also some of the inhabitants.
One inhabitant in particular?
Okay, I admit that I can’t stop thinking of Azim.
But why on earth did he come and hug me just when it was too late! I can’t believe that it was only five hours ago – or just three, with the time change?
I wish it were now.
Again.
I must try to forget.
The pictures on my phone are fascinating. Not this one with Azim at the Pyramids! Deleted. I looked awful on it. Unlike this Canadian family, handsome friends of his: what a cute little girl! She held my hand.
(An innocent hand, that one, not like the Gypsy fraud who charged me fifty Egyptian pounds to read my palm and swore that I “would soon find the great love!” My foot!)
More pyramids. A sphinx... Temple. Temple again. Who can believe that a civilisation designed those buildings with such skill and refinement, and more than thirty-five centuries ago? For what again? For worship. Well, that has ceased.
But all along the Nile, the buildings still stand, for the joy of tourists –
and for the prosperity of travel agents, including my boss (note: remember to mention the Aswan accommodation offer to confirm our better prospects in the South).
Prospects, did I say?
Love prospects?
I can’t resist taking Azim’s letter out of my bag. Several times on the plane I started reading it, and stopped.
To Clara, my beloved sister.
This letter, which I hope to hide in your bag before you take off, is my confession to you. Actually, it contains several confessions; and an invitation. I will start by confessing this.
This night is the most beautiful in my life, because I was with the person whom I have come to love more deeply than I had ever thought possible. I have only known her six days and I feel as if I had grown up with her. We had a drink on the terrace in the quiet of the evening.
The air was loaded with deep smells from the Nile, and the sky had put on brighter lights for the occasion. Red Moon Hotel boasts of five-star rating – but one only dazzled me. She wore a blue silk blouse and a beige skirt smoothed around her knees.
I wondered if her appearance in my interior firmament signalled an event of immense importance. Was she the heraldess of supreme joys? Was love imminently to be born in our hearts? Dearest Clara, this letter will explain.
Meanwhile, I will ever cherish this expression of your trust, when you pulled up your sleeve and unbuckled your leather watch band, allowing me to see the thin scar running across your wrist.
My beloved, my beautiful friend, the sight of this line pierced my soul. How could a young woman like you, so lavishly adorned by Almighty God both in body and soul, want to take her own life?
You said it was many years ago. I wished to fly across time and oceans and reach you just before the blade dared to touch your milky skin. I would have thrown my throat between knife and artery. Better, I would have arrived earlier, before any trial should have upset your treasured soul.
REGINA | 72