home. From the ceiling a single dim bulb gradually coaxes the room from the night. It is only slightly bigger than the guard's tomb. There are two big trunks; one carpet and one grass mat; one big bed and two bunks; no chairs or cupboards; no tables. For decoration there is a hanging tapestry with kids' art pinned to it and a long bundle of sugarcane in the corner, bound with a gay red ribbon.
Marag introduces me to his wife, a tiny woman with one of the milked-over eyes so frequently seen in the Egyptian poor. Also to Mister Ahmed, Missy Shera, Mister Foo-Foo, all younger than Sami.