Farewell, Egypt

Cairo Museum

Our last day in Egypt we visited the museum of Cairo, a crowded repository of much that came from the tombs and temples we'd been visiting. It is located practically on Tahrir Square, where not much could be seen besides heavy traffic, although everyone--cops, kids, street people-- was eager to point it out to us. (My father stayed at the Nile Hilton 10 years ago, and remembers that people crossed the street at Tahrir Square by climbing over the tops of cars.) On the other side of the museum stands a government building that was burned and left as a charred monument to the revolution.

Burnt memorial to the revolution

The Cairo Museum, built in 1901, is pink with blithe spirits of gods in stone, and plaques commemorating the succeeding empires of Egypt, with a garden of monumental granite and sandstone pharoahs and gods. Inside, Egyptians in ordinary scruffy dress tend and guard the monumental contents of Egypt's temples and tombs.

A mythic Tutankhamen (wiki)

Howard Carter discovering the boy king (wiki)

Where his vital organs were stored (wiki)

In these Canopic jars (wiki)

His throne, with his wife

Adel took us through the endless treasure of Tutankamen, the boy king, whose late discovery has been the most spectacular of all the tombs. Somehow overlooked, buried beneath workers' homes, it contains for example several thousand pieces of jewelry, thrones encrusted with precious stones, and three enormous sarcophagi extensively engraved in gold leaf, elaborating the journey after death. His 413 wood-carved attendants to help him in the years after death are still lively, his various beds and chairs custom-made for his leg ailment are still intact, as is his retinue of bejeweled canes, symbols of authority. It is not known how the young king died, but it is known that as the son of the famous heretic Akhenaten, who remade Egypt in devotion to the cult of Aten instead of Amun, Tutankhamen (who used to be TutankATEN, as is engraved on some of the furniture) was persuaded back to the old religious fold by the powerful priests and must have received the benefit of their great wealth. Some of the jewelry has recently been repatriated from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the other hand, most believe that since Tutankhamen was a very minor Pharoah, his splendours probably pale next to the treasures (long ago looted and gone) of the great pharoahs.

The inner sarcophagus

We also saw the oldest art, figures of the Old Kingdom, amazingly like life in all its imperfections, the beautiful dark green diorite statue of the ruthless Pharoah Kephren, the tiny statue of the great Cheops, the only likeness we have, and elegant jewelry unearthed from the tomb of Cheops' mother, their designs still breathtaking. We saw wide-eyed couples facing the afterlife, and anecdotes from forgotten Egypt, and monumental statuary. We saw the touching art of Akhenaten, the sweet hermaphroditic idealist. On and on, we traveled through the faces of a peoples whose art and refinement outdo anything we know. We denizens of a Faustian universe, for us exalted beauty exists mainly in advertising.

Tahrir Square

As we rode through Cairo, Adel talked about his native city. Said to be the most densely populated city in the world, in some areas 700,000 people fill a square mile. Adel is a Coptic Christian who acquired flawless French through his Jesuit education. But we asked him about Muslims. Twenty years ago, he said, few women wore veils (now they are everywhere). Since 9/11 people have reacted to the negative image of Islam by adopting symbols of Arab identity. Much of the pressure to do so comes from surrounding Arab countries, said Adel, who resent Egypt's past, her grandeur and achievements.

But the Al-Azhar Mosque, of supreme importance in the Arab world since 970 AD, is in Cairo. Its chief imam, a kind of Pope of the Arab world, once met with a classroom of girls, one of whom was wearing a burka. He told her (said Adel) to take it off, because it was not truly Muslim. When Nicholas Sarkozy visited him before becoming president, he asked the imam if he could, as president, outlaw headscarves. The imam told him he could do what he wished.

Adel told us a story about a famous singer, who had given a concert 10 or 20 years ago, and wished to repeat the performance. The people of Cairo asked her to simply perform on TV. If they came to a concert with their grandmothers who did not wear headscarves, people would talk. They would prefer to sit in the comfort of their homes.

