The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [52]
And everywhere young men glower with rage at everything and everyone, until I wonder if I am even able to understand the facial expression at all; it must be something I do not understand, since no one could be enraged by a tree, a cloud, the glowering friend he embraces.
On the narrower streets, like canals cut through the high, yellow buildings, I press myself against the walls for the barefoot delivery boys to pass with trays on their heads. I overpay them to sample the bread and fruit and chicken legs moving at nose level as I roam. In front of me at a fruit market I find an old father and his grown son. The thin, bearded father selects from the wooden stand, talking to the grey grocer, plainly his old friend. Behind him, though, his son has some sort of palsy; his hands shake and try to fly away from his body while his head snaps back and forth on an uncomfortable axis. His whole body sways like a metronome set to largo. While the father chooses figs, the son’s condition worsens, and I have to take a step back not to be struck by flailing limbs. His legs begin vibrating, and then his feet alternate leaving the ground an inch at a time. The father, unhurried by what he must know is happening behind him, pays and at last turns: he gently places a hand on the boy’s forearm. With that light touch he absorbs the spasms and shudders, compels the boy to be still again, to take control of himself with the help of his father’s patience and presence. The boy calms down and turns his face up in a contorted smile to enjoy the sun and crunch a hard yellow date. His father keeps a hand on him a moment or two longer, grins a wrinkled grin, then turns back to address a few more words to the untroubled grocer, who has no doubt seen this every day for years. On their way past me, I slipped money into their bag.
The money itself is not an issue, as the Partnership’s first wired payment is due presently. There is a mist of good luck, I suppose, hanging about the worthy or at least the entertaining poor—as if their one compensation for their lot is to decide upon your future, or as if they are an easy way to impress whichever gods one thinks will be judging one later or clearing one’s path sooner. Or, perhaps there is no surer way to prove to yourself that the poor are not you than by giving them your money.
And then to the post, my Margaret, to find you waiting for me in the poste restante! I sniffed the envelope right there in the Cairo post office. Your precious scent was just discernible still, for all the distance travelled, each jealous, grasping mile snatching an atom of your fragrance. I tore open the envelope with a churning hunger for you and found your letter (?) of 19–21 Sep.
I admit to spending some anxious hours pondering this fragment of correspondence, M., but obviously it was an error of dosage or postage; your sleeping draughts are quite seriously askew, or you lost the other pages. Nevertheless, while I invariably finish your letters wishing for more, in this case my ailment was extreme. I walked very slowly back to the Hotel of the Sphinx, loathing Cairo for being the place where you were not, the place where I could not take care of you as that father took care of his son.
Sep. 19. Evening
Dearest Ralph,
Well, it seems you left today.
Sep. 20. Evening
R, I miss you.
Sep. 21. Eve’s knees
My Ralphie,
Now you are on a boat, I think, or something like a boat. Something afloat.
Sunset on the Bayview Nursing Home
Sydney, Australia
December 16, 1954
Macy,
I apologise for the lost days. I’ve been ill, not to bore you with the details, but today’s my first day standing in a week. I see on the faces of my keepers a little disappointment at the sight of me