became dark. Eventually an ordinary little white, waning moon appeared on the horizon.
Photographers, like writers, want to pin things down. Not entirely happy with the flow of time, we try to capture and explain, to seize moments and then hold them up to the light for examination, savoring whatâs passed. The photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, afflicted with a wanderlust that took him to West Africa at the age of twenty-three, said he wanted to ââtrapâ lifeâto preserve
life in the act of living.â Every photographer, every tourist taking a snapshot, wants to do something like that. Photography is one way we try to stop time.
We regretted not capturing the great orange moon, even though we knew photographs wouldnât be like the real thing, wouldnât convey the awe we felt when we first saw it come up over the horizon. What I regretted more was not being able to capture our own state, not being able to preserve us, right then, in amber. Even if I could have stopped time, I knew it wouldnât have the desired effect, because something essential would be missing, some sharpness of focus made possible by the fact that life was fleeting.
A week after we left Siwa I accompanied Graham to the airport late at night for one of the bizarrely inconvenient departure times imposed on foreign airlines. We stood holding each other, crying, until finally he had to go beyond the security gate. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand as I stepped out of the airport, into the scrum of taxi drivers and their black and white cars, shouting out fees of twenty pounds. I had exactly six in my pocket, less than even a fair price. But our good-bye had left me stony and unafraid, nothing could hurt me more, certainly not hitchhiking home. I was all too convincing in my willingness to try my luck on the highway. When I started out on foot, one of the taxi drivers relented on price, saying he was worried for my safety, and gave me a ride.
Neither of us did keep our promise to Fatima, nor eventually did we keep our promises to each other. Iâm harder on myself for the first. The pattern was set. Travel equaled longing equaled love.
chapter seven
ON MAKING FRIENDS
I befriended Mona early in the school year. She had tight dark brown curls that came from her Arab side. Her father had been a Palestinian professor, killed in Beirut when she was eleven. Her mother was an American heiress. After the family left Beirut sheâd attended an English boarding school and then Oberlin College. Now she was a year-abroad student like me. The admission that embarrassed her the most, the one she made me agree not to tell, was that sheâd been a debutante. It was a concession, she said, to her grandmother on her motherâs side.
Over the summer sheâd studied Arabic at Middlebury College, which was renowned for its summer language course where it banned students from speaking English. We now shared a class in the colloquial Egyptian dialect, where the professor used a repeatafter-me method, and never moved much beyond the niceties we already knew. One day, on a hunch, I suggested that we instead have lunch and go play backgammon. I didnât know her well, but sensed there might be a chemistry of the kind Iâd failed at with Michelle.
I took her to my favorite kushary place on Qasr el Aini. Kushary was a wonder: seasoned lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, and rice, served in a heaping portion in a metal dish. A bowl cost one Egyptian pound, or around thirty-three cents; another pound got
you a small bowl of rice pudding for dessert. Mona could sometimes eat two bowls in a sitting.
I liked Monaâs confidence, which was occasionally punctuated by flights of alarm and seriousness over things I didnât find alarming or seriousâfor example, she avowed that you could get AIDS from the toilet seats at the Semiramis, because prostitutes used them. Mona had been fearless about lacrosse at boarding
Photographers, like writers, want to pin things down. Not entirely happy with the flow of time, we try to capture and explain, to seize moments and then hold them up to the light for examination, savoring whatâs passed. The photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, afflicted with a wanderlust that took him to West Africa at the age of twenty-three, said he wanted to ââtrapâ lifeâto preserve
life in the act of living.â Every photographer, every tourist taking a snapshot, wants to do something like that. Photography is one way we try to stop time.
We regretted not capturing the great orange moon, even though we knew photographs wouldnât be like the real thing, wouldnât convey the awe we felt when we first saw it come up over the horizon. What I regretted more was not being able to capture our own state, not being able to preserve us, right then, in amber. Even if I could have stopped time, I knew it wouldnât have the desired effect, because something essential would be missing, some sharpness of focus made possible by the fact that life was fleeting.
A week after we left Siwa I accompanied Graham to the airport late at night for one of the bizarrely inconvenient departure times imposed on foreign airlines. We stood holding each other, crying, until finally he had to go beyond the security gate. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand as I stepped out of the airport, into the scrum of taxi drivers and their black and white cars, shouting out fees of twenty pounds. I had exactly six in my pocket, less than even a fair price. But our good-bye had left me stony and unafraid, nothing could hurt me more, certainly not hitchhiking home. I was all too convincing in my willingness to try my luck on the highway. When I started out on foot, one of the taxi drivers relented on price, saying he was worried for my safety, and gave me a ride.
Neither of us did keep our promise to Fatima, nor eventually did we keep our promises to each other. Iâm harder on myself for the first. The pattern was set. Travel equaled longing equaled love.
chapter seven
ON MAKING FRIENDS
I befriended Mona early in the school year. She had tight dark brown curls that came from her Arab side. Her father had been a Palestinian professor, killed in Beirut when she was eleven. Her mother was an American heiress. After the family left Beirut sheâd attended an English boarding school and then Oberlin College. Now she was a year-abroad student like me. The admission that embarrassed her the most, the one she made me agree not to tell, was that sheâd been a debutante. It was a concession, she said, to her grandmother on her motherâs side.
Over the summer sheâd studied Arabic at Middlebury College, which was renowned for its summer language course where it banned students from speaking English. We now shared a class in the colloquial Egyptian dialect, where the professor used a repeatafter-me method, and never moved much beyond the niceties we already knew. One day, on a hunch, I suggested that we instead have lunch and go play backgammon. I didnât know her well, but sensed there might be a chemistry of the kind Iâd failed at with Michelle.
I took her to my favorite kushary place on Qasr el Aini. Kushary was a wonder: seasoned lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, and rice, served in a heaping portion in a metal dish. A bowl cost one Egyptian pound, or around thirty-three cents; another pound got
you a small bowl of rice pudding for dessert. Mona could sometimes eat two bowls in a sitting.
I liked Monaâs confidence, which was occasionally punctuated by flights of alarm and seriousness over things I didnât find alarming or seriousâfor example, she avowed that you could get AIDS from the toilet seats at the Semiramis, because prostitutes used them. Mona had been fearless about lacrosse at boarding
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