If Tears Were Wishes And Other Short Stories (5 page)

This time Haley kept her expression serious, although the whole puzzle of hieroglyphs tended to make her chuckle in enjoyment on a regular basis. But Ahmed seemed to take laughter personally when he was leading a tour.

After he had attempted to explain determinatives to his flock, Ahmed raised a stick adorned with a shawl above his head and headed towards the ruins of the Eastern Temple, gesturing Haley to join him.

"Hello, Haley. How has your day been?"

"Fine. I was at the temple of Hatshepsut again for a while, and then I came here."

Suddenly, he was charming again, taking her elbow to help her over difficult terrain in the ruins, training his dark gaze on her, making her feel as if she were the only woman near. She had missed him the last few days.

But she did notice that he made no mention of the incident in the temple of Luxor.

"Have you been to Cairo or Alexandria yet?" he asked.

Haley shook her head.

"A cousin of mine has a charter bus and has asked me to lead a group on the weekend. Would you like to come along? You must sleep on the bus, but for you, I get a special price."

"Wow, I'd love to." The Institute offered its own specialized field trips, but those were not cheap. And she had only one more weekend in Egypt; it would be a shame to leave without seeing the pyramids.

Besides, the tight spot in her chest told her it was important to her that she make up with Ahmed. Knowing she would spend her last weekend in Egypt with him loosened the knot and brought a smile to her lips.

His own smile went wide. "We will visit Alexandria and the pyramids and the Cairo bazaar at night. You will love it."

She was sure she would. She had not forgotten his strange behavior at the temple of Luxor, but it was nothing compared to the light in his eyes and the way he could discuss hieroglyphs. There was a trip to Cairo to look forward to.

****

My son says it was a fainting spell in the Temple of Hatshepsut which brought him and this American woman together; this woman who doesn't cover her hair, this woman who doesn't understand. I had thought to keep her away by making her understand the misunderstandings; instead, I have thrown them together.

I have made a very grave mistake.

****

Alexandria was dirty, and the stunningly blue water of the Mediterranean stank from all the pollution. The small group that had booked the tour from Luxor, all students strapped for funds like herself, trailed behind Ahmed as they left the Roman amphitheater and walked the few blocks to the sea front, the old Canopic Way. Most of them looked as tired as Haley felt — the sleeping conditions in the bus for the nine hundred kilometer drive had not exactly been ideal — but they were young, and they still had Cairo and the pyramids to look forward to.

"Next to us is the Cecil Hotel," Ahmed said. "A historic hotel from 1930 where Winston Churchill stayed, as well as many writers and artists. And there is the Metropole, an older hotel from 1902."

Haley began to feel dizzy, and the buildings around her shifted and changed from hotels from a bygone era to another era entirely.
No, not again
. In the harbor stood a majestic lighthouse, massive and square, and the part of her that was still Haley, in her own body, in her own world, knew she was looking at the lighthouse of Pharos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

She was driving the chariot away from the lyceum to the palace of Orestes to discuss with him what was to be done about the private militia of Archbishop Cyrus. As she was nearing the double obelisks of the Caesareum, a mob appeared from the side streets.

A very organized mob. So, her time had come.

They screamed the words she was used to hearing — pagan, unbeliever, soothsayer, mathematician — but they attacked her chariot like soldiers, stopping the horses, dragging her out, carrying her to the nearby Caesareum kicking and clawing. Once inside the converted church, built by Cleopatra as a temple dedicated to her lover, they ripped the clothes from her body. While one of them raped her and then another, the rest kicked her and beat her. She could feel the blood run between her legs, run from the wounds in her head and her sides, and she began to wish they would finish the job, if only that would make the pain stop. Then the rapists decided they'd had enough fun, and the first stones began to rain around her head.

They beat her with tiles until she bled to death on the floor of the church, and then, like animals, they ripped her body apart, bearing the bloody pieces as trophies into the streets of Alexandria.

Alexandria would be Christian now.

Haley awoke on the street in front of the quaint hotels, her head bedded on Ahmed's lap and one of the other members of the tour group, Steve, wiping her face with a damp corner of his T-shirt.

She struggled to sit up, but Steve pushed her back. "Easy. A fainting spell in March in Egypt is nothing to laugh at."

Haley shook her head, trying to clear away the dregs of death. If only it
were
that easy. Why another hallucination, here, now? She'd been wearing her hat, the hat that had been protecting her for over a week. Besides, it was cooler here in Alexandria. Was it the stench? Were images of massacres she'd read about over the years coming to haunt her? But how could they be so real?

She closed her eyes to keep the tears back and wondered what the doctor would tell her this time. Maybe a bigger hat.

****

My son thinks he loves her, but he does not understand, does not realize that the hair she flaunts without a veil would mean something very different to him if she were his. Now, it is exotic, tantalizing, a symbol of her sexuality.

But he would not like it if it was for all the world to see when it was meant only for him.

