A Taste of Pieces of Pie

From section: Becoming Worldly
Chapter: Egypt

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After leaving Iran, we headed for Egypt. In my youthful mind, mystery and romance were inseparable—and Cairo possessed an abundance of both. It was a hot, arid city filled with aloof people who all seemed to be plotting each other’s annihilation. The cloaked Arab men appeared sinister. They were masters of disguise and could disappear and reappear at will. One moment I’d see a trim-bearded man in a turban and a long robe standing in the lobby of the Mena House; and then I would blink my eyes, and poof!—he would have vanished without a trace, presumably behind a large palm tree.
     The first morning, as we were waiting to check in to the hotel, I decided to set my eagle eye on one of these enigmatic men, determined not to blink for fear he’d slip away in a nanosecond. As he started walking down the corridor away from my view, I left my dad and Maggie to pursue him. He slipped furtively out a side door, and I followed.
     Across the road from the Mena House were the Sahara Desert and the Great Pyramids. I didn’t pay attention to where the man was headed—I just wanted to observe him. I kept a healthy distance, certain he wouldn’t notice a young Caucasian girl following him. But my Sherlock Holmes gig was up before I could cross the road. I felt a hand grab my blouse collar as my dad shouted, “What the hell are you doing!?”
     I turned around to a wide, beet-red face with bulging green eyes.
     “Have you lost your mind, what do you think you’re doing?” He actually expected an answer. After all, he wasn’t drunk yet, and he was probably intrigued.
     “The thing is,” I began excitedly, “I was watching these men appear and disappear in the airport and then the hotel lobby. I followed one to see where he was going.” It all seemed utterly logical.
     “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? There are white-slave traders in Northern Africa. They’re similar to the Mafia. They bait young white women, abduct them and use them for prostitutes. They turn them into heroin addicts so they won’t escape. They keep them as long as they’re useful… then eliminate them.”
     He took a deep breath. “Now do you understand why you don’t run off to follow strange men?” At first I thought this was yet another story from my dad’s prolific fiction collection, but then I sensed his sincerity.
     “Yes,” I answered.
     We walked side by side back to the hotel, where Maggie waited under the watchful eye of the concierge.
     Later that day, after settling in to our suite, the three of us headed across the road in the hot, bright sun, this time in search of a tour guide and some camels. Maggie and I climbed bravely onto the backs of two kneeling, spitting camels. When my own giant animal stood upright, I found myself sitting straddled in the dip between its front and back humps, high above an ocean of sand. When I looked over at Maggie on her camel, I could imagine how I appeared. What an odd, unnatural position for a teenager from Ohio.
     My dad chose to climb on the swayed back of a small burro, and he led the way, as an Egyptian guide on foot pulled the burro by a rope. The guide shouted in Arabic to our camels to follow, and mine began to clump along behind, heavy-hoofed. As I bumped awkwardly along, I was sure I’d go flying head first right over the hump and pointy ears. I grasped tighter to the tufts of hair, and the camel turned his huge brown face toward me, baring his flat, yellow-stained teeth with a loud whiny sound. I thought it was curtains—that he’d flip me right off. Instead, he veered at a right angle from our course and took off in a clippy gallop. I was too panicked to scream—my priority was staying atop this wretched, angry critter.
     Time seemed to have no meaning as we raced across the Sahara….

Pieces of Pie: Surviving Love
by Pie Dumas
Skye’s the Limit Publications
Publication date: September 2005
ISBN: 0-9765608-0-1, $15.95, paperback, 242 pp

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