Al-Azhar Mosque

Our hotel was in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, a kitschy (very comfortable) and interesting place where wedding parties brought many every day Egyptians, many in Islamic garb, others in track suits, others in ordinary suits and high heels. Across the heavy traffic (crossing the street Egyptian-style is a game of high risk, there aren't cross walks) was a dusty, crowded poor village of crumbling buildings and unpaved streets--something from another century. Across another street was a strip of modern shops including MacDo's, as we say in France. Adjacent to the hotel was a horse stable where in the early mornings small men worked their beautiful beasts on a track. The terrible traffic meant that we might take 3 hours, the length of the trip to Alexandria, to cross Cairo.

After years of graft and corruption, the view from the bus was desolate: crumbling cement structures, gutted and unfinished under layers of soot where laundry yet hung. The canals where aging garbage covered the banks and waters were nonetheless frequented by the most blazingly white graceful birds, that flew in flashes of brilliance, their long legs trailing. Roofs are almost unheard of, rather, crumbling cement floors missing their upper levels form the landscape, broken like decayed teeth. Below, however, is a certain sense of order, in marketplaces and souks, despite the chaotic traffic. Bolts of gorgeous fabric, curtains, abundant and bright wares flare out into the jammed side streets.

In the center of Cairo and Alexandria (said Adel), many apartments let for 5 euros a month, while new apartments sell for 100,000 euros. A quarter of Egypt lives in Cairo, and (said Adel) everyone needs an apartment in Cairo, where all necessary services (like hospitals) are located. There is incessant building, as in Alexandria, but even when a building is properly demolished, the rubble is simply left on the site.

The souk

We visited Khan Al-Khalili, the most famous souk, where merchants have been trading since the 14th c. Its narrow streets are lined with dilapidated Islamic mosques and madrasas, and 15th c. arches, and old schools of perfumes and spices. Slaves are no longer traded, and very little in the way of silks, but many of the wares have been the same for 7 centuries.

Looking for chamomile tea, I chatted with a clever Egyptian who insisted that he loved Americans. His old dream was to move to America, but that was before 9/11. Now it would be impossible. When Jacques started bargaining for my tea, he exclaimed, "I am a psychology professor, and I can see he is so worried about money that his heart is jumping from one side of his chest to the other! But you," he said to me, "you want the whole souk!"

The souk

A quick young man who was evidently gay, tried to bargain with Jacques and finally said despairingly, "It's not that important, money! You are making yourself into a different person worrying about money so much! But your wife is beautiful." I found it striking how Egyptians can take over the dialogue.  In Aswan the caleche drivers called after us: "You're not listening! You're not listening to me!"

One of the most stunning sights from the bus was the City of the Dead, an enormous cemetery 4 miles long. A grid of mausoleum and mosque-like structures, it houses not only the dead but also thousands of living, displaced by renewal or escaping the countryside. After the 1992 earthquake, people were forced to move into their families' tombs. The poorest live in the slums of the City of the Dead which is also used for garbage and recycling.The silhouette of the City of the Dead at sunset is striking, the minarets and turrets against the sky.

We left Cairo on a cool, bright morning. We would never be herded together again, nor be taunted by dark Arab eyes over our coffee habit, nor be followed down hotel hallways by silent men. We would not see Adel's broad, easy smile, his girlish lashes in a rough brown face, nor hear his verbal flourishes. Nor watch people dart across this hellish traffic a la Egyptian, nor be crushed by the sight of a little white donkey or horse being treated abysmally, head bowed, trudging among these volatile drivers in their antique vehicles, nor look down on peoples' vans crammed with all of Egypt, women with their sharp, knowing eyes, nor the lively quick smiles of men.

On entering the airport, at the ticket counter, you are immediately facing improvised men's and women's prayer sections, delineated by carpets. Downstairs by the less than clean bathrooms puddled with water, are the official prayer sections. Above, the airy light modern waiting rooms are divided by European and American nationalities.

We are so sated and overstuffed with impressions from a world long past and its spell. It is a spell that captured the ancient Egyptians themselves, the spell of the afterlife and its 700 gods. Visions of beauty, power, protection, perhaps all that was missing in their daily lives. But who knows what their lives were truly like? Even the Pharoahs lived in mud brick palaces, residing in immaculate stone only at death.

Life is still hard on the banks of the Nile, where brilliant green binds the senses in an illusion of tranquility, and men work in long robes under the unrelenting sun, their beasts faring much worse, the long battle against the odds. But in their visions, in their skill and artistry, with their engineering feats they surpassed all, with the works of their small, brown hands.