****

Haley was almost afraid to go to the pyramids the next morning to see the sunrise, but nothing out of the ordinary happened, and the experience had been sublime. She had slept well in their grungy hotel on the outskirts of Cairo, recovering from the hallucination of death as Hypatia as well as the long drive. The sphinx and the pyramids beyond were everything she had ever dreamed they would be, the Egypt she had long loved and come here for, with its dust and its sand and its blue, blue sky, its strangeness and familiarity, the donkeys and camels and the men in their
galabia
, the monuments she had read about but never seen.

Cairo had a much more Western flair than Luxor, and Haley found herself strangely relieved. She loved Egypt, didn't she? But she also loved the comforts of home, enjoyed not being accosted with demands for
bakshish
at every step, enjoyed being able to wear her hair loose without fearing that men saw it as an invitation.

In the afternoon, they went to the Egyptian Museum. As they were crossing the parking lot, Haley felt the onset of another vision, and she grabbed Steve's elbow in panic.

The bus was burning, a white bus with yellow, green and blue stripes and the words "Spring Tours" on the side, while shots were fired at the screaming people inside. To the music of panic and pain, the scene began to mesh with images of treasure taken from Tutankhamun's tomb, with the death of Lord Carnarvon and members of the expedition. Then, for the first time, a voice began to speak out of the dizzying hallucination, the palimpsest of impossible images.

"It is the power of the land and its traditions, a power you deny. The clash of cultures is too big for you, your idealism too small. Tribe against tribe, nation against nation, religion against religion, it has been going on for millennia."

The voice faded away, and with it the bus and the screams and the Valley of Kings superimposed over the parking lot. Instead, she was at a bazaar and it was no longer Steve with his arm around her shoulders, it was a strange Egyptian, teasing Ahmed with talk of camels, bargaining for her, refusing to let her go, while Ahmed started forward, fists clenched.

A vision of violence now, here, with her playing a role, the possibility of blood that was more than a hallucination.

And then it was no longer the bazaar, and the man was another, running a hand down her hair, under it, lifting it, placing a kiss on the back of her neck, both arms around her waist in front. Ahmed's eyes were full of anger.

Anger at her.

He wrenched her out of the other man's embrace and slapped her with the back of his hand. She could taste blood in her mouth. Tears started in her eyes, and she stared at him in disbelief, raising a hand to her aching cheek.

Haley came to with her cheek still cradled in her hand, tears streaming down her face, and the small tour group huddled around her.

"Come, Haley," Ahmed said, taking her elbow, and she winced away from his touch.

She tried to cover her unconscious reaction by shaking her head and standing. "I know, I know, I'll go to the doctor again," she said before he could ask.

Would Ahmed really react like he had in her waking nightmare? Or was it just her own subconscious fear of this country taking over? She suddenly realized she wasn't going to wait to find out.

And she wasn't going to the bazaar tonight.

****

The onion in my hand is white, round, smooth, harmless. Underneath, it is strong, sharp; potent enough to bring tears to the eyes.

It is like the sacred writing she studies — what things appear to be on the outside are just as important as what they hide. What things mean is a part of what they don't mean.

****

Haley gazed out the window at the dingy airport of Luxor as her plane taxied for take-off, stared at the dust and palm trees and blue sky beyond. Ahmed had brought her to the airport, they had promised to write, to stay in touch, but it was a lie. Perhaps she should have broken it off before she left, but she was scared — scared of seeing him react the way he had in her dream.

After the trip to Cairo, the doctor had once again found nothing wrong with her. He had only shaken his head and told her to drink more water.

Somehow, she wasn't surprised. There was something much more foreign about Egypt, about Ahmed, than she had ever imagined before she came, so many riddles she couldn't get her mind around.

She had seen and done so much in four short weeks, had lived through at least a lifetime. It was time to go.

Then why was she crying?

****

Somewhere, I see a dog that is not sitting forlorn in the dust next to a prone figure with long, dark hair. The dog nudges the unmoving body and whimpers; or it would have whimpered had the body been there. Instead, it nudges the pile of garbage behind the stall of the street vendor.

It is good so.

END

If Tears Were Wishes

The smell of industrial strength cleansers was laced with the smell of urine. In the back of her mind, through the pain and anger and fear, Brooke registered that the girls' bathroom didn't smell this way, pungent behind the clean, the traces of decades of boys and young men missing the urinals impossible to get out of the walls and the floor. The gag in her mouth tasted like dusty cotton.

"Do you really believe that stuff about the wishes?" the guy guarding the door said, his voice slurred with drink. She thought his name was Damon.

Another one, blond and sleek, one of those jocks who hung out in the west wing, yanked the rope tighter around her wrists and pushed her to her knees. She hit the tiles hard, and pain shot up her thighs.

"Only one way to find out," the blond said, and kicked her in the stomach.

A third teenager pulled out a couple of vials he must have stolen from the chemistry lab, kneeled down beside her, and held them to her tear ducts to capture the valuable liquid. Brooke jerked her head away. She and her twin sister had always given their tears freely to those who asked — no one had ever beaten her for them before. If she could have kept from crying, she would have, but it hurt too much. The boys couldn't catch all of the tears, though. Salt tracks dried on her cheeks and tears leaked into her mouth through the gag.